From burnout to balance: building a business that works for you, with Joanne Sonenshine

Joanne Sonenshine 0:02

I feel confident, I feel comfortable, I feel like I can just move through my day without that sense of urgency all the time, and I'm doing work that I really enjoy, it's like a freeing feeling. I haven't felt like that, potentially ever, and I've been looking for that feeling in my professional life for a long time.

Leah Neaderthal 0:24

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. Hey there, Leah here, and thanks for tuning in. I hope that 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's episode, this is a good one. So before we dive in, if you know me, you know that I love Saturday Night Live, and I'm always sort of quoting that SNL character from a few years ago, a character named Stefan. And if you know Stefan, you know his classic line, he goes, This club has everything. Okay? Well, really, though this episode has everything. There's building a business. There are real business development strategies you can learn. There's having to figure out what to do when your industry is decimated by the current administration, and there's also overcoming what we call head trash and learning how to put yourself first and building a business you truly love. So see what I mean. This episode has everything. I'm talking with Joanne sunenshin, who's a consultant who works at the intersection of global development, social impact and fundraising. And on paper, you'd think, you know, she's got this all figured out, because before she started her current consulting business, she started and sold a successful company, and she's been working in this space for years. She's done amazing work. But what happens when you leave the safety of a company and suddenly it's just you, and when it's no longer about selling on behalf of an organization, but selling yourself, this conversation with Joanne is about what it looks like to keep going, to relearn how to sell, how To get clients, to learn how to value yourself, to unlearn the head trash that had held her back, and to learn how to build a business that actually serves you, and how to do all of that while your industry is crumbling and still emerge as a leader. So in our conversation, Joanne shares how she shifted from over giving and under charging to confidently owning her value and how she moved from feeling like every opportunity was an emergency to actually finding peace in her business. And I think maybe most powerful of all, she shares how she stopped trying to prove herself and started building a business that actually felt like hers. Her story is truly inspiring, and I'm so excited for you to hear it. So take a listen to my conversation with Joanne, sun and shine, and at the end, I'll come back and share a lesson that you can apply to your business, and then hopefully someday soon, you'll partner with us to help you build your consulting business, and you'll come back on the podcast and share your story. Enjoy, Joanne. Thank you so much for being here.

Joanne Sonenshine 4:03

I'm so happy to be here. Leah, thanks so much for asking. Yeah, so

Leah Neaderthal 4:08

let's start at the beginning, Joanne, why don't you tell the good people who you are and what you

Joanne Sonenshine 4:11

do? Sure. So I'm Joanne sun and shine, and I'm currently an advisor to companies that have a presence in the global south or emerging economies, and they're investing in some sort of sustainability or Social Impact Program, and are looking for CO investment. So I advise them on where to find it, how to navigate the process and essentially how to make their projects fully funded.

Leah Neaderthal 4:36

So are your clients, the beneficiaries or the funders, or both?

Joanne Sonenshine 4:40

So my clients are the funders, but they're corporates or companies that are supporting beneficiaries, either in their supply chain or through investments in infrastructure. I used to work with the beneficiaries quite a bit. That was my professional history. But on the reverse side, the COVID. Companies are really the ones that are making the investments to improve scenarios in these places.

Leah Neaderthal 5:05

And you said, that was your experience, your career. What were you doing before all of this? So

Joanne Sonenshine 5:09

I am a development economist. This is what I was trained in. And I started my career in finance. So I was actually a bond originator, and I was helping companies raise money, which is what I'm doing now, but in a very different way. And then I segued into policy and then helping support nonprofits in their fundraising journey. I actually started a company called connective impact in 2011 that was designed to help those organizations of beneficiaries, as you call them, receive funding and kind of match with funders in the global south exclusively. And I exited that company late last year. But all throughout that process, I've always consulted with companies or with organizations that are also investing in these places. So coming full circle and coming back to my roots a little bit and really just focusing on the corporate side,

Leah Neaderthal 5:59

I love how you came from, like an academic perspective, and move to the very practical application of it. That's great. So Joanne, talk to me about, how do we come to work together? What was going on in the business that sort of brought you into my orbit?

