the bossbabe podcast - 374: A $10K Question, The Million Dollar Side Hustle Roadmap + Freedom Based Business Myths

Starting point is 00:00:00 Let me just help you make this $10,000 decision really quickly. Yesterday, I got an email from this stylist just totally out of the blue. I was like, this is amazing. This is so smart. This is exactly what I teach. I also, this week, got numbers back from my CFO. I'm going to pull them up and read them to you. Hello, welcome back to the Boss Babe Podcast. I'm excited for this solo. I have a whole list of things that we're going to catch up on. We're going to talk about some businessy things, some lifey things. I am currently sitting letting my fake tan dry. It's been a while since I've wore fake tan and been a while since I've fake tanned myself, but I am speaking at a podcast

Starting point is 00:00:43 event tonight. There's like 100 women here in Austin, which by the way, you guys, please leave a review on this podcast. Firstly, that would help us so much. But in your review, let us know which city you actually listen in from. And if you'd be interested in us actually doing a live recording in your city,

Starting point is 00:00:57 because I'm so up for it. And the fact that 100 women are coming in Austin, I'm like, we must have some amazing women in different cities that would actually show up for a podcast event. Austin I'm like we must have some amazing women in different cities that would actually show up for a podcast event so I'm all in and those reviews would also help us but yes anyway I've like not been prepared on time and so I thought let me just give myself a little bit of color because listen we're looking very English that's all we're gonna say so just sitting here with my fake tan drying I got a raw milk cappuccino she's consistent

Starting point is 00:01:26 I never change up the drink order it's so good um by the way just a side note if you are drinking raw milk just make sure it's a2 milk there's a difference in the way that the cows are bred and their heritage and where they're from a2 milk is where it's at so just make sure it's a2 just a little tip in there. But let's dive in. So I also, I've just hit inbox zero for the first time in a long time, which feels really good. Before I had kids, listen, I was an inbox zero gal. Every day, inbox zero.

Starting point is 00:01:56 And there are some weeks where I feel like I hit inbox zero every single day. I'm so on top of things. Right now, it's just a different season. I don't have any childcare. I haven't had childcare for weeks. I won't for another few weeks it's just when we have a gap in child care the way it's worked out and firstly it's really interesting because I've been exploring the idea of like do I want less child care how much child care do I want so having none has been

Starting point is 00:02:20 um a definite uh should we call it contrast and it showed me that I definitely do want it. I don't want as full time as I had before. I think I had maybe 38 hours. I'm going to go down to probably 32, 35 hours of childcare. That would feel good. But having none is, it's interesting. So inbox zero has not been a common occurrence, but we're in box zero today.

Starting point is 00:02:42 Energy's high, celebrating that. And what I have realized, I heard this a long long time ago I don't know who said it but they said if it's if when you're thinking about what you're going to say yes or no to what you're thinking about what you're going to make commitments to if it would not be a yes to something you'd want to do tomorrow don't say yes for it to be in you know two weeks from now or two months from now it can be very easy't say yes for it to be in, you know, two weeks from now or two months from now. It can be very easy to say yes to something that you don't really want to do if it's two months out. Because you think, oh, by the time that two months comes around, you know, my plate will be so much more freed up. I'll have like, no, that never happens. You know that whenever that comes up,

Starting point is 00:03:21 your plate is not more free. and so that's just been something that I really am keeping in mind is like if I wouldn't do this tomorrow it just has to be a no right now that like I have to be really protective of the things I'm saying yes to which overall just not having child care is teaching me so much about productivity and delegation productivity because there are so many things that I just don't do and don't spend time on that if I do have all of this extra time I am going to spend time on and actually seeing it this way shows me that it's not necessarily a needle mover and is absolutely not essential that I'm doing so often so that's been a really really good learning lesson and then also delegation you know this I'm really leaning on my team and support system a lot

Starting point is 00:04:08 more right now than I previously have and that's been really really good for me because I'm actually seeing how much can get delegated off my plate and done really really well so that has felt incredible I've also upped the amount of support that I have around the house, which has felt really, really good. And I'm just, yeah, it just is forcing me to ask for help more, trust people more, you know, not worry if not everything's done to my taste. Like, really just step out of that idea that everything needs to be done a certain way and all those things and just doing it, just knowing that it's off my plate and it's getting done that's the most important thing and then not spending time on the things that aren't going to move the needle like there's so many things that I find I just I've been getting

