Are your personal priorities unintentionally holding your business back? In this episode of The YouCan Podcast, we explore the challenge many entrepreneurs face when trying to balance business growth with expenses like house renovations, holidays, and other lifestyle demands.We’ll discuss how expecting your young business to support these costs can stall progress and leave you frustrated. Using real-life examples and practical strategies, we cover how to:Manage your expectations for business growth timelines.Forecast revenue and cash flow realistically.Consider alternative income sources to ease financial pressure.Prioritise reinvesting in your business to ensure it thrives.Identify the help you need to move forward effectively.Drawing on insights from coaching successful entrepreneurs, this episode highlights why the most successful business owners invest in mentors, coaches, and support — and how you can too.Tune in for actionable advice and a fresh perspective on balancing personal life and business growth. Don't let short-term priorities strangle your long-term success!👉 Listen now and learn how to nurture your business for sustainable growth.🔗 Share your thoughts and connect with us on LinkedIn or in the podcast community.Keywords: Business growth, entrepreneurship, personal finance, balancing business and life, investing in your business, cash flow forecasting, business coaching, business mentoring, sustainable growth strategies, young business success.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/you-can-inspiring-women-in-business/exclusive-contentAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Chapter 1: Are personal priorities holding your business back?
Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the You Can Podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Jolly Jarvis. And today we are going to be talking around, are you holding your business back? It's a big balance. It's a massive balancing act between your personal priorities and your business growth, particularly when you run your own business. And so that's what we're going to be talking about.
Are you expecting your business to fund your lifestyle before it's really fully grown and in a position where it can do that? So we're going to talk about personal priorities and whether they are out of sync, out of balance with where your business is and where you want to take it.
So what we'll cover is balancing those personal priorities like renovations, like holidays, like life, but also why it matters. So many early stage entrepreneurs unknowingly sabotage their progress because they take too much money out of the business and expect it to develop and grow on too little resources.
Chapter 2: What common mistakes do entrepreneurs make?
This all came about really because I was talking to a business owner who I was asking them, you know, how's it going? They've been going now about just under a year and they were telling me that, you know what, I'm disappointed with the amount of leads that I'm getting. My audience isn't a bad size, but I'm just not getting the conversions that I was expecting at this stage.
and so obviously it's sales i love sales so i was straight in there asking all the questions and what came up for me was when i asked them around what have they done so far to make changes with this and actually i saw a post out on linkedin this week about you know people when they want to do better at something than when they want to improve if you want to learn
a musical instrument you go out and you get lessons and that might not be formal lessons but you'll go on the internet and you'll you'll download youtube and watch loads of videos and all that kind of stuff to kind of get an understanding of what you need to do and that can be the same thing in your business is you can't expect your business to improve or your skill set around something to improve without doing some learning right
better understanding it or at least doing supported practice. And so when I said to this person, you know what, what have you done? And they were like, well, I haven't done anything because we've had a lot of costs. We've been away on a big holiday and we've got another one coming up and we're in the middle of a house renovation.
that for me was really like whoa you know wait a minute what is your house renovation what is your holidays got to do with your business now i am like you know a big fan of going on holiday and taking a bit of time out and having the opportunity to kind of re-look at things um and so you know you could argue that a decent holiday will provide you with a new perspective on your business etc etc help you come back energized you know you can't run on empty etc etc but
When you start prioritising multiple elements like that over your business and your business doesn't have the funds to invest in itself because it's supporting those activities where what I tend to call them, whether it's a little bit too
black and white, but I tend to say, well, actually, activities like that, activities which are non revenue generating activities, they're not going to help your business. They're not going to help you move things forward. So holiday, as harsh as it sounds, it's not a revenue generating activity. You could argue with a holiday that it gives you a new perspective.
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Chapter 3: How can personal expenses affect business growth?
You could argue with a house renovation that new doors and windows. are going to help you feel better. But in reality, they're probably not the best investment for you to make if you want your business to develop and grow. For example, if you're struggling with your sales, if you're not able to reach new audiences and really need to run paid ads, etc., etc.,
then spending your money on new windows is probably not going to be the best investment of your finances, but people do it. And why do we do it? Well, a lot of the people that I work with, they come from a corporate background and they are used to a particular amount of income. And obviously, you know, with that level of income that you have, you tend to live to that level.
So, you know, you'll have a mortgage, which reflects that you'll have a lifestyle and tastes and preferences that reflect that. And it is very difficult to kind of rein that in. Okay, that becomes very easily human nature. So weird, isn't it? But we tend to find our sort of baseline, our minimum expectation, and that just tends to go up.
Chapter 4: What are non-revenue generating activities?
That doesn't tend to be, at least subconsciously, without a conscious effort, we don't tend to sort of review and rein things back in. We're just happily going about and kind of growing and developing all the time and spending that bit more and expecting that bit more. And I don't think we're wrong to feel like that.
But it's understanding that in the early days, your business might not be in a position where it can afford that wage on a consistent basis. If you've come from a corporate job, then you've had, you know, you've been with a business which has been around for some time. And so with being around for some time, it has more. established ways of generating leads, converting leads, et cetera.
And so its income tends to be a little bit more reliable. Whereas when you are first starting out, there's a massive learning curve with running your own business, but also there's a massive learning curve with your customer base, your lead generation, et cetera. And so the likelihood is that you're not going to get consistent leads.
You're potentially going to take on clients that are more time consuming, less ideal, et cetera, et cetera. And so that is likely to impact your income. Also, as you are running between wearing one hat and another in your business, you can drop the ball somewhat and you can end up on that cycle of that feast and famine where you get clients on board and then you're delivering for them.
So you take the eye off the ball of marketing and then so that continues. So then you'll put your focus into marketing and then you'll get those clients. And so it is a real sort of up and down roller coaster. And so with that comes that impact on finances. And at the end of the day,
If you don't have money to keep things ticking over, for example, you know, you have support, you have to let support go, you have to have somebody who's on a temporary basis, like zero hours or whatever with you, so that they're in a position where you can drop their hours down as and when you need to, then things are going to, you know, move and develop forwards and then they're going to stagnate.
If you have a gap in your skill set that you need to fill, either with an individual themselves or by upskilling yourself or another of your team, then again, you're going to have to fork out money in order to fill that gap and get that skills in-house. And so with that, you're going to have to invest.
If you don't have the money to invest because you've bought your windows, because you've bought your holidays... then that's when you're going to have that struggle. And so it is really important to remember, you know, you can't harvest fruit from a tree that hasn't matured yet.
And so you're taking from it before it's in a position where, you know, you've really given it a chance to establish itself and be able to take that hit. So I'm saying, oh, you can't do it. You shouldn't do it. It's going to stunt your growth. But how? How does it really do that? Well, you know, it can be in the form of missed opportunities. Your sales isn't up to scratch, for example.
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Chapter 5: How to manage expectations for business growth?
And that in itself, that massive shift in your thought process can make a huge, huge difference. to your business, to your performance, to your self-belief, because of your self-belief, enabling you to generate that income and get your business up there and being consistent, okay? No one grows a business alone. Sometimes the best investment is in yourself and your support network.
Chapter 6: What strategies can help balance business and personal life?
It is very, very difficult to get here all by yourself without any help or any support whatsoever. And so when you can, make sure that you are investing wisely in the resources and the support that you need. But don't try and figure it all out. It's crazy to think that we can just start a business and know straight off the bat exactly how we're supposed to be running it.
it is not unless you are you know running a business mentoring business coaching business then you're not going to know all the things and even then most people have specialities so some people they might come in from a financial perspective but that doesn't mean that they've got the sales and marketing that doesn't mean they can create the messaging there are so many hats to wear when you are running your own business that it is
So you're kind of setting yourself up for failure if you expect yourself to know how to do all those things without any support or further training. So that's it for me this week, guys. Please do share. You can link with me on LinkedIn. You can link with me on Facebook. Share with me the challenges. that you've had over balancing your business growth.
I will probably more than likely put, I will put out a post in my You Can group on Facebook where you can share what's helped you navigate it, where you've kind of found yourself going a bit wrong and how you've got yourself back on to focusing on your business and helping and supporting it as it needs.
So, you know, please do share those and reach out if you do need help with having more structure, having more clarity in your business. That is what I do is I help people to grow their business and create a business that works for them. So thanks very, very much for listening. And as ever, please do subscribe, rate and share the podcast so that we can get more listeners in.
And that supports what I do. So that's it for me, guys, this week. Bye for now.
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