Erin Thomas Wong
You're listening to the life friendly business podcast. I'm your host Erin Thomas Wong, business mentor, author and founder of the cocoon VIP membership empowering women around the world to build businesses on their terms. If you want to grow and scale a business that works in harmony with your family and your life, this podcast is for you.
Louise Brogan
On the podcast today, I'm speaking to Louise Brogan, a LinkedIn consultant host of the LinkedIn with Louise podcast. An international speaker Louise loves working with entrepreneurs and business owners who want to leverage LinkedIn but don't really know where to start. On the show today, she explains how she's been able to build a super life friendly business on her own tans. Hello, Louise, and welcome to the life only business podcast.
Hi, Erin, this is so exciting. I'm so happy that you have started this podcast.
Thank you very much. And thank you for inspiring me with your own as well. Let's start off by talking about what inspired you to start your own business.
Oh my gosh, how long have we got Erin?
Erin Thomas Wong
Half an hour.
Louise Brogan
So a couple of different factors all came into play around the same time. My first business I really started my first business was a craft business selling craft supplies, doing local card making classes and then eventually opened a shop. But that really came about at a culmination of time my my dad passed away when my first baby was five weeks old, and that combination of events, just anyone who's lost a parent will will get this. You really look at your life and what you're doing and think about what you're doing. And is this what you want to be doing. It's a massive shift. And I started my craft shop business, online first of all, selling on eBay and then on a website when I was on maternity leave, because I'm that kind of person, I can't sit and nasal gave or watch nasal give navel gaze, navel gaze. Obviously a term I never use. And I just need to be thinking about things all the time that's my brain works. And I started that business. And I think the effects of my dad dying. So Young is only 59.
And I kind of threw my life up in the air almost, I ended up opening a shop a bricks and mortar shop where my third baby was three months old, which was just when I look back now is completely crazy. And all of those things I attribute to losing my dad whenever my baby was so young, but I basically when I put him I had three children. Five and under, a shop, I was working part time in the health service as an IT project manager. So not like a job where you didn't have to think quite a intense part time job. And, and the craft shop business didn't actually make me any money. And it took an external person - probably my first experience of being coached by somebody to kind of go Louise this business, you're literally running yourself into the ground, but you're not really paying yourself anything. And that is where my social media business came from. And she said You seem to know what you're doing on Facebook. Why don't you teach other people how to do that too. And that's where it all came from. That's where it started.
I quit my job after my first so my business is called Social B and I as in busy bee creating a buzz about your business, that was my tagline. And I quit my job two years after that, I closed the shop pretty much within a month of her talking to me. And I started Social B and I two years after that I left my IT job and went out on my own. Terrifying that all of those things people think about leaping off a cliff into the unknown building your parachute on the way down. But gosh, I've never regretted a second of it.
That is That is such an incredible story and the idea of having three kids full stop is is a lot and opening a shop when you have a three month old. And, you know, when we're you know, we're all This podcast is all about running a life friendly business. I imagine that things didn't feel that life friendly at that point in your life.
No, definitely not Erin and how that manifested itself if you like was it was stressful. I was dropping the two younger ones at nursery, my mum was taking the baby, I was going to my job, I was leaving the job at lunchtime picking up from nursery on the way home, collecting my youngest. Two days of the week, I was going straight to the shop, my mum was just holding the fort. I don't know how she did it all as well. And the other days of the week, I had, I employed two older ladies who I knew through our local community who were brilliant, and they manage the shop for me. But it was really funny. So anyone who's listening, who's a business owner who employs staff don't employ people, because they're really lovely. Employ people who know what they're doing. So much of that first business, and they were lovely, lovely women, but they didn't know how to sell ice to the Eskimos. So they very rarely got any seals for me. I mean, the whole thing. I look back now It was chaotic. So it wasn't life friendly. It was a reaction. It was definitely a no, now it was a reaction to my dad passing and me wanting to do something, and not taking time to think about what could I do that would bring money in and give me a life friendly business, which is exactly what I have now. So it was it was a React reactionary business, as opposed to let's sit down and think about what I want my life to look like. Yeah, yeah.
