Welcome to the Business Fondle, the Bold Business Podcast for entrepreneurs and business owners hosted by Peta Serras the Professional Babe. So why don't you pour yourself a drink and slip into something a little more comfortable and I'll get your business going. Okay. Hotties, I love you. But we gotta have a hard, honest conversation. Because I I'm struggling and it is rare that I struggle.
It is rare that this super Virgo perfectionist, like I've been here on this world several times before, and we can discuss the notion of that in another episode, but it is rare that I am struggling. And at the moment I am struggling. And I am struggling because I feel myself asking business owners and entrepreneurs multiple times a day. Do you actually want a business?
And I think that we have a whole lot of people that want the business perks and they want to be paid for their labor and their job. So going and doing the work, but they want to forget about. having a business. They don't want to do that. but then they don't want to actually do the business side of having a business.
And this is so interesting to me because I feel like at times I'm like, I don't even know how to address this conversation because it kind of feels like people who are saying, well, I kind of want to eat, but I don't want to pay someone to prepare me the food. And I don't want to go to the supermarket and I don't want to cook and I don't want to go to the kitchen, but I want food in front of me right now. And I'm like thinking, I don't even know where we actually start having this conversation.
Um, And it's so interesting to me because I'm like, I, firstly, I'm so obsessed with how unreasonable the, the request is to just be paid for your labor and not have to worry about anything else and have the business perks. Like I, I am obsessed that people think that that is legitimate, but it's so funny that I'm like, I literally left speechless when conversations like this happen around founders.
that have the identity of business owner, they have the identity of entrepreneur, but then all of the things that it actually takes to be an amazing entrepreneur, it doesn't even feel like it feels me even mildly suggesting it is such an unreasonable request. You know, I think this also comes back to Do you just want money or do you love the thing that you are doing? I do believe that we have a whole lot of entrepreneurs that are probably do things, doing things out of obligation.
They have things in their business that they're doing because they're good at it, or they have things that they are doing because someone told them that they should, or this is what they think that they should be doing. Or this is, you know, it's not actually what they want to be doing. They have built a business based on what other people expect or, or what they think that they expect. And I think because of that, we have a lot of people that don't actually love their business.
I think that that is a real thing. You know, I believe that you can get paid for anything and that if you can get paid for anything, that you should love what you get paid for. And this is up to you to really drive your business in a direction that you enjoy and have really nice high standards to ensure that you are happy with how everything is turning out. I'm obviously in a bit of a unique situation myself. I have actually never really had a job.
I've folded t shirts at JJ's, I worked at Q for like a month before I got sacked. Like I've, I have done casual labor. But you know, from when I was 20, I worked for myself. And I have for now, oh my gosh, the past six, am I six? I've, I ticked over into 16 years. I've worked for myself for the past, like 16 years. And I think for me, like I always knew for me to get paid, it wasn't just about doing my job and doing it well.
It was about doing my job and doing it well, but doing everything else around that to ensure that I could do my job. And what I mean by this is it's like, well, if I need clients in a Pilates class, I'm going to have to market. I'm going to have to do my branding. I'm going to have to get out there. And if I can't afford to market and, and pay to Oh my gosh, ads in a paper or ads on television. I'm going to have to print flyers and I'm going to have to go and drop them in letterboxes.
I'm going to have to go and talk to business. So for me, I was like, for me to do my job, I was so aware of everything that kind of surrounded that. And I think especially if you have come from, Corporate, or you have come from employment. We can forget about everything that actually has to happen for us to have a job in the first place. We had a founder with a vision for a business that did everything that they could to ensure that they had enough work to pay you and employ you.
And that looks like depending on the business, getting clients or getting You know, like a database, it involved selling and involved having processes. It involved having a brand, all of these things had to actually happen. For you to have a job in the first place. And I think because we weren't involved in all of that, it can be really easy to forget all of the moving parts that, that happened. You know, you can think back right now to your last job.
I want you to think about all the people that worked there and I want you to think about how long that company was around for that happened all before you started. And that. was the reason that you had employment. So if you are just expecting to show up to business and stuff to be working, I think sometimes you need to remember of everything that actually has to line up before we can get paid.
