Gravity is an excellent teacher.

I learned that the hard way as a three-year old.  Lying on the living room floor, watching Disney on a Sunday night, I decided to drink a glass of water.  Lying down.

I’d never even heard the word “gravity” but that abstract concept quickly became very real (and wet!).

Gravity strikes women entrepreneurs too.  In spite of all the warnings, we try to ride our bikes down the porch steps.  We fly a little too high on the swing. We carry too heavy a load and get worn out.

We can avoid some of these painful bumps, bruises and broken bones when we learn from others’ encounters with gravity.

So I thought you’d enjoy learning from a few of my own scrapes and pulled muscles (caused by my own wrong turns), and hopefully you won’t make the same mistakes!

• Publishing — I just completed a new book for women entrepreneurs, and once it was finished, I decided to publish it as an e-book too (I hope you’ll read it!).  It wasn’t until I read two 50-page manuals that I realized the text formatting for e-books is completely, totally, one-hundred percent different than for the print version.  Translation: hours of extra work to strip out the formatting and do it correctly.

Lesson:  Look before leaping.  As women entrepreneurs, we’re action oriented, we get things done.  Sometimes we get excited about a project or a new endeavor and just launch in (typical entrepreneurial behavior!).  But you can save tons of time and money if you’ll think your projects and plans all the way through.  Gather the facts.  Read the instruction manual.  (I know, how boring!)

• Branding — After a couple of years in business, I hired a fabulous branding firm that produced beautiful results.  It wasn’t until I printed business cards, letterhead and personalized note cards that I found out that my company name was ineligible for a federal trademark.  Hit the reset button.

Lesson:  Think global first.  You may think your business is now-and-forever local, but     you may surprise yourself.  Once you are locally successful, you’ll see a bigger horizon.        Think big from the beginning (and check the federal trademark register!).

• Employees  — Like many small business owners, I didn’t have a big budget to work with when I hired for a new position.  I met a smart, energetic young woman who did a great job of selling herself.  Though she never worked in a position similar to the one I was hiring for, she had a degree in adult education, which lined up well with my business model.  I could see all kinds of possibilities.  She would start in the position I had open, learn the business and grow into more.  She had potential!  That’s not exactly how it worked out.  Six months later…well, let’s just say we parted ways.

Lesson:  Don’t hire based on “potential.”  Look for proven track record in potential employees, vendors or virtual outsourcing resources.  Whether you’re hiring a web developer, a social media consultant, a lawyer, a CPA, no matter what — hire people who can prove demonstrated success getting the results you are looking for.

• Software decisions — I can only laugh here, because I’ve made so many bad software decisions.  The common denominator in all of them is that the process of researching software is so unpleasant for me that I rushed into a decision, just to get it over with. Then ended up with something that didn’t do what I needed.

Lesson:  Invest the time to develop a full understanding of your own needs.  That same lesson is true whether your decision is about software, a new employee, a vendor, or anything else!  As women entrepreneurs, time is in short supply.  It’s grueling to carve out time to make lists of what we need and do the necessary research.  But if we don’t we have one of those painful collisions with gravity.

• Growth strategy — After two successful years with my peer advisory groups for women entrepreneurs and executives, my clients encouraged me to expand.  Based on the business skills needed, I thought franchising would be the best business model.  I developed a business plan and ran it past a couple of “experts” — then promptly ignored their wisdom.  I should have just stuck a fork in my eye.  It only took a few months to discover I had seriously underestimated the marketing costs.  It took another two years to admit that as a franchisor, I couldn’t make a move without an attorney or an auditor.

Lesson:  Ask for advice…then listen! — I fell in love with my own idea and dismissed all the cautions.  When you ask for objective input, it’s a good idea to listen!  Be objective and be willing to subject your ideas to scrutiny.

These “mistakes” barely scratch the surface of all the wrong turns I’ve taken.  But guess what?  I’m still here!

From strategy, to branding, to hiring, to technology, we women entrepreneurs make hundreds of decisions every week.  We’re entitled to a few misguided decisions, imperfect choices and, uh, shall we say…bonehead mistakes.

Gravity will catch up with us.  We’ll crash land from time to time.  I call it “getting a PhD in business.”

But here’s how I look at it:  if you aren’t making mistakes, you’re not trying hard enough!  Mistakes are a normal (unless you keep repeating them!).  What’s important is to learn from them.

Here’s what really matters:  don’t let your wayward decisions cause you to lose confidence.  Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again.

Be intentional about doing a “post mortem” and analyze where the wheels came off the wagon.  Get input from others (NOT your best friend who would never say anything to hurt your feelings).  Get honest, objective opinions from business people you trust.

Learn something.  Then…declare a victory and move on!

 

P.S. My new book affirms the heart of women entrepreneurs, while teaching them new self-awareness and business skills. 

Because every woman entrepreneur deserves to achieve her version of success!