Erin Thomas Wong
I think one thing, though, about, you know, as kind of takeaway from from your story is the fact that when you start a business, you're not always sure right at the beginning, what that business is going to be. And we have to go through this kind of journey of exploring, and often, we only know what we know. And you might never have thought about running a social media business if you hadn't have run that shop and had that conversation with the external person. Absolutely. And I think, you know, that's where sometimes something that can really stop people. It's this fear of failure in the business, but actually, you know, we we learn lessons and you know, with me, I've had multiple businesses, and I've learned something or more than one thing from each of those businesses and been able to build the business that is absolutely right for me. And it sounds like that's what your experiences has helped you to do as well.
Louise Brogan
Yes. And I, you know, I will say that, that was 11 years ago, I opened that shop. So this has been a long time coming. But I would say my business as it is now. Oh my gosh, it's completely different, even though it was three or four years ago. And I attribute that completely to investing in coaching and support. Oh, my like, talk about turning, turning things around, having someone who's been there done that has the experience and can help and mentor you and advise you is so invaluable. I think starting out in business, you've no idea but that, you know, when I had that craft shop, and so if someone had said to me, you should hire a coach, and horror. I'm not even paying myself I can't afford a coach. But actually the coach the coaching came from the mentor that the counsellor provided for me as a local business support service. And I think with the social media business, I was trundling along with it, figuring out things as I went. And when you're in a digital business is actually you get you get to the point of hiring someone to help you in terms of coaching, I guess, much quicker because you see it everywhere. And I remember paying for programmes and each time I did I was terrified about the amount of money it would cost me but it always worked and it always made an impact on what I was doing. Which was brilliant to the point where now I'm paying a monthly amount of money and I have been for a year and a half that most people are starting out would be horrified out. But it just it's just made my business grow in leaps and bounds because of it.
Erin Thomas Wong
I think that is a real mindset shift as well where people feel like like you said, I'm not paying myself or I'm hardly paying myself. I you know I I'll do that I'll get a coach when I'm earning more money. But the reality is, is that sometimes you need to make that investment first. Yes, it's an investment in yourself, which is scary.
Louise Brogan
But also, there's a lot of sharks out there. And there's a lot of people who have been in business three months and set themselves up as a coach, because they think they know how to teach somebody else how to build a business online, and love people get their fingers burnt. You know, I've seen it multiple times, there are people who spend a lot of money on advertising, their coaching services, and pretending that they are amazing at what they do. But if you lift the lid and look underneath, it's not all roses, and people get their fingers burnt, they spend a lot of money on on that kind of stuff and get some nowhere. And those, those messages get out to other people as well.
So I would be very cautious. If you're choosing someone to help you don't absorb, like taking all their free content first. Like if somebody wants to hire me to work with them on LinkedIn, which is what I do, and I purely do LinkedIn coaching, consulting, I would. And if they've never met me before, I would say go listen to my podcast, or watch my YouTube videos, go read my blog, there's so much on all of those channels that will help you on LinkedIn. And then if you want to invest in working with me, let's talk because it's really funny. I'm going to do a bit of a bit of a side path here. And somebody messaged me on Instagram, and said. You said on your podcast, you've lots of free resources. Where are they? I can't find them. Okay, you're a charmer, aren't you? They're on my website, there's a free blogs on my website teach you how to do things. She came back to me It says I can't find them. And I thought well, I'm not even gonna bother replying to you.
Erin Thomas Wong
Yeah, I think you know, there are so many messages online now, like you say about people selling seemingly quick wins of how to make six figures how to make seven figures. And there's lots of stuff that goes into that, you know, in, in episode three, when I talked about how you measure success, it's, it's that whole thing as well, that for a lot of women that I mentor, it's not just about the financial income that business is making, that they they're measuring success, by the impact and by how flexible they can be. And yet all these messages make a lot of us feel like you know, we're not achieving enough or we're not, we're not aspiring high enough. And I think we do have to be really careful not to get sucked in to that world.
