the bossbabe podcast - 38. Adopting a Lean Business Mindset, Negotiating Your Salary, Maintaining Work-Life Balance, and Leading a Team with Kay Snels of BossBabe

Episode Date: September 30, 2019

Join BossBabe CEO Natalie Ellis in this absolutely value-packed episode where she is joined by BossBabe’s very own Head of Marketing, Kay Snels. They are diving deep into all things marketing, leadership, negotiation and you’ll find out what it’s really like to work at BossBabe. Kay is sharing tips on delegation, personal branding, self-belief and having the confidence to pursue opportunities and celebrate your wins. They discuss insights into communication, productivity and how to maintain a work-life balance whilst building a thriving company with a lean business model. This episode is a must-listen and if you’d love to learn from the BossBabe team about how to grow your audience on Instagram by 10,000 ideal clients in 30 days, register for a free spot in the next training at: https://bossbabe.com/growthatinsta This episode is sponsored by the Insta Growth Accelerator. A 12-week accelerator designed to show you how to grow and monetize your Instagram account. www.instagrowthaccelerator.com

I never bought into this idea of, oh, I need to work late to stand out and compete. Set those boundaries for yourself, but also know that you are your own boss. There's no other expectations or pressure than the one that you're putting on to yourself. Welcome to the Boss Babe podcast, a place where we share with you the real behind the scenes of building successful businesses, achieving peak performance and learning how to balance it all. I'm Natalie Ellis, co-founder and CEO of Boss Babe and your host for this week's episode. This podcast is pretty exciting because you're about to find out what it's really like to work at Boss Babe, what I might be like as a boss, and most importantly, who the incredible Boss Babes are behind the scenes. As you know, Boss Babe is a company with a full team of incredibly

ambitious, intelligent, and driven people behind it. So I'm really excited to be able to bring you behind the curtain in this episode. Today, I'm interviewing Kay Snells. Kay is Boss Babe's head of marketing. And prior to joining us at Boss Babe, she worked in the tech industry in Silicon Valley. During her four years at Uber in San Francisco, she was in a variety of roles like social media manager, content strategist, marketing manager, and brand strategist. And prior to that, she traveled around the world and asked random strangers to teach her anything while producing award-winning video content. She's got a degree in business management, just like me, and marketing and a postgraduate degree

in digital marketing communications. She's a marketer at heart and since Boss Babe's foundation is built upon social media and the digital landscape, we're really excited to have her in the team and also on the podcast today. She's the absolute definition of a Boss Babe and this episode is such a must listen. Working along Kay has been so interesting and she's really taught me so much so I just knew it was an essential to bring her on the podcast and just really start diving into all things marketing, leadership, negotiation, success and I want to really talk about what it looks like to bring people onto your team and delegate. This is something that we work through at Boss Babe. And honestly, delegation doesn't always come naturally

to entrepreneurs. If you're listening, you're probably like, yeah, I agree. And Kay has really helped support me with that aspect. So I'm excited to share those tips. So as always, screenshot yourself listening to this podcast and share it on your stories along with your biggest takeaway. I want you to tag me at IamNatalie at bossbabe.inc and then tag Kay at Kay Snells, K-A-Y-S-E-N-E-L-S. And we'll be sharing them on Instagram and just love seeing what resonates with you. This episode is brought to you by the Boss Babe Insta Growth Accelerator, a 12-week program designed to help you grow and monetize your Instagram account. If you're ready to grow your audience with your absolute ideal clients who are throwing their credit cards at you, then listen up. I've created a completely free 90-minute training to show you how to do exactly that. I'm taking you through the step-by-step strategy to attracting 10,000 ideal clients as followers over the next

