Ep.56 How to Thrive in a Small Business After Corporate

As you're building your business are you prepared for these 4 common pitfalls women make as they transition from corporate to self-employed? 

My guest today is Alison Hall and after a decade of coaching women through life and career changes a couple of patterns emerged when it came to women starting their businesses.  We talk about planning, market research, taxes, legal, finances - all the nerdy stuff in an approachable and pragmatic way.

To learn more about Alison and for the links mentioned in this episode, go here for full episode show notes.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

As you're building your business, are you prepared for these four common pitfalls? My guest today is Alison Hall, and after a decade of coaching women through life and career changes, a couple of patterns emerged when it came to women starting their businesses. Hey friend, I'm Jamie Renee, and this is the Perfection Not Required podcast. On this show, we talk about building a sustainable online business. And today we're gonna nerd out with Allison on the most common stumbling blocks when it comes to building your business. So let's get into it. All right, welcome back to another episode of Perfection Not Required. Today I have Alison Hall on the show. Allison is a change agent coaching for women. Alison, why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself and then we can get started.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

Sure. First and foremost, thank you so much for having me on your show. I'm excited to talk about whatever we talk about. But yes, I am the founder and owner of Change Agent Coaching for Women. And I came upon this because I am a former corporate citizen. And after getting into a couple of different entrepreneurial pursuits, I landed here because of some of the other things that I've done. And I found that I was spending a great deal of time helping some of my other clients with things that involved change, all things life-changing. And so that's how I ended up where I am. Initially, I started out working with women who were divorcing, helping them with financial issues. But what I found was that they were really in the process of reinventing their lives. And any change process is similar. So I just expanded the scope of what I do. So yeah, I've found my passion. So I'm I'm excited about it.

SPEAKER_00 1:47

That's awesome. As you say that, I'm just kind of curious. As you have seen the different varieties of the change that women are going through, like within their lives, their careers, their marriages, their businesses, and just reinventing themselves as a whole. Have you seen like patterns that are similar within each of those?

SPEAKER_01 2:08

And that's a great question because one thing that maybe people don't think about that often, but one thing that's very similar, like you, I predominantly work with women. Women are often dumbstruck when big change happens, almost they feel like it's happened to them. Not because they're not prepared in their lives, but because their attention is always focused on so many other things and so many other people's priorities that sometimes, like again, as I mentioned, I started working with women transitioning through divorce. It wasn't even that the divorce stunned them so much. What they realized was that they had never sat down to think about what they really wanted. They had spent so many years doing things for other people, for their spouse, for their kids, taking care of elderly parents or whatever the case may be, but they had never taken the opportunity to really think about what do I want. Maybe if you're on a walk sometimes, you might have goals and dreams, but that's later, whenever such and such happens. So that's what I found to be the one thing that sort of binds most of the people together that I work with.

SPEAKER_00 3:15

Yeah, that's really interesting. I can totally relate. I know it was a big shift for me to really dive into some of my passions and really try to step out of that other role. Like we're always moms first or you know, spouses or employees and all of those things to where you're right. Whenever you stop and say, okay, what is it that I want? I remember just being like dumbfounded, I don't even know what I want to do. Like I don't know what I like to do because it's always somebody else has always seemed to dictate that. And not saying that it's necessarily a bad thing. I think it's just different phases in our lives to where you're beholden to to these other responsibilities. And then as your kids get older and things start to change, you're like, wait a second, there's a whole other part of me that I've never even explored. And it really takes some time to really dig into yourself, like that coming home of what is it that I like? What is it that lights me up? What is it that I enjoy? And I personally found that to be a struggle of just understanding what do I want to do? What do I want? How do I define myself outside of all of these other roles? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 4:40

And that kind of hits the nail on the head in a nice big vague way, which is how so many women feel. And it's those life transitions or changes or things. Like I said, divorce is an obvious one, but it could be that you've been laid off, or you can see the cards not going your way, or you're completely burnt out and you just know that a change has to come. Or maybe you've trained, you know, your kids, like you mentioned, children, maybe your kids have moved into a different phase of life. And so you have a little more bandwidth, but you haven't thought about it. And so now's the opportunity. But but there's still those shoulds in the back of your head. Should I really be doing, or maybe I should make a five-year plan, or maybe so many, there's so much self-doubt that comes into it because you're not accustomed to putting yourself first, and it feels like maybe you're doing something wrong in a way. And that's something modern women don't want to talk about those sorts of things. We're doing a lot better job of it now, I think, but for so long we were in that phase of you can do it all. It you can't, you can over the course of your lifetime, in my opinion. You can do all the things, but not all at once. Women have been trained either by themselves or by society to to feel as if if I can't do all of this, I need to keep my mouth shut. No whining.

