Episode #22: Whitney Corley | What to Prepare Before Going Full-time as a Business Owner
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Leather Crafts Designer Gives Advice on What to Prepare Before Going Full-time as a Business Owner Are your business practices actually helping you create better results? How do you know exactly if you’re doing the right thing for your business? In this episode of Enlightened Entrepreneur Podcast, leather craft designer and business owner, Whitney Corley, debunks some myths and misconceptions she has seen other business owners follow over the years. Whitney is the muscle and brains behind the handmade leather crafts called Corley & Hound, creating a more flexible lifestyle for her and her family while making a living out of sheer talent and passion.

Key Questions Asked:

What prompted Whitney into making a business for herself? What advice would Whitney give to somebody who were in her shoes before she decided to work for herself? What challenges did she face when she finally decided to leave it altogether? How much preparation did she do before she launched into leaving what she does completely? What sort of mindset did Whitney have to adopt when she was making the transition? How did Whitney get her first client? What misconceptions on business start up that Whitney have come across with? How do business owners get past the negative mental state? What other beliefs does she see among business owners that is actually a misconception? What sort of mindset did Whitney have to have in order to run a successful business? If she were to do business all over again, what would she do differently?

 Highlights of Lessons Learned:

Expert’s Advice

Advice from Whitney: You should start small, you’re ultimately going to end up where you’re supposed to be. And if you’re not able to immediately quit your job right now, just start small, see where it goes from there, eventually it will grow and you’ll be able to stop doing what’s not working for you more and more. Before working full time on her business, Whitney prepared for what she’ll need on the creative side. However, she did not prepare enough for the marketing side of her business. Yeukai advises start up business owners to take time to find a mentor before you actually launch your business, clarify what steps you need to take and what needs to be done before heading on to do it. Working for yourself definitely takes more responsibility as you have to be responsible for every action that you make. Whitney’s advice for start up business owners: You have to have total faith in yourself that you can do it, do not listen to anybody else that may have doubts. You must believe that you can do it, and it may not be overnight – it will probably take some time, but do not lose that faith that you will make it.

Myths and Misconceptions

One misconception that Whitney has seen is that starting up a business is really hard. And while it can be hard, what’s really hard is keeping a positive mental state. For those people who get stuck on having a negative state of mind, if you feel like you have worked so hard and you still have not done anything well, it doesn’t mean that you’re a failure, just do the best you can with what time you have. Another misconception that Whitney has come across with is that you don’t have to personalize every order. When it comes to marketing, Whitney has now perfected Etsy’s systems; she has been working on making her product sale-able on Pinterest. Given the chance to start all over again, Whitney would change the way she prepared, she would spend less time creating all of the different little items that she provides, and spend more time marketing instead of creating, or understanding how to market.