153 - The Business Advice I Think Is BS

53 - The Business Advice I Think Is BS
===

[00:00:00] Welcome back to the MaYapinion Podcast. I'm your host, Maya Raffler, and this is a show where I share with you my opinions on entrepreneurship, especially for women. And today, I'm gonna be doing an episode about some serious opinions. I'm going to be talking about the business advice that I think is just complete BS.

And again, this might rustle some feathers. Some people might think, "Maya, what are you thinking with this opinion?" Or, "Why do you think that?" Well, I'm gonna answer all of that today on this episode. But I just hear a lot of really bad business advice, and I've heard a lot of bad business advice, and I'm sure you've gotten really bad business advice in the time that you have either wanted to start your business, have started your business.

So I thought it would be a cool episode to share my opinions on [00:01:00] some of the top things that I hear that I think, again, in my opinion, are really inaccurate about business, and starting a business, or just how to handle certain aspects of business. But before I, again, rustle too many feathers, just remember, this is just my opinion, so I'd love to know your opinion on these topics as well.

Feel free to drop them on our socials or, you know, chat me about it. I would love to hear about it, of course. But let's dive into it. I'm gonna share my opinion on a couple of these. The first one I think we've heard about for, like, a decade, and this particular one is about a niche. So when people give business advice on this, they say you have to have a niche, or you need to niche down.

In my opinion, this can be okay advice, but I think it can be complete BS, and here's why. When [00:02:00] you are first starting out, you might not know 100% what your niche is. And I've done some episodes on finding your niche in the past, but I think the challenge with your niche is that it can evolve. So my opinion, this exact show has evolved.

When I first started it in 2017, those episodes are in a totally different place, and my audience was just people that watched me on TV and wanted to know me and wanted to know my general opinion on things. Then this show evolved into leadership for women, so that was attracting a lot of corporate women and some women in entrepreneurship, which was great.

But now this has evolved again, and I focus mostly on entrepreneurship and my opinion on that. So I say all that to say that I think when people say, like, you have to know your niche to start, I think you need to know who you're talking to and who you want to help and what problem [00:03:00] you're solving. But as far as a niche, I think it evolves.

So I don't think you have to just pick one niche. But many of you have heard me on this show when we did our couple special edition episodes that we've done over the past couple weeks with women just like you coming on the show and sharing a ch- a business challenge, and then I was giving my opinion.

Some of the women that have come on or some of the women that submit a business challenge to me, sometimes they're all over the place, and that doesn't work either in my opinion, and the reason is you don't know who you're talking to at all. So it's important to know who you're talking to, which is why a niche can help.

But the way that social media is now and the way that building a personal brand is now is that people, they wanna know how they can relate to you on a personal level. They absolutely wanna know how you can help them, but they also wanna relate to you on a personal level. So I'll use [00:04:00] MaYapinion as a brand.

Again, it's evolved. My niche has evolved, and that's okay. But people like to see me in my everyday life, the things that I do with my family, my dogs, friends, where I'm traveling to. But ultimately they do wanna know what am I helping with? And what I do with this show and what I do with the MaYapinion brand is I give my opinion on entrepreneurship, and I give you my opinion on your business and how it can either launch or evolve and help you with whatever business challenge you're having.

That's what I do. But as an, as a niche, yes, I'm speaking to women, and yes, I'm helping women entrepreneurs, but we also wanna be careful about just showing a niche because people wanna know you, and that's kind of the new wave of social media. So that's why I think that one can be kind of complete BS.

But I think it's helpful to be cognizant of both sides. Like who am I speaking to? Who am I [00:05:00] solving the issue for? But also being cognizant of the fact that people really wanna know you. We're in a different era of social media now Just my opinion on that. Okay, the next thing that people say oftentimes when starting a business, "Well, you need to grow your audience.

You need to have a really large audience. People need to know who you are. You have to have some kind of notoriety." I absolutely think that is BS. In my opinion, that does not matter at all. I think what matters is having that clear messaging that I was talking about in my previous BS moment.

