Episode 75: Hustle Isn't the Problem, Your "Who's" Are the Answer

Bouncing her employees' paychecks on a Friday afternoon in July was one of the lowest moments of Jennifer Kok's 20+ years in business and one of the best things that ever happened to her.

In this episode of Main Street Success Stories, host Jennifer Kok shares the raw, real story behind the "hustle harder" moment that almost broke her and the mindset shift that actually saved her business. Jennifer opens up about walking away from a corporate career, buying into a cookie-gifting franchise, and quietly believing that asking for help meant she wasn't cut out to be an entrepreneur.

Then came the phone call in the minivan on the way to a family weekend away: payroll had bounced. What followed wasn't a hustle-harder fix it was a wake-up call that led Jennifer to rebuild her business around cash flow clarity, boundaries, and one game-changing idea: you don't build something that lasts by going it alone.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why "hustle harder" often isn't the real problem, and what is
• How to shift from reactive decision-making to proactive strategy
• Jennifer's "Fab Five" framework for building your own personal board of directors
• Why asking for help is a sign of strength, not weakness
• How to stop avoiding your numbers and start understanding them

About Your Host
Jennifer Kok is a business owner, author, and entrepreneur coach with 20+ years of experience building and scaling a business from the ground up. After leaving a corporate career and relocating her family three times in six years, Jennifer bought into a franchise business and learned, the hard way, how to turn reactive chaos into sustainable, profitable growth. She's the author of Make Waves: How Women Entrepreneurs Stop Reacting, Start Profiting, and Build a Business to Last, and the founder of Focus Growth Collective, a membership community and mastermind for women entrepreneurs who are ready to stop going it alone and start building with the support of the right people around them.

Get the Book
 Ready to find your own "Fab Five" and build a business that lasts? Jennifer's book, Make Waves: How Women Entrepreneurs Stop Reacting, Start Profiting, and Build a Business to Last, dives deeper into the framework from this episode.

Join Focus Growth Collective
You don't have to build alone. Focus Growth Collective is Jennifer's membership community and mastermind for women entrepreneurs who want real strategy, real support, and a real community of people who get it. Learn more

Enjoyed This Episode?
If this story resonated with you, share it with one of your "who's"  the person who needs to hear that asking for help isn't weakness, it's strategy. And don't forget to subscribe to Main Street Success Stories so you never miss an episode.

Meet Your Host:

Jennifer Kok, Profit and Growth advisor for service-based women entrepreneurs. Women Entrepreneurs hire me to scale and grow their businesses profitably without burnout. I bring financial clarity, strategic focus and structure to the decision-making process. 

Because the truth is, business owners make decisions all day long, but the ones that really matter are often the hardest ones. Should I hire? Raise my prices? Invest in marketing? Let go of a draining client? Expand, or simplify?

My clients, on average, see anywhere between $1k-$4k increase in net income each month without hustle, overwhelm, and burnout.
Learn More about my Programs.

Get your copy of Make Waves: How Women Entrepreneurs Stop Reacting. Start Profiting and Build a Business That Lasts. 

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Transcript

Jennifer Kok (00:00)

bounced my employees' paychecks on a Friday in July, and it was the best thing that ever happened to my business. Welcome to another episode of Main Street Success Stories. I'm your host, Jennifer Kok You know, I want to ask you a question. If I was to ask you why you started your business, does the answer come quickly to you? Is it crystal clear?

You know, the why is really powerful. And when we start a business, we have a strong why. And a lot of times, it's fueled with passion. It's fueled with purpose. It's fueled with excitement. You know, we have these great ideas, and we just think, my gosh, there's no way I can fail. There's no way this isn't going to work. That is typical when we start a business. You know, for me,

I wanted freedom and flexibility. I was working a wonderful job that I loved. It was a corporate job. But back then, in order to move up the corporate ladder, we had to relocate. My husband and I moved three times in six years.

