This message is for every entrepreneur and small business owner: You are going to come across plenty of naysayers, doubters, and haters. There will likely be more people telling you all the ways you will fail than there will be people hoping for, praying for, and supporting your success. Do it anyways!
🔆 KNOW YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE. I have had people tell me that I shouldn’t charge more than $10 for my programs because that’s what the “drop-in craft” places charge. Don’t listen to people who try to devalue you. (*I offer exceedingly more value and my target market is not people looking for rollback prices on a Walmart craft.)
🔆 DON’T LET OTHER PEOPLE DEFINE YOUR WORTH. I have had people tell me I shouldn’t be teaching art classes because I am not a “classically trained, real artist” (to which I reply: Frida Kahlo). I actually take tremendous pride in being a self-taught artist and entrepreneur. I chose my own path. No official school curriculum was going to be able to show me how to teach what I teach—I am unique in the marketplace. Don’t listen to the people who tell you you aren’t good enough or act like a fancy piece of paper makes you more passionate and qualified. (*Plus, NOBODY gets to decide my worth but me. I am the captain of my ship.)
🔆 BE ENTREPRENEURIAL AND BE YOURSELF. Entrepreneurs disrupt the status quo, they offer solutions for problems, they blaze trails. Do that and more. Strike a nerve when you have to, and take negative feedback as a sign that you are on to something BIG. Put a bit of yourself in everything you do…there is only ONE you—make yourself known.
🔆HATERS GONNA HATE. Just yesterday alone, I had multiple thumb warriors yelling at me on social media. Within two hours on two different social media platforms, I was called ‘despicable’ and a ‘cupcake’ (which is what men sometimes say when they are wanting to be condescending and assert their fragile masculinity). None of that is going to stop me in my tracks. The bigger you get, the harder they try to whack at your shins. (*Name calling = insecurity. Don’t let the haters bring you down.)
🔆 RULE OF THUMB: I have developed a good rule of thumb and I want to share it here with you today. I only place value on feedback from people who have either done what I am doing or have reached a level of success that I am hoping to achieve. For example: the “you should only charge $10 person” was a floundering business owner who spent the majority of the time pilfering other people’s business models because they had no original thought or business identity of their own—not someone in a great position to tell me how I should take my business to the next level. Join a mastermind, find your tribe, listen to your gut, and don’t let the people who haven’t achieved what you want to achieve bring you down. I am rooting for you!! <3
Dream big dreams and do all things with love,
Jenn