If you didn’t mean to start a business (but here you are)

Leah Neaderthal 0:00

In my conversations, I talked to a lot of women who tell me I never meant to start a business. Maybe they were in a career transition and took on a few projects, or they just started sort of helping out an old colleague, and a few years in surprise, they've got a business on their hands. And if that's you, then this episode is for you. So in this episode, I'm breaking down what that really means for your business. A few risks to keep an eye out for, and what I'd tell you if you also, quote, didn't mean to start a business, but now you have one, plus you'll hear from women who've been right where you are and what they learned along the way. Ready? Let's go. Welcome to the smart gets paid podcast with me. Leah Neaderthal, I help women land higher paying clients in their independent consulting businesses, but I've never been a salesperson. My background is in corporate marketing, and when I started my first consulting business, I learned pretty quickly that it's about 1000 times harder to sell your own stuff than it is to sell someone else's so I taught myself how to do it, and I created the sales approach that I now share with my clients so they can feel more comfortable in the sales process. Get more of the right clients and get paid way more for every client contract. So whether your client contracts are $5,000 $100,000 or more, if you want to work with more of the clients you love, do more of the work you love and get paid more than you ever thought you could, then you're in the right place. Let's do it together. Thanks for tuning in, and don't forget to rate, review and share.

Leah Neaderthal 1:35

Hey there, Leah, here, and thanks for tuning in. I hope wherever you're listening to this, wherever you are right now, I hope you're having a great week, making some good progress in your business and taking some time for you. So today, we're talking about something I've been hearing more and more lately. It's this phrase that women say to me when we first meet, or when we first start talking about them joining the academy, they'll say to me something like this, I never meant to start a business, or I never pictured myself as a business owner, or I never set out to be an entrepreneur, and then they look around a few years later and looks like they have a business now. And so if you've ever said that, or if you felt that way, then this episode is for you, and I'm going to share why that is totally okay, why it's so easy to feel like you're the only one. I'm going to share some of the risks to your business, if you're in this headspace of you know, I didn't mean to start a business, and I'm going to share a few things I would tell you, and you're going to hear from a few of my clients who also never meant to start a business, and some advice that they'd share. So if you're someone who, quote, never meant to start a business, or you've never thought of yourself as a business owner, then this is for you. So what do I mean when I say quote? Didn't mean to start a business. I mean, if this is you, then you know exactly what I mean. But I'll see if I can do it justice here, because I talked to so many women who are in this position, they didn't sit down one day and think, I'm going to be an entrepreneur, like I'm going to start a company. This is what I'm driven to do. This is my purpose in life. You know, it just it wasn't anything like that. Instead, it usually looks a little different. And again, maybe you'll see yourself in one of these scenarios. Maybe you got laid off from your last corporate job and you started doing client work to make money while you figured out your next move. Maybe someone asked you if you could do a project. So you did, or maybe you left your job and you weren't finding good opportunities out there, so you took on some client work while you figured things out. Maybe you went on maternity leave, or you stepped away from your job to take care of your kids or your parents, and then you started doing some consulting on the side. Or maybe you were already doing projects on the side. And, you know, you just sort of kept going with that, until you realized, Hey, this is making pretty good money. There are so many ways that women just start taking on consulting work, and then at some point, oftentimes, a few years in, you look around and you realize, wait a minute, I guess I have a business here. I mean, does that sound familiar? You know, if you're hearing this, I talked to a woman who had a great way of describing it. She started doing the work that she does as a temporary transition between jobs, and she said, you know, in terms of it like being temporary, she said, it's like I was living in a tent. But then eventually she said, it's like I live here now. And I'll tell you, this happens way more than you think. In fact, I'd say most women in consulting didn't set out to become business owners, and yet, when you're in this place, it feels like you're the only one, because when you look around, it seems like everyone else must have meant to do this, like must have meant to start their business, and you're the odd one out. And I gotta tell you, even I didn't mean to start my consulting business when I first got started, and even I never expected that I'd be here at this point with this business. Because, you know, once upon a time, back in 2010 I left my corporate job to take a year off and travel the world with my then partner, and we spent a few weeks backpacking in Central America, you know, going from city to city like every other day. Day, and it became such a blur, and we were exhausted, and we realized that we weren't even experiencing any of the places we were in because we were just moving so fast. And so after a few weeks, we sat down, and we were like, This is not sustainable. And so we said, instead of trying to fit the entire world into a year and then go back to a corporate job and live the rest of our lives under, you know, fluorescent lights. Why don't we start a business that would allow us to live anywhere? So we did. My background was in marketing, and Her background was in nonprofits. So we decided to do marketing for nonprofits and social enterprises, and that became our first consulting business. And we created it not because we were like, We want to be entrepreneurs. It was just, you know, something we decided to do to solve a problem we had at the time. So fast forward four years from that point, and at that time, I stepped away from that company