How Victoria Manages Her Time in Business

Order KERNI Whoalbury and a waddery woman. And before we get started on She's on the Money podcast, I would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land of which this podcast is recorded on a wondery country, acknowledging the elders, the ancestors and the next generation coming through as this podcast is about connecting, empowering, knowledge sharing and the storytelling of you to make a difference for today and lasting impact for tomorrow.

because I feel like authenticity is important here. But I'm going to give a little bit of insight today on where I put my focus and how I do things to keep myself on track and keep my team in order and still grow a business while I think still having a balanced and lovely life.

Then the growing phase, and then a more established phase, which we're currently in now, because I think it's very unfair, especially in the business Bible community where we talk so often about you know, authenticity and transparency, Like I can

be super transparent. I can tell you about my week right now, it involves getting a pedicure, Jess like slay, I've worked so hard to get to this point, but that's not going to help you grow or change or you know, justify the hard work that you're putting in. And you go, well, I can't just start living the exact same life that Victoria's living because that would make sense. Like that's ridiculous. And don't get me wrong, I understand

the privilege. It is quite aspirational. When I like put it down on paper, I'm like, oh wow, I have achieved a lot and I'm really proud of it. But I also worked really hard to get here. So I think there's going to be a few different parts and this is the only way I can think of doing it that makes the most sense, gives you, guys, the transparency and the authenticity that I think you deserve.

not Yeah, okay, let's dive into it. So at the time that I was starting Zella, it came up as an opportunity because I was already working in a wealth practice and I knew that I wanted my own thing, and I had been discussing with the director there, like how do I do this and also do that? And it meant a lot of extra hours because obviously I couldn't build my wealth practice on his watch because he still paid me for thirty eight hours a week to

run his business. But in addition, to that. I was finishing my MBA, so I was doing I would say, an accelerated MBA. I think that's what it is actually called. But I was doing six units each and every single semester, as opposed to four, which normal people would do.

that route, because I thought that's what all successful people did. Yeah, and you've probably heard me absolutely shit all over that now, because I'm like, ah, that's actually not an indicator of success. Why did I, as a smart person, even think that.

desk working on UNI assignments. And I often found that the time between seven and nine it was like a nice time block of going, Okay, I've got two hours to smash out whatever i'd prepare the night before, and you know, get an assignment done or you know, at UNI, a lot of your assignments are about a thousand words. And I remember in my head, I was like, okay, I can smash out a thousand words in two hours, and that's just how my brain worked. I'd be like, yep, cool,

can time block that. But every single thing that I did was in my calendar, so the gym, the coffee, the shower, literally the time that I needed for UNI, because if it wasn't scheduled, it wasn't happening, and ess as you know, I have adhd yes and you guys nowadays are like v we reminded you of that three weeks ago, and I'm like beh because I'm the worst at taking my medication. But back then I was very medicated because otherwise nothing would get done and I didn't

have any support. I'd work my nine to five job. I would usually eat at my desk. I used to

order you foods all the time. I barely ever left the office to eat because to me, that was an hour that I could use to either work on a UNI assignment or work on my business five five point thirty K. Sometimes i'd have to work late, that would be fine, but UNI always started at six, so I'd be at UNI by six and I would have another U foods to eat at UNI, usually cold because like the other side of the campus had the microwaves, so like Yollo eat cold dinner. This all good, and UNI

would usually go to nine or ten PM. I'd then go home and get ready for work the next day. So usually the start of my week. It really depended on what I was doing and how I was doing it. Like with Unique, sometimes it would be like Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Sometimes it would be the first three days of the week. Sometimes it'd be the first four. It depended, and I always jumped at the opportunity to do what they call

intensive units. So I remember having the offer. You know, you'd do your four units as usual, but you could pick up two intensive units each semester, and you were able to do them in a four day like super course. So you would take a Monday and a Friday off work, or it would happen over like Christmas, holidays or Easter or something, and you would do all twelve weeks of content in four days, including all of your assignments.

So on the first day you do full day of content, finish at like six pm, go home, write your assignments, submit it, come back for the next day, and you would break up all of those units across four days, and then that fourth day would basically be exam day, so you'd have four eight twelve units across three days and then an exam and like finishing up your assignments

or a group assignment on the fourth day. I think I ended up being able to do my MBA in just under two years because of that, which is very helpful. The second I stopped doing my MBA, kind of they crossed over, but not really like I enrolled while doing my MBA to do my finance diploma, so did that as well. Again much because it was online and it could be like self paced, but just time consuming. Weekends were spent working on union assignments or actually working on

my business. It was the only time I had. I feel like a lot of people will look at it and go, well, that's not worth it at AOL, it might not be to you. Like that was what I was wildly passionate about at the time. And I was willing to sacrifice family time, and I was willing to sacrifice friends time. And you know, there are so many holidays that my girlfriend's got to go on together that