Louise Brogan
I agree. I mean, one of the things I have a a new assistant, I had the lovely Carly who wonderful Carly, she left me Carly be listening. Can't believe you left me. She knows I'm joking. But anyway, so Carly was my was my assistant and I have a new assistant I and she has blocked out on my calendar that you cannot book anything with me between half past two and a half past three, any day of the week, because that's when my youngest child gets out of school. And I want to be able to either walk down the road to meet him on his bike, or drive to school to pick up his musical instrument. And but I don't want anyone blocking booking in my diary for that. And I've now got to a stage where you can't book any appointments with me on a Friday. So this Friday is my birthday and I have booked I have vouchers leftover from Christmas and birthdays because we couldn't do anything with these lovely spa vouchers. I'm going off to have a massage this Friday morning. And I kind of went amazing. But other Fridays, it's it's gonna be I'll use that time to you know, just tidy up bits and pieces in my business in the morning. And hopefully go out and meet somebody for lunch or for coffee. Brilliant kids are at school. That's what it's about, isn't it?
It is and you know, I'm exactly the same on Fridays, I don't have calls unless there's an emergency, you know, that's my day. It's kind of like having that buffer to the week so that I'm not just, you know, spinning the wheels right until the end, when I have to pick the kids up on a Friday afternoon. It's like Friday, that is space for me to either finish off stuff that I need to do or go out and like you say have coffee with a friend. You know, go and have a massage whatever I want. So this leads into my next question really is it's kind of how does your week look like on a day to day basis? How many hours are you working and and how's that structured?
Okay, so I will start off by saying my husband just laughs at me cuz I, I'm kinda like, how are you earning this money and like you're just wandering about the house. But I don't. So it's really funny the coaching team, I suppose it's a team because there's two of them that I work with. And Louise, you've been talking about putting in your ideal week for so long, like maybe that just doesn't isn't something I want to do. So, I, how, I work with clients, Erin is it's all there online. So this morning, I did a 90 minute workshop for a local council, a LinkedIn workshop, this evening, 5pm, I'm doing a webinar for a European women's group. So I do, I do work, funny hours for other people. But that's because my kids are older. So my kids are 11, 13 and 15. When they were younger, I don't think I could have done this this way, I would have not been able to work at all between half past two and say 8pm. So actually, in the early days, I would have been scrambling around doing like emails in the evening, or maybe just little bits of client work in the evening. I don't have to do that anymore. But it's you choose.
If you want to work for yourself, you do have to make choices like that. But at the moment, so what I do in the morning, and I tend I like to go out for a walk with the dog when I haven't got a foot issue, which I do at at the moment. And I probably am sitting down at my desk for about half nine. And I if I don't have workshops or client calls booked in in the morning, I will be either creating blogs, podcasts or video content for my YouTube channel. I prefer not to have more than two client calls in a day and a client call for me. Yesterday I did one of my VIP clients. That's a three hour session. So if I have one other one hour call in that day, that's enough because it's you can exhaust yourself trying to be on all the time.
I always stopped for lunch, I always take a break away from the computer like I don't sit through lunch. And you know, I like to eat. I'm not a person who goes without food. But like today, I'm going out for a coffee with my husband after we finish this podcast. So I have lots of flexibility. If I need to go and take the dog to the vet, I can if I have to run something up to the other two's school, which is in Belfast, because they forgotten something I can.
