Four years ago this month, I left my corporate job and decided to go all in on this little side hustle called Ninety Five Media. After working long nights and weekends, being laughed at for selling social media marketing, and hiding this entire side of my life, I decided to go all in. At that point, it felt like I had nothing to lose, and I figured it was time to TRY, or I would regret it for a long time to come. These past four years have been a whirlwind in the absolute best and craziest way. Looking back, what I’m most grateful for is how naive I was entering this season of my life at 25 years old. I truly had no idea what was to come, but I knew I would figure it out along the way! I’ve learned so many lessons along the way, so today I’m sharing four things I learned after four years of full-time entrepreneurship.
Sales Skills Are Life Skills
When I first started, I hated doing sales. “I’m bad at it!” I would say to myself and anyone who asked (how many of you have been there?!). What I’ve learned along the way is that everything is selling, so I better not only get used to it, but I better get good at it too. I learned to lean into the fact that you are always selling someone when you talk about anything. This has been a huge mindset shift and has changed the way I look at conversations and relationships I’m building. This year, I’ve invested in sales training and have begun integrating our team into sales as well, which has made a HUGE difference in the overall success of our business.
Relationships > Traditional Networking
The second lesson I learned is that relationships will get you farther than traditional networking ever will. Rewind to 2023 – I was extremely focused on networking. I felt like I’d outgrown my old network and needed new people in my professional circle. I spent that year attending dozens of networking events, with very little to show for it. They weren’t the right spaces for me and the work that we do at Ninety Five Media. In 2024 I shifted my focus to joining online communities and groups with likeminded people. This looked like other founders who wanted to support, help, and learn from each other. I quickly found that these were my people. Joining these communities has already made such an impact on our company, and has created things like new referral partners, expedited learning, and avoiding pitfalls I otherwise wouldn’t have known about. It also opened up new opportunities to bring in talented new hires and outside consultants to grow the company from within. “Your network is your net worth” has been my mantra this year, and I hope it rings true for you too going into 2025.
Stay Moving + Changing
2024 was a year filled with huge shifts within our team. It was a long time coming, but it wasn’t necessarily something I planned for at the beginning of the year. My role as a founder has changed so much, and now I’m able to focus on things that I hadn’t been previously, that are allowing us to make moves faster! This has been such a welcomed change because what I hadn’t realized previously was how much I was bottlenecking our growth. As we head into 2025, my focus is entirely on company optimization and business development (I also say that knowing that I will likely not end the year with those focuses!). If you aren’t changing, you’re staying the same, and the last thing I want for our company is to “stay the same” – give us all the growth!
Working Hard Does Not Always Equal Success
Ooooof – this was a hard one to learn! There have been years where I worked 20 hour days and hustled because that’s what I thought was necessary… and to some degree , it was at the time. What I’ve observed this past year is that I’ve actually spent more time away from my computer than ever, and we’ve grown more than we have in the past few years! What I mean by “time away from my computer” is that I’ve spent time building key relationships I mentioned above: getting into rooms, connecting with other founders in the space, attending conferences, learning, meeting clients in real life rather than just on zoom, and so much more. The lesson I’ve learned is that you can “move the needle” in so many different ways – it doesn’t always have to look like traditional execution!
This was an unexpectedly challenging year in business, but it was also my favorite because there were so many huge wins that came out of really challenging times. I was able to step back and allow our team to step up, which has been one of the most rewarding parts of my career to see our company scale without me being the lead on every single aspect.
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