Starting point is 00:04:52 distracted with and I think I'm a really productive person I think like I've got my rhythm I've got my needle movers I think I'm really productive and then there's times in this season where I take so much off my plate because I'm like yeah that that would be a nice to have but it's not actually a needle mover and just taking it off so definitely not having no child care has helped with that so much I remember before I had Noemi I would like wouldn't have understood what it meant to not have child care like can you not just put your kid in front the tv can you not just do this like can you not just work while they're playing on the floor like I had all of these ideas and I'm sure I will have given that advice to clients at some points like you know can you work during nap time no I cannot work during nap time because that's

Starting point is 00:05:35 when I'm cleaning up the chaos that has been left in my like that's what I'm sitting down finally drinking my coffee like there's so many things that I had these ideas and misconceptions about before kids. And it's just so interesting. I like feel if I ever give advice to mums before becoming a mum. I'm like very sorry about that. And feel terrible about it. Because there's just no way you could ever know. Like you really couldn't.

Starting point is 00:06:01 So there's that. And so okay. I also want to talk about, I feel like I've got a list. I just want to like jump around. I just want to catch up with you guys and just share a few things that are going on in my world, a few realizations that I've had and anything that might be supportive for you

Starting point is 00:06:16 and maybe will just inspire you to think in a certain way. But I had a conversation with a friend yesterday, come to me advice. So they've been trying to hire for a certain role in their business for quite a few months now, and it's been quite challenging finding that person. And they told me last week they were super excited about it. He was like, you know, I just did an interview. This person seems absolutely perfect.

Starting point is 00:06:38 I'm so excited. They put their offer out and this person came back and they've been negotiating. And it looks like this person wants ten thousand dollars more than they really feel comfortable paying and that they'd budgeted for and this role you know it's a it's a decent sized business that they have and this role is a really important role and he said to me yesterday he's like what do I do like do I just go back to the drawing board and I really had to pull out coach hat for a second and say this let me just help you make this ten thousand dollar decision really quickly do you want to hire this

Starting point is 00:07:12 person now have them get started and take all of this off of your plate or do you want to spend another couple of months of your time not just looking for this person and hiring this person but also taking on their role what's more worth it to you and for some people in early stage in their business they're like oh no it's absolutely worth it for me to keep doing their job because I can't afford that but for this person's size business that ten thousand dollar decision actually should have just been an easy yes and I am a big believer that leaders make fast decisions because time is money in business let's be really honest time is money and I always think about my time in business as money and if I can delegate it to someone else if it makes sense

Starting point is 00:07:59 for me to pay for someone else to do that or support me with that um then I'll absolutely do it and so just coaching them in that way he made the decision right away he was like oh that's a wait why I didn't ever think about that that's a no-brainer of course I'm gonna make this higher so just wanted to share that um I also recently had made this decision when we were in the nanny hiring process because I feel like I've definitely learned a lot you know Noemi's coming up two now which is crazy how do I have a two-year-old but I had just like I said formal had no idea what any of this looked like and I didn't really know what kind of qualities I would or wouldn't like in a

Starting point is 00:08:39 nanny how many hours would feel good what other duties I'd like them to do. I just really was going in blind. I had no idea and I didn't at the time have many people to talk to about it. This was way before we created See Your Mama. This was that we were hiring child care support early on and so in this two years I've learned a lot about what works for me, what doesn't and I was actually sitting down to write a new job description for the new person that we're hiring and I was able to be so clear on what I do want and what I don't want in ways that I would never have thought about before like I'm so shocked that I have to actually say I do not want you to sit scrolling on your phone when you're looking after my child and yes that's something that you generally have to say, which is crazy.

Starting point is 00:09:29 I did not that we've you guys, I could tell you so many stories about things that have happened. One time I had a nanny, she hasn't been with us for a long time, but I had a nanny who was meant to be paying full attention to my baby. Noemi was really tiny looking after her. Instead, she came out of Noemi's room crying her eyes out because her boyfriend had just broken up with her on the phone and i'm like hold on you're just on the phone with your like no there's so many things so many like things that i just wouldn't have thought to ask in interviews and be really clear on or times when um my nanny's meant to be like at the park playing with noemi and i've walked around and she's just sitting scrolling on her phone like there's been so many things that i've learned

