How I Started My Business & What I Wish I Knew

motherhood and health. I'm your host, Steph Pace, and I'm the woman behind Just Another Mummy blog and also the founder of Steph Pace Planners. But I can assure you this is not just another podcast online. I'm known for my organization tips and tricks and the occasional banter, but it definitely wasn't always this way. I used to be a hot mess and occasionally still am. And I'm here as your honest and real friend each week to show you how I turn my life of chaos into clarity.

Between the house, health, kids, work, and wanting to be the best version of yourself, it can be overwhelming, and I'm here to give you the tools and tips to stop you feeling like a slave to your daily tasks, home life, and especially the expectations you have on yourself. Join me as I share my journey and insights into the art of balancing it all and speak to guests

who can help us all live a better life. Whether you're looking to streamline your daily routines, boosh your wellbeing, achieve your fitness goals, dive into personal development, or find inspiration to step up into the best version of yourself, We've got you.

I will start reading them out. That's one thing I have noticed a lot of you guys saying is that you do tend to re listen to episodes, and that makes me really happy because it just goes to show that you know the tips and tricks I'm giving you in these episodes is stuff that you want to come back and visit again.

for what you want, you will succeed. And I think one of the biggest things that holds people back, whether that is starting a new business or a hobby or meeting new friends, is we wait until we think it's time. We wait for everything to be perfect before we begin. And let me tell you, no matter what you do, whether that's a hobby, if you start painting, if you start a business, the start's always going to be a

learning process. Like the best way for you to learn is to start and you learn as you go, Like I have no idea what I'm doing, Ghosts, I have

no bloody idea what I'm doing. And if you're new here, I have my own brand staff Face Planners, So it's lifestyle and stationary brand because I just love to help other people out there who just feel overwhelmed and out of control of their life to gain back that control and start living more intentionally, breaking things down to really easy steps to help you, whether that's organization, motherhood, health

and of course productivity and things like that. As someone with ADHG like myself, this has always been a huge pain point for me. And I've always been the biggest mess on the planet, literally, like the biggest mess. I used to have to put a swer curtain on my toy cabinet when I was a kid. All my cars growing up were like when I was a teenager, were just horrific. You don't want to know, like you just don't want to know. And Ryan can vouch for this

because he's been with me since I was seventeen. But if I can do it, anyone can do it. And I'm not just saying that. I'm someone who I couldn't even speak in public, speaking at school before class and at union, I had to skull be to even do it, like to even speak in front of people. And now I go on live TV, I do all the things. So if I can do it, you can do it.

And this is why you need to listen to this episode because there is so many takeaways from this, and you also get to learn about exactly what I did when I started my first product business, how I did it, stuff ups along the way and everything else, and of course, I'm really really excited because I've just launched my twenty

twenty four twenty twenty five Financial Year Planner. I do this every single year, and this is a business planner, So I actually made a business planner and it comes with a business bible, and in this bible has everything that I wish I bloody knew when I started. So I thought I would record this episode today in celebration of the staff Pace Planner's Financial Year Planner being released.

lot more income streams available. Not everyone's like they're not pushing UNI on you anymore, because there's just so many ways to create a brand, build a business, make money online, all these amazing opportunities, Whereas when I was growing up, it was very much forced into our brains that you went to school, you went to UNI, you had a job, you worked really hard, and then you retired when you were bloody a.

didn't know how that was going to happen. So high school finished, I went to university and I did journalism and did a bit of marketing and things like that because I loved writing, and my dad was like, well, why don't you do journalism? And I also loved because my mother also worked with the newspaper, and I loved going, you know, when I was sometimes sick and I wasn't with Nan at home, I'd go to work with her sometimes and I loved seeing all the journalists and things

like I just loved it. Unfortunately, when I went into UNI under journalism, I started learning that anyone, unfortunately now can kind of be a journalist because of the Internet, which is a good thing but also not great if you're paying for a huge hex steat. And I also want to touch on the fact that my beautiful boyfriend at the time, who's now my husband, Ryan, we were together from seventeen so before I even went to UNI,

and ever since I met Ryan. He was in his first year apprenticeship for building, so he always knew what he wanted to do, he knew the trade.

at maths. I was only good at subjects that I really loved, Like I would excel at things that I loved, bloody flopped at things that I hated. Even if I did try, I still just couldn't do it. Like maths and me, I just you'll talk in numbers to me and were on a different planet. We're just not on the same we're not speaking the same language. So this is something that I've always really struggled with with paying attention memory. So like doing things like UNI and doing

my high school certificate. It was like pulling teeth and I did well, Like I'm really out of what I did, but it was fucking hard. It was incredibly hard, leaving things the last minute, late nights. You know, you guys would understand when you were younger. I went to high school and things too.

on this big health journey. As you guys know that story, I'll link it in the show notes. I got really into health and fitness, like really into health and fitness.

good to have him to show me as well. And then my own parents were really savvy, Like my dad worked at the tax office, he knew.