30 days. If you know that growing your audience with ideal clients who can't wait to buy from you would completely change the game, then this training is for you. As I said, it's totally free. I just recommend turning up with a journal and getting rid of all distractions as we waste no time getting into the nitty gritty specifics. You know that I love specifics. To get started with the training, just head to bossbabe.com forward slash IG dash growth, or hit the link in the show notes below. So let's just get straight into it. A boss babe is unapologetically ambitious and paves the way for herself and other women to rise, keep going and fighting on. She is on a mission to be her best self in all areas. It's just believing in yourself, confidently

stepping outside her comfort zone to create her own vision of success. Okay, welcome to the Boss Babe podcast. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited about this one. This one is going to be so, so good. I want to just take you back right away and just ask, how did you even get here? What is your story's so interesting so let's talk about your story from being in Belgium and actually getting here to the States yeah yeah so I think there's like three steps that got me to Boss Babe and being in Los Angeles right now the first one was basically like starting a blog and being able to move to San Francisco because of it. The second one was writing my resume on a whiteboard at Uber and landing a job in San Francisco. And the third

one was swiping up on an Instagram story that you uploaded to Boss Babe and then landing my job. So if I go into that a little bit more, so I was born and raised in Belgium and I always knew I wanted to study marketing. As you kind of mentioned in your intro, like I've always been in the marketing world and always interested in that and always pursued learning more about it and just, yeah, I love marketing. So I basically started a blog called Teach Me Whatever, and I created that video content. And it got really popular. And I got an opportunity to work with a sponsor and basically asked me, if you could create this content anywhere in the world, where would you go? And I said San Francisco, because I thought I was going to be a social media marketer at Facebook or Twitter, which is very meta to do social media

at a social media company. But that was my dream. So once I got to San Francisco, basically you teach me whatever to go behind the scenes of startups and really learn more about that. And I noticed that Uber was starting to take off. So I was like, can you please show me behind the scenes at the headquarters? I would love that. So while I was kind of getting a quick tour, I saw some of the whiteboards and I grabbed the marker and I wrote my resume on there. And I was like, I want to work here in the social media team. Please hire me, tweet at me because Twitter was more relevant back then than it is now. But someone basically tweeted me that same night. And that's how I got into the interview process and landed my initial job at Uber. And

then after a few years, I was just so excited to kind of find an opportunity to move to Los Angeles. So I moved here, I was looking for a new job. I saw your Instagram story. I swiped up and there we are. And now we're here at Boss Babe. I love it. And I think one thing that really comes through in your story is just how much you're willing to jump at opportunities. And I really want to dive into that and where that confidence comes from and self-belief. But before we even get into that part, which is so interesting, how difficult was it to come to America with immigration? This is a question I get asked all the time because I've definitely had my fair share of it. So how easy was that for you? Well, it was not easy. I think that everyone who's listening and has gone through that process is like, yeah, I get it. It's just so much work. And I think even while I was at Uber,

and my colleagues around me were working on certain projects, like 10 to 20% of my week was going through paperwork, talking to lawyers, working with the immigration team. And there's just like so much of your energy has to go there. And it's every week. And there's always a new update. And it's like visa after visa. And it seems like every time you finally get to the next step, and you have locked in whatever that visa is, then a new process starts to get a new visa. And then a new process starts to get a green card. And then when you have the green card, you're not a citizen. So then you have to start the process to become a citizen. And it always feels like there's another

step that you have to take. But I'm here and I'm really excited that, you know, a lot of that is behind me. How did you celebrate getting your green card? Oh, man. Oh, yeah, of course, champagne. Just Yeah, it was just such an amazing feeling to finally have that and you know celebrated with all my friends it was an amazing amazing feeling so many years of work went into that yeah I totally relate I remember the day I got it just I feel like my entire body just did an exhale and like you're here so I love it so let's go back to this idea of you just taking opportunities and really not being afraid to put yourself forward I think that really comes through with deciding to create a blog that's teach me whatever and actually going to people in the

