¶ Introduction to Fi Turner
Welcome to the Becoming your Warrior podcast . This is the place where you get to feel inspired and empowered to step into your very best life .
In today's episode , I talk to my good friend and fellow entrepreneur , fi Turner , and Fi has an amazing background in marketing , working for major major advertising agencies in London and also in Sydney , and then moving into working in marketing and futures and AI departments for major banks and financial institutions here in Australia .
And on top of all of that , she is a serial entrepreneur and the founder of an amazing company called the Soul Hive .
So in today's episode , we talk about the hurdles that Fi came up across in her entrepreneurial journey , the failures and the successes that she's had , and also the things that she sees , the mistakes that she sees new business owners , new entrepreneurs , making .
So if you want to level up and avoid making those mistakes , just tune into this episode and let's get into it . Welcome to the Becoming your Warrior podcast , fi .
Thank you , Em . It's a pleasure to be here .
It's really good to have you here and I'm super excited about today because I know you have so much to offer everybody , especially when it comes to business and your journey creating the Soul Hive and all the beautiful work that you're doing .
So I want to start and it's a biggie , I just want to start by asking , in business and in life , what has it taken for you to be where you are right now ?
Starting small . I see what has it taken to get here . It's taken a lot of years doing things that I didn't want to do , decades in the wrong industry , just working for the dollar , doing what everybody else did , until circumstances forced me out again and I learned to trust myself .
You got that into a nice little paragraph . That was . That was great . So tell me a little bit about your background . So , before you started with the soul hive and you set up your business , talk to me about these industries that you were in . What , what were they ?
so I started out in advertising in a London agency called TMP and that's how I came to Sydney . So I moved over here as an account director and then spent maybe 15 years in various marketing and advertising agencies before then kind of consulting a bit into financial services . Went through all the banks and a big four consultancy .
So background's very kind of very mainstream . I was always client facing . So that's kind of a key thing that I was never creative creative . Looking back , I think I really wanted to do a graphic design degree but I didn't . I did social anthropology . Uh , didn't use any of that and went straight into marketing . Um , and so this is where now I am a creative .
So this is a huge change .
And can we talk about some of your other businesses that you had along the way as well ? You were obviously in these mainstream corporations and then tell me a little bit about that entrepreneur's journey so I was working , uh , with pfizer in pharmaceutical marketing and , yes , taught me a lot .
You've got to get into the belly of the beast to really understand it . And , yes , it taught me a lot . You've got to get into the belly of the beast to really understand it . What a journey you've been on , my goodness , and there I met someone who became a really good friend of mine .
We all heard about this person who'd been at GSK and then she'd gone through this course and set up a business on Amazon FBA Fulfillment by Amazon and gone from zero to a million dollars revenue in a year . So we're all sitting in these you know pharmaceutical , healthcare jobs that we're like paying bills going wow , if can do it , we can do it .
So we all went on this course and it was one of these things , that sort of ripple effect , you know . Someone would tell their friend , they tell their friend , and so on the very last day I bought this course and I'm like you know , now or never , change your life , you've got to invest . You've got to invest in yourself to do it .
So I went on this course and from that my results showed hammocks would be really good . So I set up a business called hero hammocks . I um followed the process and found um manufacturers in China got samples committed to one factory . Um got my hammocks made . It was an expensive process but it was . Uh .
E-commerce is a huge um training ground and I think of it . You really want to understand business , e-commerce is one of the best ones to learn from . So that's where I started and that journey as well made me realize I couldn't work full time and do this Hero Hammocks , amazon business and sustain a life in Sydney .
So I went full time into Hero Hammocks and then , of course , I got a cash flow problem because I'm spending $10,000 , $15,000 every time I'm producing my hammocks and money's running out . So I made the decision to move back to UK and money's running out .
So I made the decision to move back to UK and , at the age of 40 , moved in with my sister , which I thought was the most shameful thing ever . I thought I was the biggest , really did . I remember being on the plane going . You know what ? What a loser . You've got nothing . You're having to move back with your very successful sister in her mansion at 40 .