Understanding who you're talking to is much more important than having thousands and thousands of followers. I think, you know, you can have so many followers, you can have millions of followers, and people don't even know how to monetize that. They don't know how to speak to them. So I know women with a couple hundred followers that are making multiple six figures, making a [00:06:00] million dollars, multiple millions a year, versus some women that have millions of followers and they don't know how to monetize it at all.

So I don't think... I think we have this concept that large audience equals business, large audience equals money, and I think that, again, in my opinion, is complete BS. I think a large audience can help you build a business, but if you don't understand what problem you're solving or who you're speaking to or who you're helping, I mean, it doesn't matter.

You might not even have the right people in your audience following you. So that's just a big, big BS one too. Like, when social media strategists will say, "Hey, you need to grow your following. You need to do this. You need to do that," that's not necessarily untrue. We all would like to have a really solid following and have a large following of course, because then it, it ups your chances for conversion and it ups your chances to connect with the right people that you're trying to help, whatever you're doing, whether you're selling a product or a service or whatever you're doing to [00:07:00] help your audience and your customer.

However, I would rather you have 500 people that are your ideal person that you're solving a problem for following you than 50,000 or 500,000 people that are all over the place, that aren't maybe the people that really are resonating with what you're trying to sell or what you're trying to help with or whatever your service does or your product does.

So I think that's a big BS misconception too is, uh, you know, large audience equals a business equals sales, and that's not always the case The next piece of advice that I think we get sometimes in business is you have to have multiple streams of income to be successful. Now, in my opinion, I'm a little bit split on this, okay?

I'm a little bit split. One, I definitely believe in multiple income streams because I think it is helpful to secure you, [00:08:00] but I don't think you need multiple income streams to build a business. So there's a difference, right? Like, personally, to have multiple income streams, like I own rental properties, I have like, I have little side things that I do, but those are not, like I'm not in those businesses.

Like, that's not in the business that I'm building. So I also own more than one business now. But when I was first starting out, I wanted to n- wanted to know, like I wanted to leave corporate, I wanted to start my own thing, I really wanted to be on my own two feet, and so I really thought about, okay, what is the least path of resist- resistance?

What am I good at? W- how can I start earning money and be happy, and what's something I know how to do really well and I can jump right into that and start getting clients right away? That was a good line of questioning to start that for me. In my opinion, that was great for me. And the answer was very clear.

I had been in events [00:09:00] for a very long time. I've been in events for, coming up, on 18, 19 years. So it's something that I knew, and it's something that I had been doing consulting work on, and it's something that I felt very comfortable saying, "You know what? I think I can go out on my own and create a business around this."

And what's great for me personally is that evolved because I got to start doing the types of events that I enjoy. I don't do weddings, I don't do those types of personal occasions. I focus on corporate and nonprofit because I'm passionate about nonprofits and the fact that they have a cause, and that there's a mission behind it, and the people are just so incredibly passionate about what they're doing.

But that was my one revenue stream Doesn't mean I didn't have like side hustles, like the investments and things like that. But to create a business, we're not talking about multiple revenue streams for like your personal life. We're talking about, and like you as a person, we're talking about multiple revenue streams as a, like a [00:10:00] business.

And so in order to scale a business and to have a successful business, you've got to really focus on what is going to make us money, what are we gonna specialize in? You've seen all these like celebrity brands or even people who started a business, became very successful, and then they branch out into something else.

That's okay. That's when the multiple revenue streams make sense. I'm gonna use Sara Blak- Blakely as an example. So, you know, she started Spanx. We all know Sara. I've used her many times. She's wonderful. But she built Spanx for years. She just had a, you know, a, an acquisition and all of that, and then she decided to make this new company, SNKS.

That took her years to branch out to do that. Now, it might not h- take you years to branch out and create another product or service, but we really have to hone in on w- what are we gonna specialize in, and how are we s- gonna scale that? Because it's easier to scale one product or service in the beginning and just...

