Work It Like A Mum
Work It Like A Mum
Discover the Secrets to Growing a Successful Business with Purpose and Balance
In today’s episode, we’re thrilled to chat with Safia Rana-Jaswal, business growth strategist and founder of The Mum Hub- a thriving community that empowers mums seeking greater success and fulfilment. Safia shares her inspiring journey from scaling her husband's business to seven figures in just 18 months to launching three successful ventures of her own.
This is a must-listen for budding entrepreneurs looking to discover essential strategies for building a sustainable, profitable business that offers financial freedom and work-life balance.
What We Cover:
Safia’s Career & Transition: Safia’s journey to becoming a self-made entrepreneur. With a background in sales, network marketing, and leadership, she shares how she’s grown multiple businesses while raising three children.
Founding The Mum Hub: How Safia turned personal struggles into a robust community, supporting mums with mental health resources, networking, and focusing on postpartum wellness and personal growth.
The TMH Group & Business Growth Essentials: Safia breaks down the must-have fundamentals for building a sustainable business, with advice on revenue generation, time management, and strategies to grow without burnout. Plus, hear about her popular networking events that foster connection and skill-building.
Key Takeaways:
- Essential tools for time management and adapting goals for long-term success.
- The power of supportive communities in amplifying both personal and business growth.
- Why investing in networking and skill development drives a successful business journey.
Join us to learn from Safia’s invaluable insights on building a thriving business while finding balance and fulfilment!
Show Links:
Connect with Safia on LinkedIn.
themumhubgroup.com
Follow The Mum Hub on Instagram
Connect with our host, Elizabeth Willetts, on LinkedIn.
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Hey, I'm Elizabeth Willits and I'm obsessed with helping as many women as possible achieve their boldest dreams after kids and helping you to navigate this messy and magical season of life. I'm a working mum with over 17 years of recruitment experience and I'm the founder of the Investing in Women job board and community. In this show, I'm honoured to be chatting with remarkable women redefining our working world across all areas of business. They'll share their secrets on how they've achieved extraordinary success after children, set boundaries and balance, the challenges they've faced and how they've overcome them to define their own versions of success. Shy away from the real talk? No way. Money struggles, growth, loss, boundaries and balance we cover it all. Think of this as coffee with your mates, mixed with an inspiring TED Talk sprinkled with the career advice you wish you'd really had at school. So grab a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, make sure you're cosy and get ready to get inspired and chase your boldest dreams, or just survive Mondays. This is the Work it Like A Mum podcast. This episode is brought to you by Investing in Women. Investing in Women is a job board and recruitment agency helping you find your dream part-time or flexible job with the UK's most family-friendly and forward-thinking employers. Their site can help you find a professional and rewarding job that works for you. They're proud to partner with the UK's most family-friendly employers across a range of professional industries. Family-friendly employers across a range of professional industries Ready to find your perfect job? Search their website at investinginwomencouk to find your next part-time or flexible job opportunity. Now back to the show.
Speaker 1:Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Work it Like A Mom podcast. Today I am delighted because I am chatting with Sophia Rana Jaswal, who is a business growth strategist and also runs a lovely Instagram community called the Mum Hub as well, for mums that want to do more and achieve more. But today we're going to be talking all about Sophia's journey and into entrepreneurship and how she helps other entrepreneurs and small business owners achieve their business goals and some of the fundamentals you need to have in place to monetize and grow your own business and ensure it's a success and gives you the financial and time freedom you're looking for. Thank you so much, Sophia, for joining me today. It's a real pleasure to chat with you. Thank you for having me. No, thank you. So before we get going, do you want to give us a little bit of an overview as to you. Know who you are and what your background is and what brought you to the Mum.
Speaker 1:Hub.
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. I'm Sophia, as you know. I've got three young children, so three, six and nine years old. I've been kind of in business for the last 20 years growing my own kind of businesses. I have three businesses that I've kind of grown myself. So I know exactly what it takes and what fundamentals need to be in place to be able to kind of grow a business. I have 20 years experience in sales, network marketing, digital marketing, lead generation, and I've also held positions at c-suite and board level in, you know, very male-dominated environments.
Speaker 2:So I know what it takes to, you know, um, have to stand up and kind of, you know, have your voice kind of heard, I suppose, and also how that changes after you have children. You know I held that position before I had children and then I saw it kind of change. My working hours had to change and kind of things had to change after I had my children. So I had to adapt, you know, quite quickly to that as well, which brought its own struggles, but I'm sure we can save that for another episode, um, so that's kind of where my experiences lie.