And this is also a testament to you, because if you are currently getting paid, if someone is paying you, then you're You have already done so much groundwork to get to the point of getting that first sale and that first sale is a fucking achievement because if you can convince someone to give you money, fucking amazing, but I think you need to remember that, you know, that's just the start. Like, this is incredible.
You've made your first sale, but actually having a business and moving forward requires. So much more than that. And it requires continually doing everything all at once. And I think for a lot of people that can feel really overwhelming. And I don't think what helps either is the new wave of business coach and the new wave of business coach, very much positions that you can just decide and you can get into alignment.
And if you work according to, I don't know, you're like human design, or if you just have a good morning routine, or if you just do the one thing. One thing, if you just do that, everything will fall into place. And I think because of that, we have all of these business owners, and I fucking feel for them. We have all of these business owners that have been told that there is just one thing. That's it. One thing. And that everything will fall into place because that's what happened to them.
They were struggling. Everything was hard, but it all changed when they got the messaging, right? Oh, it all changed when they did this. But it doesn't work like that because I find the only person that that really works for is the person that is actually selling the solution. Like how random that everything changed for you when you got your messaging, right? And now you've got a call to action for a messaging course. How amazing is that?
That like it was your morning routine and now I'm going to sell you my coaching package, you know, so be really conscious of the advice that you get and the call to action that follows. Like shit, I do this, I do this with, with email, but I really hope that you can get into my business. You can experience it and you actually can witness firsthand. Hey, This bitch walks the talk. She talks about email, but she seems to have everything working for her, like everything actually does work.
It is this beautiful ecosystem held together with email. She doesn't have an assistant. It's just her. And yet she has a worldwide business of multiple offers. She's cool, calm, and collected somehow always has a blow wave. This, there is something to it here. I think that if, if you. If you want to make a dollar in business, you have picked the path of entrepreneurship. You have picked a very hard way to make a dollar if you do not like anything about it.
If you just want to do your job, so what people pay you for, and you do not want to do anything else, you have picked a very fucking hard way to make a dollar. And I, I don't know. Do you believe that business is the best thing in the world? I think I have the best job in the world. I love it. I love what I do, but do I think that business is for everyone? No, I don't.
And I think that we would have a lot more happy people if they were to take their job back to being a side thing, and they would have regular money coming in where, you know, if they wanted to coast, they could coast. And I know that this may feel like the opposite of what you would expect from this podcast. Like me saying, Hey, get a job. But I deeply care about people.
And I know at times I may come across like I'm really stern and I'm a bit of a bitch, but I can't imagine the pressure and the stress of not loving anything about business and having to do that on a regular basis to get paid, to sustain your life. That to me does not sound like a fun way to live. And I do believe that there can be a better way.
And something as well to consider is, if you have never done any formal business training, if you have never worked with someone, if you have figured a lot of this stuff out yourself, you are going to be doing things in a way with an ineffective process. Or you're going to be doing things in a way where this is a bit It's a bit hard. It's going to be really quite clunky. And because of that, no wonder you feel stressed.
I have this with clients all the time where they're like, Oh my God, launching is really stressful. I hate launching. And then you find out how they launch. And it's like, yeah, I'm not really surprised that you're stressed because you're stressed. We could make this a lot more fun, a lot more simple, knock this over in an afternoon and you're going to approach this really differently. So I will say that as well.
I think how a lot of people do business is probably, it's like a self taught learned behavior. And because of that, there are probably going to be some things that are happening that Aren't that fantastic that if we were to clean up, you would be looking at the business side of things very, very, very differently. Now, before we move on, I do want you to see that there is a difference, right? You've got your job, so you've got what people pay you for.
So for example, if you work with me in business, bang business, bang is my job. If you work with me and give good email, give good email is my job. If you buy one of my, like my 35 offering, creating that for you is my job. But what is my business is everything. That got to the point of that existing. It is putting together offer. It is doing the marketing. It is deciding on the sales angle. It is putting together all of the sales content. It is making sure that we have priced it for profit.
It is making sure that that's going across to zero. Okay. And that's being reconciled. Okay. And that I'm talking to my financial team and I'm looping in my accountant. That is the business. Now, do I love everything involved in that? I have a love hate relationship with some things. Like if I could just turn up and sell and like do my, my podcast and create content and work with clients, I would love that.