So I don't have like a nine to five, hour by hour breakdown on my calendar, I tend to like to do I guess I had two in person, Zoom calls a day at a push I'll do three. Now some of those calls could be a 15 minute discovery call. And that's fine. But I have been caught out in the past because I haven't looked after my calendar properly. Or I haven't asked my assistant to do that properly. Where I might have been doing a three hour call starting at 5pm or Friday. Now that's with American clients. So for them, it's like you know, 10am on a Friday morning, when they realise it's 5pm on a Friday night for me. They're like what why are you working? And I'm like that was my fault because I didn't block out my calendar. So you like I'm in business what? I've been in this business for eight years. And it's only now that I have the wherewithal to go. Louise, you don't have to say yes to somebody just because they want to work on a Friday at 5pm in the UK, which is, you know, 10am on the West Coast of America. Just because 10am On Friday morning as the title suits them, they can wait and work with you next week on a time that suits you better.
And so that is you're always learning Erin I'm sure you're the same you're always learning new things and bringing in new techniques to help you manage stuff. But basically client calls emails and I always have a podcast I each week and I spend time on LinkedIn but not as much time as people think I spend it's kind of interesting to me. I rarely go on their weekends. And I would say I check it in the morning I maybe create a post like I've got a post today that's that's going gangbusters. So I will be checking it after lunch and commenting on it. And but I don't spend all day on there like other people. And some people say this you have to spend like four hours a day on LinkedIn to make it work. I'm like no you do not.
I like I like my life I like my, I could be three times as busy. But I will be my stress levels will be through the roof. And I'd be reaching for the wine bottle on a Wednesday night instead of wait until the weekend. So there's life friendly, and there's health friendly health friendly as well!
Absolutely and I I love the fact that you do seem to have such a good balance and fantastic boundaries, and you know, you're running a really successful business. And yet you're able to make those decisions and say, you know, I want to be around when my kids get home from school, you know, I want to be able to go and have coffee with my husband. And I think as well, something to say here as well as that, you know, same same as me that we've been in business for quite a while now. And it takes time and you make mistakes. And you you get to the point of burnout, because you realise that you haven't been looking after your calendar properly, or you've been, you know, saying yes to things that you shouldn't have. And so if there are people out there listening, thinking, that sounds way too good to be true, I can't do it. Like, don't beat yourself up, because you're not there yet. What what I want you to take away from this conversation is that it is absolutely possible to have that balance. And you need to decide what's important to you.
One of the thing, the key things there, and the game changer for me was was starting to raise my prices. Because in the early days, a lot of my work came through councel programmes, and you get paid maybe 30 pounds an hour or something. And and you have to do a lot of ours at that rate to replace the salary that you if you've ever you, a lot of people, a lot of women start businesses who have had a career and a profession that everybody but a lot do. And you look at the salary that you used to earn, and you think I'm never in a million years going to get near that. By charging this amount of money and people think 30 points or no, it's amazing Louise, that's it. But you're not doing 40 hours a week, you're not getting paid 20 hours a week, even at that rate. So and that can be really heart wrenching. When you look at the end of the month, and you look at all the hours you've worked, you divide up how much you've earned by the hours you've worked, and you think, oh my god, I'd be better off working in Tesco or Asda. And that's heartbreaking.
So one of the best things I ever best advice I ever got was start raising your prices, especially when you've been doing this for a while, if you've worked with, say you've worked with five clients, time to raise your prices a little bit. You've worked with another 10 clients, bump your prices up, keep raising your prices until people start saying they don't want to work with you, and have confidence in yourself. That's the biggest thing. If you can, if someone says to you, how much is it gonna cost you, Louise? To create my social media images for a month? How much they're gonna cost you per month? You tell him what's going to cost and then close your mouth. Don't say is that okay? Or I can I can negotiate that was you or does that sound reasonable? No, no, no, no, no, say how much it costs. And then just be quiet. And let them take it and and see what they say.
I think that's something that so many people struggle with. And would you say that you have got to that point now, because of all the investment you've made in your own personal development and your own confidence in business?