Speaker 2:I started the mum hub, which is probably just post COVID I think I saw there was a gap where, you know, nobody was meeting each other. You know my mental health was suffering because of that. I just, you know, had my second child during that time and I really felt, actually with my own struggles with my own mental health, after I had, you know, my first child, I didn't leave the house for six months. I didn't take her to any classes because I was very scared of, you know, germs and had serious health anxiety. You know around, you know her getting poorly, dying, all these kind of things so it was.
Speaker 2:It was horrible. And I look back and think, actually, was it postpartum depression? Potentially it was. It was, but 10 years ago it wasn't very much kind of talked about. So I kind of you know, just I was managing and maintaining and and suppressing those feelings, I suppose.
Speaker 2:So I thought actually, you know, when she started nursery, there were more of these conversations happening as I started to talk to more mums and I felt actually a lot of people are feeling the same here. This is quite common. So I thought, why don't we give it a go? Let's, you know, start an Instagram page. Let's start networking with some other kind of mums. Let's start doing a brunch kind of once every two weeks, getting mums together and really focusing on learning something at these branches.
Speaker 2:So I would have a guest speaker that would come in and they would talk on a topic such as perimenopause, how your identity changes after children um, you know, juggling motherhood, career anxieties, you know all these things.
Speaker 2:And actually, you know, 40 brunches later over the two years. There was a very kind of common theme that that was running through this and actually, as I was speaking to these mums that were coming to the events, I found actually everyone has a side hustle or at least 90% of them do and I got talking to them more about that and it was very interesting and I found there was some very common themes happening here and running through, which was, you know, they had a side hustle to try and bring some extra money, but also it was out of a hobby or a passion, so they've kind of thrown into it really yeah, but they didn't really know how to grow it, how to monetize it. They had very low confidence and they were. They were putting so much in but getting very little out. And I was thinking, okay, I can use my 20 years experience here in growing my own businesses.
Speaker 2:You know to to eight figures and you know under very, very difficult um, you know environments and also going through having my own children and knowing how to grow my business whilst having kind of three children and knowing time management is probably key to this you know, we often society makes us think we've got to work 24 hours a day and actually it glorifies working 24 hours a day and actually if we just change that narrative a little bit to work smarter, not harder, our mental health improves, our business clarity improves and we're, overall, kind of more happy and kind of healthy, I found. So I started TMH group, which is I wouldn't call it business consultancy, because really you know, I'm a growth strategist. I can come into your business. I can, or, if you want to start a business, I can help show you what fundamentals you need really to set yourself up for success, rather than learning on the job. I think that's very difficult. When you start a business or you have a business, most often than not you're learning on the job. I think that's very difficult. When you start a business or you have a business, most often than not you're learning on the job. Um, it's a lot of, takes a lot of time. Your time is also money, so it's you really need to make sure you're putting your money into the right places as well. So that's kind of how I fell into, kind of where I am now the mum hub.
Speaker 2:And now what is, you know, tmh group, which still has, you know, um importance on female business owners, supporting women's, you know, mental well-being, because that's, you know, the heart and soul and the passion that I have is, you know, supporting women into also financial independence as well. And do you still run the brunches? So I've slightly changed the brunches now where the brunches are more kind of business networking focused. So what I tend to do is, you know, I have one, which is on Thursday actually, which is speed networking. So I thought actually this is a really fun way for women or, you know, I've got men that are also coming, but, as I said, I have a real passion for kind of women in business to come and get involved in some speed networking. So you come in and you've got two minutes per person to quickly kind of, you know, tell people what you do, um, sharpen up your blurb and really get it, you know, clear.
Speaker 2:So you know, and and put some kind of focus into kind of what you're doing as well, and it's just really fun. Come together, have some brunch, meet new people, get visible. It's absolutely amazing. You know, this is the second one I've run. The first one sold out and was absolutely fantastic. We had, you know, 16, 17 amazing business owners there and I always say you know, put your money in networking events and someone that's going to teach you how to grow your business, because that's where you will get your best return. You know, and I stand by that, and that's now where the kind of branches are.
Speaker 1:Kind of heading is yeah, kind of you know, maybe as well as you've evolved, as you know you're getting a bit older as well.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, we all, absolutely no, absolutely, and I think business is about evolving and you're not going to stay in the same place. But what you need to keep an eye on is those goals, and you may have one goal and you say right, this is my goal for the next six months. Don't be afraid for those goals to change. You know, it's very often for you to think actually, you know, just adapt, and I think that's something I've had to learn as well. One, as my children have grown older once, as you know as my kind of time management has also changed as well is that businesses evolve and you change and grow as a person as well. So it's constantly evolving, but there's a couple of fundamentals that you need to keep a hold of to keep you focused and I think you know, bearing that in mind, you you'll do well.
