3 Things I’ve Learned by Building My Business This Year
By: Jaice De Celis
Tags: Business Strategy, Business Advice, Business, Business Development

One of the most enlightening things that I have ever done is starting and managing my own business. Taking control of my livelihood and taking responsibility for the livelihood of others has forced me to grow up in ways that I never thought possible. In February of this year, 2020, I started up a consulting company focused on providing honest service to merchants around America. Not necessarily something that no one has ever thought of, but certainly something that not many have done well.

First Impressions Really are Everything

Joining into an industry with a stigma of corruption, sneaky tactics and immoral operations forced me to analyze brand from a top down perspective and to figure out why people think the way they do. Changing the way someone perceives something is no easy task and requires rapport, integrity and honesty. I’ve come to realize that diverting focus to consumer level trust building and brand image optimization is one of the best ROI’s possible for a new business. Build social proof, keep company presentation consistent and always keep your morality at the front of your mind.

Business is not all about money

A fantastic analogy from Simon Sinek helps to summarize this idea well so I would like to share something very similar.

Money is only the fuel for business in the same way that gasoline is the fuel for cars. You do not own a car to buy fuel, you own a car to get from one place to another. The fuel is only there to help you make your journey. In the same way, business is not created to generate money, business is created to progress towards a specific cause and drive change in the world around us, money just helps us get there.

As a business owner one of the greatest things you can do for yourself and your employees is to always be auditing your mission. Make sure you keep metrics that clearly demonstrate your business moving towards a greater cause. When you see a shift in metrics, adjust and continue forward on the right path.

A business can grow outside of initial limits

When I first started my company, I only imagined having a team of sales consultants and a single office worker handling underwriting and application processing. Over the last 12 months, as we have evaluated our strengths and weaknesses we have come to realize that there is much more fruit to be had. We are in the process of transitioning into multiple spaces outside of what we thought possible. Our software as a service branch debuts in two weeks, our business to business sales coaching department now has 5 year round clients driving well over six figures in revenue yearly and our sales team has grown from three consultants to 15 forcing us to start subdividing team responsibilities and incorporating sales managers into our company hierarchy.

The message here is that while you need to maintain course to advance towards a specific cause, you need to be able to sit back and see other roads that lead to the same place. In this case, a three lane road allows us to transport much more than our original one way street. We also have the ability to support sagging branches with alternative revenues, keeping our business model more viable in intense or extreme circumstances.

Thank you for reading,

I also enjoy sharing my business experience and advice on Quora, you can find me there at /jaice-de-celis-3 to read more about businesses I have started and sold in the past as well as simple insight into my life.