Yeah, absolutely. So Erin, my biggest ticket item that I sell. And my prices are in dollars, because I would say but it I say 90% was American, but over 80% Nice and getting quite a bit of company work in the UK and I which is lovely. Especially because it means you can work in the mornings. I not wait for the Americans to get up. But my biggest price ticket thing that I sell at the minute is called a LinkedIn VIP session. And it's $1,500 I launched that last August. So we are talking in June, I launched in August it was I want to say it was $800. So I've almost doubled in price. And people keep buying it because this is another thing when you niche down to a particular topic or area and focus on that getting known for that people want to work with you. And if you if you're listening to this thinking, Oh my God, that's that's a crazy price. People pay it and they get way more than the value of it, because I teach them how to get there and get hired for things that they charge multiple £1000s for. So, it's, it's the yes, it's taken me a long time to get to the confidence in my pricing. Absolutely.
I remember going to an event in Dublin, and another marketer from Northern Ireland, telling me with great authority, that I would never be able to charge more than 300 pounds for a full day, which is a seven hour day really. And I like I'm not the kind of person to go around going, nah nah nananah and she just I don't know if she has any idea what I charge now and I would never say it to her. Never let somebody else tell you what you can or can't charge people will pay if people pay your prices, you can charge it. And if you get too, like if I put this up to $2,000 and nobody bought it, then I would know 1500 was my tipping point.
Yeah, and it's about being brave enough to try it. And you know, and just see what happens.
Well, it's also the fact that I, it's having a service or a product that you believe in, as well. So anybody who buys that service, you look at the recommendations on my LinkedIn profile. They they love it. So that's what I'm talking about you there's there's snake oil out there, you know, there's people who might say, Okay, I'm going to teach you how to be a coach, and you're going to be able to charge people £1000 a month for your coaching services. When we finish this six week course, of course, you're not going to be able to charge 1000 pounds a month after doing something for six weeks. But if you do it for six weeks, and start out and get a couple of clients and do a brilliant job, and then get a couple more clients and do a brilliant job and learn and change and adapt as you go and get it down pat that the thing you are creating or delivering people just get so much value out of that's when you start to raise your prices, because you know that you're doing something that makes an impact for people.
Yeah, absolutely. So how would you say that you measure your success?
If my stress levels are lower, if I feel happy? If I start to get agitated at home with the family, then I know that I've got too much going on at work.
Do I totally resonate with that? Because I you know, I have absolutely found myself in a situation where I've got all this stuff swimming in my head, and my son will say something that is you know, that normally I wouldn't react to and I'm just suddenly intensely irritated. And I think hang on that's that's not his fault at all. That is me. That's because I've got all this stuff. So I totally resonate with that. And and how do you look after yourself?
Well, so I've had this foot problem for the last eight weeks, so I can't really walk anywhere, which is just awful, because I would before this happened, and it's how I got it's called plantar fasciitis for anyone who's interested in feet issues. But I would have got up early about half 6. I know a lot of people got much earlier than that. But I get half six and go like for, like literally, I call say run a really slow run. I do about 3k in about 35 minutes. So that's like really slow. But that was just my headspace and I loved it. And I can't do that at the minute which is a bit of a pain. But I love to I just I like to read and take time out, get out in the garden. I quite like going out in the morning with my coffee and checking how our wildflower patches going. And just be aware of it's really hard, I think for women to kind of stop and kind of take stock of yourself and think how do I actually feel? Because you're sad about it, I feel how and when do I feel like I'm successful. It's that when my when I not stressed and but also when people that I've never met or heard of reach out to me and say I want to work with you because I heard you're the person to work with on LinkedIn, or like being invited to speak to an international women's group or being invited like yesterday I was invited as the guest expert for a content chat Twitter chat from somebody I'd never heard of. That, to me is his success. That People are coming to me that I don't know about. Because somebody else has told them that I'm really good at what I do.
Yeah, brilliant word of mouth, amazingly powerful. What advice would you give to our listeners to, if they're looking to build a life friendly business?
Oh my gosh. So quite often, I think people don't realise that their skill set is probably the thing that they've been doing in their job. And people might be in a job and think, Oh, I hate this job, I want to go to HR, or I want to get out of accountancy. And actually, when that is going to be the perfect thing to start a business around, something you already knew a lot about.
