4 Things *YOU* Don't Need To Do To Grow Your 1-3 Man Show

When you’re a 1-3 man show, growth is about productivity. What you’re doing right now- how does it impact your time and energy?

With the algorithm, the economy, AI, and your own actions sometimes against you, running a small service business can make you feel like giving up if you didn't already know where you make a difference. But trying to keep going with a family that drives you nuts adds a whole other layer to the difficulty.  

Some 1-3 man shows get into business for money and name. Your cause is fueled by something deeper, family. You think spending everything after all that hard work will earn respect for what you're doing, right?

Nope!!!

The irony? When you can’t work, this also hurts them in the end. Stopping this cycle requires making some tough decisions that will ultimately cut like a knife, but make you more productive working from home.

WHAT CUTTING THE FAT ALSO LOOK LIKE FOR YOU:

1. SEO (So everybody on board?)

Here’s the thing with support when you’re now starting out. Because statistically, most startups fail in the first 3 years of business, support is almost impossible to genuinely expect. Before I could really immerse myself in what it meant to be self-employed, I was already facing expectations that came with “working from home.”

The window of opportunity to do good work that gets you seen, heard, and paid is a small one. Focusing your time, money, and energy on brand clarity, once you’ve lived a little, is a critical aspect of how you grow.

Cru Nonpareil is Trinidad and Tobago’s first luxury shoe brand for men, but establishing brand clarity within the first 3 years of the business was foundational to what people see the brand as today. Meanwhile, many emerging businesses during those initial years vanished after COVID.

Someone can pay me 15K now for visual branding, but proof of concept within the first 3 years of my business was foundational to what I’m able to charge in the middle of an economic crisis.

With that said…

2. Spending Company Money Is A No-No!

When you’re barely making enough to eat, you’re not thinking about not mixing what you pay yourself with what the business makes. But the moment you manage to separate things, disciplining yourself not to touch what the business makes becomes important.

The biggest misconception people who aren’t business owners have is that having a business means you’ve got money. Don’t fall for the guilt trip.

Requests for loans or being collateral for a loan are counterintuitive to the business, finally supporting itself. So while it feels good, your well-intentioned help keeps you spinning top-in-mud, and guess who that also affects?

This applies to your needs as well.

Mr and Mrs.“I’ll put it back,” but never do.

It doesn’t make it less impactful because you’re the one doing the spending.  

3. Taking Bad Advice

Have you ever thought that similarities make you the same? 

"I work with 3 people and a dream," "I don’t have the time, or the team". They’re like me. They’re a 1-3 man show; they’re not.

Targeting doesn’t work like that. Not all 1-3 man shows are created equal. Dad might be a 1-man show, but he isn’t considering whether or not you’re aspiring to operate your business the way he does his. Neither does he respect his limitations that you're not.

What does Moses really know about the mud pits, living in the palace of Pharaoh? This is why God came down from heaven in the form of Jesus Christ to die for us. Where you live does play a part in your ability or inability to relate to another person or feel relatable.

It would be nice if people looking for labels and posters came to my website and somehow cared about branding and didn't mind spending 6K,10K,15K on a project, but they don't, and they do.

Dad doesn’t get this. He sees his team-building and scaling advice…well, as advice. But when each person on "the team" is the boss, working with more people than you can handle leaves you all vulnerable to things that undermine the experience you’re curating for the client. 

This is by far the best advice I received when I started working for myself and building my brand.

4. Feeling Guilty For Defined Boundaries

I once sent sensitive information to the wrong place because I was so stressed out by my environment. Between the noise and what felt like vindictive monopolizing of my time, I never took the time to process my feelings, and I short-circuited. 

It’s said that stress can shrink the part of the brain responsible for reasoning and moral judgement, impairing focus, memory, and thinking.

It was a first for me in my (at the time) 15-year career. It has never happened since. But when you’re self-employed, with an unsupportive family, an inability to function mentally means you can’t show up for your own needs. In my experience, discouragement of your pursuit only reigns until something unexpected happens:

One of my unexpected moments.

Additionally, external validation isn’t real confidence. You need to BELIEVE in yourself. This is the difference between being a teenager and being an adult. However, if the support of family is that important to you, earn it. Don’t expect anything in this life you didn’t work for by God’s grace! And in the meantime, protect your energy. Think-time is therapy. If you don’t prioritize the silence, the alone time, sleep, exercise, or something as simple as taking a walk, you'll stay stuck trying to always prove something that just steals focus away from where it should be when you’re working.

So, eye on the prize!

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