Joanne Sonenshine 6:13

Yeah, so I've been a longtime podcast listener. Actually, I've listened to your podcast maybe since the beginning, I don't know. I think I've listened to every single

Leah Neaderthal 6:22

you're a podcast, og

Joanne Sonenshine 6:24

amazing I am, and I've always loved hearing people's stories of their business evolution, and it's inspiring to me to hear about where they started and where they've grown to. And so I was at a place late last year where I knew my business needed a real shift, because I had exited my company and I was consulting, but I wasn't entirely sure really how to niche down, how to focus, how to talk about my work, how to talk about myself. I also, because I work in kind of this humanitarian, charitable development sector, I always feel like people can't necessarily afford me, and so I had this whole like sales story that I was telling myself, and I appreciated how simple you seem to make sales and marketing, and I needed that so badly because I just wasn't able to sell myself. I had always sold my company's products and services, and so I came to you when I was really ready to focus on that and make that a priority well.

Leah Neaderthal 7:34

And I think anybody listening to this would, on the surface, hear like, Oh, she had a company. She sold it. She's obviously been very successful. Shouldn't she, like she must know already know how to do this. What was different this time,

Joanne Sonenshine 7:49

it was just me. I'm now working on my own and by myself, and so yes, I've had years of experience of selling. I've sold for my company. I've sold for the members of my organization. My organization previously was a membership organization, and a lot of what I did was sell for them. But even in your podcast, like intro, you say it's a lot easier to sell for somebody else and is to sell for yourself. That's exactly what I experienced. And I have a very hard time asking people to pay me for my brain and for what I offer them in terms of services. It's just something that I've had to really practice. And I going through your program, I feel much more confident in that than I had, but it's a muscle that you have to strengthen, and I need practice in that. Like, I think a lot of people do, particularly women, oh my

Leah Neaderthal 8:45

gosh, absolutely, for 100 reasons, when you say that it was harder to sell your own thing and you have a hard time like asking people to pay you. I mean, how does that just paint a picture? Like, how would that play out? How is that playing out in the business?

Joanne Sonenshine 8:57

Yeah, I'll give you an example. One of my clients is a, what we call kind of social enterprise. So they provide emergency health services in Kenya, and the people that they're working with are very poor, and they're fundraising, because I do, obviously fundraising advisories. So that's a perfect example where they need money to do their job, which is incredibly powerful and important in these places where they work and, frankly, for the world, but they also need me. And so I have to ask them to take those resources away from the beneficiaries and give it to me to help them essentially raise more. And so when you ask for what you consider to be a lot of money in your own kind of story that you're telling yourself. It's very hard to do that, because I'm a humanitarian, and I in my mind, I'm thinking, well, they need the money more than I do. That's not really true. I'm supporting myself and my family who does business, so I have to realize that what I'm doing will help them do even more in the future. Yeah, yeah,

Leah Neaderthal 10:01

absolutely. And I remember this has come up in a lot of our coaching calls, just that, like, how do you wrap your head around when you're doing, like, work for good air quotes, like, how do you ask for money?

Joanne Sonenshine 10:11

Well, I mean, one thing I will say in those, in those coaching calls that was really helpful to me is I would always say to you, I want to just, like, give this away. I just want to do all of this for free. I want to just do good, and I want to and you would be really clear with me that isn't a business that's that isn't actually going to be a service that's going to help these organizations, because what they need is they actually need my help and my advisory, and so giving it all away doesn't provide kind of value to them at the level that I'm providing value to them. And so hearing it that way through you, it almost gave me the okay to sell it that way.

Leah Neaderthal 10:51

Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm glad that was helpful. Yeah. I mean, it's a big mental shift. But I also, if I could just share with with the listeners and you and I had a lot of conversations about giving away a lot of value. Do you remember that? You remember this? Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah. And to what degree is this whole like, you know, giving away so much value, or giving away so much for free? How does that sort of play out in this?

Joanne Sonenshine 11:14

Yeah. I mean, there's the way that I don't think I had been thinking about the work that I have done or do now as value. And so this notion of value based pricing or providing value as a service, like my insight, my the intelligence on the funding ecosystem, the connection building, the guidance, the process, all of that which I provide my clients, is not just worth my time. It's actually worth a value to them in terms of how they're going to then translate that into the service they then provide. And so this idea of value is something it took me a while to get my kind of head around it, and it's still something I struggle with as I think about different proposals or working with different clients. But it's not just time or a product or a service, it's really about, what do you bring to the table with your clients that's going to help them do their job better? Yeah,

Leah Neaderthal 12:11

absolutely. Well, so let's bring us up to speed on where things are right now and then, let's talk about how you got there and what helped you. So compared to where you were, you know, mentally and in the business, how are things different? What's changed for the better?

Joanne Sonenshine 12:27

It's it's been such a massive progression for me. So number one, I feel like I have a good sense of what my services are, whereas before, I was just almost like holding my hand up and saying I'm available however you need me, I've been able to really think about the value that I provide in terms of almost like buckets or chunks or whatever you want to call it, but like very clear, distinguishable service areas, and then I've been able to wrap some much higher pricing around it than I ever have before. Even when I was running my company, I'm charging at a level that I haven't charged before, and I probably am still under charging, let's be perfectly honest, but knowing but being confident in that and wrapping it in this idea of value based pricing has been a massive transformation for me. So that's one two, because there's been quite a shift in my sector politically, I live in Washington, DC, and so I'm surrounded by kind of what's happening when the foreign aid sector, I've had to really focus on, you know, how I want to use my time. And one thing that you've taught through the academy that I absolutely love and I think about every day there's two things. One is this idea of making it so, like you have this great mantra that's, if you want to work a certain way, you can work a certain way, as long as you are supporting kind of, your service delivery and your clients, and you call it, make it so. And I think about that all the time, how can I just make this fit for my business and for my clients? And two is balancing. I think you call it like emotional health, financial health. And what's the third one?

Leah Neaderthal 14:07

Emotional profitability, financial profitability and professional profitability? Yes,

Joanne Sonenshine 14:11

yes. Thinking about a business, not just with the bottom line, is something that I've struggled with for a long time, and so putting an actual almost value on the other two components, where do you feel professionally, in terms of your trajectory, and also over influence, thought leadership, thing that's something that I've been spending a lot of time on. And then emotional profitability, balancing what you have to deal with at home or your family making sure you take care of yourself. The whole concept of self care is, yeah, whenever you can find the time, but if you actually build it into your business model, it's so much easier. And I've really appreciated how much you've helped me focus on that through this program that's been an utter. Transformation for the business,

Leah Neaderthal 15:01

that's amazing. And I want to dive into each of those things individually, value based pricing and all of that. But how's that all playing out? The sum total? How do you feel in the business?

Joanne Sonenshine 15:12

I feel much more in control. So I am also a control freak,

Leah Neaderthal 15:18

which would, as you've discovered there. I don't think there's one person in the academy who's not is it a control freak to some degree Anyway, go ahead.

Joanne Sonenshine 15:27

Yeah, no, I'm I appreciate feeling in control. Let's put it that way. So I feel much more in control of my prospecting process of communication with, you know, clients and potential clients. I feel I don't feel nervous. If my pipeline isn't super full like I know that the process that I have in place, that I've learned, will get me where I want to go without having to force it. And you know, there would be times in the past where if I didn't have business coming in, I would freak out and get really nervous, and then that control freak side of you starts to kind of almost overcompensate and and then you make decisions that aren't actually right for your business, whereas now I can just sit tight, do my process, do my shoulder taps, do all the things, and know that it will play out the way that it should, and it's just much more like it's much more streamlined. It's not as up and down like the feast and famine thing that you see with consulting businesses. I just feel like it's much more peaceful, peaceful.

Leah Neaderthal 16:34

I love that. That's not a phrase you hear a lot when in the whole like entrepreneur roller coaster, but feeling peaceful is that's, that's what we all want in this business, right? Let's talk a little bit about the 3x profitability, and which is, if you haven't heard me talk about this before, you know there you can't just think about money, right? There are three types of profitability you could picture like a pyramid. There's financial, of course, money professional, are you doing the work you love with clients you enjoy and emotional? Are you having fun? Do you have time for the things in people that matter? And you spoke to this a little bit. But in what ways do you has that played out, or have you integrated that into what you're doing now,

Joanne Sonenshine 17:17

I had always thought about my business growth in terms of the financial bottom line, maybe I sprinkle some professional profitability in there, which

Leah Neaderthal 17:31

also must be a little difficult when you are, as you mentioned earlier, working with people where you feel like taking any money whatsoever is the wrong thing to do. That must have been an emotional struggle for you.

Joanne Sonenshine 17:43

Constantly, I totally burnt myself out, and it was a cyclical challenge that I couldn't figure out how to overcome, because I could never get there to that financial level that I wanted to be at or felt like I needed to be at, because of the challenge of of not pricing myself at the right level or not being able to charge high enough. So having a process in place where I know that I will get there financially, and I don't have to almost push myself to think about it all the time, that's where the peaceful thing comes in. But then adding in the emotional profitability, I've always picked a word of the year, and, like, my word of the year last year was balance. Well, that was a total joke, because last year I just, I almost killed myself trying to get to where I thought my business need to get to, and I didn't get there. And so between that and, like, family stuff, I completely exhausted myself. So this year, going into the academy, knowing that I had the space to to reach kind of financial profitability according to the sales system. And then I had I had space, I had time, I had brain availability to think about, Do I want to do this work or not? What do I exactly want to do? And I've been able to spend the time thinking through that, which is the professional profitability, but then I also happen to have time left over, which is pretty incredible. And you really encourage us to think about ourselves in that kind of equality, like you are just as important as your clients, and that I need to be reinforced all the time. And what I think is amazing about the women in the academy is we all encourage each other to think that way. I think there's something

Leah Neaderthal 19:29

really magical about thank you for sharing that. I think there's something really magical about being around women who do have goals and do work hard and love, love to work and are ambitious, but also are just as ambitious about the balance and taking care of themselves like it's a safe place to to work hard and have goals, and also to imagine being cheered when you take a vacation. It's some

Joanne Sonenshine 19:56

of us incredible, right? Because we're not inclined to take time. Off. That was certainly me. And I just got back from a week vacation, and it was the first time where I really felt like I could walk away and step away. It was very freeing. That's

Leah Neaderthal 20:12

amazing, this idea of make it so where, if people have been listening to this podcast, they've heard it come up. But what does make it so mean for you, and how have you brought that into your practice? It's,

Joanne Sonenshine 20:26

it's like a permission to design your business in a way that works for you, and obviously your clients also, and the three profit abilities we just talked about. But it's, there's no rules that have to be in place with how you structure your business, as long as it is working for you and the make it so mantra is like I hear it in my head when I say no to a potential project, or when I tell a client that something they've suggested doesn't work for me, you're putting yourself out there. It feels a little risky. It feels like you're you're having to be a little bit vulnerable. But if you tell yourself, make it so, you're putting yourself first, you're you're creating the life in the business that suits you and that I've never done that before this year, I just it was all about everyone else was about, I'm here to change the world. I'm here to make the world better. There's so much need, and that is true, but that's not going to change overnight. So in the meantime, I have to design my day to day and my efforts with my business so that it it suits me and my family and what I'm trying to do. So the make it so mantra is, like, we can just make it so design the way you want to work. And you sent me this lovely little poster when I finished, like, one of the sessions in Academy, and I have it hung right above so I can