and some of the other businesses we had started, and I started working with clients one on one to share what I'd learned about running and growing businesses. And that was like 10 years ago. At this point, I started working with one client, and then another, and then another, and then I started seeing all these commonalities and the problems we were solving, and I created a program to teach more women, and then I created another program. And so now, you know, 10 years later, in my business, like here, I am running a business where I get to help women learn how to get more of the right consulting clients into their businesses and get paid more for their consulting work. And I never, ever pictured that I would be here. I mean, I'm from a family where, like, people have jobs with names like Doctor, physical therapist. My sister was a teacher before I started the business. I was like, the corporate Sister, you know, the one who just went into business, and then when I started doing consulting, no one even knew what I did, or could even describe it. But again, the point is, even I didn't set out to start a business, and here I am, and here's the truth, I've been doing this for over 10 years. I talk to literally hundreds of women every year, and I can tell you, more people accidentally started a consulting business than intentionally started a consulting business. So if you've ever felt like you're behind because you didn't mean to start a business, or you think you're the only one, you are not alone. So why am I bringing this up right now? Well, partly, it's because I'm hearing it more and more. I mean, I've been hearing this for years, but I feel like there are more women now a few years into their business, who I'm hearing say this, and a lot of women have found themselves in this position of doing consulting work because of forces outside their control. You know, the economy or layoffs or corporate restructuring, and jobs that used to feel like a safety net just aren't anymore. And in the last few years, especially, I've been hearing women say, I didn't really need me to start this. But, you know, here I am. I feel like maybe it's this wave of women who started their business, like just before covid, or like during the pandemic, women who are now a few years in and realizing they still kind of like, you know, quote, live in a tent if we're gonna sort of keep going with that analogy. I mean, just the other day, we kicked off a new group in the academy, and two of the women in the group bonded over this exact thing. After a breakout, they came back and said, we both kind of didn't necessarily set out to start this company, like we started doing the work that we're doing, and it was growing and sort of snowballing. And then it was like, Oh, I think I have a company. But then they also said, it feels like everyone's just a little more intentional and more organized than I am. And so over the years, I've heard this enough that it felt like it was time to talk about it directly. Because when I hear women say, I quote, didn't mean to start a business, what I also hear underneath is a little bit of doubt. Like, you know, am I doing this right? Am I behind everyone else? Everyone else must have meant to do this, and I didn't, and that can feel really lonely. So I want to share this with you now, because if this is you, you know, if you find yourself in your business without having planned it, I want you to know that not only are you not alone, but you can absolutely build something intentional, sustainable, profitable, and still have the life you dreamed about from exactly where you are. But you know what I mean, who could blame you for feeling like what you were doing, you know, quote, wasn't starting a business. Because think about what we've all been shown, about what it looks like to want to start a business, right? Like in the media and society, it's all these stories of like tech founders or shark tank or like, entrepreneurs chasing funding. And we're told that starting a business looks like raising money and pitching investors, or scaling fast, or going public or becoming a unicorn or whatever. And if that's a picture of entrepreneurship that we've been sort of fed, which is so different than, you know, just starting to, like, take some projects here and there and seeing how it goes, then, of course, you wouldn't feel like you, quote, started a business, because it doesn't match your experience and it doesn't match how you feel inside. And so when we don't match that, it's easy to think, Well, I'm not really running a business. I'm just helping people. I'm just using what I know to solve problems for clients or my old colleagues or whatever. But here's the trick. Truth, there are businesses of all shapes and sizes. I mean, there are more businesses that are medium sized that you've never heard of than there are unicorns. And so even if you do what you do on a small scale, if you're providing a service and getting paid for it, then you do have a business like the startup founder who's chasing funding. That's a business. And the woman who started decorating cakes, and they were so beautiful and she got so many compliments on them that she began selling them like my friend Christina did, that's also a business, and so is what you're doing. So I feel like we need to stop sort of like selling ourselves short, because we don't match the version of, you know, business air quotes, business that we see in the media. You know, you might not be chasing investors or building an AI agent, but if you're working with clients, if you are helping people and charging for it, then you do have a business full stop. So let's talk about some of the risks. Because if you're in this place, if you didn't mean to start a business like even if you're not thinking about it that seriously, then there are still some very real risks to keep an eye out for. And I don't say any of this to scare you. I say it because I've seen it happen over and over to women who are exactly where you are right now. And I just want to shine a light on some of these so that you can avoid falling into these traps. And so there are three big risks I want to shine a light on. Risk. Number one, you never really take the reins. So the first risk, if you didn't mean to start a business, and you sort of keep thinking of it as temporary, is that you never really take the reins in your own business. You don't put yourself in the driver's seat of your business, you end up kind of letting the clients be in the driver's seat. Because