Speaker 1:So wait, I'm going to move on to the fundamentals, but I know that that absolutely people are going to be interested in. But just while we're talking about your networking events, where are they held?
Speaker 2:so they're held around Surrey kind of mostly. So I hold them kind of, you know, mainly around the Wimbledon area. It's quite a good kind of hub so I hold them around there. So you know, if anyone's interested on the Instagram, they're always kind of linked in my bio and, yeah, keep an eye out and see if anything's around and if you fancy it. It's just a fun, pressure-free way of getting to know people and getting your business visible and just building those genuine connections, rather than a like on an Instagram and never having a conversation. I think conversations are key and I always say plant those seeds. Every conversation is a seed that you're planting. So keep that in mind and I use these weird kind of analogies. But actually it takes away from saying like, generate three leads or four leads. Actually it just keeps it fun as well.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I think what's nice about you what I said before we hit record is that credibility piece, because I get, you know, see a lot of business coaches on LinkedIn and other sites and actually they've never run their own business, never run their own business and a lot of them just worked in a corporate and come out and then decided they want to become business coaches. But actually that credibility piece is so important because I know that you've grown your own businesses and you, you know you yourself are a real entrepreneur, so I think that's fantastic absolutely, and I think it's about mindset as well.
Speaker 2:You know, for me, I'm always looking for right. I've done this. What can I do now to make a difference? How can I improve myself? And, you know, constantly evolving and I make sure that I'm always challenging myself and pushing myself out of my comfort zone. But it's taken me also a long time to learn that. But running your own business, there's nothing like learning on the job. Yeah, you know, I've learned how to build websites on my own. I've learned how to integrate apps. I've learned how to launch apps. I've learned how to do all these things and I'm self-taught and I've used these. It's not a blueprint method, so I don't like to say do this and then you know, the output will be six figures, because I don't believe that at all. And anyone that says, download this guide, you know, and download the guide download the guide for six figures?
Speaker 2:you know well, I don't believe that at all. You've got to put the work in and actually it's so bespoke an individual to your business, because no two businesses and no two people are the same, and I think that's so key for everyone to know that. So you know if you can stay away from downloading you know free guides or paid memberships or whatever, because actually you're paying to trial other people's ideas and that costs you a lot of time in learning as well. So, yeah, there are a couple of things that I try and stay away from and tell people to try and stay away from. But again, when you're flooded with it, you know, on social medias, whichever platform you use, it's everywhere.
Speaker 2:You know, on social medias, whichever platform you use, it's everywhere. It is everywhere and you've got to know what to focus your time on and what not and who to trust. You know, because it's about trust at the end of the day. So you know you've got to have conversations, otherwise you can't just drop into someone's you know messages and say to them oh, I've got this offering. You know, and you've got to build a relationship. It's all about relationship building, which is why face-to-face time is so important.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I know that obviously you don't sell a blueprint every business is different but what are some of the key fundamentals then that you think all small businesses or people interested in launching a business should?
Speaker 2:have in place, absolutely so, I think. First, you really need to spend a lot of time on your ideal customer profile. I think this needs to be not just a one page but two pages, really in depth, on what you feel their hobbies are. You know where they live, how are they, you know, you know where are they working, where they're looking for their products or services, looking where they're looking for their products or services, really kind of in depth, looking at who your ideal customer is. So this is an ideal world, you know, so you can say, right, actually I would like someone that you know maybe it's a, you know a mom with. You know one or two children you know they're of school age, age really get down to the nitty gritties.
Speaker 2:And I think I spend a lot of time on customer profiling, my strategy days, because that underpins everything that you do once you get your ideal customer profile going and I say going because it's an ever-evolving process as you get more customers, you will then do more exercises on asking them questions on how did you find me? You know, where was you looking, what made you buy from me? And again, that builds up a rapport with your customers as well. You then refine that more so. It's an ever-evolving process. I find the customer profile, but you must start from somewhere and really spend a week, two weeks on the ideal customer profile. Once you have that, that will really give you an idea on how you find your customers, where you find your customers and how you qualify your customers, because ultimately, knowing not everyone can buy from you is a really big thing. You know, knowing how to qualify your customers is a huge thing, otherwise you're spending time sending you know price lists to everybody, or you know um, you know whatever it is discovery calls.
