The 5 Business Mistakes That Are Killing Your Progress | Grow With Kepo Ep. 10

The 5 Business Mistakes That Are Killing Your Progress

In this honest and soul-stirring solo episode of Grow With Kepo, I dive into the five business mistakes keeping high achievers stuck, unfulfilled, and spinning their wheels. If you’ve been hustling hard with little to show for it, this is your wake-up call. I expose the subtle habits and mindset traps that sabotage your growth and show you what to focus on instead. Real talk, powerful truths, and bold next steps for anyone ready to shift from busy to bold.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• You don’t have a business until someone pays you
• Brand colors and logos don’t move the needle
• Vanity metrics hide your fear of execution
• A perfect business plan means nothing without action
• Social media is not your measure of success
• Your network needs to know what you actually do
• Stop introducing yourself with your corporate title
• Outsource your weaknesses from the start
• Focus on income-producing activities
• Consistent, bold action beats strategy alone

BEST MOMENTS

00:03:25. “I was the confused person who curated but broke.”
00:06:07. “The only thing that needs to be curated is your mindset.”
00:08:05. “You kind of have a hundred views on your reel. Are you selling to those 100?”
00:12:31. “Why are you putting all this red tape on your side hustle?”
00:18:06. “Break up with that egotistical part of you that feels good introducing yourself with a fancy title.”
00:21:56. “Are you showing up for that one or those two people who are even giving you attention?”
00:26:50. “All I do with this podcast is press record. And a podcast geek takes care of the rest.”
00:31:18. “Nobody cares about your fancy business plan. Go out there and execute.”

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Transcript

0:00

You don't even have a business. Until someone has bought something from you. Or two, you have something to sell and people actually pay you for it. And that is what you should be obsessing about, not what should the name of my business be. Name it your name dot your last name.com. Who cares? Who cares? Do you click on this podcast episode because it's called grow with capital? Probably not. You probably clicked on this episode because of the topic, because you want to know the five dumb things that you shouldn't be doing. If you're trying to do the side hustle or your own business, and you want to know the five things that you should actually be doing right. Here is something you need to hear. You're not lazy. You're just misaligned. I'm careful. I help high performers get unstuck by taking bold, aligned action. And this is Grow with Capital, where we speak with influential trailblazers who've made their mark and found the clarity that changed their lives. This is where we get clear, realign, and move toward a life that actually feels like yours. Welcome to the show. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the show. Today we're going to be talking about what I am going to be talking about. The five dumb things. No disrespect intended. I'm going to be talking about the five dumb things that corporate folks do when they're trying to start a business, and the five things that they really should be doing. If you want to start your own side hustle or full time business, here we go. I am going to be talking from my own personal experience and from what I've seen other people do. So as usual, I'm preaching to myself, right? Or preaching to my muscles. The number one thing that I see happen a lot is this people obsessing over vanity metrics. And there are two types. I'll break them down into two. The number one type of vanity metrics that corporate false hope people who have been doing at 9 to 5 tend to focus on when they're trying to start a business. Things like their website, brand colors. What's the name of my business going to be? The, your business card. You know, just all this fancy brandy marketing things that don't actually don't actually bring in any business for you. It's so easy to hide behind those metrics because it makes you feel like you're doing something. Something you're doing something useful, and you're actually making progress. But is that real progress? I mean, in this modern day of Canva, AI and all these awesome tools that we have at our fingertips. Okay, congratulations. Yes. You create a brand colors like so what is that? What is going to move your business forward? Probably not. But I see a lot of people stressing about this. And this is something that I used to stress about. I remember five years ago when I started a weight loss coaching business. Oh my gosh, I was so obsessed about looking all, you know, everything on brand, everything cute and just like this curated, you know, but confused person who created but broke because I wasn't getting as many leads as I should be getting into my business. I wasn't making the level and volume of sales I actually wanted to make, because I was so hyper focused on weight. Should I do pink with the yellow? And then what should the accent color be? Or oh, I need to create a website or I need to create. Oh no. First I need to create a website. Oh what picture should I use? And now I'll spend an hour. An hour like just stroking my own ego, trying to find a really cute picture to put on the website and oh no, let me try this one. Let me refresh. This is so dumb. Like now that I'm saying it out loud, I'm just thinking to myself like, oh my gosh, well, stupid. I don't have a polite way to say you all. It's dumb. There is no amount of business cards or no pretty website. I'm going to bring you the kind of revenue that you want for your business, especially if you're just starting out. Since bro, you don't have any business putting together all these fancy systems. I'm not saying you shouldn't do anything at all. I'm just saying that the level of emphasis