what happens is, you let the business decide whether to keep running the business. Right? You kind of think, well, you know, if clients keep coming, then I'll keep doing this. But that's not how businesses work. Sitting back and waiting for clients to come to you is a recipe for fizzling out. And fizzling out is just kind of another way of saying that your income drops to the point where you can't support yourself and your family, and you have to get a job. And then I hear so many women say, you know, they'll be like, well, I guess it just didn't work out. But what that really meant was that you didn't try, like you weren't the driver. You let your clients dictate your future, not you. And I want to ask these women, you know, I'll ask you, like, when else in your life have you let big decisions be determined entirely by outside forces, right? Like, did you sort of half ass high school and not really care about grades? And then said, Well, if college comes to me, then I'll go like, of course not. You're an achiever. You've probably been intentional about almost everything else in your life. So why wouldn't you do the same here? And so when you're not in the driver's seat, you're just sort of letting the wind blow you around. And the second part of this risk of not taking the reins or not being in the driver's seat is that emotionally, you can sort of stay one foot in, one foot out. You know, sometimes I hear women saying, Well, I'm trying to grow my business, but I'm also looking for a job, and I'll just sort of see how it goes. And when women say that to me, I always tell them, like, if you're deciding between focusing on your business and getting a job, like you should go get a job, because running a business is hard. It takes work, it takes commitment, and you can't build something real if you're hedging your bets. And between you know the chances of growing your business and the chances of getting a job, the grass isn't greener on one side or the other, like the grass is greener where you water it. And so if you're putting half your energy into your business and half into maybe looking for a job, then neither one is getting what it needs, and you'll stay in limbo. So whether it's sitting back and letting outside forces decide for you, or whether it's being sort of half in and half out, the risk is the same. You're not really owning the role, and without that ownership, you can't build the business that you want. So that's Risk Number One. Risk Number two, you stay small, and it affects your confidence. So the second risk of thinking of this as temporary for too long is that you end up staying small, you sort of get stuck, or you end up running what's called a zombie business. And here's what that looks like. You're covering your expenses, maybe even paying yourself a little bit, but that's it. You're not really growing. You're not shrinking. You're just kind of like The Walking Dead. You're like a zombie business, and I've seen women stay in that place for years, just doing enough to get by, but also missing out on so many opportunities. And part of why you stay stuck is because you're not investing in your business the way a real business needs to. And listen, I don't mean spending, like, 1000s of dollars on branding or a glossy website like I mean the basics, a contract template, a CRM so you're not trying to manage everything in a spreadsheet, a way to do marketing and actually get clients, even things like working to clearly explain. What you do, and when you don't have those things, it's like you're, you know, to keep that tent metaphor going. It's like you're still living in a tent instead of building a house. And when you're not investing in the things that make your business feel like a business, the deeper risk is that it can affect how you feel and it can affect your confidence. You might think, you know, I don't have a real company name. My systems are kind of janky, and that insecurity can show up when you talk to clients and make you feel smaller than you really are. Because here's the thing, if you've gotten this far without a real strategy, like, imagine how far you could go with one. Like, imagine if you weren't reinventing the wheel for every project. Imagine if you had simple systems and workflows in place so things felt smooth and professional. Imagine that you had a real biz dev strategy instead of just sort of taking on whatever client happened to come your way, and you could actually choose the projects to take on. That's what's possible. But if you don't do those things, then the risk is that you stay in that holding pattern. And when you're in that holding pattern, you don't just lose money, you lose momentum and you lose confidence, and you can lose sight of what's actually possible. And part of what makes this risk so sneaky is that it doesn't feel like failure. You're not like crashing and burning, you're just sort of not going anywhere, and that can keep you stuck for years. So that's Risk Number two, and then Risk Number three, you end up operating like an employee, not a business owner. So the third risk is that you end up in a position where you're doing work for clients, but you end up being treated like an employee. And I hear this a lot. This can happen, especially if most of your first clients are people you used to work with, and especially if you have one whale client that's responsible for most of your income, and if that whale client is also your old employer, then, like, forget it. It's so easy to slip back into that role and you end up letting the client call all the shots, you have a hard time saying, No, it's really easy to over deliver and under charge, and before you know it, they're treating you like you're on their payroll. And that alone really sucks. But here's the real problem with that, when you first start taking clients and you're not working full time for someone else, then one of the first things you notice is how much more freedom and flexibility you have in your day, you know, like you don't have to be at your desk at 9am or you can be there for school pickup. I mean, yay. Like, all of those are good things. And in terms of income or how much you want to make or make up, you know, from your clients, oftentimes, the first benchmark is that you want to make up your last salary. All right, like none of that is wrong or bad. But then, over time, if you have this relationship with your clients where you're sort of operating as an employee and you can't set boundaries, and you find that they're like, treating