I mean , some people might say you're lucky , but yeah and through that I was deciding to let it go .
I was back in my home village in Goring-on-Thames in the UK and I went to the local pub and there was one of my school friends who'd come back from three years in Brazil with her family and she said to me Fi , I know , you know how to set up a business . I've just found the world's perfect leggings and I want to start selling them .
And I'm like ooh , perfect leggings . Like who doesn't want perfect leggings ? And these were Brazilian leggings , where you know , if you know Brazilians , there's no black and dark . These are flamboyant , they're floral , there's patterns and all sorts . So we started . I pivoted , I closed down Hero Hammocks and set up Meemaw . And this again was I really felt right .
Everything felt right about this . The products were amazing . Within one month I'd built an entire Shopify website with about 100 SKUs . I had a mannequin , I was getting clothes in , I was doing a lot of photography , all of the marketing . And then a month later , we had retailers .
We'd gone around all the gyms , all the younger mummies around clamoring to get into them , and it was just going off . And it was fun days until it wasn't . And it was fun days until it wasn't .
Obviously , it's going off . It's flying off the shelves , kind of thing . What happened in that ?
business . We had a production issue with the factory and it's something I never got to the bottom of because my business partner spoke Portuguese and dealt solely with the business , the factory side of things and the quality , and I had no part of that because I don't speak the lingo and I'm doing everything else .
Something went wrong and we couldn't get it back , but it just yeah , it wasn't meant to be , so it died a death and it was very , very painful , of death , uh , and it was very , very painful
¶ From Advertising to Entrepreneurship
. It was a very difficult , um business dissolution , as in we don't talk , it was . It was very difficult . So that was another big lesson . If you go into business with a partner , um , with a business partner , there are a lot of things we missed on that legal things , um compatibility , um things right at the start .
So the lesson there is if you work for yourself , it's one thing , if you go in as a business partnership , it's a whole different ball game what ?
what advice would you give to somebody who is maybe thinking about going into business with someone or partnering with someone like , based on your experience ?
and so what they do in startup world there's a lot of founders and co-founders is , um , there's sort of like a form . It's a bit like a kind of questionnaire , almost like a kind of dating thing , where you're looking for compatibility .
And I did it with my business partner right at the end and the answers were so extreme like how , if I'd done that at the beginning , we probably wouldn't have gone into business together . There might have been another way to get the business working , but not as partners . So I would . I would get advice on somebody . So definitely the startup world .
Anyone who's worked with um co-founders would know all about this and do these kind of compatibility to everything from your , your intentions , your values , your , um , your goals for the next you know , two , five , ten years , because I think value driven is also really important .
So , yeah , I get advice from people that know what they're doing and it's emotional , it's financial , it's even more than a marriage . A lot of the times you're probably spending more time with this person . But the other side of that is everybody has an idea and most people don't act on it . So the other side is you know , why not give it a go ?
Sometimes there are ways you can do it better than I did , then set it up better , but if you don't try , you'll never succeed .
Kind of , at this stage you've had this mainstream , amazing , you know career . You've kind of moved into these two other businesses In your mindset . How do you put yourself back together when this business you've kind of moved into these two other businesses In your mindset ?
How do you put yourself back together when this business that you've put so much into has essentially just dissolved in front of you ? Like , where do you go in your mind to move forward ?
Well , it's a good question , because what I know now was I was actually really mourning it .
So , I think , properly closing down and reflecting , and that's when the next chapter started , really , because then I was , you know , I wasn't working , I'd had , I'd never seemed to run out of money , which is interesting back then but I seemed to be just bottering about doing the odd kind of websites and stuff .
And then my friend Annie , again , I remember she phoned me up and said she was going traveling in September and would I consider coming to Balmain in Sydney and dog sitting . It was Fred and I remember thinking , yeah , actually I miss Australia , I'm going to go back and do some dog sitting . So then I moved back to Australia in September 2019 .
And then I moved to Manly and then , of course , covid happened , so I come back with a backpack . So I had this idea and I'm like I can build websites . I know I can do that , I've done it before .
