[00:00:00] Welcome to the Business Fondle, the Bold Business Podcast for entrepreneurs and business owners hosted by Peta Serras the Professional Babe. So why don't you pour yourself a drink and slip into something a little more comfortable and I'll get your business going. 

Can you believe it? The podcast is finally here and if you have been following me for a while, you know that this has been a long time coming, but like all good things, they are absolutely worth the wait. So, I don't know, maybe if you have some champagne at home, we should just like pop a bottle and celebrate.

Maybe not if it's like seven o'clock in the morning and you're one of those psychopaths that listen to this first thing, . Um, but I feel that this is definitely cause for celebration. So I am so excited you are here. My name is Peta. I'm the founder of Professional Babe, giver of Good email, and now the host of your favourite business podcast, the Business Fondle.

What I wanna do with our first episode is just give you a little bit of an introduction [00:01:00] to me, my business and my vision for this podcast, especially if you have just stumbled upon this by chance. So a little bit about me. My name's Peta. I am from Melbourne. I have been in business for 14 years. Very long time.

It'll be 15 years, or actually I'll be heading into my 15th year on June 1st, so very, very soon. Uh, I'm a super Virgo. I have like so much Virgo in my chart. So if you are super into astrology, just know that I feel like half my chart is actually Virgo. Uh, I'm a manifesting generator in human design. I love coffee.

I'm coffee obsessed. Cliche. I know also love margarita cliche. I know will take anything Tommy's spicy, whatever it is. So if we're going out and I'm running late, you always gonna order me a margarita and know that I'm gonna be a very happy lady. I love cats. I'm Jon Hamm's [00:02:00] future wife. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the best TV show that has ever been made.

So my vision for The Business Fondle, um, because you might be like, how is this gonna be different for, from any other business podcast? Well, first up it's me and, um, I'm a little unhinged and my advice is sometimes a little bit. Left a field out of pocket, you'll find out why, but I wanna help you make money in an easier way.

I wanna help you grow your business and however you are seeing your business look like, you might have this idea of, I see it being, you know, here, or I wanna make this much. Why don't we make it bigger and let's actually help you create like a strategy and a roadmap. So that happens, and it's not just this idea that is floating around your brain.

I want the podcast to be incredibly inspiring, of course, but also actionable so that when you listen, you feel like that it's been a really good. Time investment for you and that you can go [00:03:00] and action everything that you have just heard. So let's just get to it now. I thought that it would be really fun for the first episode for us to have like a little bit of a date together.

How does that sound? So like, let's just imagine that we're at this like, cute little Italian restaurant, like Nonna is in the back and she is just cooking. There's like eight tables, and I have decided like I just chowed through my meal and I am wanting dessert, but I wanna wait for you because I'm, I'm, I'm nice like that.

And you ordered the special pasta and you are just taking your time eating it. So we'll just pretend that you are eating and that I'm gonna talk and you know, if you are listening to this at home and you wanna talk back, you absolutely can. Um, I'm a huge fan of, of talking to myself around my apartment and you might be like, what is with the suggestive tones and dating themes?

Well, my friend, we are gonna get to that because I actually went online before [00:04:00] and I found the like top 10 hinge dating prompts to put on your dating profile that we are going to use, is like a little bit of a jumping off point for how our date is gonna go. Are you ready? Ugh. I'm excited. And also, you look really nice tonight.

I just love what you've worn. All right. First up a fact that surprises people. So I used to be a sex and dating writer. I had that job, I guess you'd call it for two years. Um, I actually had it because I went on this awful date and I put a big rant on my Facebook page, not realising that I had an editor there for a publication and she.

Slid into my DMs and basically offered me a job off, um, my little controversial opinion piece. And that's how that started. So throughout everything that I've kind of done with this business, you'll notice that there is like a little bit of a dating theme that is attached. And I also think as well, [00:05:00] it's just really easy to get across particular business concepts, especially if they are new to you.

Because you know, for a lot of us, business can feel really new and scary, but we're also really familiar when it comes to dating. So there's shit that just like we wouldn't do in the dating world that we're probably doing in business. So there is gonna be this theme throughout everything that I do.

The most spontaneous thing I've done. Ooh, love that question. That would have to be selling my Pilates studio and deciding to stop my health and fitness brand. Now, although for some people that might have looked like it was spontaneous, uh, it, it felt for me like it was just, coming. I don't think that, you know, something is ever a failure for us to stop, but I just had this gut feeling one day that I was meant to be doing bigger things than I was.

So I opened my [00:06:00] Pilates studio in the Hunter Valley, and I had that for eight years in that time as well. I created a Pilates DVD that was shipped internationally. And I was the health writer for almost every single publication in Australia at one point, and I just had this feeling that just kept intensifying that I was meant to be doing bigger things than that.

And although at the time, like. Everything was really taking off. I still just felt like, you know, I don't think that you should be working in health and fitness. I think that it's something bigger than that. At the time, I didn't really know what that was, but I decided to put everything on the market and sell my business and basically start again.

And a lot of people were like, what the hell are you doing? Kind of like when I just decided randomly that I was gonna get a fringe on a Thursday. Um, that was spontaneous, but with my studio on the outside looks spontaneous. But for me, I definitely had this gut feeling that I just followed. I don't know if you ever feel like that [00:07:00] sometimes.

Um, and on that, my gut is never wrong. How good is that gut feeling?

My most irrational fear. I think, you know, we all can probably agree that it's like sitting on the toilet in the middle of the night and have something bite you I don't like condensation and I also don't like tiny holes, like small little holes in things. They just terrify me. The condensation one is, Strange.

I don't know where that has come from, but if we are actually looking at this in a business setting, I think my most irrational fear would be that I am going to leave this planet, my life will end. And I will feel like that I have not accomplished all the things that I was capable of doing. Um, you know, I believe that we each have a bag of potential.

And for a lot of us, we think that it's just like this tiny little pocket when we really have like this huge like sack of shit that we have access to. And I want to push myself and see the depths of my potential, what I can do, [00:08:00] you know, fall over a heap fail, but really discover who I am in the process of that.

So I think for me, my irrational fear is that I'm going to like, you know, being on my deathbed, being like, shit, I should have done that. Or what stopped me was just the fear of me looking dumb, or you know, something like that, where at the time it just feels. Just so big and scary, but looking back, you're like, oh my gosh, what was I even worried about?

And I say that because there's so much of my earlier entrepreneurial journey where I look back at opportunities that were presented to me that I passed up because I just thought that I wasn't ready where, you know, I don't think that we are ever quote unquote ready. I think that, you know, we have stuff that comes to us that will just basically force us to, you know, get ready and level the fuck up.

Ooh. We are the same type of weird, okay, we are the same type of weird if you absolutely hate networking events. I don't like them. I don't like anything about them. [00:09:00] Do you know what they remind me of? They remind me of speed dating like it's . It's like people think, okay, cool. Let's just put all of these single people in a room and you know, they're just gonna vibe.

There are gonna be like marriages out of this room when we know that that rarely happens. And I think that the same thing happens at like a networking event. We're like, let's just put all of these business owners in a room when you know they could have completely different values to us or be at different stages.

And I just, I really think that it's the same. I have rarely found incredible business connections just rocking up at a networking event. But I have found amazing business connections at my local coffee shop where I just will go there on like a midday at Tuesday and start talking to the most interesting people that I've ever met.

So, I think that everyone on that needs a local, [00:10:00] um, because you'll be surprised, the wonderful and incredible people that go to your coffee shop or your bar, whatever that may be. Um, but that is where I usually will find like my best business connections, Instagram and online obviously. But second to that would be a local coffee shop.

I geek out on, I geek out on so much stuff, obviously because I have a business. I love tech. Uh, but I geek out on anything that is like a time saving process. So if I can discover some kind of something where I'm like, oh my God, this is my wet dream. This is going to save me like three hours a week, or this bit of tech will integrate into this bit of tech.

So an example of this is for the podcast. I am recording on Riverside and then Riverside will just push it to Descript and then Descript just pushes it to like Buzzsprout. There's like zero fucking round. It is just like pushing a button and that for me just blows it, blows my [00:11:00] mind. I also geek out on Notion if you do not use Notion, absolutely start.

My whole business runs through Notion. Um, so all my consulting clients are in there. We can create like templates for them. Um, I've got courses like if I could marry the founder of Notion, I absolutely would. Um, I'm actually not sure who the, the founder of Notion is. Um, I do wanna marry Jon Hamm, so if he had happened to create notion, what are the chances in that?

But it is an incredible piece of software. I also love furniture. Oh my gosh, I love furniture. I love anything mid-century modern. Oh, I love the Mario Bellini Camaleonda sofa. Incredible. If you want a really fun downtime activity, download first dibs and just scroll. It is just like full of future self shit.

Like you can easily spend a hundred million dollars on there and still not be done . [00:12:00] And I think that, um, that's where I first discovered sofa. I saw it and was like, I just had this vision of me just like laying on it, wearing Missoni with like a martini glass in my hand and I was like, I need that in my life.

That is definitely something that my business is going to buy for me. And I also geek out as well on people's stories. So I love when I discover someone who has accomplished something just. Awesome. Um, you know, maybe they've created a company that's doing amazing things or they have achieved a point of wealth, and I love to kind of like binge their entire story, so even before it gets successful, like, who were they, what were they doing, what were the hiccups, what were the failures?

And really finding out their whole path, Ooh, I won't shut up about, I won't shut up about a lot, which is why I think that everyone was like, you need a podcast. Um, [00:13:00] but probably the number one thing would be email marketing. Actually email marketing tied with . Dating, uh, I love email marketing. It is my bread and butter. Obviously, I have an incredible program on email marketing.

Give good email, check it out. But I love it for the fact that it just does so much and can make a business so easy to run. If you feel like you do not have enough hours in the day. Uh, if you wish that you could hire and you wish that you could make more money, guess what? Email is the baddy that does it all.

Never have I ever, never have I ever been to university or had a salaried job. So I started my business, I was 20. Before that I worked at Cue for three months before I got fired. Then I worked at JayJays. I actually loved working at JayJays. I'm also really quick folding t-shirts, like, you know, the counters at the front that have like 5,000 t-shirts.

I basically can fold one of those in an hour.[00:14:00] so I worked there. I've also scooped ice cream at like the candy bar. I think when I was like 15 or 16, I had that job. But other than that, and like modelling, the only thing that I've ever done is basically work for myself and had a business. I think that there are pros and cons to that.

The pros are obviously, you know, I don't know any better. So like I work in a co-working space at the moment, and when people are like, oh, I just want a job. And I'm like, I would not even know what, what that is like. I think the con of that is definitely, I always talk about business, like if we are in a nightclub, actually we wouldn't be in a nightclub cuz I hate them.

I don't like sticky surfaces and a lot of noise. We would in, we would be in like a really nice wine bar. You know when you go to a nice wine bar and you can tell it's a good place because they have like good candles in the bathroom. and not like candle. Like no one steals them. Like there are candles in there and it's nice.

It smells nice. You're like, [00:15:00] I feel like I can stay in this bathroom for a long amount of time, and my senses are not getting assaulted with the smell of a toilet. I didn't even know where I was actually going with this. We've gone completely off on a tangent that I've, um, I've forgotten where we were.

That's right. If we were like in a bathroom talking, we are probably gonna be talking about dating or we're gonna be talking about business. So it's something that you absolutely can't shut me up about. And that obviously can be annoying at times, Ooh, my greatest strengths. Okay. Definitely my analogies. I think that I have incredible analogies. I also give incredible advice and an amazing pep talk. I will encourage you to charge more, make more money, and. You know, go for something really huge. An example of this would be a client that I had and I was like, I actually think for you we could pitch a hundred thousand dollars retainer.

We did. We got her, that client. [00:16:00] Um, another example would be one of my beautiful friends at work this week. Um, she had. Uh, like a sponsorship deal that came her way and I'm like, go for it. You're amazing. Here's why you should do it. And kind of just gave her this like five minute, you are a bad bitch style affirmation.

Um, I think that, you know, that is one of my greatest strengths. I also have incredible hair and I know that a lot of people would not call that a strength, but, um, I can go. Easily a week without washing it. It still looks amazing. No dry shampoo. I have been blessed with hair, commercial hair. All right, my mantra, and this is something, if you do not have a mantra, I encourage you to adopt this today and just notice how your life changes.

Okay, I got two. The first one is it's a good day to be me. It is a good day to be me. Like just say that right now and just notice how good you feel. [00:17:00] whenever I'm just having like a, a awful day, like it feels like life is just Turkey slapping me and I'm like looking up and I'm like, what the fuck Sky Daddy, what is happening?

I will just think, you know what? It's a good day to be me. And that's the day that I'll have someone slide and shoot my DMs. If it's like, I wanna work with you, I'll find a hundred dollars note in the gutter. Some will be like, you have the best hair that I've ever seen. Whatever it is, like something awesome will happen.

And one thing that I've realised is if you wanna achieve anything in your business or even in your life, the most important thing that you need to control is your state and your mindset. And it is really hard to. Have an amazing day and call in incredible things and build the life and business you want when you are kind of just stuck in this, everything fucking sucks and why does life hate me?

You know, the best thing that you can do and I think one of the best skills, um, that you can have as [00:18:00] like a business owner and an entrepreneur. Is to be able to change your state really quickly. And for me, I just found thinking it's a good day to be me is the most empowering thought that I can think.

Another one, and this actually started as a joke with my wonderful team member, Sharon. When we're on the phone, we say, especially if we have to go. Well, like, the world needs me. I gotta go. The world needs me. And for people listening, if you feel like you're just holding yourself back, if you, you know, wanna release an offer or a program or create something and you are just like stopping yourself because of, you know, fear or whatever it may be, just like telling yourself, you know what?

The world fucking needs me and I'm being a selfish bitch right now, holding this back. I need to put this out here. The world needs me, the world needs this. And again, just notice how that feels in your mind, in your body, and it will probably shift you into action, which is what we always want. Also, before we continue, [00:19:00] I don't know about you, but I think this date is going very, very well.

Ooh. And with that, we have one more question. Together we could, together, we could do a lot of things. I think that we could have a lot of fun and get into a lot of trouble. But I think the number one thing is that we could make you a lot of money and a lot of profit and make you feel like your business is a dream to run. Together we absolutely could do that. I bet my left boob on that, my favourite one, together. We absolutely could do that. And I know if you listen to this podcast and you implement all of the things on here, that you are gonna see some incredible changes, not only in your business, but in your mindset and how you approach your business as well.

I don't know about you, but I enjoyed that. I think that was a really good date. I'd love to see you again. How does, I don't know, a couple days from now sound . [00:20:00] So hopefully in all seriousness, you are like, I like this woman. I've got a good vibe for her. So if that is the case, subscribe if you are feeling particularly generous and you know, don't quote me on this, but I'm pretty sure that I read somewhere that when you actually.

Um, pop a good podcast review that you just like 10 x, all of the good karma and all of the good shit that's coming your way. So I don't know, why don't you just try it and see what happens? Anyway, I love you. I love you so much. I love you more than Tuesday, which fun fact is my favourite day and I'm actually recording this on a Tuesday, so I love you more than Tuesday.

I love you more than. The cup of coffee I had this morning. You know, sometimes when you just have a cup of coffee and it just hits the spot, like everything about it is 10 out of 10. Like if you had those little scorecards, you would just hold up a 10 for like taste, temperature, everything about it. So I love you more than the cup of coffee that I had this morning.

I love you more than a good hair day, a good boob day, a good skin day, and a good [00:21:00] nail day. I love you. I was gonna say more probably equally as my wonderful nail tech, Kylie. I am obsessed with her, Kylie. If you move, I will fly to come and see you. If you are thinking that's outrageous, just know that I fly to go and get my hair done.

I love you more than sunshine, and I love you more than this yogurt combination that I'm doing at the moment. I get like the Ziggy's natural yogurt and then, uh, the frozen cherries, just the Woolworths brand, like a third of a cup, maybe, actually, maybe a quarter of a cup. And I microwave the cherries, so they are like, like hot.

And I pop that on the yogurt. And then I take like a fun size twirl and I crumble it up and it tastes like, Oh, bit of a stretch black forest, but it is so damn good and sometimes I eat it for breakfast. It's delicious. I love you more than that, so thank you so much. We have some shit hot episodes that are coming up, so make sure you subscribe, leave a review and hottie.

I'll see you next time.

 If [00:22:00] you're craving more, make sure to subscribe to my email list, which you can find at professionalbabe.com. And word on the street I give good email. Now go and take everything you've learned, get your hands dirty with it, and go and make some serious money.