you like they did when you worked for them, and in terms of income, you're like, making the same or less than your last salary, and you don't get things like paycheck security or healthcare or whatever, and since you're basically a full time employee by another name, without the freedom or flexibility that you hoped for, that's when you start to wonder, like, why am I even doing this? Wouldn't it just be easier to go back and work for somebody else? Because you're not getting the freedom benefits and you're not getting the money benefits right. And so it's this cycle, and you're working so hard for this one client that you don't have energy or time to get other clients, and then you're sort of stuck right? So the third risk is that you never make that mindset shift into being and really feeling like a business owner. And so without that, it's so easy to stay in that like no man's land, where you're not really an employee, but you're not really running a business either. So those are the three big risks. Number one, you never take the reins. Number two, you stay small and it affects your confidence. And number three, you end up acting like an employee, not a business owner. And again, I'm sharing these not to scare you, but to show you what's at stake if you don't make that shift. And the good news is, once you see these risks, you can do something different. So if those are the risks, you know, staying small, staying in limbo, never really owning the role, what would I tell you if you're in this position? Well, first, I want to be clear, not everyone wants to change. Some women are fine staying in okay, you know they're fine taking on a few clients here and there, and covering their expenses and leaving it at that. If that's what you want, there's nothing wrong with that. But that's not who I'm talking to here. I'm talking to you if sure you didn't mean to start a business, but now you want more. I'm talking to you if you're wondering why you're not doing better, or if you want to stop feeling like you're in limbo or making it up, and I'm talking to you if you're doing okay, but you're not okay with just okay. So if that's you, then here's what I want you to know, you can absolutely build something that feels intentional, sustainable and freeing, even. And it starts with. Three things. So here's what I tell you. Number one, you have to decide to treat it like a real business. So again, you have to decide to treat it like a real business. And I know this sounds obvious, but really, I mean, there are probably some like mindset things at play, and maybe some fear or some hesitation, probably a lot of things going on. So yeah, I mean, that sounds obvious, but I mean, if it was so easy, you would have done it already, because you might have started out just dipping your toe in, or trying it out, or doing a project here and there. And maybe you still think of it like, well, this isn't forever. I'll just see how it goes. But if you want this to work, if you want it to provide for you and give you time, freedom and flexibility and all the things it can then at some point, you have to stop treating it like a temporary tent you pitched and start treating it like the house you live in. And that doesn't mean you have to call yourself, and you know, air quotes entrepreneur. You don't have to, like, make it your whole identity, but you do have to recognize that, yeah, you are running a business, because if you don't see it that way, then you won't treat it that way. And listen, you might be thinking, but what if I want to get a job later? That's totally okay. You can do that. I mean, your season might change, your circumstances might change, and you can always go back and get a job if you want to, or you need to. Running a business doesn't make you less hirable. In fact, employers see it as a strength. It shows initiative, it shows leadership, it shows resourcefulness. And actually, on this podcast, Amanda Moncada Perkins talked about how she was running her business, and her circumstances changed, and she decided to go back and get a job in big law, which is where she had come from. And she talked about how in the interview process, you know, she expected to be grilled on like mergers and acquisition questions, right? But what they wanted to talk about in those interviews was how she ran her business, and how did she get clients, and on and on. And she ended up getting hired in big law, which is very competitive, having not even practiced big law for several years. So running a business, you know, being a business owner never makes you less hirable, less interesting or less memorable if you ever want to get a job. But listen, right now you're here. This is where you are, and success doesn't happen by accident. The past might have been an accident, but the future has to be intentional. So decide, decide that you live here now. You can decorate, you can build, you can make it yours. So that's the thing I would tell you, number one, decide to treat it like a business. The second thing I would tell you is, build a simple, solid foundation. You don't need a fancy website. You don't need a logo. You don't need a 25 page business plan. What you do need is the basics. You need to know the problem you solve and who you solve it for. You need a way to get clients on purpose, not just sort of wait for the ones who come your way. You need to know how to lead a sales process and help clients say yes, and a way to deliver your work that's repeatable, so you're not reinventing the wheel every single time. And then, you know, layer in some simple systems, a CRM so you can keep track of conversations in your pipeline, a contract template, a way for clients to pay you. It doesn't have to be complicated, but it does have to exist, because not only does it make your life easier, it also makes you look more buttoned up. And let me tell you, when you're trying to command premium prices like that matters, your client's experience of you starts even before they sign the contract. It actually starts in the sales process, and so if things feel like you're kind of scraping it together, it's a lot harder to make the case for why they should pay you a premium price. The other part of building your foundation is surrounding yourself with the right people. And by that I mean people who are where you want to be. And here's the truth that's unfortunately not most people. So the studies show that over 80% of women owned businesses generate less than 100k a year in revenue, okay, 80% are less than 100k

Leah Neaderthal 24:05

and within that group. So within that 80% 37% of them make somewhere between 10k and 50k a year, and 44% of them make under 10k a year. All right. So what this means is, if you want to make 200k in your business, 300 500 even 1 million, then statistically speaking, the one or two women consultants you happen to know are probably not going to be in that range. And if you're only looking at them and only asking them for advice, then that advice is not going to get you where you want to go. I mean, don't ask for advice from someone who's never been where you want to go. And so if your peer group of women business owners is just a couple of women who are making effectively, not that much in their business, that becomes your mental anchor, and it's your bar for what you believe is possible. And I don't say. This to be harsh. I say it because I see the data. But here's the good news, those women do exist. There are women out there building multiple six and seven figure consulting businesses. They're out there charging more, setting stronger boundaries, building real companies. And if you want to grow, you need to be around them. You need to see what's possible. That's one of the reasons I love the work we do in the academy. It's not just about strategies and tools. It's about being in the room with women who are serious about their businesses, women who are asking bigger questions and raising the bar. And so when you see what they're doing, it changes what you believe is possible for you. And I see this all the time. It just happened a few weeks ago where somebody was getting feedback on her price. Feedback on her pricing, and somebody else said, you know, knowing you're charging this much tells me it's possible. She said, I need to raise my prices. So surrounding yourself with the right people isn't just about having company along the way. It's about expanding what you think is possible so you can actually get where you want to be. So that's thing I would tell you number two, and the third thing is adopt a business owner mindset. So this one is a bit of an offshoot of number one, but it's slightly different when I think about business owner mindset. You know, adopt the mindset of, you're not playing business. You're not, quote, just helping people. You are running a business, and that means stepping into a peer mindset instead of an employee mindset, because if you keep letting clients treat you like an employee, you'll keep bumping into the same problems. You won't charge enough, you're going to have a hard time saying no, you'll struggle to set boundaries. You will work so hard on the one client that you won't have time or energy to do business development to get other clients. But when you shift into a business owner mindset, things start to change. You start to see yourself as a peer, not their subordinate. You start to teach clients how to treat you, which is with respect. You start to command higher fees and run the business on your terms, instead of letting clients run it for you, it's a huge mindset shift. And here's another important part of that mindset shift, not staying in planning mode forever, because in corporate I mean, what's rewarded is planning, reducing risk, right, thinking through every detail, building the 40 slide deck, getting buy in from like six different stakeholders before you do anything. I mean, that's what we are trained to do. But as a business owner, planning doesn't get you where you want to go. What's more valuable than planning is doing. You know, the women who get stuck are the ones who spend six months like writing a business plan or perfecting their website, or debating their logo, or going back and forth in that endless cycle of, should I start an LLC, or should I start an S corp? The women who grow are the ones who get something out there quickly, even if it's not perfect, and then adjust as they go. And I gotta say, the business plan one kills me. Like, if you're a consultant, you don't need a full business plan. Actually, here's a consulting business plan in seven words. Ready? Get clients, do the work, get paid like when you're running a consulting business, especially if you're a solopreneur. It's really as simple as that. And I'll tell you, this can feel really uncomfortable at first. You know, going fast because it goes against everything you might have been taught in corporate, but it is how you build momentum. It's how you grow faster. So the third thing is adopting a business owner mindset. And if you take nothing else from this episode, let it be this. You're not just doing work on the side. You're not playing at business. You are running a business. And once you believe that, once you act like it, you'll start to show up differently. So those are the three things I would tell you, decide and treat it like a real business. Build a simple, solid foundation, and adopt a business owner mindset, because when you do those things, things start to open up for you. Now I don't want you to just hear it from me. I want you to hear it from women who've been exactly where you are women who also didn't mean to start a business, but who found themselves here, you know, figuring it out, and who've learned so much along the way. These are clients of mine, women in the academy, and I've asked them to share a little bit about their journey and what it was like to realize they were really running a business, and what they've discovered about themselves as they've stepped into that role. All right, so you're going to hear from Katie Goldstein, Christine Thomas, Jen De Leon, Carrie Bornstein and Megan mozina. Hi.

Katie Goldstein 29:30

My name is Katie Goldstein, and I'm the founder of kg comms. I have been working at my PR agency for several years, and knew that was no longer the right fit, but also had no idea what I wanted to do at that time with my career, so I decided to start consulting as kind of this interim gap filling solution while I figured out what I really wanted to do, and quickly realized somewhere between three and six months in that this was actually something I wanted to make my full time. Career. When I started consulting, I was just doing contract work for a former employer, so the business didn't really start to feel like a business until it was about six months in, and I got an inbound lead from a former client of mine that I had had when I was at my former PR agency, and quickly realized I need to establish an LLC and talk to an accountant before I started consulting, I think I was really limited by the belief that finding clients was going to be just incredibly challenging, and I wasn't sure that that was even a mountain I wanted to overcome. What I realized after getting into it was that you can actually really find yourself in these rhythms with the business and with the clients and your network gets bigger the longer that you do it. So where, when you get in these rhythms, the feast and famine cycles that can sometimes happen with organizations, that starts to just feel a little bit less heightened, and you get into a little more of a pattern with the folks in your network, the clients that you have, where the new biz starts to feel like it flows a little bit more than maybe it did in those early days. The advice I'd give to somebody else starting out is, you know, forget any of the working paradigms that you had from previous employers. This is your business, and you get to design it in the way that really best suits you. So that means saying yes to what you want to say yes to. It also means saying no to the things that you want to say no to and that don't serve you. So just think about, you know, all those employers that you previously had where you weren't able to set proper boundaries. Now is your opportunity to get to right the wrongs of history and set the boundaries that really suit you. And I think what you're going to find is they not only suit you, but they really suit your clients and just the business overall.

Christine Thomas 31:46

My name is Christine Thomas, and I'm a co founder of CK digital learning solutions. So my origin story started in 2020 when I was still in my corporate position at a global BPO company, I was responsible for the L and D portion of the business specifically dedicated to work at home, agents and during the pandemic, obviously, everyone made the shift and began to work at home. So it went from training, I would say, anywhere between two to 5000 people to 12 to 18,000 people. And it just got really difficult, and I started to get burnt out. So my partner and I started thinking about how we could do this on our own, with less stress and less red tape. I realized this could actually be a business when my business partner and I were sitting in a cafe in Bogota, Colombia, still working in our corporate positions, and we'd been doing some things on the side, and we were offered a contract to do some more long term work. We both kind of looked at each other and we were like, gosh, I think we could really make this happen. So one of the things that I definitely think I look at differently now is the corporate hustle. Before starting my business, I really bought into that you have to be available whenever someone needs you. You need to be on call and be prepared to jump on a plane if possibly you have to interrupt your life to accommodate the needs of the business. And now looking back, especially after taking the leap and setting up our own business, I fundamentally know that that's not true. There are certainly still stressors and priorities and commitments, but I'm completely responsible for my work life balance, and the only people I answer to are myself and my business partner, so we decide what the hustle looks like. And I really appreciate that my advice to a woman who didn't mean to start a business would be to trust your instincts and listen to your inner hero voice. I distinctively remember having an overwhelming urge to do something different, break away from the stress that I had in my life, and fundamentally make a change just out of preservation. And the other thing would be to not give into your fear, trying something new, trying something different and scary, financially risky, all can lead up to being excuses that will hold you back from something you can't even begin to comprehend. Will change your life when you become a business owner and work for yourself so. So yeah, trust yourself and your gut. Hi.

Jen De Leon 35:04

My name is Jen De Leon, and I am an author and the CEO and founder of Story Bridge. I definitely did not set out to start a company. My dream forever was to become a published author, and in many ways that felt like the end of the rainbow, but I soon found out, after publishing my first book just over 10 years ago, that it was the beginning of a new journey, and I was essentially an entrepreneur. Authors, especially these days, are responsible for doing so much of their own marketing and sales. And you know, simply being in the world as an author isn't something that's passive or you don't just hang out at your desk, not that it's easy, but that alone will not make you a quote, unquote, success. I found that people were beginning to pay me to speak about my books, and I was pleasantly surprised at how much they were paying me. I realized it was a business when I was starting to get requests for speaking at schools, universities, companies, and I needed to have things like contracts, invoices, a separate email address, a website, and that's what I started realizing. I also needed to form an LLC. So I guess that's that's how I kind of realized this is a business. Something that I've had to unlearn is that work is not something that has to suck. Growing up, my parents were blue collar workers, and they essentially worked as a means to an end in order to pay their mortgage, to pay for our sports and activities. And so for me, doing work that actually enjoyed, it felt foreign. Like, wait, what do you mean? I'm going to get paid to do something that I would do anyway? And for me, that was speaking at events and coaching people on how to share stories, leading writing workshops. And so once I realized that there was value, literal cash value, in that, it really kind of had me reframe how I present myself and my offerings and how I position myself. So this is some advice that I remember peloton Robin saying once she said, Know your worth, add tax, and it stands out for me, because I think knowing your worth is a lifelong journey. But in terms of being an entrepreneur and starting a business and running a consulting business, there truly is so much to learn. But as Leah often says, there's so much to unlearn. And I think there's this misconception that if you love doing the work, that somehow you should also be doing that for free, or somebody might ask me to do something for free or at a reduced price, and then I think, know your worth, add tax. And some advice in general is to just take up space.

Carrie Bornstein 38:06

Hi, I'm Carrie Bornstein, and I run Carrie Bornstein consulting. I had spent about 12 years as CEO of a small nonprofit, and when I knew that it was time to make a transition. I spent probably close to a year actually looking for jobs, and I ended up, you know, not really finding anything that I was so excited about, nothing that panned out. So there were two different possible projects that I was able to take on that had kind of a public search for them. And I figured, well, I can take these in addition to a full time job or, like, maybe it'll just buy me some time. And along the way, I started realizing, like, wait, maybe this isn't buying me time. Maybe this is actually what I want to do. So I said, You know what? Like, let me take three, four months just pour myself into this, stop the job search and see what happens. And it really took off. When I first got started. I realized now that I was very focused on letting the organizations that I worked for lead the process. And I was really focused on, okay, well, what is it that you want from me? What should I do? How do you want this to be? And that's what I'll focus on. And what I've discovered over time is I think that they're much more looking for me to lead the process, rather than them leading the process, and my kind of following along. I really think that that's a really big mindset shift that I've had over time. The two things that I would say are most important in terms of the advice that I would give, one would be just to, like, do all of the things. I would never say that to somebody who is a couple of years into their business, but when somebody is just getting started, I would say, like. I did this, and I really am glad that I did. I took every project I could get. I did all kinds of different things that I felt like I could do, and it really helped me hone in on where I really wanted to be and where my value add was, so that I could then really focus on those places. The other thing that I would say is really just talk to as many people as possible, tell them, like, here's what I'm thinking about for my business, get their questions, their feedback, their input, and keep shaping what you do over time. I found that so, so helpful to me in pushing my thinking and helping develop my focus and how I would work.

Megan mozina 40:38

I'm Megan mozina, and I run Cresta solutions. I was working at a university running an internal consulting office, and I had, in the course of two weeks, three previous executives from the university reach out to me and ask me to help them with projects at their new organizations, and I just did not have the bandwidth to do that job and commute, and I young kids at the time, and I knew I wouldn't be able to handle all of that, but I really wanted to work with them on the projects that they needed help with. So it got me really thinking about how I would do that. A few weeks later, right after having lunch with one of these people who was trying to convince me to work with them. I went to a meeting, and they said that there was a reorg and I could have any position I wanted at the university. And I said, Can I actually take a severance package instead? And they were surprised that I was interested in that, but I took it and I started my business. I started my business two weeks before the pandemic hit, so it really threw things off. So it's a very slow progression to making it feel like a quote, unquote, real business. But I think I stopped using those air quotes around my business when one day someone reached out to me and asked me a question about how to do a business thing, like write a proposal, or what to do about bookkeeping or business insurance or something like that. And I was like, Oh, I know what I'm talking about. So that's when it finally felt like a real business. I came from being an internal consultant in higher education at a university, so I thought that I would be doing hourly higher ed consulting, only responding to RFPs, and it's totally different now, using value based pricing by working directly with organizations, and almost never responding to RFPs, instead working through my sales system to get clients as a way of doing things, and also realizing that what I could do, even though my background was largely in higher education, that I was able to do work with a variety of organizations, and it's more by focusing on working with leadership teams that are purpose driven, so it can expanded the types of organizations that I had confidence to work with, as well as my foundational approach in terms of how I charge and

Megan mozina 42:56

how I work with them. I would tell her that

Megan mozina 42:59

by being able to pick her clients and the types of problems she solves for them and the way that they solve the problems, she is able to not only help the types of people that she wants to and make that type of impact in the world that she wants, but that by doing so, she is designing herself and crafting the person, the woman that she wants to be, that she will become through doing all of that work. And I think that's what's really powerful about this, that we have the choice to be who we want to be. There's more pressure to it, and it can be harder at times and discouraging at times, but it's worth it, because we are in the driver's seat, and we are getting to choose who we want to be and make that happen.

Leah Neaderthal 43:48

All right, huge thanks to Katie Goldstein, Christine Thomas, Jen De Leon, Carrie Bornstein and Megan mozina. All right, so let's bring this home. So if you've ever felt like you didn't mean to start a business, or you've questioned whether you're really sort of air quotes doing it right? I hope you take this episode as a reminder that you're not alone. So many women are in the exact same place, and you don't need to fit some stereotype of what entrepreneurship is supposed to look like in order for your business to be real, because it is real, and it can be so much more than a stop gap or a temporary project or something you fell into if you choose to, if you decide to treat it like a business, it can become something sustainable, something that brings you a lot of joy and something that gives you freedom and income beyond what you ever thought was possible. One of my old clients messaged me recently, and it really sort of brought this point home, she started her business as this temporary side thing when she and her husband had to move cities, and because of the move, she had to leave her job, and they also had a newborn at the same time. And so she started taking projects on the side because she didn't really want to go full time yet, but she also didn't want to, like not be making money. Mm. And after a couple years of doing that, she joined the academy to be really intentional about her business. And so recently, she sent me this message here, let me grab it. She said, Leah, today marked a major milestone. Our family closed on our dream house. When I looked beyond the price tag one I could have never imagined my business would afford me the opportunity to buy and think more broadly about the life that entrepreneurship has allowed me to pursue. I am filled with pride and gratitude. She goes I attribute so much of my growth as a business owner and a consultant to my participation in the program, and I thought there was no better time to reaffirm that hard work and expert guidance pays off. So things like this are possible, the life you want, is possible, but it won't happen by accident. It won't happen by you know, seeing what happens. It'll happen with intention and focus. So don't sell yourself short. Don't wait for the business to decide for you, decide for yourself, and then start building. And of course, if you'd like to get help doing that, if you want guidance on how to grow your consulting business and get more of the right clients and feel more confident in running the business side of your business, that's exactly what we do. At smart gets paid. If you'd like help and guidance on that, reach out to us. At smart gets paid. So thanks so much for tuning in, and I'll see you next time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai