3 Lessons New Business Owners Should Learn

3 Lessons New Business Owners Should Learn

Sean: From Alana, what lessons you’ve learned from your past mistakes can you advise a new business owner?

Le-an: I’ve been a business owner for like six, seven years now, for like multiple different businesses. There’s a ton. I think I’ll pick my top three. One is, to surround yourself with the right people, which is what we’ve been talking about this whole time, is you could have the best copywriter, you could have the best web designer, you could have the best marketer. If they don’t have the right personality, if they’re not the right people for you, whatever business that you’re trying to do, that’s just going to fall apart in a few months. It’ll have a high, sure – because you have the best people, but then it’s going to fizzle out really quickly. That was one of the reasons why I had problems with other employees before, was – that I didn’t have a set of values. I didn’t have the clarity of who did I really want to work with. And that’s how the toxicity started and how all of the other stuff that I was talking about happened was, because I didn’t myself have the clarity of who I wanted to work with.

Le-an: Second is to learn from the mistakes of others, which is again books, courses, TED talks, watching out for the people that you like their books, and then watching their interviews. So it’s learning from mentors even though you never will really meet them. And then if you can, get an actual mentor also in person who can – have years of experience for the new, and who can advise you on their mistakes and then so you can skip it.

Le-an: And the third one is to – this is a little bit soppy and more for – something I realized as a female leader, not really as a general leader, but just keep in mind to take care of yourself. Like I am such a giver like I have that as one of the things that I know is part of my core, it’s just I always try to give, as an ate as like, you know, ‘Ate I need this’ – ‘here you go,’ ‘Ate I need that’ – ‘here you go.’ I have to keep in mind of setting boundaries and also taking care of myself and being an ‘ate’ to myself. Like I know if I am not being able to sleep right, I know something’s wrong. I’m not able to do my morning routine. Something is wrong. So as a leader, you can only show up as much as what you have in you, what you have inside of you. And if you don’t take care of yourself in the right way, you’re neglecting your sleep, neglecting yourself, neglecting your own needs because you want to make sure that everything works out fine for your business. The reality is you keep doing that, then even if you have this billion-dollar business, but you’re kind of dying that it’s not worth it at all. So just find the things, as I said earlier, find the things that you find joy with that you enjoy doing to take care of yourself, to kind of do that refill before you start giving again.

Sean: Yeah. Kind of dying, sounds like a sucky plan, right?

Le-an: Yeah, exactly.

Sean: That’s really good stuff. Really good answers. I guess for me, the past mistake was to hire slow and fire fast. When you know that the person is the wrong person, they have a bad attitude and bad character. You know that they’re badmouthing you behind your back while you’re paying them so they can eat and feed their family. Then you know that’s the wrong person. And one of my mistakes was I kind of kept that person for quite some time more, and I should have fired fast and I should have hired slowly as well. I used to hire when I need a spot to be filled, and usually, when you’re already in that scenario, you just hired the next best bloke that comes your way, right? And that’s a really bad way to hire people. That’s a very bad hiring strategy. When you hire, you really need to look at – are they a good fit for your culture? Not just for the job. Of course, they have to be a good fit for the job that’s given. That’s what’s required. But are they a good fit for your culture?

Sean: For us, we look for three things that are humble, hungry, and smart. For the humble. We ask them questions like, what was your biggest failure in life? Or your most embarrassing moment? And if they don’t tell me fluffy stuff as they tell me real-life scenario stuff, I appreciate that. But if they tell me, you know, my biggest weakness is I work too hard, I work long hours, that’s like – what’s new, right?

Sean: We see through that. I see through that. Are you being humble, fake humble? Are you just trying to get the job? And real humility – people will really tell you their stories and they’re not ashamed to do that and they will tell you what they learn from it and what they did afterward.

Sean: When it comes to hungry, I ask them, Did you work in your younger years? Did you work hard in varsity or in school? What do you think about work-life balance? Is that something that is, you know, work-life balance is important? But if they put it on a pedestal, that’s a red flag for me, because there are a lot of times when I personally work all the way to 10:30 p.m., even today. And if you’re not willing to do whatever it takes to win, and that’s not to say that we do have a lot of those days, maybe once every quarter that we have like an hour or two over time. But that’s it. Since we’re a day, a 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. company, we don’t have an EMEA shift or US shift, so it’s just one shift and we rarely go over time. But if they keep talking about work-life balance, that for me is a red flag because that means you’re not too hungry to join our team.