Speaker 2:All the and everyone offers discovery calls and I don't offer a discovery call because I think that takes up so much time. There's a couple of questions I'll ask you kind of before that over message or over call or whatever you kind of want to do, you know, to build a rapport with you, but ultimately I'm not going to waste 30 minutes doing a discovery call because, at the end of the day, time is money and yeah, it's about. Again, I go back to planting these seeds. So planting the seeds come. After you know who your ideal customer is, you can go and look for them. You know you build a genuine relationship with them, have a genuine conversation, and only if you're generally interested in their content. Otherwise, there's no point in liking or sending a message or putting a comment in just for other people to see you. I think that also doesn't work either. Um, those aren't genuine connections. So, although we everyone's fascinated with numbers and the higher the Instagram number or the higher the followers on Facebook or whatever, to me that doesn't mean absolutely anything. I mean I have nearly 5,000 followers, but I mean it doesn't. I could have had way more if I connected with every single person that connected with me, but I'm not going to choose to do that because it's not a genuine connection that I'm building. So I like to think that actually, you know, try not to focus on the number. Focus on the genuine connections that you put, and it takes longer, but you will get a much higher return if you focus your time on that. So, number one ideal customer profile spend a lot of time on that and make sure you are really looking for those people that fit your ideal kind of customer profile. But also, when someone sends you an inquiry, do they tick the boxes? You know, do they not? And if they don't, you can still spend time on them, but don't spend so much time following up and, you know, manage your time better with them. So I think that's that's definitely key um vision and mission. I think a lot of people have an idea in their head, kind, of what they want to do, but actually they don't have a very clear one line or one paragraph, clearly communicated vision and mission. Why am I going to choose to go to this person? Why am I going to choose to trust you? That, then, really um builds. It's a trust indicator. You know, if someone has this vision and someone has this mission, you say, actually, that aligns with me. You know, actually, yes, that speaks to me, that's a genuine connection that you're going to build. So I think having a vision and mission is one thing, but clearly communicating that on your socials or when you're speaking to people is absolutely fundamental. So, definitely, you know, look at your vision and your mission and you can get templates for these things or whatever. And templates are a good place to start. Don't get me wrong. You know, have a look at a template. It will help you kind of fill it out and really keep you clear and concise. I think that's, that's, you know.
Speaker 2:The second thing, and then the third thing I would say is look at your business goal and it could be as borders, I want to make money, or I want to have more, increase my mailing list, or whatever it might be. I don't know what the goal is. I want to be booked out more, or whatever it kind of might be. I want to sell more products, whatever. But actually you need to be using the smart method to set these goals, you know. So it needs to be um, you need to make sure that you're looking at right. Okay, I've got a goal that I want to meet in the next six months.
Speaker 2:But actually is it achievable, you know, is it measurable, is it? You know you need to build your accountability kind of in there as well. So actually it's got to meet a certain kind of criteria. It's got to be very specific, you know. So, smart, measurable, attainable um, what's the last one time? Realistic in time, time, that's it. It's time. So you've got to make sure that it's with a certain period of time. You know it's a very specific goal. So I want to increase. My mailing list is not specific. I want to get to 250 by the end of September. So you know it's specific. You know it's measurable because you can measure it by looking at your database and saying, okay, right, I know I've got 200, I need another 50. So really look at making sure your goals are smart goals, because you get very overwhelmed and most of the time the overwhelm comes from the goal feeling way too big. So you've got to make sure.
Speaker 1:I don't know if you're doing that, these balloons.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's fine, I'm happy to throw that in.
Speaker 1:I love the advice.
Speaker 2:It's my party party time, so it is very much about celebrating. You know the goal, so let's make sure that it is very kind of it's. It's a smart goal. Um, as I said, you can feel very overwhelmed and usually overwhelmed comes from the goal feeling too big. So once you've got your goal and it's smart make sure you've broken it down into micro goals. Micro goals is extremely important and micro goals are basically small goals that you need on a monthly basis to keep moving you forward to that overall end goal that you have. So the micro goals are really important in this, because what you'll be doing monthly is looking at where you are against those micro goals. So it could be. My goal is to increase my database to 250 by the end of September. What micro goals do I need to put in place for that to happen?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know it's more network marketing. It's going to more networking events. It's making more genuine connections, it's planting more seeds, it's making sure that you know people understand what my offering is and they actually they buy. The people that are buying into it are actually people that are genuinely potential buyers, you know. So the micro goals underpins absolutely everything that will help you feel more in control as well. So I think if you focused on the ideal customer profiling, the vision and the mission clearly communicated and having a smart goal broken down further into micro goals, that will set you up absolutely fantastically in terms of clarity and mindset and actually feeling more in control, where you can then start breaking down your time into kind of time management and maybe we'll talk about that in a minute. But after you've got those things down, it's then about time management and how you use your time effectively and portion them out properly against those micro goals.
