From start up to scale up with Lisa Messenger📈

for ordinary people who want to do extraordinary things. Hello and welcome back to the Rise and Conquer Podcast. It is your host, Georgie Stephenson. I'm a lawyer and entrepreneur, wife, mum all the things. Today we are joined by Lisa Messenger as she unpacks what it's been like to be an entrepreneur for the last twenty years. If you don't know Lisa, she is a vibrant founder and CEO of the Messenger Group as well as the founder and editor

in chief of Collective Hub. She has authored over thirty six books in the realms of positive psychology and business, and as you're hear in today's chat, she has achieved so many incredible things. So I was just so excited to get her on the potty and to share all

her wisdom with you. So today we chat about how she has been able to continually scale her business on a global scale, what the pivoting of her business was like, what her marketing tactics are like, and basically just gives us the inside scoop of how she has been so successful in business. We also chat to Lisa about her newest book, Start Up to Scale Up, and she gives off her best tips for inspiring entrepreneurs on how they can grow a successful brand. This chat was so insightful

and I hope you enjoy it. I just I love chatting to Lisa, So you guys, you're gonna love this one. Let's get into the show.

So before I launched my business, which was the twenty second of October two thousand and one, I was working in conference and event management, and from there I love the sponsorship aspect. So often we kind of go your land somewhere and you go, which is the piece that I love of this. So I loved doing deals negotiating, and I ended up working for a company which was the last company worked for that wasn't my own, doing sponsorship for so Dislay and the Wiggles and Barring Humphreys,

and it was heaps of fun. And so in two thousand and one I started my own business. But that was kind of back before anyone was talking about entrepreneurship. I didn't know anything about podcasts or networking or mentors. So it was really kind of, you know, just foundational and rudimentary, and yeah, I didn't know definitely what I knew now or have access to what we all fortunately

have access to these days. So I left the agency because I was a little bossy pants, and my boss at the time very kindly said, maybe you'd be better off doing your own thing. So I started a kind

of sponsorship slash marketing agency. And what I'm going to say next is kind of important for anyone you know starting out, is that really for eleven years, I then over serviced, undercharged was everything to everyone didn't have systems and processes in place, and because I wasn't plugged into the things that I said before, networks, mentors, podcasts, education, So that was like a really long journey. I mean, I had a lot of fun, I made a lot

of mistakes. I ended up having a very profitable business. And then in two thousand and twelve, I was surrounded by so many entrepreneurs by then and amazing innovative thinkers and thought leaders and game changes. But I was frustrated, and frustration can be a really great space from which to start a business or really step into your purpose,

which I did in twenty twelve. Absolutely. So I decided that there were so many amazing stories being told in the media of different businesses and entrepreneurs and leaders, but often it was only the surface level that was being told. It was kind of like, you know, this person is successful because of blah, and so we were just reading about that. But I was always left scratching my head and going, but how about how? Why? But why? Like how did they come up with the funding to do that?

What's their supply chain? Like? Where do they get that made? You know? How are they finding distributors? How are they marketing this? Like? So I was always scratching my head, and I found that these conversations were being had off and behind closed doors and often very sort of hush hush, we won't talk about money, we won't give away our suppliers,

you know. And so I decided in twenty twelve to create a magazine, which I launched in February twenty thirteen called Collective Hub, which was all about, you know, the story behind the story, real, raw, attainable, relatable and you know, it's a very well documented story that I had never worked in media, I'd never worked in magazines, and I

entered a highly saturated market. There were about five and a half thousand print mags in a Styustralia alone at the time, but in eighteen months the print magazine was in thirty seven countries, and I had people like an A Winter flying me to New York to meet with her. And so after eleven years, almost twelve years of kind of you know, bumbling along, finally something really worked. And so over the course of the following five years I

did fifty four issues. It exploited. It was enormous. I was the only person in Australia to have Jamie Oliver on a cover when he flew to Australia. I've shared a stage now five times with Sir Richard Branson and we're good friends and like, it really was amazing until it wasn't so. Two thousand and eighteen, I was hemorrhaging cash. I'd grown too quickly again, didn't have the right systems