street and saying teach me whatever first of all that takes some guts and then you know second to that writing on a whiteboard at uber and then the way you were when it came to interviewing with boss babe you were very very like this is the job for me. Like, let's make it happen. And just really shown that you're willing to grab opportunities and run with them. Where did that come from? Have you always had that kind of trait? I don't really know. Like, I think that's an amazing question and I don't know where it comes from, but I just feel like where I'm from in Belgium, I think, and this is again, like a generalization because I feel like sometimes when'm from in Belgium, I think, and this is again, like a generalization, because I feel like sometimes when I make a generalization about Belgium, then I get DMs

from Belgians like, hey, this is not how we are. But I think like when you compare the US to Belgium, there's so many differences. And I think that a lot of the network around me was like relatively passive and a lot of things they let things happen to them and I always had this idea of like no I want to make shit happen so I always wanted to just you know go for things and even in in college and in the way that I was pursuing like these like side hustles and everything I always wanted to like make more happen I also in college actually started becoming a dance teacher and I was at first teaching one hour per week then two then 10 hours per week then I had this like whole dance team we went to competitions like there's just so much but I love putting all my energy into

something. It just brings me a lot of joy. I love it. And were your parents supportive of you deciding to move over here? So I feel like my parents, I still need to get a good read on them because they are the most supportive parents that you can imagine. And my mom always said, do what makes you happy. And I've always done that. And they're just so supportive and so excited. And they say what every parent says. If you're happy, I'm happy. But sometimes I'm trying to figure out like, is that true? Because I have that guilt, you know, I think a lot of people who, you know, don't live

near their parents have that guilt of, I should do more, I should show up more, I should call more. And I think even if I call multiple times per week and I try to see them multiple times per year, it never feels like it's enough. Yeah, I can relate to that. And time zones, you feel like you're always like, it's really, really difficult to feel like you're getting that quality time with them. And I think a lot of people listening can probably relate to that. So I'm glad you shared that. Do you have any tips for anyone struggling with confidence or someone who might feel uncomfortable really pushing themselves forward? Yeah. So as I said, I feel like I went through a whole transformation moving from Belgium to the

US. And I feel like every year, my personality has changed so much. So in Belgium, generally, there's a culture where you have to be very humble. And if you are steering away from being humble, people think that you're so like, people think poorly of you, people think that you are just like, only interested in yourself. And it just it's not a good look. Basically, it's not a good look. And in the US, it's so the opposite, like people are celebrating their achievements, really self promoting, and it isn't perceived by anyone as a negative thing. So when I first came here, I was definitely like not celebrating myself. And I was holding back a lot lot and I felt like, why should I be celebrating myself this much? But then I noticed that so many other people are doing it that I got more

comfortable with doing it myself as well. So I think it's first recognizing that you are worthy, you are skilled, you are interesting, and then slowly doing small things to start expressing that. And if you feel uncomfortable with sharing that, maybe start with something really small, right? Like if you're in some Facebook community, you can share a win that you had recently, or maybe you can share it with a friend and then you can start using it more in like a professional setting. I think that helped me a lot. 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 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. Go to kajabi.com slash Boss Babe to claim your 30-day free trial. That's kajabi.com slash Boss Babe. And what if you do still encounter that pushback? So you put yourself out there and then someone does turn around and say, oh, you're always talking about yourself or they say no and really push back. How do you deal with that? Do you take

it personally or do you have like a process for dealing with it? In the beginning, you're going to take it personally. But I think you need to get past that because I feel like you're always going to have 1% of haters. I don't know what the number was, but I think there's like the 1% rule. And then that can apply if you have 100 people who follow your YouTube channel or, you know, 100 people who follow you on Instagram, one person is going to be a quote unquote hater or someone who sneaks into the DMs with feedback that you honestly weren't really asking for. And then when you have millions of people, you can just start doing the math on how much more pushback you will receive. So I think it's just letting go of that and knowing that there's so many more supportive people compared

to people who kind of push back on you. Yeah, I love that. I think that's really true. And it can definitely be hard in practice, but I think it comes with practice. True. So let's take it back to Uber then, because it's so interesting. You were in so many different roles at Uber and really got to experience marketing from a lot of different angles. So that combined with generally your experience in the corporate world, how do you think that can apply to entrepreneurs or people in the startup world? And how has it been for you transitioning from a bigger company to a really small company? Oh, so many questions in one. So many questions. So I think a lot of people, and I think this is going to, you know, become a thing. So many more people are choosing to be entrepreneurs that have never been in the corporate world.

