3 Things Every Female Entrepreneur Wishes She Knew

Written By Francie Hinrichsen

This blog post walks you through three lessons from a seasoned entrepreneur on saving time, building your specialty, and kicking perfectionism to the curb.

Tips for female entrepreneurs

There are three things I wish I would have known when I started my business. If I had, I could have focused my energy and resources into action that would have made a bigger impact, faster.

If I could’ve known some of the things I’ve learned ahead of time I’d save so much time and energy. Other female entrepreneurs shared their lessons learned with me, and I want to do the same for you.

  1. Outsource 

Girl, you CANNOT do it all. You dilute your value when you try to be the master at everything.

“No one can do it like me so I’ll just do it myself” syndrome is hurting your business mindset. You cannot grow your business into an asset without growing a team behind you.

There are a lot of things you’re good at, but that doesn’t mean you should take them all on yourself. 

Focusing your limited time on $10/hour tasks keeps you from making bigger strides in your business with $100/hour tasks. You won’t grow the company on your heart until you can learn to delegate $10/hour tasks.

An incredible business mind, Dan Martell says it best: “80% done by someone else is 100% freakin’ awesome.”

How to figure out what to outsource

First, think about your specialty. Your specialty is the value you add to your business that would be really hard to duplicate by someone else. Your goal is to become a specialist, not a generalist. By doing everything yourself, you turn yourself into a generalist.

Your specialty might be relationship building, designing concepts, sales execution, or performing the actual service work.

These are responsibilities within your business you want to focus more time on. And, these are tasks that likely add a competitive advantage to your business. A mistake many female entrepreneurs make is outsourcing specialty tasks to free themselves up to handle the admin work - totally backward, right?

Bottom line: Do what you do best and that makes you the most money, then outsource the rest.

Next, take some time to brainstorm what you would like to outsource. Consider what sucks most of your time or energy.

Some people might advise not to outsource anything that would cost more than to do it yourself, but I don’t agree with that. Just because you could figure it out yourself, doesn’t mean you should. After all, as a business owner, it took a ton of research to start your company - you figured it out. Snaps!

At this point, growing into the next level requires a mindset shift from “figure outer” to “specialist.” Think about the time it would take to learn a skill…unless you want to become a specialist in that skill and begin offering that value to others, it’s best to let a specialist handle it.

For example, when I self-published Dream, Build, Grow: A Female’s Step-by-Step Guide for How to Start a Business, I hired a full-service company who specialized in exactly that. Could I figure it out? Yes, but I didn’t want to become a specialist in the process, and the value I add to my business was elsewhere.

Examples of tasks you might consider outsourcing may be:

  • email management

  • appointment scheduling

  • bookkeeping

  • marketing

  • cold prospect outreach, and

  • content creation

Outsourcing the big stuff

Your team of experts (I detailed who you should include and how to interview each extensively in Dream, Build, Grow: A Female’s Step-by-Step Guide for How to Start a Business) are people outside your business who you turn to to guide you in their area of expertise, like a lawyer, marketing expert, or attorney. People whose expertise you don’t have to have yourself in order to run a successful business.

Don’t forget about tasks inside the home too that might allow you a few more precious hours to focus on your speciality. Those tasks could include house cleaning, laundry, or grocery shopping.
Bottom line: Taking everything on yourself is not the best use of your time, even if you can technically handle the task. That only leads to entrepreneur burnout. Develop your team of experts and lean into their expertise!

2. Quit perfectionism by focusing only on what gets results

You CAN do it. Take the leap and go! Be okay with B+ level work for most of the tasks in your business because striving for perfectionism is costing you money.

Yes, there are a few defined things that should get your full effort and attention, but for most tasks in running a business, B+ is good enough to create great results.

This is definitely one point I detailed in 9 Mistakes Entrepreneurs make and How to Avoid Them because perfectionism also steals your time, energy, and joy. Learn how to ditch perfectionism for action because it’s action in business that moves the needle most. 

Our family motto was “C’s get degrees” and while thinking of getting a C in anything besides Economics 101 gives me heart palpitations, there’s some truth to the point - sometimes checking the box really is all that matters.

Ever heard of the law of diminishing returns? It’s the theory that adding an additional unit of production (say, one more hour polishing your blog post to perfection) results in smaller increases in output.

Simply put, the additional time you put in beyond “checking the box” is not worth what you get out. That’s the epitome of perfectionism. It’s a waste of your time and talent and will suck the life and confidence out of you as a business owner.

The sooner you start your business, offer, or services, the sooner you can reach your audience and begin growing a viable business. (By the way, find tons of these expert entrepreneur insider tips in my recently published “how to start a business” book for females.)

3. Invest in yourself and your brand

Whether you invest time and money into a course, a coach, or join a community (make sure to join our Founding Females Startup Community), you will not regret it. As stated in #1, just make sure the investment allows you to propel your specialty forward.

I just read a quote from James Clear that said:

“If you want a significant change in your results, then you probably need a significant change in your strategy. Working harder on your current strategy is unlikely to move the needle. Before you work harder, work on the right thing. Play better games. Win better prizes.”

Well-researched investments back into your business and brand do exactly that - they help you to continually refine your strategy for better and better results. 

The course can teach you new knowledge about a task, but it can also teach you someone else’s process for running their business so you can apply lessons learned to yours (after all, you became a customer of theirs, right?).

A coach can help pinpoint blindspots you wouldn’t otherwise see yourself. The community can uplift and pour knowledge and experience into you as your business ebbs and flows.

When we choose to invest in ourselves and brand, good results can come from that. When it comes to entrepreneurship there is so much to learn, so why not have some support involved!?  

I hope you can take these three tips and run with them to save yourself time and energy while you are working to build the entrepreneurial life you love waking up to! 

Are there experiences you’ve already gone through and learned from? I’d love to hear and cheer you on as you continue chasing your dreams! 

Cheers, fellow Founding Female!

XX,

 

P.S. Here are some of my top favorite female small business resources:

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Meet Francie Hinrichsen

Francie Hinrichsen the owner of Founding Females and a SEO and conversion rate optimization services business called Simply Integrated. She is a business sage empowering female entrepreneurs to breathe life into the business dreams God called them to.

After feeling like a misfit in the corporate world, Francie discovered a life she loved waking up to through business ownership.

Francie is the author of Dream, Build, Grow: A Female’s Step-by-Step Guide for How to Start a Business, a guided journal helping hundreds of women start businesses.

She’s a passionate entrepreneurship hype girl, female leader, public speaker, and community enthusiast.

Her MBA and 10 years in a corporate career and in business ownership positioned her to teach women modern strategies for starting and growing successful businesses.

As a community leader, Francie realized other women could thrive with the right guidance and support. She created the Founding Females™ Community entrepreneurship communities that coach women through improving their business mindset and operations.

She believes that anyone with a dream on their heart can pull up a seat to change the world through entrepreneurship. 

Francie Hinrichsen
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