and processes in place. It was now a very large, very global business with a lot of people working for me, and so I made the courageous decision after fifty four issues to close the print magaz and from then I basically kind of sat for a while and went, Okay, I now have the confidence, the resilience, the tenacity, the self belief to know that I can do this again. But sometimes we have to break something in order to

truly remake it. And so for the last couple of years I've been producing well, we've done over sixty books, journals, dated products, affirmation cards and yeah, and it's we now have. I now have a much bigger, much more sustainable, much more global profitable business than I had back then. And we've just bought out issue fifty five of the print bag. So even though I closed it for four years, I'll probably now do one issue a year, but as a chunky coffee table book or look as we're calling it.

So that's kind of the snapshot of twenty one years.

it up, give us everything. And then you're also just so honest about you know, learning your lessons, evolving, realizing that something that worked really well for a certain amount of time, you know, then didn't and you had to pivot and you had to evolve, and just you know, taking that being like, yes, this is it.

So I would say to anyone you know in life, I mean I've been through divorce, my dad has died, you know, I've been through a lot of excruciating, very difficult, tumultuous times in both my personal life and in my business life. And it's those times if we can really lean in and go, Okay, what am I learning? What

is the lesson? You know, this is happening for me as opposed to this is happening to me and trying to reframe our mindset, then we have the ability to you know, somehow move through and rise up.

going to give us the most honest answer. How much would you say of your you know, routines and rituals really have led to your success, And could you give us an insight into you know, maybe your ideal routine, like you can do your morning routine, your routine to you know, get back into it to find motivation, whatever you want to chat about.

of ourselves. So for me, because I'm leading such a kind of large life across multiple time zones and you know, traveling a lot, so it's really imperative to me that I'm able to you know, have some structure and feel kind of centered and grounded. So for me, my morning really or my day is divided into two. And I always say to people, you know, work out what works for you, and you know, listen to the similarity. It is not the differences. But for me, I basically pre

ten am it's about me. So it's about I do some meditation, I always do some training, so exercise in the morning. I have a personal trainer, or I go to a yoga class, or I'll do a walk, and I'll do some journaling and I will do something nutrition Also, I'll always have a green smoothie and I'll listen to a podcast. So pre ten am is really for me all about filling my mind, my body, my spirit and kind of really taking all of that in. Now, that

doesn't work for everyone. You know, people have kids, they need to take them to school, they have other responsibilities. They might have an actual job where they need to turn up at eight o'clock in the morning or whatever it is. But for me, I kind of go, okay, that's my time when I'm you know, searching within, I'm filling my own cup and from there it's like game on. From ten am, it's like whatever the world needs of me.

So I'm responding, reacting to emails, my team, I'm having meetings, I'm doing podcasts, I'm doing all the things required of me during the day. But I absolutely, unequivocally use the morning to fill my cup and to fill myself up.

oh my god, I relished in it. Now I miss it so much. But it's a little bit different, but honestly much the same. And it's just about realizing that, you know, we go through seasons where it does change and you have to do different things. But like for me personally, a big ritual is like at least half an hour to an hour in the morning and the night that is for me filling up my cup. It's just, oh, it's just such a game changer.

marketing plans? You know? Should I be posting on Instagram or Twitter or LinkedIn or TikTok. If I'm on Instagram, should I be making a real or a static post or a story? Like? It can be a lot, right, And so the mistake we often make is we think I just need to be busy, I just need to keep going, I need to be frenetic, I need to

do all of it. But actually I find it is only when we allow ourselves the time and space to breathe and stop that that's when my good ideas come, or that's when I regain that sense of calm and composure, and I feel grounded and centered and only from that space can I actually do the big things.