But in terms of a life friendly business, try and restrict your time on social media, because you can spend a lot of waste a lot of time in online groups and on social media, trying to keep up with everybody and everything. And you get to lunchtime, and you're like, Oh, I haven't done anything to actually earn any money today. And I feel like I've been doing working, but you're just doing what they call a busy work. You know, you're answering questions in Facebook groups, and scheduling all your Instagram posts, and you've forgotten to actually go and do what's important, which is do something that's going to make you money and your business today, because then your business is going to keep growing and keep you keep you as an entrepreneur, but it's not for everybody.
That's the other thing. If you're finding entrepreneurship so hard. And wouldn't it be easier just to go back and do it part time job. So you can't be there at school, get to pick up your kids from primary school without like tearing your hair out? And having to be on your phone answering Instagram, DMS, while your children are standing there looking at you going Mommy, can we not go to the park and see the ducks. Maybe put it aside for a few years, or do what I did I you know, I built up my social B business. And I stayed in my IT project manager job, I didn't give it up, I gave up the shot. But I stayed in the IT job for two years. So I got a salary from my employer, I left work at the end of the day, and I did the social media business in the evenings when the kids went to bed. And I find what worked for me and doing an hour an hour and a half at night after the kids went to bed. I managed it, it was fine. But I enjoyed it Erin, that's the thing. If I hadn't enjoyed it, I wouldn't have kept going, I probably still sitting in that job. No.
So make sure that the the business that you create is something I actually really enjoy doing. So you know, not not a job that somebody told you. This is a brilliant opportunity, you should do this. And in your case, technical, I'm not really sure that I want to do this and build a network around you of people that you can get on face. I'm laughing because you and I do get on Facebook Messenger and just send each other voice messages going, oh my god, what am I gonna do about this, oh, this person is really stressing me out and have that little support network around you. Because that's so important. I mean, that's what your cocoon is all about. It's about women supporting each other. And having that backup and other people going through the same thing as us so vital. And try really hard to shut down your computer and leave your phone in the other room. So you can chill out and watch TV or whatever it is you do in the evening without being distracted by all all the calls and your time because those messages and calls will still be there the next day. And you'll feel much better having taken a proper break.
Totally fantastic tips. Two last things. One is where can people find you
I am louisebogan.com is my website. LinkedIn with Louise is my podcast and my YouTube channel. And of course come and connect with me on LinkedIn. It's linkedin.com/in/louisebrogan. And if you do connect via LinkedIn, make sure you send a message and say why and how you find me. So we can actually have a conversation in a relationship on LinkedIn. So I know who you are, that'd be lovely.
Erin Thomas Wong
And so my last question to leave everyone with is if you could go back in time and speak to Louise as she was launching a bricks and mortar shop with her third child, in arm in arms, Babes in Arms. What would you say to her?
Louise Brogan
I would say Believe in yourself. Have confidence in yourself and see those people who try and tell you what you can or can't do take absolutely no notice of them. Build a supportive network around you or people who are going to help you and encourage you and not people who try and tell you what to do.
Wonderful. Thank you very much for sharing your story, Louise.
Oh, I had great fun Erin, I probably talked way too much. I apologise.
Erin Thomas Wong
It was all good. Thank you. Bye, thank you.
You've been listening to the life friendly business podcast, which is all about carving your own path and doing it at your own pace. But I know that's not easy to do. So to help you decide what a life friendly business looks like for you, and help you to stick to the boundaries and commitments needed to create that I've created the life friendly business description. Download this free workbook and spend 30 to 60 minutes reflecting on what life friendly means to you and the changes you may need to make in order to achieve the work life balance you desire. Once you've made these decisions, you can add them to your own printable life friendly business prescription that you can put on your wall to remind yourself that you have the power to design your very own life friendly business. Download yours now at lifefriendlybusiness.com/prescription
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
