Ducks on the Pond
A podcast for rural women... by rural women. Hosted by Kirsten Diprose and Jackie Elliott, they seek expert advice and the stories of other rural women on issues such as succession planning, motherhood, starting a business...running for politics and much more!
Ducks on the Pond
How to turn your career skills into a business - Rebecca Saunders and Paige Cross
If you’ve spent a decade or more building a professional career - the idea of starting a business might seem out of reach. But you have plenty of skills already, in fact you are probably REALLY good at a couple of things… that people will actually pay you for.
In this episode, hear from two rural women who talk about how you can use your established skills, networks and passion to start a business. All you need to do is plug the gaps in your knowledge. (And work pretty bloody hard).
*Rebecca Saunders - serial entrepreneur, business coach and founder of the Champagne Lounge, Mudgee NSW
*Paige Cross - founder and owner of Cross Country Management, former agribusiness manager for NAB, Greater Adelaide region, SA.
We discuss whether you need to identify a problem first to have a business, how to tap into your established network and how to find mentors. Also, how do you know when to spend money to make money?
EPISODE SPONSOR: The Hamilton Hamper - we are delighted to have such a wonderful brand sponsoring us for this episode!
And I think there's a lot of people who have left a corporate world. Probably what's the one thing that makes you want to work for yourself is autonomy and flexibility.
Rebecca Saunders:But when I moved to town and ladies were coming to that event that had lived in the region for upwards of five years and hadn't actually met any other business women, you know, upwards of five years and hadn't actually met any other business women.
Kirsten Diprose:Welcome to Ducks on the Pond brought to you by the Rural Podcasting Co. And happy new year. Kirsten Diprose here and it's just me today, but Jen and Jackie are back for 2025 as well, so don't worry about that. This episode is sponsored by the Hamilton Hamper, which creates the most beautiful gourmet hampers, championing local produce and makers. They post Australia-wide and you can even create your own hamper. Plus, you get a 10% discount when you sign up via their website, which is hamiltonhampers. com. au, and if you're in the Hamilton region in Victoria,1q1 drop into their store. I do it all the time and I can attest. It's an experience where you'll find the best wine, food, amazing gifts from right across the Grampians region and beyond.
Kirsten Diprose:Now this is really the time of year when we often start mapping out how we want 2025 to look, and if you've been thinking about shaking things up career-wise and even quitting your job and starting your dream business, then this is the episode for you. For one, we know childcare in the bush can be hard. The commute to town can take hours, and flexibility around farming life isn't just a bonus, it's a necessity. I know that now my kids are at school, the traditional nine to five hours just aren't an option for me.
Kirsten Diprose:So in this episode we'll hear from two women who've broken free of the mold by using their talents and passions from their careers to build businesses that fit their lifestyle, their family and their community. You'll meet Paige Cross, who has turned her banking background into a successful business, and I also spoke with Rebecca Saunders, who's gone from London to Mudgee. She helps regional female business owners embrace their uniqueness, celebrate their success and run their businesses on their own terms. She's the founder of the Champagne Lounge, which is a regional business women's network. She also, on their own terms, she's the founder of the Champagne Lounge, which is a regional business women's network. She also has her own magazine, which is a long way from her days working on a supermarket publication in the UK. Let's start with Rebecca's story.
Rebecca Saunders:I now live in Mudgee in regional New South Wales. We're about three and a half hours inland from Sydney but I grew up in the UK so I wasn't country in the UK in terms of farm and rolling hills directly where I lived, but more sort of small town rolling hills. If you've seen the Vicar of Dibley and that beautiful opening shot that was literally down the road from where I grew up.
Kirsten Diprose:I love the Vicar of Dibley, and were the people there just like the people in the Vicar of Dibley?
Rebecca Saunders:I like to think so.
Kirsten Diprose:Yeah, so how did you end up in Mudgee then?
Rebecca Saunders:I moved to Australia in 2012, moved to Sydney. I'd always wanted to live in Australia, like it was my goal from a child to move to Australia and I think that really came from my mum's brother moved out to Australia when I was about 18 months old, so I was very privileged to come on family holidays here. Growing up, we did about eight years living in Sydney before deciding bit of a tree change. Let's do something completely different. So I'm very much I like to call myself a city import into country life. It's like I've had a city stint and now very much loving and thoroughly enjoying living in Mudgee and so I'm a natural connector.
Rebecca Saunders:I love talking to people, meeting people and, through the business that I run now, meet a lot of regional and rural businessmen. But when I moved to town through an event and ladies were coming to that event that had lived in the region for upwards of five years and hadn't actually met any other businesswoman and had that connection and that friendship group because it didn't exist in the town, I think we're coming in and potentially shaking things up, but also just bringing a fresh perspective and loving it in, maybe probably a slightly different way to how it's been done traditionally but very much bringing a different energy, which I think that, particularly where I live, it's a refreshing thing that people are enjoying seeing and being part of yeah, and the best thing about smaller communities is you can really stand out your skills or your background.
Kirsten Diprose:You can really offer them in different ways, whether it's through volunteering or business.
Rebecca Saunders:Yeah, funnily enough, you can't miss me when I'm in town because my ute is bright pink. So I drive a bright pink ute. So do know who I am. But I think I've come in and had the privilege of taking over. I now run the local magazine in town. For me it was about bringing my skills and background from uni days as a journalist and a copywriter and going I'll give this a crack, because the people that were running it before hadn't got the resources to continue it. And for me I, like every small town, needs some form of magazine or way of sharing news with the tourists that are coming through. So yeah, jumped in and I'm meeting a lot of people doing some awesome things through running the local magazine in town. So we run Midwestern Living Magazine and what's in it.