And then once you're off to the races with [00:11:00] that, in my opinion, it's so much easier because now you have people that trust you, and you're gonna get ideas for another product or service. Now it's okay to branch out. Now it's okay to have multiple revenue streams. And Sarah did this within, Spanx as well, right?

She started out with it was just the Spanx that we know, and then we s- you know, she started making athleisure, and she started making bras and all of these other items which made sense. And then now she has the sneaks line. So it evolved for her, but first, she perfected and patented the actual Spanx product that we think of today, and she grew that, and she scaled that.

And I think that, that hyperfocus is something that we have to remember as entrepreneurs and as people building businesses. What is the core problem that we're solving, and what is the core solution that we're going to scale? And then we can focus on other streams of income for the business or for starting other businesses.

But even in my example, like, I had to scale my event business [00:12:00] first before I started to look at my other businesses. And I will tell you, I can be a little ADD with things, and so I failed quite a bit in the beginning 'cause I really wanted to scale some aspects of this podcast and also aspects of, my mentorship and the things that I do with women just like you and help them with their business.

But really, I had to scale my event business first and have that first successful business before I could really start focusing on other revenue streams for this brand. That's why my event company lives under my opinion. And so we scaled that. You know, you're never perfect in the event world, but we have a great model going.

We have great clients. And so now it's been a great time for me to really dive back into the, my opinion brand and continue to evolve it and help more women get clear on entrepreneurship and help you with your business challenges. That's really what we're doing, that on this show. We're doing that [00:13:00] in the one coaching offering that I have right now where I audit your business, and I give you feedback, and I give you my opinion.

That's it. That's all we're doing, and that's how you continue to scale. And so wanted to use some real-life examples, but then also examples from me, which is also real life, so you guys kinda understand what I mean by that. I'm not saying, you know, don't, you know, invest your money places or have, you know, maybe invest in properties or whatever these side hustles you wanna do.

I think that's great. But as far as your business, when people tell you, "You need multiple revenue streams for your business," no. You need one product, one service that works, and scale it. Then you can start to look at the other aspects. So I think that advice is really BS. Again, that's just my opinion and what I've seen work for people.

Just me. Just what I think. This was such a difficult one for me, this next one. In my opinion, this was the biggest challenge for me, and it's something I still have to think about when I'm launching new things. Your product or service should be perfect before you launch [00:14:00] it. BS. Total BS. It does not have to be perfect.

It has to be good enough that it solves a problem, that it cr- you know, gives a solution to your customer, but it does not have to be perfect. Obviously, if it's a physical product, we need it to, like, pass regulations. You need to have it patented, all of those things. It needs to be safe. If it's a service, you need to prove that it's going to solve the problem that your clients have, obviously.

But your product or service will evolve. Think about so many physical products out there that evolve and change and get better. I mean, just think about the device that you're listening to this on right now, how it's evolved and changed. I mean, think if we waited till the iPhone was perfect or where it is today to launch it.

No. It's just gotta be in a place where it's solving a solution, and it did solve a solution. The iPhone was an incredible thing. It, e- we had never had a [00:15:00] phone with this kind of touch and screen, and there's no keypa- I mean, it's, it was such a cool thing, and it was innovative. But it's evolved so much, and your product can do the same thing.

It does not have to be perfect Perfection is what stops a lot of people, and it's stopped me from creating things in the past, honestly. I would say even with Find a Co-Host, I think that held me up quite a bit with some iterations of my business with Find a Co-Host. I always want everything to be perfect.

I think if I didn't have the right team behind me helping me with some of this stuff, like in my opinion, I probably still wouldn't have launched it because I want everything to be perfect. But that's something I've personally learned as an entrepreneur. Done is better than perfect. Out there, people testing it and trying it is better than perfect.

People, people think that you need perfection. People will tell you that sometimes too. This blows my mind that some people will give you that advice. , You need this to be perfect. I've had so many people tell me that. [00:16:00] You need to nail this. It needs to be perfect, and it's not actually true. It just needs to be good enough that it solves the problem, and that people can start giving you feedback.

