3 Reasons to Keep Your Day Job While Growing an E-commerce Business

3 Reasons to Keep Your Day Job While Growing an E-commerce Business

Regardless of how much you may dislike your day job while pursuing the entrepreneurial dream, try be grateful for it, as it's actually a conduit for growth and success in your side hustle.

Kristen Berman, a recent guest on my podcast, Stay Grounded, and co-founder of Irrational Labs, explained that your surroundings make the biggest impact on who you are. She references the corporate workplace as an environmental tool that shows you how to build accountability and team success. 

As an entrepreneur who previously worked at a 6,000 person corporation, I capitalized on my environmental surroundings while there. The company was filled with strict processes and procedures, which not only showed me how to implement this level of quality into an organization, but also how it impacted employees along the way.  

Working for a large corporation is something I found to view as a blessing. After all, you get the opportunity to see behind the curtain and understand what makes a successful business succeed.  Take advantage of this and begin to see it as an opportunity to take your own future by the reins and act as an intrapreneur. Part of this means getting curious: asking questions from top leaders and employees to understand what works and what doesn't.  

I was one of many, and instead of accepting that as my fate, I used it to understand what thoughts, conversations, and feelings run through employees minds. I eventually took those learnings and implemented them into my own organization to create processes and an environment that thrives for everyone.

When you start a business, risk is an inevitable part of the game. Failure and success live on the same street--the sooner you are willing to take risks, fail and learn, the smarter of an entrepreneur you will become.  Because I had a full-time job providing me with consistent income, being empowered to act fearlessly with my decisions came easier. I was willing and able to spend money investing in the business and myself in ways that wouldn't have been possible without the steady stream of income.  

I did everything possible to ensure there was sufficient funding for the business, I borrowed against the 401(k) my company provided, and was able to put any profits directly back into my business without worrying about paying myself.

I invested in the best mentors to teach me how to sell effectively online and also how to build the mindset for being an entrepreneur. When you remove the survival panic associated with the initial finances of your business, it provides a different perspective and reduced stress.  

Keeping your job may delay gratification, but building an e-commerce business is stressful enough without the concern of your personal survival.  Allow the gratification to come later, and it will be much sweeter-- trust me.

When you are spending nine or 10 hours at your day job, the time left for your side hustle may feel limited. These few precious hours become an opportunity for maximum focus and productivity to be efficient. When time is limited, you have no choice but to use it as wisely as possible.  

I set up the day so that my side hustle focus was between the hours of six and eight PM after my day job completed. Knowing that energy and willpower were finite, these two hours were taken very seriously, I planned in advance what would be the single focus for the day, and then executed on it. If you're not intentional with your time, you're not going to get to where you want to be.

Focus, consistency, and discipline are all skills that you learn and develop.  Had I held the freedom to spend all day working on my side hustle, the level of focus and need for efficiency wouldn't have developed as fast. There is a gift in limitation.

If you think you need to quit your job to succeed in a side hustle, think again. I am a living example that it is in your best interest to hold onto your day job during the development process. Although it might not be as fun, the skills and lessons learned while doing both will carry over tenfold on the day you do walk out the door for good.

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