Speaker 1:so hopefully that helps a little bit how many might, how many smart goals should people have at any one?
Speaker 2:time, absolutely no more than three. I think three is a really good number one business goal. You know, whatever it might be, make more money, whatever it is but really the micro goals every month, I would say no more than three, because you you can only give yourself really I'd say three and do it properly. You know, if you start writing down a whole list of micro goals, you forget it's not going to happen and you're going to set yourself up for failure and you're going to feel disappointed in yourself. But actually you don't, you don't need to do that.
Speaker 2:If you set your micro goals properly, um, and your, your goal is smart and very specific, then actually your micro goals may be on a monthly basis and and I'm pretty sure they will they'll then start to kind of refine a little bit more because you'll know what works, what doesn't work. Actually I'll focus more time on this because I've got more of a return from this. So assess those micro goals monthly and you will see such a huge difference in productivity, mental health, business clarity. You know you'll work smarter and not harder, which is something that I'm a big fan of, because I don't have 24 hours a day running multiple businesses with three children and life admin, school admin, general. You know business, business, life. So actually I wouldn't be able to run these businesses and they wouldn't be profitable unless I was very clear on the things that I'm kind of advising everyone on myself so any?
Speaker 1:this is obviously a big thing, isn't it? Particularly for months? Is this time piece? Because, like we all have, you know, everybody has limited time, but when you become a parent, you have, it feels, very limited time and you can't stay late working. You know something's not done, it's not done. So what would be your advice then? Time management tips and so you know a lot of people might listen this one to launch something in school hours or maybe just a couple of hours on an evening.
Speaker 2:How can we ensure that it doesn't take over our lives and this is actually for me, because my business definitely has taken over my life well, this is it, and I think it's natural for it to take over your life, because you want to put so much into it, because you really want to focus on it being a success. Right, it's your passion. Like I said, it's your, it's something for you, and I think that's really key here is that this is yours. You know you may work for somebody else or whatever it might be, but actually this is yours and this is something that you want to grow yourself and be proud of. So it's it's completely valid to have those feelings and kind of emotions, but actually we are let's be real, we're we're time bound between school hours and whilst everyone's talking about making sure that you need to eat healthily, go to your pilates class, drink three liters of water, get your movement in, whatever else that we need to do, apparently it puts more pressure on us to actually think well, how am I going to do all of that? As well as work on my business, there are a couple of things that you can do. Um, what I would say is definitely, the night before, write your um to-do list down. Whatever it is, it doesn't matter, it can be a list. As long as you're on, that's fine, that's okay, you know and I'm a fan of to-do lists some people say don't do it. Put a to-do list, diarize and do these things. Whatever works for you, okay, but for me definitely a list, because it's visual, I can see what needs to happen, I can cross things off, I can add to it. So the night before have your to-do list and then pick three things that are your top priorities that have to get done. Those things should ideally be feeding into what your goal is. Otherwise you're going to be here, there and everywhere. So make sure those top three things at least one or two, two ideally feed into your micro goals, because if it's you working on your micro goals, because if they don't, there's a mismatch somewhere and you're going to be playing catch up and then you're going to feel guilty and all these feelings are going to kind of come in. So actually make sure you spend 10 minutes the night before planning for what you need to do.
Speaker 2:The next day. Have your to-do list, pull out your top three things and put them at the top of the page and say these three things need to happen tomorrow. Don't beat yourself up if they don't, because life happens, kids get sick. You know we've got to go and do something. It happens, that's okay. So, making sure that you're okay with that and coming to terms with those feelings that actually I didn't fail with those top three things didn't get done, the things that I did do, I spent a good amount of time on it, I did it well and I made progress in those three things.
Speaker 2:So I think that's that's key to to remember. Firstly, you know, working down to the hour, planning down to the hour, planning down to the hour, I think is absolutely fundamental. Make sure that you are. Or, if you can and this is what I do when I am doing my network marketing on my phone, I'm doing movement at the same time. So I'm either going for a walk, I'm jumping on my stepper, I'm using my walking pad and I'm doing, or even in the gym, you know, in the on the treadmill doing my network marketing, network marketing is planting your seeds.
Speaker 1:That's basically on Instagram or something. Is that what you mean by? Whichever platform you use, so you can use.
Speaker 2:LinkedIn, facebook, instagram. Make sure you always are planting a certain amount of seeds a day. Now I call them seeds, but they're actually. You're lead generating. If we want to kind of be simple, you always are planting a certain amount of seeds a day. Now I call them seeds, but they're actually lead generating. If we want to kind of be simple about it, it's generating leads. We need to make sure we're generating leads. It's a numbers game. Whether you're in services or you're in products, it's a numbers game.