So I went on to Facebook and there's a group there that is very popular called like-minded bitches drinking wine , and I'm looking for like six clients and I got six people straight away . I mean , it was very cheap back then because I just needed to pay to buy some food and pay rent , and I did . How long did I do that ?
for Maybe six , eight months , I think , until I got another contract and then I started working for a uh , a marketing agency , and so let's talk a little bit about that , about that bouncing back and forth between corporate , because at this stage , obviously , you've had a couple of businesses , um , well , like three now , um , but I think this is something that a
lot of people go through , where it's kind of like you go for it , and then there's this like I need to go back and you know , go back to safety Now , from where you are , the perspective that you are now , what do you , what advice do you have about ?
that when I first started I had quite substantial savings when I started the Amazon project . So that's how I was able to do that completely on my own bootstrapping . But it's a drain .
If you are single , live alone , for example , and you don't have anybody else to help cover your rent and your food and your bills , have anybody else to help cover your rent and your food and your bills , then you're not only trying to build a business working by yourself doing a hundred jobs , you're also trying to find the money to eat and do all that .
Yeah , so it is particularly draining and I think I would think very hard about that again if I was starting out on how to cover those basic needs .
People take , you know , waitressing jobs , bar jobs , anything that might just take that pressure off , or consulting in something you don't really love , but at least you know it's paying the bills , so there's a really , really survival is becomes an issue yeah , it's about being really careful who you take advice from , because there's obviously lots and lots of people
out there and let's say , you know we'll talk about courses and our slight obsession with with studying and learning from people .
But it's like obviously people out there the main players on like youtube or whatever are like you know , if you're going to go in , just go all in and all that kind of stuff .
But they're also sitting from a place of you know absolutely smashing it and no doubt they put in loads and loads of hard work , but they might have been single and living at home when they did that and had some financial flow of money , like mum or dad could have been there .
Where I think your situation you know you might be a single mum or you know , have a huge mortgage on your house and then you listen to somebody just go , just go for it , and I think there is an element of that but I also think you have to look at your own situation and who are you taking advice from ?
You know , is it someone in their private jet whose mum and dad were entrepreneurs and they've always been around this business knowledge , where you might not have had that and you might have to study a bit more to get those basic skills . Do you know what I'm saying ?
Yeah , there's a lot of factors in there . One is what is your risk tolerance ? I have a very high risk tolerance , like I for some reason seem to like coasting very close to the edge . Not everybody likes doing that . I am much more . I'll just give it a go . But in terms of the courses and the people you're following , you're exactly right .
So you're following like the Brendan Bouchard's or the Hermosi's or people like that . They have got 10 , 15 years in business . They've made hundreds of millions . They are so far up here that a lot of the time they might have forgotten what it's like to begin . And there's a statistic .
It's something like you only need to know 5% more than the people you're teaching . And sometimes it's easier to learn from someone who's just slightly above you because they are so familiar with that kind of , you know , getting started .
And if you look at someone like Alex Hormozy , who I really admire , I think he's done incredibly well and he's also provided so much free information , but he's somebody who's like forget about your morning routine . You roll out of bed at 5.30 and you start work and then you're deep in work till 10am .
There are very few people that can just get up and just work . You know , people might have kids or pets or something else in their life . That means they can't just focus on that . Most people , particularly women I know , are not anywhere like that .
And we need to go out for a walk , we need to see our friends , and we need to go out for a walk I mean to see your friends and we need to . You know , take it a little bit more casually . So I'm not going to . You know , that's not the way I'm going to work .
I can take bits of it , but my life , particularly now I've got a dog , I can't just roll up and sit and and work . So I think , looking at the courses I mean both you and I have spent probably thousands . I'm on a complete course ban right now I'm like no more courses good , um , and I've actually just bought one , but it's a program .
