Hey everyone! It’s Elizabeth, hoping you are enjoying your New Year and that you brought it in safely. I’ve been recovering from surgery I had a couple of days after Christmas, so it has been a bit slow going for me, but my mind has been flowing! So I just thought I would share my thoughts on some things that I’ve been thinking about. My word for the year is transparency so I wanted to talk about business and how we always hear that business is never personal. We get into business because we personally want to make some money, we personally want to do well in our personal lives. I just have been thru a lot, not just this past year but the past several years. I’ve been a beauty business entrepreneur since 2008, so this September will mark 10 years that I’ve been a beauty business entrepreneur and I can definitely say that the few friends that I did have in the beginning of this journey before I had anything that I have now has slowly diminished over time and a lot of the reason that has happened has been because people see what I have, they see what I worked hard for and they want to try to take a short cut and try to take what I have to make it their own instead of investing in, not just me, (they don’t have to invest in me) but investing to try to figure out how they can do the same thing without just going to my website and copying my services.
Then there are people that I have given opportunities to over the years and given jobs to and they looked at what they think is all peaches and cream, all the clients are coming in, the phones are constantly ringing, I’m driving a BMV and a Range Rover but they didn’t see when I was driving a Chrysler Sebring and me and my husband were sharing a car, and when I’d have to drop him to work or he was dropping me off to work or when my engine blew out and I had to rent a car and paid more in a week for a rental than I would have paid for a full month’s car payment and those are just a couple of things that I’ve experienced. It has not been an easy road. So I just said that I was happy to be in the place that I’m in in my business but this is PERSONALLY for my life. This is to personally advance my life, advance my husband’s life that we have together, advance US “personally”. So business is not personal except IT IS personal. And when you have somebody that you do have helped or you have somebody that you have loved, someone that you have cared for, somebody that you wanted to see do well in their life, take or try to take from your business and try to steal from your vision, it hurts PERSONALLY. And I hear all the time from different people that say, oh! That’s business, it happens all the time. Get over it, move on and yes I do move on but it is personal when someone comes to take what I got by my own hard work.
So, business is never personal again except when you do have the opportunity to help people in your business and you start build relationships with them, and you care for them like maybe your own children; that’s personal. The first employee that I ever hired was a little over 5 years ago and she is still working as a part of my business to this day. And she went through some things in her life, some real tragedies and I found myself to be there for her personally and I believe that if I wasn’t there for here personally that she may have broken down completely and I’m thankful that I was in the position to help her personally. I don’t know if anybody and everybody who is in business would have done the same thing that I have done for her because I care about her. When you have people that have been working with for a long time, you do tend to build these strong relationships with them so yes it’s business but that part is PERSONAL and I cared about her and still care about her like she’s one of my children. (That I had when may have been like 5 years old LOL!) But I digress, that is definitely personal.
So in business there are definitely bonds that are built when you are bringing people on your team and you’re helping people out and you see them grow and you see them prosper. But you do have to keep your boundaries, so that is not to say that I still don’t have my personal boundaries. I definitely still have my own personal boundaries. I am thankful that I can say that I’m a business woman, but I know that I can have a personal relationship with my team members but still have those boundary lines and unfortunately there are sometimes when people cross those boundary lines. So in those instances, you may feel a personal connection, but you have to be business-minded and handle it professionally, no matter how much you may care about someone. If they cross those lines of disrespect or violation then it has to be taken care of. Personal or nah!
So, there’s some boundaries and you kind of have to know what you need to do in order to make sure that you can continue to flow in your business. And it is personal as well because when it comes to my business, this is how I feed my family, this is how I pay my bills, this is how I continue to operate my business so that we can service a client that we are offering services to, so business is never personal except. . . . .
You can fill that line in any way that fits you, whatever fits your life, whatever fits your business and think about it because it’s something that everybody in business needs to think about, especially when we’re online these days and we’re trying to build these relationships with people that we’re meeting in different online arenas.
Now in this almost 10 years journey of being a beauty business entrepreneur, I’m extremely thankful that in spite of those things that I have experienced in business that affected me personally, I’m still moving forward and it’s not going to stop me. Not at all! So remember, business is never personal except when it personally affects you, and you are doing it to enhance your personal life. Have a beautifully blessed day and thank you so much and I’ll talk to you soon.
Wishing you a Successful Beauty-filled Journey,
Elizabeth Jennings
The Minister Of Beauty