Rebecca Saunders:So for me I've done it slightly. I've done a slightly different publishing model in the sense that I am running it on a pay-per-page model. So instead of it being full of adverts and then a few crafted articles, the majority of it is articles. So businesses are in town paying to have their story told within that magazine in beautiful single or double page spreads. So we're 44 pages each issue, so 40 pages of stories about the businesses in town, what they're doing, why they're doing it, so really telling the story of the people behind the businesses, because we've definitely found that the feedback from that has been I actually sat and I read it. I didn't just flick through it like I would do if I was just waiting for my coffee. I took it home and I read it, which tells me I'm on the right track to doing it, like doing it my way, doing it differently, but doing it in a way that people are reading and enjoying and it's benefiting the businesses in town.
Kirsten Diprose:Yeah, and it's super interesting that you mentioned the business models, because it's been really tricky with magazines, certainly newspapers, now with that sort of business model being broken because a lot of the revenue just goes to, like Google and Facebook these days. But there is something, I think, for those tourism magazines or those sort of ones that aren't maybe traditional journalism but offer an opportunity for businesses to tell their stories. Are you writing the articles or do you have a team?
Rebecca Saunders:So right now because anyone starting out a business will know it's hard graft at the beginning and you do everything by yourself. I'm doing it all solo but I've got the background in it, so I'm very pleased that I have those skills to jump in and have. I've got the sub editing skills so I can do the in-design for the page design. I've got the journalism background so I can do the writing of it and I send questionnaires to the business owners and they send back the answers and then I craft it into an article.
Rebecca Saunders:And the beauty of us having all this social media around is that everyone's got professional photos that they've had taken. It really is shifting in the way that traditional media is now becoming. We can have fun with it, I think, and do it in a slightly different way and have that thing that tourists can pick up and take home. Being regional, everyone is quite spread out in terms of accommodation and where things are and I found that if I stack boxes of them in Aldi of all places, that the tourism people running tourism centres or accommodations come into Aldi to get them to go, take them and put them in their accommodation. So I know that it's being wanted and it's being received really well and that we're spreading it as far and as wide as we can with the resources that we have, which is just amazing.
Kirsten Diprose:Very cool. You mentioned your skills then, which is really important because obviously you went to uni, you must have had a job practicing as a journalist, did you for a time?
Rebecca Saunders:Yeah, so I went to university in my hometown and the reason I did that is when I left school I said to my mom I'm going to go get a job. My father had passed away just before I was 16. So I was like I'm going to support you, it's going to be this and that, and she goes. No, I think you should go to uni. So I picked my university degree based on the fact that I didn't have to do any exams. So for me I wanted a coursework degree and for me in town there it meant doing a media and journalism degree, because it gave me the ability to do coursework rather than sit and write papers and papers of exams, which really works well for my personality.
Rebecca Saunders:So in my third year of university I did a stint work experience in the local newspaper, and so my stint in the local newspaper soon grew into me doing a standard freelance spot and I was with them for probably a couple of years, one day a week. So I had that experience. I launched the university's newspaper in my third year and my vision for that really was I really wanted it to actually be an insert in the local newspaper of town because I wanted it to be. The university could have some local newspapers and the local newspaper of town, because I wanted it to be. The university could have some local newspapers and the local newspaper could have some of the uni newspapers and spread the joy and share the knowledge on what's going on.
Rebecca Saunders:I did broker that deal but I don't think the next people after me once I left took that any further forward. But after uni I then went and did a nine-month stint in a publishing house in London. So I was working for Tesco Wine Magazine. So Tesco's a big supermarket over there Tesco Wine Magazine and Tesco Beauty Magazine as well.
Kirsten Diprose:Wow, so much experience so quickly, such a little time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you moved quickly, gosh. I stayed at the ABC for 15 years.
Rebecca Saunders:I think I don't think it's not because I wouldn't have wanted to stay there. I think for me, moving away from, like the local newspaper, I wanted to travel and come to Australia. I definitely didn't enjoy that structure of having to be somewhere at a certain time to do a certain thing in a certain way and you started your first business at 22.
Kirsten Diprose:How did that come?
Rebecca Saunders:about Funny story, Kirsten, I moved to Australia around that time and working holiday visa as most tourists would have on the way in and quickly realised I've always been in my blood, given what I've just said to you quickly realised that most entrepreneurs just aren't that employable. We just we see how things can be improved and maybe we can go about it in all sorts of bulletin china shop ways, but that's just the nature of I can see doing it differently, so I'm going to do it differently. And so I knew that I didn't want. I didn't want four, if not five years worth of permanent residency and whatever the visa was connecting me to an organisation just for that particular goal. Cause I would have been miserable, I'd have been a miserable human and I would have probably just not really worked out in that sort of situation. So I started my first business to sponsor myself, to stay in the country.
Kirsten Diprose:I didn't even know that was an option. I can't imagine going to another country. I'd just get a job. I wouldn't even think to be able to navigate how to start a business, or I'd be thinking is that even legal?
Rebecca Saunders:Okay, so it is legal. It definitely was legal. I did need an Australian citizen to be a director of the company, so I did go into partnership with someone and I built it properly from the ground up. So I wouldn't necessarily recommend it, particularly now, I think. Would I do it again? I'd give it a crack, but would it work? I'm not so sure. So under your visa constraints, you are only allowed to do a certain role, so I had to just stick with that certain role and I had to bring other people in to do all the roles that I wasn't allowed to do under my visa. So looking at it now, looking at like I'm starting several businesses from scratch now and in the last sort of 18 months, that's bloody tough right to do in this like environment, and I actually don't know how I did it, but I did. And so what was the business that still operates today?
Rebecca Saunders:I run a video production company at the time. So this was 12, 12 years ago. Video was just starting to get accessible, so there was a big hype around it. We had a lot of big clients at the time. In Sydney I was spending every other night on a rooftop bar networking function that some corporate organization was putting on and everyone was going because it was a free ticket and we just met so many people Like my first clients were. My first client was LinkedIn. I think I got Microsoft as a client, hitachi as a client and it was just through networking and talking to people that were having a drink at the rooftop bar that this corporate put on and we'd all book tickets and off we go. So not totally different to how I think networking works now and how building a business would work today.
Kirsten Diprose:How do you make yourself actually stand out?
Rebecca Saunders:So one of the hacks that I've done since the beginning of running my business is every single person I've ever met is in my phone and I've saved their number. I've saved their number, I've saved. It sounds creepy when I say it out loud, but I don't know what their dog's called. How many kids have they got. It comes up in conversation and I make note of it because when I'm chatting to someone I'm like oh, how are the kids? How was that holiday that you did in Greece last year? Whatever, it is just, it's not about asking the questions, it's about listening so that you can go back and go repeat it back into some form of conversation later. It takes practice to get it to sound a little bit more natural and less stalkery how I've just described it. If someone says to you, oh my gosh, like how was that trip you did last autumn? And you go, how to you, oh my gosh, like how was that trip you did last last autumn? And you go, how do you remember that? I think for me that's a huge thing.
Rebecca Saunders:I shared in an interview I did a couple of months ago on a webinar how I navigate that now and for me, I use emojis in my contact list so anyone I've met in Mudgee. I just have to type the wine glass emoji and everyone I've met in Mudgee pops up, because I've put a wine glass next to their name. So so if you've got a dog, you'll have the dog next to your name. If I've met you at this particular event, I've got that event with an emoji. So I don't know, it's a bit of a quirky, crazy way of doing things, but it works for me.
Kirsten Diprose:That's great, and it just would probably just trigger something in your brain and it's once you remember one thing about someone, you suddenly remember all of the other things. That context comes back and you remember where you were speaking to them at. And because there's nothing worse than when you meet someone who recognizes you and you should know them, and you're frantically scanning your brain, going how do I know you? Where did I meet you? It's the worst feeling in the world. I think another thing that you're really good at, and I suppose you've made it part of your business as well, is networking, is bringing people together.
Rebecca Saunders:What's the value in that. I'm a big believer. There's huge value in a conversation Huge. I all happily ask questions. I don't think any question is too silly or any subject matter can't be asked about in the right way. So for me I've always wanted to harness and cherish them and incubate them, I guess, so that others can have a safe space to have those conversations as well.
Rebecca Saunders:When I moved to Mudgee and realized just by doing that one event that I just went hey, johnny, I'm wanting to get some women together for a business event. Do you reckon you can open the bar for me on a night that you're not normally open so I can have it? And we worked that out, sure, and we had 80 people come. And so just doing something a little bit different for me, which is natural to me but hadn't been done by others in in town, made me really realize that people do want to get together and they do want to have conversations. And that conversation and almost peer to peer, but it's that like-minded thing.
Rebecca Saunders:If you don't know where to find them, you can feel really isolated and really lonely. For me that's where really the champagne lounges. My business now has really propelled forward because my goal is about having a safe space for conversation without judgment. You can come and have your five minute meltdown because this morning everything's just gone to trash and it's just a nightmare, or you can come in and go. I nailed this deal and it's taken me a really long time to broker this, but I just had to share it with someone because my dog doesn't get it. My dog's not giving me the level of excitement that I need, and so I think it's just having that space for the conversation. I think that's the power of it.
Kirsten Diprose:The Champagne Lounge. Is it just for women, or is it anyone?
Rebecca Saunders:No, so I've built it as a regional business women's network. So just for women, just for business owners who are predominantly working solo and working remotely. And I called it the Champagne Lounge because I wanted it to be like that bar or that coffee shop or that place that you would love to go and meet your friends, but if they're a few hundred miles away or if you're in the middle of nowhere, like you can come in your pajamas. You can come wherever you are, from the middle of the field, from in your kitchen cooking dinner, like listening in, because you've got the kids hanging around. So I wanted it to be like that. That ripped up space. You just go. Oh, I feel comfortable there. I'm going to go hang out.
Kirsten Diprose:Do you think women network differently to men? Like the idea that you can come to the champagne lounge and either meet someone who you want to go into business with or just absolutely have a whinge about how you're sick of doing the housework or burst into tears because something happened?
Rebecca Saunders:Yeah, I would agree that we do network differently and I don't really necessarily think of it as an. I call it a network, but we're not networking, we're connecting, like it's a connection and a conversation piece, and I think that's very different. I think when you put business in the mix, I think it's very easy to jump in and go I'm going to get business out of this person, I'm going to pimp my services, I'm going to do this, I'm going to sell, I'm going to sell, I'm going to sell. Nah, like, if that's your vibe, like that's not what's going to happen where we are, like none of our conversations really are about particular services or what you do, and it's a no agenda conversation every time we get together. So it's not like, well, today we're going to be learning about how to do your PR or how to do your finances. It's come and just have a chat like you would with your friends around a dinner table. It's the conversation could go anywhere business life but we definitely do it differently and I think that's the joy in it really.
Kirsten Diprose:Yeah, it's a fantastic idea and it joy in it really. Yeah, it's a fantastic idea and it's more than an idea, it's reality. How long have you been running it for?
Rebecca Saunders:So we're 18 months in and we have 100 members across the country at the moment.
Kirsten Diprose:Wow, yeah. And what does membership entail?
Rebecca Saunders:Membership is a flat yearly fee, so that just stays, stays static, because for me, less complications, right In terms of running my own business. It was how do I make it easy and accessible? And for a member, we can join any of the virtual meetups. So we run virtual meetups. We've got 10 hours of them a month. So 10 o'clock on a Monday and 5 o'clock on a Friday are our weekly ones. That's in Australian Eastern Standard Time, if we're talking about time zones, and we do a one eight o'clock in the morning and one 8pm at night every month to just capture someone, those members that just maybe can't make those weekly ones.
Rebecca Saunders:But the joy of it is you don't have to come to all of it. Very much the flow of come when you can, for as long as you can, how you can. And hey, if we haven't seen you for six months, cool, what have you been up to? Tell us about it. So that's the core membership. And then internally within the community, you've got your Facebook group, we've got a WhatsApp group and within that people have started up book clubs, sort of like accountability bubbles, really making it what they want to make it as part of that connection and trying not to make it as overwhelming.
Kirsten Diprose:Yeah, you've talked about how you find a business opportunity, and very rarely does it last forever. The world changes. Technology comes in, people want something else. You might have really nailed it and you've ridden that way for a couple of years, and then something changes and you've got to change too.
Rebecca Saunders:Yeah, like at the beginning of 2020, I told my entire team at the video production company that I was going to close it down because I'd had enough and it was too hard navigating the starting point of people coming in with their iPhones, with their cameras, and doing things at less than half the price that we were charging because they could, and that's the whole conversation for another time around, creatives charging for their time, correctly. But I got to that point and the only reason that I kept the business going during COVID is because the demand for my professionalism and my skillset at the time when the world was closing down and shut down meant that the decade I had of positioning and people knowing that I could pull things off and give them the skills for them to do it at home as well meant that the business thrived during COVID. But then I got to the end of COVID and went yeah, but I'm still not happy. During this full time, I want to do something different, and so I sold off the physical space that we had in the city and that's when we moved to Mudgee and did some really cool stuff. But I'm not alone in that. I've got at least five members in the Champagne Lounge now, who have all sold the businesses that they've run for the last decade and are now in that space of oh, this new stuff is hard Stuff that I did at the beginning, when I was building my business before, isn't working, or I'm not used to the hard graft.
Rebecca Saunders:I forgot how hard it is to start something from scratch and really build everything up again from the ground up, and so I think that again, is a testament to having the conversation in a space for people to go. I may look bright and shiny on the outside to the outside world, but gosh, it's hard on the inside and I just need someone to understand that and just go. I get it, I got you. Just do your thing, let it out, do what you need to do, and I think more conversations like that need to happen, because otherwise you can very easily sit on your phone and social media and go, but they're killing it. What am I doing wrong? And I think everyone's killing it on social media.
Kirsten Diprose:Everyone's killing it. Yeah, I even scroll through my own feed and I try and post my personal feed. In particular. I try and be as real as possible, like I'm not there selling some sort of here's my amazing life type thing. It's just me being fun and silly and whatever. But I look at it and I go gosh, my life is great when I look at my social media feed because it's the highlights, even when I'm not trying it for it to be.
Kirsten Diprose:It's. Oh, I was out there and so I took this lovely photo, not like just me ploughing away for hours at a laptop or maybe I should do more or just sitting waiting for the bus picking the kids up. I'm just waiting.
Rebecca Saunders:As much as we know that though we know it's the highlights If we're in a really bad space, if we're feeling really like it's not working, or we're feeling really lonely and no one's, you can really go down that spiral of everyone seems to be killing it. Yeah, yeah. And again I think that comes back to sort of my earlier point is you've got to, you've got to be around the people that are your cheer squad and not your naysayers. And the naysayers could quite easily be your mum or your husband, or I know some people find it really hard doing different things when they're when their parents and other parents at the school pickup are like what are you doing? I've got some people go.
Rebecca Saunders:I've got nothing in common with the people that, like the parents of my kids at school, and what do I do in that situation? And for them, that's the hardest part of their day is just having to put on their armor and go. Okay, I'm gonna get hit with negativity, but it's gonna be okay and go. Okay, I'm going to get hit with negativity, but it's going to be okay and go back to doing their thing. But having that advice that's from someone that's genuinely interested in seeing you succeed and genuinely has been there and gone through the ups and downs themselves. That's extremely important. Otherwise you can end up in a big mess.
Kirsten Diprose:You know, most of us didn't start a business at 22. We might be starting it at 35, at 45, at 55. And we've got a really great skill, or a couple of really great skills, but there might be some holes in some other areas. Can we turn it into a business?
Rebecca Saunders:100%. Yeah, I think all businesses need to come from a place of what are you wanting to achieve and what's the impact on that? It doesn't have to be anything huge. Some people want to change the world, whereas others just go. I just want to be able to afford that extra bit to take a family on a fantastic holiday once a year. Like, start with what you're wanting to. What's the goal? Like, why are you even thinking about going into business? Because it is very easy to go. I'm just gonna get a nine-to to five job. That would be the easy way out.
Rebecca Saunders:So what is the end goal and is it a big enough conviction for you to actually jump in and give it your all? I think that's got to be a question number one. And then it's about having the conversations with people that are also running businesses to then go cool, you should probably go speak to this person because they'll help you with that skill. This is how you're going to plug the gap that you've got. I think can be really useful, because there's a lot of stuff out there on the internet that you can find and search for. But do you know someone that's been through that program? You're investing even 500 bucks a lot of money to invest into something. Is it tried and tested? Do you have?