I'm in another one , I'm in a two month . It's an accelerator . Tell you about that . You don't know about this one yet . Um , and the other key thing about courses once you've picked the person you're going to learn from , do it , do what they say and if it works , do it .
because , um , a lot of the time , you know , I think there's something like 95% courses are never finished , so this is why people don't do it . So you know , money and cash flow is so important when you're a startup and you're a solepreneur that spending you know a couple of grand on courses and not doing it is not a great investment .
Courses and not doing it is not a great investment about how the soul hive came to be
¶ Hero Hammocks and Meemaw Failures
well , it's a story and a half the soul hive . But so in 2023 , in March 2023 , I was working as comms lead at KPMG Futures , the future technology division , which I absolutely loved . I was , you know , working with the quantum director and the AI experts and the metaverse , and it was just all about kind of , yeah , the future technology that's coming .
There was a weekend at the end of February 23 , and I'd been to a sacred meditation that was quite profound and at the end of the ceremony , on the day we were just leaving , I was having a chat with the facilitator .
He's on this beautiful land and I remember saying to him he was saying you know , cash flow , money , I might need to go back and get a job . And I said but you are living the dream . You're on this off grid , you know . And I started like spewing all this kind of business advice without even realizing it .
And he was like wait , let me write that down and say you should really help small businesses . And I was thinking , yeah , I would actually really love this and I've got so much knowledge I don't realize .
That was Saturday , Monday morning , I'm at my logging on to work and at 9.30 , I get an email logging on to work and at 9 30 I get an email saying uh really sorry but unfortunately your job has been made redundant and I was like whoa in an email . They send you an email , an email . So I was like , oh my god , I didn't see that coming .
But also I've just had this massive revelation , like two days before , of what I really want to do . So it was a shock and I was really upset . But they gave me an incredible package , especially if I've only been there two years .
So I left there actually being really positive and I allowed myself the time and the space to really think about what this business was . And that's when the name the Soul Hive came from , because I wanted it to be a community which is the hive of a supportive community for soulful entrepreneurs .
They're just kind of it's really just no wankers , no hustle bros , it's you know , it's . It's really people doing it with a good intention and wanting to help . And I had this real resistance to renting out my spare room or getting any other kind of hospitality job .
I was convinced I'm like I can get another contract , I get more money doing that and I really value my own space . So so that's probably lesson number one when you're in that situation and you're trying to build something is you need to focus on cash . Flow is king . Without cash , you kind of can't do anything .
And that resistance was all pride , and I had so much pride as in , like , I'm too old to be house sharing . I need my office , whereas , looking back , if I had rented out that room faster , it would have made everything so much easier for me . So I struggled on for months and months and I've rented out the spare room ever since .
So that's kind of where the soul hive started . Through all that , I'm also trying to get clients and build websites , so the focus was all over the place and in between that I had absolute crackers like beautiful ones . Um , yours is still one of the most beautiful ones I've done , and that was early on .
That was one of the first you know , I think I was the first .
I think I was the first yeah , the first show it , one that I did . I did a couple of e-commerce ones before then and again . It's like people like you you're putting your trust in me and taking a chance for me to you know , to bring your dream to life . That's what really got me through it .
I think , having the network that I have and I'm so lucky that pretty much all of my friends are my target market , so I was able to , you know , to kind of get through it . But so I think again , maybe I needed to go through it .
I feel like it's kind of like cathartic rite of passage of just kind of being freaking nuts for a year and burnout and everything proper web design process . You know , they're all like a website in a day and I'm like I'll do this in a day .
I mean in terms of because we've talked a little bit about Paul Moseley and I'm I'm a big fan of his as well like I think he's awesome , but obviously you know that getting up at 5am whether it's in your own business or whether it's for a job or whatever okay , I feel my personal experience of that is it is a very masculine energy of getting up , getting
to work and slamming out like 16 hour days , and I think this is my personal experiences . Like I was doing that for years . Right , I was doing that in the TV industry and I think I was very much in my masculine energy which led to burnout . What ? Like you obviously work with a lot of entrepreneurs .
Like , what's your take now on that kind of like I guess that masculine and feminine approach to business and how you approach your business today .