I actually just read it. I've just went to holidays for a week in Fiji and I read it on holidays and it just it was such an amazing experience. And I think that's something you do so well, you know, with everything you do. It is such an experience, and it is the whole thing where I'm getting, you know, I'm getting the value, I'm getting, the business ideas, I'm getting all that. Plus it comes in a way that

it's very aesthetically pleasing. Please this is my eyes, and I feel like you just you encompass that so well. I would love to know what is like a simple and actionable I guess like tip or just suggestion from you to turn an idea into a business. And I'm interested in this just because I feel like you very much break the boundaries where you're not really listening, you

know what everyone else is doing. Much like you said when you started your print company, like a lot of people said, you know, print was dead, and then you completely prove them wrong. So I would love to hear your opinion on turning an idea into a business.

kind of had a different take on that. I'm like, rather than carry around an ideas book, carry around a problems book, because so often what becomes a startup idea is it often comes from a problem that we've encountered. And in fact, pretty much all of my businesses or all of the products that I produce, come from a problem. So for example, I wrote my first book in two

thousand and four and it was called Happiness Is. And the reason I wrote that was at the time, I was so incredibly unhappy and I was holding myself back and I was self sabotaging. So I was right, right, I'm going to solve this. And when I put that book out, I realized that so many other people, you know, felt the same same. With the magazine, I was like, oh, I'm so frustrated, like why isn't there media telling the story behind the story and you know, what's raw and

real and all of that kind of thing. So again I identified a problem or a gap in the market, and therefore it worked. And that can be also as simple as you just said, you're a new mum. If you're you know, putting nappies on your baby, that you realize that they're I don't know, rubbing them the wrong way, or they don't fit properly or something like that, you can identify a problem. And I think often when we identify it, it means that other people are also experiencing that.

So I highly encourage anyone to kind of carry around a problems book and just find, you know, what is lacking, what's annoying me, what am I frustrated with? Where do I find there's a gap in the market? What do I think could be done better? So that's number one. Number two would be then you need to feel into Does this excite me, juice me up, make me feel alive? Do I want to jump out of bed for this? You know? Is this a problem that I want to solve?

Because there's plenty of problems out there, and particularly as a well seasoned entrepreneur, I see things everywhere across every industry, whether I'm sitting in a coffee shop and something's annoying me, or I see I buy, you know, a piece of clothing and something frustrates me. But those things don't necessarily excite me. So the problem might exist, But if it doesn't excite me, then it's not something that I'm personally going to tackle. So yeah, number one, identify problems. Number

two does it really align with you? Does it make your soul feel alive and on fire? And number three is there some kind of commercial opportunity? I mean that is imperative, and whilst I couldn't care less about money for money's sake, I do care about it because it helps us to, you know, grow a sustainable business. So then you need to think about, well, Okay, I see a problem this idea, but are there people willing to

buy it? And if the answer to number one was as a problem, then more often than not, there is probably an audience and a market ready to buy it. So that's kind of what I do. Identify problems and make sure that they aligned with my kind of personal values and where I want to be in the world.

toilet paper. People might shy away from things that are already saturated or you know, hotels or uber or all sorts of things, right, and so in that case, it's like often with an existing highly saturated market where there's a lot of competitors and a lot of noise, that can be actually a great place to start because it means that there is a ready market. You've just got to be able to do something better and in your

own unique way. And the other side of it, which I think is your question, is around you know what if other people are saying no, don't do that, is that what you were asking?

do you have particular experience with this problem? Do you understand you know what I'm talking about, because otherwise people will just put their own kind of you know, theories or their own experiences onto it, which aren't necessarily applicable to your situation, if that makes sense. So I'm very very careful about the feedback that I ask for because there will be a lot of people who will be very quick to say, oh no, don't do that, that's

a really silly idea. So you've got to just, you know, if it's something that you feel really passionate about, if it's a problem that you've experienced, then more likely you're going to have some kind of success because you're passionate about it. So try and listen less and less to other people's opinions.