Leah Neaderthal 21:53

see him all the time. Yeah, I love that you the way that you are internalizing this is it's permission to put yourself first. And I think that all of us as women are, we are not conditioned from a young age to put ourselves first. And it's a really hard thing to learn. I learn. I'm still learning it every day. And I think also, I'll add on top of that, like this idea that there is some sort of right way, or there's a way that's okay to do something, and then there's maybe another way is not okay, and there's no okay or not okay. There just is what works for you. I found something like a little screenshot that I saved, and I shared it on LinkedIn, and it like blew up because I think it really hit something for someone, and it said, oh gosh, I'm going to paraphrase it, but it's like just a reminder, as an adult, you can't get in trouble with anybody like you can people can be disappointed or annoyed or upset with you, but you can't get in trouble with another adult. And I think, you know, the way, the reason why that sort of connects with make it so for me, is that I think that sometimes, just because of our conditioning, or early in our careers or whatever, we're afraid on some level that like, if we choose to do something, we're going to get in trouble, or somebody is going to be mad and and, first of all, no. And second of all, who cares? You're a grown up, and this is your life,

Joanne Sonenshine 23:20

yeah. And I know one of the constant themes is being a people pleaser and wanting everyone to like you. And I have gone through various iterations of that in my career. It's real. It's a real thing. And the make it so concept means that it's not about, does somebody like me, or am I doing things the right way? Or it's like, this is how it's going to be. This is how,

Leah Neaderthal 23:47

yeah, this is how it is and not. And I just just to be clear for everybody listening, it's not like, in an asshole way, like, this is how it is, you know, like, take it or leave it. It's more like, well, this is how I work, yeah. And there's nothing that's completely neutral. There's nothing wrong with

Joanne Sonenshine 24:02

that. And you also do a really nice job of encouraging us to think about some of the language we use in the sales process as like, like you. It's like, when you get an ad in the paper, you get an ad and you're in the email like, they don't feel badly about talking about their services or their pricing or their marketing. So it's like, why as as you know a service provider, do we feel badly asking people to pay us for our brains and for the work we do for them? It's all a lot of it is mindset, and then you couple that with process, and it's just it makes you feel so much more in control, and that you can make it so

Leah Neaderthal 24:45

that's so that's so great. I think that it's funny, because I feel like you've, since we've been working together, you've had sort of two phases of this work. There's like the the growth that you have, which we talked about to this point, and then you're. World was majorly turned upside down because of the industry that you're in and, and I even said to you before this, I was like, Are you sure you want to have this I mean, everyone, everything's different, and, and, and all of that. And you were like, yes, so talk to me about that in this process. And like, what does it look like to keep doing this work and keep learning these things and trying to, like, offer your services and help people when things go completely upside down in your industry, yeah,

Joanne Sonenshine 25:25

I mean, and I told you, when you mentioned about, do you still want to talk through this? I said absolutely, because in the midst of my entire sector essentially being destroyed overnight, I work in the foreign aid sector, so the foreign aid funding has completely gone away. All the foreign aid agencies here in Washington have been shut down. Tons of people have been fired. All of the organizations that I've supported over the years, the nonprofits have had their funding removed. It's been devastating, I mean, emotionally so devastating. And there's been, yeah, quite an up and down in terms of where there's need. And this, this gets back to the challenge that I've had for years, which is you, when you work in the sector, you want to give. Give, give. It's hard to take. And what I found really helpful by being part of the academy through this is that I had incredibly understanding, smart women encouraging me to get through it while giving. So I had certain ways that I was giving pro bono and but also helping me pivot to figure out, how does this not completely destroy my business, and encouraging me to think about things a little bit differently so that it wasn't just this devastating emotional roller coaster. It was okay. There's only so much you can control. How does your business react to this? And how do you as a leader in this ecosystem, react to this? And I immediately jumped into action and was doing some things on LinkedIn and doing things with my clients to ward them off from some of the devastating shifts and in the academy, we were talking through like, how does that translate to still being able to make a living? And it's kept me afloat. So thankfully, my business, even though it's been drastically impacted, I am still doing fine, and I'm grateful for that, because it means I can still support my clients, and I can still support my family at a time which is incredibly challenging.