That was a lot. Not only was it a lot personally, trying to make friends, trying to get into a new community, but it was a lot. It was hard for my husband's career. And then, when we started a family, you know, for us, we were just like, can we keep doing this? Do we want to keep doing this? So we made the decision that I was going to quit my corporate job. He was going to stay on course for his career. And we moved back to our hometown of Grand Rapids, Michigan, where we could be near family, raise our

near family, near grandparents, and that's when I jumped into the pool of entrepreneurship. I bought into a franchise called Cookies by Design, which was a cookie gifting company. And of course when I started, I was full of excitement just like you were. And I had my why. Freedom and flexibility was going to be it. And let's be real. Us entrepreneurs are wired a little differently. You know, I was a little stubborn, very proud.

and also a bit scared. You I left a good job, 401K, company car. I borrowed money to start my business. So I didn't want to let those around me down. So when we get jumping into entrepreneurship, I spent years thinking that asking for help meant I wasn't cut out for this, that I wasn't designed to be an entrepreneur. Have you ever felt this way? If you ask for help, it might be a sign of weakness.

or yet failure? Have you ever sat on the other side of your CPA or your bookkeeper and they're talking about your numbers and you're sitting there just nodding your head but have no idea what they're talking about but you didn't dare raise your hand and say, hey, I have a question? Because if you did, then maybe you felt like, I'm not really an, you know, that's not a real entrepreneur.

Have you ever spent a ton of money on different advertising, just said yes quickly without really looking at the ROI or looking if that's the best investment for your business? I can remember saying yes to every salesperson that walked through my doors, whether it was the coupon book, whether it was the key card or digital ads or the $5,000 billboard. And I didn't even know if I could afford it.

And I was just hoping that this advertising method was going to be it. It was going to be the thing that drove my business to the next level. Do you ever feel like you're wearing all the hats and you're doing everything, your every department from IT to finance to customer service, and you forget to do things because you just can't do it all, but you act like, no, I didn't forget to do that. I forgot to do that on purpose. I was putting that off till a little bit later on purpose.

except for the one time I forgot to pick up my son from school. I couldn't pretend that was on purpose.

You know, when someone asks entrepreneurs often, how's business? We do this thing where we plaster on a smile and our voice goes up a notch or two and we go, it's fine. Fine. Business is fine. How about you? Business fine? And we're all like, yeah, it's fine. And we sound exactly like our teenagers. I'm fine. And just like when our kids say it, nobody in this room believes it either.

You know, I know some of you are sitting here listening to this podcast today with a version of that word, fine, on the tip of your tongue. You know, maybe your numbers look OK, but you can't figure out where all your money's going. Maybe, you know, revenue is really solid, but you're thinking to yourself, boy, I make less money than I used to make when I worked in corporate.

Maybe you're avoiding a call. Maybe the follow-up because you don't want to bother that lead, that person. Maybe you say yes to too many things because you don't want to let people down and you want a people please. And you're just wearing too many hats. Sure, there are a lot of fine moments in owning a business. In my 20 years of owning a business, there were plenty of fine moments. But then when we're building anything real,

There are moments that just aren't so fine either.

Jennifer Kok (04:37)

That's just the reality of building anything real. We're going to have bumps. Things are going to come up unexpectedly. And whenever we hit those bumps, or whenever we're feeling a little down or feeling a little overwhelmed, we go back to our why. And everyone, every self-help book out there tells you, know your why as entrepreneurs. And yes, it's powerful. Go back to your why. Remember why you're doing this. For me, OK, I want freedom and flexibility. If I go back to my corporate job, I lose that.

But here's something I want to share with you today about what I've learned over the 25 years of entrepreneurship is that yes, why is powerful. That's our starting point. That's our launch pad. But in order to build a business that lasts, you need the who's.

The most successful women in any room did not get there alone. They got there because of their people. And our people at home are often our biggest cheerleaders. My husband is my biggest cheerleader. He's so optimistic. He's always encouraging me. Same with my adult children. They're so encouraging. But what's important for your business is to have people that really understand what you're going through. You know, the people that get

what it feels like to put yourself out there in social media after you edited the first version, the second version, the third version because you're so afraid of what people are going to think. Or the people that get that you just got so many ideas and every idea is better than the next one, but you sit there and you procrastinate because you just really don't know which one to act on first. instead we do nothing. And the people that just.

You can admit out loud that, my gosh, I really don't get these numbers. What are they telling me? This is like a foreign language to me. You know, that's daily life as women in business. We have a lot on our plate. So let me take you back to that Friday in July. It was a beautiful day.

And my husband and I, my two daughters at the time, piled into the minivan, and we were gonna get away for the weekend. We were heading from Grand Rapids, Michigan to the Wisconsin Dells. Wisconsin Dells is a really fun area that's got water parks and lots of things for kids to do, and we just needed a weekend away. We were really excited. So off we go. I'm sure the girls were probably watching SpongeBob SquarePants. That was probably big back then. My husband and had our coffees. We were able, finally, to just sit and talk for a minute.

and the sun was shining, it was beautiful Friday in July. And my cell phone rang. And I picked it up. And have you ever gotten that call where the person on the other end, kind of hems, kind of haws, you get the feeling they just don't know how to tell you what's coming? Well, it was my manager from the cookie business. And she mustered up the courage and just blurted out, our paychecks are bouncing.

And I can remember my first thought was like, what? How can that be? A little bit of shock. Like, that can't happen. Our paychecks aren't bouncing. You know, I was about four years into my journey now, and things from the outside looked good. Well, then I thought, okay, let me figure this out. I'll call you back. I looked at my husband, and we thought, what are we going to do? We didn't have an emergency fund. We didn't have extra savings anywhere to pull from.

So we literally got off the next exit off the highway, which landed us into some small, cute little town in Wisconsin, pulled into their little community bank, and I took out a cash advance on a credit card to have the money deposited into our business checking account to cover payroll.

For all of you out there in finance listening today, I'm sure you probably can't get past the interest rate that I paid on that cash advance on a credit card. I mean, talk about awful, right? So we get it temporarily fixed.

get back into the car, we're driving down the road, and of course then the negative self-talk hits me as I'm just staring out the window. You know, those thoughts that swirl, who are you to think you can do this? Why did I think I was going to be successful? I don't care how powerful my why is, this is not for me. I just can't keep doing this. And then,

the humiliation, the shame, the embarrassment. I left a really good job. We borrowed money. I looked at my husband and I said, don't worry, I'm going to fix this. I'm going to fix this. I didn't want him to lose faith in me. So we went on, enjoyed our weekend, came home.

And my first instinct when I got back into the business on Monday was, you know what? I'm just going to hustle harder. I'm going to figure this out. We got to go get more sales. Has anyone ever felt that's our default? We're just going to hustle. We're going to sell more. We're going to reach out to more people, more follow up. We can do this. But then as I sat there and was just feeling weary and feeling just kind of really bummed out about what happened, you know, I just had this realization that hustle wasn't my problem.

It was a who problem. First of all, I was the who. I was avoiding my financials. I was reacting to those around me. I didn't want to make the tough decisions. I wanted to say yes to all the salespeople, and I wanted it to be fun. And I would just say to myself, it'll all work out. But what I learned is that avoiding a decision is a decision. I didn't need more hustle.

I needed better strategies.

So I went back to my CPA and I said, can you show me, can you teach me all these years I've been nodding along, acting like I knew what you were talking about? I really don't. Can you show me how to understand cashflow better? Because when I started learning, what happened was it came with some hard decisions on expenses, things that I just couldn't say yes and buy on payroll, having to cut back a few hours to those people that needed them most. I had to learn to say no.

I had to learn to say no to all those nice salespeople that would walk in the door selling me their advertising and I just wanted to help them with their careers too. I had to learn how to stabilize my business because up until then, I was borrowing from tomorrow's revenue to pay for today's decisions. And the irony of the situation was sales were good. Hustle wasn't the problem.