Speaker 2:At the end of the day. If you are not planting these seeds every day, you are not making connections with people. You're not getting visible. People don't know who you are not making connections with people. You're not getting visible. People don't know who you are. You know you have to make sure. At the top and at the top of my list is planting 12 seeds a day, and this is what I say. I want 12 people to know about me, who I am, but they have to be genuine connections. As I say, they have to meet my ideal customer profile criteria. But also I have to be interested in what they're doing as well. It's not all business. You know, I do pleasure in there as well, like oh, this is, I'll get distracted. Oh, this is a nice account that sells what?
Speaker 1:do you mean by following connecting um connecting?
Speaker 2:so so. So, looking at someone's profile. So you can look at someone's profile, you can say, actually, you know what, I'm really interested. This person looks interesting. Actually, let's have a conversation so you can press the follow button. You know, I'm pretty sure that you'll be looking at their, their page, and you know you can comment, um on the post that you're genuinely interested in.
Speaker 2:Um, sometimes I see a lot of people kind of going in and they're just kind of clap emojis as a comment and I'm just thinking you, you know, we know why we're doing it. It's just so people can kind of see your, you know your name up on there and then they might follow you. But actually that's just kind of wasting time in my eyes. It's kind of, you know, you could have spent time having a genuine conversation with someone you know. Then pop them a message and say you know what, can you tell me a bit more about yourself? You know what is, what is it that you do? You know how do you help people, what's your mission, what's your vision? You know, get to know these people and actually, if it aligns and you think, oh, I think we can actually do something here, there might be a synergy, ask for a collaboration, do a joint giveaway if you want to ask them for the sale, you know, whatever it might be, but it doesn't happen on the first go. So you need to learn to actually genuinely connect with people and you know it could be in the form of searching for businesses online and if they meet your ideal you know, profile, pop them over an email, make sure you do the follow-up. After you know, five days, do another follow-up, do another follow-up, you know. And then you can say you know, um, I guess you know. I take it this isn't for you right now, that's okay, but if there's anything you need, you know I'll put my details here and please do get back to me.
Speaker 2:So it's about learning those skills and I think that's where you will make the most difference in is in those, planting those seeds, and that's the only way you're going to get visible. That's the only way people are going to get to know who you are and that's the only way you're going to get visible. That's the only way people are going to get to know who you are and that's the only way you're going to raise your profile and get people to buy from you, because they trust you, they're having a conversation with you, they'll feel like they know you, um, and you can tell when someone's being genuine or not, or when they're just, you know, popping a comment on or just doing a follow. And don't be afraid to have to follow everybody back that follows you as well. Have a look at their profile and actually, if you think you know it's interesting, but actually it's not, for me right now, that's okay. You don't have to follow back, you know that's equally okay as well.
Speaker 2:So I think, planning your time down to the hour, making sure you're planting those seeds, which is the first thing that you should kind of be spending your time on at the beginning of the day and, like I said, I do that whilst I'm walking, I'm in the gym, whatever it might be. You know the network marketing part is such a big part, and then everyone's got, you know, their social part, where they say, right, ok, you know I need to. I feel the pressure, I need to post something. You don't have to post something. Don't feel the pressure to need to post something all the time, whichever platform it's on, because most often than not, people are just doing this and unless it's absolutely brilliant, it's not stopping any scroll. So really you know, post when you have something to say. But really make sure what your social media shows is you know your vision, your mission, who you are, what you stand for, why you do what you do and how you transform people's lives and how you help, whether it may be through products or services. If those things are very clear, pinned to your profile, I think people can clearly see what you're about, who you're about.
Speaker 2:And another tip make sure you keep refreshing your bio, in whichever platforms you use, just to keep it fresh, updated. Otherwise people will just kind of scroll through and just that's the same thing. I've seen it before. So planning your time, I think, is absolutely key. Um, and if you make sure you are focusing on those micro goals, then actually I think it brings a lot more sense of control and less procrastination. Because what I find in the morning is, if I haven't done my 10 minutes the night before, I'm going to procrastinate for 45 minutes because I'm like, what do I need to be doing? I've got this list. Oh my god, it's too overwhelming. I haven't drunk enough water, you know all these things. And then, before I know it, an hour and a half has gone by and I've got to go for the nursery pick up. So it's so important to plan the night before, and I think that's key for absolutely everything that we kind of do is just plan the night before. You'll feel more in control the next day, absolutely absolutely really good.
Speaker 1:What about outsourcing? Do you want to do?
