Christy Wright’s Best Tips for Launching a YouEconomy Business

The farm was beautiful: A moderate house and 11-stall barn built on 40 acres outside of Nashville. It reminded Christy Wright of her dad, and of Bo, the wobbly legged foal she watched take its first steps nearly two decades prior. Bo was her first horse. He was wild and adventurous, kind of like her. She wanted to live on a ranch since that day. She wanted this ranch. But there was one not-so-small problem: The rent was about three times more than the struggling college grad could afford. Wright rented it anyway.

She wasn’t focused on the ways she might fail; she was focused on her dream. To solve her big ranch, little money problem, Wright looked to the resources she already possessed—knowledge of horses and horse care, and 11 empty stalls. Fields of Grace Farm would become her first business, a horse boarding service that transformed into a haven for miniature donkeys, some stray cats and two fainting goats. She never went in with the intention of making a huge profit or even labeling herself as an entrepreneur. She simply combined her skills, background and available resources to solve a problem in her life.

Related: How Women Are Rising in Business

“More often than not, business is not super sophisticated; it’s just scrappy,” Wright says. “It’s just making it work. It’s failing and picking yourself up and trying something new.”

Opening the farm was pretty risky. Those times weren’t easy. But Wright was tired of living in a house filled with an endless cycle of roommates moving in and out. She was tired of working 80 hours per week at a nonprofit earning minimum wage. She gave herself permission to chase a bigger dream and then made a plan to achieve it.

Now a 35-year-old business coach, Dave Ramsey-aligned media personality, best-selling author of Business Boutique and the creator of the Business Boutique brand, Wright is on a mission to empower women everywhere, in boardrooms and nurseries, to embrace that little voice in their head that is brimming with ideas. Her often sold-out events are aimed at inspiring women to embrace the solo hustle as a way to exercise natural gifts and supplement income.

A solo or side hustle doesn’t have to be big and it doesn’t have to change the world, Wright says. You don’t need to move to Silicon Valley or even out of your basement. You don’t need to scale up to $1 million in revenue. You can make just enough to fund an annual family vacation, for example, or your child’s club sports travel costs. The beauty of the YouEconomy is that it’s eternally customizable and can be bent, turned, twisted and contorted until it fits the beautiful and often messy realities of your existing schedule. Your YouEconomy venture should fit within your life, not the other way around.

This new concept of the American Dream is available to any woman willing to work for it. And helping women ideate, plan, launch and grow their YouEconomy pursuits has become Wright’s life’s work and the basis of Business Boutique.

Related: Why Mentally Strong Women Don’t Fear Breaking the Rules

“My favorite part of this journey is to have a front row seat to watch these people do this thing, build their businesses and chase their dreams,” Wright says.

But, she cautions, starting a business—no matter the size or complexity—isn’t easy, and it’s not for everyone. For those who want it, though, the timing has never been better. Here she offers SUCCESS her best tips for launching a YouEconomy business.

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Understand Your Calling

So you like designing and building coffee tables? Cool. Is it your passion? Is it your life’s work? Is it how you will be remembered? Maybe not, and that’s OK. The point is that you enjoy it, and maybe you’ll find a group of people who also enjoy handmade coffee tables but don’t have the talent, time or patience to build their own. They’re willing to pay you for your product and maybe create a long-term business relationship with you. Boom, you have a first customer, which means you are in the YouEconomy. It can truly be that simple, Wright says.

“[Calling] implies that there was one thing that you were put on this earth to do, and I don’t agree with that,” she says. “Regardless of what you do or how you do it, I’m passionate about serving people, and there are a lot of different ways we can do that.”

Chasing your dreams can feel intimidating when you consider whether your hobby or skill is profitable enough and scalable enough to share with the world. Put those negative thoughts aside, Wright says.

Embrace Your Story

Wright’s entrepreneurial journey began long before her adventure on the farm. When she was 6 months old, her single mother was struggling to make ends meet as a sales representative for a large national company. Long hours meant no time with her daughter, so she rewrote the script of her life.

Wright’s mother approached a moderately successful candy store owner in downtown Nashville. He needed more business, and she needed an established platform to showcase her talents for creating cakes and desserts. She proposed that he display her homemade sweets in an empty storefront window. For a portion of the profits, Wright’s mother would have prime real estate and the candy store owner would see more foot traffic business. It worked, and Wright’s mother eventually opened her own bakery.

Wright grew up in that bakery. She became friends with the employees, ran deliveries around downtown on a bicycle and organized the icing bags by color. She wasn’t much for the baking side of it, but the hustle of a small business excited her, even then. She spent most mornings before school napping on 50-pound bags of sugar and flour, often showing up to class with a powdery hue in her already white blonde hair. She liked the cash register, the rhythm of the buttons and satisfying whir as the drawer popped open. Wright holds a BBA and is a certified business coach, but her first business and leadership lessons happened in that bakery.

“My mom didn’t teach me work ethic and character and passion and perseverance and kindness and customer service,” Wright says. “She lived it in front of me, and as a result, I live it as well.”

The bakery never grew exponentially. Wright’s mother made a comfortable living, though she never became independently wealthy from her business. But she loved baking and it brought her joy to play such an integral part in celebrating the life milestones of her loyal customers.