in a smaller fashion. So I would say the time to jump and make it a full time gig is don't wait for everything to be perfect, but it is good to actually, you know, test the market. And I talk a lot about this in startup to scale up, as you will know, I talk a lot about you know, minimum order quantities in the case of products or minimum viable products, and I go into a lot of detail around you know, how you test and how you ensure

that you're you know, mitigating risk. But I think if someone started something, if it's a I don't know, service based business and you've tried to get a couple of clients and people are happy to pay, and you haven't had to outlay a lot of money, then you can kind of go, okay, I've tested that, I know there are people there, so you know, I can probably take

the leap because I've tested it. Products are slightly harder because often, you know, you have to produce a certain amount of widgets to meet you know, printer or factory or supplier requirements. But again, if you can try to produce initially you know, the minimum order that is possible at the least possible cost and test the market, then

that could be a side hustle. Once people start buying and you think, okay, I've kind of got proof of concept, then again it might be time to actually, you know,

take the leap. I think it's really important to always have, if you can, some kind of cash reserve because nothing is fail safe, and as we've seen, particularly in the last couple of years, there are often a lot of external factors at play that are beyond our control, which could be you know, economic uncertainty due to you know, wars or pandemics or a number of other things, and so you know, we need to really ask ourselves the question, what am I prepared to lose and you know what

is my backup plan? Because I can tell you right now in Australia, for example, even though we've got a pretty successful e commerce business now, the e commerce side of things in the last three months, probably doing about a tenth of our revenue on a daily basis at the moment, and we've just launched into the US and that is like flying. But you know, there are certain things that come into play that are beyond that control. So you've really got to kind of set up. Okay,

am I ready to make this leap? You know what resources to do I have behind me, how much am I prepared to lose? And then just go for it. You know, there's never going to be an exact right time. But I think the reason that I've written Startup to Scale Up is very much so that I can give people a you know, step by step, this is exactly what to do. These are the checklists, these are the plans, so that hopefully people can you know, take some of my experience and lessons learned over the years.

I mean, I think that is absolutely number one. And what kind of goes hand in hand with that is resilience and tenacity, because what I know for sure is, you know, even still twenty one years in, people will you know, slab a door in my face, or they won't they won't take a phone call, or they won't buy a product. And it can be really frustrating sometimes you think, but wait, this is like the perfect fit for your customers or your audience, Like how can you

not see this? But still you know, even though now I have a pretty established brand and you know, some great product market fit, sometimes people will be like, nuts, doesn't work for us. So you've got to build up that resilience muscle and that tenacity and kind of talk

a lot about duality. You've got to build you know, resilience, but you've also got to be able to maintain a certain level of vulnerability and you know, empathy and kindness and humanness, and you know, people don't often always get that right, particularly in you know, the corporate world. There's a lot of still unfortunately, you know, fist banging people who are all about ego and hard shells and I'm just gonna like win it all costs and you've got to have a certain amount of that and a certain

amount of grit. But I really believe very very strongly that you've got to be able to maintain that human side, that vulnerability, that empathy, that compassion, that ability to you know, have communication skills, and so they're all really important attributes.

favorite quote of like everything happens for a reason. Could you possibly tell us about an example of this and how a failure or something that you didn't quite like at the time really set you on this new path that turned out to be, you know, better than you could have imagined.

I've spent time on Richard Branson's private Island Necker and make peace like several times, and like everything was amazing for five years, but I did not have the right foundations in place. So even though this brand was so hot and growing, I hadn't set up the right systems and processes and I hadn't really tapped into what my strengths were. So I am a great founder, and I'm a great visionary, and I'm a great leader, and I

see things before they exist. I'm a great negotiator. I'm not necessarily great at the detail and the operational side of it and the data. So in a business, you need to have both. You need to have big ideas people and big visionaries, but you also need to have data orientated detail implementers. And I didn't have the right people like that alongside me, and I didn't have the

right systems and processes. So what happened was I had to close the print magazine, which was my baby and you know, the love of my life and was at the center of my entire business. So that was gut wrenching and heartbreaking and horrible, but it was also the greatest thing to ever happen, because you don't know what you don't know, and I was suddenly sitting at the helm of a very big global business across multiple revenue streams,