Starting point is 00:10:10 and so i put together a really really solid here's exactly who i'm looking for here's who i'm not looking for and i decided this time around to go with an agency because i'm super clear on on who the right person and the agency is pretty expensive they charge it's like 10% 10 yeah of this person's annual salary which for a full-time nanny that's quite high and I did that I had that question is it worth my time to go and spend all of this time hiring this person doing doing all the interviews, all of this stuff, or is it worth it for me to outsource this to professionals? And it was worth it. So that's how I make those decisions. Like if I just thought about it as like, oh, do I really want to spend that much money on that? Well, no, of course not. But when I weighed up with my time, my time is

Starting point is 00:10:59 invaluable and I'd rather, I'm in the position where I can do that and so I would rather spend my time on things that I enjoy um things that I want to spend my time on or things that are actually going to make me money so it was like it's an easy decision when you think about it that way so that was just a really interesting conversation that I had and I wanted to bring it to the podcast because I feel like this goes for so many people at so many different levels in your business whether you're just starting your business whether you're just starting out whether you're side hustling it while you have a full-time job or whether you do have an established business there are often a lot of time and money decisions that we can make

Starting point is 00:11:36 a lot faster that will take things off our plate that will help us stay focused and that will actually feel really good so just putting that out there. Okay, so what else? Where else are we going with this one? I feel like there's just so many things I want to talk about. I also, this week, got numbers back from my CFO. I'm going to pull them up and read them to you. Because I want to start with this before I share some stuff on freedom. So she texted me.

Starting point is 00:12:01 She said, we 2x'd revenue in Q1 2024 versus Q1 2023. So double the amount of revenue in this quarter this year than last quarter last year. And not just that, we 6x'd profit in Q1 this year versus last year. Six times, you guys. So we doubled revenue but we six times profit is that not absolutely wild so I wanted to share that as like lay of the land before I go into the freedom based stuff because I do think there's a couple of myths when it comes to freedom in your business one that is only available to people who have established businesses. Oh, you can only have a freedom-based business if you've already established your business. Not true. We'll get into that. And the second is having more freedom

Starting point is 00:12:53 in your business or doing less is going to mean that you make less. Not true. That's why I want to share those numbers from our CFO. Those are exactly from our CFO. So they are specific. So the first thing is that you can only have a freedom-based business if you are established. That is not true. So a freedom-based business I class as one that gives you freedom. Lifestyle freedom, you know financial, time, location, schedule freedom. One where generally you tap into the power of social media, organic marketing, digital marketing to build an online business. That's how I have defined freedom-based business and I don't think that you have to already have an established business. If I think about me building this business, did it require a lot more hustle?

Starting point is 00:13:37 Yes, absolutely. Getting started in the beginning requires a lot more work and could I have done it in a much smarter way yes 1000% there are so many mistakes that I made along the way that cost me so much money and cost me so much time and there were seasons that I went through where the profit margins were so low because I was investing in all the wrong things at all the wrong time and there were just so many ways that I could have done things differently and I to prove this also and also it's a little bit different because I'm saying to prove this I actually did have an audience getting started which I know is one of the big things but I when I didn't know if I was going to be buying Boss Babe when I thought I was just leaving not last year the year before I decided to start my own seven figure side hustle

Starting point is 00:14:24 because I was like I know I want freedom I only want to work a couple hours a week and I think I can make seven figures let me just let me do like challenge myself to do it and I did it within the year it was very easy because I just followed a very simple playbook I solved a really good problem and I did direct outreach to people to sell it now again granted I had an audience I had a brand a personal brand so that really really helps but I still was doing direct reach out wasn't having I wasn't just advertising on my Instagram I was doing direct reach out but again obviously it helps if you do have a personal brand when you are reaching out so I'm not saying that's you know you have to have that but an example is just yesterday I got an email from

Starting point is 00:15:07 this stylist just totally out of the blue and let me read what she said to you I'm not going to share her name but let me just pull up the email and read what she said to me because I was just thinking this is so smart this is exactly what I teach I teach if you want to make money and you want to get started pick your like problem that you're going to solve I teach if you want to make money and you want to get started pick your like problem that you're going to solve like how are you going to solve it put together your offer and then create a dream 100 list your dream 100 clients and reach out to them and she reached out to me hi Natalie I'll get straight to the point I've created a personalized look look book for you featuring 10 outfits from designer collections mixed with high street garments that I think you would like

Starting point is 00:15:49 I am re-entering the fashion industry and would love to offer to prepare more looks for you please check the pdf enjoy it so I click on it and so I open this pdf she's got pictures of me and it's 10 fresh new looks for you new wardrobe outfit ideas that I think matches your style and will make you feel great then there's an introduction 10 looks with all the links why I've contacted you and about me and end so she does like a full overview of what she thinks my style is and then she tells me a bit more about her what she's doing then she's curated all of these looks for me which are amazing like I'm gonna work with her and then at the end um she literally said you know if you like it here's

Starting point is 00:16:31 the next steps if you don't like it feel free it just give me some feedback or let me know that you're interested or just don't answer at all I was like this is amazing and then she did a full intro of who she is you know know, all of her background, all of that stuff. So I just, I look, she doesn't have a current brand. She's really getting into this again, like after, I guess, a career break, but she created a list of people she wanted to reach out to. She put together this personalized lookbook for me. It was amazing. I'm going to go through and buy all of those outfits and she's going to be building up clientele so coming back to when I set up this seven figure side hustle it was it hit seven figures very very quickly and I did it

Starting point is 00:17:12 without promoting it on my Instagram I did it by direct reach out only and that's exactly what I would do I would solve a problem that I no need solved I would package my offer and then I would do direct reach out to get clients like it's that simple so there are so many smart ways that you can build a business and not every business is going to be able to be built like that I get it some businesses do require a lot more work but if you're wanting to build a freedom-based business a lifestyle business and that's the phase that you're in you can't actually do it without having to put all of this extra time and um hours in so that is available to you so I think that's a myth that you can't just start with all of this freedom like

Starting point is 00:17:51 yeah of course it's gonna take work and business still takes work just because I have a freedom based business doesn't mean it doesn't take work um it does and it's always going to take work it's never going to be completely hands off so that's one of the myths of it and then the second myth is that if you do less you're going to make less and I wanted to share those numbers from my CFO to really show I'm making six times more profit this year than I made last year all because of the way that I'm running the business like when I bought this business um when I bought my co-founder out and decided I was going to run it on my own you know initially that's not what the plan was

Starting point is 00:18:28 going to be it all flipped around and I said we decided that's what would make more sense but it wasn't doing amazingly um you know compared to how it had been doing and I don't think it was it had a really efficient operating system in it and it just wasn't running I think the way it could be running and I put a completely different operating system in what I call the freedom-based business method now and I want to test it like okay I think this is going to work on paper this should work theoretically it should work let me see if it actually works and a year on to be seeing the kind of numbers that we're seeing and the results that we're seeing just goes to show that actually it really does work and what I am most proud of is the team culture that we're seeing just goes to show that actually it really does work and what I am most

Starting point is 00:19:07 proud of is the team culture that we've built you know we have attracted so many old employees who had worked with us and left to come back to the business where we now have three yeah three employees that had left and come back which is amazing I'm so grateful and we just have the most solid team I mean two of my team are my family members the rest of them aren't but they feel like family like my team truly does feel like family there are 13 of us full-time and then we have a couple of contractors outside of that but they're 13 of us and we get on so well our meetings are full of laughter and happiness and we get to know each other on a personal level and we all work really hard we're all crushing it in our spaces and the business is doing really really well for it but it feels really good and in the past definitely I had

Starting point is 00:20:04 noticed it felt like the business was a little bit chaotic and people were stressed and stretched and you know weren't really tapping into their creativity and maybe weren't loving coming to work we definitely had seasons where they they did but we had seasons where they didn't and I get not every season is going to be amazing but I am really really proud of this and the idea of putting people first we put people first and you know realizing people have full lives outside of work and they have priorities outside of work and how can we if our if our business is to support support other women in building freedom-based businesses well how do we then use our business to help our employees live freedom-based lives so that they can spend time with the people that they love,

Starting point is 00:20:48 they can spend time doing the things that they love, they can work on bettering themselves and growing personally and professionally within our company. So that's something that I'm really proud of. And again, it just comes back to it is a myth that if you do less, you'll make less. I actually think by doing less, you master more. And when you master more, of course, more money but you go deeper you enjoy what you're doing more you get to refine you get to perfect um and I think you get to really amplify your results so that's felt really really good I'm I have to say I'm really proud of those results you guys all know this has just not been an easy journey um when I bought the company it was um I

