8 Lessons Kelly McGinnis Learned in Her First 10 Years

Kelly McGinnis is a serial entrepreneur with a passion for helping businesses grow, thrive and profit. Her first business — Kelly’s Cupcakes — grew from a hobby she started in her kitchen to a thriving business that supported McGinnis and her husband as they raised their young family. Building on those experiences, she went on to open another successful business: The Growth Company. The company helps businesses take control of their future by working with them to build actionable plans for growth, strengthen financial systems and processes, and build dynamic leaders. Today, Kelly McGinnis serves as CEO at the Growth Company and Co-Founder of Think Tank Coworking + Collaborative Space in Durham. In her first 10 years of business, she learned some valuable lessons that led her to where she is today. Here are 8 of them:

Be obsessive about your customer

Customers are the lifeblood of a business, and one of the first lessons McGinnis learned in her first 10 years of business was to be obsessive about the customer. She recommends asking yourself these questions to determine how well your business is doing at serving its customers: What do your customers want and need? What is their experience like with your company? How do they feel after they do business with you? These are important questions to ask as they will help determine if your customers are happy and satisfied or if they are struggling with your product or service.

Don’t neglect the details

Another critical lesson learned by Kelly McGinnis is that you can’t neglect the details — ever. The details matter. From the design of your website to the way you answer the phone to the choice of font on your marketing materials and employee handbooks, every detail matters. When setting up a business, new entrepreneurs often focus on the product or service they’re providing and the vision they have for the company. They are passionate and excited about their core business concept. But they often overlook the details that can make or break their business.

Be scrappy and creative

When starting a business with limited funds, you have to learn how to be scrappy and creative. McGinnis says this will help you save money and create an efficient business model. As an example, at Kelly’s Cupcakes, McGinnis decided she would make the decorations for her shop herself instead of buying them. Kelly McGinnis set up a system in her garage where she could create decorations and ship them to each shop. The system worked, and it saved her a lot of money compared to outsourcing the work or purchasing decorations at full price.

Measure everything

It’s difficult to succeed in any business if you don’t measure your performance. You have to know how your business is doing — and where to improve. There are many ways to measure your performance, including tracking your sales, analyzing your website traffic, setting up e-mail campaigns, reviewing social media data and keeping track of what people are saying about your business online. There are many tools you can use to measure your performance and improve your business.

Hire exceptional talent

Businesses rely on their employees to deliver high-quality products and services and engage customers in a positive way. Hiring people who are great at what they do is critical to the success of any business. Kelly McGinnis says that in her first 10 years of business, she learned that the smartest thing she could do is hire exceptional talent. She says that the best way to do this is to find people who are better than you are and who want to work with you. You can’t hire people who want to work for you; you have to hire people who want to work with you.

Build an inclusive culture

It’s critical that your company has a strong culture. This includes all aspects of working together, including the team dynamic, the office culture, the way employees interact with each other, their work ethic, the level of collaboration and team-building, the company values and the mission and vision of the company. Building an inclusive culture will help your company succeed because it will bring together people who share common values. This will allow them to work together more productively, create better products and services and serve customers better.

Stay flexible; don’t get too attached to any single plan or idea

In your first 10 years of business, you will find and experience many different situations. You will meet new people, learn new things and find new ways to do things. You will also encounter failure and have to deal with challenges and obstacles. Kelly McGinnis recommends that you stay flexible, open to the changes that will come and don’t get too attached to any single plan or idea. Be willing to change and pivot when needed, stay focused on the big picture and keep your eye on the prize.

Take time to recharge and reflect

Finally, as you grow your business and experience many successes and failures, it’s important to take time to recharge and reflect. Being successful in business means making lots of decisions. This creates a lot of pressure and stress, and in time, it can be overwhelming. Take time to get away from your daily work life, whether it be a vacation, time spent with friends and family, or even a few hours a week where you are doing something you love that isn’t related to your business. This will help you release some of the pressure and stress you may be feeling so that you can come back to work ready to take on whatever comes next.