There's . I think you can take the best bits of all of it and figure out what works for you . And again , if you've got a family and kids , that's really going to direct how all this happens . And I think there's , you know it's become a I don't know if you've seen there's a viral .
This guy in the States , his morning routine , which is just off the charts , where he gets up , gets up at like 350 and has this bottled water and does this ice face bath and then he does all these things and swimming it's not that brian guy , is it ? he's trying to stay alive but everybody's just recreating it and um , it's .
You know , that's what he does , and I think , like , didn't marky mark get up at like 2.30 in the morning and does his workouts ?
And I think the masculine energy or maybe they're able to wake up in the middle of the night and work out , but it certainly isn't something that I have any desire to do and it doesn't work for me , and I think the female cycle is very different .
But one of my teachers in the web design is she doesn't start any work until 10 am , you know , and that's how she wants to live , and I'm like some people want to wake up at 8 am .
If that's what you want to do , then you've got to figure it out , because I think what you don't want to do is do something that your body hates and your mind starts to resent , and then you're just going to fall off it .
Yeah , and also I think , just even waking up in the morning and even using that language of like I've got to do these 10 things before I even start my day , Like I've got to work out , I've got to .
You know , it's so much pressure where it's just like I'm not saying you just flow through your day and kind of have no direction , but it's like even saying I've got to do these things first thing in the morning , it's like can you just have a bit of time just to get back into your body ?
You've just woken up , you know , and that's a really good point , because , um , I forget that instead of saying I've got to change it to I get to .
I get to yeah , and that changes everything . Who are the people that you follow and really resonate with and that you've learned the most from ?
that changes a lot , lot over time . I have been a big fan of Brendan Bouchard for a long time because he , again , like a lot of them , gives away a lot of really good , valuable , free content .
And that's where I learned the content rhythm from which I used in KPMG , which I use in my own business , and it's all about getting the most value for the least amount of effort . So I find him um , he's a really great leader . Um Jenna Kutcher is another one that I've kind of followed for about five years .
She's just seems very natural and , again , um gives away a lot of um , a lot for free looking over everything that's happened in your entrepreneurial journey , is there any advice you would give to your younger self , like from a from a mindset point of view , from overcoming big ?
challenges . So much advice , so much advice . If I went back in time , I would be a billionaire within the first . The first thing I do is save all your money and then invest it wisely . Then I would be like set up an e-commerce business , digital products , and get onto YouTube .
But really the advice is to , I think , pick one and stick one and stick with it . Um , and get mentors , really good mentors , in your life , because that's another thing I've never had , I guess , proper mentors
¶ The Birth of The Soul Hive
that I've paid for and invested in , because again , you get into a cycle of that's extra money . I haven't got , um , certainly recently , when I left KPMG in March . With hindsight , then would have been a really good time to find a good business mentor , invest in them properly and get some really good advice and methodologies and structure .
Yeah , so you know there's a lot . Going back 20 years , I would have done things differently , but certainly the start of the soul hive that would be the first thing I would do .
I think that's really good advice , like what impact do you feel now having a business mentor or having mentors in your life ? How is that impacting your business now ?
So it helps to have somebody else invested in you and your business . Even that investment is just for you personally , well , it's not a financial investment and it's accountability well , not , it's not a financial investment and it's accountability . And having accountability partners means that I do the things that I say I'm going to do now ?
yeah , yeah , that without that kind of that's that structure around it , that container , I think it allows the business to grow and to bit by bit yeah , and I think that this is it's really kind of interesting like just this masculine feminine approach , because , as the feminine , it's like that's our pure creative energy , right , that's where we get to create , but
it also , you know it kind of needs that container of structure and discipline of the masculine um . So it it really is like you know , I think I think , just listening to you , it's like you're embodying perfectly , it's like this feminine creative , you know energy where you get to help people and work with people .
But obviously we , as women , we still need this structure , we need to draw on this discipline , consistency and um commitment , especially when it's in the in the business world and not only that , but I'm a double Pisces , which makes me like you know I am , oh , idea , oh , another thing I need that , that kind of probably more masculine , I'd say container presence
around it to go pull me back down and be like you know , sit down , finish . This thing in this is looking at the bigger picture , having a plan on the calendar year . That's like every single month I have a target , every quarter I have a target , and in order to hit that target I have to do these things .