I ultimately had to say no to. There are so many brunches I didn't go to, and friend gatherings and sports and social things that I didn't get to do because that's how I was choosing to build my business, and all of that happened. But yes, I built Zella on the side once the NBA stuff had finished, I obviously was really really wildly passionate about it. And She's on the Money came up and She's on the Money

used to be lunch and learn sessions. So I used to run these lunch and learn sessions at different law firms, different big corporates to hopefully get some clients from my new business, Zella, because like, you can't just steal my current works clients, I'd have to get new ones. So I ran these lunch and learn sessions and realized I really wanted to work with women, so I was like,

let's call it, She's on the money. So I think I was doing those in twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen, and it was just basic financial literacy, and yeah, it kind of like snowballed from there and over time, I think it wasn't till twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen that I thought, why not give this hole She's on the money like

thinger go and created a Facebook group. It was more so I could connect with the people that went to my workshops, and I would have a curriculum inside that Facebook Jess and I every week would be like, all right, so this week on Monday, We're talking about superannuation and on Wednesday, I'm going to drop a superranuation activity. And like it was all very structured, yeah, and so time consuming, but that is what I would do. And then from one thing and this will be a longer story, just

to like frame where we started. I supper, sorry, Jess, we started there. And then I remember the day it hit seventeen hundred people in that Facebook group and I was like, this is wild, like we're talking twenty nineteen. Yeah, And I asked the group, I said, what do you want me to do? Like how do I make this more approachable? Like what content can I create? And they said, we really want you to create video content? Can you like start a YouTube? Which is funny now because I

said absolutely not. I'm never going on video hipocrite.

And it's not so that you guys can go, wow, she's really disciplined and sacrificed so much like I was just wildly passionate about it. And then Zella and She's on the Money of grew together, and then ultimately, you know, grew the business, started hiring people, and then you know, created these two teams of people that could support me so that I could take a bit of pressure off myself. Yeah, when it came to the hours that I was putting in.

And then in September twenty twenty two, made the decision that in the future, I really did want to have a family and I did want to have a life, and I wanted some balance back, and I sold that wealth business and started just doing mortgage broking, which was a very small component of Zella at the time, and grew that and also just kept growing Cheese on the money. So that's the starting phase.

And you know you were saying that kind of twenty nineteen phase we started doing sheetes on the money, and then by twenty twenty, you know, the Facebook group, the podcast, did it all taken off? Yeah, And that's unheard of. And I feel so lucky that I was in the right space at the right time. And I think also we need to preface this. We're talking about my journey. We're not talking about what's expected of you.

this or this? And I go I'm doing it all and you guys go, no, that is actually unreasonable, we cannot deliver that, And I go, oh, yeah, okay, sorry, Like I have had to really reset my expectations about what I expect from other people. And I think that you know, we're on the same page now, but historically I'd be like, well, I can do forty fifty sixty seventy hour weeks. Why can't you? Yeah, Like, why aren't

you as passionate about my business? As I am, and you cannot expect that from other people, but I expected it from myself, and that's where burnout happens.

And if you're someone who, like both you and I, are working a full time job and trying to start or do something on the side to give you a bit of extra money, I think what you were saying about having reasonable expectations on yourself is so important because if you are doing those ninety hour weeks like what you were doing, it's a miracle that you didn't, you know, end up incredibly unwell or I did.

it done. And that's a part of my personality as well, and I think that that's why I'm like, oh, like when this topic came up and we're talking about you know, lots of people are asking about how I manage my time. I felt really awful being asked that because I look at it and I go, that was not how to manage your time. That was not yes, did I get

where I needed to go, but like at what cost? Yeah, at the cost of a lot of friendships, at the cost of a lot of experiences, at the cost of a relationship at the time, like so much went absolutely in the bin because I was so set on what was going on, and it was kind of like, you know, twenty one, twenty twenty two. I was like, this is not sustainable, and like you were around for that, you

worked for Shees on the money. I remember coming in one day and being like I think I'm going to sell Zella wealth and you were like, wait what And I was like, I just can't keep this up, and you were like, Babe, I've been telling you that for a long time. And like, who said this? Because that was me. So I think it's so important to you know, obviously, work hard if the reward is worth it and you see the value in it, because I think that it

is so genuine to love what you do. But I do not believe the concept that you know, if you love what you do, you never work a day in your life. No, no, no, I worked really hard. I love what I do, but I definitely worked. I never felt like I haven't worked. In fact, I'm the type of personality who craves work like I would go insane if you weren't giving me tasks and things to think about and work to do. Like this whole maternity leave

thing drives me up the wall. Like hate the idea that I'm going to be pulled away from my business. Love the idea that I'm starting a family and want to give that the time and energy it deserves. At the same time as knowing I have so many competing priorities and this love for my shoes on the money, community and the business I'm building and the staff that I have that I don't want to be away from it,

at the same time as going victoria. If you don't step out of this business for at least twelve weeks. You're gonna regret it when that baby is older. Yeah, so I think it's about value. But I guess let's go to a really quick break because when we get back, I'm going to chat more about I guess, how to

manage your time effectively during a growth phase. And then let's chat about managing your time in an established phase and what were life balance actually looks like for me now, because I promise it's so much better.

