From Year One to What’s Next: 4 Business Lessons for Entrepreneurs

Break out the candles, break out the gluten-free Nothing Bundt Cakes, it is time to CELEBRATE.

Green & Growing Consulting is ONE YEAR OLD 🥳.

And wow has it been a year. To be honest, consulting wasn’t in the game plan. I remember fervently saying that our lane was agriculture education and we couldn’t veer into other areas. 

What a silly mindset. If Taylor Swift can go from Lover to Folklore and then drop a banger like Down Bad in TTPD we can definitely change lanes. 

And change lanes we sure did. And we learned a lot. And continue to on the daily.

As we thought about how to celebrate this occasion, we thought we should do what we love: Which is helping entrepreneurs like you achieve your goals!

And oftentimes the best way to achieve your goals is to give yourself permission (and presents - always presents!) to do certain things.

So today we would like to gift you some “It’s OK’s” for business presents. Whether you are a newbie like us or an uberly experienced entrepreneur, all four of these suggestions are good reminders that it’s ok! 

🎁It’s ok to change directions

Y’all. One thing I can promise you will happen in  life, in addition to death & taxes, is change. Change is evident in our lives daily from the weather, growth of our kiddos, and knowledge. 

The same is true for business (go figure). 

And we had our share of changes from our name (anyone here when it was Elevate?), to our offerings (see ya later newsletters). Change has been constant this year. 

Why? Because we are figuring out what works for our team, our clients, and our business as a whole. And while sometimes that might feel wackadoodle, it is truly OK. The other half of our business changes constantly to improve for our educators and the educational industry. And we have found it to be just the same in consulting. 

So we experienced change again and again and again.

But, you might be asking “How do you know it is time to change?”

As our solutions director Hannah says “Reflection is key for this one.” We have made it a common occurrence to pause and ask ourselves questions like…

what is working?

what is making sense here?

what is serving me (my team)?

what doesn’t make sense?

what doesn’t feel right?

what feels off?

what isn’t serving you?

And then CHOOSING to go SKIRTTTTT, the opposite direction.

Can we guarantee that the change we made is the “right” one? Not necessarily, but we are taking the next best step with the knowledge we have that day. And we realize that we will have more knowledge and expertise in the future to change again!

The good thing to know here is YOU get to make changes.

🎁It’s ok to say no

We had huge plans to have the biggest, most engaging Instagram page for this business. HAHA. It is laughable at this moment. While we were told by the world that social media is the only way to grow our business, we didn’t feel great about it. 

If you ever heard the saying “If it isn’t a HELL YES, it's a HELL NO”  That totally carries over to business. 

We decided that Instagram wasn’t the place we wanted to put our energy into daily when we could maximize our time and efforts into our blog, newsletter, and organic client connections. 

This is another great time to reflect on what is going on to decide what you might need to say no to. Something that we did early on in the business was evaluate our likes/dislikes in the work we do. We like to call them our ROSES and THORNS.

Hannah’s looked like 

🌹Talking with clients, editing 

👎Original content creation, Social Media

Sarah’s looked like

🌹Writing, creating new ideas

👎Discovery Calls, Social Media

You can see we looked at this and dropped social media like it's hot ♨️. And then we created our processes where Hannah works in client relations and Sarah spends more time in the initial creation stages of projects. 

We truly believe that if it’s not serving you or your team, It’s a no from me DAWG. And note that when we say serving, I mean multiple things: making money, enjoying the work, enjoying the client.

🎁It’s ok to figure it out as you go

If you haven’t guessed the theme of this list yet, maybe you will now. It is freaking OK to not have it all figured out before you start. 

I mean you didn’t know absolutely everything before you started to learn how to bike, or crochet, or bake sourdough. You had some knowledge and the willpower to learn more. 

And this is definitely the case in entrepreneurship!

Aren’t we always trying to figure out the NEXT BEST STEP? (Listen to Sarah on a recent podcast all about deciding on the next best step)

Just because we made it through a year and we’re thriving, does it mean we stay status quo? Knowing us, probably not. 

Maybe it’s the fact that we are a team of educators and our blood is flowing with the mantra to always learn and grow. I believe that we will continue making tweaks, trying new things, collecting data, reflecting, and figuring out the next step as we grow as entrepreneurs (and HELLO as people too).

🎁It’s ok to try something new

Don’t hear what we aren’t saying. We aren’t saying that you should offer services that you have no business offering. Like we are not going to be offering website development or virtual assistant support. That is not our skill set. 

But, it is OK to try something new.

For example, one of our offerings is Quarterly Planning. We have helped multiple business owners determine the best priorities to move forward toward their goals. But, then we realized many solopreneurs don’t have the time to get that work done.

So we started adding implementation to our quarterly plans to help them get the work done. Was that our original offer? Nope. Did it serve our clients in a deeper way that got them to goals quicker? Heck yes. 

We are shouting from the rooftops to ALWAYS. TRY IT. Why not? What’s holding you back?

I can hear you thinking, “Well, failure, duh!” 

I get it, and I also know that learning from mistakes is where some of the most impactful growth happens! Studies say that you should be failing 16% of the time. Say what?!

When you are learning a new thing (like running a business) you should build up your tolerance for failure. And if you hate the word failure, it truly is synonymous with learning. 

But if you need to see a few stats of others in the real world who are “failing” to make you feel better about it, here ya go:

🏀WBNA players only make a shot 43% of the time

🏈Professional Quarterbacks are known as exceptional when they make 6 out of every 10 throws

⚽The top NWSL team only makes 12% of the shots they take 

Many of you who read this are millennials who were taught that “if you just do a good job and work hard you will have success” (which is inherently not true), but let’s be honest—that’s not exactly how it works. Effort and skill don’t always guarantee the outcome you hoped for.

You can do a good job AND have edits from your client

You can pour your heart and soul into a project proposal AND still lose the sale

You can deliver amazing work,and  get glowing feedback, AND yet they don’t buy again

You can be consistent with your outreach, marketing, or content creation AND still hear crickets 

Does this mean that you are a failure? No friend, you are learning. 

And the best thing to do in those moments is to take a step back and say, “Wow, that was helpful—I need to remember that for next time.” Or, “We did what we set out to do, but that client/project wasn’t the right fit. Time to move on.”

Because here’s the thing: Success isn’t just about grinding away at the same thing over and over. It’s about being adaptable, learning from the process, and knowing when to pivot.

The ability to try something new—even after something didn’t go as planned—is where real growth happens.

So if you’re in that space where things aren’t quite clicking, don’t take it as a sign to stop. Take it as a sign to shift. Your next move might be the one that works.

If this past year has taught us anything, it’s that it’s OK to change, to say no, to figure things out as you go, and to try something new. 

And you don’t have to do it alone! 

That’s why we created The Break Room—a free community where entrepreneurs can connect, learn, and navigate the ups and downs of business together. 

Whether you're celebrating year one, year 10, or twenty, you’ll find support, insights, and real talk from business owners who get it.