They graduate and they immediately go into being an entrepreneur, which is kind of like your story, right? And I think there's going to be so many more people like yourself as entrepreneurship becomes more popular. But I do think there's a lot of things that you learn from being in the corporate world in certain structures, the way you do meetings, the way you communicate via email, the way that you prioritize all that stuff. I'm so glad I had that experience because I think it helps a lot. But one thing specifically I learned from Uber is playbook everything. Playbook everything because to their counterparts in Brazil and they sent it to their counterparts in Australia and all over the world. And then those people immediately took the learnings from that other team and implemented it. And that's how Uber reached scale.

So I think if there is anything you're doing right now that you feel like it's a repetitive task or you want to pass it on to another team member or you're trying to hire, just playbook everything because it's going to be so key to your growth. What does that mean to playbook it for those listening who don't know what that means? There's so many different definitions, but what you can basically think of

is like create one document. Imagine it being a one pager or it can be a Google sheet, however you want to kind of organize it. And then you think through all the processes that you have in your company. So for example, if you send out an email on a regular basis, maybe you use MailChimp, maybe you use ActiveCampaign, maybe you use another type of software, maybe like one of the Salesforce supported softwares. If you do that regularly, just document that process. So you can just say, okay, I do this. And then to launch the email, I make sure this is the subject line in this style. And you document the whole thing so that

it's very easy for someone to look at that and download your brain. And I think downloading someone's brain is very important because then you know what their expectations are as well. And I think that's the first thing that I did when I came on board with Boss Babe as well. I was just like, how do I download Natalie's brain? Because it's quite complex. That was a process. That was a whole thing. How did you even approach that? I mean, I know, but I would love for you to share because that was definitely a thing. I'm still learning. Still learning every day. I'm like, wait,

how do you want this pink quote on Instagram? Oh, okay. Okay. Got it. This is how you like it. I think it's just coming in, sitting someone down, or if someone's not, you know, in the same location, you can set up a phone call. But I think it's very important to dive in and learn about this person. Like what's their background outside of work? Who are they? What are they interested in? What's their personality type? How do they like to have XYZ done? It doesn't matter, but really getting to know that person and then just try to quote unquote, download that person's brain and document it all. If I know that Natalie likes to see certain quotes formatted in this or that way,

then I can document that. And that way it's easier for me once we hire social media manager, that that person knows exactly what the expectations are. So yeah, I think that's the best way to do it. But again, still learning every day. Yeah, I love it. That's a genius tip. And so what's the difference been for you coming from kind of the corporate world to a tiny company? I feel like tiny but mighty, right? Yeah. I think it's small, but it feels very big because it's digital. So it feels like the clients are global and they're from all over the world. So even though the team is lean, it does feel very big. And then on the flip side at Uber, it started as a small startup and now it's recognized as this big organization. But honestly, a lot of the stuff behind the scenes feels as scrappy as the stuff

we're doing at Boss Babe sometimes. So like some corporations grow so fast, they can't keep up. They don't really have like certain systems, like time, quote unquote time, because you need to create time to put certain like processes and systems into place. And then you have a really big corporation that sometimes still feels very startupy. So I feel like transitioning from Uber to Boss Babe, even though there's a really big difference in the size of employees it feels very similar in many ways which is I think that's the cool part yeah yeah I think that's really true and I think having a lean business as well is so interesting and we can talk a little bit about that but for everyone listening what that means is we're very efficient and we generally question whether we need to introduce new products or new people. And we question that. And there's some great books by Eric Ries or Rice. I'm not sure how to pronounce his name.