meant to be in this position? And they know I own the business, but I'm also half their age, and I'm also, you know, not nearly as experienced, and it's kind of like a fake it till you make it, but also fake it because you can't have people see that you're not capable. Yeah, so there was a lot of pressure that I guess put on myself during that phase, and it's beautiful and I don't wish to change anything.

I think that the leader I am today is a much different leader to the leader I was back then. I'm sure that there are people that I could have done better by. I'm sure there are situations that I could have managed better. I think there are things that you know, I lost along the way that I didn't have to lose, but I didn't know how not to lose them at that point. And I think during growth

phase that's where all the learning happens. It's not just your business growing, it's you growing because you've never done this before and you don't know what's right or wrong, and ultimate there is no right or wrong. So hiring our first employee was overwhelming. Thankfully, I was well supported and had like a lawyer that drew up our employment contract and what that would look like. And at the time, we were doing payroll internally, so I'd have to work

all of that out. And you know, it was a lot. Opening an office is a lot, like you know, not to get into the nitty gritty of it, but officers are so expensive to manage, like to run. You have not only the rent on the office, but you have all of the overheads, You have a fit out. You then have ongoing maintenance costs. We had to pay a cleaner. We were then stocking the fridge. All of those little things that add up. You go, oh my gosh, there's no milk in the fridge for coffee and tea. Oh,

let's get a coffee machine. Oh my gosh. All right, so now we have a coffee machine, but because of its volume of usage, it needs to be serviced every month. And like, oh, we want the you know, floyer of our office to be really nice. Let's get some plants. Maintenance of plants. Like, it's just stuff that adds up,

and not everybody has these expenses. When I decided to go get rid of a business partner, get rid of all of that and start from scratch on my own, having to do that again on my own was really overwhelming. And then I guess I was in the privileged position where that was a really black and white bread and butter business, right, Like it's financial advice. We did accounting, and then we didn't, and then we were doing mortgage broking.

That is such a basic business and I won't say basics in dumb it down business, but that's a pre existing business model, jess. It exists, right, like you know, the mortgage broking businesses exist. I could spend so long on Google studying other people's websites, their organizational structures, having a look at their LinkedIn, seeing who got hired first, who did they prioritize networking in the industry, talking to people about well, what did you prioritize, how did you

do this in this growth phase? This is where I needed the mentors that I had the most. I feel like in that really startup phase, I had blinkers on. I didn't want other people's opinions. But the second I started to have to have bigger responsibilities like staff, I was like, well, I better get back on this mentor thing, because like, they've done it before. So for me, hiring my first employee inside Zella was not as scary as hiring you.

podcasting business. I didn't know what that would look like, or how that would grow, or is it worth biting the bullet and paying this amount because there wasn't any direct ROI because with a mortgage broker, I worked on a three times multiple, so I'd be like, all, right, of their income, thirty percent goes to the business and growth, thirty percent should be profit. And thirty percent should be

overheads that I pay the stuff. That's how I would work it out, and I go all right, So taking all of that into consideration, this is what they should be paid, and this is what they should be earning for the business. Yeah, there was direct You earn X and I pay you Y, and that is a deal with you. We've never had financial targets. Yeah, obviously now do partnerships and do do a lot of financial things, but we've never had those targets because media and podcasting

are so different. It's not like I can treat you like a mortgage broker and be like, yes, this role is very black and white. You go out, this are your sales targets, and this is what you get paid. And if you wake way more sales targets, then you get paid more. But it's not mortgage broking. So I think that that, to me, was one of the hardest things, and in that growth phase it was really challenging, and

we made a few mistakes. We hired people that were like, Loop, this isn't a good fit, and I think you've got to grow through what you go through. So to me, yes, it was good. But also, this is the stage where the pressure started to be taken off because I had people that I trusted to do the things that I was doing. It was hard. I don't know if you remember how controlling was. Yeah, I didn't want to let go of anything.

be outsourcing. So that was the point at which I was like, Okay, well, how many hours a week am I wasting or using on lots of different things? And I time tracked my hours. I think for a month, every hour of the day was allocated for and then I did a big review and I worked out how long it was taking me to do payroll, how long it was taking me to do a CA counting, And

I went through and I printed out my outlook. I like screenshot it and printed out the outlook and like used different color highlighters as I went through, and was like, all right, well that's an admin task. That's an admin task. And that was how I worked out that we needed

another admin. But also what could we outsource far out was actually taking me fifteen to twenty hours a month to do payroll and bookkeeping and all of the reconciliations for our bank accounts, And I went, that's a waste of my time because that's working in the business, not on the business, like at the end of the day. That's a task that needs to be done every month. That's when we hired a bookkeeper. And I thought, okay, well that's a good use of time because that gives

me another fifteen hours a month to grow the business. Yeah, so I think that time blocking and it sounds really lame. I would just like every night go back through because I didn't do it. As we're going I'd go through my calendar and be like, all right, well, between ten and ten thirty, oh what did I do? I did this, And between eleven and twelve I did this, and like,

I blocked it all in. And then after a month, I printed four pages and I went through and I highlighted the tasks that could be handed off without impacting the business. And that's where we started to grow a lot more. But it also helped me to understand what my focus should and shouldn't be, because my job was to grow the business, and I think I was lucky to know that handing tasks like that over was not

going to send the business into a spiral. In fact, it freed me up to do more content, to go from having one podcast a week that we had two three plus two other shows. And I think that that's where you've got to let go to grow.

It's a lot more relaxed. I feel like I don't have nearly as many meetings in my calendar. If you looked at my calendar, there might be two or three things in my calendar each day, which leaves me a lot of time to work on the business and strategize and plan and really reinforce the relationships I have in

the business. A lot of the time, I'm not, you know, creating product, because I now have a team that does that, like, So to be even more transparent, She's on the money now has six full time employees and two I would say part time, and Alisa Hi. She's full time employee, but not by me, by our podcast studio, and she works one hundred percent of her time on she's on the money. And then we've got Beck who is a part time or so there's eight in the team. I

don't have to script the episodes anymore. That used to take me, you know, one or two hours each script, and you know, you extrapolate that out how many shows we have and how many hours we do of content every week, so that's alleviated. I don't have to cut up videos any more myself. I don't have to edit the podcast any more myself in my quote spare time. I don't have to do any of the social media posts because we've got Georgia and she does all of them.

So I think my time is more spent on the strategy. I feel very privileged, but it's like my favorite part. Like I get to come in with my ideas and you know, I might sit down with you just and be like, oh my gosh, I've got this laundry list of dream clients and you go, no way is they I'm going to work on contracting them and seeing if they're interested in working with us, And I go, wow, like that just happens for me. You know. I come in and go, hey, Georgia, I've been thinking about this

new content. I've seen this, this and this. I'd love to create something similar. Or I have this really good idea about a content series pretty Rogue. Can we try it? And Georgia and Brooke will do it? So I think it's so nice to be I guess in control. I still think about it twenty four seven, like this is still my baby, but it looks so different like my morning's.

We're not getting up at four thirty am, Jess. Yeah, I get up at six thirty seven with my husband and we go for a walk and we get coffee. And there's just such a better work life balance now. But I genuinely believe I worked for that, like I have worked my butt off, and at the time, that's

not the life I thought I would have. I thought, I'm going to be a really big hustle, I'm gonna be so rich, I'm going to do this that the other like to me, I would look up to people like Elon musk Yah, which is disgusting, is so disgusting. Do not clip that out and tell anybody. But I would look up to them and be like they are so committed to their work. They get up every day

and like they just make decisions and do this. And I just look at it now and I go, am I as aggressive about growth as I was?

lifestyle that I have today took so long. I wasn't born into a family who had intergenerational wealth who could kick start my business. I had to work so hard and compromise so much to be able to get here. But I think that now my focus is just on having the resources, giving my team a beautiful work life balance, showing them that I care, because the more I care about them, the more they give to our community, and

the more our community thrives for me. I think it's just about focusing on how to make this business as sustainable as possible. We had a couple of months ago a strategy session with the She's on the Money team, and we sat down and we were like, Okay, well, what does this look like. How do we introduce additional revenue streams to the business so that we can thrive and not be so stressed if you know, the podcast doesn't work out in a few years, because you never

know what the world looks like in media. And I think that that, to me is just exciting. Now, yeah, because we have created that sustainability and you know as well as I do, that we have enough money coming in the door to sustain the team, so we can try a few different things and see if they fail. But I did not have that opportunity at the start. I couldn't try something and see if it failed. I would have no more money to pay salaries, I would have no flexibility. I would be done. So I was

so conservative at the start. Now we just try things, see if they work. If they don't work, we'll just delete them and pretend it never happened.

You don't know if somebody is doubling or tripling up on their workload or.

a pedicure because it's important to me. But I've worked really hard for that, and I have so much support around me, and without that support, I could never yeah do that. Yeah, And I think that that's where you go, not taking the piss, But I did work really hard for this.

your needs. Victoria Divine and She's on the Money are authorized representatives of money sherper P t y lt D. A b N three two one six four nine two seven seven zero eight a f s L four five one two eight nine