ep. 046 • 3 Things I Wish I Would Have Invested In Earlier

Chelsea: When you're trying to grow a business, it can be hard to prioritize when and where to invest–especially from a financial perspective. 

In this episode, I'm sharing three things that I wish I would have invested in earlier in my business, and perhaps you can see where there's some space for you to invest next, too.

Welcome to the Hennapreneur podcast – the exclusive podcast of its kind dedicated to giving you an honest look at the realities of making a living as a henna professional.

I'm your host, Chelsea Stevenson, a tea-loving, shoe-collecting mother of three in constant search for the most popping pair of earrings and the perfect shade of red lipstick.

I'm also a professional henna artist and business strategist who went from barely being able to piece together a fluid design to being the owner of the most celebrated henna boutique in my city.

I'm on a mission to help henna professionals, to harness their skills and grow vibrant, profitable businesses that they absolutely love.

If you want to make more money with your art, you are definitely in the right place. Let's get to it!

Hey, hey, hennapreneurs! Welcome to another episode of the Hennapreneur podcast. Today, I am spilling a little tea–a little inside scoop, if you will–around things that I wish that I would have done differently in my business. Specifically, I'm sharing the three things I wish that I would have invested in earlier in my journey as a hennapreneur.

So, in this episode, I wanted to just kind of highlight three different aspects, if you will, of business and not just business, but life in general as well–which we'll get to in a little bit–three things that I wish that I would have invested in earlier on than I did. 

And one of the reasons why I like to highlight this is because there is something that changes in us when we make the decision to invest in our work. Investing requires a different mentality. It requires a shift in our mindset. It requires us acknowledging that we are deserving, that we are worthy, that we are someone who is in fact worthy, right? Worthy. Really, that's what it comes down to. Worthy of being spent on. Worthy of being supported. Worthy of being in receipt of the things that we need in order to grow and to flourish. 

And for many of us, when it comes time to make investments, it can be very daunting. It can cause us to kind of bump up against limiting beliefs that we have or old stories that we have. And oftentimes, those things can cause us to shy away from making the investment. 

And so, I wanted to talk to you in this episode about the three different ways that I wish that I would have invested in myself earlier–in my business earlier–because perhaps it will give you a little bit of a different perspective and it can give you some idea of where, why, how these things are important, right? 

So, the first piece is probably going to surprise you, actually, because it doesn't feel directly related to business and yet it is. 

The first thing that I wished that I would have invested in earlier is healing. It's around the healing. 

And the reason why I mentioned healing first is because our self perception matters. Our self-confidence matters, right? And oftentimes we play small in our businesses because we are holding onto old stories about our own abilities. Many of which stem from past experiences and from unresolved childhood traumas, things that we're holding with us, baggage that we're carrying with us that no longer serves us and yet kind of is just always there around for the ride, right? 

And so, self healing is one of the investments with the greatest ROI or the greatest Return On Investment, in my opinion, because when we change how we see ourselves, we change how we interact with the world around us and we show up differently in that world as well, right? When we feel good about ourselves, when we feel whole, when we feel complete, when we feel supported, when we feel confident, when we feel that we are capable, right? We show up differently. We come in with a different energy. We come in with a bit of boldness, a bit more audacity, right? We show up differently and the only way that we're able to effectively do those things and to do those things very authentically, very genuinely, is if we heal some of the hurts, some of the traumas, some of that baggage that we perhaps are carrying alongside, for many of us, at least in my experience and from my perspective for a very, very long time.

And even like, for me, I feel so strongly about this that that's part of the reason why I provide coaching inside of Hennapreneur PRO, right? And that coaching is both with myself and with Team Hennapreneur's resident Life Coach, like, it's because, at least from my perspective, personal development and healing are a non-negotiable, right? When we show up as our best selves in our lives and our business, we do better, we perform better, we are able to more effectively and more easily reach those big, audacious goals. And we can only really do that when we're whole and when we're supported. 

And so, for me, I have a very strong value for that healing. I have a very strong value for self-honoring. I have a very strong value for us taking care of ourselves as individuals first. And so acknowledging that we come with, you know, we come with our past traumas and we come with our past baggage and we bring that into our business, it's important. And so once you acknowledge it, and certainly once you acknowledge it and then take action around it, which is a whole second piece, right? That's where you start to really see change come about, not only in business, but in your life as a whole. 

And so for me, I certainly wish that I would have invested in healing much sooner than I did, but once I did, once I began to invest in that way, I started to see massive amounts of change and in a very short amount of time, because the way that I felt about myself and my own abilities also changed so I started to show up in the world in a different way, as well.

So the second way that I wish I would have invested earlier is in the way of automation. 

So, when I talk about automations, I'm talking about softwares and systems that do work on your behalf, okay? 

So, in my business, the henna boutique is about 95% automated, right? So there are automations in nearly every aspect of my business's operations: everything from scheduling to contracts, invoicing, client communications, financial management, and even my marketing systems–all of those things are automated. 

