the bossbabe podcast - 92. The One Thing You Need For a Thriving Business Relationship with Natalie Ellis and Danielle Canty

Episode Date: May 4, 2020

Do you want to know the one thing that BossBabe’s co-founders, Natalie Ellis and Danielle Canty, credit to the success of their business relationship? One word: communication.  When Natalie and Danielle were building BossBabe into a 7-figure empire that serves female entrepreneurs, they were on two different continents up until recently. Despite an eight-hour time difference, Natalie and Danielle have always put communication at the forefront of how they operate in life and business.   Grab your coffee and join us in this episode on The BossBabe Podcast as we take you behind-the-scenes of what it really looks like to be in a business relationship with your best friend and how to cultivate a thriving partnership. Receive 20% off Grammarly Premium when you sign up at Grammarly.com/BOSSBABE

we're not born amazing communicators like it's definitely something that you consciously and actively work towards it's all about how you communicate and how you get really really clear with that person and on your own goals and your own boundaries so that you can communicate them in the right way but it is possible to do it across continents. Don't let that hold you back. Welcome to the Boss Babe podcast, a place where we share with you the real behind the scenes of building successful businesses, achieving performance, and learning how to balance it all. I'm Danielle Canty, president and co-founder of Boss Babe, and today I am joined by my business bestie and our CEO, Natalie Ellis. Now this episode is

going to be a little bit different to our normal format because rather than interviewing an external guest, Natalie and I realized that we really haven't been sharing a lot of our personal lives on here lately. And so we wanted to take this time to just chat and update you guys on everything that's been going on. And trust me when I say there have been some pretty big life-changing things happening in our world. So we are are really really excited to take you behind the scenes and dive into all the details so if you're curious about some of those changes then grab your tea grab a coffee grab a glass of wine even and snuggle up on the couch and keep on listening and as always please tag myself at daniellecanti tag nat Natalie at IamNatalie,

and tag at bossbabe.inc because we love hearing all of your takeaways. So without further ado, let's dive in. 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. So it was the day of my last exam at university. I did not have a plan. In fact, I was minus money in my bank account. I was in my overdraft and I hopped on a plane and came to LA and the minute I got here I just knew I didn't want to leave. I knew this was what they call your soul home but I had no plan. I had no work visa, no money, no plan, no career. I just really didn't know what I was going to do

with my life and I remember I'd been here a couple of weeks and I walked down to Venice Beach where I would go pretty much every single day and I got a tattoo of the state of California right on my ribs and I remember in that moment committing to myself I am going to do whatever it takes to get a visa and get over here and so for any of you who are listening who are American and maybe don't know how hard it is to immigrate it is really difficult to immigrate to your country and so I remember really being terrified and my family not understanding it. And we can get into all of that. But I really didn't look back. And yes, I had to take many trips back to the UK. And it wasn't that linear ride. But I did come here and I ended up meeting my soulmate. And we grew up just 30 minutes apart. But we met out here in

California. And I just knew that this is where I wanted to be. And when we met, Danielle, we obviously met a couple of years ago. I was living here at the time. You were in the UK. And after kind of getting to know each other, the dating phase for a while, we decided to get into business together. And we did that for a really long time across continents. I know.

It's wild when you think about it, isn't it? Yeah. Different continents and an eight hour time difference. Yeah. So your 9am was my 5pm. Yeah and it came with a lot of challenges but also Danielle at the time was a chiropractor and only had two days a week to spend on the business. I was spending my full time on it and with that we were able to grow to a substantial seven figure business. And then Danielle was like, okay, maybe I'll cut down my hours. I don't think you were quite ready to give it giving chiropractic at the time. And so you cut down your hours a bit more and a little bit more

to a point that you were full time. And we were just hiring team to kind of make up for that. And then you were full time, but you were in a completely different country. And I remember I would wake up at six and I would be inundated and by 9am I'd be exhausted and by noon I would just be done and it was a really really big struggle for me and I had to put in days where I couldn't take meetings because I just needed that space and I know for you there was a lot of late nights yeah you know like you say yours was early starts and mine was definitely late finishes so I would literally my meetings would kick off at 4 p.m in the UK and I would literally go till 9 a.m I

remember one time getting up for we were doing a webinar and it was at two in the morning and I had an hour kip and then got up to support the team on that and then went back to sleep afterwards so yeah those timings and those challenges I love that we're sharing this actually because I think a lot of people probably don't realize this that it was tough and we had to you know make sure we were communicating and it's one thing building a business like building a business is hard but there's another thing with that huge land mass between you and that time difference and so I know you know communication has always been something we've been so so like precious around and put a lot of energy into yeah and I think a lot of people want to know behind the scenes like do we have fights do we have anything we just never have like of course there's been times

when we've had differing opinions or we might have said something that made the other person a little bit upset but there's never been a fight there's never been any of that stuff even though we had a long distance relationship we do have a long distance relationship we've always been able to handle it and I think that over communication we would just voice note like crazy and even when we had some team in the UK some team in the US we've always just had that culture where we just over communicate and I think that's been one of the things that's really helped us yeah I mean I think as well like people don't often realize that when you actually go into business with someone like like you are literally marrying that person. Like it is harder. It's harder to get out of that relationship sometimes than it is to divorce. And it really is. And you know, I don't want to say lucky, because I don't think it is luck. I think you and I have just been really, really intentional with that. And I know when we started the business, like, I don't think we really envisaged like how big it would go or like the momentum we'd get but one thing we always showed up to was like we showed up for each other and we always made

sure that we would over communicate in a positive manner and yes there have been like they've not been full-blown arguments but there have been like heated debates we'll call them or like hang on a minute and I remember us having this conversation. You were talking about your early mornings really starting like very, very early. And one way that we would communicate is via WhatsApp voice note. And for those who know me, they love a voice note. And if you ever DM me, you're normally going to get a voice note back because I just love doing that. Like writing is not my thing. And so I always used to communicate via voice notes and you'd wake up to those. And I really remember us having this conversation and you were like, you know, sometimes

I'm like, what am I going to get from that voice note? With a text, you can actually see quite clearly, you can pick up words. And I don't think it's something you process, but you can highlight words, your brain highlights to see whether it's a good one or a bad one. But a voice note is really just like, you're getting no clue as to what's on that voice note and I remember us having this conversation once and you were like okay I get a bit of anxiety when I see these voice notes and so we had this agreement that I would actually like send a voice note and I would just put a word like no worries about this it's chilled or like this is this after you've had breakfast like you know um so that you could kind of like mentally prepare and

I think that it was that kind of open communication was like hey this is what I need from you Danielle and then on my end being able to say okay I can do that like I can make an effort to do that like I don't want you stressed in that way I don't want you to cause you anxiety my voice notes are never coming out of that place but if that's like what it's sparking in you then sure let me try and bend over backwards to help you master that and there's like ways I've said things to you I'm like okay I like feedback this way and you know I think just having those like communication things and not saying like I never took that as personal that you were saying to me hey I get anxiety from this I'm like okay cool let me help you with that and likewise you know when I said to you like hey

sometimes feedback like this triggers me a little bit so could you deliver it this way you're like yeah sure of course and I think that's what makes the relationship really special is that we've always really understood that we have different communication pathways and we've recognized that and always worked with it rather than against them yeah one thing I love that you used to do is you used to voice note me and say, Tuesday is such a good day. You're going to love it. It's amazing because you always had the Tuesday or Friday is the best day of the week. Like it's amazing. Wait till you find out. Yeah, I would be. I was like, Natalie, you're going to love today. It's a great day. Everything is going wonderful. It's going to go awesome for you. Like because I'm eight hours ahead,

I know this. I put it as if I'd like gone forward in time yeah I love that and so well you have an exciting announcement to make because we are no longer living on different continents I know how exciting so yeah I got my visa I packed up my house moved to the US moved to LA via Puerto Rico on the way, which is another story probably for another day. And yeah, I'm finally with the team. Well, most of the team, we do still actually have a food team in different countries. But oh my goodness, it feels so good. Like I cannot tell you. I left home at 18 because I went to university.

And so I wasn't like super big deal like moving away. But at the same time time like there were moments I was like oh my goodness I'm actually moving to another country like if I stop and think about this I'm literally terrified but I think what I tend to do is jump in feet first with most things and don't really dwell on it like okay let's just go let's get on with it let's get the momentum because I feel like when you're in momentum you keep yourself busy you don't necessarily have time to think about it and so it's like making that decision and going through that process was an experience in itself and we should definitely just do a visa episode one day but I just think it was just

such an amazing journey for us to actually go hey look what we've been doing on different continents and look what we can do when we're actually together and I feel like you know where I was before Natalie would literally have like three hours a day four hours a day for meetings to cross over and you know now we're actually like oh should we have a meeting at 1pm like we've never had 1pm meetings before that would have been like I'd have been asleep and otherwise I've been that my 1pm would be the middle of night for Natalie. So it is just so, so amazing. So to actually be here in LA and not just in LA, not just with a team, but we've actually moved in together, which is really cool. 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 that's kajabi.com slash boss babe yeah so for anyone listening that's like oh my god what so like me and Stephen have always spent a lot of time with you and Greg and it's gotten to a point where we all feel like family we do so much together I can hang out with Greg you can hang out with Stephen like Stephen and Greg can hang out we're all very very close and so when you and Greg were talking about

moving to the US it was just a given that you would move in with us it was just no question like yeah come with us you don't need to go buy furniture and go and figure this out we've got it figured out just we went and got a bigger house that you guys can move in and we just got it all ready for you guys to come over and it's been absolutely amazing and I think because we're all very direct we're very good communicators and also we're willing to do the work and take personal responsibility there's just been no issues at all yeah and I know that for so many people listening and some of my family and friends are like really you guys are going to move in together you work together and you're gonna live together like it's not gonna like work you guys are gonna need your space but I really think even though we're together we do give ourselves space even

just down to the little things like I know when it's like time to talk to Natalie and when it's not time and you're the same with me like I'm just gonna like just leave her and it doesn't even need to be a verbal communication like we just know each other so well. And the other thing was that we had this discussion. It's like, actually, we live and breathe Boss Babe in a really positive way. It's more than a business to us. Like it is something we're so passionate about with helping more women. We have this mission where we want to help more women become unapologetically ambitious. We want them to become financially independent. And you were saying this as well like we're in that season like we're not in a season where it's like oh yeah like we're having babies right now or we have all these family things to do or we're in

this play season like we're actually in this like building season and it's just like so nice to be on that journey together and what I love about living with you is like we can just share things in the sense of even just down to energy exchanges during the day and it's like you know when we're together a lot we're like okay I'll lift you up you'll lift me up and actually like hey I'm free I'm gonna go and get the groceries and just those little things that you know if we both had our own households that would just be like double the work when we can just share the workload like we share it in the office and we share it at home like it just works yeah I feel like we would just be at each other's house constantly and yeah it's totally right you just go through certain seasons and that is the one for us and we don't know how long we'll

be in this season but while we have no other things going on except our personal lives and our professional life why not just really knuckle down and I remember having a conversation with Stephen a few months ago and saying to him things are really we have so much momentum right now do you think I should be working less do you like how do you view the situation and he was like no you have so much momentum ride it out like you're on this amazing magic carpet ride why not keep going and there will become a point where you're like oh I actually am ready to become a mom and I'm gonna slow down I'm gonna significantly step back and that's gonna be the season for that and I guess we're kind of all in people but we also do a good job right now of being able to separate

work and play and we give each other space and do our own things which is really nice yeah and also just kind of like adding on that I think our husbands have been really supportive with it as well you know like I definitely was like okay how does Stephen feel about this like is he okay with Also, just kind of like adding on that, I think our husbands have been really supportive with it as well. You know, like I definitely was like, OK, how does Stephen feel about this? Like, is he OK with us moving in? But what is like you've just kind of touched on is that Greg and Stephen make a lot of effort to be good communicators as well and like say their needs. And you just like, you know, that's just an example of you being a good communicator that you are Stephen. Like, OK, what do you think to this? And I think that we do that in our own relationships.

We do that together. And just really asking questions i think is really powerful and one thing i've definitely learned is my communication i've put more effort into it is asking questions and not assuming like sometimes it's really easy to project your thoughts and feelings onto somebody else versus kind of recognizing it as oh is this my own and asking like hey do you feel this but how do you feel about this and just having that conversation and the other piece I think has been really important is that we never take feedback personally like one of our values at Boss Babe is like being considerate and I think there's always a way that you can deliver feedback in a considerate manner

it doesn't have to be like rude it can be like you know delivered in a nice way and when it is delivered in a nice way there's no hard feelings so we have that open communication and like hey if this doesn't work for me I'm gonna say and no offense is caused by it we moved in fully prepared for you and Steve and say hey this is not working for us like that's cool like no hard feelings we're just gonna get an apartment you know or find somewhere else and the same for us we knew that we could always at any point say, hey, guys, nothing to do with you. We just need our own space. And that's okay, too. Yeah, I think that goes for a lot of things. Just earlier today, Danielle was like, yeah, I was watching your videos. And I

think you look way better without the headphones on when you're podcasting. So let's take them off. Yeah, loud and clear. Let's do it. And I think that's just been really helpful. So for anyone listening who, firstly, that's our life update, but for anyone listening who is in a business partnership, just really want to emphasize communication. And I did a really great podcast, if I do say so myself, a couple of months ago with Rising Woman, which is an amazing Instagram page. And they have a business where they do a lot of conscious couple and partnership coaching. And there was so many tangible exercises in there for professional relationships. And really, it's all about how you communicate and how you get really,

really clear with that person and on your own goals and your own boundaries so that you can communicate them in the right way. But it is possible to do it across continents. And we've done it for a really long time. And thankfully,'t have to anymore but don't let that hold you back yeah and i think just to say always you know we were not born amazing communicators like it's definitely something that you consciously and actively work towards and again i think it comes back to that like growth mindset piece like you show up in business and friendships and relationships communication expands across all of that and it's just really really important to say like hey I'm not perfect but I'm willing to try better and even now like I don't sit here and pretend I'm the

world's best communicator ever you know I definitely have areas that I still want to improve on but I think owning that and claiming that and just like said, you might be in a business relationship or you might want one, whatever you want to call in. It's just important to recognize that it does take effort. And when both people come at it in that way, I think that's when the magic happens.

And that's when you get amazing relationships when both of you. And I think that's also kind of why our relationship works so well, because we're very, very dedicated to being our best selves and learning from each other and learning to be better people

and learning to support better people and learning to support each other and leading with heart I think another important point with communication amen so I know this has been a different style of podcast to what we normally do it hasn't been the kind of let me share some Instagram tips but it's just a real update of our life and what our relationships like so if you like this please tell us because we need your feedback to be able to create the kind of content you love so I would love if you haven't already please please please leave us a review and let us know what kind of podcasts you love from us and then dm us or take a screenshot and tag us at iamnatalie at daniellecanti at bossbabe.inc all the links and let us know what

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