Since starting The Quirky Pineapple Studio, we’ve read our fair share of business manuals, articles, best practices, and business books. All of this self-studying was to help us create a sustainable business and find the best way to connect with our clients and audience.
What we quickly learned, was that there were clearly some business myths we picked up along the way! Let’s sit down and debunk 27 business myths we USED to believe and have since learned are NOT true!
You need to have fancy tools.
Of course having the fancy tools can make us feel like we’re successful business owners who have got our sh*t together. But, you don’t need to have all the fancy tools right away, especially when you’re still learning about your own style, workflows, and processes that work for you and the types of clients you have!
We used to think that we needed all the fancy tools and systems to be the best business. For example, purchasing yearly plans for schedulers (that we didn’t like, but everyone was using), subscribing to the latest project management tool (that actually confused us), and trying to get the fanciest camera or such, to have “better quality photos” without learning how to work with the one we had.
You don’t need to have the fancy tools to START a business, nor do you need them to grow one. Each stage requires different tools and systems, find what works best for you, your business, your workflows, and your clients.
Sleep is for the weak.
I’ve said this before, but sleep is certainly NOT for the weak; especially as a business owner!
If someone has ever told you to push through the drowsiness and grogginess of sleep deprivation to get your work done – we’re here to tell you… run very far away from this person.
As a business owner, lots of ideas, feedback, and worries occupy our minds. We’re always thinking about “the next step” we should take to scale, where to find more clients, how to improve our efficiency, and more. If we’re running on little sleep, well, our brain power starts to dwindle and we’re producing mediocre work that ultimately can affect our client expectations and relationship.
We’ll say it again and a little louder: SLEEP IS NOT FOR THE WEAK.
HUSTLE. HUSTLE. HUSTLE.
I’m sure you’ve heard of Gary Vaynerchuk talk about the “hustle” and “grind” of what it means to run a business and truly build and scale one to the next level, how there were weeks where he slept 4hrs consecutively to build his empire!
I used to listen to his podcast consistently, on my drive to work, contemplating when I would quit and really start to build my business. I listened to him talk (very intensely) about hustling and grinding to make his dreams a reality, how he worked so immensely hard to create the lifestyle he now has, and how it could sometimes be draining – but he pushed on.
To be honest, his mantra of hustling and grinding late into the night gave me anxiety! I felt inadequate, like I wasn’t doing enough, and because of that my business would never succeed. I’ve had to learn that there are “stages in business” (just like stages in life) where you will have to hustle harder and get little sleep, to get to where you want to go next. I call those stages of business, the “growing pains”.
Now, listening to Gary Vaynerchuk talk about work/life balance and rest – I can see that he never meant WORK SO HARD UNTIL THE DAY YOU DIE, he was talking about grinding in the beginning to build a business and lifestyle that you love, and to be conscious of rest and family life.
Keep to yourself.
Entrepreneurship is lonely.
Business is lonely.
Lots of times, you’re sitting and wondering if other people struggle with the same things you are or if you’re the oddball! Keeping to yourself in business is like hiding in a bubble and creating your services and brand in a vacuum. (*Pro tip, if you do that, you’re not going to get very far!) Business is about the people (clearly, your clients), so by keeping to yourself, you’re creating something solely for yourself and in your mind.
GET TALKING.
PRO TIP: Don’t keep to yourself. Hop on calls with your ideal clients, your NON-IDEAL CLIENTS, and other brands! Want to chat with us? Let’s schedule a Coffee Chat to get to know each other & exchange stories.
Keep your head down.
My parents have been my biggest inspiration for entrepreneurship and business. They’re successful business owners who have owned their own businesses and then later merged the two, to create and scale another! One thing they taught me, that I don’t necessarily agree with all the time is to “keep your head down” and work.
I get it, keep your head down and work hard is necessary sometimes. If you’re always looking at other businesses, people, and chasing ideas – keeping your head down and focused will definitely help your business move forward. Since this phrase has been drilled in my head since I was a child, it sometimes means I don’t rest when I need to or look up and see how far I’ve come.
Since starting The Quirky Pineapple Studio, it’s become necessary to first, set my goals for the quarter and month and create the action steps to get there, then at the end of each month, tally up my progress and other opportunities that presented themselves.
Keeping my head down but intentionally setting aside time to review what’s happened in the past month, has helped me tweak my goals and ideas to be better!
Learn what we consider the 6 business basics for sustainable growth in our masterclass and receive a comprehensive list of our trusted tools and resources, as well as, your very own business plan template!
Quick fix = best results.
Holistically speaking, a quick fix for ANYTHING can never yield the best results, but they’re often advertised and promoted in businesses (I’d hope to think unintentionally)!
It’s a total pain in the butt to restart, revamp, or rework something from the ground-up because it is so painstakingly slow and requires a lot of work. We get it. We know how difficult it is because we’ve had to do the same with our website copy, the structure of our business, and even our backend project management system!
Many of the people we follow offer temporary quick fixes such as templates, quick audits, and lots of online courses to get you to jumpstart your business and marketing skills. I’m sure these are not intended to be seen as quick-fixes and rather long-term successes, but we can’t help but see the holes in them (and seeing the holes in some of our processes, too)!
Quick fixes don’t help you, your business, or your clients.
We much prefer sitting down and slowly (sometimes painfully) reworking our backend systems and processes to make sure we are efficient and productive with our time and that of our clients.
You can do it all alone!
This one is easy to get.
You CANNOT do it all alone. It really takes a team and some great people to support you, back you up, and cheer you one. Continue being your own cheerleader and get people to join in!
One thing we love investing in are masterminds. A small group of people, usually led by one person, with a common goal. Having a mastermind has totally pushed our business to the next levels and helped us not feel lonely.
Here’s one of our social media favorites, Jasmine Star, sharing about what a mastermind is!
READ: About our mastermind, Content-Driven Success Recap
Automation is cheating your clients.
To be fair, we never read anywhere that automation was cheating your clients into “human interaction”, this was a limiting belief that I held onto for quite a long time. I felt that automation and scheduled posting cheated my audience from MY time and who I was, with fake posts and inconsiderate captions.
WOW. Was I wrong.
Automation and scheduling has completely transformed the way The Quirky Pineapple Studio does social media, runs business, and handles onboarding and off-boarding tasks with clients. We thought we had to be present in all of the processes and tasks to make it “high-touch” and more human, but that definitely isn’t the case.
Automation has helped me to free up time to work on other important things, like package and service development, get on calls with potential leads, and have time to do normal day things for me!
LEARN TO PLAN & AUTOMATE YOUR CONTENT WITH THE TQP STUDIO EDITORIAL CALENDAR
Business planning is complicated
Business planning is not complicated (if you break it down).
Get our masterclass: ‘6 Business Basics for Sustainable Growth‘ and how you can set a strong foundation for your business from the beginning AND have the confidence to proudly announce you’re a business owner!
What’s complicated is:
- Honing in on your target audience
- Not getting distracted by shiny object syndrome
- Not trying to do #allthethings (and then end up doing nothing)
One of our business coaches told us that business is actually quite easy. It is creating an offer that your people ABSOLUTELY need (and know they need), and then offering it to them! It shouldn’t be any harder than that.
We tend to get carried away with all of the ideas we have, jumping from one thing to the next, and sometimes trying to serve too many people.
This is where messaging and branding come in (*hint hint*)! We can help you hone in on what it is you’re offering to get you in front of your people (the people who really want and need your services).
Everything needs to be perfect before launch.
This is called: PERFECTIONISM that leads to PROCRASTINATION.
Those two go hand-in-hand, although most people don’t realize it! Perfectionism in a perfect launch leads to creating but never publishing because you’re worried that it doesn’t look/sound good. Perfectionism is being too scared to share your business idea or offer, because you feel like it’s not fully developed. We see perfectionism in our clients’ content strategies, when they hoard their own content because they don’t have “enough” to be consistent.
Alright. We will be the first ones to tell you that consistency is key, but not when it holds you back from taking action.
When you share about a service, offer, your business, etc. before it’s ready, you’re able to get honest and real feedback from your audience to improve. If you never do that, you’re creating in a constant vacuum, your own mind!
*PRO TIP: You don’t need a website (in the beginning) to get clients! You can use social media to get visibility, test out your services, and receive client feedback to create your website. Launching with social media gives you the freedom to work with your audience to develop services they absolutely need. Thanks for the tip, Amanda Jane Copy!
Testing ideas is a waste of time.
If you’ve ever been told you shouldn’t “try a new idea” or “test” something with your audience, and then made to feel like sh*t about it…
We are so sorry that you had to deal with that.
We’re big “idea testers” and believe that testing is not a waste of time! Now, we aren’t saying chase after every idea that comes your way (that’s called *shiny object syndrome*), but we do think if the idea aligns with your business goals and can move your business forward, why not?
If we hadn’t tested out new ideas, we would have never created things like:
By testing all of those ideas, they’ve helped us create a new source of income, position ourselves as event marketing experts, and created a community and more visibility in our local area.
Here’s our secret to testing out new ideas, ones that can move your business forward besides trying to do it all:
Does it align with your “why”? Do you have time to plan, execute, and follow-up? What is the purpose of the new idea in the long-run? Learn how to manage ALL your new ideas & shiny object syndrome in our masterclass ‘Project Management for New Ideas, Collabs, and Services‘!
Boundaries can push your clients away.
Oh gosh, oh gosh. If we could shout this from the rooftops and in your faces, we would most definitely. But like, not in a violent way, just in a way to make you all understand that this statement right here is NOT TRUE!
Probably one of the biggest business myths we’ve debunked is that boundaries WILL NOT push clients away. If anything, they build trust, respect, and accountability on both sides of the relationship.
We’ve had our boundaries pushed and pulled because we weren’t clear on what was expected from our clients, or what they could expect from us. Now in our On-Boarding Packets, we list out all of our expectations from our clients, as well as, everything they can guarantee from us during our time working together!
Boundaries make our working relationship easy to manage and opens pathways to efficient communication, so that there is never “bad blood” or bad feelings. We want to make sure our client experience is top-notch and the only way to do that is by setting clear boundaries.
There can only be one best!
1st place is only reserved for one person, right? So that translates to there being only one best. The best at X, Y, Z. The best at 1, 2, 3.
When that ideology gets applied to business, it quickly creates imposter syndrome, comparison, and extremely unhealthy competition. If there can only be one best, it leads to:
- Hoarding secrets
- Scarcity mindset
- Jealousy
- and a whole slew of other not-healthy habits
Sure, in sports there can only be 1st place… but in business it is so relative (at least that’s what we’ve learned). There are multiple first places and multiple bests because each business can dominate a certain market, target audience, and set of people. We can’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but if we can be the BEST DAMN CUP OF TEA our absolute ideal audience loves, we’ve won!
Push through burnout.
The only thing we can say about this:
DON’T DO IT.
If you feel yourself on the verge of burnout, take a step back and analyze where the pressure is coming from. Also, it’s totally fine to take a step back completely and take time for yourself.
Don’t push through burnout.
It is hard making money.
In reality, it is not hard making money.
This business myth makes us think that making money is hard… but in actuality, businesses are created to solve a problem for their clients. If you’re having trouble making money there are a few factors that probably need to be taken into account:
- You’re not creating an offer that your audience actually needs
- Your offer is not geared towards the right crowd
- People don’t trust you enough (yet)
If you’re able to create an offer that solves an immediate problem for your ideal clients, and you offer it to them at the right time in their journey, it’s hard NOT to make money!
Being too personal will scare your clients.
We’re branding copywriters over here.
We love personality. We love sass. We love anything that shares your unique personality and voice. When we heard that people believed that being too personal (or vulnerable) online would scare their clients, we couldn’t believe it!
In today’s day and age, storytelling is taking over the digital marketing arena. We hear about storytelling in social media, storytelling in our website copy, storytelling in our content strategy.
Being personal helps our clients and audience relate to us on a HUMAN level, so that they’re more likely to trust us, our services, our business, and our work. They’re not here just to get what they want and be done with it… they want to get what they want, be done with it, but get what they want from a “friend”.
Share your personality online, in your marketing material, when you meet in-real life events! People love being able to connect on a personal level!
*PRO TIP: Be cautious though, that whatever you put on the Internet stays there forever. You can choose how much you want to share and what you don’t – but always be honest. Create a brand that aligns with you in our 100+ page workbook, Your Soulful Branding.
There is one way to run a successful business
False.
There are actually multiple ways to run a successful business and the way to find your own way is to figure out what your priorities are in your personal and professional life.
How do you want to leave a legacy with the work you do? How do you want people to remember your business? Start there and create a foundation around that.
Learn what success in business means to you and how to set the right foundation for sustainable growth in our masterclass ‘6 Business Basics for Sustainable Growth‘.
Social media is a waste of your time.
If you think social media is a waste of your time, we’re here to tell ya:
YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG!
Social media, no matter how many complaints and quips we have about it, has completely changed the way we do business.
Get our course ‘How to Create Content for Social Media’ for just $10 through this special link!
These platforms have made it possible to:
- Connect with people all over the world
- Sell your products online and through another app
- Broaden our reach
- Create personalized ads
- Build communities around platforms
- Educate
- and more!
If you’re struggling with social media, let’s chat about it because we’d love to help you. Send us a message with your idea, to get started!
You can do everything.
A common belief as a business owner (when we’re first starting) is we can do everything.
We’re the masterminds behind it all. We’re the people with the ideas. We’re the ones that know the ins and outs of our business baby… how could we possibly hand it over to someone else!
That, unfortunately, leads us to burnout and to stalling our own business growth. If you want your business to grow (and if you don’t, that’s ok, too), then there are more moving parts… there are more tasks, projects, people, etc.
Asking for help is the best notion to help keep the business momentum going. We can’t do everything!
Copywriting is easy and can be done myself.
Oh, oh, oh. We’re not biased or anything (hehe), but copywriting is not easy (or everyone would be doing it)! Writing engaging and captivating copy that is heartfelt and hits your audience where it needs to, takes:
- Strategy
- Thought
- Emotion
We hate to break it to you but not everyone is a great writer! We do want to help you write better copy though – copy that carries a clear message, shares your offers, and connects wholeheartedly with your clients. Here’s how to start writing better copy for your website:
- Get clear on your message – what is it you offer?
- Who are you talking to? What do they struggle with?
- Figure out your “branded word bank” to add your personality to your copy and help you stand out!
Want to learn to write captivating website copy that actually converts? Check out our course on Skillshare and receive 2 FREE months of Skillshare premium!
Start there and see where it takes ya!
Wrote your own website copy but don’t feel confident about it? We can help you with a Website Copy Audit! Send us a message if you’re interested!
Always listen to the gurus.
Sure, the gurus have invested lots of money and time into their craft, we won’t deny that.
They are also experts in their niche and subject area. That’s not a lie, either!
But if you were to ALWAYS listen to the gurus, you’re putting your power in their hands besides doing research and understanding what makes your business work or not. Listen to the gurus, but take it with a grain of salt.
Results can vary for so many people because of many factors. Take what the gurus say and apply it to YOUR business, adapt it to YOUR business, and test it with YOUR audience. Our advice, is TWEAK IT.
Profit first, relationships later.
Our businesses wouldn’t be anything without the relationships we build.
We wouldn’t have our clients, our partners, our collaborators, and the fans!! If we were to solely focus on profiting (first), we’d be selling all the time to our audience without asking for their feedback and opinion. Without their input, what would business actually be?
A relationship between an audience, fans, followers, clients, whomever creates a unique situation for trust. Of course, making money is important, but having relationships with clients and your audience members keep them coming back and rooting for you!
The client is always right.
So we know that people ALWAYS say that the client is “always” right, but…
We don’t necessarily believe that a client is always right. Is that bad?
In our branding and messaging work, we go off of what our clients tell us in our branding questionnaire. We read through their answers and sift through what their message sounds like between explanations, ramblings, and confessions. If a client says they want something a certain way, we respect that.
But, if we’re reading a branding questionnaire and something doesn’t match, we’re here to give an encouraging nudge and a bit of tough love to guide you. Sure, you can listen to us or not, but we want to be honest with our clients – always.
Get rich, quick!
Do we need to explain this one?
Business is about creating sustainability and learning along the journey. Growing, expanding, pivoting, and making positive changes.
Get rich quick schemes just aren’t sustainable in our eyes. Sure, making a quick buck here and there is great but in the content marketing game, we’re playing for the long-run and not a quick sale.
Remember what we said about creating relationships before the profit? Yeah, this get rich, quick, mentality just isn’t our cup of tea. If it’s yours, WE ARE CHEERING FOR YA!
Make 6-figures in 6-months!
Similar to the previous myth… we’ve seen so many Facebook Ads advertise to us that they can help you make 6-figures in 6-months!
We’re not doubting the people that did that but a few thoughts cross our mind when we read about making 6-figures in 6-months:
- What does the backend of their business look like?
- If we DID make 6-figures in 6-months, is our business infrastructure set up to handle that amount of volume or work?
- How long was this person in business before they were able to make 6-figures in 6-months?
Get critical, y’all! We debunked this business myth from day one, that if we were able to bring in 6-figures in 6-months we want to have our systems in place, processes rolled out, and a team on-hand to make sure we can scale to that capacity, quickly and efficiently.
SHOP: TQP Studio masterclass – ‘6 Business Basics for Sustainable Growth‘.
The “overnight success”.
We’re sure you’ve read about the “overnight success”.
The most common business myth out there is when you see someone’s successes and believe that they got their “instantaneously”, without really taking in consideration the amount of time it took them to get there.
This business myth is easy to debunk. You’re on your own business journey, we’re on our own journey, too – we could never compare where we are to one another because of all the factors and behind-the-scenes that we don’t always see!
Yeah, that overnight success mumbo-jumbo… keep telling yourself that!
From our friends at Vivรญ Marketing, there is no magic button that speeds up business or entrepreneurship. We all go through steps at our own time.
Business is everything.
THE LAST BUSINESS MYTH AND ONE WE JUST RECENTLY DEBUNKED:
Business is everything.
Correction, business is NOT everything. As entrepreneurs, small business owners, CEOs, or Founders… business is a great activity that brings in revenue, profit, provides for our lives… but business isn’t everything. It’s important, sure, but we are other people outside of those labels.
We believe that business needs to be aligned with our lifestyle goals, especially as entrepreneurs and business owners.
*PRO TIP: Think about your branding & messaging, what’s the type of lifestyle you want your brand to portray and what’s the lifestyle your clients want? Start there. We go over this concept in our masterclass ‘6 Business Basics for Sustainable Growth’!
Alright, this monstrous post has lots of opinions, advice, and more… but we want to hear from you.
What are the biggest business myths you’ve debunked yourself?
What lessons have you learned in entrepreneurship and running a business?
Share with us in the comments below!
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