EMBRACING THE WILD RIDE - How Small Beginnings Really Begin

Actual picture of me writing this post - taken by my 6 year old

As I sit here on my bedroom floor surrounded by pieces of life and too many toys typing this, I am struggling with how to grow my business into an actual business. The picture was taken by my daughter in real time, toys not pictured but believe me they are right outside the frame.

Between time and money constraints, information overload, and full-time work it has taken me longer than I imagined to make any money. In fact, my total revenue has been ZERO after launching in late 2023, with my website going up in February 2024.

The time constraint is the biggest issue in my mind. Between my full-time job, my youngest child, who is 6 and half, and just the day-to-day operations of living I truly feel like I am building this thing in the very margins of my life, as Stacie Bloomfield would say.

Art takes time to make regardless of method and technique, then it must be prepared for whatever end use it has, put up on websites or sent to potential clients, marketed and then the cycle repeats. That doesn’t include any backend or additional tasks needed for the business side, continued learning, or coming up with and giving free value to potential customers.

It takes time to care for my child and myself. The cooking, cleaning (ourselves, laundry and the house), playtime, learning time, and all the other things. Just the general tasks of staying alive well, or at least as far as my paycheck will go. All of this is a full-time job to do well, so let’s not look at my overflowing hampers too closely. Yes, that is plural hampers.

And did I mention the time I need for myself, which is often squeezed into the slivers of life, if at all. Those are a fraction of the margins and come about less often. I need time to think, enjoy hobbies, relax, rejuvenate, see friends and family, travel, you know the parts of life that make it enjoyable. While I try and squeeze some of these things in, they do not happen as often as I desire.

None of this includes my actual full-time job, which often takes more than 40 hours a week. I do have the privilege of working from home, which is a blessing for a variety of reasons. But it does leave me with only about 4 to 5 hours a day to squeeze in all the above and more. Which means that some things don’t get done until they really need to be done, and some things never really get done. Let’s not talk about the status of my house, whoo.

It all takes time.

And when I am the only adult in my house it all falls to me. And I just don’t have time to do all the things as well as I want or need to. Don’t get me wrong, I have made massive progress from when it all began back in 2021, but I always thought I would be further along. And before you tell me I shouldn’t compare myself and my journey to other people’s, I don’t. Every single person I follow or have learned from says anything worth building takes time and I believe them. I just didn’t think it would take this much time.

The second issue, which ties into the first, is a lack of free money. The saying goes it takes money to make money but what happens when you don’t have any more and it hasn’t worked. I started this business to provide additional income and one day be my only source of income. As I have progressed along my business journey, I have spent money as I was able to learn, my website, listings, software & programs and whatever else was needed. But as the sole earner what I have is limited and I have seriously considered a second job for additional funds. That would bring its own set of challenges and leave me even less time to work on my business.

So, I am in a financial conundrum until my business provides revenue.

I have been on several calls with people who have wonderful sounding coaching and/or mentoring programs that I believe would have been helpful for the growth of my business. However, those take a significant investment that I have been unable to come up with, so I have been trying the best I can on my own. I cannot invest in additional tools, programs or people at this point and feel my business has reached a bottleneck that I am not sure how to overcome.

The third thing is the vast amount of information I have at my fingertips. There is so much information out in the world between the good ole internet, books, podcasts, conferences and whatever else may pop up along the way. SOO much that boiling it all down to the most relevant, important stuff for your specific business is a full-time job. I have taken classes (paid and free), read books, listened to podcasts, had phone calls, downloaded guides, followed on social media, scoured websites, and talked to people.

While I have some great information that has helped me in technology, business mapping, goal setting and other areas, I feel overwhelmed at times working through all of it. I have several resources that I need to finish and absorb but also feel that I don’t need any more knowledge. I’m taking the actions I know to do, slowly but surely. But some things just haven’t worked. I feel I need more time and money to really drive some of the information I have begun to implement.

For example, I have an email list set up and offer a coloring book on my website to gain subscribers. I ask people to join my list every so often on social media since that is free. I began offering this at the beginning of 2024 and have a grand total of 4 subscribers. One is my sister and one my best friend, while supportive not exactly my ideal customer. Despite all the information at my fingertips I don’t know what to do next without spending money to attract customers/clients who would be interested in my work.

I’m just at a crossroads of sorts with what my next steps should be to advance my business forward. I will be taking an assessment this weekend and reevaluate what I have been doing, simplify, and write out a plan to go forward.

I don’t say any of this for sympathy but to be honest about how the small beginnings really look. The trenches that must be waded through to accomplish something that you have no personal experience with can be almost overwhelming and downright discouraging at times. Especially for those of us who are going at it alone and have no direct support in any area of life. I know if I keep going, I will get to where I am aiming or even better.

This blog is already a part of my reconstruction going forward. I had grand plans when I began to post weekly or biweekly but well, life, so it has fallen by the wayside. Another thing is that I am sometimes unsure about what to post here. This is mostly due to my overthinking I believe. But either way, I am including this space in my future plans.

If you have any suggestions, resources or a word to offer that you think might be helpful, let me know below or email me: hello@thefloweringwildco.com. I appreciate all of you, thanks for reading.