Intro

When starting a business, it's important to be willing to take risks and make mistakes. As somebody who has painstakingly perfected the art of messing things up and figuring it out, I'm here to share the top things I did that you  should definitely not do. 

Howdy everyone, it's Or Yochanan and in the previous video I shared the five core values that helped me build a successful business. Today, I'm going to tell you the four things that have been holding me back so you can learn from my mistakes, make fun of me, or both! 

Let's start with number one- branding.  

• Branding

Your brand is the first thing that people see and if you're doing it poorly their perception might be wrong. Now, I actually took a good two to three weeks just to select a name for the business and eventually went with a name that encapsulates my belief that every home is an investment and a story and I even got my name embedded into the thing. So, I thought it's cute and clever. Well, in reality, the brand can be confusing and many people think I only deal with investments. The underlying message is missed and I miss market cap because of it. 

My takeaway is building a brand should be aimed at your future clients, so keep it clean and keep it simple. Don't try to be too clever. Remember that the brand is built for people who don't know you, nor understand your train of thought. 

• Marketing

Number two- marketing. I'll be the first one to admit I absolutely suck at marketing. I don't know how to make a quick sound bite from a long topic. I will not sugarcoat anything. I find it how to promote myself, and honestly, I'm too awkward to ask others for help. I had been so busy building my business that I severely neglected all marketing aspects. I got to where I am today without using any traditional tools like CRM, and mailing lists, with no marketing campaigns or newsletters, and a half-baked website. And it's not a good thing, it means I left a lot of unrealized opportunities on the table. 

My takeaway- the best service in the world means nothing if no one knows it exists. So spread the word, and if you suck at it, build a system or hire a professional. Don't be too shy to ask for help. If you have done your job well people will be glad to leave positive feedback. Which reminds me to ask you to like this video if you find my content helpful and subscribe to the channel if you haven't already. 

• Processes

Number three- processes. And when you start a business on your own, the process is simple. Every time you make a mistake you can learn and you can apply it moving forward. The problem starts when you build a team. Your experience doesn't just magically propagate to them. You need to train them. For me, it turned out to be one of the most difficult tasks, and in retrospect, it was mostly because I did not put the required emphasis on building a  process in a concise, easy-to-understand manner. I did a lot of one-on-one sessions and shadowing, instead of building a documentation center and workflow dashboards, which in retrospect was inefficient for everyone involved. Having a well-documented source of truth will help you and your team avoid misunderstandings and bridge knowledge gaps. So put the time into it, It's worth it. Implementing processes should take place as early as you're starting to scale and delegate.

Today we have an internal Wiki portal, we have dashboards, and we also have videos and training, to help to complement all the missing pieces. And it truly helps a lot. The help is twofold because when I'm spending time building processes A to Z, I find a lot of optimization that can help improve the process moving forward. Importing from the software world, start with a top-level design before you jump into documentation and implementation. Have a general workflow scheme prior to writing down all the individual steps.

• Time Management

Number four- my time management. You know building a business is extremely time-consuming, and slapping on top the fact that real estate action is primarily focused on the weekends, had a severe impact on my free time. I had learned that a lot of focus needs to be implemented in order to avoid getting burnt out, and the main problem is that there are so many things happening all at once, and as a business owner who implements extreme  ownership as a core value, I need to be extremely attentive to all of them while I keep being fun to engage with, and balance it with a sufficient time to spend with my family and friends.  

Unfortunately, I had done a poor job of keeping my work-to-life balance, healthy. Heck, I'm recording this very video at 1 AM, so it's still a work in progress. 

So, my takeaway- the business owner is a critical resource for the company. Keeping time aside for a day off is an important long-term investment even at the cost of short-term losses. Using a calendar to manage your time is crucial, and giving yourself some immovable blocks there for your personal life is good practice. I take my daughter every Wednesday to Kidstrong, and nobody is going to move that away. If somebody calls me, I tell them, “Hey, you guys, I'm sorry, I'm too busy right now”.

So that pretty much sums up the big ticket items I wish I would have done better while building my business. 

I hope you can apply some of these lessons to your own situation and improve your growth potential accordingly.  

What are the things that you wish you had known five years ago? Let me know in the comments. Reach me today so I can apply too! 

And if you find this content insightful, please consider liking this video and subscribing to the channel. 

I am very confused. I on the one hand think it sucked, and on the other hand, it kind of flowed. 

Interesting, interesting. I suffer and you enjoy, so go to sleep.