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. I'm gonna start by saying that the most embarrassing thing happened today. I was walking through the hallway at work, I was doing my little supermodel walk to the desk, and my fucking stiletto snapped in half.
I was like, have I just had a moment where I've lost my balance? No, it literally snapped my heel. And I'm currently barefoot in my beautiful office with people looking at me. Where they're like, this is very Newcastle Beach of you, girlfriend, put some shoes on, or get the fuck out of here. So, that's fine, we're doing it anyway, I'm low key mortified, but it is what it is. Of course I'm gonna create content out of it. More importantly, we've got a podcast episode to get to.
I put up on my stories last night. Um, I was like, what are you needing? How do you want me to help? because I'm going to be honest. I was like, I don't even know what to talk about today. I feel like I could talk about everything and anything, but nothing was really standing out. And as I was doing something mindless, as it always happens, the perfect idea bubbled to the surface. And it was inspired by two conversations that I had this week.
One of them was from a new client who said that she put up an opinion about something on threads. And it resulted in a really big pile on. And the second was from some clients that I'm working with at the moment who have been. Um, worried about a new offer that they're about to put out how it is going to be received. And as someone that has had numerous pylons to a point where I have hired a defamation lawyer.
I feel that this is my duty to talk about what the fuck to do when bitches online hate you. The funny thing is these days, I feel in the online space, it doesn't matter what you do or how you do it or what you say, you are always going to rub someone the wrong way. You know, even the fact that I just said what to do if bitches hate you, I know that if I had a bigger profile, I had more followers, and I said that, that that would be enough for a pile on in the comments.
I think the first thing is just accepting that this is how it is these days, but as I always like to come back to the fact that This is my life and it is happening right now. And if I decide that I don't want to live my true and authentic self, it is not like I'm going to get another chance to do this. I had someone tell me once this, when I feel like that I was kind of. Maybe holding back myself and holding back my authentic self.
And she literally held my shoulders and looked at me and said, this is your life and it is happening right now. You are on stage. There is no dress rehearsal. This is it. And I think it was just the aggressiveness of how she said it really shocked me and you know, the funny thing was this was before I had started my business, business consultancy.
And hearing that was one of the reasons that I started this because there was part of me that was so stressed about what people would say or what they would think or how they would say it, or who's this fucking bitch. Who's like a business consultant, whatever it is. As someone that is a seasoned professional at dealing with hate and haters online, I was like, why don't we record, record an episode?
And maybe this is something that is not going to apply to you right now, but I'm hoping that this can be a podcast episode that if you have had a particular pylon, that you can come back from it and that you are going to be okay. I'm going to say too, that. Hate, I believe happens from two things.
One is when you have a truly authentic opinion and potentially an opinion that feels a little bit polarizing, that maybe feels a little bit scary that you would say around friends, but maybe you don't say stuff online. I think hate can happen when it is something that is. Not really normalized or even normalized in a particular audience. I see this a lot when people say I accidentally went across to like a different for you page on Tik TOK and it hit an audience it was not meant for.
And I think that it can also happen as you grow your brand and it is something that we all have to come to terms with, especially if we feel that we want to have a really big and wonderful abundant business, that it doesn't matter how nice and how loved we are by our friends and family is that when we show up on someone's feed or if they read an article or they stumble on our brand on a particular day that we cannot be responsible for the reaction that they have.
That they are just going to have that reaction. And even if we say something that is completely in our authenticity, and if we're saying it in a way where there is no malice and we're not here to harm people, that people will take what we're saying, however they want to take it. And it is usually impacted by factors in their life, in their day and around their mood.
And the sooner you realize this, the happier you'll be, because you'll realize, and maybe this has happened to you before, that you have gone out of your way to be nice, or you've done something to be nice, and for whatever reason, someone has taken it the completely wrong way. So I have a couple examples of where this has happened to me. I read an article, oh my gosh, when was this?
I think it was like 2016 or 2017 about how if I went out with a guy and he wanted to split the bill on a first date, I wouldn't go out with him again. And that ended up with me having to hire a lawyer because an article, a company, sorry, had taken this so out of context. They had pulled quotes out and they had created an article. And I remember I had people text me say, Hey, you probably should check Facebook. There's an article out about you.
And you know, this was something that I felt like I was immune to the, it happened with the daily mail, the sun, uh, my articles were spoken about on radio. I've been on television, but this was next level. And I remember opening Facebook and seeing an article that said, don't date Peter Saris. And it's so funny because I feel like that I was a no one. It's not like that I was an A grade or B grade or even like D grade celebrity.
I was a writer that had an opinion that wrote personal experience pieces. And this was the fact that if a guy organizes a date and he wants to split the bill, I'm not going to go out with him again. The company had taken parts of the article and they had framed it in a particular way that it was definitely inciting hate for a male audience that may not like women that much, or women that are, as Shira7 would say, pick me shes.
So imagine opening Facebook and seeing this article that says, don't date Peter Sarris. And I am looking at this being, what the hell? Now, this was back in 2019. And it was after the comment that my friend had said to me around, this was my life and it's happening right now. And I think this was actually the next week that this happened. And I look back and do I regret what happened? No. Do I regret how I handled it?
Look I could have done it better but at the end of the day I have gone through the shit and that is why I'm doing a podcast episode on this as someone that You know, I had a situation that got really out of hand. The thing is now, if that same thing happened, I would handle it in a completely different way.
The problem was back then I wasn't too sure of who I was and it got me in a moment where stuff felt not so great and things were feeling uncertain and I didn't know who I was, that it really scratched an itch so much that it really fucking bled out. So that happened. And then I am transported to another period of time when I rebranded professional babe. So I had started it myself.
I did the website, I reused images, and it came a point in time after I'd had a couple of successful, give good email launches where I'm like, it's time to get a sexy website, do a branding shoot and really elevate what I'm doing. And I remember at the time that I wanted something that was really quite editorial. I did not want to look like a business consultant. I wanted people to look at my website and felt like that it was a digital magazine. I didn't want any pictures of laptops.
I didn't want anything that felt like it was a business. Uh, how I briefed my photographer is I said, I want, you know, French or Italian Vogue, 1970s. You know, think cocaine vibes, no hint of business. That's the vibe that I want. And I feel that we got that across when you look at the images. And I remember when I released my website, I put all the new branding out there, how excited I was. And even though I know that you love it.
Let me tell you that people did not the amount of feedback that I had about my pictures and that my boobs were out and that I had real salacious content. Like I was talking about web patch content and wet dreams and that I had an offer, which was called the rockstar experience where you could come. I'd put you up at the Ovalo hotel. We'd spend a whole day together.
And I felt like that, you know, this time I was not dealing with the general public, but I was dealing with my peers and I was dealing with my friends and this hurt so much more. Although the other stuff felt like this real public pylon, this felt, it felt like it was a real dig against me because where this was hard is for the first time. Probably in my whole entrepreneurial career, I felt like that I had somehow managed to distill a piece of me into my digital presence, into these photos.
And when I looked at them, I saw my future self reflected back and I saw a brand that I knew that I could grow into and I could see it being successful. And to hear my parents, my close friends, and people in my co working space just not understand the vision. And not only understand the vision, really tell me what they think about it, without me asking. It was hard to deal with.
And the difference was between when I got trolled the first time versus when the second thing happened, it was that I was so much more sure of myself. I couldn't give a fuck what anyone thought. I did not care that you didn't like the images. I don't care that you're like, who is she to put out an offer where she's charging 10 grand for this? I didn't care that you. Well like how can she be a business consultant and there's all of this sexual innuendo.
I didn't care because at the end of the day, what I remembered is that a lot of people don't like themselves. So why the fuck do I care if they like me when they look in the mirror and they look at their life and they're not happy. And I think we need to remember, especially as we're going into a period of growth, if we are leveling up our brand, we're having a price increase, we're starting to talk about all of the things that we have held back is that we are showing up as a new version of us.
And for some people, especially if they feel like they hold themselves back, that can be really activating because they see something that we are doing. that they could never do because they don't trust themselves to do it, or they are so fearful of it. And I think because of that, it is really easy for you to agitate other people. And when all of this happened, I came back to myself and you know, it like, not every day was easy.
I remember once sitting down at my Co working space and we were networking and this guy sat across from me. It was like speed networking. And he said to me, I said, Oh, hi, I'm Peter. And he was like, yeah, I know who you are. Don't you think your brand's a bit thirsty? And that was the first thing that he has said to me. And then he said in the second sentence, a couple of the guys and I were talking about it. And we just like, don't even get what you do.
And then it's so interesting because he actually kept going on, but. When I had left that situation and I had gone home, I realized that although he did not like my brand, my brand worked because he remembered everything I did. He remembered what I did. He remembered what my offers were called. He remembered things about my business and my brand. And although he didn't like it, it wasn't effective.
And the more that I went on to know these guys, the more that I realized that their shit in their own business wasn't sorted. And as someone that could show up and be really authentically themselves, again, that can be really quite activating.
So I think knowing this, we need to always remember that we have to have such a strong sense of self and you know, the podcast episode I recorded before this was all around identity and how we need to have such a strong sense of identity that doesn't waver based on external factors like someone purchasing or someone buying. Or someone doing something.
And I think the same can be said when we get feedback about what we do or we get hate about what we do, is that there are going to be times when that hate is coming because it is reminding people about our growth and how we show up and the fact that we are doing something that they could never do now something also really great to remember is that.
Now that we are more in the digital space and that people are using ManyChat, they're using bots, I think that people can forget that there is another person on the other side of a phone or on the other side of a website. And that they feel that they can be talking to a robot because, you know, technology has taken the human element out of doing business and out of just being a real fucking person.
And I'm not excusing that, like I'm not saying it's fine, but, you know, I know that there have been times when I am wanting to like unleash on a brand because I've had bad service. And I remember that, yeah, although I've had an experience with this brand. It's a person that's going to have to be dealing on the receiving end with my bad mood. And are they really deserving of that? And the answer is no. You know, I, I am someone that probably has a little bit of a temper. I get a bit spicy.
It's the Aries moon. I love to just be a little aggressive. I like a nice little outlet. And it's something that I've really had to work to keep myself in check when I feel like that I just want to unleash and go a bit crazy. Is that. You know, you don't want someone to be on the receiving end of your crap. So I had a session maybe about three months ago with Sophia from True North, which she is incredible. And this actually came up.
I said to her that there was part of me that was actually really fearful about showing up because I was worried that I would be on the receiving end of other people. I have some opinions about business and I feel at times that I can't talk about them because people are going to come at me with their pitchforks. One of them was when I talked about the fact that if you are doing payment plans in a business, You probably should do a surcharge because it does cost the business more.
And I remember seeing people post online that it's unethical to do that. And that it's a cost of doing business and really looking at the worst, worst, worst examples of unethical people in business and tying that to them and making out that anyone who did that was associated with these people and what. I witnessed, and we've all witnessed this as well, is the comments were a real pylon, siding with this person's opinion.
What we need to remember is when stuff like that happens, if you are seeing a group of a hundred people, and they're all like, yeah, fuck this. It is really rare that someone is going to put their hand up and be like, I completely disagree with everything that you're saying. That just doesn't happen. And the reason that doesn't happen is because a lot of people want to protect their energy and protect their peace, and they just don't want to be involved in a pylon.
So this is really helpful to remember, especially if you feel that you are holding yourself back around talking about things where. We need to remember that you may feel that you are the only one with this opinion, but there are so many people out there that think the same and we don't want. Our judgment to be clouded by how much of a vacuum the online space can be and how we feel that people have this, this particular opinion. Uh, she gets a mention in every single episode.
So why would this one be different? But I remember when I hosted my first ever in person event, the ultimate email relationship and Emma from the broke generation brought up a really good point around why email is amazing. And she mentioned that.
You know, you could put something out there and that people are going to receive that in their private inbox and they're not going to like intake the information or read it and then look at the comments and have their opinion and how they feel about something be swayed by what the comments say and that they can form their own opinion.
And I loved that and it brought up a really good point and why, you know, I love email and this can be something if you feel like that you maybe are, I don't want to say you're struggling to find your voice, but you're holding yourself back because you are worried about the criticism of family members of random people online of like the dregs of the internet.
Is that you can start to actually practice this in email marketing, because you know that if someone hates you, not everyone's going to see it. It's just going to be you in your inbox and that you're not going to have people that just see because others are hating you or they disagree with you, but there's going to be a pile on. You also have the ability to segment.
So if you want to send out a campaign and you want to say something and you don't want people to read it, I've got my mom on my mailing list and sometimes I will hide her. I'll be like, yeah, Jan's not going to get this email. Because I'm just like, it's really important for me to kind of say this without then worrying about another element or another layer. And I think that you get to a point in time where you stop caring.
This has been advice that I've given clients before when they're like, Oh, I'm really worried about this. And I'm like, great. Mute them from stories and then show up authentically on stories and like develop that.
Uh, develop that like muscle and then you'll feel like that you almost get some like, we'll call it business muscle memory so that when you show up and you actually post this publicly or you talk about it more, you have all of this data behind you and you've practiced this enough that you know that it's okay to speak authentically and that everything is going to be okay, something as well that I have Realized online.
And I think that this is, it's probably common in all spaces, but my business is B2B, so I'm going to speak into this for a second is that there are some people in the online space that I respect their business. I respect how they do things, but I look at the audience they attract and how some of them are haters. I look at the content and like your content does well because it, it hates on other people and the people who follow you are haters.
And then I look at other people and how they talk about how business is really hard and the people who follow them are the whole business is hard crowd. So anything that kind of disrupts that narrative is, of course, going to agitate these people. The question is, do you want these people anyway?
My beautiful friend, Ali. She, and I think this was in the middle of lockdown, she was putting out content once and she got into this argument online and she did, she was like in the comments and she did all of these like stories about it. She was really angry. She rang me in the afternoon. She's like, Oh my gosh, my Instagram's blowing up. I've got all of these followers. And she said, the most interesting thing happened is when she started to not hate.
All of the people that were attracted to her around hating this crap online, they just wanted to argue with her. And we had this conversation around how sometimes it's like the energy in which you bring people in is the energy that they associate with your brand.
You know, before we continue, I want you to think back to what I said at the start of the call and the fact that this is your life and it is happening right now and that this is your business and it's happening right now and that all of the content that you are putting out there forms your body of work that when you get to the day that you retire, when you get to the end of this business, that you are going to stop and you are going to look back on everything that you created and ideally you
want to get to a point where. Yeah. Yeah. You love everything you've done and you see it as a deep reflection of either your business or your growth or whatever. Why, why are you creating a business that you see it as a reflection of that? And I think one of the worst things in the world is when the opinions or the actions of other people prevent that from happening. You know, fuck those people.
So I wanted to create a little bit of a process that we can follow and just some little tips if you feel like you're there or to again reflect back with this episode. So we need to understand it's not about you. It is about them. And that when we feel that we show up, or that we present a different way of thinking, or a different way of doing business, or a different perspective, it can question something that they believe.
And especially when there is going to be a portion of people that live life in a vacuum, where all of their friends and their family, they all have the same thoughts, it's like copy, paste, copy, paste, the sheer fact of someone being visible, showing up, highlighting something completely different can be a little bit agitating to these people then we want to notice our emotional response. How are you feeling?
And this is a bit of Brooke Castillo work here, but we want to come back to the thoughts that we're telling ourselves. So Brooke Castillo, again, this is not my work. She has her framework, which is, uh, circumstance, thought, feeling, action, and result. And oftentimes what we feel is a circumstance is actually our thought about the circumstance. So the circumstance is. People are commenting negatively online, and this is where our thought could be, Oh my gosh, everyone hates me.
I feel like I'm never going to grow my business because I get pushback. So, what will then trigger that is how we're feeling. And this is where we could be like, Oh my gosh, I want to shrink. I want to feel small. I feel sick. I feel stressed. And this is where if you are quick enough, you can catch that thought that you're thinking. and you can tell yourself something different.
You can tell yourself something that in that moment it has to of course feel true, but something that makes you feel better. And what I personally do in this situation is I will reframe stuff as This is training for when I grow and how good is this that I get to practice this now with one person and I get to, you know, like practice the process. I had this recently where I. I really was pissed about how people keep telling women in business, how to spend their money.
And I put something up on stories and I said, you know, people who like literally give commentary on other people's lives, it's low fucking vibe. And someone again had taken what I said completely out of context. And they were like not giving a fuck about the planet is low vibe. I remember looking at my phone and being like, where did they even get this from? I was not even talking about this.
And how it's really interesting how I was talking about something completely different, but they had taken it a completely different way and how I wasn't even mentioning the environment. It was just the fact that I think that women should spend their money how they want. And it's really interesting when this happened, I felt my body get really hot.
I started to get sweaty and I started to get stressed and I felt myself feeling like that I was going back to the situation with the bad trolling before because My brain was telling me this person is connected. They're going to tell everyone, you know, you're going to be hated online. This is now going to be your life for the next week. And when that happened, I caught myself. I caught myself in the moment where everything was getting hot. And I was like, okay, calm down, bitch.
It does not have to be that bad. I'm like, you're a different person. Now you've grown, you can tackle this. You can handle this. Just pause, take a breath. And I want you to think before you write back and know that the block button, the block button is available. And that was what I, that's, that's how I moved through this. And it started by noticing again how I feel. Now the next step is to remember that boundaries are non negotiable.
So this comes back to obviously the boundaries and the standards that you have for yourself. And for me, I don't like drama in my business. I do love drama. I'm obsessed with it because I feel that it's really, you know, it's entertaining and it's also familiar. But for me, I don't, I don't have time for that. My mission is so big. The people I want to help need me and they don't need me to be spending hours in a fucking pylon and talking about shit.
So I make the decision that I'm going to, of course, address things. But I'm not going to let it get out of hand. Now, a little tip and something I live by is you don't want to write anything that you wouldn't be happy to read in court. Okay. Can you remember that for me? Don't write anything that you don't want to read in court, even if it's in someone's private message.
You know, this is something as well that I do is if anything was shared, if anything was screenshot and shared online, if I had to read something in court, would I be happy? Would I be happy with this? Or would I be like, Oh shit, I should have bit my tongue. And sometimes it, it will be me writing something in the notes in my phone to respond back. And it will be giving a bit of time and having a bit of space.
And if you feel like that, that feels a little stressful, put your phone down, go for a walk around the block. Allow yourself to just kind of have some space and time and then come back and look at it. And if you, if you still feel really agitated, don't send it. Wait until you're ready to respond. So we know it's not about us, and this is where we observe patterns without judgement.
What I mean by this is you may find that you have particular people within your life or within your circle that feel that they need to speak up whenever you say something. You may feel that whenever you are talking on a platform, Form or when you present this opinion that you are getting a pylon or you are getting feedback, and this is where we don't ever wanna cut things off. We kind of just wanna step back and we wanna observe things and then we make a decision.
So for example, if I have someone in my personal life that continually is giving me commentary and feedback and how I should do things. I, and again, this is practice, I will say, Hey, I understand that you really care about me and it's why you want to say this, but this is my life and I'm really happy with the decision that I'm making, or if it's someone that's giving me feedback or criticism, it depends how spicy I'm feeling.
I will say that much, but this is where I might say, Hey, I don't know if you mean to came up, I don't know if you mean to come across like that. But you're sounding a bit aggressive, or that was actually quite rude. And then I just shut up and I look at them. But I always will make sure that I never make myself smaller to avoid a fight. Another thing that I think is really important is that every single person needs a community.
That is going to hold themselves or be there if it ever gets out of hand, or if you ever feel like that you are moving in a direction and you are starting to share pieces or content or showing up in a way that potentially feels a little bit new, therefore scary. This is why masterminds or communities or a group of business friends are great. And when you feel like that, you've put something out there and you're not sure how it's going to be received.
Or if that pile on happens, uh, that you can go to these people and say, Hey, I just put something up. Can you please go write something or can you go and support the content? What was really interesting is when my trolling incident happened in 2019, they said something where it was when people see hate, it's easy to hate. It's like what is happening in the crowd will attract more of the same crowd and how a lot of people, even if you attract a hater type, if they see that the comments.
are really swinging in a positive direction, how they're going to be less likely to comment. And what the advice was, and this was back when, you know, a lot of like authors and stuff were writing on Twitter and journalists are on Twitter, is that they had a group of them and that they felt like if the comments were swaying in one direction. They got their peers to say, Oh, Hey, Julie, I loved this article. I loved your take on that.
And it's like, instead of acknowledging the hate and acknowledging what was happening, how can we crowd that out with something that's a bit more positive or it's a bit, it's a bit more affirmative. And I really, really loved that. So I know that that is available for you as well. I'm going to close by saying, I don't think this is going to get better. I don't think that we are going to show up one day and that everyone online is going to suddenly learn to communicate.
I don't think that people are going to see something and say, Hey, this is a really interesting take. I love what you said about that. Here is what I think, you know, we're not going to, to show up. And it's like, there are these beautiful discussions in the comments. It's just not going to happen. And I think sometimes what the easiest thing to do is accept that this is, is going to be how it is and creating some kind of little process that we do in ourself.
I think it firstly comes back for you having a really strong sense of identity. And I know for me, it's very much remembering that. When I post stuff, even if it feels like a controversial take and like everyone is saying something else. I'm not posting this to be a hater. I'm not doing this as like rage bait or to agitate people. I'm saying this because it's an important conversation that needs to be had.
And even if I'm on the receiving end of some people's loud opinions, there are going to be some very quiet people that have taken. The message in a way that has been intended for me and that they're not maybe going to comment, but I need to remember all of the people behind the scenes that have been impacted by how I'm showing up or what I'm sharing and they may, they may not be communicating that. Something to remember is you are going to have for your business.
So many quiet advocates, and you are going to have people that, especially when you feel brave enough to speak up or do something, how that is going to impact them in such a positive way. And I think that if there is something that the world needs more of is people who are really living in their authenticity and showing up in a particular way, because it makes it safe for other people to do the same. I don't think that we all need to agree.
I love the fact that I have diversity in my friendships and we have different opinions. I have some friends that say stuff and I'm like, Oh yeah, I don't, I don't believe that. Or I don't agree with that. I'm not going to tear them down. I appreciate their take and I will support them. I've got one more little bonus tip for you. It is really awesome. If you start to collect feedback. Of all of the positive and wonderful things people say.
Anytime you get a really beautiful comment or reply to an email, or a DM, or client feedback, and to put that in a folder. And whenever anything happens that feels like that it rocks you, or it shakes you, or it makes you want to minimize yourself and be small. Is to look at that and remember that the world fucking needs you. And tell yourself the world needs me. I get this has happened. I'm going to be okay. Process it how you need. Don't fucking sit with it for weeks, right?
Have a process to get through it quickly. Keep moving forward. And remember that the world needs you. And the world needs more people with incredible opinions who are showing up and who aren't adding to the vacuum of shit online. Ooh, ooh, ooh. Hoddy, I love this. Well, I don't love this because who wants to be trolled or who wants a pylon? Uh, but I love this. I love you more than how sensational and sexy my hair looks today.
I love you more than the fact that I just did some hot little spawn con this afternoon. Yes, some sponsored content for Flowdesk. This is my second piece with them. I love that, you know, I am a smaller creator and the company believes in me. They're like, we like you so much that we want to pay you for your content. Like, holy shit, that's incredible. So I love you more than that.
Uh, if you don't have email marketing software yet, hashtag proud partner, baby, I also can get you 50 percent off your first year. I will link that below. It is a software that I use. I've used it for, Oh my gosh, the last five years when I started my business consultancy, I had that before I even had a website. How fun. So I love you more than that. And we love to have a little foodie. a little foodie recommendation. I love you more than the raspberry Darreley milk chocolate bullets.
That I just chowed down. They were so good. It's why I've got energy. What time is it? It's 5 23. I'm fired up. I'm full of sugar. I'm full of caffeine. I'm in a great mood and I'm going to have a damn good dinner. I'm feeling steak. I think it's a steak night. I think it's steak and some broccoli and some butter, some delicious, some delicious food. Hotties. I love this. I'll see you on the next episode.
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.