and the the focus that we put on it is it doesn't make sense. And you know what the problem is? We're coming from corporate where you know, we've been working with big companies where they have a big brand. And those people should be focused on how they come off often, you know, their logo, how it shows up in the marketing materials and all of that. But honey, you are a solopreneur or trying to be a solopreneur or trying to start a side hustle while you're working your 9 to 5. You don't have a brand yet, and if you're even talking about what your true brand is, you are the true brand. Are you working on yourself as much as you're working on tweaking your website? Your little business card, and obsessing over your business name? The thing is, with this, this thing is like you can always optimize them as you go along. You can get better, but that is not what is going to bring in sales. I cannot stress this enough. It is so easy to get bogged down by that because our training in the corporate world, we've been trained that everything must match, everything must be perfect, everything must be on brand. But when you start to work on your own, you need to switch that brain into switch. That thing that tells you that everything needs to be super perfect and curated. No it doesn't. The only thing that needs to be curated is your mindset. When you're starting a business, that's the only thing everything else you can work on in later. You don't even have a business until someone has bought something from you, until you have something to sell and people actually pay you for it. And that is what you should be obsessing about, not what should the name of my business be? Name it your name dot your last name.com. Who cares? Who cares? Do you click on this podcast episode because it's called grow with capital? Probably not. You probably clicked on this episode because of the topic, because you want to know the five dumb things that you shouldn't be doing. If you're trying to build a side hustle or your own business and you want to know the five things that you should actually be doing right. What did you click on it because of the brand colors blue and pink? Probably not. I mean, I did choose those colors to catch your attention, but you know what I mean? Like, I didn't I didn't spend a long time and I just like, okay, this is nice because I know that as I grow, I can always optimize that later. Hey, quick break. I want to invite you to something powerful. If you're a high achieving professional who feels burnt out stock or like you've checks all the boxes but still feel unfulfilled, I've been there. That's why I offer free strategy sessions to help you reconnect with purpose and get clear on your next bold move. I'd love to support you. Just hit the link in the description to book your call. Now back to the episode. The second thing that number two, that the corporate fold sense to obsess about when they're starting their business. The second part of the vanity metrics is on social media. The number of followers they have, the likes, the comments, the sales, the shares, the views on their reels really, you haven't seen people who don't even have a social media presence and they are still making a killing. Have you ever wondered how they're doing it? Do you really think that everybody who is actually making a killing is on social media? I'm not saying that social media doesn't have its place. It does. I am on social media and grow is on Instagram. If you're interested. But you guys, you kind of have a hundred views on your real why you should be concerned about instead of thinking about why don't I have 10,000 views on this? Sheila has 10,000 views on hers and Tony has 5000 views on his. And I don't see a difference between mine and theirs. That's what we should be focused on. Yeah, they might have 10,000 views. Do you know how many people have actually paid them for their for their services and their products? You don't know if from your 100 views you get people who buy from you. Wouldn't you rather have that than 5000 views? And nobody really buys from you? Like a sign to start shifting our mindset on the types of things that we measure and what we consider success. The reason why this is a very, very easy trap is because if you are not careful, you will be looking for your validation from these types of metrics and you will be sorely disappointed. I know this because I've done it before. That has happened to me before. I was so bogged down by why am I just getting 200 and something views? Why are my stories only getting 53 views? Because I was looking to that as my validation thought, okay, I'm on the right track, I'm doing the right things. Again, don't get me wrong, the analytics are there for a reason. The insights are there for a reason. But as someone who is just starting out, that is no way you should be obsessing over. And I'll get to why you should really be obsessing about when I talk about the five things that you should really be doing right. The third thing that people tend to do is they over plan and over document. Oh, I remember many, many eons ago, it was when I was trying to do like a signage project for a very huge shopping complex back in Lagos, Nigeria, and I obsessed over the business plan, the PowerPoint presentation, my proposal document and all of that. So much that when it now came down to the important stuff, right, like which is lining up meetings and following up with the people, the actual decision makers, and going beyond those that they say at a decision makers. Cause sometimes they say, oh, this person that is going to make the decision is actually that person's boss's boss. I actually need to just follow the thread somehow. By the time he came to that, I, you know, I didn't have much juice in me for that because I felt, you know, I was feeling so confident because, you know, I have this my package, you know, I've written this business plan, this is how