Speaker 2:outsource things at home so I have a cleaner who comes in, I've got a gardener and this is something which people say, oh my god, you shouldn't talk about. But I think, if I'm being completely honest, I've got a nanny, you know, I've got a housekeeper and you know what. If you can, your time is not best spent sometimes doing the laundries or the change in the bed sheets or whatever it might be. If I'm honest, on the weekends I'd rather spend time with my kids and when they come back from school I'd rather be kind of more present with them rather than thinking, oh my god, I've got a mountain of washing to do. Oh my god, the uniform has to get done for tomorrow. Oh my gosh, I've got to pack the snack.
Speaker 2:So actually, by outsourcing what you can, it relieves a lot of pressure and even if you do use the money from your side hustle to outsource one of those kind of jobs, you will immediately feel, actually I've got more time now to be more productive within my business and make more money. Um, so I think absolutely don't be afraid to say that you have. Don't be afraid to outsource. You know, do whatever you need to do that within your means. That will allow you to be the best version of you and give you, you know, mental clarity. I think mental well-being is absolutely the top of everyone's kind of list, even more so with added pressure of the world and so shores and everything else. I think the more we can just take a step back and say, actually, where am I, where do I want to be? What do I need to do to get there? Who can I get to help me? You know, I think you know it will. It will help us so much as, as women and mothers, absolutely.
Speaker 1:What about in business? When should people start outsourcing things in business?
Speaker 2:if I'm being 100% honest with you, I don't think you should outsource anything and I don't outsource anything. I've learned everything on the job and the reason why I do what I do is to teach people that you don't need to outsource social media. You don't need to outsource your marketing. You don't need to outsource. You know, unless it's a specific skill to outsource. You know, unless it's a specific skill which even saying that out loud, I mean I taught myself how to build websites. I mean, if you've got the willingness to learn, you can do it yourself. It took me three days to learn how to do it and I did it. And now I've built three on my own. I've integrated apps. I've done all these things. I take payments on there. You know absolutely everything. So I don't think we should waste our money on outsourcing. I think we should spend our time on learning the skills that we need, that we can continually use and recycle. You know, to be able to grow our businesses, and everything that I teach is to so you can scale your business as well. Teach is to so you can scale your business as well. You know, and having the problem on your hands, where you're like oh my gosh, I've got too many clients where I actually can't do this or I can't, you know, run my social media at that time. It might be a different problem where you say, actually scheduling my posts or whatever it might be, which I don't schedule my posts, by the way, everything is organic and I do it as and when I feel and that's how I feel feel it's more kind of genuine. But actually, if you get to a point where you feel actually I'm so booked out which is a fantastic problem to have at that point I would then start looking at maybe building in some type of outsourcing. But I wouldn't be doing that unless you are booked out, you know, for seven hours a day. There is no reason to do that.
Speaker 2:Working smarter, not harder, is what I'm all about, and putting these fundamentals in means that you can work smarter and not harder and you don't have to work weekends, you know evenings and you know, unless you want to, because you have a genuine passion where you think actually I really you know, I'm really enjoying this. I'm really enjoying network marketing with people. I'm really enjoying building my website. I'm really enjoying whatever it might be, you know putting my content together. Absolutely, I'm really enjoying building my website. I'm really enjoying whatever it might be, you know putting my content together. Absolutely do what, then, makes you happy?
Speaker 1:I've been really, really interested talking to you. What's next for you and TMH Group?
Speaker 2:Oh my goodness, oh my goodness. So your smart goals, oh my goodness, right. Well, I'm launching a fourth business. So my fourth business is coming in October, hopefully, fingers crossed and I'm crossing kind of into the world of products and lifestyle and combining my love and passion for mental well-being and movement and that kind of stuff. So, um, it's going to be expressing myself through products now. So I'm hoping, you know, we can make it a little bit more fun and the time that we do have, you know, we can have some nice fun homeware accessories and stationery.
Speaker 2:No, I'm doing it all myself. So, no Shopify, no Printify. Because, again, if we're scrolling on TikToks and whatever else, how to build a Shopify store, how to do print on demand, yeah, it's not for me. I think it's not for me because the margins are extremely low when you're doing things like Printify. I mean, if you're buying a product for £20 and then you've got £10 shipping, you're going to have to sell a lot of volume to be making the kind of money that really makes it worth it. So for me, it's better to take it all in-house design and manufacture, and then, you know, ship, as I mean to go on. So we'll see how that works out.
Speaker 1:Have you got a name for the business?
Speaker 2:I have, I have.