But I'm also acutely aware that I have a business and sometimes I'm going to have to do things that I don't like, you know, I, there is a belief in business. Oh, you can outsource that. That's fine. But unless you like, unless you're funded by a Murdoch and you have like an endless supply of cash, you're either going to run out of money where you're going to have to do it yourself, or you're going to have to make a decision on where the money is going to come from to do that.
As I said earlier, if you have a really good system, stuff is going to be easier. But I think this is where we get to like brand things to be a bit sexier. And I think for some of us, we may be looking at the business side of things as unsexy and that we just don't want to do it because our job is so sexy. And I think this is where we get to add things into. The sexy evidence bag of, Oh my gosh, business is hot. This is a real hot activity.
Like, you know, if you don't like the finance side, or if you don't like, I don't know, creating like offer links in Kajabi, you can rebrand that as a sexy activity, or you can make it an experience, you know, get out of the house, do it in a cafe, put some music on, get glammed up, like put a blow wave on, put some hot tunes on, spritz some perfume around the room, get a beautiful tea, drink out of an amazing glass. Whatever organized lunch after you can do that a hundred percent.
You can do that. Like bring, bring fun into your business. This does not need to be a drag, but for you to do your job and to do it well, and to have a business that is a business. You've got to have that happen. Gary Vee always says love the process. And part of that is the process to build something amazing. Like if you are like, Oh, I know I want to impact this many people, or I want to make this much money, or I want to do whatever I want to do. You have to love the process to that.
It's not going to be this end point of once I'm there, everything is fine. Because it's like how you. I would tell my clients, like how you get the body is how you maintain the body. Like if you want a really hot Pilates body, but you hate coming to Pilates, the Pilates body is going to be maintained by continual Pilates. So if you don't like this, don't come, you're, you would be better off to go and find a type of exercise that you love because you want to stick with that.
And this is the same in business. Like if you don't love something. Like, how can we kind of get it to a point that you either enjoy the process or you tolerate it, or you have done it enough that, you know, the outcome is amazing enough that you'll, you'll stick to it. For example, I've spoken at length on this podcast that I have had, The money side of things in my business really be my Achilles heel. I've had things in the past where my financial structure wasn't set up properly.
Then I went to get almost audited when I first started my business. We've just had a lot of things happen there. And this was something that I avoided for such a long time because there was a lot of pain. And then I was like, well, hold on, let's like get on top of this. And now I really love being on top of this because I love that I never have to deal with that again. So even though, do I love paying tax and bass? No. Do I love all of that side of things?
Not particularly, but do I love the fact that now this works really well because I've experienced the other side of that? A hundred percent. And that feels really good. So when we have a business, there are going to be things that we are going to have to do. And I think at times we can think that stuff is like, beyond us. And I know I have had conversations with clients where I'm like, we need to do a business plan.
Or the reason I have a CFO in my business is because I have witnessed firsthand what not having control over your money can do to your business, but also to you and your mental health and even your physical health. don't ever convince yourself that you are too small to do things because you think that this is something that like big business has to do. You know, for example, you may not want to do spreadsheets for your money. You may be like, Oh, I don't want to do this.
I don't want to, I don't want to know my profit margins. I don't want to have to go and do that. I don't want to have to like work out all of these dollar figures. This feels really beyond me. Because the thing is, if you have a big vision for yourself, you are going to have to start that eventually. And would you rather start that now when it's small, a pickup mistakes, because we need to remember that everything scales and everything will grow. And with that, that is good.
But the shadow side of that is that is all the fuckery. So if you have a mistake, that is, small at a hundred K a year, what do you think that mistake unchecked is going to look like at a million dollars a year? You know, that could be a really, really big, costly mistake. And also we forget about the cleaning up of the mess and things that have to happen. So there are gonna have to be some things that in business that I would recommend that you do.
And I know that you may be like, yes, but I have gotten to this point where I have been really successful and I've made money by not having that. And that is wonderful. But I feel that it, it, it's, it's not an indication of future success. It's like, yes, you can make a dollar and you can make a dollar very well. But if you want to continue to make a dollar, you don't want you not doing something in the past to be the reason that you fall down and, later in the line.
Okay. Because of something that you kind of haven't done.. If we have an amazing skill or vision or drive or passion, it is up to us to nurture that and put systems in place and things in place to ensure that we can make this as big as we want and that we have a legacy. Or thinking even on a different aspect of this, that we can actually make sure that we can keep paying ourselves.
And especially if our business is sustaining us, if, if it's sustaining the lives of our contractors or our family, whatever it is that we have things in place that that keeps happening and that this isn't going to trip us up in the future. Does that sound good? I thought so. All right. So this is where we get to look at fantasy versus reality. And I think sometimes we can be in this like fantasy mindset of, I just need to decide, and I need to like move forward and think big.
And then this is all kind of just going to happen and it's all going to work out. And that would be lovely, but we need to remember the reality around it and your reality will give you your fantasy. So you may be like, I want to make a That's all fine, but you need to make sure that you have a process to make that happen because you're not just going to, it's, it's, you can't skip ahead. You can't skip ahead to the outcome and then wonder why it's not happening.
And I see this a lot where people will in their launches, for example, this is a good one. They will spend the money that they don't have by getting excited about the result that they want. And then anytime their launch doesn't do well, they feel like that that result is slowly being pulled away from them.
So they could go into a launch wanting to make a hundred thousand dollars, they get really excited, they vision their life, they vision what everything looks like, and then Every time they hear a no, or if they have a day with no sales, it's, it's like that vision is being kind of pulled away from them. So this is where, of course, having a plan, having systems in place and knowing that, well, Hey, this, this fantasy that I want, this dream life is.
Obviously going to happen if I am really consistent with this plan that I have and with, you know, knowing my numbers and my launch plan. And yes, it may take longer. Yes. It may take a couple launches, but I know because I've got all this worked out. This is just going to be inevitable. You can see here how that has like a different energy between hoping and then not getting, because hope is not a strategy versus I'm actually going to like, think about this as a business.
And if it's not working, that's okay. I'm not going to make it mean shit. All right. Don't skip too far ahead. And then when. You have like moved at the speed of light and the results and your audience and everything else hasn't caught up, you know, don't fuck a good business because we want to kind of just jump over everything. That's something I've done before. I've done this a lot.
I used to do this with give good email where I was like, I just want to have a launch and I sell a hundred and you know, when the sales would come in, in like bits and pieces, it's really funny. But I was like, Oh, this isn't successful because it's like, I was basing the success on the ease that I wanted and not. The actual metrics of success, which were people were talking about my program. I was getting daily emails. We would still have sales come through.
We wouldn't have to do any Facebook advertising. I think I've done like in total two weeks in four years of Facebook ads. And I'm like, this is successful. It's just taking a little bit longer than you like, but that's okay. The next thing to think about is. Is like having a CEO versus employee mindset.
I've done a really good podcast on this, but we want to make sure that we are not approaching our business like an employee and something employees do is they look at the money and they think it's their money and not it's the business's money and they get paid out of the business's money. Uh, we also want to make sure that we see separation between doing the job and then having a business and how. The doing the job is part of having a business, but how doing our job is not our business.
For example, me turning up and teaching a give good email call is not my business. It's me doing my job. It is what people pay me for. Then from here, we can look at sacrifice and trade offs. God, this is such a sexy episode, isn't it? But the thing is, what is going to be so amazing is, for a lot of you, I feel that this may be stuff that can feel a bit like, oh, this feels new, or, oh, I don't like this.
How amazing is this going to be when you feel really at ease with this and you are, you are happy for sacrifice? And you love that. Guess what happens when you finally get the result that you want, that is going to be so incredible and so sweet, because if you are happy with everything else that's happening in your business, by the time you get this sexy result, you are just going to be like on cloud nine. All right.
So this is where we may need to potentially look at trade offs and some of this trade off could be, I am going to have to pay myself less because I I know I need to hire a skilled expert to help me. I may have to pay myself a little bit less because we need to get this website. I may need to have to work a little bit more because I want to take some time off over Christmas and we are not financially there or there with this offer where I know that I can have time off and not stress. All right.
You know, the trade off could be, I am probably going to have to do some work at night, whatever it is. And you know, this isn't me telling you that you need to work an 80 hour week. You can ask any of my clients. I am usually the one that holds boundaries at a higher standard than they do. And we'll regularly say, I feel you're taking too many clients. I feel you're working too much, you know, but there are going to be times You are going to have to do things that you don't necessarily love.
I have been coming into work every Saturday. I have been working a six day week. And I, the other Friday night was up editing a podcast till 1230 at night. And then. I was in here on Saturday and I was filming content. And it's really funny when I tell people that and they're like, Oh, that sounds terrible. And I was like, Oh my God, I loved every minute of it. I actually really enjoy the process. I enjoy doing this stuff in my business because guess what?
There is going to be a point in time where I do not have the luxury of sitting in my bed. Taking time to edit my podcast and like really being on the ground doing this because PB will get to a point where we are so big that someone else will be doing this. And my role within my own business will change where I am guiding the business forward, but I am not on the ground doing all of this stuff. I'm almost like at times the talent in my business.
Like I come and I record the podcast and then someone else does everything else. And I want you to just sit with that for a second, that it's like, you know, I don't have children, but I used to hear this from my Pilates clients all the time that your kids grow up so quickly. And I think that there is going to be a point in time where you will look back at all of the stuff that you were like, I don't want because your business has gotten so bigger.
And with that, your role has Um, and it's, it's shifted in your business. So don't overlook that because I think that there's, there's so much stuff that at the time can feel funny. But when you look back, you'll look back with a completely like different, different light. I think another thing to think about as well is, you know, if this whole notion of business versus doing our job, we can think about the stuff in business that, that has to kind of continue.
For us to have a job, for us to get paid and for our business to keep moving forward. You know, one of them is money. Do you have a plan for your money? Do you have a plan for money coming in? Do you have a plan for money management? How is your business structured? Uh, if, uh, and I heard someone say this on Tik TOK and I was so obsessed with it. Um, Uh, she uses in relation to like, I think people like getting fit. She was like, if aliens were watching you, would they know what you were doing?
And it's like, we could use this same approach in business. If aliens were watching you, would they be able to run your business? Would they be able to be like, Oh, well, she seems to do this. And she seems to do that. And she puts her podcast out here and these are her offers, or would they be confused? So we want to have real structure and real clarity. You know, one of my business expanders is Brooke Castillo, Brooke Castillo from the life coach school. I love her.
She like, if we look at her business at a real simple level, she has. She teaches, she's like an RTO. So she teaches people how to become a life coach. And then she has a membership based model called, um, I think it's called get, get coach. You should be called a self coaching scholars. She does other things as well now, but they will like really her two things that she did, she worked three days a week.
And she said that when they worked, when she worked three days a week, she worked really hard. All of her team had assistance as well. They had the podcast. They. would put stuff out on like blogs as well. And they did like paid advertising. And if you like type her name into Google, there is a podcast episode. She shot with someone where I think she was doing 400, 000 a year. I don't, I don't know what the year it was. It was like. 2014 or something.
And then I think it was like in 2022, she had a 50 million US year. And I just, I think with that, I'm like, Oh my God, I just love, I love your approach to business. I love everything about how you do it. I love the simplicity, but the reason that it works because it's so simple is because she has this amazing structure that supports that. And I think sometimes is where there can be a bit of a disconnect with people where we're like, well, I just want simple.
I want to just put out an Instagram post or I just want to do this. But it's like her approach was simple, but how everything happened within that to support that, like the work was there and they were of course, very like ROI driven. Ensuring that everything that they were doing was, was moving towards this beautiful outcome, this North Star that Brooke had, which was to earn a hundred million dollars a year as a life coach, which again, obsessed.
Another thing that you need to consider is you have to, you have to do two things every day. You need to be visible. You have to have a lead gen strategy, and then you have to have a sales strategy. Because if you don't have eyeballs, you can't have people pay you. And if you don't have people pay you, you don't have a business. And those two things are very important because, you know, the statistics are around why like businesses close and why they stop. And one of those things is cashflow.
And one of those things is, you know, that there is just not enough profit. So. We can't have profit if we don't have money coming in and we don't have cashflow if we don't have money coming in. So if you don't have a proven formula for you to sell, and this is something you just don't want to do, and do not fall into the trap of being like, I'm not a sales person, sales comes before the service. Uh, and especially if you don't want to sell, fuck man, business is going to be tough.
But you know, you, We'll also find with this, especially if you are newer in business, or maybe you're like, I've been here for a while, but I know selling is not my strong point. Everything is going to feel funny until it doesn't. And the reason that it starts to not feel weird is because it just becomes so familiar and you do this so much that that just becomes like your new normal. For example, I put makeup on every day.