SPEAKER_00 5:59

Yeah. And then whenever you do start to do that, you have like for me personally, I suffered a lot from feeling really selfish. I feel as women, I feel like we take that on to where if I'm not focusing on other people or I'm not focusing on this external thing that somehow that makes me selfish. And so that's been like a learning, a learning too. Do you want to tell me about your transition to how you came out of corporate and what kind of started this path for you? Sure.

SPEAKER_01 6:32

I don't think it's dissimilar to so many people. I didn't get downsized, but I downsized myself. I just people talk about burning out. I don't think I burned out so much as just rusted out. You know, I I was just tired of what I was. I don't think I thought that much about meaning and purpose, but I remember thinking to myself, I don't even care about this. I legitimately don't care. I think a lot of people who work in the corporate world can relate to this. Sometimes you look up and you're grinding and doing all the things and you've risen and you start to wonder, does this really matter? If I just walked away, the hole would just close up and nobody would really notice and it would be fine ultimately. Let's not kid ourselves. And that's what I started to think. And I thought, well, I just can't go on like this forever. And I was fortunate enough that it just happened that at the time I was very into personal training, and it was just kind of a little side hobby thing. I wasn't training anyone, but I was very physically fit. And I thought, let me get a personal training certification. So quit my job, and honestly, I took a month at the beach, and then I decided I'm going to, and maybe that's not the path everyone takes, and that's I don't recommend just quitting your job without a plan. I really don't. Been there and done that, not at yeah, yeah, it doesn't always work out. But I was able, but I had a my first uh role was trainer for executive women because I remember that was something that I struggle with. I just didn't have time. I always wished that somebody would come to me. So I started doing it with women that I knew, built up the business, had to add trainers, and ended up making it a big enough business that I was able to sell it. I didn't sell it because I wanted to turn some big profit, I sold it because I worked myself out of a job. I worked myself into a managerial role that I didn't want. I just wanted to train people. So I ended up selling it to one of my trainers who she wanted to own a business. It seemed like a great idea. And I am still their quarterly CFO. You know, I go in and help with the financials and I still get my little fix, and I have trainers that work with me. But then I moved on to some other things that I was interested in. I'm a CPA, so I have a financial bend, and I discovered that I had a passion for financial planning and tax planning specifically. So I became a certified tax planner and I built a business there. In doing so, I work predominantly with women. And I ended up working with women who were getting divorced. So I discovered there's a little certification called the Certified Divorce Financial Analyst. I thought, let me get that because I will be able to really help women as they transition through divorce. And then that takes you around to the story that I talked to you about. Then I discovered that what women really needed help with was kind of the post-divorce thing. Like, what do I do now? Most of the women I was working with had careers, but it doesn't matter unless you make an extraordinary amount of money, your life is going to change post-divorce. It's just the money just somehow doesn't divide up the same. And so I was finding myself helping women who maybe thought entrepreneurship was the thing, or maybe reevaluating what they're doing to try to make a side hustle work or make more money from it or improve their skills in the workplace? Just it was just an opportunity for them to overhaul. And as I mentioned, that's how I landed where I am now.

SPEAKER_00 10:09

Yeah. So as people are like the women that you've worked with that have moved on into the entrepreneurship route, because that's kind of where I'm going to take this conversation. What are some of the things that you've noticed for women specifically that you see that tend to be the downfalls or kind of the things to avoid whenever you're starting a new business and going through those changes and building things up? And you want to speak to more about that?

SPEAKER_01 10:40

Yeah, I think in no particular order, let's just say top four.