So the calendar now it's like , okay , I don't have to do everything at once .
I'm going to launch a shop here , I'm going to launch a course here , and I'm giving myself the time to do it , the lead up , and it's like one thing at a time and that takes all that kind of chaos out and it's structured but it's still achievable and you can see where things are going to land and from there , kind of work out the finances and what you
need to invest in it and what you , you know . So it's just um , it's things that we do in business , but there's a you know , 50 people doing all of that instead of just one well , this is it right .
You've got , yeah , so and so in accounts , someone on design , someone in marketing , 20 people in sales , where it's like that's the thing when you're in a business or creating a business it's you , your services , but then you've got all these departments that you need to be in as well . So it's pretty crazy .
What um like in terms of website design correct me if this is wrong , but the soul hives main product is design of incredible websites and templates . What are some of the biggest mistakes you see entrepreneurs and business owners making that lead them ultimately coming to you for help ?
Well , you are a prime example .
I didn't intend for that to come back to me , but I'm happy it's all right , we can go there .
Oh God , one of the things I love and I'm really good at is taking some shocking , shonky WordPress site and changing it into this beautiful , feminine , custom , totally branded show it website that works .
So the number one thing people do wrong that I see is they go cheap , which generally means going on Upwork or Fiverr , and there are a lot of great freelancers on those sites .
But and I did this , I have done this many times Back in the day , 10 years ago also find someone to you know in India , nepal , 500 bucks , 1000 bucks , build me a website and you don't .
You're just getting this thing yeah the second thing everybody does is the very first thing when they decide they're going to start a business they might have their name is they then spend anywhere from two days to two weeks building creating a logo , and I've seen people you know do it in Canva .
So you end up with a Canva logo that everybody knows is a Canva logo , or you go and hire a designer and you get a logo . So then you've got a business name and a logo and nothing else , and then when you come to me , it's a lot , it's it's not impossible , but it's harder to then fit a brand around a logo rather than the other way around .
So the process that I have that works really well is we just start from scratch . We start completely fresh and we go through this methodology , which starts with a brand strategy document , which is quite meaty .
Then we go to pinterest for visuals , then from all of that we take all of the elements and put it into like a brand mood board with a couple of options , and from that we , we , we go deeper and deeper into who you are and what your brand is , and then I put it on as a website and it's really only after that that I would put a logo together .
And a logo generally for me is a word mark . It might have a little design element . I don't think anyone needs a logo to start . I think you know , certainly not spending hundreds , if not thousands , on a fancy logo . It's got nothing to do with your business and you're in the first year of business .
Your business is going to change hugely , as you're feeling your way through it and , um , I know mine has , I'm sure yours has , and you pivot and you change and so if you've paid for this logo , it's , it's not going to be the best investment . So I would say forget all of that , really start to , however that looks .
But you know , go through this brand strategy and I'm also just finishing .
I've got some freebies that I'll be putting on my site , which are some digital downloads on how to self-guide yourself through the process , like a mini version of my brand strategy document to go through , figure out who you are and your offers , do that first , then go through the website build whether that's a DIY or whatever and only after about six months at
least , I would then start to look at a logo .
Okay , yeah , but but I mean , obviously , if someone like in my position , I had a shocking , like everything you just described . I had a , yeah , pretty shocking website , um , that was built by somebody in Nepal , um , during COVID , and I had no idea where it was hosted , I had no idea of my passwords I had no idea of .
I had not , I had no idea where it was hosted , I had no idea of my passwords , I had no idea of , I had no idea . And , unfortunately , the person that I was dealing with in Nepal , as much as he was a lovely man , he seemed all over the place as well .
So it was like , yeah , so I remember , like I really want to change my website for such a long time , but I was almost mortified and embarrassed about going to see anybody about it because I was like I don't know where anything is .
It was a complete shambles and I remember coming to you and you were so helpful and I know this isn't your area of what you do , but you definitely gave me some great guidance on getting all that information . So thank you .
Well , that's another good point . Right is um , your , particularly your domain , where that's hosted , your url , is . Whoever owns that really owns your business .
So if you're giving developers and random people access to your go daddy or wherever it's hosted , then and any back access to your GoDaddy or wherever it's hosted , then any back end to your website , you're kind of reliant , you're leaving yourself open . So I think , and certainly if someone's building
¶ The Feminine Approach to Business
it , there are two ways . You either give them your passwords or they go in through a kind of developer access , but your domain should always be yours and I would keep that . That , um , you know , hold that like you hold your crypto , because you you start suddenly getting famous or getting bigger and someone comes along and snatches your domain . You're screwed .
So there are basic housekeeping rules , um , to keep that tidy .
And I mean the other thing , that with all the clients because I do see people's passwords for access into some of their tools , as I'm setting it up , every single one bar , maybe two , use the exact same password over and over again , maybe with different numbers , and I'm like , oh no , no , because the hacking is going to get worse and worse .
So use a password tool like proton pass or one password at one of those . Yeah , yeah , I think that would help yeah , it's so important .
It's so important , I think , is there more entrepreneurs and more business . You know , more websites are going to start popping up , um , even more than ever . I think that's a big part of the entrepreneur's journey , as well as your security , right ? Everything's online digital products , like you said , um , e-commerce . It's like you've got to protect .
You know , you've got to protect yourself as well . What about design ? Like what do you think ? Obviously , I know it's . It would be based on , you know , whatever your client comes to about , but what are , like , the design no-nos ? What's trending , what's big in websites at the moment ? What you know ? What should people be looking for ?
¶ Website Design Mistakes to Avoid
Design wise ?
Well , again , that depends on what your business is and what you want to achieve on your website , because not everybody has the same goals .
Generally , for my clients , their goals are credibility , awareness and bookings , so they are , as a rule , funneling visitors from social media to their website to get more information and then book a discovery call or pay for an appointment , something like that , so that you've got a structure there which is , you know , it has to be clear , it needs to be relevant
and it needs to be easy to navigate and the price . It's all about that process . Not everybody , you know , not all websites that some are literally just kind of glorified brochures which can give you more um time to have fun , play around with and because you're not necessarily got a kind of end point , if you like um .
But in terms of trends , I mean there's a lot of exciting stuff happening in 2025 . One of the big ones is there's a backlash against AI .
So I design on ShowIt , which is loved by creators because it's almost like a freehand website design , which makes it a lot harder for me , because lining things up is just I have to do it manually , whereas as opposed to using something like maybe a webflow or squarespace or wix , where it's kind of like , does it automatically ? I mean framework .
There's also been an explosion on um website platforms , cms's , recently , so there , so there's thousands to choose from . But so the AI backlash is there's a kind of a tendency towards perfect imperfection , which is great because that's kind of how I see my work .
It's sort of or imperfect perfect , where there might be just slightly little things out of alignment , because it's done by hand , it's done by a human as opposed to AI just goes , you know , and it's done in seconds and everything's like this and there's no kind of emotion to it .
So the personalization is really big this year and I think it will be going forward where you can see that somebody , a human , has done it , and this also manifests in slightly crazy images , things that an AI probably wouldn't put together . So you might see a bit more kind of mashups and stuff like that .
Another interesting one is text heavy is coming back , which I wasn't expecting . So we've kind of gone from back at the beginning of the worldwide web it was all kind of text , to hugely visual and images , and now we're coming back to more text . Text heavy . Um and micro animations is big .
So micro animations are , rather than things like whizzing around the pages . You'll get little details . So , um , not just your kind of classic button hover change , but you might get some little , um little unexpected things appearing .
So I think , yeah , websites are fun and it's forever changing and um , the joy of doing the custom sites I do is that if you come to me and say I really like this element here , then chances are we can figure it out and kind of add it in yeah , so cool , and I mean just talking on AI as well .