Leah Neaderthal 27:27

I remember all of these conversations have been going on, and certainly what's been happening has been affecting a lot of women in the academy to varying degrees, but seeing those conversations happening and being a part of the conversations around what does this mean, and how do I translate this? I'm so glad that it's been rewarding for you, and you've been able to take it in a direction where it feels really good. And I love where I just wrote down what you said about being a become, emerging as a leader in this space, which is not something you would expect. It's like, if the whole industry is decimated, that's not You're not immediately like, Oh, I'm going to, I'm going to become a guru in this space or whatever, but you really have emerged as a leader, which is, if I'm guessing, knowing you a comfortable place to be, because you're you're a helper,

Joanne Sonenshine 28:11

yeah, yeah, I didn't expect some of the things that I was putting out there to go viral, and they did, and I'm glad, because I'm really honest, and I do have very strong opinions about what I'd like to see the world look like. So if I can use this time in a positive way, I want to do that. I mean, it's great to be a helper and but I still need to have a business. And so it's a fine line between being outspoken and having opinions and going viral on LinkedIn to also translating that to having a successful business. And so I have to kind of play those two sides carefully. But the Academy, I really can't emphasize this enough, it has kept that that balance and that need to look at both sides in a much healthier way than if I was without it. I don't know how I would have gotten through this last few months without these incredible women like and you and your team. It's just helped even out so many of those bumps.

Leah Neaderthal 29:12

Yeah, and I think that fine line, I think a lot of people are walking that because we're, we're definitely not through this. Yeah, it's very, you know, there's this whole like Bernie bound talks about, speak from the scar, not the wound, and like we're in the wound,

Joanne Sonenshine 29:25

yeah, and we don't know how long the wound will last, exactly,

Leah Neaderthal 29:29

exactly. We don't know when the scar is going to happen, so all we can do is continue to work in a way that's true to us and and supports the people we we need to support, and supports our clients, but again, not at the expense of ourselves. Absolutely, that's 100% right. Joanna, how do you feel like we talked about how your business is different? How would you say that you are different through this work? That's

Joanne Sonenshine 29:54

a really good question. I mean, aside from feeling like I have. More freedom to do my work in a way that serves me, in addition to those around me, I think that's actually probably number one. I feel challenged again. Like one of the things that I was struggling with probably about a year ago was I was just wasn't challenged professionally as much as I wanted to be. And I've in dabbling in some of these different business models and working with different types of client projects and stuff, I'm challenged again. So like that professional profitability we talked about is definitely up. But I don't feel I used to always feel like everything was in an emergency, right? If somebody sent me an email, or if there was an opportunity, like I used to have to feel like I was rushing and like time would run out, and it was clearly all in my head, and I have definitely settled down in that, in that I know, like we talked about before, like my processes are in place. I feel confident, I feel comfortable. I feel like I can just move through my day without that sense of urgency all the time, and I'm doing work that I really enjoy, and I'm still helping people, but I'm helping people in a way that I also am helping myself, because I'm challenged and I'm excited and I can look towards what the future holds in some of these projects and feel invigorated by it in a time that's pretty difficult. So that's exciting, and that's really encouraging. So I'm really thankful for that. That's

Leah Neaderthal 31:33

so amazing to hear. Can I tell you how I think you're

Joanne Sonenshine 31:36

different? Sure love to hear that

Leah Neaderthal 31:39

I did not prep Joanne for this. I just know I because what I've been observing is, I mean, clearly you are exceptionally smart and driven, and all those things existed already. What I've seen is that you're so much more confident. I think you second guess yourself less. Would you say is that that's just total outsiders perspective is that I'm not, I'm not saying confident. I don't mean confident in the work. That confident