SPEAKER_00 10:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:46

Number one would be lack of a true plan. I don't believe in over-orchestrating your life, but when it comes to a business, I don't think you can plan too much. And by planning, I don't mean planning out every second of the day, having an overarching plan in terms of where is it that you want to go? Because sometimes, especially if it's a passion project or sometimes if it's born of desperation, you get the blinders on and you're just dead focused on one particular thing. I'm going to do this, and that's the plan. But if you take the time to go through all of the phases of creating a strategy, sometimes you'll talk yourself out of something, realizing this isn't some of the things I'm going to have to do are skill sets that I don't necessarily have, and or I don't necessarily want to learn. And so making a true plan and creating strategies and then processes and procedures, that's the first thing. So an overarching plan. The second thing is sometimes I think a big barrier to success, I won't say it's a failure item, but a barrier to success is not doing enough market research. Sometimes we have a passion idea or yeah, we think something is a great idea. Everybody's seen the shark tank, right? And that experience when as a viewer, when the sharks are saying, What is this even for? This sounds exciting and you seem really passionate about it, but I can't figure out how I could sell it. And so that's the thing. That's a great lesson for us all. You have to really do some market research. And it doesn't have to be that you're paying money to anyone. You can go out into the world, you can ask people. If you have any kind of a social media following, you can ask people if you have friends or just groups that you're associated with, family, family is met because families, if they love you, they're going to support you regardless. So they're not the best ones, not the most objective. But yeah, really identifying whether there's a need for your product. There might be a need, but it might be a need that you can't get paid for as well. So that's part of the research. It has to be something. If this is a passion project that you don't need to get paid for, by all means, carry on. But if this, if you ultimately want this to be your source of income, it has to be marketable. So those are the first two. Third would be once you have established a business, let's say you've gotten started, a lot of people don't pay attention to the legalities. For instance, depending upon where you live, you may need a business license. Depending upon where you live, you may need to get registered with something or other, or whatever it is that you happen to be doing. Some people don't know whether to use an LLC or an S-corp and all sorts of things like that. A lot of people don't make any plans or arrangements, and this sort of flows into the financial one, which would be my fourth one. Don't make any plans or arrangements for paying taxes, particularly when they have come from an environment where they didn't have to. Taxes were handled for them. And that's one of the biggest problems when I work with people who are in the second, third, maybe in fourth year of business, that they've already gotten themselves into Dutch with the IRS in some kind of way. And they're in arrears on taxes because they didn't pay attention. And they thought they were making a lot of money, but now yeah. Exactly. But when you treat it like it's yours, then it becomes problematic down the road. But then also with the legalities and things, also insurance very often, even going into a coaching position or something like that. People very often miss the mark on getting adequate insurance for whatever they're doing, whether it's a service organization. And very often with services, people that's where people forget that you probably it might not be required by whatever certification you have or whatever the industry is, but it might very well be in your best interest to get insurance. So those sorts of things they also add up with, which moves us into the financial area where people don't necessarily account for everything, especially when you're bootstrapping, you tend to get that mentality of, okay, I need that thing, that shiny object over there. Let me just get it. It's only $29.99. Those things add up. And then you just stop looking because they've added up, but you stop looking. And how long you stop looking just depends on your personality. But eventually you do look and you realize you have all these desperate things that you're not even necessarily using. It maybe wasn't a good investment in the first place. So having your financial house in order is in the top four for me of in terms of ways that you can sabotage yourself.

SPEAKER_00 15:40

Yeah. No, I definitely feel like that is not my strong suit as far. Not that I'm making loads of money or anything like that, but like going into just that financial planning aspect of it. Part of the reason I am back at corporate because I'm very much on personal development and mindset and all of those things. And I'm like, if I'm just passionate about it and I do this, then the money will come. Like it didn't have a clear plan to make money. And I don't know if that is a similar problem that you see, or it's just like you said, you just are so close to your passion and so close to that that it's just like, oh, it'll come. It'll end I'm like, oh no, it's my back of corporate.

SPEAKER_01 16:24

Absolutely. And that's that's you really hit the nail in the head. So I don't know if you're familiar with it's a Japanese concept, icky guy. I don't know. Anyway, but it's it's not deep at all, but it's the marriage of passion with your skills, the marketability of the two of those, and who's gonna who's willing to pay you for it. And so that's kind of where your professional purpose marries itself. You can have skills and strengths, you can have passions. Neither of those are necessarily going to get you anywhere if you can't monetize it and find somebody who's willing to pay for it. So I think to respond to your question, yes, I work with people who have no passion that they're aware of and are just trying to find something. And I work with people who are just blinders on, excited about something. And that's where the business plan really helps them because it forces them to sit down and go line by line to really talk about where am I trying to go with this? How am I going to get into the marketing, the finance? You really got to get into the weeds more than your average passion project person wants to in order to justify moving it on down the road.

SPEAKER_00 17:38

Yeah. Yeah. So as a coach who's helping women like with transition through this change and kind of make these big leaps in their life, how do you balance or coach them on finding that balance between their passion and like the more practical side of things, like the market and the what's actually going to bring in money and all of that? Is there a set process or is it different for every woman?

SPEAKER_01 18:07

I think for me, there's a kind of a concept, and then it's a little bit specific to each person. But generally speaking, let's say somebody comes in and they have an idea, but it's not particularly fleshed out. Then we we start talking about, and this isn't the sexy part at all, but we thought talk about the whys, like why this? Why are you excited about this? And sometimes that will weed things out for a person, like I really like to, I'm just gonna use knitting. Well, I really like to knit. Okay. If knitting is your passion, are you will are you willing to hire people to help you knit? We just have conversations about what all this means if you were going to make this a business that you could live off of, kind of thing. So we have a lot of practical conversation. And again, when you're passionate about something, you're not always excited about those conversations. It's like when you were a kid and you say that you want to be whatever when you grow up, and your mom's like, why? Just because it's because they get to wear a cool helmet. I don't know. It's just what I want to do. So that sometimes let me just say this to back up to say that I am of the opinion, and I don't think it's an incorrect opinion, that not everybody's cut out to be an entrepreneur. Not everybody is a business owner type. It is, in my opinion, it is okay to forever have a side hustle that makes you some money. If and if you can also make yourself happy in the job, role, career that earns a living for your family. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I often find that people are trying to leap from hither to yawn when maybe hither could be adapted to make you happier. I don't think there's anything wrong with the corporate world, quite frankly. It may be that your job isn't the isn't the thing that's that you're excited about. So, a side hustle, that can if if turning it into your true profession is going to make you miserable and make you wear more hats than you want to wear, why how is that good? But for those people for whom entrepreneurship really is, that's it's really gonna be right up their alley. We then start talking about the practical practicalities of it. Okay, well now we're really gonna do the market research. So I don't do it for them, it's not my career. So we talk about the ways and I help them find ways to go out there and get information. Okay, and then you've got to look at the competition. Let's see what's going on out there. Competition doesn't mean don't do it, competition means let's see how I can improve the mousetrap or where is the are there a gap in the market? So just because there are people lined up doing something doesn't mean every aspect of it has been done. Think about the coaching world. There are all kinds of coaches, and if you were the type who looked and said, wow, this place is saturated, it's true on some level, but not in every little niche.

SPEAKER_00 21:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:00

If you find, if you whatever it is that you do, if you find that one little niche, what is it that you're great about or crazy passionate about that's a little bit different what's than what somebody else is doing? You don't ever have to compete with others. You have your own gifts to put out into the world. And I think that's particularly true with service-oriented things. If it's a product, then it's all about market research and how much it's math, really. Does somebody need this thing? Okay, how much can you charge for it? How much does it cost to make? That's a lot easier than the service-based things. I I also find that uh as an aside, people who come from corporate very often, interestingly, don't think about using some of the skills that they've gained over all almost a lifetime in the corporate world and parlaying that into very often I find people who want to do something wildly different, which is fine. That's exciting. And maybe you still have to gain some skills. in that regard, but you could also use some of the things you already have, not necessarily one for one. If you have that limited mindset, then no, that it's not always going to work that way. But you may have been leading teams or or you know doing all sorts of things that are relevant in another environment as a consultant that you could switch over on a dime. People are stunned that they could be making earning a living in months doing something. It's just terrifying, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:28

Now it's funny that you say that because I was totally guilty of that. The whenever left corporate the first time I had my whole identity crisis just because like we were speaking earlier to where it's like I'd never had that what do I want to do? But I was burned out. I need it was just okay I got to get out of here. But then I just turned into a puddle because I was like nobody needs me. No what who am I now if I don't have this title or that all of these things and I went into like I'm like oh I'm going to start a YouTube channel and I'm going to do cooking videos because I really love to cook and this is my passion. And then the pandemic hit and it was like I am so sick of cooking this is all I do. It's cook and clean the kitchen. It's like never leaving the house. So whenever I went back to corporate the second time I was just like okay like how are we going to figure this out and it's funny because I didn't even think about all of all of my nerdy skills like that I use in corporate with automations and all of the things that I'm doing and it's oh like this is the part of my job that I really enjoy like having this over here it's oh that makes so much sense but it was just seems so foreign to me like I have to do this whole thing that I'm just passionate about. But it's like really it was just a fun thing that I I made work. Yeah made it into work. It did what was no longer fun when I had to do it. But then it's oh this part of my work that I really enjoy taking that piece and starting to monetize that. So that has has made a difference.

SPEAKER_01 24:16

So that's it exactly it really is just um because we look at when we're thinking about shifts I feel women particularly that we feel like we have to have this big pendulum switch like it's just got to be a whole swing off to the other side. And it doesn't it could be a lot easier and it doesn't have to be painful like that whole thing no pain no gain no boo I say no I disagree and I think also one thing that can be beneficial is that again with the pendulum it doesn't have to be a huge swing. Think about just the 1% like what one thing could you do today that pushes you further in the direction that you want to go and then that's like things that we would tell children right we wouldn't say if you can't do it 100% maybe some people would I don't know but if you can't do it 100% don't do it at all. That's ridiculous you your little kids would never accomplish anything right but you just give them incremental little small things and then they get a sense of accomplishment and joy we're just giant little kids and we get that same feeling of accomplishment we gain confidence and then when you do fail at something you just have more resilience because you have the experience of I know I can accomplish this and accomplish that and then they just start to stack up. I am not a big believer in you know with my clients when we talk about setting goals we can have big overarching goals I really want to work for myself or I really want to be happy big huge things like that. But when it comes to the real goals that we're working on I ask that they not have more than three at a time because when you have that laundry list I don't know about you but I just you look at it it feels daunting overwhelming and you just say I can't do this is not even I have other things to do and you make yourself busy elsewhere and that particular list goes by the wayside. So I say just make it easy on yourself. You're the only one judging yourself and you asked me before I'm sorry jumping around but you asked me before what else what do I work with clients on it it's just what you were talking about. It's this stuff in our head that inner critic or the saboteurs or whatever you want to call them. We work a lot on that because it's those voices that we need to quiet so that our smart side the sage side or the side that has all the answers but's compassionate with us and keeps things calm and can look at all the options we we need to quiet the little judge and the one who's keeping us safe so that we can bring up some of the bright ideas and not just walk in fear and panic or I can't do it or I can only do this.

SPEAKER_00 26:58

Every we all know that right yeah that's what we it's one of those things that we all know logically but then you get into the heat of things or you get into the middle of your goals and it's like I do I relate to that a lot to where it's like okay I've got to keep it simple because I can make lists and goals and all of the things and then I look at that and I'm like I'm tired just looking at and I mean and if you need something if one needs something to tell oneself the thing of it is if you have this overarching goal or whatever thing and you pick the three little goals you may go down the first two or maybe get through all three and then your perception of what you're doing might change. Like you might want to move in a different direction but when you have that long laundry list you've already made the decision around the direction so anyway thinking back to whenever you first transitioned into your personal training and then selling that business what were some of your stumbling blocks or what did you have to work through personally to I mean or were you just an instant success?

