Mini Moment #1: You Don’t Have to Do It Alone - The Truth About Going Solo in Business

 Transcript

 Welcome back to the Inner Sanctum Salon Rising, the podcast mini moments brought to you by timely. Hello.

Hello. I am so happy to be back.

I am so excited to have you back on a mini moment. So guys, mini moments are going to be just our snippet pods, so not really long format, and we're just gonna touch on things. So first guest today is the wonderful Sherri. You know her, you love her. We've seen her and we just love having her on. So, Sherri from Timely. thanks so much for coming back on Babe.

Oh, thank you for having me. I'm excited for our little mini moments.

me too. gonna be great. So what, we headed into this first round of mini moments, I think the topic we were really wanting to touch on this time was that sole trader journey. You know, I know when we caught up on the main pod was that last year.

Yeah.

Wow,

Yeah. Yeah.

last year, we started talking into some of those stats of people on their solo journey, and I was honestly shocked when you told me how many sole trader businesses close after 18 months of trading.

And it's really started that conversation about. Well, why do we think that is?

Hm.

what are the things that we can do to support these people so that everyone's continuing to thrive, be it on their own or with a team or however they wanna do it. Guess my initial thoughts are what do you think are the contributing factors in why that's sort of dipping out 18 months?

Yeah, I feel like it's dipping out at that 18. Kind of month mark is everything sets in. And that reality sets in. You are in your role of your business, your you've felt like you may have got traction. The bills are coming in, and, and all of those things start to happen, right? And if you don't have a good team around you or if you don't have support or anything like that, then you're gonna feel like you are a solo.

Yeah.

almost feel like. In a really interesting way. I wish we could maybe change the word solo

Yes,

because it does kind of have this loneliness about it. Like you say, oh, I'm a solo hairdresser. I'm a solo business owner. Like that's what you are. But I wonder if there's like some other words that we could maybe think of that changed the narrative and, and maybe help you show up differently if you named it as just I'm a business owner.

Yeah, it was, it's actually funny you say that because I saw something that you know, Sheridan, like Mama West Sheridan had said about working for yourself, not by yourself. And it's like, that is so true. You can work for yourself, you can work. your own for yourself, but it doesn't have to be by yourself.

You still need a team.

Absolutely

different. You know, that team might be your accountant and your software provider it's the who's the team that's got your back. You don't have to be alone.

no. And something that I actually do often is I write who my cheer squads are and.

good.

I think like personally, I've probably been going through my own little journeys and I got asked to write a list of who's in my team, and what does my cheer squad look like, so that whenever I'm in doubt I can go back to that.

And the actual exercise of writing down who was in my team and who I could rely on for advice made me feel so secure within any of the decisions that I wanna make. And. You start to realize that you aren't alone and your team are there to cheer you on, and whether or not that is your software, maybe it's your gym crew in the morning that are there to like comment on your posts or like all your posts or share your posts, like there's so many people out there that are cheering for your success.

You just really have to identify those things. And I think once you've identified who your cheer squad are, you can then definitely like. Think of the wider picture. But it's so important to keep those little nuggets of notes. And I actually think I might have brought this up on our, our podcast that we did at the start of the year about some little tips that you can do on, on your notes, but you can write those things down and start to think about who is in your cheer squad team.

So you do feel less alone in things.

I am literally just sitting here thinking of all the people that I wanna message after this and be like, thank you for being in my cheer squad.

Yes. And that's, that's actually a really beautiful exercise to do. We should take those moments sometimes to think of people that are in our cheer squad and thank them. It's a beautiful little gratitude exercise to reach out and say, thanks.

like even just talking about that, I'm like, bing, bing, bing, ping. He's like, I need to message this person and this person. Yeah. I love that. That is so valuable.

is your day to message all the people that you are grateful for on your business journey.

Absolutely. That's so good. Okay, so we've, that loneliness

Hmm.

right now. know this wasn't one that you or I have struggled with actually, because we had quite good financial setups when we went into operating like businesses for ourselves. But I know that one thing we have noticed, with sole traders that come and try and work with Salon Rising is, there's sometimes a shock factor in Bills going, you know, like we talked about the outgoings and like, oh, now I have to pay that.

Or, sometimes it's that, they've done so well on those formative stages and then all of a sudden you've hit like qualifying to pay GST and stuff, which sometimes I feel like there's a negativity around it, but it's like, no, that means you're doing great.

Yeah.

you've gone to that next leap.

Like this is awesome.