In a time when virtually anyone with internet access can launch a startup, the market might seem too crowded for handcrafted jewelry or all-natural soy candles. But Wright says the same age-old marketing principles apply: Customers, especially millennials, want to try new products, and the market is always ready to embrace new ideas.

But what truly sells is the person and the story behind a product.

“The personal brand is your business brand, and that’s a unique advantage,” Wright says. “It can be the reason people come to you.”

The things that might seem weird about you are the things that make you unique, and by extension, make your product or service unique. Embrace the story of who you are and what you’re trying to accomplish. Your audience will feel that vulnerability and respond.

Do Your Research and Be Realistic

Wright is a no-fluff business coach. After managing large teams, growing departments and launching new ventures, she doesn’t subscribe to sugar-coated advice. She is a realist. If your passion has no demand in the current market, she’s going to tell you that.

If you love teaching piano lessons, great. But if your neighborhood has three other piano teachers who are struggling to fill time slots, you might have a problem. That doesn’t mean you’re doomed to fail, but it does mean you need to do your research. Why are those other teachers struggling to fill benches?

“For someone to make money in the world we live in today, they have to solve a problem,” Wright says.

Start with What You Have—and Quickly

Launching a successful solo gig doesn’t have to be complicated, Wright says. Start with the resources you have. Maybe you speak three languages fluently. Consider teaching foreign language or launching a digital course that your clients can take at their own pace. Your barrier to entry into the business world is now the cost of your internet connection and the time it takes to develop a course outline.

Related: Try This Brainstorming Exercise to Come Up With Better Business Ideas

For many, the hardest part is getting started, Wright says. This is true for most scary or unpredictable things in life. She advises her clients to focus on getting just one paying customer as quickly as possible. Your first win can provide the confidence boost you need to stay motivated. After that first customer, you can adjust as needed.

“It’s start fast, fail fast,” Wright says. “You’ll find out if it doesn’t work and you can redirect if you need to.”

Stake Your Ground

Your unique selling proposition is the one feature about your product or service that hasn’t been done by anyone else. A prime example, Wright says, is the Ember Mug: a ceramic mug that allows you to adjust the temperature of your drink through an app on your smartphone. For Wright, a mother of two young boys who reheats her coffee 50 times before lunch, this was groundbreaking. But what if you don’t have a groundbreaking idea that no one else has invented?

That’s when your unique selling proposition becomes simply the one quality of your product or service that you choose to highlight.

Related: How to Start a Business in a Day

“A lot of what makes Business Boutique unique is me,” Wright says. “There are a bazillion business coaches, but people come to me for the way I teach it.”

When you’re considering what makes your solo venture marketable, don’t be intimidated by the thought of creating the first or even the best version of your product or service.

Dream Big, Start Small, and Work Tirelessly

Wright began working for Dave Ramsey, the best-selling money whisperer and radio personality, in 2008. She started as a product developer and then became a speaker, and now, with his mentorship, a business coach in her own entrepreneurial venture.

Wright had long dreamed of working to inspire women in business as her mom once did by example, but she also took calculated risks, exercised patience and adopted a student mindset. As much as she believes that we should feed the dreamer within ourselves, Wright cautions against putting you or your family’s financial security at risk.

“I’m always, always going to teach the safe route,” Wright says. “I never teach people to have the Jerry Maguire moment where you grab the goldfish and say, ‘Who is with me?’”

If your YouEconomy business is new, this is probably not the time to quit your nine-to-five, Wright says. Be patient, and create time in the fringes of your schedule to build up your business to whatever size feels right for your situation. When you place all of your metaphorical eggs in the side gig basket, you run the risk of sacrificing your financial security and operating your business from a place of desperation.

“I guarantee you this,” Wright says. “If you are desperate for sales, desperate for money, desperate for personal income, your customers will feel it.”

Make Time, Not Excuses

How many times this week, this month or this year, have you told someone that you’d love to start a business, but there just aren’t enough hours in the day? The problem, Wright says, is that we aren’t purposefully choosing how we spend our time.

 

“I am very aware that my time is finite and I can do anything; but I can’t do everything… I’m OK saying no.”

 

“I am very aware that my time is finite and I can do anything; but I can’t do everything… I’m OK saying no,” she says.

If you often go to bed wondering where your day went, and you feel guilty for not accomplishing your to-do list, it might be time for a schedule audit. For one week, write down every single thing you do and how long it takes. If you were sucked into an Instagram scroll session for 25 minutes, write that down. If you binged TV shows for three hours every night, don’t downplay it. At the end of the week, calculate how much time was spent doing time-sucking activities versus ones that promote self-care and your goals.

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Wright’s mother taught her from an early age that letting your dreams take a backseat is not a viable option. Whether you’re swallowing a wish to create a YouEconomy gig, or you’re already in the planning stages, identifying your why can provide the extra motivation you need to make your dreams and goals a priority. Your why doesn’t need to be grandiose; it can be as simple as wanting to make a little extra money.

“You stay-at-home mom, you person who has fears and doubts,” Wright says, “you know that you can do it too.”

Related: How I Make Motherhood and Solopreneurship Work Together

 

This article originally appeared in the Summer 2019 issue of SUCCESS magazine.
PHOTOS COURTESY OF BUSINESS BOUTIQUE

The post Christy Wright’s Best Tips for Launching a YouEconomy Business appeared first on SUCCESS.

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