SPEAKER_01 28:13

I was terrified of marketing of any kind. So I spent a lot of time trying to find ways not to market. And what I learned from that was that there are so many different ways to market that aren't because my perception of it was that it had to be salesy or I had to build some big email list or something. And certainly those are great fine ways to do things it's just not for me personally. And I realized that I knew a lot of people who knew a lot of people and again I it's not that I knew a ton of people I knew people who knew a lot of people and I was looking at a particular demographic women I just had to get over myself I had a saboteur in my head or an inner critic that that had me constantly thinking that these women that I was going to be working with would think lesser of me because I'm the personal trainer or whatever or like did you just wash out of corporate or whatever you feel some need to say what your all your credentials are or whatever you know they don't care. They didn't care a bit can you train me? Can you get me where I want to go so that was something that I had to get over and it's it's embarrassing. So you're like are you really that self-centered no I'm self-conscious a lot of us are self-conscious.

SPEAKER_00 29:28

Oh it's a it's a constant even I can find that in life in general to where part of me is oh I don't care what other people think but then I see my actions and like how I respond to things and I'm like I guess I kind of do like to where it's like you have that to where you know it's one thing to be successful in corporate and to have the paycheck and to have the job and all of the titles and all of the things and a team and then whenever you don't have that it is such a mind twist of I know one of my big problems like early on was my worth was tied to my income. And it was like if I'm if I'm not producing X, then I don't feel valuable which is so icky and gross.

SPEAKER_01 30:22

And I think a lot of people go through that as far as having that external that's someone else's self-worth that's because that was projected upon us by our companies because we are dogs in a wheel and we do have value based on what we bring in or keep from going out of the organization. Right. And we're just so accustomed to it we just march along and then you're not you don't have that little tap anymore and you feel like you're gosh I'm not adding value to the world or I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 30:50

Yeah interesting yeah it gets wonky in there to where you're like wait a second I am a whole human being without that's funny. So what is one of the best things that you feel as an entrepreneur like the biggest bonus aside from like finding the passion part of it but the difference from corporate and versus entrepreneurship?

SPEAKER_01 31:22

I think that's a great question for a couple of reasons because I know plenty of female entrepreneurs who are as busy or busier crazy busier than they were in their corporate careers. I was not and that's fine. They're driven and they're I'm gonna be honest I'm not crazy driven. I like to accomplish things and I like to have a sense of yeah accomplishment and well being but I'm I manage my time the way I choose to manage my time. I keep a pretty strict schedule but there's room for if I have to wobble something around or go get the kid do things like that. That's what makes me happy that's what I I was tired of. I traveled a lot in my corporate career I worked crazy hours I worked over the weekends for reasons I can't even when I look back and I think fuck what was I doing it's nuts. But yeah I work plenty but when I work I am diligent about doing what I'm doing and I concentrate and I don't multitask so that when I'm finished then I can concentrate on what I'm doing over there. I love to paddle board we live near a lake so I'm not out there every day but I'm looking forward to it getting I'm in Atlanta I'm looking forward to getting a little bit warmer and I can get out there in the middle of the day when nobody's out there. So that's what I love about it. Now again it just depends on what you're doing. So some roles are going to require that you are you're on it 40 hours a week or 60 hours a week but that's a choice you can make for yourself. You can earn a living without in my opinion without killing yourself.

unknown 33:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:03

But if you choose to kill yourself in that regard you're more than welcome to do so.

SPEAKER_00 33:08

There'll be plenty of work but you can also structure yourself. Exactly yeah yeah I know that that is as I'm building this on as alongside my corporate job I know that is the phase that I'm in right now which is just it is what it is. Obviously I'm looking forward to that time when I can have more downtime in my schedule to really appreciate just the lack of to-dos. That just seems especially as I multi you know doing corporate and doing a side hustle to where you know that's just a really busy season and I think people just have to be prepared for that and then my whole thing whenever I'm uh hopefully like whenever I the time comes for me to transition out of corporate again it's like okay I'm gonna have a better plan. I've learned a few things along the way I'm like okay hopefully I can be able to slow down a little bit and really just enjoy the slowness of it because I think we get into patterns of like busyness and patterns of okay I can always find more stuff to do and so I just keep going and going.

SPEAKER_01 34:30

So exactly that will never end if you don't get off of the train it just doesn't end. There's always something to fill your time.

SPEAKER_00 34:37

Big thanks to Alison for being on the show today you can find out more about her on her website changeagentcoaching.com or reach out directly via email. I'll have everything linked up in the show notes and I will catch you next time