That's so true. You've hit that next level of growth in your business and GST. I mean, I think a good practice of put the GST aside anyway, whilst you're under that threshold and use that towards the growth of the business or some marketing or paid ads or something like that. But as long as you're probably looking at it from just putting that little bit away, it does have like a less of a shock factor.

And there's easy ways to do that too. Like if you have your GST turned on in your booking software, you can see it. So you could run a report at the end of the month and see exactly what that GST is and put that aside. And it is hard, I think, too, because we all have been there.

And I will first hand put my hand up and say. We've all been in the salon and seen what we turn over and we've looking at this big number, it's like, oh my God, I've turned over X amount and yeah, I could have a killing business outside of this. But you know, there are,

profit are two very different things.

imagine if it was just profitable alone. I mean, they're dreamy.

it would be so good.

It's kind of like when you pay your mortgage and you see what you paid in interest.

I know I've actually just fallen down a rabbit hole with that as well. I'm like, oh, how do I stop the how I wanna, I'm following all the people

Yes.

it differently to try and pay it faster. That is my little hyper focus that I've got at the

Oh, I love that. I love that. That's also I think, something that no one teaches you. There's two things I think in our life. You wanna open a business, there's probably like. A high chance that no one's told you how to open a business or run a business. And so you are naive and you just jump into it and you find your way as you go along.

And it's the same with buying a house. You didn't grow up with parents that taught you how to do things or even saving your money or anything like that, then you end up having to find out these ways. And there are so many clever ways to do things with your bank account.

and I think that's the same your business, right? Like it's just like looking and seeking and asking the questions and not being scared to be like, I wonder if there's a different way to do this.

And I also see there are so many incredible coaches in many different fields, so if you wanna learn something, there are so many free webinars that people put on

never.

you can join.

in history where the ability to learn something is so accessible to everybody? Like it's, yeah, the information is everywhere. You've just gotta look for it.

Do you think?

information though.

Yeah. And do you think that we have a bit of a learning, like I feel like I've got a little bit of a bit of learning fatigue.

I think I could do with a dose of learning fatigue 'cause it might stop me from to do everything.

I've definitely got learning fatigue at the moment

Yeah. As in life lessons, as in, I

like every,

Just, just across the board. No more.

there is so much information and I love learning, so I will take everything and then all of a sudden you get this overwhelmed where you've taken on so much information that you don't even know what the right decision is.

Get outta my head, Sherri.

and then you, , I learn best is , I'm figuring out right now, whereas I'll grab all this information and then I'll just talk to people

Yeah.

and I'll be like, what are your thoughts on this? Have you done this before? And then that starts to like feel a little bit better. But with you are in this little learning bubble and you are taking in all this information, then you're like, I didn't even know what to do with all of this.

It is quite overwhelming and I think because we have so much at our fingertips to learn.

Yeah.

And where we're learning and who we're learning from, like it can really feel quite overwhelming. And I have felt that too. When I had my business, it was like, cool, I need to learn how to do this. But it's like, do I really wanna learn how to do this?

But you do need to because if something goes wrong, especially when it comes to your books or your accounting or your numbers. You have to be across that. 'cause there's way too many horror stories that happen where you are relying solely on your bookkeeper or your accountant.

And yeah, I, coined that weaponized incompetence and that weapon's gonna get turned on you.

Mm-hmm.

It's okay to have that support and have someone else doing it, but you need to have at least the fundamental understanding of what is happening,

Yeah.

know? Yeah, that's so true. I feel like that's where your cheer squad can come into it as well, because sometimes you need your cheer squad as a hand break.

Absolutely. It's kind of like all those Facebook groups that happen. You know, there's a few that are floating around at the moment and every day there's. Women in business posting in their, sharing their struggles, and you see like 50, 60 comments on there and everyone is going through the same thing.

Yeah,

one person to ask the question or reach out to someone and you will find someone that's really relating to it.

collective learning.

collective learning. I love that.

So think, and I'm sure you would agree, that sometimes one of the other things that contribute to this fatigue around that 18 month business mark, is not having systems in place. I actually remember us having this conversation really early on. When I went, on board with timely, you know, and you were just like, I know that it seems like a lot, but you have to just sit down because those couple of hours that you set yourself up for will save you so many hours in the future.

Mm-hmm.

I would say that's one of the most valuable things I learned this year. It's made such a difference.

And it's so true. It's always, I always have that same quote. Start how you mean to go on. So whatever your future plans of your business are, you implement them now,

Yeah.

or the foundational stuff. So the boring stuff, the emailing and , the automations and the things like that.

And then. That also falls into, I guess, if you're building a business, is this like brand voice that you kind of have to think about. And so like when you start putting those systems in place, you start to think about what your brand voice is too. So as you're doing all of those steps and those systems, you're thinking about that.

It's like we were having that conversation about like your client journey and

Yeah.

looking and what do those automations look like? And then you start thinking about the conversations that you had behind the chair and, and what makes your salon on really different and special and beautiful, and why your clients come back.

And it's really interesting 'cause I was, I was literally having a conversation with a solo stylist on Monday about this and. She's not using any automation systems and just finding it hard but that perception that then you'll lose that personal touch, which I actually think is quite the opposite

Yeah.

because I feel like having your hands off those. Little things, they're still personal touch points because you design them yourself. Right. But it just means that it's allowing you more time to be personal in the chair.

Correct. Correct. And it's going back to some of the basic things. It could be client testimonials.

Yeah.

I always think about the thought process that we have when we're building our social media and what we wanna add in. Our content can also be part of what you're doing in your. Email automations

Yeah. Yeah.

because not everyone's looking at your social media all the time.

It's so hard. We're in a overly saturated, flooded Instagram market. So email when we really peel everything back. Your email list is such a valuable part to your business. So think about whatever you are planning for your socials is gonna be the same thing that you're also gonna pour into that, that email client journey, client testimonials or product of the week, or products of the month.

Maybe. It doesn't have to be a huge thing. It's.

am. I'm like, I need to get more emails.

I could see your brain ticking. That's, and can I also say that's why it's really good when clients book online because you actually capture all of their details.

Yes,

you know, email, you get their phone number. There's no like user error typing everything in necessarily. Like I remember working in a salon and we decided to get everyone's email addresses and it was such a big exercise.

You have this like piece of paper at the front and you're like.

people's handwriting, and then it's like, oh, you know, I've put it in wrong. It's like, yeah, no, that's so true.

Correct, correct. But I think we do need to have some more conversations around that importance of how important your client data is to you and how valuable that is. Your Instagram might get deleted tomorrow. You don't know which has happened. There's been like quite some huge influential people out there have lost their Instagram and that is.

So scary for so many of us, but like that means that your website's gotta be good and you email, you gotta have all your contacts in there. So email and phone number will never, ever, ever die.

It is true. really is true. Okay. I feel like we've covered some good groundwork in this. Yes. Like I think we've talked about, I. The whys we think things are happening. So perhaps when we, 'cause we're gonna do another couple of these little mini ones, guys, so that we can cover a bit more stuff. But I think the lesson we're gonna take away from this little mini moment is that you need to figure out who your cheer squad is. Yeah, and just little gratitude practice. So send your cheer squad a message and say, thanks so much for being my cheer squad, and really thinking about those touch points in your business that perhaps it's time that you can take your hands off them if you lay the right groundwork. Yes. Do you think.

I also think, and I do wanna say this, you are not gonna have everything in place at the start.

Oh yeah.

So don't get too much anxiety. Like there there'll be this, oh my God, oh my God, I gotta have everything done. Just think of the key things that are gonna help you get going, and then make sure that you prioritize time once your business is say, up and running in a month.

Go back to those basics of like, okay, what's next? And I think you did this really well, Jen. Like you kind of got quite a bit going and then it was like, I've gotta get my doors open and I've gotta get things moving. And then you went back and thought, okay, that's this next stage. So there's almost like three or four stages of.

Putting everything together. So it's like get everything going, all your automations, text messages, your business details, like all of those things. And then it's like, okay, so what's that next stage? What do I need to do to keep my clients engaged? Okay, so this might be these aftercare emails or these little, you know, pop in messages or what that might look like.

And then that next stage is like, oh, what's missing from that?

Yeah, and just like focusing on that one thing, clean it up, set it up, and then go like, okay. That's click, click, play, and that's going.

Correct.

look at that next little thing. But I think that's another really important thing to say as well, is that just keep making those little movements forward.

Yeah.

Don't feel overwhelmed. Just those little steps.

And when you're in doubt, remember why.

Yeah.

Remember why you are doing what you're doing and why you love it. And I think that's a really important part to why we also forget why that stage of that 18 months happens is because you were tired and you've actually forgotten the why.

Yeah,

Of why you're showing up every day and nurturing these clients, so have that written somewhere really big and large so that that can remind you every day.

maybe a neon sign.

Yeah.

Awesome. Okay guys, so thank you so much for joining us on this little mini moment pod. Sherri and I will be chatting about just a few other things over the next couple of months. So yeah, listen out and I hope you enjoy these mini moments.

Thanks so much, Sherri.

Thank you.