across thirty seven different countries. But it wasn't until I got there that I realized, oh my gosh, I need to strip this back. I need to cut the guts out of it in order to break it to remake it. So I did that. And it's only through doing that and that kind of almost epic failure and you know, heart wrenching stuff, that I actually was able to build or rebuild a really strong, really great global business with really solid foundations that is now pretty unshakable and pretty

future proofed. So I had to go to the edge of that uncomfortability in order to be really really strong and to be able to move forward. And the same quld be said for a million things. You know, I was married, wasn't the right marriage, you know that ended Now have been with my fiance for six years, you know, amazing. So I think everything at the time, personal or business wise,

that is difficult, excruciating, horrendous. You know, in time, even though we may not be able to see it when it's happening and when we're in the midst of it, in time, Actually, these things do generally happen for a reason. And now that I've had so much crap happened to me in life, generally, even when I'm in the midst of it, I can I kind of have this inner knowing of Okay, I've just got to move through this. It is going to be better at the other side.

What other lessons? What is this teaching me? How can I use this hard time to springboard me into something much more powerful? And how can I rise up and be the next best version of me?

book was the scale section. But I'd love to know. So, like you said, you're a person who that sort of side of things isn't isn't your vibe, isn't your zone a genius? What did you then do to make sure you do have the system and processes and really really kind of like build that foundation for the business going forward.

every single day I have a CFO. It's a chief financial officer, but that could be a bookkeeper for other people, or it could be that you become you know, comfortable with using zero or moyob or one of the other programs. But every single day I'm looking at spreadsheets. I'm looking at profit and loss. I'm looking at our cash flow really important. I'm looking at break evens. I'm looking at payables and receivables. I'm looking at kind of you know,

future projections for different products. And there is not a day that goes by where I'm not looking at financial reports.

Because my business is you know big. Now We've done i don't know, close to sixty products in the last probably eighteen months, and every single time I hit print on a product, it costs me at least probably sixty sixty five thousand dollars, so and then we're doing multiple reprints, so I've got a lot of money moving in and out across a lot of different countries and markets and distribution channels. So I've got to look at that all day, every day. And I also look at numbers around social media.

So we have I think seventeen different social media channels. So I'm constantly looking at data in terms of what is our engagement, like, you know, what's the upshot? Because I've got to measure everything. Everything's input and output. So my team, my social media team is you know, a content creator, graphic designer, someone who uploads and schedules everything and responds. And then I've got, you know, an ads person.

So I've constantly got to be looking at, well, if I'm spending x amount on salaries and freelancers, what is the engagement and also what is the revenue that we are deriving specifically from organic social media and paid social media. So I'm looking at those reports all the time, and then I'm looking at all sorts of other things So for example, at the moment, we're doing four trade fairs in five weeks in the US. We're doing Atlanta, Vegas, LA, and

New York. So every day at the moment, I'm looking at data because it's a relatively new market for us on a large scale, so I'm looking at what are we selling, you know, on a daily basis. So we're doing twenty grand a day across what skews like of our sixty plus products, what's selling well? Because I need to look at that data to inform what's my next print run going to be? How quickly do I need to do that. So what I would say about scale

is data and numbers become everything. And even though it's definitely not my unique strength, I absolutely love data and I'm into my with data every single day because I cannot make creative decisions unless I know what's going on with all of my numbers. So that's what I would say about scale. It's different when you're starting out to a degree you don't have to necessarily watch everything quite

so closely. But I'm literally moving hundreds of thousands of dollars every single day, so I've got to make sure that every single position in the company, every single piece of input is you know, maximizing the returns and the output.

that that is all flowing through. So, yes, I have a lot to do with the marketing. So the marketing works for us, and I go into a lot more detail in startup to scale, but it's basically what I call an ecosystem. So our marketing consists of a number of different things. So part of it is influencer marketing, where we will send out you know, eighty to two hundred products probably every two weeks, so we're gifting a lot of products to get into the hands of the

right people. Then we have all of our organic so we're creating you know, constantly organic content, be it reals or static posts or whatever it is, across all of our social media channels. And we have paid socials, so we spend a lot of money on Facebook advertising to target and retarget the right people. We do trade fairs, so at the moment, as I said, we're doing Atlanta, Vegas, La, New York in the US in two days. We're doing Life in Style in Melbourne, and Australia. We're doing one

in New Zealand in a couple of months. So trade fairs is another big part of it. I do a lot of speaking gigs, you know, podcast pr so there's a whole kind of ecosystem. And again for anyone listening who's like, oh my gosh, that so much, where do I start. It's really about picking you know, one or two things off and then measuring again the input versus the output, so everything, This is where the data comes in. You know, if we're doing organic social media, which still

takes you know, resources, what are we actually selling? What's the engagement? What's the brand uplift? Like how we're measuring that? If it's the trade fairs, you know, that's a very costly exercise. I'm going to New York next week to go to the New York Trade Fair. You know that costs me to get on a plane, stay in a hotel, have the booth, et cetera, et cetera. So again, what do we think we can do? So everything? I would really encourage people to look at what's the input, what's

the output? Like, what effort are you putting in for what returns? Really important?

because I probably need to implement it the most. But you explain exactly something that you chat about is, you know, finding your purpose in the book, and you talk about having a business purpose plus a purpose personal purpose, and I personally am someone who you know, my business has so much purpose and it just lights me up that I often find, you know, I often find that I don't have a lot of personal you know, purpose because I'm so intertwined and get so much purpose out of

my business. But I would love if you can kind of explain the difference between these. Just chat a little bit further about what you mean by this.

I do you know what? I burst into tears because I had been because my business had gotten so big and there were so many amazing opportunities. I was likely reacting to things in my personal life. So you know, like I said, and a winter invited me to go to New York, amazing. I went to New York, like, you know, there would be a trade fair somewhere, I would go there. But when someone actually said to me, where do you want to go on a holiday? For you?

I was like, oh, my gosh, I don't know. Like I'd abandoned myself for such a long time, and I was just having so much fun in the business that I forgot kind of about hobbies and my own things. And so for me now and they can align. I mean for me, you know, for collective habits very much around igniting human potential. But in my personal life now, it's really important that I spend time with friends and family and like I, you know, illuminate their lives a

little bit as well. It's important for me personally that to be the best version of myself, you know, I exercise and I do those rituals and routines, and that you know, I find hobbies and things that light me up because all of that personal purpose stuff really actually makes me become a better human in business, but it also means that I can take time out to really enjoy my own life and give back to people who are closer you know, to me than necessarily in the

business world. And whatever went as well is that whilst business gives us those big, fist pumping, adrenaline fueled moments, it's often the simple things like I'm staying with my mum at the moment she hasn't been well and I'm just cooking for her like breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and she's loving it so much and it's bringing me so much joy and making me a better human. So I'm really spending time tapping into what other things outside of

business that supplement me as a human. And when do I feel on purpose underlive when it's not necessarily attached to or associated with business.

you know, make myself do other things. And then I'm like, oh, yeah, I love this and this is feeding my soul and this is actually making me a better human and it's giving me more experiences that enrich my ability to write and teach and speak about, you know, the things that I do in business. So it actually does coexist symbiotically, and I think it does make you a better human.

and I just haven't got there yet. But it's only been recently where I'm starting to agree with him. And obviously when I was reading the book, I was like, yes, Lisa, I know I've got to I've got to tap into that a lot more. But I think, you know, having that awareness is definitely the first step for me for sure.

has been a treat. I cannot thank you enough. And I'd love if you could just tell the audience where they can find you, where they can find all your beautiful stuff.

so amazing. And look, if you're feeling extra kind, a review on Apple Podcasts would be great