The Bicultural Podcast

6 lessons that I've learned in business

• Janina Neumann • Season 4 • Episode 3

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In the third episode of season 4, Janina Neumann shares 6 lessons that I've learned in business.

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www.janinaneumanndesign.co.uk

Welcome to The Bicultural Podcast. The Bicultural Podcast celebrates cross-cultural identity and gives insight into cultural differences to help you improve business relationships. The podcast is published biweekly and is hosted by myself, Janina Neumann, a bilingual creative social entrepreneur and business owner of Janina Neumann Design.

Welcome to The Bicultural Podcast. So this month, my business, Janina Neumann Design, turned six years old who are at the start of my business journey. It always felt like, wow, I wonder how someone made it to three years, six years, ten years, 20 years and so on. And I'm no different. As you know, running a business is a roller coaster. There are ups and downs and sometimes there are steep and sometimes you don't know when it will go the other way. Reflecting on my business journey. I feel that in the first couple of years you try everything and anything to see what's working for you and what's resonating with people. In year three, you start doing something that you feel like is really resonating with people and you enjoy doing it. In year five, you start getting recognized for the work that you've been doing and the right types of clients are coming along consistently. This has been my journey as a solo entrepreneur, either working by myself or collaborating with amazing partners on client projects. So here are six lessons that I've learnt in business so far. I hope that you find them useful and please do take note of any business lessons that are resonating with you or if you have different lessons that come to mind whilst listening to this episode, I'd love to hear them and please do get in touch with me so I can also learn from you. 

So lesson number one. Find and Grow Your Niche Finding your niche will help you become known for one thing rather than not be remembered for many things. In episode one, season four, I talked about my journey of niche and my business and the benefits and Niching that is brought to me. So I really recommend you listen back to that episode if you haven't done so already. 

Lesson number two, develop your referral marketing so this strategy will give you better prospects and save you time developing your pipeline because you're developing relationships with a select number of partners rather than building relationships with all of them. I don't know about you, but sometimes I feel like I don't have enough time to speak to enough people while building a meaningful relationship with them, whilst doing client projects, whilst doing all the other things that you need to do for running a business. So it sounds like a lot more simple and it is if you invest your time with a select number of people who become your partners and they keep you in mind when they speak to other people because you might have never met these other people or would not have found the time to speak to them. And I will say we often meet people in network meetings, but sometimes we don't follow up with them and we don't actually build that relationship with them so that they do become partners. So they just become another kind of prospect that we don't really spend any time with. So I don't mean just talk to lots of people and tell them about what your business is about, but do really spend time with them. Make sure you follow up maybe once a month, just checking in with them, see how they're doing, see if you can help them. That's what a partner is about, not just when you want something from them. 

So lesson number three find a channel to communicate your thoughts and opinions. So for example, creating podcasts or posting on social media regularly with your thoughts and opinions will help people to get to know you and build trust with you. I found this lesson so important not only as a way of building trust, but also to allocate time away from all that busyness and have time to think about the topics and more depths and reevaluate my own approach as I think about the content and this of course also informs my client work and it makes me do better things in my business. 

Lesson number four Read books and listen to Podcasts every day. It's amazing the number of times I have learned something on the way to work and then benefited from this knowledge the same day. Now there are many fantastic books and podcasts out there, so I'll give you an insight into the types of books and podcasts that I enjoy. So currently I'm reading The One Thing by Gary W. Keller and J. Papasan which is really resonating with me as you can probably tell by my lesson of Niche down in your business. I also really enjoyed reading Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss because it's an excellent book that has deciphered and distilled the advice of remarkable people and how they came to be successful. And regular podcasts that I listen to include All It Takes Is A Goal by John Acuff and Developing Inspired Leaders Podcast by Nikki J. Davis. Both hosts do an amazing job of inspiring me on my way to work and at home and it's amazing how much you can learn by listening to a book rather than reading it. I'm a fan of reading books, but sometimes I find it difficult to score scheduler into my working day. 

Lesson number five, it's better to get going than never at all. So this is something I've really had to work on. And I still have to remind myself several times, sometimes a day, there will always be a notion that now is not a good time. And in X amount of time it will be the perfect time. This is because we regard ourselves as a different person in the future than the person that we are today. But if we don't get going now, then we don't develop ourselves and the day where we feel like it may never come. For example, creating this podcast, I was thinking, how should I do this in the middle of a pandemic? People are really busy people working from home. How will I ever get to talk to anyone? But actually it turns out that because people were working from home, they were actually scheduling their time better and they actually found the time to speak to me. And I found that really interesting because if I had gone with my gut instinct of oh, now is not a good time because people are at home and they're not set up to have podcast interviews, then I wouldn't have created this amazing podcast which I've really enjoyed because I got to meet so many interesting people. And also it's helped me develop my theme around my business and content as well. 

And Lastly. Lesson number six, have faith in yourself to run a business for the long term. We need to have faith in ourselves that we will develop and figure out the difficulties that occur in our lives. Having faith and looking after themselves is the best investment for our business success. And this can be really difficult at times, especially if, for example, friends or family members don't understand the pains that you're going through. I've been really fortunate enough that my parents are entrepreneurs and they've been leading me along the way of my business journey. So I've been really fortunate in that case. And if you don't have that insight from your parents or your partners, then don't worry. You can reach out to people and form a mastermind. And I also found that really useful as I created JND. 

So to conclude, what lessons have you learned in business? And I'd also love to know if you see an opportunity to collaborate with me. If yes, then let's set up a call to explore collaboration opportunities together. My details will be in the notes. So thank you so much for listening and I will see you in the next episode. Bye for now. 

Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed today's episode, then why not subscribe, review and share with others. You can also find all transcripts available at transcripts.thebiculturalpodcast.com. Thank you for listening and "bis bald".