Because if you wait for something to be totally perfect, and you put it out there, and people haven't even tried it, let's say they don't even like it, and it's your version of perfect, and now you've spent years perfecting this, but it's not perfect because it's not even what people want. It's not even what people wanna buy or use.

Yikes. That's... Now we've gotta go back to the drawing board. I would rather you be working with the feedback and working alongside of that for version two, version three, and getting that feedback from your ideal customer and consumer It's important, and I wish someone had told me that. This is probably the strongest one for me, like I said.

In my opinion, I failed at this so many times with the perfection and the level of perfection that I always [00:17:00] wanted. It's the Virgo in me, you guys. It's the Virgo in me. I will admit that I'm into astrology, and so I have this perfection side, and that's why I had to... I would lean into that advice, and people would be like, "Well, you know, you need to perfect this," and no, you don't.

No, you don't. It's complete BS. Complete BS. Another factor that I think falls for me as well, and this was a big one for me, not as big as perfection because that stalls us, and I'm sure you run into this as well, but s- if you're growing too slow, then it's something's not working. It's not, you know, something's not working, something's not happening.

Again, in my opinion, total BS. Slow growth does not mean failure. Slow growth does not mean that the product or service isn't working. There could be so many other things happening. One, maybe your marketing strategy isn't right. Maybe you're not present enough [00:18:00] on socials. Maybe you're not getting in front of the right people.

There's so many reasons why slow growth could be happening. Most of the time it's a marketing thing. Most of the time it's a social thing. Most of the time you're not getting in front of... You don't have the right strategy, you're not getting in front of the right people. In my opinion, that's what I've seen.

Sometimes slow growth can mean it's not working. If nobody's buying it, and you've got the right marketing, and you've got the right outreach, and you've got... you're in front of the right people, that could be what's happening. But I see people, and I've heard people say this all the time, you know, "Oh, you're not growing, you're not growing fast enough.

Um, I think, I think there's a problem. I think there's a problem here." Could be, but in my opinion, typically it can be BS when people are saying that, when they're jumping to that right away instead of actually looking at what is, you know, what is happening here. Like, are we really marketing to the right people?

Do we have the right team behind this? [00:19:00] I think those are, are really big challenges, and that's just a, a piece of advice that I think could be complete BS because I think it's just like a blanket statement. Like, "Oh, slow growth, this is failing. Let's move on to something else." And I think people quit too early when that happens as well.

So I think it's something to balance, and I think it's something to be mindful of and really be aware of I think another one I'd like to talk to you guys about too is, you know, you have to wait until you, and I've done a couple episodes on this, right? You have to wait until you can go all in on your business Again, this is a BS one as well.

So sometimes people will say to you, "You know what? I want you to go all in on your business. You gotta quit your job." I did a whole episode on this. You can go back a couple episodes. I did a whole episode on this about how it's so important that [00:20:00] you are weighing that. You don't have to leave your corporate job to start a business, but when the business is really consuming your life, and you're taking off, and you're making enough income to support yourself, yes, it's time to leave.

But it is total BS when people tell you, "Oh, you have to leave your job. You have to go all in 100%." Eventually, eventually, but not to start a business. Not to start a business. You don't have to leave your corporate job. You can start all of this at night. People do it all the time. I did it myself. Many success stories will tell you, "Yeah, I actually started this while I was working my other job.

I actually started this while I was running this other business," or I was working as a consultant, or whatever your particular case is. Maybe you're a stay-at-home mom, right? And you're doing this at night. You're not gonna quit being a mom so you can start your business. Why would a corporate job be any different?

So that's a big one in my opinion too when people are s- sitting there telling you, "Oh, you have to quit your job. You have to go all in." You can go [00:21:00] all in and still have a job. You can. You just have to know when it's time to say, " this is now my life. This is consuming me, and I'm happy about it, and I'm ready to go all in," in that aspect.

But you can go all in and be serious about the business and still have another job. Like, you can. But I did... Again, I did an episode on, like, when to take the jump, when to take the leap couple months earlier. Feel free to go back and check that out because I think that is a very interesting piece of advice, total BS, that people are like, "You have to leave your corporate job and go all in."

