EP # 203 - The Blind Spot Dilemma -Why Doing It All Alone Is Killing Your Business Growth

In this episode of the Diamond Effect Podcast, Maggie Perotin dives into a critical challenge many business owners face: the limitations of trying to grow your business completely on your own. 

Inspired by a conversation with a client who recently moved her beauty service business from a home-based operation to a commercial location, we explore why seeking expert help isn't a sign of weakness—it's a strategic advantage.

What You'll Learn:
- Why the "do-it-all-yourself" mindset can become your biggest growth obstacle
- The hidden costs of learning everything through trial and error
- How expert guidance helps you avoid business-threatening mistakes
- The 5 key benefits of building a strategic support system
- Why even the most successful CEOs rely on teams of advisors

Episode Highlights:

[00:00:00] Introduction: The transition challenges when moving from home-based to commercial business

[00:02:00] The psychological barriers to asking for help as high-achievers

[00:04:00] Finding the balance: When to figure things out yourself vs. when to seek expertise

[00:06:00] The high cost of hiring mistakes in service businesses

[00:08:00] How successful CEOs structure their support systems

[00:09:00] 5 Key Reasons Not to Go It Alone:
1. Avoiding costly mistakes that threaten business survival
2. Resolving business challenges faster with expert perspectives
3. Identifying blind spots you can't see on your own
4. Combating entrepreneurial isolation and burnout
5. Creating accountability that accelerates growth

[00:18:00] Research shows 65% higher goal achievement with proper accountability

Key Statistics Mentioned:
- 23% of startups fail due to not having the right team of advisors (CB Insights, 2023)
- Solo founders are 2.3x more likely to fail than those with co-founders or advisors (Harvard Business Review, 2021)
- 45% of entrepreneurs report high stress levels (Gallup, 2022)
- People are 65% more likely to achieve goals with proper accountability (American Society of Training and Development)

Resources Mentioned:
Episode 162: 8 Reasons Why You Wouldn't Want a Business Coach

Connect With Me:
Ready to stop doing it all alone? 

Book a complimentary consultation to see how strategic support can accelerate your business growth with fewer mistakes and less stress.

Book Your Free Consultation → https://calendly.com/maggie-s2l/discovery-call

Share Your Thoughts!
Did this episode resonate with you? What's one area where you could benefit from expert guidance? Share your thoughts on social media and tag @maggie.perotin.s2l

Transcript

I was talking to one of my clients who just last year moved from in-home business location, and she's in beauty service business, to a physical location for her business. And with that move, she realized that much more changed for her than she thought. That conversation also sparked the fact that it was also much harder and she encountered more challenges that she expected.

At first she thought that, oh, I can run my business alone. I don't need any help. I'll figure it out. But as she changed the location, her business became more serious. She realized that maybe trying to do it alone, it's not the best way to go. So today's E pisode 203 is a result of that conversation where I thought I will talk about why trying to run your business.

Alone [00:01:00] as a solopreneur or even small business owner might not be the best idea, and having some help and new perspective and different opinion or new experience can help you grow faster and easier.

So in the situation of this clients, if you think about it, when she was running her business from home, it was more of a serious hobby, right? Her costs were low. The amount of clients she needed to be profitable was much lower, and that was. Easily achievable just through the word of mouth and flexible scheduling and kind of, she really did not have a lot of structure around that business.

Now, the moment she moved to a physical location, now her overhead cause became much more. Hire and fixed or rent utilities and those need to be paid whether you have clients coming into your location or not. [00:02:00] She also quickly realized that she needs to hire more people in order to be profitable in order to be serviced.

Enough clients, not only to pay for the basic cost of running the business, but also turn a profit, because that's why we have businesses in the first place. But when you hire a people, now you're becoming a leader. And if you've never done it before, it can be a challenging journey, especially when you're trying to figure it out alone.

And I get it as high achievers and very often, maybe through life circumstances, the way we were raised, or for example, me, I'm the eldest daughter in my family, so I definitely have the mindset myself of, oh, I need to figure it out alone. Can be challenging to think and pause, think, Hey, maybe I need help.

With that realization comes shame of, oh, I should be able to know [00:03:00] that I should be able to figure it out and now I can't. And that can be a hit to your ego, self identity of always doing things on your own. So it can be challenging even psychologically to not only realize you need to ask for help, because that's the first step, but second step actually asking for it and seeking it.

And seeking it from people who can truly give you some expert help.

I've experienced it of course, in my own business, where sometimes our greatest strength, being able to do things, push through, figure things out, which is very important in entrepreneurship, can be also our greatest weakness. Through that focus on just doing it and figuring out, we don't pause and think, is there a better way for me, or easier and faster way for me to figure it out by, for example, oh, I can learn a skill that I don't have and now need in my [00:04:00] business from somebody else who's done it before, who will help me avoid certain mistakes or speed up the process.

Like for example, people leadership. So one very important thing that I often coach my clients on and I need to remind myself is that living in extremes never serves as the best meaning, trying to do everything on your own. It's never the best and the opposite of that, trying to always ask opinions and never taking decisions on your own and never figuring out on your own also doesn't serve you because it doesn't build resilience and it doesn't build that resourcefulness that we need.

The best way is always somewhere in the middle, and that applies not only in this context of this episode, but pretty much in everything. There's times where asking for help, going to [00:05:00] experts for advice, learning something instead of just learning through the school of hard knocks, it's a better option.

And sometimes just doing things on your own is a better option. So having that mix and balance of both is usually more helpful to us, and serves us better than living in one or the other extreme.

For example, as your business grows and now you're hiring help. If you've never had to do that before, there is a steep and long learning curve if you try to do it alone. I. If you hire an expert like a business coach who's done it before and not only has done it in a practical way, the way I've done it like for many, many years, but also has a theory and education backing it, you'll save yourself a lot of time.

I teach my clients a [00:06:00] very simple process, especially those who just start hiring help of how to. Hire the right person. So what to look for, what to pay attention to, the questions to ask, how to determine what type of help they need, how to post and look for it. All those things within couple of hours, couple of coaching sessions.

My clients spare themselves months, if not years of trial and error. So just imagine. How much faster and how much more successful it can be this way. Especially that in a service business, if you hire the wrong people, they can cost you clients who will never come back. They can cost you reputation very quickly.

You can lose business that then takes months, if not years, to gain back. So those mistakes can be very costly for your business, but. If you ask for help, if you [00:07:00] decide to learn it in a practical way, you can spare yourself majority of it. And this same role applies to operations, to finance, to, marketing and sales and strategy.

If you, those are things that you've never done before, and now you need to, because you have a business to run. Learning them from somebody who knows. Saves you a bunch of struggles, and we'll talk about it in a second. One more point I wanna make to all of my high achievers that can do it alone is that truly, when you look at the most successful CEOs in larger companies, they never do it alone.

They surround themselves with people who help them be successful because of course. As the CEO, when you're successful, that means your business is successful. So they have executive teams that are usually comprised of experts in their [00:08:00] fields. The CFO, the chief marketing officer, the chief human resources officer, the IT executive, and so on.

Those are experts that help every CEO to grow the business, provide different perspective, different expertise. CEOs also have boards to rely on not only as an accountability tool, but also as an advisory tool. Not to mention that very often most CEOs have some kind of mentors and coaches themselves as well.

Okay.

Now, as a small business owners, of course you don't have resources or the need to have all those type of people, on your team, but as your business grows hiring. Fractional help in terms of a bookkeeper or a tax advisor or hr, person or it or whatever your business requires. And then business coach helps you get that type of support [00:09:00] at a fraction of a cost.

So now let's get to five key reasons why you don't want to try to figure it out all alone in your business. First of all, I've already mentioned it will avoid making unnecessary mistakes that in business, certain mistakes can be so costly that it will. Potentially put your business survival at risk or will slow your growth down to the point when it's very hard to bounce back from.

I looked at some data and insights as I was preparing to record this podcast, and I found that CB Insights reports from 2023 shows that 23% of new startups actually fail due to not having the right team of advisors that help them with the right strategy, with different perspectives that then allow you to think through whatever you're doing [00:10:00] in your business from many different angles.

And through that, pick the best strategy possible. Now, of course, we never know if a strategy we picked is the perfect one for us, but the more. Educated insight we get, the better decisions we make.

Another thing is that of course, when you have experts who've been through certain things, who've done the things you are about to do, they will help you avoid the mistakes that they've done. You always make some new ones, but instead of making 10, maybe you'll make two, and those two won't be as hard to overcome because you already thought through the other eight. 

As I mentioned, hiring the right people is so critical, especially for a small business because you don't have resources to overstaff yourself. You don't have resources to maybe [00:11:00] compensate for one bad employee with another employee that does the job of two. You might have resources only for one employee, so that employee has to be the best possible,

if you don't have a mentor, somebody guiding you, leading people can is very complicated and without a mentor and guidance can be very painful and cost a lot to the business. I had a privilege of having mentors as I was, leading people and being new at this, and that helped me. Not only learn and develop my skills so much faster, but also progress in my career because I was getting good very fast, but I attribute that to the mentors that I had.

If I had to figure those things out on my own, it would've taken me way longer to get there, and I don't even know if I would get there. Along with avoiding unnecessary [00:12:00] mistakes. The second benefit is to, of course, avoid certain issues altogether. Along with avoiding unnecessary mistake goes.

Also resolving issues harder, resolving issues faster. I always say business is really about solving issues. We're solving problems for our clients and that's the value we offer to them, and that's what they pay us for. But as we grow in our businesses, there's challenges. Inside our business that we need to solve for.

At first, it might be not having enough clients. Then it is having a lot of clients and having time management issues to serve them all, or even operational issues right at the backend to bring them in. So there's always things we solve for. When you have help, when you're not trying to figure it out all alone, you solve for those things faster.

Again, just because you have. Different perspective, additional experience [00:13:00] than your business coach or advisor or mentor, whomever you have has that you don't have, right? The skillsets that they bring to the table, and even two brains, if you work well together and brainstorm, the solutions you'll come up with will be more robust and also they will, you will come up with them much faster.

The third benefit is. Having somebody to show your blind spots. We all have blind spots because we're emotionally attached to the business to what we're doing. Our brain creates shortcuts, which help us move faster, but that also creates blind spots. So that limits our perspective. And the research from Harvard Business Review from 2021 shows that.

Soul of founders and people who really don't have any advice or any help are 2.3 times [00:14:00] more likely to fail than founders who even have co-founders or board of directors or other diverse viewpoint, right? Culture Mentor help you identify those blind spots. It helps you refine strategies and as we said, avoid costly mistakes.

As a coach, I am trained and I'm an expert in identifying those blind spots just by listening to what you say and seeing how it conflicts with what you want to accomplish. So I have your goals that you tell me and we. Established together that what you wanna achieve as a goalpost. And then as we talk and you tell me certain things and we have conversations, I can quickly see how maybe one way of thinking doesn't actually allow you to achieve it.

And I know it might sound weird to an untrained eye. But once my clients experience [00:15:00] that during our coaching session and even free consultation calls, they can quickly see the value of it. Even with the client that I was telling you, we had that conversation within 30 minutes, I pinpointed certain things that she was doing in their business that weren't really.

Serving her and that weren't the best for her business. Just by talking to her and realizing what she was doing that was sabotaging her business growth that she didn't even see herself.

Then when you're trying to grow your business alone, of course it can feel a very lonely journey. Being an entrepreneur is very challenging. There's a lot of personal growth you have to go through. There's a lot of challenges and failure just by definition you need to go through in order to achieve success. So it can feel lonely.

And if you don't have support system, and especially if you don't have [00:16:00] family who all are also entrepreneurs and understand entrepreneurship, you can find yourself feeling alone and not understood by those around you. A Gallup study from 2022 found that 45% of entrepreneurs report high level of stress, which I can see it being true.

Just given with what we handle on a daily basis. And when you are a solo entrepreneur, you can be particularly vulnerable due to that isolation and the workload because you are doing it all. So without support, you can go into decision fatigue, making all the decisions by your own long hours and emotional stress.

And that leads not only to like burnout and being tired and reducing your productivity, but also reduction of creativity and ability to. [00:17:00] Pause and think what is it really that I should be doing and what I shouldn't be doing, and which way should I go? So when you have regular meetings with a business coach, for example, those are the times when you remove yourself from your day to day.

You pause and you are able to be creative and make those critical strategic decisions that then actually help you grow.

And then the last, benefit of not trying to do it alone is faster growth because you end up having accountability when you think about it again, CEOs of larger companies, they're accountable to their board, they're accountable to the shareholders of the company and even to their own executive team that everybody has.

Goals, the company has goals and everybody has to deliver on their part, right? So when you don't have that, our brains [00:18:00] usually don't want to go through. Challenging tasks, they don't our brains and protect us from emotionally taxing, exercises or actions, right? So very often without external accountability, solopreneur, procrastinate, get stuck in the busy work, right?

Instead of moving towards high impact activities or moneymaking activities, because very often those moneymaking activities are. Uncomfortable. And there was a study by the American Society of Training and Development that found that people are 65% more likely to follow through on a goal if they have somebody who holds them accountable.

But in a like trained. Way. And who is able to, especially as a coach when you, when we're able to see what are maybe the stories that you're telling yourself that hold you back and you're not following through on your goal [00:19:00] and coach you through that, right? So if you think about it, 65% more likely, that's a huge, that's why you grow also so much faster when you have somebody helping you.

All right, so now if you wanna explore more of this topic or maybe more why or how a business coach can help you. I actually recorded podcast episode 162 from August 16th, 2024. In a cheeky way, I talk about age reasons why you wouldn't want a business coach, but that's a great episode to dive deeper into the topic.

And now if you want to see how I can actually help you as an expert, not only accountability coach, but really an expert to grow your business much faster with less mistakes, less challenges and better [00:20:00] strategy and more sustainable growth. I invite you to book a complimentary consultation with me.

I will share the link to my calendar in the show notes. Have a fantastic week.