Joanne Sonenshine 32:04

in like myself, in, yeah, in running

Leah Neaderthal 32:08

the business, in driving the business. Is this true or not true? It's

Joanne Sonenshine 32:13

very true, and it's confident in running and driving the business the way that I want to, deep down, do it without caring or second guessing or wondering what others might think. And that is very new. And I've been doing this a long time.

Leah Neaderthal 32:31

What does it feel like? What does it feel like to feel that way? What's neat to have that new feeling?

Joanne Sonenshine 32:36

It feels really good. It's like that we talked to it's like a freeing feeling. It really feels like an opening up, like a shackles come off analogy. I mean, it does feel that way, and it feels like I just have space, and it's it's delightful. I haven't felt like that, potentially ever, and I've been looking for that feeling in my professional life for a long time.

Leah Neaderthal 33:00

What do you feel like keeps women from having that? I mean, I know that's a big question, but what, what kept you from having that before?

Joanne Sonenshine 33:09

So in my mind right now, I'm hearing the words of having a lot to prove, and I've always felt like I had to prove myself and prove that I kind of belonged, or that I was working in the right environments with the right people, and that I was deserving of the circles I was working in or the work that I was doing. There's a lot of that, of feeling like you have to prove yourself, and I'm a mom and I'm an only child, I've got, like, parent stuff, so I've always had to kind of balance, like pleasing all these people and doing it all the right way. That's the challenge of the modern day woman, for most of us, and if you start really caring less about how good it looks, or how good it seems to other people, or whether you're deserving of x, y, z, and you really focus on what's in front of you and the outcomes. The rest of the stuff doesn't matter. And I think what's going on in our world right now, it just reminds me, at least that like the stuff that matters is what's right around you and the rest of the stuff we have little control over. So I think this confidence is really about that is, let me just control what I can move forward the way that I feel comfortable and do the best that I can, and not feel like I have to prove anything. The freedom

Leah Neaderthal 34:39

from having to prove yourself is I can imagine just an incredible weight lifted.

Joanne Sonenshine 34:45

Yeah, yeah. It's not something I had expected I would feel just by going through this program, because I thought, you know, I saw it as like more of just a sales and marketing program, not so much like an individual growth program at the same time and. It has been. It really has been. I'm

Leah Neaderthal 35:02

so glad I just I have chills right now. I have chills. Joanne fill in the blank for me on this one. So I almost didn't work with you, or I almost didn't join the program,

Joanne Sonenshine 35:13

because I have joined a lot of programs in my day. I've joined a lot of women only programs. I've joined a lot of sales and marketing programs, and I almost didn't join because I thought this program might be similar to those, in terms of the women who participate in those programs, who are just maybe in a different point in their life, or in a different kind of career, or think about their career differently, and might have different types of jobs, and it's just a different environment in these other kind of women's groups. And I've joined so many that, like some of my friends and colleagues, make fun of me that I'm like a perpetual joiner, and I quit. But I think that was the one thing I was most concerned about, and that is the opposite of these amazing women. They're just what I was looking for. Yeah,

Leah Neaderthal 36:08

I think it's the best place on the internet. And yeah, it's so hard to know when you get into a group, is it women who are doing this as a side hustle? Is it women who are, yeah, like you said, at different stages of their career? I tell everybody who is considering the program, I mean, this is everyone's a grown up here, and I don't have to say more than that,

Joanne Sonenshine 36:29

yeah. And I think that translates into smart, challenging, intellectual conversations, which I have not found in any other kind of group program. And this is just a completely different experience.

Leah Neaderthal 36:43

Yeah, thank you for saying that. Yeah, when you think about where you were maybe a year ago, what would you say to someone who's in that place, the position you were in back then? What would you say to her?

