What I Learned About Entrepreneurship From 'Clipless Pedals'

Last weekend I taught myself how to ride my bike with clip pedals (or “clipless” pedals… which are clip pedals?)

I have not been so proud of anything I’ve done since I birthed my baby in October. Seriously. I have been active in cycling and triathlon since 2016, and I could never bring myself to go for clipping in It just too scary. But I finally COMMITTED. 

And I realized: achieving a goal is not about trying and getting it right the first time. Or the fifth time. It’s about marshaling all your resources, all your experience, and… leaping. If you’re in business for yourself, this may sound familiar. 

So let me take you through how I went from paralyzed with fear to competent in a weekend.

Saturday I get into my driveway, with all the nerdy cycling gear on—the bib, the fun socks the gloves and of course the clip shoes, and I just FREEZE.  I just panicked. 

Like, I just couldn’t even bring myself to clip in and push off for a solid 5 minutes. Somehow I finally willed myself to ride around the cul de sac and I fell 3 times. And i was like, “Oh,  I can’t do this. I give up. I want my old pedals.” But I just couldn’t bring myself to go back inside because the sitter was there! How embarrassing! So, I finally headed off. 

I was out for 2 hours. It was terrible. Like, every single minute. I alternated between 1 hour cycling. 1 hour not cycling and staring at my bike and flipping the eff out.

But here’s where a glimmer of hope came in: everything I do in my business to will myself to take a risk, I did on this bike ride and it helped me ride for that 1 hour. During one of my freakouts on the sidewalk, I set a SMART goal, lol. I said, “I’m gonna do 5 laps on this street and if I still hate it, I will stop and that will be it for the day.” At lap 3, I really wanted to quit, but I was like, “Maggie, you said 5. How are you going to tell this story later if you don’t complete 5?” 

I did the 5 laps, which was about 12 miles, and then I was like, “Ok, no really. I still hate it.” And I “gave myself grace” as the church folks say, and I stopped. I went to Starbucks. I rode shakily home. I got off the bike and I said, “I don’t know if I’m ever going to do that again.” 

Next day (Sunday) I think about trying again all day long. Finally at 4 pm my husband is like, “Didn’t you say you were gonna prac-” I’m like GET OFF MY BACK YOU MONSTER!!!

And then I put those shoes on and got back out there. I was still shaky at first, but no falling. I rode for just about 30 minutes, (same street, no traffic lights.) and at the end I was said to myself, “I’m doing this. It’s just a mind game now bc my body gets how to clip in and out and I’m not wobbly anymore.” 

So, a little better. Monday I set my alarm for 5:30 because I want to practice again. 5:30 comes and the first thing in my head is 

“NO. NONONONONO. N. O.”

Well I may not have much clip pedal experience but I have plenty of practice getting up early. So I swigged the coffee. I got the shoes on.  

I clipped in the driveway and I just. WENT. No hesitation. I started to visualize my first tri race (hoping to do one in August) and how much better my bike time will be because I’m riding with these pedals.)  I visualized actually keeping up with my husband on a  group ride. And then I thought about how my husband told me the night before how he was proud of me. 

How he told me if it hadn’t been for me taking up triathlon a couple of years ago, he’d never have started cycling in the first place (he now regularly bikes 100 miles a week.) How I used to worry he might have a heart attack in 10 years bc he ate like shit and never exercised, and I don’t worry about his health anymore, and it’s actually because HE was inspired by ME. ME! The person who always got picked last! 

At this point I turn right instead of left and I get on a street with traffic lights, you guys! Traffic lights! And I practiced for half an hour, unclipping and clipping with _relative_ ease. I realized, “this was 3 hours, just THREE TINY HOURS OF MY LIFE devoted to practicing over 3 days total and look how much better I am. OMG I’m so glad I didn’t quit!” 

And here’s what I learned in those three hours about how to overcome my fear and take a risk. This is what worked for me: 

• I can look at the big picture (I want to do a triathlon in August!) but what really got me there was setting MICROgoals. Saying to myself, 

“I just have to make it to that stop sign.” 

“I just have to make it to that flower bush.” 

“I just have to make it to the end of the street.” 

That’s what kept me going when I wanted to stop. It’s great to keep your eyes on the big prize, but for me, whenever I wasn't sure it was possible, it helped to have microgoals. 

• It helped to have skin in the game. I spent $150 on the pedals and the shoes and another $60 on the sitter. Yes, I could have quit, but beyond feeling foolish, I would have felt like I had invested that money without really giving it a try. 

• It is OK to slow way the hell down. To almost stop. As long as I was doing something—ANYTHING—to continue. 

• I couldn’t force myself to stop telling myself I couldn’t do it or to stop being scared. But I could pepper in positive self-talk, even if it was stilted. Even if I didn’t believe it. 

• When doing something risky and new, it helped me to draw on all my past experiences of doing crazy, scary new things. I have done more crazy, scary new things in the past 4 years than at any other point in my life and I think it really helped me not to give up. 

So there you have it. Dying to know what you think. Have you tried those "damn clipless clippy pedal things," as my friend David calls them? :D Have you had another experience like this? Brag about it in the comments!

3 Things to Try if Your Sales Funnel Is Failing

If you've set up a sales funnel and it's just not working, what do you do? 

First, take a breath. Most people don't get perfect results the first time around. But you might feel paralyzed around where to start tinkering. I have some ideas. Have you tried any of these? 

A Rebuttal to "How stay-at-home moms hurt gender equality"

So, I had problems with this article. 

The first part of this author's argument is the easiest part to unravel.

I get the challenges. I appreciate very much that childcare is prohibitively expensive. 

If she "gets" that childcare is "prohibitively expensive," then why doesn't she "get" that lack of access to affordable childcare prohibits one parent in the home from working? 

That had me going hmmm pretty early on. Still, it's true that in the vaaaaast majority of cases, if a heterosexual couple has children, and decides that one parent should stay home because childcare is too expensive, it's the female parent who stays home. (Not always.)

So what's that about? 

Well, check out this Pew study, that Sarah Lacy cites in her new book, The Uterus Is a Feature, Not a Bug.  Sixty percent of men and women believe that children are better off when a parent stays home. Bonkers: 

A majority of those surveyed believe that kids are worse off if a kid doesn't have one of their parents at home. Again... what's that about? 

Well, look what I spotted in the sidebar on this Pew study page: 

So where does that leave me in my rebuttal? Well, if we live in a country where 15% of those surveyed think that fathers should take NO paternity leave. And 60% think that it's better if one parent (I wonder which one that is) stays at home, then... 

In a society where these are the norms, how the heck is it the fault of these individual women for deciding to stay at home? What if we were to address the following issues: 

• Why do so many people think children are worse off if both parents work? 

• Why do so few people place a monetary value on the labor associated with taking care of kids and managing the household?

And here's another assumption that crumbles upon examination: if you stay home, that means you're not working.

As a matter of fact, beyond the fact that our society undervalues domestic labor, here's another kicker: a lot of stay-at-home moms do work that earns money. Some of them do it at home; some of them work part-time outside the home on nights and weekends. I even know few who make more revenue than I do, but hey continue to call themselves SAHMs.

This author never mentions this large, and growing group of women. It's as though they don't exist. (There are 25,000 women who are members of the Boss-Moms Facebook group. If you spend more than 5 minutes in this group, you'll see many of these women earn while taking care of their kids as well.)

But I think what Johnson is saying that women shouldn't just work/earn--they should do it the way they did it when they were childless. Otherwise, they're hurting feminism. 

So does the problem lie with women who reject the notion that they have to work the way they worked before? Or does it lie with a society that dismisses any work that doesn't look like:

•  completely leaving the domestic realm to enter a public realm

• staying in that public realm continuously  from 9 to 5

•  and then re-entering a private, domestic realm in the evening? 

Guess what? No one needs to do this anymore. Not only do moms not need to do it, but neither do dads, or childless people. Because of a confluence of technology, the changing nature of white collar jobs, we don't need to go to an office, start work at 9 and be away all day. 

I don't call myself a stay-at-home mom. I work, and while I work, someone else takes care of my children. But I work from home (about half the time).

I quit my 9-to-5 office job for lots of reasons. I actually worked 100% remotely, but my job was 9-to-5. 9-to-5 jobs are predicated on the schedule of a single, childless person. You have to get to work at a certain time, be there for the entire time (even through lunch for the most part) and then leave at a certain time. This is the case whether you have a huge amount of work to do, or very little to do. 

WHY? This schedule has exactly ZERO to do with real life. And it's got less than zero to do with real life after kids. Kids get sick. Kids dress up like Cat Boy and march in Purim parades at 9:30 a.m. 

Kids get sick. (I said that one already.)  

But acknowledging this reality is just so rare. I've heard of one consultancy, August, which is focused on trying to change that, but that's only for the companies who opt in by paying August to help them. 

So, we have to urge on organizations like this, too. If we want to see workplace policies change, we have to point out how workplace realities are already changing, whether or not traditional workplaces want to keep up. 

Not only that, but these categories: "stay home" vs. "work outside the home" have much less meaning than they did even 5 years ago, before 100% remote work became commonplace. 

As women at this moment of technological innovation and renewed commitment to the equal value of women and men, we have an opportunity to create a new vocabulary for a whole spectrum of work that we do.

And isn't that a more fun and energizing blog post to write?

3 Principles to Take Your Blog From Side Hustle to Supporting You--and Your Family

In my day-in, day-out work with bloggers, these are the principles that I've seen work no matter what "niche" the blogger's targeting. Once I realized just what the commonalities were, I decided to talk them through on video. Are you doing some or any of these things? Let me know! 

Are you giving up on marketing tactics too soon... or not soon enough?

When I chat with clients, potential clients, and fellow solopreneurs for long enough, eventually I stumble on a pattern in the issues they have with marketing.

Here's one I've been hearing about: "Shiny Object Syndrome." 

Shiny objects--I'll admit! They're distracting. 

I think this means that the person has trouble executing one new idea from start to finish because they get distracted by another great idea. This happens all the time in marketing--

• "Should I install a pop-up on my site?" 

• "Or should I re-do my site homepage first?" 

• "Or maybe I need to re-do my lead magnet so I can collect more email addresses." 

• "But I should also probably be reaching out to those new email subscribers with an amazing autoresponder where they get to know me???"

• "And meanwhile, ugghh, I haven't posted to my Facebook page in weeks!" 

And on and on. Sidebar: It reminds me of how I'll take "5 minutes" to unload the laundry from the dryer and half an hour later I'm late for wherever I was going or exhausted because on my way to laundry room I noticed that the dishwasher also needed unloading, and while I was unloading that I noticed how grimy the backsplash looked behind the sink, and then I noticed that actually the sink could use a deep-clean...

STOP. 

You may have all kinds of reasons for having shiny object syndrome. Maybe you LIKE juggling lots of tasks in your business. Maybe you just don't want to miss out. But here's the issue with SOS: 

“Unless you are tracking results of each new marketing tactic, you don’t know whether it’s working. ”

And if you implement a dozen tactics at once without coming up with a way to measure each one, I guarantee you, you will be wasting time.

I know you--you love trying and testing new things! That's why you run your own business and don't work for someone else. That's why I do it. You get to try whatever you want! But I bet as a business person, you also like making sales. And prioritizing your time to do the things that will make you the most money. Anyway, I'm not telling you to ignore the next shiny object or great idea. 

I'm telling you to include a way to measure results in with trying the next big strategy.

So, how do you decide what to measure? Well, each new tactic should be tied to one of these things: 

• Getting new leads

• Deepening your relationship with your leads

• Getting more sales

Before you decide to try a new shiny object, figure out what the shiny object is supposed to help you do, and then measure that.

Take Instagram. It's my new favorite topic. :) Let's say you find out about a new strategy for choosing your Instagram post hashtags. (This is actually a true story that happened to me when I talked to the great Talia Koren of @workweeklunch on Instagram.)  

What does having a good Instagram hashtag strategy help you do? It helps you get found by people to whom your content (and therefore your content and products) are relevant. So if you apply this new, more time-consuming hashtag strategy, you need to start seeing results. Results can be: 

• More real people (not bot) followers that you're starting conversations with on Instagram by commenting on their photos or DMing. 

• More people clicking the link in your Instagram profile (you can track this through Google Analytics.) If you're really far along, that link takes people to your lead magnet so that you can capture their email addresses as well. 

This is different from just posting on Instagram so that people (whoever, you don't know) randomly know that you exist. You can't measure whether random people know you exist AND you can't turn random people into contacts who then become customers or referrers down the line.

What do you think? Are you falling victim to shiny object syndrome too often? Do you think having a plan to measure the impact of tactics can help you? Do you have questions about how to do it? Let me know in the comments. 

The Big Time-Management De-Railer (It's Not Procrastination)

Here's how I approach time-management on a bad day: 

1. Write out a detailed schedule for a few days

2. Stick religiously to the schedule for a few days

3. Have a day where I don't stick to the schedule 

4. Beat myself up at the end of the day for not sticking to it. 

5. Feel overwhelmed. Give up on all schedules forever. Procrastinate.

Does this sound familiar?

It started to get really familiar to me when I started my business. And I realized that it wasn't the first time I'd played out this self-defeating sequence--I've done it before with dieting. 

I'm a woman, which means I've been on a diet. I've been on several. 

But I haven't been on one in years--I can't remember when. I didn't diet for my wedding, and I didn't diet after I had my son. But I lost weight for both. How much? I don't know. Because I stopped participating in diet culture, so I stopped weighing myself.

One day, after years of struggling with the tangle of food, my looks, and my self-worth, I realized something: dieting is about "being good." Every diet is a regimen, that means, there are things you can eat and things you're not allowed to eat. If you do calorie restriction, you can eat, but only up to a certain number of calories. Exceed that number, and you've "broken" the diet. Same with Weight Watchers and their points. Same with Atkins, and Whole 30, both "elimination" diets. Certain types of foods are off-limits. 

It's like playing "Operation." If you eat those restricted foods, you lose. You're bad. If you have self-esteem, then approaching food this way really becomes a problem. How can you feel good about yourself when you know you are repeatedly doing something bad?

What I realized was I just didn't have the brain space to keep up with how many ways I was good or bad vis-a-vis food. So, I stopped. And nothing happened. Did I gain or lose weight? Not sure, because I stopped weighing myself, too. 

But you know what I also stopped doing? Feeling bad based on an external rule that had nothing to do with my self-worth. 

Which brings me back to... time-management! Since I've started to work for myself, scheduling has become a mindset. I still schedule my days. In fact, I schedule a whole week. I block off all my work time, but I do things like creating time blocks for doing nothing, or TBA time blocks that I can use how I wish when I get to them. 

I make sure everything I want or need to work on that week gets accounted for, but this schedule serves me now. It reminds me of the major goals I had for a particular day or week. I don't serve the schedule anymore. I don't approach it by saying, "I have to stick to this and if I don't stick to it I did a bad job and I should feel bad." 

This is also something I wrote on Instagram recently: on days where I feel like I really ran off the rails and didn't accomplish anything, or I'm not sure what I accomplished, I end the day with an "I-DID" list (instead of "TO-DO" list). You can read about it in my post: 

Who needs a little? ?????????? Listen, July can be a slow month for all kinds of reasons. And a slow month can make you feel tired, especially when you own your own business and you're only accountable to you. ?????????? One thing that has really helped me boost energy is to create a I DID list (not a TO-DO list) and write down and cross off all the things I have actually accomplished. Fed my child ✅ Delivered him to school ✅ Reached out to that person I've been meaning to email forever ✅ Wrote a blog post ✅ ?????????? Don't underestimate the motivating power of a list of things you've done! If you try it, let me know what you think!

A post shared by Maggie Frank-Hsu (@blogstoriches) on Jul 20, 2017 at 2:02pm PDT

I'm starting realize time-management works best for me when I don't approach it as all or nothing, good or bad. Some days, you take 1 step forward when you meant to take 3. But you still take a step. 

What Is the Difference Between Freelancing and Owning Your Own Business? Here's What It Was for Me.

This question came up recently when I was chatting with a group of virtual co-workers. 

Yes, I joined a great group of people who are all starting their own businesses and are at a similar point in their businesses as me. 

Which is to say, some of them aren't sure whether to call their work "freelancing," "consulting," or "a business." 

When I quit my job in October 2015, I thought I would be "freelancing." Or "consulting." But now I know I run my own business.

But it's not because I have employees. I don't, (although I do sub-contract some work).

And it's not because my business has a name or a separate bank account.

Here's why I think I am running a business, rather than freelancing:  

1. I create. Sure, I do work for my clients. But I have also created a program from scratch, that is designed to solve a particular problem for my ideal client. (Increase revenue for bloggers.)

And I realized that that is creative! I have created something unique in the marketplace. Which brings me to no. 2... 

2. I responded to a need in the market. When I first "went out on my own," I did it because I wanted things for myself--a flexible schedule, the ability to choose whom I worked for. But after about a year, I realized that I needed to offer something that was missing in the market for my ideal client. What is she not able to do that she wants to be able to do, but she doesn't know how and no one is offering help? 

... The need I responded to, that my ideal clients ask about: "How do I create a consistent, steady stream of leads to her online products?" So that, whether or not she's doing a launch, has a new product, has a certain article or promotional piece that goes viral, she has her steady baseline of leads that convert at about the same rate, month after month, so that she's got a base of revenue she can count on.

Sure, A LOT of people have systems and ways for making money, but no one makes quite the same offer to quite this exact client. 

Once I could see my service as a product, something that served a need, I knew I wasn't freelancing anymore. 

And that's when I started telling people I run a business. 

So what do you think? Am I way off base? Do you agree? Let me know. 

What Is the Worst Thing Entrepreneurs Have in Common?

... I'll give you a hint. 

A post shared by Katie (@bankygirlcreations) on Jun 22, 2017 at 5:55pm PDT

Are you working day and night? Do you want this to change? ...

OK, first, I want to say--sometimes you just work a lot, and this can be a season in your life and in your business. A former client of mine, Stephanie O'Dea, who runs the Year of Slow Cooking newsletter, told me that in her first year of blogging, she worked in the middle of the night so she could get stuff done. It wasn't easy, but she also emphasized it didn't last forever. 

And one of my clients, Becky of Cleanmama.net, started her blog while working full time. She worked day and night until 2013, when she quit to focus on the blog. Now she just works all day. :) 

They both inspire me because they've both built successful businesses by focusing and working hard. 

But what if you're working hard and you don't really see and end in sight? And you're not OK with that? I have a couple of ideas.  

1. Stop saying "I can relax when..."

I do this a lot. I think to myself, "When X happens, then I'll know that I've made it and I can give myself a break." Then I achieve X, and I a few weeks later, the confidence that comes with reaching that milestone has evaporated. I'm a mess--as unsure of myself as ever. 

I've heard from a lot of entrepreneurs who've been at it longer and have reached higher heights than I: this feeling never really goes away. Another old client, Beth Anne of Brilliant Business Moms, just talked about this on her podcast. 

A post shared by Beth Anne - Etsy + Blogging (@brilliantbizmom) on Jun 29, 2017 at 8:12am PDT

And I happened to see a post from Jon Loomer, on vacation, admitting he felt guilty for not working. Jon Loomer! Successful online entrepreneur!

Don't wait for some future state to give yourself a break. Because future you will still have moments of self-doubt. 

2. Have you thought about setting business hours? 

I know this is sacrilege for some online entrepreneurs. What about the whole flexible, I-work-when-I-want thing. 

I think it's garbage. If you worked when you wanted, you'd work all the time. Do you remember moments in college when you constantly felt schoolwork hanging over your head? I always had reading or writing that I "should" have been doing but wasn't. I hate this feeling. That's why I work 10 to 5, Mon-Fri, with very few exceptions. And then I stop. It will be there tomorrow.

They don't have to "conventional" business hours. Stephanie picked hours she stuck with. They were in the middle of the night, but they were consistent. Then, during the day, she was free to do the other things she wanted and needed to do without feeling guilty that she "should" be working. 

2a. The case for "putting your face on."

I put my contacts in, put makeup, and wear comfortable clothes during my business hours, but I don't wear yoga pants or my PJs when I'm working. Especially when I'm working from home. I know a lot of people relish not having to spend time on a getting-ready routine, and I admit some days I set it aside if I don't have time. But "putting my face on" helps me set a border around my work life that I wouldn't have otherwise, since I mostly work from my house. Which, if you're keeping track, is the same place I sleep. I don't know about you, but it helps to think of as many strategies as possible to keep those two things separate. 

Do you think you work too much? Does it worry you--or do you like it? 

A Simple Tip for Tracking Your Sales

Are you selling anything online? If you are, did you know you can hook up "E-Commerce" in Google Analytics with just a few clicks? 

It is so easy that I'm surprised by how few people do it. Maybe it doesn't seem all that necessary. After all, you can tell how many sales you made just by looking at the data within your website or Shopify store, or whatever else you're using to sell. 

You can tell how many people bought from you via your Instagram profile link, for example.

:0

You can also tell which pins resulted in sales. 

How do you enable it? Toggle the OFF switch to ON. Really. Here's how to get to the OFF/ON switch. 

The Best Session I Attended at #SMMW17

“We know that 50% of content shared on social gets ZERO shares. So why should you keep sharing on social media when most of the content goes nowhere? ”

My favorite lecture this year by far was "Hacking Facebook Ads: How 50 Dollars Can Drive Enormous Traffic to Your Best Content," by Larry Kim. 

Larry was introduced as the founder of Wordstream, a company of 225 employees that manages $1 billion of ad spend spread among 10,000 clients. (He has since moved on to found Mobile Monkey.) 

He sounded like a smart guy, and he was. 

What I loved about his approach was the intensity: he had something different to say, and he was going to spit it out. But his ability to share the concepts clearly and make them understandable made his talk very powerful. 

And what he had to say: we know that 50% of content shared on social gets ZERO shares. Organic social media reach and engagement are terrible, and paid search costs a lot. 

These are some of the most common complaints I hear from clients: "Why should I keep sharing on social media when most of my content goes nowhere?" 

In response, I've heard gurus point out that sharing good content consistently is absolutely crucial. You must keep going, to develop your reputation as an authority, to get your message "out there," to continue to allow for the possibility that the right people will see you at the right time.

Conventional wisdom. Larry is not a fan. "Social media marketing does feel a little bit like a suicide mission," was an actual thing he said. 

Larry's reasoning for sharing content consistently motivates me, because it's a reason that can make a crucial difference in your business. His point: use social media ads to promote pieces of content that you've shared organically that have performed well above average for you. Posts that you could classify as "viral" relative to the average performance of your content. 

This is the reason to continue to share content consistently: to have a baseline for engagement and clicks. That way, when a piece of content really outshines that baseline--goes viral relative to your other content--you know you can promote it cheaply on Facebook and Twitter. 

No one else at Social Media Marketing World share this concept this year in this way, and it knocked my socks off. 

He called these posts that are viral relative to your average content "unicorns." The other stuff he called "donkeys." 

Image via http://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2017/03/15/quality-content-defined?utm_content=bufferf7406&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Read a deep-dive into this concept here. What do you think about this idea for choosing the content you boost with Facebook ad $$?