I'm going to do it. This is the profit margin, blah, blah, blah. It's good to have a plan because you fail to plan. You plan to fail. I get that, but oh my gosh, can we stop with the over documenting? Why are you documenting? This is actually so funny to me. Why? People document and they do all their forecasting for their brand new business. Okay, I'm going to have 100 new clients in six months and I'm going to make this profitable. Oh my gosh. Okay, write it down in one place but then move on and then go execute. No, they will write PowerPoints and documents, open documents, ways of working and policies. I would say really. And then the thing is when you do that, it's a trap because you feel like, oh my gosh, I'm doing something. You feel important, you are not doing this stuff for your corporate job. Is the corporate world that that needs all this heavy lifting before they can actually do things? Why are you putting all this red tape on your side hustle? Why putting all this red tape on your business? You don't need that as as long as you are just a solopreneur who is just starting out. You don't need to over a document. Yeah. I mean, how about have a good sense direction, write things down, have your paddle board. I have a paddle board. One of the milestones that I want to hit every month. But I'm not sitting down writing Google Docs. Open Google Docs of planning, planning, planning. It's all just there in the documents. It's it's it's dead. It has no life until you back it with real action. Stay tuned because I'm going to talk about the real action that you should really be taking when you are actually ready to build a sustainable and successful business while you're working with your 9 to 5, or if you've already quit it. Right. So the other thing that I see people doing is they're trying to do everything on their own. Okay, let's clap for you under the close. We know you are a rockstar. You are a superstar. At work you wore many hats. You could do PowerPoints. You could also. You were also an Excel whiz. The numbers person. You are also really good at making good presentations. You were very good at distilling very complex things and distilling the important insights and synthesizing it into this, you know, bullet point for these, for the C-suite, you know, for them to digest. But you could also go down into the weeds, you know, if you wanted to talk to your junior staff, what would I report to you? Good. Well, I happy for you. But when you are trying to start something for the first time or you're doing a business, chances are you can't do everything perfectly by yourself. And even if you could, it's not wise to try to do everything on your own. Yes, you. You probably heard this a lot when people say, well, when when I first started out, it was just me. I wasn't doing this, this and this. The reason why you're listening to this people, the reason why you listen to people are successful. And I've done this because they are trying to learn from their mistakes. Right? Have you ever heard anybody tell you? Yes. The first time I did a business, the one thing that I want to pass on, one lesson I want to pass on to everyone, is make sure you are the one doing everything on your own for the first few years. No, no, no, they were just saying that to explain how where they came from. They're not telling you. That's what I would do. The same thing again. Repeats the same dumb mistakes. Again. I'm holding out because I want to tell you what it is that you should be focusing on. But right now, I'm telling you what you shouldn't be focusing on. Stop trying to do everything by yourself. This is not your copy job anymore, where you need to do many different things at the same time. This is where you're building something that hopefully is in your area of genius. So why would you want to do anything outside of that? The other thing that I see people doing, corporate folks are, suits. I call them suits. Just like the show when they go out, when they meet people, when they introduce themselves, when they talk about business, when they think about themselves, they are still thinking through the corporate corporate lenses, right? When they introduce themselves. Okay, okay. For me now, I could introduce myself as a product strategy director. Well, whatever. Fancy title. Right? Well, I could introduce myself as a high performance coach. I could introduce myself as a content creator for people who are successful on paper but still feel unfulfilled. Right? Why? I usually introduce yourself as a VP of M&A, clinical, clinical. When you are also trying to build this other thing, you need to shout it out at the rooftops what it is that you're actually working on. Unless you are there representing your company, why are you still looking at yourself and talking about yourself from the lens of corporate? So if you flip it around and talk about what you should be doing starting from the end, from where I start, number one, start getting comfortable talking about what it is you're building with people. Break up with that egotistical part of you that feels good whenever you introduce yourself with this nice, high sounding title that hasn't really given you real fulfillment in life anyway. Break up with it and fall in love with the person that you have become, and fall in love with the business that you're building. If you're building a new a trading business, for example, maybe day trading or forex trading, whatever it is, and you happen to meet strangers also, what do you do? Oh, have to speak about. It's like, oh yeah, I'm a trader. Like I do day trading. No, you might not have a website. No, you might not have a Rolodex of clients. But that is what you're working on right now. And the more people know about what you are actually trying to work on, on what you're doing, the the higher the chances of you actually connecting with the right people that actually propel you to that next level so that you