Speaker 2:I didn't want to kind of say too much now but I do have people follow you on Instagram the mum if you are, if you follow me on Instagram, if you follow me, um, at the uh underscore mum hub, I think it is now. I don't say it very often, but if you follow me there, I'll be posting some updates. I do have a separate Instagram account, but now I'm in the process of going through my kind of launch strategy, um, and hopefully in the next couple of weeks everyone will know just a little bit more. I like to have my products to hand before I say anything that's so exciting.
Speaker 1:You are a real entrepreneur. We might see you next on Dragon's.
Speaker 2:Den, oh my goodness. So you know what? I don't know my well. My goal is to be able to and this is what I do. I use the investment from the money that I'm earning from these businesses to then put into another business. So I'm completely self-funded no bank loans, no startup loans, absolutely nothing. So I use the money that I make from my businesses to then invest it in other businesses. But I am looking to kind of invest in other areas, but that's a topic for another day. I would love to eventually um invest in small businesses and help them grow their businesses. Um, you know, by by seeing potential and actually putting some money in in to help them, because I I know it's all about money and you know who?
Speaker 1:you will remind me of that you follow him. Do you know Alex Hormezi?
Speaker 2:no, I don't. I'm gonna have to do that after this.
Speaker 1:You have to follow him he's on instagram and he's, he's us and he's a big entrepreneur and now he um, invests in other businesses and he coaches them, grows them oh, I'd love to.
Speaker 2:Eventually I'd love to, kind of, I'd love to go that way. I mean, I do a lot of work kind of here and then in dubai as well, so I help a lot of kind of female businesses in Dubai as well, because we can do that all kind of, you know, over Zoom. But also I travel there four times a year, so it's helpful where I can go and meet people. So actually that's the goal and the aim is to kind of, you know, focus my time and attention in those areas whilst generating money to invest in a new business, whilst generating money to invest in a new business. But eventually, who knows, I would love to coach and invest in other small businesses, but we'll see.
Speaker 1:Sky's the limit, right, if someone's listening to this and wants to grow their business. Um, how can they get in touch with you? What's the best way?
Speaker 2:oh, absolutely so. If you follow me on Instagram, all the links are in my bio to the strategy day, to the business advice calls. I would probably say the business advice calls is the best place to start. You get 60 minutes. We run through your three biggest business issues that you're facing, the things that keep you up at night and what your goals actually are. What your goals actually are and then where I help in those 60 minutes is really looking at your business, giving you tailored advice, giving you those three to four micro goals to focus on um. I then give you some accounts from my own network that I think will be good for you to start networking with. So I give you a place to kind of start um and also looking at your social strategy and kind of where you are with that and some hints and tips on how you can kind of, you know, get the best out of it. But ultimately it's all about what your business goals are and what keeps you up at night, which is why it's not blanket advice. It's really me listening to you and what you have to say and then tailoring the advice that I have in those 60 minutes.
Speaker 2:But what you leave with is um, you know your three to four business goals that you, that you can work on to help you achieve. You know your, your end goal, whatever it might be. So those can all be found in the links in my bio. Um, and in my highlights are all the kind of prices and everything else, because ultimately you have to be up front. Please don't be afraid of putting the prices out there and you are what you're worth. And if people don't see worth in the price, it doesn't mean it's not for them. It means it's not for them now but it could be later on. So don't be afraid to talk about money, you know absolutely, and you know I've followed people's on things.
Speaker 1:Sometimes, like you said, I haven't known to afford at that point, but it's something that I've aspired to and six months down the line, exactly that.
Speaker 2:No, absolutely, absolutely. Don't be disheartened. Keep going, going at it. Like I said, it's a numbers game, but it's very key to have the fundamentals. Once you've got the fundamentals, everything else will feel so much more manageable.
Speaker 1:Brilliant. Oh, it's been so good to chat to you. We'll put all the links in the show notes. Thank you so much for coming on and giving us all your advice.
Speaker 2:No, thank you for having me. It was lovely to speak to you again and, um, I hope there was something in there for everyone, or someone at least, that can take something away and and use it. And if you need any help, pop me a dm. You know I'm more than happy to help and it's just my nature that I want to help anyone and everyone. So if there's any questions, I'm more than happy to give advice or hints and tips or anything.
Speaker 1:So please don't be afraid to pop me a message absolutely, and I definitely want to come to one of their networking events. So if someone's interested, I may see you at a networking absolutely thank you for listening to another episode of the work.
Speaker 1:It like a mum podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate, review and subscribe, and don't forget to share the link with a friend. If you you're on LinkedIn, please send me a connection request at Elizabeth Willett and let me know your thoughts on this week's episode. You can also follow my recruitment site Investing in Women on LinkedIn, facebook and Instagram. Until next time, keep on chasing your biggest dreams.