Not-So Kind Regards
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Not-So Kind Regards
How to Grow your Business Without your Friends & Family's support
In this episode, Maddy and Caroline dive into the often unspoken challenges of building a business when the people closest to you don't fully support your dreams. Whether it’s a partner, family member, or friend who doesn’t understand your vision, this episode is packed with actionable strategies and real talk to help you navigate these tough dynamics.
Highlights & Takeaways:
- Understand the psychology behind why loved ones might hesitate to support your entrepreneurial journey.
- Open honest conversations with your partner to address concerns and gain alignment on your goals.
- Build a supportive community of like-minded entrepreneurs who understand your challenges.
- Drop perfectionism and focus on sustainable progress, especially if you're balancing parenthood and business.
- Validate yourself first, and approach your business with confidence and clarity.
Next Steps:
Ready to join a community of driven entrepreneurs and marketers who "get it"? Check out Birdcage School’s Full Library™ for tools, strategies, and live support to help you grow your business with confidence.
Birdcage School Full Library:
The Full Library (birdcageschool.com.au)
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- Birdcage LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/7600856
- Caroline Moss Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/caro__moss/
- Caroline Moss TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@caro_moss
To work with us, book your discovery call at https://www.birdcagemarketing.com.au/start-here
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The reason why people cannot support your business is because, as you said, they're actually maybe jealous. They're envious. A lot of the times they say that you get more support from strangers on the internet than you do from people you went to high school with. The reason why that happens is because if you've come from the same place and you're striving or even if you haven't achieved yet, but you're striving to do better, in their mind that reflects on what they're not doing. Welcome to the Not so Kind Regards podcast. I'm Maddie Birdcage and I'm Caroline Moss.
Speaker 2:We are done with the digital fluff and pleasantries.
Speaker 1:And we're here to talk straight about brand building, digital marketing and personal growth. The Birdcage School Black Friday sale is running now from Black Friday until Cyber Monday, and we are giving you a full $1,000 Australian dollars off when you join us during Black Friday Cyber Monday weekend and you pay in full. Remember, this is already heavily discounted from our monthly payment plans, so you are going to save big, and what a perfect time, just in time to make 2025 your best year yet. Hi, maddie, welcome back.
Speaker 2:Hi, caroline, I'm excited for another episode of the Not so Kind Regards podcast.
Speaker 1:Me too, and I'm so excited about talking about this topic because I feel like it's one of those off-limits things where people just kind of don't like to talk about this kind of thing.
Speaker 2:Definitely so. The topic we're going to cover today is how to grow your business even if your friends and family don't support it, and I was telling my husband about this topic and he was like what do you mean? And my first example was a husband that doesn't support his wife, and I was like let me think of some other examples that aren't just negative.
Speaker 1:Yes, and yes, they're not just male focus, because, whilst our audience is definitely, we have a huge female audience, we also have a lot of very distinguished gentlemen who we love having around in our agency and in our school. But yeah, and also, it doesn't just have to be your partner. I think partner is obviously a really big one because they're your chosen partner, but quite often it can be if your mom or if your sister or your brother or your kids maybe it's your kids, your grown up kids.
Speaker 2:So I was trying to think of some examples, so I wrote some down and one that we talk about a bit in everything that we do, as well as somebody leaving like a traditionally successful role, like law or medicine, or a family, business or government job, where it's like this is a stable job, why would you go and do something that's like very high risk, which is entrepreneurship? So that's one that really stands out to me. That's not just like husband and wife focused.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, I mean, I'd love to dive into this episode with you. I have a few things to say on the matter which may ruffle some feathers, but let's go.
Speaker 2:So if you do like this topic and you like this episode, I will give you a suggestion for a few other episode suggestions that we've run in the past. So in October 2023, we have an episode called Unfiltered lessons from nearly losing my business and how you can avoid the same. That was from Maddie Birdcage, march. Earlier this year, we had imposter syndrome. Let's talk straight. I feel like these are all adjacent topics. And then last month, just in October, how to ditch your marketing excuses was a really good episode. So if you like this one, make sure you tune into those as well. So let's get into it. Maddie, do you get questions or DMs from people who are like, who ask you stuff like this, or people that forthcoming with it?
Speaker 1:I do A lot of the questions they typically come from. They do come from women who and whether it's because it's based on traditional gender roles, where maybe the man of the house feels as though, why is his wife working If, especially if she doesn't have to? You know, if it's not a, if it's not because they need more income in their, in their family, then why would the wife have to work, when a lot of the time it's like people don't just start businesses just for money, especially our people. They start it for passion and for impact and all of those things. So there's often that question.
Speaker 1:The other question is it typically is not so much around. They're not supporting my business, but they're not supporting my needs at home so that I can work in my business. And that's probably where I mean two things that I really want to talk about. I want to talk about what it looks like if it's your partner that isn't giving you what you need in order to for you to have what you need to grow your business. But I also want to talk about if it's your parents or your siblings, for example, if it's that kind of family, and why they might be thinking in such ways.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's get into that, because we always like to give people the benefit of the doubt, don't we? It's like people aren't just mean to be mean, it's because they've got some conditioning that says this isn't safe. And I love you and I just want to keep you safe.
Speaker 1:Exactly so I think what we need to first identify, whenever you are going, if you're experiencing that your partner isn't giving you the support that you need, whether they don't support your business or whether they're not supporting you with your duties in the home, because we all have duties in the home, we all do, and sometimes there are going to be seasons, especially when you're starting up a business, where you may need to take a backseat a little bit in the home in order to get your business off the ground.
Speaker 1:I know I certainly did. If that is the problem that you're facing right now, we need to dig deeper again, go back into psychology, and this is why it's so important to understand your target audience, even though, even if it's in your family, to understand why they are holding back from supporting you with what your dreams are. Is it that I've heard feedback before where a wife said she was only allowed to start a business if it didn't impact her as a mother in the home, that it also couldn't be anything that would restrict their traveling. So it couldn't be something where she says, oh, I can't, we can't go on this family holiday because of my work and it had to also have a certain amount of startup costs, like a low startup cost, like there was all these conditions and she was actually a client of ours.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:What you are, a grown ass adult, nobody should be telling you. I know we're like starting from a place of empathy and trying to understand that other person, but that makes me really mad to hear that.
Speaker 1:So this was really one of our first clients in the agency back in like 2016. That actually ended up being quite successful and on one hand, I think to myself I would never let my husband talk to me like that, but on the other hand, I have this big belief. When you go into a relationship or a marriage, for example, I don't believe that it's okay to change the goalposts when it comes to what you do as a professional, because it affects so many elements of your home life, right? So we had friends, for example, where she worked in marketing and he was quite a successful tiler. Right. Then he threw all that in and used the money that they were saving to buy a house together. He used that to start up a music studio and they were engaged and they actually got married and she left him less than 12 months later.
Speaker 1:Now so many people thought she was the worst person in the world because she's leaving him, because he's not making the money that he used to make as the Tyler and all that stuff. But I actually think if you go into a relationship or a marriage, just like a business arrangement, with a set expectation or that, I think the thing was that they hadn't obviously discussed what was happening, like if it's a mutual decision where it's like, follow your dreams, babe, let's go. But if it hasn't been discussed and it's like I'm just going to go, do this, that changes. That changes if they can buy a house, that changes if she can fall pregnant and have children. Like that changes a lot about your life.
Speaker 1:And so I think you know, if if, for example, the husband was going to the relationship making good money himself, they've had conversations around, she's going to be the stay at home wife, mom, and that's how they're going to split their life together and then she decides she wants to go off and start a business which takes up all of her free time and she can't then show up in the roles that she had, I'd get annoyed and it's like maybe, yes, there were all these restrictions on her as to why she could start this business, but at the same time it's like, well, he's just setting really clear boundaries around what he needs. But I guess the conversation that we need to have is then, how do you then? What do you do if that's something that you're up against?
Speaker 2:What do you do if that's something that you're up against? Yeah well, that's really hard 100% Like to go in with certain expectations and that's your life and that's the life you're building with somebody, and then they just change directions and I think understanding both of your money mindset is really important, because somebody might be really risk averse and somebody might be really, like, open to risks. You know, agreeing on this is the amount of money that we always want in our bank account, regardless of if we're going to take risks or not. I think that's really important. You know talking about bills, stuff like that. So I guess every situation is unique and you're right, it is Wow. That did trigger me that conversation. It sounds like this couple probably got through it, didn't they? This example that you're telling me?
Speaker 1:I mean it worked out, and he, I think, when you. I think this is the first step to getting people to support your business. It's well, first of all, if it's like your parents or your siblings or something who don't live with you, who don't share children with you, maybe that's you don't have to explain it to them. But if it is your partner, and especially if you do have, like, dependents or you have commitments and it's like this change of lifestyle, entrepreneurship, it is a complete change of lifestyle. Actually, it's not just entrepreneurship, it's also career change, like if you went from being a mid-level manager that worked reasonable hours and then you were all of a sudden promoted to a C-level executive. That's going to require a huge lifestyle adjustment for your other person, and it's like all of those things. I think the key is open, honest, transparent communication. That's what it always is. The problem is, when you've got someone, though, who doesn't want to listen and doesn't want to budge, like what, what do you do there?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, that person, the other person's obviously scared. You know they're scared of either your success, they're scared of your failure, they're scared just on your behalf because it takes a lot of risk. And maybe they know other people who have failed businesses or who you know went into like a cycle of depression after having those failed businesses, Like there's. I think that's where the communication needs to come from. It's like what are you, what are you scared of? You know, let's lay it all on the table and let's talk about our fears. Let's talk about how long maybe I can give this a shot before we pull the pin, like I would really like to prove this to you that I can do this. So what's my timeframe here and how much money can I spend to do it?
Speaker 1:Another strategy is involve them in the process.
Speaker 1:I think there's a lot of people that want to go out and build this thing on their own, but I really want to encourage whatever stage you are at in your business journey, you can't do it alone.
Speaker 1:Well, you can do it to a point alone, but then you're not going to get any further.
Speaker 1:And I actually just had a discovery call with someone who's joined our Coaching Unlimited program and she had a successful well, she has a successful like local business.
Speaker 1:She's now expanding online into selling courses and programs and she's actually brought her husband in to help her manage the financials, because she's identified, just like me, that that's something that actually really weighs us down and it doesn't allow us to be our best creative selves and do the best things in our business. So, even though he has a job I'm not sure what he does, but she's actually brought him in part of it and in the discovery call, she was the one making the decisions about the investment, but he was still alongside her there and was open to listening about what she wanted to do next and she still called the shots, but he was most certainly still involved and impacted. And so it should be. It's like having another child, it's like getting a dog, it's like moving a house, buying a house, all of these things they're going to yes, your partner's name may not be on the business listing, but they are going to have a huge impact on how successful you can be.
Speaker 2:Definitely Both from like a supportive mental state to covering the finances for those tough months that all entrepreneurs go through.
Speaker 1:We also in our agency, we work with a lot of women whose husbands jobs. They have really strong jobs because they've been able to focus on their careers their entire life maybe and they're able to fund a startup business where it doesn't make any money for the first what 12 months or so, if that's the business structure that they've gone into. So their job is actually funding that and obviously, if your partner doesn't support that, that's not going to happen. But I think there's a lot to benefit from by having these open, honest conversations transparent, talking about your needs, not getting emotionally charged about it, because two is better than one, I believe, when it comes to these sorts of things.
Speaker 2:And then I think it's also like there's a personal element to this that you have to get yourself like. If you're constantly looking to your partner for validation and you're not backing yourself, that's really hard too, because, I mean, we're not a relationship podcast, so I'm not going to say what your marriage needs, but it's really hard to look to your partner for everything that you need in your life. You know, the best long-term relationships are people who have their own hobbies, their own interests, their own passions, their own support systems outside of their partner as well. So I think finding that for yourself is really important and starting to like validate yourself, build up your own personal development and mindset so that you can go to your partner and go I'm really excited about this rather than like, oh, I don't know, should I do it, should I not do it Like those are two completely different energies of you making your partner feel confident for you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely Treat the pitch like you're walking into some seed funding and you're pitching to a potential investor because whether they actually invest money or whether they're emotionally invested, they're investing in what you're doing as well. So I agree with that. Embody that CEO startup like I can do anything. Energy, and they will feel that too.
Speaker 2:I'm just laughing because I'm like treat the pitch like you're 18 and you're going on your first trip away with your friends and you're going to present to your parents all the ways that you're going to be safe and smart.
Speaker 1:I will use protection, I will use birdcage, so my marketing doesn't fail and I don't get ripped off by agencies.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, don't get ripped off by agencies. Yeah, yeah, don't get ripped off by agencies.
Speaker 1:Now I know there's things that you want to talk about, caroline, but I would love to just talk about another stage of this that I experienced myself. So it's one thing to get your partner's buy-in literal buy-in, emotional, financial, whatever it might be to start a business. Something that I do come across and I experienced myself is emotional, financial, whatever it might be to start a business. Something that I do come across and I experienced myself is okay, what happens when this little, when this little business that you've started here, that you were doing on the side while the baby sleeps, or whatever it might be, starts growing legs?
Speaker 2:Oh shit, this is going to work moment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you've got these huge opportunities. Maybe you've signed a big client, or maybe you've had a huge order come through for your products or a wholesale, or you've sold out of everything and you're like, oh my God, everything I've ever wanted is coming true. What do I do now? And then you need to have that conversation about this could change our lives. This could really change our lives. I need more time, I need more help around the home, I need more space. When we bought our previous home, there was this little granny flat space with a massive boat shed right, and that's why we bought the house so we could have a boat shed. Guess what, jack? I ended up slowly but surely taking every piece of that shed and turning it into Birdcage HQ.
Speaker 2:I remember that there was three of you in there, maybe two, and then that Birdcage HQ. I remember that there was three of you in there, maybe two, and then that was getting too big and then you built a second office with like a door, and then you built out more.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because the whole half of it there was already a little kitchenette and a little bedroom space and a bathroom. The other half was just like shed space and I'm like if we just keep, and I ended up having the whole thing as my office so I had to steal his space.
Speaker 2:And then, when you finished renovations, you're like let's buy a warehouse, yeah.
Speaker 1:And then I'm like psych, we're actually moving out. And then he's asked can I put my boat in your warehouse, in one of the two giant warehouses we have? And I'm like no.
Speaker 2:And you can't put it back in the old office either.
Speaker 1:No, because it's now a self-contained apartment. So that's nice. But the other conversation we had to have prior to that was when my son was first born, my first child, and I don't think we ever had the discussion that I was going to be like the stay at home mom type. I don't think we ever had that. I always assumed I was going to work in some capacity, but I'd started my business like nine months before I had the child yes, that timing is exactly the same Felt pregnant, started a business and I was constantly.
Speaker 1:I didn't realize how traditional our roles were, where I would cook, groceries, clean, do all that stuff and he would work a lot more and he earned a lot more than I did as well, even when I was employed. And then we had my son and then also opportunities were literally dropping that same week that I had him that I couldn't say no. I mean, I could have said no, but no, I'm not saying no to that. It was the toughest time in my life and we actually had that question in chess club recently, didn't we In the full library, where a student was like I'm freaking out, I'm about to have a baby, I've got a new business, how do you handle it? And it was a really hard question for me to answer, because that period was really the most difficult period of my entire life, I have to say.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I tagged a few other people in the group who I knew were either pregnant or recently had a baby and everyone had such beautiful advice. But it's like build your support system Like you need to learn how to ask for help. You can't do it. All all of those things.
Speaker 1:A hundred percent and I was trying to do it all. I literally I was telling Max on the weekend. I was telling her I used to get up at midnight to do the feed midnight feed. I'd stay awake till 4am doing work, I'd do the 4am feed with Forrest and then I'd go back to bed for like two and a half hours until he woke up again.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, how were you alive?
Speaker 1:I wasn't. I was struggling. I was so anxious, my OCD was so bad. I wasn't medicated for ADHD or anxiety even at the time. I don't think so. It was so tough. It was the toughest time ever and Jack and I actually had to have.
Speaker 1:He's always been a great communicator, but I remember sitting down at one point and the conversation was basically we're not getting divorced now, but if we keep going down this path, we are going to, because we were just fighting all the time and we were struggling with our new roles. And I know a lot of new mothers do this, where they say like, oh, my husband does bath time, but then you end up taking over because they're not doing bath time right or they're not putting the baby down right, all of this kind of stuff. And so the biggest advice I have around that is you need to let go, let them do it their way. They will figure it out. And the more you can let go and let them figure the thing out and it's the same whether you have a baby or whether you have bigger kids or whether it's just you in the house, just because they may not mop the floors the same way you do. If it gets done, don't fucking worry, let it get done.
Speaker 1:But the biggest thing that we did, we created something called the List, and the List was our lives scheduled into 15 minute blocks, literally into 15 minutes. Not saying that our life was boring, because obviously there's a big chunk of like watch TV when the baby's asleep, but it was. It was. Jack actually loved it because he knew, instead of playing this guessing game of like what's my crazy hormonal sleep deprived wife gonna blow up at me today that I didn't do, he knew exactly what I needed him to do take out the rubbish, cook the dinner that night, pick up the groceries there, pick for like whatever it might be. He had again, it's clear, transparent communication, clear expectations and in the flip side, I didn't keep feeling like I wasn't doing enough because we had already predetermined what my role in our family was based on, what I needed at the time.
Speaker 2:That's such a hard conversation to go. This is your role, this is my role. And then, yeah, it's like you have to come down and go. It's so annoying, but you have to list all the little things that have to go on throughout the day and decide who's in charge of what, what you're going to let go, what you're going to hold each other accountable for all of those things, and it's a completely new day, like I would. I think every new mom goes through it and I didn't have a business, but it's just a completely new dynamic that you're navigating with your partner Once you bring a baby into the picture.
Speaker 1:Yeah, fuck babies. No, I love my babies but, oh my God, they just it is. It is really really hard. They're just, they don't do what you want them to do all the time, and that's really difficult.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and little babies just want your attention all the time. And so you're like, if you're like me, like very type A, like okay, I'm going to get this done, then this done, then this done, then this done, and your baby's just like, oh no, I'm going to derail all of that and you're just going to have to be. That's the lesson I'm like constantly learning in motherhood is let go of perfectionism Just like, lean into it, go with the flow 100%.
Speaker 1:I feel you, Like I really I don't want to go back to that stage ever, with my kids being almost five and eight Like I feel like I'm out of the woods in a lot. I mean we've got new problems to deal with now, but I feel like I'm out of the woods in a lot. I mean we've got new problems to deal with now, but I feel like I'm out of the woods with the baby stage, but I don't know, I wish I could almost go back and with what I know now, I feel like I could have saved myself so much pain just by having the right support, having dropping the expectations on myself.
Speaker 2:To do it all. So I guess let's talk about practical things, because one thing I found really annoying when I was pregnant is people like build your village, don't do this, don't do that, but nobody told you what that looks like. So I guess, from like four, and yeah, what would you go back and tell your young entrepreneur or new mom self?
Speaker 1:Especially because both of us had the same experience with our first that we didn't have family around, right, so that's. I used to be so envious of people that could just be like oh, I'm dropping my kid to my mom's, I'm going to Kmart for two hours and I'm like no, no, no, it's a trade off.
Speaker 2:But I get so jealous sometimes, still like. Sometimes I'm like you guys don't know how good you have it, yeah.
Speaker 1:Or like going out like I didn't go out at night, Like it was either Jack or I could go out at night to like a friend's thing because we didn't trust any babysitter, we didn't know anyone, like all of this kind of stuff Um, we really did it. The hardest way that you can do it with which is no family I know that you have support in your neighborhood, which is really fortunate that you found that. For us, we found a family daycare person and I think it was this big hurdle of getting over like I'm a shit parent for putting my kid into daycare. But one thing that made me feel really good was choosing a family daycare where they could only have four people at a time. They were still registered under a scheme and there was checks and everything that happened and you can really find someone who feels like an auntie or like a nan or someone like that.
Speaker 1:And I've read a study that basically said it doesn't really matter who your child gets looked after, as long as there's love. Because you know you worry. Am I emotionally scarring? Am I abandoning my children? All of these things? So I think it's just like take the pressure off If you can't. If you don't have that village, you probably need to pay for the village. But in Australia we're obviously lucky because you can get subsidized childcare as well. When you then choose to enroll them in daycare and put them there, don't beat yourself up the whole day, because that's not helping anyone. If you've got them in daycare and you're feeling guilty yourself, that's not living your best life. Make the decision. I'm going to put my kid into a safe, nurturing environment where they probably have more fun than sitting at home, and then I'm going to go to work and enjoy myself at work.
Speaker 2:That's such a hard one. Like don't beat yourself up if you can't let go of the guilt immediately either, but have that little voice Because you said that. You said that a long time ago when I came back to work, and I always had that little voice in my head like guilt's not a helpful, it's not helping you, guilt's not helping you.
Speaker 1:It's like you have to make the decision and stick with it or you can't just and then go feel shitty all day about it. If you don't want to go back to work and you have the choice not to which I know not everyone has that but if you are privileged enough to have the choice not to and you can't get past the guilt, don't put them in daycare then and don't go to work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and just know that if you try to do both entrepreneurship and full-time childcare, give yourself so much fucking grace, because your kid's nap schedule changes. Nobody said that the nap changes like every six weeks. Like all of a sudden they drop a nap or they change it or they map longer and you feel like I'm just getting used to this new thing, and then it changes. I'm just getting used to this new thing and then it changes and that's just like parenthood. So give yourself grace, or like, have that agreement that as soon as your partner comes home, you clock into business and you're done with mom duties.
Speaker 1:A hundred percent and it's okay. You're like Jess, who's worked with us for what? Eight years now. Her situation was always she preferred not to put her kids into daycare until they were a bit older, but the trade-off was that she works nights, and I gave her that opportunity because I was often working nights as well, but I used to always. I mean, first of all, worry, when do you sleep, woman? But number two, it's like she was so grateful for that flexibility and to be able to do both to have her kids in the day and then to be able to clock in and work at night. You know that's what worked for her at that time.
Speaker 1:And so, yeah, I mean I think we've gone off topic on exactly like when your partner doesn't support you, but I guess it all leads into you have. I don't know, I really don't want this to be about bashing men or anything like that, but I do feel like, because women have the babies, they end up as the default parent and when you're breastfeeding, for example, you can't outsource that if you choose to breastfeed or if you can breastfeed, and usually, typically, if you look at stats, the male in a relationship does earn more, so it makes sense for them to be the ones going back to work right Whilst you have your maternity leave, and that's just how the cookie unfortunately crumbles, you know. And so it's like you need to be expressing your needs absolutely, and if you can't do it in a way that's not emotionally charged, you have to work on that.
Speaker 2:Work on writing little notes. Write it down.
Speaker 1:Yeah, write yourself a list, treat it like a business. I know it sounds very unromantic, doesn't it, but it's true. If you set clear expectations with what you need, you do that with colleagues, you do that with employees, you do that with managers, even you know set the clear expectations and then everyone knows what they're up for.
Speaker 2:Yeah, setting expectations is so important because the number one reason people get disappointed is because they have an expectation that someone didn't meet, but they didn't express that expectation.
Speaker 1:I know Like I got so disappointed with Jack yesterday because he didn't come and meet us in the terminal when we got back from New Zealand and we'd been up for for like we've been up since like 12 midnight Australian time and we got in it like 12 hours later and I was like he's like where are you? Let me know when you're coming out? What do you mean where? Why aren't you in the terminal helping me with two children and five bags?
Speaker 1:yeah and I just felt shitty all the rest of the day, but I didn't ever communicated that that I needed him to that.
Speaker 2:I'm the same.
Speaker 1:I should have known.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're just like. You should just know. Let's talk about, like, building a community around your business, cause that's something you talk a lot about in your like webinars and workshops, as well as finding a community as an entrepreneur. So let's say it's, it's not a partner, or it is a partner and they're just like. They've got little doubts, but they're still supporting you the best they can and but you still feel so alone in your business. What would be the next step there?
Speaker 1:So I think where this comes from. Let's just say your partner is supporting you or giving you what you need, or they're working on it at least, but they're not entrepreneurial minded themselves. Or maybe they've got their own business to deal with and you don't need to load them up anymore. They're not your go-to person for this. But then, if you look around, your parents may never have had their own business. Your siblings may not be, may not own their own business. They may be in completely different careers. They may not even understand what the fuck you do, which is like I know my family didn't for a long time.
Speaker 1:So who do you actually go and talk to when you have questions? It might be a mindset question, it may be a financial thing, it may be an operational thing, it may be a marketing, a sales like. Who do you talk to? And the answer is that if you don't have the people around you, again, just like building look at the parallels here just like building a village with a baby where you need to sometimes go and pay for childcare, building a community, a village around your business. You need to go and pay for mentoring or to get in spaces where there are people similar to you that do understand where you're at and what you're going through.
Speaker 2:Online communities, things like that. A hundred percent Local meetups.
Speaker 1:Exactly, and that's why, when we launched the school and the full library, having an online community was a no-brainer for us. That was always going to be part of the offering that we had, because along with our live group sessions and I love the office hours sessions that I love what they've evolved into where it's less about Caroline and I lecturing teaching and more about us just facilitating a really wonderful conversation between really intelligent people who have bigger and better ideas than sometimes we even have, because they might be the target audience of the brand or they may have experienced something similar or they may have listened to something on a podcast recently.
Speaker 2:Definitely. I can think of two office hour examples just recently. One was we looked at one of the students' websites and already a few people gave her different ideas for websites. She went and actioned them straight away. It looks so much better. And then another one was around content. Someone was saying oh, I've seen actually a bunch of your content before. Every time you do this in the warehouse, that's the content I gravitate towards. And the other student was like oh, I didn't even think about that. I thought that was just like a boring backdrop. And she's like no, I love seeing. She's like I'm an entrepreneur too. Like I love seeing the behind the scenes, like in the warehouse, in the that space setting.
Speaker 1:It is and it's like you can pay for.
Speaker 1:That's essentially what masterminds are. We don't have a mastermind in and of itself, but that's what a mastermind is, and you can pay like people pay millions of dollars to be in some of the world's best masterminds simply because it puts you in those. Yes, it's a virtual room, but it puts you in the room with the people at your level. You know, if you can afford to pay a million dollars a year for a mastermind group, you're going to be on the same level as all of those people in there, generally speaking, and that's why it is important, I think, for you to join communities who either I mean I'd say a community like ours, where we have a full spectrum of people, where there's people at lots of different stages of the journey that can collaborate and from all walks of life but then if you are wanting to join like a mastermind specifically, you need to make sure that it's right for you, that it's not too below where you are, it's not too advanced, it's not that the people in there can understand your business directly.
Speaker 2:Definitely, and I would say avoid like forums where people just complain and Facebook groups. Sometimes those are helpful, but I find they're just like that's hundreds of comments of just negativity rather than actually supporting you. Or it's people who you've already blown past them and they're trying to give you advice but they don't actually have anything good to offer 100%.
Speaker 1:There's a few Facebook groups coming to mind and it's also the posts that you interact with. In those you'll see more and more of those I haven't seen. If the post that always got me is I set up my website and now no one's coming to it and it's like well, yeah, you're not owed sales. I say that all the time and then, oh, you're so negative.
Speaker 2:no, I'm just telling you the truth yeah, as I was saying, build the thing and they will come, not anymore. If you built the thing, it was usually a physical local shop where there was foot traffic, but now you have to generate traffic yeah you have to pay for it and make free content with your time to get that traffic. So let's recap it for everyone. Do you feel like we covered enough of the different scenarios that there?
Speaker 1:are for people not being supported in their business. Yeah, I do want to just talk one thing to why people may I know we touched on it at the top a little bit about how they care about you and they're actually afraid of what might happen. That's in the best case scenario. I think my mother, who's very risk averse even though she owned a business herself, there's many times that she has questioned my direction and my methods. I think now she's finally realized like this is me in my most authentic self. It's being that eccentric genius vibe that and she sees that now, but it's like anytime that she has suggested or maybe don't invest thirty thousand dollars into tablecloths when you're 19, um was mom right on that one that's out of concern right was Connie right on that one oh no, it was $30,000 in wet weather jackets.
Speaker 1:She was kind of right. I did sell a lot of the stock but I've also still got a lot of stock sitting there. But it's only because I moved to Mackay, where you don't really need warm jackets, and I used to sell a lot at markets when I was at uni. Anyway, it doesn't matter. If anyone wants to buy wholesale wet weather jacket stock, it's really good stock. It's just sitting there. Or if anyone has a worthy charity I could donate them to. Let me know they they may be not supporting or what you think not supporting you, because they actually are supporting you in their mind where they're. Just they don't want you to get hurt.
Speaker 2:Or they think they're bringing like valuable advice to you in the form of like critiques or a little bit of like. But what if this happens?
Speaker 1:Yes, exactly, and sometimes you need to hear that, but then sometimes you also don't need to hear that and you need to go in a little bit to Lulu and just figure your shit out and just figure it out. The other reason why people can not support your business is because, as you said, they're actually maybe jealous. They're envious A lot of the times. They say that you get more support from strangers on the internet than you do from, like, people you went to high school with. The reason why that happens is because you've if you've come from the same place and you've you're striving or even if you haven't achieved yet, but you're striving to do better. In their mind, that reflects on what they're not doing, the fact they're not starting a business which has been glamorized as being better than being in employment, which I do not believe to be true. I think it's just what flavor shit sandwich do you feel like eating? And that can also happen with siblings as well.
Speaker 2:I think it's like there's an element of jealousy that comes in there Also jealousy, because some people are like no, I'm choosing the safe path, I'm putting all this hard work in, you're chasing your dreams. That's not what we agreed upon in life. Like we have to be serious, we have to do the serious jobs, like some people just have that mentality, especially if it's a sibling and you grew up the same way, and it's like well, why do you get to go chase your dreams? Well, I'm doing this safe thing, but I'm better and you know there's so much to unpack there.
Speaker 1:And they're like I hate my job as an accountant, but why do you get to be a graphic artist with your own agency? Like that's not fair. But that's obviously mindset work for them that they need to do, where they could go out and do what they want to do, but they're just not there yet. The other thing is the last thing I want to say is a lot of the time, if you haven't, if you don't come from a family that is entrepreneurial itself, they very much are. You know. They believe that employment is the safe option and that's the best thing. You start working in a company and you work your way up, and that's the best thing. You start working in a company and you work your way up and that's the best way you can do it in life. Of course, they're going to disagree with you jump, you know, being entrepreneurial, because it's fucking, it's weird and terrifying and actually a really bad choice if you think about it. On paper it's really high risk.
Speaker 2:It's high risk it is. It's always a risk. You're betting on yourself and your ideas and your discipline and your ambition and other people wanting to pay you money for all of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's the wild west. You're literally going from the safe town ship, where they've got all the facilities, just out into the desert. Figure it out.
Speaker 2:I will say, though, that, especially in this day and age, you think employment is safe and you're employed for this big company, and then huge layoffs happen all the time. Redundancies Like that's what I always come back to. It's like you have to look after yourself, and maybe entrepreneurship is the saver bet.
Speaker 1:I don't know what the answer is there. I mean, in my mind it is because I'm one of those people where I feel like no matter what comes at me. I my mind it is because I'm one of those people where I feel like, no matter what comes at me, I will figure it out. But then I'm also very I have a healthy risk appetite as well. You know, I don't mind being in the unknown, being out of control, being in all of those things, and it's like-.
Speaker 2:We were at the casinos the other weekend. Yeah, and I'm just sitting there like la, la, la, I'm not gonna gamble.
Speaker 1:maddie's like let's go but that all that trust muscle also comes when it's like when you have hit the floor a hundred times yeah and you've picked yourself back up.
Speaker 1:But you know what I honestly believe is the safest thing you can do Be employed but, like, have your own content channels, which is what I tell all of you guys, and I support you guys in doing it.
Speaker 1:It's like build your personal brand, because you never know when you might need to use it or when you might want to use it. I always say I wouldn't be surprised if any single one of you came up to me and said I'm going out on my own tomorrow. I would hate it because I want, like I love you guys and I want and I value you and I want you to stay with me. But I'd also support you wholeheartedly because I don't want anyone in the business that doesn't absolutely want to be here. But it's like you're all such capable people that there's no doubt in my mind that you could make. You could each of you could make it happen. But I think that's actually like, as an employer, shouldn't you be supporting that? Because think about it almost like prison, like wouldn't you prefer to have inmates that could leave at any stage and they?
Speaker 2:choose to be in prison, choose to stay. No, that's a really bad analogy. That is so bad. But it's like you know, if you love something, let it free. So it's like if you're, if you know that people don't just rely on you for survival, but that they want to be there and they're giving it their all like that's what any employer, any business owner, could dream of is having people who want to be there and they're giving it their all like that's what any employer, any business owner, could dream of is having people who want to be there and are passionate about the work that they're doing, not just not just because they need the paycheck.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's literally my worst nightmare if someone's just coming to work for the paycheck and I've had to have conversations with staff before to be like are we, are you vibing, still here, or are we? Do we need, or do we need to change things up? And they've gone on and gone in to work out in the mines and drive dump trucks and stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they say attitude. Whenever I would go for jobs, it was like we can't train attitude. Attitude's the biggest thing that we care about, and then it's we could train the skills.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree with that 100%.
Speaker 2:So, to recap, how to grow your business even if friends and family don't support it, one is open communication with the people who don't support it. Try to see it from their end and try to make them feel safe in your decisions and confident in your decisions. To do that, you need to validate yourself, build up your own self-worth and confidence. Building a support system outside of your family and friends is really important too. So finding that, maybe having to pay for it, remembering that you can't do it all as a mom, as an entrepreneur, as a husband you need to lean on support systems. So make sure you're finding them, even if they're not local or physically in person. We have the internet, so make sure you find the support systems that work for you. Let us know on socials what you think about this episode. If you're struggling with something similar to, we'd love to hear from you. We'd love to tell you more about our communities that we've created, and make sure you leave us a review if you liked this podcast as well.
Speaker 1:It helps us grow Woo-hoo. Thank you.