Obviously there's this whole messaging AI is coming for your job . You know you work in the design and creative space as well .
I mean again , probably more from like a mindset point of view , because we know that AI is amazing , we know that it's um , it's got so much to offer , but how do you process that being in the creative world , being in this graphic , visual world that is being threatened by AI ? How do you process ?
that I think I see it , how I see life . Right , you can see things as a positive or a negative . Right , you can see things as a positive or a negative , and the way you look at things , you'll get what you look at .
If you think it's going to be , you know , ai is going to threaten your life and your work and be this terrible kind of uh terminator 2 kind of world , then that's what you're going to get . I choose to see ai as being helpful . It's a way to help us on the path to freedom .
It can you know , once you've trained it properly , it becomes our staff and our workers and our team and my chat GPT , who I call G . He's super helpful and I've trained him really well over the last few months and he's got my brand voice completely nailed . He's got a memory that I don't have .
So he helps with all those sorts of things and is super helpful . So I'll ask him to do one thing and then he'll suggest how about I do this , this , this and this to do one thing , and then it'll suggest how would ? How about I do this ? This isn't this ?
So train it , use it to your advantage and help on saving uh time , money and everything else , and certainly I mean you can go onto google and build yourself an ai website literally in 30 seconds . Will it do everything you need ? No , it won't . Will it , you know , get you noticed ? No , but it might be good enough for some people to start .
You know , to take that pressure of starting procrastination , go and get yourself an AI site , stick it up there and you know you've crossed one thing off , because I know when stress and overwhelm comes along , everything's too hard . So , yeah , that could be the easy option , and then you upgrade after that .
So see it as a tool that is here to support us and not take over and ultimately destroy us yeah , I mean we laugh now .
Who knows in 10 years ? But I think right now we've just got it . You just gotta , I mean , be grateful for this amazing technology right that it's incredible . And I just feel the more that you embrace it and the more that we jump on the train now and and and kind of use it and get to know it , like the better right . For what is it ?
forewarned is forearmed , you know yeah , and it's all about the prompts and training it . Um , I mean , of course , everything can be used , for good or evil . And look at the governments around the world and the choices that they're making on whether to make our lives easier or harder .
And you know , I understand the fear with AI because we're giving it everything . You know , particularly those people that have Alexas and use Siri and it's always listening . It's got absolutely everything about us . So , of course , you know it could lock us out of our businesses , of our lives , of our banking systems . It can do all of that .
It can impersonate us . And now we've got people , which is easy to do , creating avatars with your own voice , your own face . How soon before AI starts to become us and then we're no longer viable ? But again , believing and trusting in the right people monitoring this and the good in the world , that's where I think it's we will ultimately stay in control .
Or I mean , yeah , just not survive , but thrive , continue to thrive . That's what we want , right ?
Yeah , we want to be living lives where we can get up and do our four-hour morning routine if we want and then go to the beach and read books , because AI is churning away behind the scenes and pumping out our perfectly on-brand social media and running our automations and doing the customer service and cleaning our houses and doing all those shitty things that we
don't want to do . That's where I'm seeing the future . I'm not seeing it as me being trapped and it's taking over and I've got no money coming in because it's doing it over , and I've got no money coming in because it's doing it . I'm controlling it and it's working for me and allowing me the freedom that I want . That's what we all want .
Yeah , so where can people find your work , fi ?
Tell us about that and what you've got coming up so you can find me on instagram at the dot soul dot hive , or you can find me on my website , which is the soul hivecom and starting a youtube channel later this year . But instagram is the easy space to get hold of me um or info at soulheartcom yeah , beautiful .
Well , thank you so much for coming . It's really good to see you and , um , yeah , thanks so much for coming on and sharing your journey , and also , I know there was so much information in there that I know is going to be really useful for a lot of people when it comes to their own entrepreneurial journey and their websites and all the design aspects .
So , thank you so much for coming on today . You're so welcome . Thank you for having me , thanks for listening today , and if this episode helped or inspired you , just remember to share it to friends or family who could also use some inspiration . Today . We are all about sharing the love .