But did all of the marketing, I guess for my business. I did expos and things like that. So I was going really well. And I also loved fitness, so then I also de started to get a job during the.

But now in my business with SPP and everything else, like I started my blog, which I'll get into, I need to know marketing for that, like, everything just added up. And then even with the gym, I was doing sales at the front desk. But even then I had to come up with collaborations with other businesses. I had to get really good at cold calling. I had to call random people and ask them to join the gym. And for someone like myself who grew up, I was so shy.

I was the quietest kid, and I had no confidence in myself. I was so awkward and scrawny, and I just had absolutely no confidence. I can't even just tell you how quiet and invisible I was. So that was really helpful for me, and just learning about marketing and cross promoting with other businesses even down to subway learning people's skills. Like, there's nothing you will do in your

life that doesn't teach you something. So if you're someone right now and you're like kind of pivoting and you're not sure what you want to do, and you're scared of judgment because you're pivoting and you've changed your mind, just know you are allowed to change who you are what you do any moment in your life. You don't know that to anybody. You only get to live once,

and it is unfortunately not that long. When you look at the grand scheme of things, there's something you want to do and you've just been sitting on it for so long. You need to stop sitting on it. So I'll give you the pep talk later. But Okay, going back to what I was talking about, I was running my makeup business. Ryan really pushed me to go all in for my business, and that scared the fuck out

of me because I'm like, oh my god. You know, Ryan and I were saving for deposit on a house and things like that, so I was just that's why again, I was working two or three jobs at a time, and I was really scared I was gonna let us down because I was like, I've been doing so well with money, you know, getting us to where we need to be, and he's like, trust me, staff, won't you go all in? And he was right, Once you go all in, your business is going to thrive even more.

And it did because I had that time to go to the expos I had that time during the week to be focusing on growing the business, which is where I did Facebook ads, which back then you just would press a button and it was done for you. It was not like what it is now. And I did, you know, all these different marketing tactics, which was amazing.

So he finally convinced me to go all out on my business, which was terrifying, but it paid off straight away, Like I think I doubled my income straight away because I had the time for it. I was booked out two years in advance for a weddings. It was incredible. So I was doing that for a couple of years.

Ryan and I decided we want to have babies and we had our first daughter, Harper, So obviously I was on maternity leave and I after Harper was born, I had really bad personnal depression and I didn't really have any mum friends.

scared of what other people thought of me? And could you imagine, guys, if I didn't start back then because I was scared of what other people thought of me, I would not be sitting here right now, and you wouldn't be listening to this conversation, one sided conversation. I wouldn't have SPP, I wouldn't have my brand, I wouldn't have my personal brand. I wouldn't have been able to do TV gigs all these things like literally have created

these businesses and this life for myself. And it's all because I was lucky enough to have that person, that support person that said I believe in you, and he believed in me more than I believed in myself.

my life and connecting with others. And it wasn't to make money. It wasn't to do any of that. Because I can tell you now, if you think you can start a social media page or a business and you know you don't have a bigger purpose, you're not going to get that payoff as quick as you think it is.

or money or whatever. Like, I'm sorry, but it does not work that way. You need to have a deeper purpose. Same with SPP now when it comes to organization and planning, this is something I always wanted in my life because I had a very chaotic upbringing, chaotic mind, anxiety, all the things. And when I learned as a young mum how much organization and planning had changed my life, it was something I just wanted to scream off the rooftops because I was like, it can change your life. It

will change your life if you let it. I was just so passionate to let other people know that they're not alone, and that's all I cared about. That was the end goal for me, was if I could just help one person feel less alone than I'd won, and that's all I cared about.

by the time you get home, you just exhausted. And I just was so into my blog. And luckily enough, at this time, you know, we had saved a lot. We got ourselves in this situation where I was like, okay, like I'm gonna just keep going with this blog because I started making money here and there, and I was like I didn't even.

I've always done, like ever since I watched New York Minute when I was a teenager, Like I was hooked on planners, and I just loved how when I wrote things down, how much better it made my brain feel, like you feel lighter. And I just wanted to help people. So I remember it was twenty nineteen, so by that point I had been doing the blog for four years, I think four years, and my family was over, my cousins, and we were sitting in the lound room and I said to my cousin next to me, I said, what

do you think if I made a planner? Because it was just never a planner that had all that I needed and it wasn't beautiful, and I just was like, what if I made my own. Like by this point, I was doing full time personal brand stuff, so working with brands, and it was great, it was incredible, but

I just felt like I wanted to do more. Like I was doing all the free downloads for people on the blog, all this stuff, but I felt like I just wanted to give more and I needed to make that like a product that people could use, that I could use, that I've needed whole life. And my cousin looked at me and she said, that's amazing. That's an incredible idea. And then I literally decided within myself that I was going to do it. And I had no bloody idea where to start. I'd never made a product before,

you know, like when I had my makeup business. I remember I had stocked some makeup products, but it was all wholesale, Like I've never had experience with making a product. I had no idea. So what I did is I did some googling. You know, Reddit love Reddit. If you ever have a question that you literally can't find on Google, I will just type in the question into Google and then put Reddit at the end. And if you don't know what redd it is. It's basically like a forum.

It's amazing anyway, So I did a bit of googling and I was like, okay, I'm just going to get started anyway. So I had an amazing graphic designer who was doing graphics for my blog at the time.

word document. I opened up a word document and I brain dumped everything I wanted this planner to have. I wrote down what it looked like, I wrote down why I was making it, who it was for, what problems it was solving. They're the most important things, even when you're making content with it, Like, no matter what you're doing in business and with your brand, and even if you like are starting a blog or whatever, you need to picture the person you have in mind that you're helping.

You need to be super specific. You need to think about, like what pain points are you solving for these people? And for mine, it was the overwhelm. It was the overwhelm of everyday life. It was like feeling a slave to your own life and time. So I got really clear on that, and that was I was clear as day because I was the person that needed it. So I just looked in the mirror. Anyway, So what I did on this word document, I started writing out the contents of the book that I wanted it to look like.

So i'd have like, actually, like the front cover. I'd write on the front cover like simple minimalist design, just really kind of to help my graphic designer kind of know.

make sure they work in day to day life. So things like in my planners, I have a to do list each day during the week, I have the meal section at the bottom, like all these things are things that I needed, and I knew that because I was testing it every single time we made a change. Anyway, so this was literally for me to make a plan. It took me a year, so there's a lot of back and forth. Finally got the design done, and during this time I was researching the hell out of manufacturers.

Now finding a manufacturer, like you know, people always talk about Allie Barber and stuff, which is, you know, a great place to start, I guess, but you just need to make sure that you do your research because unfortunately my time in business, I've been burnt by some manufacturers

before and it's not a fun time. Like I could even do a whole series on business fuck ups because I've lost a lot of money, a lot of money in the past, and you would cry if you knew how much, Like I can't tell you because it's you know, people see the end goal of having a successful brand or business, but they don't see the losses and the huge, huge risks you take, Like.

There's like our source of fire, I think there's a place called so a lot of research and then I found out, you know, basically you need to talk to your manufacturer say like, okay, depending on what your product is, so say, if you're making it could be under a bag, what do you need from me?

over again, you know what I mean. Like any changes you make is another two hundred and fifty USD, which is basically like four five hundred dollars Australian. Also you're paying for your trademark.

and all that stuff. And I highly recommend it is it is an expense, but when I think about for me, the anxiety was too great of stuffing things up, you.

that was a minimum order sorry, minimum order quantity. So when you're working with a manufacturer, they'll have a minimum quantity you can order because obviously otherwise they won't make it for you. So there was a minimum quantity. I think it was a thousand. So I ordered a thousand, and I was shitting myself. I wasn't going to sell them all because I had never sold a product myself. Yes, I had the community, which is fantastic, but I just didn't know, like you just you don't know who's going

to buy it. And I was shitting myself that all the money i'd been saving up for was going to be lost, to be completely honest, so I started at Instagram page. I did a big, you know, hype thing on socials because I was so excited, did a big countdown, and then I announced everybody that I was doing planners

and I did an event. So with the event, if you guys remember, I did an event in twenty twenty now was it twenty twenty twenty nineteen October, and it sold out in thirty minutes, and I was like absolutely short because I thought I was going to go there and be by myself. And I hired an event planner who actually works to me, works with me to this day. I hired her as a VA. She also does VA. Her name's Petra from club Teams. She's amazing anyway, So

she organized the event with me. And with the event, like you obviously have your tickets and stuff, and I made my tickets way too cheap, so I was very much out of pocket for the event, and that's because I didn't think people would come.