No. But you'll know when you are ready to. And so when people tell you that you can work... The other side of the BS is when people tell you, "Oh, you can keep both and keep doing both." No, you can't. There's a point where you know that you're gonna have to take that jump and that leap, and you're gonna go completely all in, and that's gonna be your full-time work, and that's gonna be what you do.

Because it's BS that people say that, like, you [00:22:00] can really manage both full time. You can't. But you can manage both while you're scaling to a point where it will start to replace your income, and then you're good. And once you're in a comfortable spot, it's time to make that jump. So these are the real big, these are the big ones that kind of bother me.

There are so many BS advice, that we get from different people, the BS advice from people that think, you know, you have to do everything a certain way in business. And I wanna be clear about this too Like, there's no linear path in entrepreneurship. Your path is going to look different than my path.

And even for each one of my businesses, each path has looked really different. And so, you know, anybody who tells you, I guess my last BS advice or red flag is, hey, if somebody tells you, "This is how you achieve this. This is how you... Step one, step two, step three is how [00:23:00] you launch your business." It's just, again, complete BS.

You can't give that kind of advice. You can't give that blanket advice. There are things that I talk about on this show, and also talk about with the women that I help with their business challenges, and if you're one of them, we have it linked in the comments. You can actually drop your business challenge in for free, and I will either read it here or on TikTok, and respond to it.

I'm doing that right now. I also do audits for folks. So if you're a woman in business and you want, like, an intensive audit for your business challenge that you're facing right now, I'll go through all of them with you. That's all available in the show notes. So feel free to drop one business challenge for free, or you can actually go through a full business audit with me.

Those are just the two things that I do right now with MaYapinion, giving you my opinions on this. But the reason I do that, and I do it specialized, is because, and, you know, I've done these spec- special segments with women coming on the show, because you can't... I can't tell me with Find a Co-Host [00:24:00] exactly the right way to launch or, the right way to go to the next level, and it's not gonna be the same as somebody with, like, I don't know, a personal training business or someone developing, you know, this, a, an app for moms who stay at home.

It's gonna be all different, and you're all in different places. So if anybody tries to give you super generic advice, I always find that to be complete BS, too. There are some generic things that go into entrepreneurship, right? You gotta be scrappy, you gotta be resilient, you gotta, you know, gotta be a go-getter, can't quit, gotta be that person that's resilient, all of those things.

But there's no straight linear path to success. Some people, you know, I mean, some people will have an early, early success story, and then they'll fail a little bit later. Some people fail 100 times to win, you know, 101. There's no perfect path, but there are things that we can look at and say, "Hey, this isn't really the best advice."

Really, that blanket advice that's given to people, I think, it [00:25:00] just doesn't really work, because there are definite things we can look at, too. Like when people give you business advice or when they have opinions about, you know, cash flow and how your pricing is and, you know, how you're targeting people.

Like, sure, but again, that is individualized for what you're selling, what you're producing, what you're offering. So there's an individualized uniqueness in the entrepreneurial world, and I think that's why it's so important that we really are aware of some of this very general business advice, taking all of these classes that people put online that are very generic, very generic.

Because your business is gonna look totally different than the person sitting next to you in one of those courses, virtually, in person, whatever. So really be cognizant of that, and that would be my last kind of opinion for this episode. You know, when you're looking for education and courses and things out there to help you on your entrepreneurial journey- Keep your eyes and ears peeled for the individual, the individualized [00:26:00] uniqueness of how it's going to teach you and coach you and mentor you.

That would be my big thing there. So feel free to drop your business challenge. There's a link in the show notes for that, and I will shout it out here on the podcast, or TikTok and our socials. I've been loving TikTok lately, so come follow me over there, @mayaroffler. It's our MaYapinion account.

And of course, follow us @maYapinionpodcast and @mayaroffler on Instagram and all other major social channels. We will see you back here next week for another episode. Thanks so much.