can truly succeed in that thing. But if you continue to represent big company.com and you're on this other side trying to walk on in the shadows, how are you ever going to get the word out? Right. So you were busy over documenting writing business plans, open business plans. No, you don't need to be doing that. All you need to know is what your overarching goal is, the steps that you need to take right now. You don't need to know all the steps, just the next steps. Who you need help from right and who you are hoping to hear back from. Maybe you've already started reaching out to other people about that thing. That's it. Day by day. You go through that, okay, I'm trying to build this thing. Who do I need help from to do this particular part of it? Okay, let's say you're like me. Let's say you want people started coaching business. Okay. What kind of coaching do I need to do? Okay. I've identified the type of coaching. Now, the next thing I want to do is maybe I want to hear from other people who are doing this kind of coaching and learn from them. Then do that next. What they need to get in touch with. You don't need to sit down and write the whole episode about, I'm going to be this kind of coach. I'm going to have X number of clients. This is what I'm going to do. This is my offering. Yeah, nobody wants me, don't care. I mean, I say with all the love, but we really don't care, right? So get out of your documentation. Get out of of our writing, of our planning, and get into action. If you are still trying to document, just know that you are trying to delay your progress. That's all you're trying to do because you don't want to face the Giants. You don't want to face that thing. You want to do that uncomfortable thing that you know that you need to do in order to move your project forward. Let's just get honest with ourselves. That's what you're doing. You just hiding instead of focusing on vanity metrics like on social media, likes, views, saves, followers. Are you showing up for that one or those two people who are even giving you attention? The way you would show up for 10,000 are you actually selling to them? Are you making the ask? Are you telling them what you offer? Are you doing that very well? Are you doing that consistently? That is why you should be measuring. Measure how often you show up and how well, you sure fall in love with the process. Fall in love with the struggle. Honor the struggle, fall in love with that much more than all these vanity outcomes. And then that is when you just see the switch like, oh my gosh, the more I show up, the more I do the right things consistently, the more I actually get the right results, which is, at the end of the day, you're trying to sell something, right? You're trying to sell something. Are you selling? What is your what is your pipeline like? Right. I'm focusing on your business cards and your website. Have you gotten in touch with everyone in your network, in your immediate network, to let them know what it is you're working on? Have you done that? Do your neighbors know what you're doing? You're working on the ones I say hi, I'm bites when you invite them for dinner. Sometimes I don't know. I don't know if would actually do that these days. You might not so naturally anymore, right? Well, you know what I mean. People who are closest to you, they hang out with you, have just general conversation, even small talk with you. They know you are working on chances that they don't, because you are hiding behind your pretty websites and your your profile photos and your lights and your photos. Is that what is going to bring home the bacon? Probably not. Most of us. Our very first million dollars are going to make. We are going to make it from within our network, and we're just sitting on it like that, not even doing anything about it. And then you are stressing, obsessing over Mr. Hardy or Mrs. Elizabeth Day. Dyson followed you that you don't even know from Adam, whereas the other 500 people you know around you, you haven't even told them what you're doing. Please make it make sense. Like, seriously make it make sense. You have to start thinking about yourself in terms of a business owner, even if it is a passion project they are working on today. You cannot take the same corporate lens and then not apply it to this. And they are working on. You cannot hit a nail with a sledge hammer. You don't need to do that. You can just use this simple. Maybe there's no such a good example because obviously I'm not a handyman. I don't know my way around tools. That is why I outsource it. So now, speaking of outsourcing, I did mention that one of the dumb things that corporate people do is trying to do everything on their own. Instead, you need to value start valuing time over money. That is the thing that separates wealthy and successful people. So people who just forever struggle, they value that time over money. Someone who is always struggling and continues to struggle in your business is because you're trying to do everything on your own. They are trying to save money. We so used to be saving time. The time is the one currency that we spend is that is that commodity that we spend that we never actually get it back. You can make money back, make time back. You just can't. Once you spend it is gone. That is what you should really be saving. That's what you should really be. Optimize. Because imagine if you had more time to do the things that you are really, really good at, how much better you become with the level of mastery that you would achieve. Plus, when, since when was it necessary for us to actually. Double down on our weaknesses. Outsource your weaknesses. That is what I'm doing with it. With this podcast. Full transparency. All I do with this podcast is press record. That's it. And I talk and I upload the files and a podcast geek takes care of the rest. I don't worry about anything. Of course you are lying on what it is I'm trying