But I remember studying them in business school. And it's something that I've always kept with me. And he has tons of books if anyone's listening and wants to dive more into that. So, okay, we talked about downloading my brain. So I want to ask, what is it like working with me as a boss? I like that question. I think it's really, really straightforward. So I think you have a feedback style that's very direct, which is something that I personally like. I think it's really hard to know what the other

person's expectations are if they're not clear about it. So I think the good part is that you're very clear about your expectations. The hard part about figuring out someone like Natalie is sometimes your ideas are so specific that it's hard and it changes over time. It's like, okay, cool. This is how you want this thing done. And then you like memorize it, right? And then you apply that to another scenario and it's completely different. So it's like always kind of relearning and kind of learning on the go, which is the funny part. And also Natalie is a Capricorn. So that's, I mean, I'm going to leave it at that. Yeah.

For anyone listening, they probably like, yep, yep, I get it. What do you think people might not know about me from maybe what they see on social to what I might be like day to day in the office? Do you think there's anything different or do you think I'm fully exactly the same on social as I am behind the scenes? Yeah, before you said the second part of what you just mentioned, I was gonna say, I think you're an open book. Yeah, you have on your IGTV, you have, you know, the story about your health, and it, you know, brought everyone to tears. And I think who you are online is who you are in person, which is the foundation of the company, right? It's all about the real and the raw and the

behind the scenes and not just like the fluffy highlight reel that everyone else is sharing. And I think that's why, and then, I mean, I'm too biased and I'm too much of a Boss Babe fan, but I think that's why the quotes are also resonating, right? Because it's like, there's a lot of swear words in there and there's a lot of sassiness in there and that's how you're able to express yourself, but it resonates with so many women as well. So yeah, I think that's the good part of Boss Babe. I love that. Yeah, it's good to hear that because I like to think the same too. And it's so funny that you're mentioning curse words and like being very direct. I remember we were in a meeting like last Friday and I think

I said the phrase, listen, we're badass bitches. I think that really sums up how we run the company. So I love that. Okay, so I want to dive in a little bit more to what are some tips you might have from corporate outside of the playbook that entrepreneurs who are growing businesses can apply? Because there's a lot of things you've implemented at the company, which have just really been game changers. And I'll just mention a couple of things. So Kay has implemented this really intense, amazing content calendar within Asana. I don't know how she did it, but it works and it's incredible. And it really runs like a great engine now.

On top of that, she's like killed it with DM strategies and simplifying. Like you really have a mind where you can look at something and see the big vision, but be able to break it down and systematize it. And I think we called you like the most systemized creative ever at our retreat and so yeah do you have any like tips around that for entrepreneurs listening who might be solo entrepreneurs or they might have a small team and the idea of having systems as creative people just sounds super overwhelming to them yeah I mean I think that's an amazing question and I don't really know where it came from. I just think it came from being at Uber, where my role was being creative and being in marketing. But

Uber is one of the most like systemized and process obsessed companies that I think I'll ever work for. So I think it's just kind of that caught on to me, or I caught on to that. But yeah, I think some tips, just think about the things that bring you joy and the things that don't. And I personally am obsessed with not just productivity and not just time management, but really maximizing your time. So I feel that way about everything in my life. Like I have these like intense Google Docs when I go on a vacation where I like plan like each day and want to make sure I had the best restaurant. So I scheduled the restaurants way ahead of time,

like all that stuff. So how that kind of comes back to the business side is just think about whatever you think you're doing really, really often and is repetitive, such as content. If, for example, the Boss Babe podcast that you're listening to right now, if we were to only post like once a month about the Boss Babe podcast, then we wouldn't really see a lot of growth. So we have to think about how do we regularly post about it, not just when an episode comes out, but how can we really have an evergreen strategy? So you can then start planning that into a content calendar. But I think it goes with everything. If you have a podcast, for example, and you're

booking guests, I think you can maybe use something like Calendly and you can just have the guests book their own slot in. And if the slots are full, that's good. And then you avoid the back and forth that's necessary to kind of bring that whole piece to life. I just think that you have to think about where you can save yourself a lot of time so that you can spend it more in the things that bring you joy and the things that you're really, really good at. Yeah, I agree with you. I think that's a really good tip. And so I would encourage anyone listening, just make a note as you go through your week of things that you find yourself doing over and over again. So maybe it's around the podcast type thing.