Starting point is 00:21:26 think was March of last year and we didn't really announce it I think until September was it so after summer I think um and so all of that time you know it was just it was really hard like a lot of behind the scenes a lot of fixing a lot of reworking a lot of behind the scenes, a lot of fixing, a lot of reworking, a lot of burning things down and building things up and all the things. So it hasn't been an easy process. But to see it all paying off in the numbers and in the culture has been amazing. And I'm really, really proud of that because it could have gone the other way. And I'm really, really proud of it because when I took it on, I made the commitment to myself. Okay, Natalie, you can only do this if you're going to do it differently. And it's not going to take over your life. And it's not

Starting point is 00:22:07 going to have you really regret doing this. And, you know, looking back at your life in a few years time, I think, why did I spend my time like that? Like, I regret it. So that's been feeling really, really good. So a few kind of updates on my side. And I I'm very aware like a lot of this podcast being like this is going well this is going well here's my advice on this I also want to let you guys know I do not have my shit all figured out like I was just doing an exercise that I take my mastermind CEO mama members through where we do um an audit across uh our entire lives personally professionally and one thing i realized is i have such a desire to be working out more but i'm just not doing it coming from

Starting point is 00:22:51 the woman that likes to motivate others in their businesses i'm not doing it with workouts and that's been really interesting for me i have a trainer that comes to my house i have a gym my house i'm like i literally have no fucking excuses like come on out you get your shit together but um i've been having a trainer come twice a week but I will say the minute things get busy or I'm feeling tired or no I mean as I mean sleeping that's the first thing that I cancel and take off my calendar is my workouts and I just am sick of doing that like I want to be prioritizing my workouts again and I would love to go up from two times a week to maybe five times a week if we're gonna get crazy maybe you know seven if we're gonna include walking but I'm just not doing it

Starting point is 00:23:30 and so I'm saying it out loud here first to say I don't have my shit together all the time so I don't want that to be the impression that I do but second putting it out there that this is the accountability that I need to put this into a public forum to say, I really need to figure this out because I'm just feeling like I do, I've been doing these practices, just checking into different areas of myself and my body's like, we wanna be getting stronger. We wanna be working out more.

Starting point is 00:23:56 So I'm listening, I'm gonna be doing it. So send me your tips. So that's a little life update. That's a little business update. Just a few things that are top of mind that I wanted to share that I thought might just support you in your journey right now maybe they inspire a conversation a prompt something that you want to think about hopefully every time that you put on this podcast you are just getting some ideas or feeling like

Starting point is 00:24:20 you're not alone that's really the hope because we're all in this together we're all figuring this out one day at a time none of us completely have our shit together so I never want that to be the impression but it's just nice to be in community together doing this together and I mentioned it before but it would mean the world to us if after you listen to this you could go leave us a quick review it helps so much and you sharing the podcast really really helps I am actually currently building a podcast studio in my backyard right now it's time you guys the amount of times I just have chaos construction crying baby going on in the background and I'm just pausing all my teams like the podcast episodes late I'm like yep I know because I sit down and

Starting point is 00:25:02 the leaf blows it's just like a whole thing let's take a quick pause to talk about my new favorite all-in-one platform Kajabi. You know I've been singing their praises lately because they have helped our business run so much smoother and with way less complexity which I love. Not to mention our team couldn't be happier because now everything is in one place so it makes collecting data, creating pages, collecting payment, all the things so much simpler. One of our mottos at Boss Babe is simplify to amplify and Kajabi has really helped us do that this year. So of course I needed to share it here with you. It's the perfect time of year to do a bit of spring cleaning in your business, you know, get rid of the complexity and instead really focus on getting organized and making things as smooth as possible. I definitely recommend Kajabi to all of my clients and students so if you're listening and haven't

Starting point is 00:25:50 checked out Kajabi yet now is the perfect time to do so because they are offering Boss Babe listeners a 30-day free trial go to kajabi.com slash boss babe to claim your 30-day free trial that's kajabi.com slash boss babe so I'm 30-day free trial that's kajabi.com slash boss babe so I'm building a podcast studio in my backyard and I'm just really committed to going all in and bringing you the best content that I possibly can and so it would just mean the absolute world wherever you're listening to the podcast if you could subscribe there if you could leave a review and if you could share it I know that's a lot of asks but it would mean the world and it makes such a big difference and it's going to be really motivating to just help me get like

Starting point is 00:26:32 the best guests on here and create the best content and really dedicate more time to it so thanks for listening to that ask I really appreciate it thank you for tuning in I also really appreciate every single one of you who listen and I'll see you in the next episode

the bossbabe podcast - 374: A $10K Question, The Million Dollar Side Hustle Roadmap + Freedom Based Business Myths

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