#2 Not Enough Time in the Day to Get it All Done

Probably sounds familiar to just about everyone. Most small business owners I know are stretched thin. Days are a blur trying to keep existing clients happy, convert prospects into new customers, manage invoices, coordinate with vendors, handle administrative tasks like email management and scheduling, and still produce core work products while finding time for strategic, value-added work that grows the business. 

Many LGBTQ+ business leaders often find themselves dealing with these matters without any sort of safety net. Seldom are we fine-tuning and growing a family-owned business; rather, we often start from scratch. Not only that, but finding quality vendors and talented service providers with whom we are comfortable doing business is an added challenge. Even the candidate pool can shrink. I think it’s fair to say we’re more often in a position to bite our tongue than others in dealing with the very folks we are the ones paying. And that’s just the male business leaders. Females and those who identify outside the binary often find things that much more difficult.

That’s one of the reasons I have become so fixated on AI, given its position as an equalizer and force multiplier. Because of the added barriers we collectively face, it’s all the more impactful WHEN USED STRATEGICALLY. I discuss this topic in greater detail in my AI Strategy Guide. Big takeaway: Given the additional challenges faced in this arena, it’s even more important that your tech and processes do all the heavy lifting, because we have so many other factors to contend with that can inhibit growth.

#3 Attracting Aligned, Profitable Clients

For a lot of folks just starting out, any prospect that engages and converts feels like a good client. I get it. But, no. Choosing your clients is totally a thing…a very smart thing to do, within reason.

The right clients respect your expertise, trust you’ll deliver, and seldom try to negotiate price, unless strictly around the margins to fit their budget. The wrong clients will laser focus on price regardless of value, then turn around and question every little thing, while blowing up your phone or inbox with constant questions and needless complaints. The right clients reward you with repeat business and referrals. The wrong clients will go out of their way to one star when you grow tired of the very antics I just mentioned. You get the idea.

Of course, folks in our community have to deal with that on top of matters of mutual respect and common decency. For starters, 70% of the US population believes L-G-B folks should have equal rights, which in and of itself was a miraculous feat. Which still means just shy of 1 in 3 people we may encounter don’t. And when we encounter these people, we feel it, and it sucks. It's just a matter of how vocal they are in expressing their distaste for us as people, which is an unknown variable that makes many feel apprehensive or unsafe. Needless to say, our Trans siblings and other fellow humans in our community who don’t fit neatly into the “M or F” categorizations, who have had every aspect of their existence, from bathrooms to healthcare access to military service to participation in athletics, publicly dissected, inevitably run into even worse challenges.

Finding quality clients is hard enough, and that additional layer that even folks in more “progressive” areas have to deal with is an unfortunate realitythat requires a steady hand to navigate. Some can be overcome with frameworks that improve the likelihood of more successful conversions with fewer unnecessary run-ins with crazies. Sometimes, a little training on how to handle those gracefully in the moment can help. Sometimes, just having someone safe in the business community to talk to can be helpful. Hell, running a simple, targeted, small-scale Facebook page awareness ad recently resulted in a comment that all gays should be sent to Iran. This is even more reason we need to support and uplift one another, so we can be one of those profitable clients to one another.

#4 Code-Switching Drain and Emotional Labor 😣

I mentioned some of this when discussing the other three challenges, but it deserves to be explored further as its own topic. This one is more of the silent killer of business growth and performance…