It’s easy to get sucked into the rabbit hole of free information, Facebook, webinars and blog posts. Clearly, there are a lot of elements to running a business and sometimes it’s hard to decide what you should be doing and what you shouldn’t.

Today I want to discuss six ways that you could be wasting time and money in your business. At some point in my journey, I’ve done all six of these things. I want to shorten the learning curve for you so that you don’t make the same mistakes I did.

Listen to the call replay here or continue reading the transcript below.

So, in the spirit of keeping it short and sweet, let’s dive right in.

1. Getting non expert advice

Facebook groups and forums are amazing for networking, making friends, connecting with potential clients and colleagues, but the truth of the matter is, it’s not a great place to get business advice. When you post a question or ask for advice, you will get it, but chances are, it won’t come from a viable or professional source. Likely you will get comments and suggestions from your peers or other coaches who are NOT experts in whatever it is you are asking. They are giving their advice and feedback based on their own experiences. It’s easy to get lost and overwhelmed with so many responses and differences of opinions. Now, I’m not saying that the suggestions may not be good, just to be mindful of who you are taking free advice from.

Think of it this way, would you take legal advice from a mechanic? I highly doubt it. I suggest having a mastermind buddy or a coach that you can trust with your business decisions and if you get stuck on something, you can ask them for help.

2. Trying to do it all yourself

I’m so guilty of doing this for the first full year of my business. I thought I had to be everything in my business if I was going to be an entrepreneur. And sometimes you do. Especially if you are bootstrapping or low on funds. But pulling your hair out over MailChimp or spending hours on Lead Pages isn’t doing your business any good. Spending too much time in your business rather than on it, will burn you out and end up costing you precious hours. Outsourcing not only saved my business, but it was one of the elemental upgrades that really made me feel like I was going pro. Today, I outsource web copy, website updates, basic VA tasks and graphic design. Doing that allows me to be able to create and coach, which is what I really love to do. It allows me to do these calls every Monday, it allows me to write more blogs and guest posts, and to connect more with potential clients.

3. DIY/ or free everything

Similar to doing everything yourself, doing everything for free will cost you clients and wasted time and money in your business. You may think you’re saving yourself money by trying to DIY everything, but in reality it makes you look like you like an amateur. If the bottom of your site says “free site” or you have watermarks from free apps on your images, it does not make you look professional at all. How can you expect your clients to pay you large sums of money if you are unwilling to invest in your business.

Now I’m not saying you have to rack up expenses by investing in a custom wordpress site for $5,000 or Infusionsoft for $300 a month if you’re not at that level, but spend the 10 bucks a month for the upgraded mail chimp or the $7 a month to get the Weebly logo off the bottom of your site.

4. Getting in too deep

Now I see a lot of new coaches and entrepreneurs getting in so deep that they have a tough time digging their way out. They invest in every new program or product, $47 here, $197 there. And they are left with a ton of worksheets and videos that they will never use or watch. They go from coach to coach to coach and get overwhelmed with with all the freebies and webinars they are downloading. I’m all for doing your own research and teaching yourself, but you have to be able to set boundaries.

Aside from information overload, financially this behavior is not beneficial. If you’re not careful, all of those smaller investments add up with little to no return, whereas if you had taken that money and invested in a coach or a high end program that will actually take you to the next level, you would reach success faster.

5. Perfectionism/ Overthinking

How many hours have you spent perfecting your sales copy or an offer before putting it out there? How many times have you come up with a great idea for a program or webinar only to sit on it weeks then see someone else come up with something similar? My coaching clients call me the action coach, because we don’t play around. There is no waiting or hesitating, when an idea comes to mind, it gets done and put out into the world. Now I’m not an advocate for rushing things or putting out a shitty product, but we all know the difference between that and sitting on something because we’re trying to perfect it; or overthinking and starting to doubt whether it’s even good enough.

Perfectionism and overthinking can also be evidence of fear or just plain old excuses. Don’t let it stop you from moving forward in your business.

6. Creating what you want instead of what your clients need

This is probably the biggest time and money waster of all. As coaches, consultants or healers, we are so much in our heads and what we want to create that we forget about our clients. We forget to ask what they want and we end up with courses and programs that go unfilled, and social media posts and webinars that get crickets.

If this sounds familiar, go back to the basics. Find out what your clients want. How do you do that? It’s actually quite simple. You ASK. Surveying your ideal clients is key to creating copy, programs and services that they actually want. Just make sure that if you decide to survey people, preface your survey with a description of your ideal client and who you want to fill it out.

And to piggy back off of this, make sure you ask your ideal clients where they hang out online. Are they on other forums, blogs, Linked In, Pinterest, etc.? It’s crucial that you understand where they are so that you can put yourself there too. It’s amazing how many people I see hanging out in the wrong circles expecting sales from people who have no interest in their product. If you are a yoga instructor or a coach for busy moms, chances are you’re ideal clients are not hanging out in entrepreneur groups.

That’s it for today guys. I want to hear from you which ones you’re guilty of and how you can start to do things differently. Make sure you hop on over to Babes That Shine group and keep the conversation going.