I get up, even if I'm doing laundry in my house and I'll put my ace on and people say to me, doesn't that feel weird to just get up and put makeup on to do laundry? And I'm like, no, because I do it every day to a point where if I don't do it, that doesn't feel normal. So you want to get to a point where. The daily repetition of all of these tasks just feels so, so normal.
I'm going to close by saying this, you know, I feel that back in the day you could show up wherever you were and you could have an amazing idea and that would be enough. My wonderful CFO Sharon says about, you know, the people that have an idea and a, and a laptop and they feel that they should get paid. And I think that Sometimes there is this belief that, well, because I do have this amazing idea, and because I'm good at my job, then I should get paid.
And it's like, I wish that it worked like that. I really wish that it did, because I see so many incredible people that are amazing at what they do, and they don't get the money that they should get. And I wish that it would work that everyone who was amazing got paid and everyone who was terrible didn't, but that's not going to happen because this is life and that's just really unfortunate.
So you want to make sure that you don't have this expectation that because you did the work and because you ticked the boxes that you deserve to be paid because it just doesn't work like that. This is business, you know, it's different when it's your job, you've shown up to work. Great. Give me my paycheck. But when you are in control of your business and your destiny, and you do all of this, there are so many other factors that. We need to consider.
So make sure that your ego is not cock blocking you here because ideas are easy. Everyone has them every single day. You look at the people that when the Olympics was on, they're like, I could do that. That's not that hard. Guess what? They fucking didn't. So I think that when you want to create an amazing business and you want to have an amazing business, ideas are incredible, but it's just the first step.
And there are an abundance of incredible ideas, but what is lacking is good business and good execution. And that is something that is available to you. A hundred percent. It is, of course, you listen to this podcast and I give you amazing tips and amazing advice. And when you work with me, that becomes next level. So I will put my offers below, explore them. If you're not in GiveGoodEmail, join.
If you are an established business owner and you want to grow a profitable business, you want to actually learn how to run your business like a business and become the best damn entrepreneur that you can be. So developing yourself in both of those aspects join Business Bang. We've got the waitlist for that open. I'll put that below. So, Hot Stuff, I've loved this episode. I've loved this so much. I love this. I love you. I love you more than this sexy little light that Kay lent me.
I sit across from Kay. She's a babe and she has just the coolest little things. She is always someone that just has like, Her outfits, her accessories. She had this like little light and she showed me and I'm like, where is this from? And she's like, do you want to borrow it? And I'm like, yes, this is the best I've ever looked.
If you're listening to the podcast and you're not watching this on YouTube, like maybe go to YouTube and just have a look at the episode and then have a look at how incredible I look. Um, so I love you more than that. I also love you more than, um, I've been putting these, my podcast up on YouTube and I haven't really told anyone yet. I've actually seen people watch the episodes, which has been really good. You know, I started a, like a YouTube account.
Actually, I've had two, I had a Pilates one and I had the professional babe one. And, you know, building an audience on YouTube is no easy feat. And it was something that was really interesting to just obviously watch like the search data of what people were clicking on and what they're engaged with. So I love you more than that. My data brain is obsessed with that. I love you more than the fact that. free lunch that we had at work today. We had, um, what is it?
Like banh mi, I can't do pate though. That's the only thing, but I had, it was like, was it is like, oh my gosh. It was incredible. Like pork. Everything was sensational. Stuffed full of coriander. I love a sexy herb. I love coriander. I'm team, team coriander. Hardcore on the herb. Uh, so I love you more than that. Ooh, I love you more. I bought like a stamp. Not a sexy stamp, like a really functional stamp. You know how you put like the return address on envelopes?
That. Because I was like, this feels inefficient to be writing my address down 5, 000 times so I bought a stamp. It's hot. It's sexy. Hot stuff. I love you. I'm going to get kicked out of this meeting room in one minute. So let's wrap it up here. I will see you on the next episode. Go forth, make money, be hot. I love you. Mwah. If you're craving more, make sure to subscribe to my email list, which you can find at professionalbabe.com. And word on the street I give good email.
Now go and take everything you've learned, get your hands dirty with it, and go and make some serious money.