If you notice yourself doing something multiple times, make a note of it. And then you can just like put some numbers, like list it in order of priority one to 10 and decide to create systems around it. I think that could be a really good way because I know for us, I would never have thought of doing that. My brain doesn't always work in that way, but you've really implemented a lot of that in the company, which I think that could be a really good way because I know for us I would never have thought of doing that my brain doesn't always work in that way but you've really implemented a lot of that in the company which I think's been epic so let's change gears a little bit and talk about our event so we just hosted our success on soul live event it was a two-day event it's the biggest and longest event

we've ever done at boss babe but it was your first event what did you think of it I know that I didn't give you a ton of info about the content you were super involved in everything else but I was your first event. What did you think of it? I know that I didn't give you a ton of info about the content. You were super involved in everything else, but I was like, just wait till you get in the room and see what happens. Cause I think it's unlike most events. What did you think of the event first and foremost? And then second to that, what was it like being part of the team and what was it kind of like behind the scenes of the event? Yeah. And also like, let me just correct that a little bit. The fact that none of us knew about the content is because Natalie was like, I got this. We got the content. Don't worry, Danielle, Alyssa and I, we got this. And then we're like, but what's the program? And it's like,

don't worry, we got this. It's gonna be awesome. And we're like, all right, all right, all right. But you were right. It was awesome. And I think what's very different from the Boss Baby events than any of the other ones that I've seen is the real transformation that happens. And I know that sounds super fluffy, right? But I walked in there and there's women who just saw their whole life changed over the course of two days. And they got clarity on where they want to go in their life with their business. There's so many tears. There's so many hugs. There's so many connections made. I think that was so incredible to see. And then what it's like

behind the scenes. I think behind the scenes of every event, and I've done a lot, it's always chaos. But to the attendees, it all looks great and amazing. And so I think if it looks successful from the outside, we succeeded. Yeah, I think so. Do you want to share any things that might have gone wrong? Oh, might have looked crazy. Oh my gosh, so many things just like behind the scenes, 10 minutes before everyone's coming in, the chairs still have to arrive. So then we're just like running around like crazy and like putting literally 300 chairs. And then this is the worst job for me because I am so OCD, so, so OCD.

So then I was trying to make sure that the 300 chairs are not only set up, but they are set up perfectly aligned. And then like the clock is counting down like three minutes, two minutes. And I'm like, oh my God, the post-it notes on the chairs are not perfectly aligned with the chairs and the chairs are not perfectly aligned with the other chairs and all of the chairs are not perfectly aligned with the stage. So that kind of stuff. But yeah, then the doors open and everyone walks in and it looks like everything is legit set up. So that's the good stuff. Yeah, I love that.

And I think it's always the case on the outside. Everything looks perfect. And on the inside, it's literally like we're swans just paddling like crazy, hoping everything comes together. Yeah, I love that. It's such a good perspective. And we were very much like that. We were like, don't worry, we got the content. Just make sure people arrive, make sure they're

listening. It's going to be fine, which is definitely funny. Okay, so let's go back to you again. I want to pull even more tips out of you because I think there's so much you can share. What would you say are some ways to stand out personally or in business? I think you do a really killer job of standing out on your personal brand. For anyone not following you on Instagram, I really recommend that they go and do because I think you do a really solid job of that and really portraying personality doing that. But just on a general level, what are some of your tips that people could use to stand out? Yeah, I think here's an example. When I was looking for a new job, I had a bunch of companies that I was

interested in. One of them was called Giant Spoon. It's an agency here in LA. I looked at that and I was like, that'd be interesting. What I basically did was I went to Amazon, I found the spoon. I had my name engraved in there. It was like K. Snell's strategist. What was it? K. Snell's brand strategist, giant spoon or whatever. I had this spoon custom made. And then I had my resume printed and rolled up attached to the spoon. It looked super cute. Then not only that, I think this is a little stocky almost. I don't know if this is like a tip, but then I like actually went to the offices and I got into the office. I went to the receptionist and I literally gave it to the receptionist. And I said, like, I really would like this to be delivered to the strategy team.

So then this woman helped me deliver it. And like this whole team was just like, so excited to meet me like raging reviews. Obviously, I chose Boss Babe, but it was like instantly that connection. So I think that can apply to both your personal brand as well as in your business. Like if you want to stand out, try to figure out what those little moments are where you can really be special. I think that also kind of taps into like guerrilla marketing. Guerrilla marketing is where you can do these, you know, surprising, unexpected ways of marketing and ways of showing up in the world. My favorite example is McDonald's did this crosswalk and like all the stripes from the crosswalk were fries and it was like in a fry box. Like I love that kind of stuff and would love to do a lot more for Boss Babe. So I think we just brought out our sticky notes with Boss Babe and I think that's like really cute and we can do a lot more of that. But yeah, I think there's many ways to

really stand out in marketing and also personally. Yeah, I think so. And I think it's going to be really interesting to start seeing what we do from a brand perspective. I know I've heard some of your ideas around that and it's super interesting. So I'm curious, do you feel like you've got a work-life balance? Yeah, I do. Which is so interesting, right? This comes back to the whole Belgium versus the US. I feel like in Europe, there is this assumed work-life balance. It's like, yeah way more healthy in the US. But for me, the second I moved to the US, I never changed who I was. I feel like I brought those quote unquote, European expectations with me. So even when people around me at the office, and this was at Uber specifically, we're working till 10 or 11pm. I never bought into this idea of, oh, I need to work late to stand out and, you know, compete. And I always left and I always took my vacations. So being at Boss Babe,

I feel like everyone else around me now believes that as well, and especially leadership and especially you. So I think it's so nice that there's this like healthy push towards that it's not just okay to do it but it's encouraged to do it and I think that feels really really good what advice do you have for people that are in America and don't feel like they have leadership that push them to have a work-life balance did you maintain it at Uber and was that something that was normal? Or is it a way that you have of doing things? I think it depends on whether you're an entrepreneur or whether you're in a corporate role right now. Well, the first thing you can do is start your own company and just figure out your own rules. But I know that that's not an

option for everyone. But I think if you're an entrepreneur and you have founded this company, then I mean, Natalie, you have way more tips than I could. But I think it's very important to just set those boundaries for yourself. But just also know like you are your own boss. There's no other expectations or pressure than the one that you're putting on to yourself. So just make sure you take vacation, make sure you set up time for yourself, try to switch off. I know it's hard. And I know as an entrepreneur, it's kind of like your hobby and your passion. So it feels like it can be 24-7,

but really try to slot in that same amount of time. Just like in the morning when you wake up, like take a shower, right? Like I know that sometimes when we can work from home, I'm like, oh, this morning, I'm not gonna take a shower. Like I'm gonna do it later. But I feel like my whole day is thrown off because of it. And I think if you're working from home or you're like an entrepreneur, just make sure you have the same boundaries

as you would in a like desk job, I guess. And then if you would in a desk job, I guess. And then if you're in a corporate job right now, it's a tricky one. It's a really tricky one. But try to have a relationship with your manager and try to really understand what their expectations are. Because maybe generally, it looks like everyone around you is working until 11 and it makes you feel bad. But maybe you have the type of manager

that thinks like, hey, as long as things are done and like done to perfection, I'm happy. You can kind of negotiate how, like when you show up and what time you show up. I think the four hour work week by Tim Ferriss is one of the books where I really learned that, where you start negotiating with your boss like hey I'm not going to start showing up on Thursdays but all my work will be done let me know if there's a problem and then they just start doing it and it worked so that would be my tip and what about so I love that tip by the way but what about so someone's like yeah I really need to have this conversation with my boss because I feel like I need more balance or I want to have like a negotiation conversation with my boss or something

but they feel nervous or anxious around it what are your tips around having those conversations well try to understand why you're nervous do you have a boss that's making you nervous do you have not that good of a relationship with your boss? So first, like try to develop a good relationship with your boss. Try to understand how can you make their life better? Because the less work that they need to do and the better they look towards other people in the company or externally, that's really their goal. But yeah, try to figure out what their goal is and how you can best serve that. But other than that, if you have like a great boss, just be really well prepared. Just prepare exactly how you would like the conversation to play out. And if you feel super

nervous, you can kind of practice with a friend or go through a few scenarios you can role play with someone I think that helps a lot that is such a good tip and as a boss I think that works like when you can free up someone's time so much I think the value in that is incredible well okay thank you so much for being on here I just have one more question which is not really work related but we're on the topic of work-life balance so I want to, what do you do outside of work? Because we've talked a lot about Boss Made, but what are you interested in outside of work? Oh, that's a great question.

I love to go to the dance school. Dance has been a big part of my life always. So if there are any people who love to dance, feel free to hit me up in the DMs. Let's chat about it. Let's book a dance class together. So that would be the number one. And then since I got a car, I have become obsessed with audiobooks. So that's like where I like to spend a lot of my time.

And then I have a journal, which is basically like I set a goal for every month. September, my goal is to become more like financially literate and really study a lot about that. So I'm listening to like some books by Tony Robbins, like Money Mastered a Game and all these types of books. So that's like where I like to spend a lot of time in the dance school, in audio books. And then I mean, I love the outdoors, which is why I moved to LA so that's where you would find me on the weekend I love it well thank you so much being a guest and for everyone listening so we would love to know do you want to hear more of Kay and the Boss Babe team on the podcast because one thing that we're playing with right now is whether we really bring our whole

team into the podcast so it's not just Danielle I, but we all lean in and we all interview from our own individual perspectives. Because I think one thing that's amazing about our team is we're all so different and we all have our own zone. So firstly, that's what I want to know from you. Secondly, as you hear, we were talking about the event and we put together some epic goodie bags from the event. Like legit, I stole one for myself

because they are filled with amazing things and we have a lot of them left over so I'm going to challenge you to do something I want you to take a screenshot of this podcast and I want you to tag me I want you to tag Kay I want you to tag Boss Babe and I want you to share one of your biggest takeaways from this podcast and like feel free to go into detail or really say what it was that stood out to you because I feel like this episode really resonated with a lot of you and so I would love for you to share that and then we're going to pick a winner in one week's time and send you a goodie bag which is it's filled with some amazing um products I don't know if

you've seen our insta stories if you haven't you can head to the boss babe instagram and it's all saved in our highlights because Kay is very good at organizing them so check it out and yeah share it tag us and we'll send you one of them so k thank you so so much for being a guest this has been absolutely amazing and i'm sure they're going to hear so much more from you thank you so much i'm really excited to you know come on to the boss babe podcast more with some of the team members so i'm really looking forward to yeah being on here a lot more catch you later if you love this episode please subscribe and be sure to leave us a review i want to hear what you enjoyed what your main takeaways were and also i really want to know who you want to see appear on the show we'll be reading all of the reviews so we will be implementing your feedback and speaking of reviews we've got a little something up our sleeves so we've just created a brand new

document it's called the boss babe 25 so the boss babe 25 is the 25 essential resources you need for personal and professional growth seriously it's like a little boss babe holy grail it's incredible and you're gonna love it it covers everything from must-have products, our favorite books, rituals that we do daily, and some amazing hacks to help you grow. So if you want a copy, it's really simple. Just leave us a review, screenshot your review, and email it to podcast at bossbabe.com.

We'll send you over a copy ASAP. And yeah, thank you so much for listening. I will see you next week.