[00:00:02] Speaker A: Ramping up your business. The time is near. You've given it hard, now get it in Gear. It's Passage to Profit with Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart. I'm Richard Gearhart, founder of Gearhart Law, a full service intellectual property law firm specializing in patents, trademarks and copyrights.
[00:00:20] Speaker B: And I'm Elizabeth Gearhart, founder of Gear Media Studios, Passage to Profit, co host, podcast consultants, speaker, and Gerhard La chief marketing officer.
[00:00:30] Speaker A: Welcome to Passage to Profit, the road to Entrepreneurship, where we talk with celebrities and entrepreneurs about their stories and their business ventures. It's time for your new business journey. Two in five Americans are business owners or thinking about starting a business. And so we want to ask our panel, what do you think is the most common mistake first time entrepreneurs make when starting a business? And then how can they avoid it? So welcome to the show. Sahil, what are some common mistakes from first time entrepreneurs?
[00:01:05] Speaker C: One common flaw that I see with many entrepreneurs that I come across is they spread their net too wide. They want to target everyone. Different ages, different economic backgrounds, different cultures, you name it, different interests. And what I love about one of our guests here, Brady, you know, he specializes in marketing for churches. So now if I'm a church and I'm thinking of who do I go to for marketing, there's one name that comes to mind. Whereas if I'm just general digital marketing or marketing across all aspects, and I go, and I'm a church, I go, hey, who would I want to call? I mean, there's tens of thousands of people out there.
[00:01:42] Speaker A: It's really hard to be all things to all people, isn't it too? Absolutely. So if you can pick a niche, I think that's a great comment.
[00:01:48] Speaker C: And the world is huge, so there's plenty of people out. There's no need to try to get everyone. And you asked, how can someone overcome this problem? Who's your ideal client? Describe that person, your avatar, and then just target that person. That's it.
[00:02:04] Speaker A: That's perfect. So, Brady, welcome to the show.
[00:02:07] Speaker D: Hey, thanks for having me, man.
[00:02:09] Speaker A: So tell us about your thoughts on mistakes that entrepreneurs make.
[00:02:14] Speaker D: You know, a lot of my friends, they know that I have a business and they'll say, brady, I want to be like you. I want to start a business too. I've got this idea, Look, I've spent hours and hours building my logo and here's my website that I built. And they put all of this time to stay busy, but they haven't made any money yet.
[00:02:33] Speaker C: Right.
[00:02:34] Speaker D: Maybe you guys resonate with that when you first get Started in entrepreneurship, you spend a lot of time doing things that don't necessarily produce revenue.
[00:02:42] Speaker E: Right.
[00:02:42] Speaker D: There's a difference between staying busy and doing things that actually will lead to making money. You know, for us, I didn't have a company name, a logo, a website until I was already doing $20,000 a month in revenue.
[00:02:56] Speaker A: Wow it.
[00:02:57] Speaker D: And so it's one of those things like don't just stay busy, like focus on activities and doing things that are going to actually lead to selling that product or getting that new client.
[00:03:08] Speaker A: Absolutely. I mean, doing that means that you kind of have to get out there. Right. You have to meet some people or you have to post some content on the Internet. And so that's a big step for some people. And I think it's natural to kind of retreat and do the things that are insular, that don't necessarily involve being out there unless you're the type of person who really loves being out there. And speaking of that, we have Tom Rag. Tom, welcome to the show and tell us about mistakes that first time entrepreneurs should avoid.
[00:03:37] Speaker E: Right. Well, thank you, Richard and Elizabeth for having me. It's a pleasure to be here in beautiful New York City. In my business, people who start up in the mortgage business tend not to look long or hard enough at other companies failures and they should be concentrating really on their successes. And what they don't do necessarily is look at the failures and, and really work hard enough to avoid those. Because mortgages have been in place since just after World War II. There's a lot of data out there and there's a lot of failed mortgage companies. There's a lot of really successful mortgage companies. And we could certainly get into the details later, but people that are starting a new mortgage company or a new platform in this particular business should really look at what other companies did unsuccessfully and make sure they don't fall into those pitfalls.
[00:04:28] Speaker A: That sounds great. Getting a little education before you leap is amazing. Elizabeth.
[00:04:33] Speaker B: Yes.
The thing I'm most guilty of, which is a horrible place to be, is trying to do everything yourself. You just can't, you know what, and I know you, it's like where does the money come from to hire somebody? Well, find it somewhere.
I don't know, you know, but really the things that you love doing, you should do the things that you are okay with. You should do the things that you really don't like doing. You should really try to find somebody to help you with those. And there are low cost alternatives now. There's Fiverr for design. There's upwork, although it's a little expensive. And there are other places too, if you just dig around where you can find some help, that's not gonna break the bank. It doesn't have to be full time either.
[00:05:16] Speaker A: That's great. Well, you wanna delegate, that's for sure. Delegate is one of the keys to success.
I think one of the mistakes that entrepreneurs make, I've heard this over and over again, is just thinking that you're going to be rich in six months, right? And that it's not going to be a struggle. You've got the killer idea, everybody's going to love it, they're going to beat a path to your door.
And it's not like that at all. And so what you should do, I think, is talk with other entrepreneurs, listen to Passage to Profit, hear stories about other entrepreneurial journeys to get a more realistic view of what's possible.
And that may actually help you in making decisions about moving forward and your business strategy and all of those things. So Passage to Profit is a Gear Media Studios production. It's the nationally syndicated radio show appearing on 40 stations across the U.S. in addition, passage to Profit has also been recently selected by Feedspot Positive Podcasters database as a top 10 entrepreneur interview podcast. Thank you to the P2P team, our producer Noah Fleishman and our program coordinator Alicia Morrissey, our studio assistant Risa Kat Busari, and our social media powerhouse Carolina Tabares. Look for our podcast tomorrow anywhere you get your podcasts. Our podcast is ranked in the top 3% globally. You can also find us on Facebook, Instagram X and on our YouTube channel. And remember, while the information on this program is below believe to be correct. Never take a legal step without checking with your legal professional first. Gearhart Law is here for your patent, trademark, and copyright needs. You can find
[email protected] and contact us for a free consultation. Take care everybody. Thanks for listening and we'll be back next week.