Sean: And smart, when it comes to smart, it’s always about people. Are you people smart? So I ask them questions like, What is something about you that irritates other people? And if the person can’t answer that, then that means they’re not very people smart? Because they don’t even know themselves. And I also ask what kind of person irritates you the most? And I look for their answers. So, yeah, so asking these questions is very important for me now. Before it was like, what do you know about copywriting? How long have you practiced that? It’s about those things. What’s your vision five years from now? So if you ask generic questions, you’re going to get generic answers. That’s one mistake that I did that I hope you guys tuning in now would not make. So hire slow, fire fast. I hope that helps.

Sean: From Elena, and we have a – what made you choose to start a company in this industry?

Le-an: So I started 2XYou, honestly at the point where the publishing company that I was running without me. It was kind of like an achievement of like, I can actually step away for like three months and nothing would be on fire or die. That was kind of the point where I was at and I was like, I want to create a service company. I want to create a service company that helps other service entrepreneurs because I see how you can easily get burned out if you don’t have the right help. And at the same time, which is why I started ‘virtual ate’, is I want to help 1 million Filipinos to work from home, and learn how to work from home. And one of the ways I was thinking that way was my dad worked as an OFW my whole life. I never saw him at least – I would only see like once or twice a year.

Le-an: And when I discovered when I was 15 that you could work from home, I was like, ‘Oh my God, if my dad knew about this, he didn’t have to leave. We would have him every day of the year.’ So that was kind of my thought of the kind of like the one thing after the other. I was like, ‘Yeah, let’s, let’s do this. Let’s do this kind of company where it’s a full-time assistant.’ You know, we’re also training the assistants in business. We’re also training them in leadership. It’s not just another job that they’re getting and we’re actually investing in them. And then at the same time, the clients know everything that we’re doing to make sure that their assistants are high end.

Sean: That’s a really good story. And so were you able to help your dad? Just curious, to just stay at home and also work from home?

Le-an: Well, no, my dad is retired about four years before I started 2XYou. He just chose to stay at home. And we now have a coffee shop in Samar.

Sean: Wow. That’s amazing. Even better.

Le-an: Yeah, he’s at home.

Sean: All right. Here’s another question for you. How do you ensure that you keep the company culture consistent despite working from home?

Le-an: A lot of it is having the communication systems that we have, so what that looks like is I mentioned the daily report. We also have the weekly meeting agenda with the client. So I jump in on a meeting with the assistant and the client and I give them feedback right afterward. They also have – this is just funny, they also have their own Facebook group chat that I’m not part of. And it’s there. I’m not part of it for a reason. So they don’t feel awkward about asking questions. They can ask the other assistants for different things that are their expertise. We also have once a month, we actually do a meetup. That’s why we hire mostly from Cebu, are we actually have a meetup where we do training, we have really good food, we rent out a basic room, so it’s a co-working space where everyone just hangs out and gets to know each other. So it’s exactly what you said earlier. Repeating the values over and over. Two is actually living the values. And three, is constantly surrounding the assistants with people, with all of the other assistants. So then that kind of keeps getting reiterated, that culture, that feeling of like, okay, we’re taking care of you. And because we just trust that you’re also taking care of us in the best way that you can.

Sean: Awesome. For SEO-Hacker, it’s going to be our process. So how we ported it, our processes from our office work, to work from home that kept the culture consistent. And the main difference between being in the office and working from home is what Le-an said – communication. In the office, communication is immediate and it’s direct. It’s there is no barrier to it because you can just stop the shoulder of your coworker and you can talk. But at home, you might not be able to do that because your coworker didn’t see your Slack chat, or Microsoft Teams chat, until X hour. And or he or she might be doing something at home cleaning the plates, whatever. So you’re going to have to wait.

Sean: But there are processes that we have that make sure that people are in their seats in front of their computer, login at certain hours in the day, and we call those focus hours. So you’re going to be sure that you get feedback, in the focus hour as fast as you can. It’s basically processes that you have – culture is all about your values enforced by processes in your company. So if you have that and you’re able to port that to work from home where communication is more segmented, then that’s going to work. That’s going to keep your company’s culture even more consistent. So.