need to think about your profit margin. And now your profit margin means like how much you make on top of everything like.

like I can't even tell you. And I had really made my planner prices too low again, but I was so bloody surprised at how fast they sold and one little insider tip I want to give you guys, is because the amount of planners I needed to order was quite a lot, and I still remember sending my manufacturer the deposit. I was so scared that I was never going to see that money again, and I wasn't going to get any product.

everyone would go there, it would just crash. And it's because there's so many people on, but it would just crash and people can buy anything, and it really stuffed me up. So you go on Shopify, that's amazing. But one thing I did to help pay for all the planners was do pre sale.

you're not out of pocket, so that's amazing. And then with the planners, my biggest goal was to sell obviously a thousand because you got to remember to with these planners. They're dated, so it's not like I could order heaps and then just sell it over a few years. Like I didn't have much time. It was the first product I ever made, shitting my pants, and then I ended up having to reorder my planners about four times. It was incredible, so just really underestimating myself. Now, what comes

with huge success like that is incredible, absolutely incredible. But the thing you guys don't see is me then having to pack thousands and thousands of orders by myself and not knowing what the fuck I'm doing, Like I didn't know how to print off a packing slip. I did not know how to even do customer service, and it was like a one man band, like I got my

friends in. I did hire a staff member, my first one, which was terrifying because I'm like, fuck, I'm now responsible for another person's income, which I didn't expect because when I started this, guys, I started SPP as a hobby to pack planners in the garage and that was it because I just wanted to do it in the garage on the weekends. And I'm so bloody grateful, but I did not expect it. And then it came with, you know, now paying a wage and having to work twenty four seven.

I'd get up at three o'clock in the morning to start printing off the labels, which I didn't know you could do it in batches because I didn't use redd it enough. That was stupid. And then there was you know, damages in the post. There was a lot of losses throughout that, and I didn't really know how to navigate it. So doing a lot of research and also one thing that I really learned how to do was talk to

other business owners. So reaching out to other small businesses that you've supported in the past, which I had and I had worked with heaps of Bread and so started you know, chatting to them, which was amazing because there's just so much to it and even down to you know, when you get things manufactured and they're manufactured overseas, which

literally everything is pretty much manufactured overseas. I really wanted to have my planners you know, manufactured in Australia, but it just was so expensive and for me to be able to even survive off that, I would have had to make the planners like two hundred dollars or more like insane, like it just was not possible. So anyways, getting your goods from overseas to get it over here, I was scared.

biggest thing you can do. And I still feel way in over my head guys, especially lately, I'm sewing over my head. But my passion for what I do is just it outweighs everything, truly outweighs everything. And as I said, you need to learn how to be really to be able to pivot and navigate problems that you never think you'd have to encounter, Like, you know, I never even thought about having damaged goods and dealing like having customers that unfortunately haven't got their pastor like and how you

need to figure that out. So my biggest thing, if I could start again, we'll be doing more research into like the software. So instead of me getting up at three o'clock and then I'd spend an hour to print.

business series, I can answer your questions. I can talk more about like marketing and social media and just anything that you need to know and my biggest business fuck ups, even just like the biggest mistakes I've ever made and things that I would change when I go back, because as you guys know now, like now, I like you know, I decided to go on and make more than just planners, and that was kind of I guess always in the back of my mind, but I just didn't know how

it would go. And then I went on to make you know, my planner magnets and my to do lists, and now I do lifestyle products like my lunch and my drink bottles and everything. And it's just so beautiful when you can make products that are obviously to serve their purpose, but to have a message behind it, which is you don't need to be a slave to your life and your time and you're allowed to be a

human being, not a human doing. Like that's the biggest thing I feel like with my brand is as a planner brand, Like I feel like a lot of planner brands are very much about the hustle and you know, being a type A. But when you're not naturally a type A like me, and you're not naturally an organized person, you know, it's hard to find a planner and a brand that's all about just being human and messy and not being perfect all the time. And that's what we're

all about. And I'm just so grateful that I've been able to help so many people with these products. Like the other day, I went to the shops and a lady came up to me and she literally had her planner and her box. She kept the box, which so many of you guys do, and she had it at the table at the shops and she's like, I'm just doing a planning session. She's like waiting for a daughter.

And I was like, oh my god, and it just like makes me so happy and it makes it all so worth it when you just see that, like changing lives just blows my mind. Anyways, as I said, decided to do this episode and get really deep into my business because of the new financial planner that I've just launched SPP. So this is the financial version of my business planner. As I said, the business bible I made in this has everything I wish I knew when I started.