Renée Hasseldine, CEO and Founder of Think RAPT systems, shares her 3 most important learnings from building her business.

@RenéeHasseldine is the #ceo and #founder of @ThinkRAPT Systems, an award winning #pitching and proposal system using #VisualModels. The system organizes the #intellectualproperty in service-based business.  Like many businesses the business was born out of experiences as a service-based business owner.

Prior to that she had a diverse career with experience as an author, writer, career-coach@IBM executive, auditor @PWC and skiguide @mtbuller.

After a lot of learning and constant recalibration she has what many aspire to have - a business that works for her (and not the other way around).  She's in a good place and in this episode freely shares her;

• Experience from starting the business to getting it to where it is now, and
• Three biggest lessons for to help other business owners get to where they want to get faster and with less stress;

1. Being brave by choosing that #idealclientavatar and then having a tight #niche,
   1. "0vercoming the fear that I had, and I know that many people have is that, Well, if I cut down to this niche, I'm going to cut everybody else off. But actually, you're much better off owning that space where you decide to niche, or where your specialty is than trying to appeal to everybody in a much broader audience especially in a service-based business"
2. Market research. 
   1. "I think it's very important to do the market research and to understand the #painpoints that the clients, the audience has, and you've got to start there and find out. Is the audience actually also willing to spend money on the problem that they've got?" There's no point in deciding, Oh, well, my target audience, my solution is, single mums who are struggling. If they have no money to pay for your $20K product."
   2. "Do the #marketresearch and understand the problems and the wants of the target audience, and also, if they're willing to spend money on this problem. Even if it is painful because some people won't"
   3. "Take it from me, one of my crazy ventures was, I opened a vegan cafe in 2002 in West Footscray. I didn't do the market research and let me tell you, I was 20 years ahead of my time"
3. The value of #Mentors. 
   1. "I resisted having a mentor or mentors or surrounding myself with other people for a very long time. I very much believed that I could do it and I could do it on my own because I'm smart enough, I'm serving enough, I can work it out and I will work it out and I'm determined, and I will get there because I will just keep going and I'm ambitious" 
   2. The value of #businessowner #networks
      1. The Institute for Learning Professionals, 
      2. The Xfactor Collective
   3. "Getting emotional support because the people in your family don't understand the challenges that you face as a founder. Only other founders get it. And you can speak to them in a way that you can't speak to your brother or your mom or your sister or whoever. They're not the same to talk to you about the challenges you face on a daily basis unless they're also business owners"
   4. #soundingboards - the power of someone that you can talk to about the challenges that you're facing, whether that's paying payroll this month or even a trouble that you're having with a particular staff member or "Oh, we had our best month ever, but I don't want to brag to my non-business owner friends"
       

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Reach out to Michael Kerr via the website if you need personal assistance or advice for your small business.

michael.kerr@kerrcapital.com.au

www.ownertoownerpodcast.com.au