Now, automations provide a massive ROI or a massive Return On Investment because, for me, time is my most precious resource and by leveraging automation, I can serve my clients exceptionally well while also maintaining time for the things that are important to me. Like spending time with my kids or bingeing Netflix, or taking delicious naps, whatever feels right for me and good for me at the time, right? And obviously. Those things change based on the season of life we're in. 

I love automation because it gives us time back in our pocket and I think, oftentimes, you know, we buy into the idea that, you know, time is a- it's- one, that it's not a renewable resource and that also, like we're kind of limited by it. And yes, those things are true. And also, we can, by using smart strategic systems, we can create for ourselves, a better operation. We can create for ourselves a business that works like a machine, and that does the work for us so that we don't have to be in there manually putting things together and handholding each of our clients from start to finish. 

So, for me, inside of my own business, things are automated, truly, to the point where basically all I have to do is show up and apply the designs. Almost everything between the time a person comes in contact with my business to the time that I'm sending them the, you know, the feedback form after our booking, almost all of that is done through my system and it's done by way of automation. 

And, for me, there are really two times where I have to show up and like manually apply myself to my business. That is when I am reviewing details specific to larger company or when I am actually doing the hand, the application for my clients. And, really, that's it. 

And so, you know, I teach how to leverage automations like the ones that I have inside of Hennapreneur PRO because work-life harmony is important to me, right?

Just last week, one of the Hennapreneur Pros shared with me that she'd had her first $4,000 month. Actually, she passed $4,000 in revenue in August of 2021 and she's on track, she's pacing to have a similar revenue for this month for September of 2021, right? And she only worked 25 and a half hours with clients, right.? And that's for the month that's for the month. 

So what's amazing is, she also shared with me–because of course I had questions when she first said, "Hey," you know, "I've got this big win! I cleared $4,000 for the month and I'm on track to do it again." 

I was like, "I love this! And also, like, I want to know how much- what is the energetic expenditure for you?" And I asked, "How many hours are you averaging of work per week?" 

And she said, "For the entire month of August, I worked 25 and a half hours with clients." 

And then there was about six hours for the month in its entirety that were spent doing those admin tasks behind the scenes that are manual admin tasks, that kind of, you know, they keep her business running. 

And systems and automations, these are the things that allow for this. These are the things that make this sort of scaling in your business possible. And so, I was so, so excited when I heard this from her, because what it speaks to is two things: one, you can have a very thriving, profitable business, and two, you can do that without dragging yourself and spreading yourself incredibly thin. It's not necessary so long as you have those systems in place, right? 

And so, that's why I teach what I do, because I want my students to have these sorts of experiences. I want Hennapreneurs to come out of the gate swinging. I want them to have, you know, the things in place on the back end operations side of their business so that they are building this business that they love, that they get to show up and, you know, create for their clients and have a beautiful, wonderful time and also, you know, they don't have to sacrifice the life that they want to build, you know, with themselves and with their family members and with their friends and those things that are important to them. So, automation, for sure, is one of those things that I wish that I would have invested in more quickly and it's also one of those things that I, you know, that I push for my students, for them to begin investing in very early on, because the more automation is in play, the more time you have back in your pocket and that's super, super valuable. 

So the third thing that I wished that I would have invested in more soon, would have been mentorship, okay? 

There is such–oh my gosh–there's so much hype around being quote-unquote "self-made" and while I can appreciate the sentiment around that, because it certainly defines the earliest portions of my own journey, the fact of the matter is that there's no legitimate reason why you should have to do it yourself in today's world. And, in fact, it's kind of my feeling at this point that if you are insisting that you have to do it yourself, if you're insisting that you have to, like, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, if you're insisting that, like, you have to figure it out, I'm going to say–and maybe, perhaps this will ruffle some feathers and perhaps I'll take this, you know, perhaps I'll feel like I'm overstepping here a little bit later, but I'm just going to go ahead and say it–I feel like if you are someone who kind of buys into that rhetoric, it's actually pretty dumb. Like, there's no other way for me to say that. 

This is the thing, friends. This is the thing. There are so many resources that are out there that are available and there are so many people who are doing the things that you want to do, or have done the things that you want to do already, and so if you are insistent upon the fact that you need to figure it out yourself and only you can get it right, and you don't need help, and you have to be quote-unquote "self-made" today with as many resources and as many as much access as available on Beyoncé's internet, you are just wasting your own time and, really, that's what it comes down to, right? 

Because, for me, at least, a good mentor is someone who holds a vantage point that's beyond your own. This is someone who helps you see blind spots that you may not anticipate. It's someone who has your back when things don't go according to plan and, spoiler alert, they won't go according to plan. That's just kind of the nature of how business works, right? And so to have a good mentor working alongside of you or walking alongside of you, and who's there to support you, it provides you with more perspective. It provides you with a more clear picture of what needs to happen next and it does that in a way that reduces your risk. 

And this is something that oftentimes people forget about. It's like, yeah, it can feel risky to invest in mentorship, but it's even more risky for you to go at it alone and have no one there who already knows the ropes to kind of guide you and keep you in inside of the bumpers, right? 

And so, for me, at least from my perspective, so I certainly wish that I would have chosen to invest in mentorship earlier on. 

And so, today, and at this point, you know, my business is- I'm running a six-figure business, right? And at this point, I am now making it a priority to invest. There's not a time where I'm not investing in mentorship. 

So, even today, like, recently, I had made the decision to make a significant investment in mentorship because I know that the ROI on a good mentor is time saved, it's crises being averted, and it's the fast track to my next milestone. And I have big, audacious goals for my own business, right? And so, if I want to reach those things, I'm going to have to do things differently. I'm going to have to learn skills that I don't know right now and I'm going to need to tap into the knowledge and the wisdom of those people who've gone before me who know what they're doing, and then, of course, it's up to me to kind of do a gut check and decide, "okay, is this someone who I can trust? Is this someone whose expertise I want to lean into?" And also, you know, obviously, I know my business best. 

A good mentor is never going to just tell you do X, Y, and Z, and is not going to honor your experience. No, that's that's that can't be true, right? That can't be real. 

A good mentor is also going to teach you and to push you and to cultivate a feeling of self-trust and of self-knowing and of your own capacity, but have someone there still to say, "Hey, friend, you're about to bump your head," like, "Let me help you not have that experience." Right? And that's what I look for inside of, you know, when I'm looking to hire on my own mentors is: tell me the experiences that you've had. Are there things that you've done that I haven't done yet? What vantage points do you have that I don't have yet. And are you someone who is going to want me to follow blindly? Because if that's the case, I know me with my personality type, that's going to be a no-go, right? Or are you someone who's going to offer me the resources and offer me the insights, offer me the, perhaps, the advice or the different perspective, and also encourage me to lean into my own knowing and to then do what feels right and what feels aligned for myself and for my business, because that's what looks like a good mentor for me, right? For me. 

And, honestly, like I love, I love being that person for the Hennapreneurs in my program because I get to share my experiences with them, I get to share my perspectives with them, and I am allowed this very unique and intimate opportunity to kind of hold their hand and guide them as they're navigating their way through growing their businesses. And that's something that is, obviously, incredibly valuable for them, but it's also something that's valuable for me because it keeps me kind of fresh, it keeps me quick with it, and it keeps me also very tied to and aware of my own experience, right? My own learning. My own journey. And every time we look back–you know, as they say, hindsight is 2020–every time we look back over our journeys, we always can find a new lesson uncovered, right? We can always find a new perspective uncovered. And so, it's that sort of relationship, it's beneficial for both parties–both for the mentor and the mentee.

And so, yeah, if you're in a place right now where you're ready to invest in your business in these ways, then of course, I want to invite you to reach out to our team. You can send an email in to support@hennapreneur.com if you want more information about Hennapreneur PRO, we're happy to share that with you. 

And in the meantime, what I'd love to do is invite a little bit of conversation around this over in the Hennapreneur Community. 

So if you're not already joined in and engaged with us, pop over to Facebook, you'll find the Hennapreneur Community there. It's our free Facebook group where we have lots of different conversations and I'd love to invite you to share with me what's one thing that you wish you would have invested in earlier. And I'd also love to know because I'm nosy AF, y'all already know, what's the next investment on your business wishlist, too. I'd love to know that also. 

So, hop over to the Hennapreneur Community. If you're not already a member, you can find us at Hennapreneur.com/community, and there's a link for you to be able to join there. And yeah, let me know: what do you wish you would have invested in earlier and what's the next investment in your business's wishlist? Love to know. All right! Until next time. Bye for now!

I've got a serious question for you, hennapreneur. 

Are you ready to stop playing small with your art and to take your business to the next level already?

Are you tired of feeling like you're doing it all to grow your business, but you just aren't seeing the results and the success that you're looking for?

Perhaps you've got clients here and there, but you know inside that your potential expands far beyond what your business is generating today.

You may know that you're a solid artist, but you can't seem to crack the code on the business side of things, and you may find yourself wondering, "What gives?!" 

If any of this sounds like you: listen up, because I've got some really great news for you!

I've got a free, on-demand masterclass called 5-Figure Foundations where I'll teach you my framework for how to build a profitable henna business.

During the masterclass, you'll learn things like how to position your henna business for success -- even if you don't have any background and practical business management. You're going to learn the critical steps you need to take in order to get your budding business started off right or to correct the broken one that's burning you out. You're going to learn why you need systems, not feelings, to make more money and to expand your business. We're going to get real clear, real fast about how you're likely getting in your own way right now and how you can remove the frustrations that are holding you back.

I'm also going to share my tried-and-true framework for establishing a profitable, sustainable business, and I'm going to tell you all about how my students are continuing to grow their businesses and celebrating some pretty big wins in the process -- even through those everyday challenges that you might expect, like juggling work and home and even those massive challenges that you might've never seen coming, like navigating a pandemic while being a business owner.

At the end of the masterclass, you'll no longer be in the dark. You'll know exactly what to do and what to avoid to build a solid foundation for your own profitable henna business as well. 

To register for the masterclass and to watch it instantly on-demand, visit hennapreneur.com/foundations.