Jeanine the Pole Digger performs at PoleCon 2024

Top 10 Business Lessons I’ve learned in 10 years of owning and running PoleCon

August 30, 2024
Colleen
from the HBIC

In 2014, I purchased PoleCon from the founder of the event. I ran my first PoleCon in 2015 in New Orleans.

I had some experience running events and thought I knew what I was doing. >> Spoiler alert, I did not. LOL

I have learned a lot though! I continue to learn and evolve as our industry and our world changes. <3

No matter what anyone says, all business is personal.

The pole industry (compared to corporate work) can be even MORE personal. The lines between friend and employee or client are thin. Social media makes presumed access very high.

You can’t please everyone all the time.

People will always understand and approach things through their own paradigm—which might not be the same as yours. Pole is an industry that crosses many unique demographics over the entire world. It is impossible to get it *right* for everyone.

There is no “secret” to success in this industry (or any other).

Sometimes you just get lucky. Sometimes you don’t. Sometimes hard work is the answer and sometimes doing the same thing over and over again is the very definition of insanity. Owning and running a business is an individual journey, one that is dependent on a myriad of factors.

No one is as invested in your business as you are.

You get to make all the rules for how you run your business. Always listen to as many voices/opinions as possible before making a decision AND then make the decision that you think is best.

The money stuff is (always) hard.

Costs will always go up. No matter how much (or how little) you charge, someone will always think the price is too high. It will be easy to get credit and capital when you already have credit and capital; it will be hard to get either when you really need them.

Take care of your staff.

The customer isn’t *always* right. If you empower your staff, they will take care of the customers. Don’t ask your staff to do anything you wouldn’t do—you might be the CEO but you’re also the chief of emptying the trash and mopping the floor.

Set appropriate boundaries.

It is VERY easy as an entrepreneur in this industry to have zero boundaries around things like working time and personal access. Find what works for you and enforce it.

Ask for help.

There may be some points in your business that you need to do everything, but that won’t and shouldn’t always be the case. Getting help will make your business better. If you can’t pay for that help (yet) be honest and upfront about what you can provide as “compensation” or in trade.

Collaboration over competition.

Work together. Full stop. There is enough business for all of us. The more we work together the stronger we are against the challenging forces outside our industry.

Sometimes it just doesn’t work—and that’s ok.

It’s ok to close a business, have a failed launch, or to make a decision you later regret. All you can do is move on, in whatever way is best for you (note, not necessarily best for your business, as sometimes those can be mutually exclusive!).

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Colleen

Colleen Jolly is an entrepreneur and a pole dance enthusiast. She has been poling for 13 years, is the CEO of PoleCon and the Executive Director of the IPIA. She teaches pole, lyra, floorwork, and mobility online and in-person in the DC metro area. She has been active in leadership roles in several international businesses over the past two decades and is also an award-winning pole dancer, artist, writer, and speaker. She is certified in several movement modalities and wrote the book "Mobility for Pole" to help pole dancers move better.

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