Kirsten Diprose:to solve a problem. You hear that in business quite a bit. What problem are you solving for your ideal customer?
Rebecca Saunders:I hate that kind of conversation. I've always struggled with that. I've always struggled with who's your avatar, why? What are their pain points? I can't get my head around that language at all, but I think you do need to not necessarily solve a problem per se, but give them something that they can't do themselves.
Kirsten Diprose:I suppose it might just be. I mean, your video production company solves a problem for someone. You didn't invent making videos, but I guess.
Rebecca Saunders:Yeah. So I think you're right. Like my brain just doesn't go into the problems and solutions sort of world and I think if you're listening and your brain doesn't either, don't force yourself to have to go. Who's my avatar? Who's this, who's that? Because it can. While someone might look at it like I'm solving problems for people, I look at it as though I'm just having fun and enjoying what I'm doing. Like when I started the champagne lounge, I was like, oh, I wonder if I could make friends virtually and make it into a business. Okay, that's escalated and grown. Like that's where it started from. For me is I'm feeling really lonely. I wonder if there's other people like me that want to get together.
Paige Cross:And then it came into the business isn't it, that's it, but I didn't look at it as a problem.
Rebecca Saunders:I looked at it as this is my real life experience. You know what? Yes, probably in some language, in some ways. Yes, it has to solve a problem, but the problem doesn't necessarily have to be for other people, so that might be the key.
Kirsten Diprose:Yeah, and I come at that because I suppose the way that I got into business was like initially thinking not in terms of problems, but in terms of I have these skills, I really like doing these sorts of things, I love making podcasts, and how do I make it into a business Not having the business skills? Originally, I thought I have to solve a problem for someone, don't I? No, I don't think so.
Rebecca Saunders:That's it you don't. If you can do something you love and people are willing to pay you money for it, cool. Do you really need to spend hours and hours agonizing over how do I articulate my specific problem that I'm solving? How does my marketing message particularly solve a problem and turn on those pain points? I don't know.
Rebecca Saunders:I, a couple of years ago, started hosting dinner parties at my house and people pay to come to have dinner at my house and there's eight of us around a table and I cook three courses and it's amazing and bloody good cook. Am I a chef? No, but do I love to cook and entertain? Yes, did my husband think I was crazy inviting strangers into my house and but I got paid for it? Yes, did it work A hundred percent, like I host them every couple of months? But as long as you're smart in the way that you're doing it in the sense that you are making money and not just doing stuff for the sake of doing stuff and not actually charging your worth or being able to pay your bills you can do whatever you want as a business.
Kirsten Diprose:It sounds like you've got multiple streams of income, though You're not making a killing off dinner parties alone.
Rebecca Saunders:No, I wish I was, but no, no, like I definitely. So one of the things I learned early on, because I did network with a lot of business owners a lot of all of my friends are actually business owners because that's the world I found myself in and the people that I aspired to. I'm going, wow, like they're self-made millionaires. Like, how does how, what does that look like? What I'm like they're self-made millionaires. Like, how does how, what does that look like? What does it actually mean?
Rebecca Saunders:So I was asking all these different types of questions in terms of, because you could go I'm a millionaire, yeah, but do you have that in cash, though? Or are you just saying that because of like revenue? So asking all those questions, but for me, one lady that really blows me away Melissa Brown. You can find her online. She on you can find her online. She's a fantastic advocate for women's financial independence, and she said I've got seven streams of income, and so, from a very early age in my business, I'm like how do I get seven streams of income? And so that's it. Like just all the different things, and they don't have to be huge, they just all add up in different ways.
Kirsten Diprose:And that's your security, though, isn't it as well? Because, okay, a couple of them just stopped working now, because the world's changed, you're not freaking out and running back to that nine to five job. Yes, and one thing I noticed about you is you've always got this sort of optimistic spin on things, like you can see the best out of things.
Rebecca Saunders:I remember being in my first business coaching, when I was starting the business and people came to me me why don't you have any negativity? I just that voice doesn't exist, like the little devil on my shoulder isn't there. I don't have someone going. Should you do that? It's actually how I operate, like in business and in home life.
Rebecca Saunders:So, for example, last weekend I bought a fridge off my Facebook marketplace. I'm like I really want this fridge, I really love it. And I'm like I really want this fridge, I really love it. And I'm like, yeah, it'll fit in the space. And it didn't. It didn't fit in the space that I needed. And so I said to my husband so we've got two options with this fridge. You can either punch a hole in that wall and bring a socket in and I'm not going to really going to enjoy walking that far to the fridge or we're going to take these kitchen cabinets off the wall. I'm going to move them 15 centimetres, I'm going to put them back on and it will fit. He's just like it's Sunday morning. Where did this come from? And my head didn't go. Oh, this fridge doesn't fit. What am I going to do? My head went. Okay, we're going to move the cupboards and it just let's make it happen.
Kirsten Diprose:So, this is why you don't solve problems, because you don't see problems, you just see opportunities, thank problems you use opportunities.
Kirsten Diprose:Thank you, yes, we've just nailed that for me. Yes, I don't see them. It's just amazing. Oh, honestly, this has been such a fun and refreshing talk, so thank you so much for joining me on this conversation. Just a side note Jen McCutcheon, co-host of Ducks on the Pond, actually goes to Mudgee regularly and she says she reads Rebecca's magazine all the time and can attest that it really is a nice read rather than a pamphlet full of ads. Next we're going to hear from Paige Cross, who used her corporate banking experience to then take those skills and launch cross-country management, which basically blends the financial expertise with what's needed in agribusiness.
Paige Cross:I grew up on a Broadacre cropping property in the mid-north of South Australia. When I was a child we had quite a few sheep and then, as the wool market crashed and my parents, particularly my dad, enjoyed cropping, the sheep transitioned to still playing a role, but more cropping. So I grew up near a town called Gladstone, so we were only 10km from town, which was actually quite good, but I guess the detractor of that is there was never a bus, so my mum particularly always had to run us into school and nearest neighbours were probably three and a half k's by road, unless you want to cut through a few paddocks. But then we, so we had plenty of space to run around and having more than enough area to ride, bike or do it by a courthouse or whatever it was. So you could say that it was that typical country upbringing where we could pretty much do whatever we wanted.
Kirsten Diprose:Did you want to grow up and be on the land yourself, or you didn't think about it?
Paige Cross:So I don't know that I actively thought about wanting to be on the land, but both my parents were very open to either my brother or I being a farmer. There was never any pressure or expectation that it was only one of us. But we were certainly encouraged that if we wanted to come back to the farm that was fine, but go and get a trade first. And I think that was reflective of the 1980s drought. How hard my parents worked to stay afloat and then recognizing that farming's not all beer and skittles. Farming has got some really challenging times and perhaps we're actually one of those times at the moment. But it was by all means, come back to the farm if that's what you want to do.
Paige Cross:An interesting side note is I'm quite severely asthmatic, so I really struggle to go into a wheat crop past flowering. So that sort of makes it really hard to be a wheat farmer and that was probably a real driver of why I got into the sort of the fertiliser soil space, more so than the traditional agronomy space. I do have an ag degree. It's funny how things work out, so it might answer your question. Did I always have it in my mind I'd be involved in land or agriculture, a little bit of yes and a little bit of no perhaps, but I think you come back to what you naturally gravitate towards and there's no secret that those of us who work in agriculture, in whatever role that is, we actually really love it, and I think you always naturally gravitate back towards what you actually enjoy. Yeah.
Kirsten Diprose:So what was your first sort of job out of uni where you were in your kind of career space, if you like?
Paige Cross:So my first job was continuing on with the company that I had worked for while I was at uni. I was managing a depot, and if a client wanted to pick up something on a Sunday afternoon during peak seating time, I was absolutely willing to do that. So it's give and take right. So I did that and I graduated in 2003 and I was still working for them in 2004. And then my brother committed suicide in 2004.
Paige Cross:And so I stayed working for that company and it was about 80 k's away from where my parents lived and again, they were really supportive of me during that period of time. And then, I guess, as I started to come out the other side of loss and it turns your world upside down and so, as I'd started to come out of that and I was moving into 2005, starting to look for something else, and that's when my mum and dad both of them had suggested what about ag finance, and my mum had actually worked for NAB back before she got married and so then I actually joined, applied and joined the NAV Agribusiness Graduate Program and I started in Albury in 2005 with them. So that was probably the real start of my career as such, but it was certainly that launching platform for moving away, moving out of South Australia and, I guess, really starting to build your career.
Kirsten Diprose:I'll go back to banking in a second, but I'm sorry to hear about your brother. How old was he and how old were you when?
Paige Cross:he died. So I was 22 and he was 20. So young, yeah, and I think we'd all hoped that at that point in time the statistics for male suicide in regional areas were as high as perhaps what they're ever going to be. And there was lots of, really. The more you open up your eyes to what goes on, the more you realise that you're not alone in this. And even on the day that my brother committed suicide, there was another I think it was 11, like an 11-year-old boy did the same thing. It's just, it's horrendous. And now we look at the stats and they've just multiplied and it's. It's something that as a community and as a society, we perhaps need to have better conversations about, but we also need the support services to be in there, and there's so many complex factors. Now I'm not proclaiming to be an expert in any of them I'm not but I am a big advocate for people having perhaps conversations that hopefully encourage people not to make the same decision.
Kirsten Diprose:Oh, look, understandably, you would be, and your dad as well. He died young. Is that right?
Paige Cross:Yes, and my dad passed away two years ago. He had terminal bowel cancer. So if I can do a shameless plug to anybody that listens to this, if you get the bowel screening kit, can you please actually do it and not just chuck it in the drawer? And if you have any symptoms at all that are not usual, perhaps go and have a chat to your doctor, not to make this some medical conversation. But we so need to advocate for ourselves or for our loved ones if they cannot do that themselves.
Kirsten Diprose:Look, I'm glad we've had this conversation and I'm glad we got off track a little bit, but you don't have anything if you don't have your health, so it's always relevant, quite frankly.
Paige Cross:So true.
Kirsten Diprose:Yep, so we're in your banking career now. Yeah, what kind of skills do you think you learned with banking? I think banking's got a really good reputation of you will get some really good skills if you've got a banking background. That's going to put you in good stead for whatever you want to do. Is that true?
Paige Cross:I think that's really true. So many of the next generation of business owners or CEOs of quite substantial companies have done have had a role within finance at some point in time. There's two that I know who are now actively involved in significant businesses. And why did, potentially, they go into banking? Because you get that really well-rounded financial acumen. You get that business acumen and the other part, that, and this is why I actually really did enjoy my roles and what was the highlight of my roles in finance was learning about the amazing array of businesses that are out there, the amazing array of industries, and then you pick up on what the great operators do and in the roles that I were in, you also see what the people that are facing the most complex of challenges or in real financial turmoil. You also see what they've been through and what's potentially led them to that position.
Kirsten Diprose:Yeah, what was your role? Was it agribusiness?
Paige Cross:Yeah. So I started off, as you did it in the grad program, as an agribusiness analyst. So I started off in Albury and then I used to do credit rounding. This is a long time gone, banking has changed but at that point in time you went in there and you learned credit assessment skills, so how to read financials and then how to correspond that into financial applications and assessments.
Paige Cross:And so then from Albury I went to sunny Ballarat and had a few months there with the Ballarat team, which was great, and again that was a bit more of a rounding out, and at that point in time you went to an area that had quite a few agribusiness managers there, because then you had that diversity of experience and complexity. Then from Ballarat I went to Longreach in central Queensland, again as an agribusiness analyst, and from there I came back to South Australia, actually for a period of time in corporate ag, and from there I applied for and was successful in becoming an agribusiness manager at Shepparton. So three years of an analyst role, which was a really good grounding, and working for different levels of management, and then got into being an agribusiness manager myself.
Kirsten Diprose:You've been all over Vic and SA. Tell me about that journey, then, from your banking career and the corporate world to then wanting to start your own business. Why did you want to step out of that and do something else?
Paige Cross:It was twofold, and I think there's a lot of people who have left a corporate world and go into working for themselves. Probably what's the one thing that makes you want to work for yourself is autonomy and flexibility. They were probably the two real drivers. But the other part for me is I met my husband and he was also working for NAB. So when we met I was in Shepparton and he was in Ballarat and then we did that for sort of 12 months, and so then I took a transfer and went into business bank for 12 months in Horsham and Nigel was in Hamilton bank for 12 months in Horsham and Nigel was in Hamilton, and then it was he's much better at his job than what I was Like he's he's really talented at his job and at the time there wasn't room for both of us in Hamilton. I don't like this.
Kirsten Diprose:He's more talented than I am BS.
Paige Cross:Oh, with that role, absolutely with that role, very role specific. So I've had a big disclaimer there. But yeah, it was really the fact that there wasn't two roles of an equal position there and he was really settled. He really one of the. It's a strength of both of ours. It's all about the client relationship and it was really hard for us to leave Hamilton. We only left because my dad was sick. If we hadn't have left, it's very likely that we still would have been there, although COVID might've tested me, but that's the only reason that we left.
Paige Cross:And because of that, and because he was so settled and because he was doing great things, I think most of, if not all, of his clients there loved him, and so then an opportunity opened up for me to leave NAB and, as anybody that leaves a big corporate knows, it's a pretty big decision. They're your family, you've got lots of friends in there and it's pretty safe. And the other great thing about working for a big business like NAB or any big corporate is there's decision. They're your family, you've got lots of friends in there and it's pretty safe. And the other great thing about working for a big business like NAB or any big corporate is. There's always some level of career progression there and there's great opportunities for learning.
Paige Cross:Yes, there's a lot of challenges If you're willing to move. Particularly there's actually so many levels of opportunity there to still work for the same organisation, to collect, still accrue your long service leave, your annual leave. There's lots of benefits to working for an employer for a long period of time. But when a job came up, working actually for the Shire, so for Southern Grampian Shire, in the agribusiness sections, and my time in local government really did again round out my skill set and perhaps it was an unknown strategic decision as well to go oh, I've done the corporate, private business thing and now go and have some exposure to local government and that absolutely has helped round out my skill set as well.
Kirsten Diprose:I suppose that would step you into that grant space, that community space, a lot more than perhaps you into that grant space, that community space, a lot more than perhaps NAB would have. So what does cross-country management do? And how did you come up with the idea and think about what your skill set is, what your network is, to make it into, what it is today?
Paige Cross:Great question. So it started because my contract with the Shire finished and it was. I don't think it was. Maybe it was coincidental that at that point in time, I'd actually just had our first child. So it was a really good time to actually think about all right, what is going on here? What's our role?
Paige Cross:Nigel was very committed this was in 2015, really starting to find his straps in Hamilton and the district and so had Amelia and an opportunity presented and it's very much opportunistic. So how did cross-country management get created? It was opportunistic. I was approached to be part of a project management team looking at a really cool project over in Ballarat and the central highlands space, and so that was the real launch pad for that side of it, and I guess it is influenced by having children a bit. So the start of cross-country management opportunistic and having having Amelia and back to my point before about why do we leave the corporate world or why do we leave a role because you want flexibility it was about what could I manage with a child and I've had another career. I did actually have another really interesting role. So cross-country project management side of things was just, it was opportunistic, and then a role came up working for Western District Health and what appealed to me in that role was it reported to the CEO, because I think I'd got to the point where it was like, if I'm going to be an employee, I really want to have an interesting role.
Paige Cross:So the role that I did for Western District Health was customer service liaison officer, which how do I describe what that was?
Paige Cross:It was fundamentally working with patients or their families to try and improve their experience during their hospital journey, and you might also say that it was trying to encourage clinicians to be nice to their families and to their patients. That role was about communication and it was about understanding where those breakdowns are, where those barriers are, and so many of those things were so simple to resolve. Some were not so simple, but if we can just stop and think about who we're communicating with, what's their level of understanding and I reflect on all of this now it's all about understanding what people are wanting to achieve and trying to be able to help them get to a resolution. And one of the nicest compliments I got paid when I was doing that role was from one of the nurse unit managers and I suspect she'll listen to this and she said to me that I'm very diplomatic. I went home and I told Nigel I think I'm really diplomatic and he just cracked up laughing.
Kirsten Diprose:But what I did, Different in a husband-wife relationship cracked up laughing.
Paige Cross:Different in a husband and wife relationship, absolutely. It was about being respectful, and that was to me also. It was about people feeling like they'd been heard.
Kirsten Diprose:I mean you're talking about soft skills there. Really it's that combination of the practical stuff, but you have really talked about honing those soft skills. So problem solving, but in a human sense, which is a lot harder, or I guess a different skill set to looking at a balance sheet and problem solving there.
Paige Cross:Yeah, that's really fair and that's probably where cross country is now. So, looking at what do I do at the moment, what does my business do? So it still does do project management and that's a role that I do enjoy. It's about trying to and what's my strength there is probably being able to understand that strategic vision or what a funding body or what potentially the government's trying to look at, and then also trying to convey that in a way that a landholder or a producer actually understand that. And the other part of that role that I enjoy is talking to the researchers and being part of that process. But what probably is my real focus and my real passion does come back to those soft skills. It's about helping people one-on-one and that's where you know, like, farming is a business.
Paige Cross:So a new offering for cross-country management, or what we've called, wow your banker, and it's all those soft skills, right. So it's knowing what they need to know, but helping you get what you need in a way that is fairly speedy, gives the banker what they want but makes you look bloody awesome, right, because your banker will not know that I've actually prepared it now. They might have a fair idea that somebody else has done it, but it makes you look like you actually know what you're doing. And then it's coaching through and helping people manage through that process. And process is another thing. That NAB, the hospital, the council, they are all very process driven and sometimes we get frustrated with process and we think that it's taking too long. Think about a planning application, think about all these other things. But if you know the process, you can actually work with it. But you need to first respect that there is a process and then it's trying to expedite it, because most of the time when you know we go for maybe it's a grant or a project or whatever.
Kirsten Diprose:we've never done that process before and it's like walking into a minefield and you don't understand it and you get frustrated and it seems annoying. Why are they asking me for this again? But yeah, if you're prepared and ready or if you just don't want to do it and can hand it to someone else that's a huge problem solving right there. Do you think that's key to business, as in like solving a problem?
Paige Cross:Yeah, yeah, I do, and I think that if you think about what you're trying to achieve, or what you do with your journal hat on, or what you do with Ducks in the Pond, then absolutely I think we're all just trying to solve a problem. Now, is that problem? Little, is that problem world hunger there's different levels of what that is, but absolutely I think this is so much of what we do is about problem solution.
Kirsten Diprose:What skill didn't you have when you started your business?
Paige Cross:I'm not patient, but in terms of an actual skill, social media and marketing is something that doesn't light me up. I don't enjoy it. I know it's really important, but it's about having the right people in your corner that you trust to do it, and it's also about the purpose, and it's something that I have certainly reflected on. I do have a social media manager and she's bloody awesome, and the amount of headspace that it took away from me was massive when I found the right fit for our business, so that part of it's certainly something that I've really appreciated, but it did take me a while to work out. That's actually something that took up too much of my headspace.
Paige Cross:And then the next challenge is always when we look at outsourcing, potentially what we're not great at is how much is that going to cost me and am I willing to pay it? And, being a numbers person and knowing your numbers, it was a very calculated decision and probably lots of decisions that I've made, whether it's been deliberate or subconscious, they have been calculated decisions and they've always been, I think, at times forward looking as well, and I think that's a strength of what my parents did as well, that they were always very forwards looking, prepared to challenge the boundaries. And my grandparents as well, particularly my mum's parents. They were quite visionary and certainly prepared to challenge the status quo.
Kirsten Diprose:I think it's a really difficult stage in business where you've gone from almost being like a freelancer you get a project, you do it. You get another project, you do it To actually going. I'm growing a business and I'm going to have to employ people or at least have contractors because of that. Oh, I've got to invest money here and outsourcing to be able to grow here, and that's really hard.
Paige Cross:You have to spend money. To make money, though, and I think sometimes we get frightened about that, but it's about spending it in the right areas. So for me, it was if I spend my money on this, does that either free up my mental headspace and it absolutely did do that. Now, it's hard to put a value on your mental headspace, but if you're at the point of exhaustion and burnout or it's impacting your family relationships or whatever it is that's important to you, then I actually think it's really, it's actually really priceless.
Paige Cross:But then the other part was and I guess maybe being a bit of a strategic thinker is all right. If I don't have to do this, can I actually do enough work to pay for it? And can I I do something else and is there opportunities that will come out of freeing up that time? And there absolutely have been, and so it's always that balance, and I think the other part, too, is having somebody to bounce those ideas off of and to be able to work through now, whether that's a coach, whether that's your husband or your wife or one of your girlfriends or whoever it might be somebody where you can actually talk through those decisions, because I find that so much of that talk in our head when you can actually verbalize that, you go actually that's a dumb idea or actually no, that's a really great idea and I've assessed it and I'm going to run with it. And then there's what comes next you're in charge of your own destiny.
Kirsten Diprose:That's it for this episode of Ducks on the Pond. Thank you to our guests, Paige Cross and Rebecca Saunders. If you want to know more about them, follow Paige at Cross Country Management on Instagram and Rebecca at Rebecca Saunders or at the Champagne Lounge. They also have websites as well. Thank you to our sponsor, the Hamilton Hamper. Check out their website, hamiltonhampers. com. au, or visit their store on Grey Street in Hamilton in Victoria. So a big thank you to Bridget Pern, the owner and creator of the Hamilton Hamper, for sponsoring this episode.