So I started looking outside for assistance. I started talking with others. I took a step back and realized what I needed. And what I really needed was to get off the roller coaster of revenue where one day it's great, the next day not so great. So I started talking more to corporate clients, building that corporate business.

you know, positioning ourselves as a gifting expert, not as a cookie company, because I wanted reoccurring revenue. And it turns out there's a lot of businesses out there that needed me, but I needed to show them that they needed us. And I'm here to tell you that when we go and have these kind of bumps, they don't fix overnight. My cash flow issue did not fix overnight. It came slowly from that Friday in July.

but it headed in the right direction. I never pounced another payment again, and I was on the road to being profitable. So that Friday was a huge wake-up call for me, and honestly, the real start of growth. Not only did I learn to skill up in an area, I also learned it was OK to ask for help. You know, we are meant to build in a community of other entrepreneurs.

Once I gave myself that permission to stop going in alone, and that I didn't have to have all the answers all the time, that that wasn't a sign of weakness, everything started to turn around for me. You know, I started paying attention to the people around me differently. And what I did is I created what my own personal board of directors, what I call the Fab Five. Now these Fab Five I'm strategic about.

They are not paid employees. These are other entrepreneurs, other mentors, other consultants who come alongside you in those different seasons of your journey. You don't need them all the time, but boy is it good to know that you have them. You know, I didn't build a business of 20 years by going in alone.

I built with a team of who's.

So who are these who's? I want to take you through these who's today so that you too can start building your own personal board of directors. First of all, the first who is someone with more experience than you, is a few years ahead of you. Because when you surround yourself with people that are older, wiser, have more experience, they provide a calming presence.

They have this been there, done that, don't worry, this too shall pass. You know, I think this is why we go to our grandparents for advice or we go to our parents for advice. They just seem to know that this is just a blip in the road, you're going to be OK. And they often show you your path forward.

The second who is surround yourself with people that are younger than you. Not only can you be their mentor, can you be their who, but what you learn from being around younger people is how to stay current, how to stay trendy, how to keep up with tech, and also today's slang so that your business stays relevant. And they'll probably help you with a social media tip or two. And then the third one often surprises a lot of people.

Seek people in your own industry. And here's why. Long gone are the days that you're going to walk into any room and be the only graphic designer, the only event planner, the only financial planner. We live in a world of opportunity.

And so we need to learn from each other because there's only one you. You're going to operate your business differently than they are. So do not look at these people as your competition. Look at these people for a way of collaboration. There's enough business for all of you. So learn together. Rise each other together.

The fourth who is somebody outside of your industry. This person is going to challenge your thinking. They're going to discuss maybe best business practices, general advice. You're going to learn how other industries are doing things. And they also become great referral partners. And then the fifth who, one of my all-time favorites, is you need a phone a friend.

Your phone a friend is someone that you can share, hey, I just had the best month ever, and they're not going to think you're bragging. Your phone a friend is the one that you can just cry and go, my gosh, what have I done? And they're just going to listen. They might not even offer you advice. Sometimes we don't want to hear it at that moment. We just want to feel heard. And they are the people that can just come alongside you in those moments when it feels like you're on an island all by yourself.

So when you do this, when you intentionally seek out your Fab Five, not only do you build something that lasts, you build something that's stronger, you build something that's more profitable, and it's built on purpose, and it takes the loneliness out of owning a business. We don't have to act like we're fine all the time. So look around you.

As you head out today and you head out to your next networking event and your next meetings, look around you. Make eye contact with somebody. Go find your people. And when someone asks you for your help, be the who they needed.

I am the author of a book called Make Waves, How Women Entrepreneurs Stop Reacting, Start Profiting, and Build a Business to Last. And in the book, I go deeper into how to find your five who's and how you can help them with their business, but they can also help you. So follow the link in the show notes below to get a copy of your book today. In the meantime,

I have tons of free resources for you to help you grow your business not only strategically and practically so that it doesn't burn you out and you can sustain a business and a life. But always, I am here to help you and also be a who. Thanks for listening. If this episode resonated with you, would you please share it with one of your who's? Until next time, go make waves.