Joanne Sonenshine 36:55

I have a friend who always says like this, too shall pass. And I do remind myself that often I think having heard that a year ago would have been helpful, but I also would never have predicted what this year would have been like externally. So I think I would have just told I would tell that person to just keep moving forward incrementally and do what you think makes sense for yourself first. And even if it's like little, small baby steps that inch you forward, like that whole like, two steps back, one step forward, whatever, like that is really true. Being a business owner, being an entrepreneur is like, unlike anything there is in terms of emotional volatility, and if you just hold on tight and make decisions based on what you believe in, from like your heart and your value system and what you think makes sense, like you will get to that point of progress, it just might take time. And I also would say Sheryl Sandberg said and lean in something about career ladders being a fallacy, which is something that I've really taken heart to. And it's more like a jungle gym, right? So, like, you might climb up and then back down, and then over to the side, and then you try something different, over to the other side, and then you fall. And then you know that is, not only is that business, but that's life. And I would tell whoever's in that position, just you might have to make a couple shifts on the jungle gym, but just keep climbing, and you'll get to where that next safe spot is. I

Leah Neaderthal 38:31

love that. I love that analogy. Joanne, where can people find you? So

Joanne Sonenshine 38:36

I'm on LinkedIn. Joanne, sun and shine on LinkedIn. I'm pretty active, so please feel free to message me there. My website is Joanne sunonshine.com and yeah, would love to hear from anyone who's interested in chatting about any of this. I love meeting new people, so feel free to reach out,

Leah Neaderthal 38:54

Joanne, thank you so much for coming on here, for sharing your journey. I know it's going to be really meaningful for a lot of women, thank

Joanne Sonenshine 39:01

you so much for having me and asking Leah, I appreciate it.

Leah Neaderthal 39:08

I mean, right, that had everything. And what I love about Joanne's story is just how real it is. Because she didn't just learn how to like, price her work or structure her services. I mean, which she did, but she also learned something that so many of us are still learning, that you get to decide how your business works. And for a lot of women, you know, a lot of us, especially those who've been in spaces where we've had to sort of prove ourselves or play by somebody else's rules, or we inherited this huge, you know, structure. That's a radical idea, but, you know, Joanne said it so perfectly you can make it so you can design a business that's profitable, yes, but also peaceful and fulfilling and authentic to who you are. And, I mean, listen, that doesn't mean it's always easy. You know, you're still going to have doubts. You're still going to want to over deliver. Yeah. You might still feel that twinge of guilt or awkwardness when you say your price out loud and it's higher than you've charged before, because think about it. You know, not many of us have models of what it looks like to really put yourself first and to have balance and to have peace even. I mean, think about it. You know, just on the topic of putting yourself first. I mean, think of a book we all read as kids, right? The Giving Tree, which is basically about giving so much of yourself. I mean, everything really to your own detriment. And I think the beauty of what the women that I work with are doing, and what we're doing in the academy, is that we can do things a different way, like this generation of entrepreneurs, the one that we are in right now, we can have a business where we come first and we can make it so, and that's a privilege that we get to do as business owners. And the more you show up, and the more you practice, you know, really standing in your value and putting yourself first, the more you can build a business that feels like home. So if Joanne's story resonated with you, I know she would love to hear about it, and I would love to hear about it too. I would love to know what spoke to you in this episode. So write down some of your thoughts or insights and ahas and post them on LinkedIn and tag me, and I'll give you a signal boost. I love seeing women who really take things to heart and really think about how it applies to them, right? So take a minute and do that, and I can't wait to see it on LinkedIn. And as always, thank you for listening, for sharing the podcast and for bringing what you learn here into your work, whether we work together directly or you're tuning in as a listener, it's an honor to be part of your journey. So remember, you have the ability to make it so you have the ability to build a business that feels like you and feels like home. All right. I'll see you next time you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai