5 Things About Online Business Nobody Told You (But I Wish Someone Had Told Me)

I made every one of these mistakes so I could eventually tell you not to.

I’ve been helping women build online businesses for 16 years. Specifically women over 40 who came to this later in life and are trying to figure it out without a playbook that was written for them.

In those 16 years, I’ve watched the same things trip women up, over and over again. These are smart, hardworking women who are doing everything they’re supposed to be doing.

The problem is that nobody told them how this actually works.

I didn’t have anyone tell me either. I figured it out the expensive way. Years of doing the wrong things in the wrong order and wondering why nothing was clicking.

So this is the post that I wish someone had published for me when I was starting out.

Five things about doing business online that nobody tells you but will change the way you spend your time, your energy, and your money.

1. Most women are building backwards.

Nobody told you about the logo, the website, the brand colors, the Canva graphics? All of that comes later.

It’s so easy to get caught up in the pretty things and assume that you need a logo and a cohesive brand before you open the doors to your business. I know you want to make a splash and wow everyone from the get go. But if there is one single mistake that I see time and time again, it’s that women invest in a full brand identity before they even launch their business idea. BTW, I’ve never not once, ever hired anyone because of their logo.

When I first launched my own business, I was CONVINCED it was my beautiful butterfly logo that was going to compel people to hire me as their coach.

I mean, how could it not? The HOURS I spent agonizing over colors and style and I honestly believed it was going to be the Logo that was going to convince them.

But the worst part for me wasn’t the actual butterfly logo. It was that I built that logo for ME, not for my audience. I didn’t even have one yet.

So there’s the first mistake. If you don’t know WHO is going to buy your thing, it’s impossible to create a brand that will attract them.

Then there’s the second mistake, and this one cost me even more time.

By the time I was bringing in real revenue to my business, it wasn’t even a coaching business anymore. But my logo was built for a coaching business. I built what I thought was expected of me by looking at the offers and businesses of my peers. And that cookie cutter offer I created? It was likely a cookie cutter template that THAT coach also took inspiration from one of HER peers. That was the beginning of my undoing.

Here’s what I usually see: in the first year after you launch your business, you’ve had some time to build an audience and understand the parts of your offers that feel good AND the ones that don’t. It’s more common than not to be ready for a complete realignment of your offers and your branding because of your newfound confidence in helping the people you helped.

So save your time, sanity AND money and don’t invest in a big branding package until you’ve built the audience and the revenue to support it.

2. Social media is not where clients hire you.

It’s where people find you. That’s the whole job. But most women are spending their entire week there, convinced that more content equals more revenue, when really they’re trying to sell to strangers who’ve never met them.

Think about the last time you handed over thousands of dollars because you read one social media post. You didn’t. If your buying decisions are anything like mine, even if it’s $97, I’m probably visiting the full sales page (that’s NOT on social media) about 4 times, I’m vetting their testimonials, I’m asking my friends what they know.

Now, if your offer is more than $97, consider how much extra time people will need to make the right decision. Your runway is longer than your social media post.

I spent an entire month building out content pillars and a color coded content calendar. I was posting like I was my own social media manager. Consistent. Strategic. Showing up every single day. And still not getting leads.

It took me way too long to figure out what was wrong.

I was confusing marketing with sales. They are not the same thing.

Marketing is getting known. It’s building relationships. It’s the reason someone follows you, pays attention, and starts to trust you. That’s what social media is for.

But I wasn’t doing that. I was jumping straight into sales and trying to get people to commit on a platform that was meant for scrolling and entertainment after they JUST found me for the first time.

Sales don’t happen inside your marketing. The one exception is paid ads, and those exist for one reason only: to meet and convert cold customers. That’s a completely different strategy than showing up on your feed every day hoping the right person sees your post and buys.

3. Your followers aren’t even seeing your content.

Only about 20% of your followers see any given post. With email, 100% of the people on your list will get it. They have to do something with that notification. Open it. Delete it. Either way, you landed in their inbox. That’s your shot. If your content is good, they will open it and you’ve just increased your chances that they may become a client.

But if you’re only showing up in short form, a lot of people who want to hear from you aren’t hearing from you. And you’re wondering why it feels like you’re shouting into a void.

Let me tell you about Black Friday in 2024. I had crazy sales. I blitzed the heck out of my social media for 5 days with different deals each day and I made so much more money than I ever had previously. I was thrilled. I thought social media finally clicked for me.

But when I looked at the stats on where those sales actually came from? It wasn’t from new followers or random people seeing my social media posts. The revenue came from my list of email subscribers who I nurtured with a weekly email for MONTHS before I hit them with a promotion.

Those people didn’t buy it because of a Black Friday post. They bought because they’d been reading my emails, getting to know how I think, and building trust with me over time. The Black Friday deal just gave them a reason to say yes.

Social media brought some of those people to me originally. But email is what kept them close enough to buy

4. Busy rooms aren’t the same as productive rooms.

You can spend an entire Saturday updating your bio, rewriting captions, finessing your latest freebie in Canva, and feel like you absolutely crushed it and none of it brought you one step closer to a new client. That’s not building a business. That’s rearranging the furniture in a house nobody’s been invited into because while you’re inside perfecting the throw pillows, there’s no one outside knocking on the door. You skipped the part where you go out and meet people and give them a reason to come over.

I know because I’ve done all of it.

I’ve spent two hours picking the right font for a carousel. I’ve rewritten my bio for the fourth time in a month. I’ve watched another Instagram Reels tutorial thinking this is the one that’s going to change everything. I’ve spent a whole afternoon choosing between two almost identical shades of my brand color. I’ve Googled “best time to post on Instagram” more times than I want to admit. I’ve posted a reel and then checked the views every 15 minutes for the rest of the day.

And I’ve scrolled through what other women in my niche were posting and convinced myself I needed to do what she was doing. So I’d buy another course on hashtags. Redo my highlight covers. Redo my link in bio page. Watch a 45 minute training on the algorithm. Create a content calendar I’d abandon by Wednesday.

Every single one of those things felt like work. None of them were the work that actually brought in clients.

5. You’re trying to close where people are browsing.

If your sales process feels awkward or pushy, it’s usually because you’re making it happen too early and if you’ve read this far, you can probably see the pattern. Building a brand before you have an audience. Posting like a social media manager and wondering why nobody’s buying. Spending entire Saturdays on work that felt productive but didn’t move anything forward. Underneath all of it is the same thing. You’re skipping steps and you know exactly what it feels like to be on the receiving end of that.

You’ve gotten that DM. The one from that guy who somehow found your profile and knows EXACTLY what to say to place doubt in your mind. He’s read your bio. He’s seen your content. And within three messages he’s telling you what’s wrong with your business and how he can fix it. You haven’t asked for his help. You don’t know him. But he’s already pitching you like you’re a done deal.

That feeling you get in your gut when you read that message? That’s what it feels like when you skip the relationship and go straight to the sale. And if your audience is anything like you, they feel it too.

The difference between bro marketing and what actually works for women like us is time.

It’s showing up consistently. It’s giving people enough room to get to know you, trust you, and decide on their own terms that you’re the person they want to learn from.

Not because you pressured them but instead because they were ready.

None of this is complicated once you see it. But when you’re in it, when you’re posting every day and tweaking your brand colors and wondering why nobody’s buying, it feels like YOU’RE the problem.

You’re not. You just didn’t have the information. Now you do.

If any of this felt like I was describing your last six months, just know that I was actually describing my first few years. Every single one of these mistakes has my name on it. The difference is I made them so you don’t have to spend as long figuring it out as I did.