to achieve with all of this is not I'm not like completely blind, but I learned this and I learned this the hard way. When I was a weight loss coach and I had a YouTube channel. You will, I will. I did everything myself. I will record, then I'll edit, then I'll okay was the best thumbnail. How researched the keywords do this publish on YouTube, then publicize on social media. When I'm done with all of that, please. Do you think I still have time and energy to actually really work on my actual coaching business? To work on actually getting clients? It was hard. I cannot be a YouTube expert, a social media expert, in my case an expert. It's expert and then be a weight loss coaching expert as well. But I've learned, and I'm trying to tell you, you don't have to make my same mistakes. You can start from day one by outsourcing your weaknesses. I know you have heard this advice. People telling you that, oh, you know, you should do everything yourself first. I don't believe in that. I believe in outsourcing your weaknesses. Stop trying to do everything on your own. So I'm trying to be the corporate self in this job. Don't get me wrong, there is something to be. There's certain transferable skills from corporate world that you come that you can transfer to your business and how you run your business. And that is another podcast episode. Oh thank you. Oh, I just got gotta, I just got that's a good idea actually for a podcast episode. And I'll tell you some of those awesome skills that you've probably built that you can use to build whatever side hustle that you want. But the ones I just talked about, those are not the ones that you should be using from corporate. Nobody has to do everything. You don't need to wear plenty hats. I think, granted, as a solopreneur you will still wear multiple hats. But I'm saying reduce the number of cases that you need to wear at once so that you can actually focus on your area of genius. So if you are somebody who is obsessing over vanity metrics, whether it's business cards, websites, brand colors, clinical, the other types of metrics on social media or YouTube documents and and documents and write and write and write a you're not actually talking to people or you're introducing yourself from your corporate, you know, your corporate. What's the word? I'm losing my train of thought. Your corporate image. Right? Your corporate profile. Yeah, that's the word. But then yes, trying to work on other things like it doesn't make sense. It's like I live in these two different lives, and then you're not trying to do everything on your own. Pray tell. How can any of those actually help you ever land your first client your first sale? Really is to flip the script and start making the main things, the main things, the main things are income producing activities, selling, selling, selling, letting your network know. Reaching out to your network, networking with your network, and letting them know what it is you're working on. That is how that that was an income producing activities, income producing actions are telling the few followers that you have on your social media, following the two people that actually respond. Tell them what you're working on. Tell them what you are selling. Make the ask. Make the sale. Ask for three weeks. It's completely normal. So many topics coming up from this episode. It is completely normal to sell something, because that's another thing where some people feel weird about selling. Mike, I don't understand. They you paid for the iPhone you're using to watch this thing now. Android like you paid to do your hair. You pay for services. So why I don't understand. Why is it weird? That's that's that's a different topic. But my point is make the sell. Make the ask. That is what matters. Nobody cares about the 10,000 documents and versions that you put on your laptop, and your fancy business plan. Go out there and execute. Go out there and do the scary stuff. Go out there and make the big asks. Go out there and step outside of your comfort zone and talk to your network. If you're lost about how do I talk to my mom? You probably have a LinkedIn profile. Most people listen to this podcast or watching your YouTube channel. If you have a LinkedIn profile. I don't care how many followers you have, every one of them should know what you are doing. That is what I have done in my coaching business. When I wanted to let them know, I sent every single one of that. I have over 8300 contacts on LinkedIn and I'm sending every single one of them a voice note followed by a text. This is what I'm working on. Do you know who might be who might need this? Or is that person you. Right. And it's taking time. You give yourself time every day or every three days a week. You make an appointment with yourself. I am going to sell. So again, if you are hearing me correctly, I'm not saying that you should not do anything like make any documentation or have any goals for your business. You should have those, but those are not. The main activities make the main things the main thing. I hope this was helpful for you. If you're stuck in a 9 to 5 and trying to figure out where to start, I have just told you the five things that you should not do and five things that you should do. I hope this was helpful if you found it helpful and you know someone who might find it useful, make sure you share with them for most importantly, my goodness, make sure you make the main things, the main things. Make sure you are focusing on the income producing activities, the IPAs, the things that move the needle. That is what is going to bring all your dreams and business goals to fruition. That is what this means is finally free you from the golden handcuffs of the 9 to 5 life. If that is your goal, you're welcome. See you on the next episode. I thanks for tuning in to Grow with Keppel. If this episode sparked something for you. Subscribe. Share it with a friend and keep growing. Your.