Transcription
00:00:00
You. Hello and welcome to the Champagne Lounge.
00:00:07
My guest on today's episode of the podcast has been in business for as long as I have, just around a decade, the ten year mark. And we were just talking offline about starting the businesses and what sparked us to start it. And it turns out I'm not the only crazy that quit something to start something new with no plan. Welcome to the show, TTash Corbin. Thanks so much for having me, Rebecca.
00:00:30
This is so exciting. It's going to be so much fun. And I could chat to you for hours about business and life and dogs and all the things that you and I chat about a lot. But I'm curious. That just sparked me just before we hit the record button that you said you had been in business for ten years and that you just started it because you could without a plan.
00:00:50
I thought I was the only crazy person that did something like that when I jumped on a plane with $500 in my laptop. So what started the spark for you to go? Done with the corporate job, done with the security of that? Let's start a roller coaster ride. It really started from two things.
00:01:06
The first thing was I was in Denise Duffield TTash's money bootcamp, and I had joined that because I worked in corporate consulting and I wanted to make more commissions. But pretty much everyone else in the program had their own businesses and it was so exciting and intriguing to me. Then I listened to the four hour work week that Tim Ferriss has a lot to answer for. I don't think I've ever managed the four hour work week, have you? No.
00:01:32
I've got close a lot, so I had some surgeries in 2021. So I was down to 9 hours a week. Not through choice, but just through like I really had to scale everything back. I never really desired to have a four hour work week per se, but the whole concept of delayed lifestyle syndrome where we don't get to live our lives until we retire and just that freedom really resonated for me. And at the time I was working in corporate consulting and I was working on a range of different projects, but a lot of them were really close to my heart.
00:02:05
Like, I was working in a project on indigenous housing. I was working on a project around reducing recidivism in First Nations people around Australia and how the system was set up to fail First Nations people, all sorts of cool stuff. And unfortunately, we had a change of government in Queensland, which meant that all of those projects were canceled. And I was put onto mining and gas pipelines and they didn't really like that. Not the same feel good impact work, is it, really?
00:02:37
No, not really. So we went from helping First Nations people own their land to acquiring land in not great ways in order to run a pipeline. Not my kind of thing. And so I started to talk to my boss about my desire to go part time and start my own business. And initially I was thinking in the executive coaching and career coaching space because I was doing CEO coaching as part of my consulting work and I really wanted to kind of build my skills and build my experiences in there.
00:03:16
And my boss said, yeah, you can go part time. We'll work towards it in three years. So, like, going from 40 hours to 30 hours in three years from now. And I was like, no, that's not going to work for me. And so I tried to negotiate something, but it was just continually shut down.
00:03:33
And my boss was quite a bully as well. Like, I had a lot of negative experiences in that workplace and really struggled with a lot of the workplace politics and getting in trouble for helping other people. And I was distracting them even though they just asked me how to set up a macro in Excel. All those sort of things. All of the bits that I thought made me a really amazing employee were seen as disadvantages to having TTash on your team.
00:03:59
And so we had a holiday planned in 2013 to go to Europe for almost a month, and it was getting towards being four weeks until our trip. And so I had a conversation with David. I was out earning him by more than double at that point in time, right? Like, I was the breadwinner in our relationship and I was talking to him about this whole, like, wanting to start my own business and try my own thing. And he was like, well, yeah, we can drink clean skin wines and tighten the belts a little bit for a, like, go for like it was so surprising to me that he was so open to it.
00:04:34
And so I gave notice four weeks before my holiday. Then I finished up like, two days before we left. Then I went to Europe for a month and then I came back. And the day after we landed, I sat at my desk, went, right, start a business.
00:04:53
Not only did I just quit my job to start a business, I also had, like, no idea what I was doing. Hadn't come up with a business name, wasn't 100% sure what I was going to be doing. Went to Europe and spent all our money and maxed out our credit cards. So had no money, just set myself up for success so beautifully. But you know what, sometimes you have to have your back up against the wall for it to be an all in situation, right?
00:05:20
You were in that community with boot camp and you had those people around you. How did they help you? Or did they help you in Navigating? What was such an unknown to you at the time? Yeah, I think it was absolutely a help.
00:05:35
It was just that like, if you can't see it, you can't be it type phenomenon. For me, I'd never met people who had their own online business. I'd never met people who operated like lean business models and just scrappy bootstrappy type businesses. And so I saw such a variety of different types of businesses in that program. I mean, at the time it was very early.
00:05:58
Like I was in the first round, the second round, the third round. So I think by the time I started my business, there was still under 100 people in that community. But it was such a beautiful community and yeah, I just was able to see all these different examples of people with different skill sets and different backgrounds and it just gave me that sense of, well, I can do it too. I'm pretty smart. I've been very successful in the corporate business space and I've got a background in business coaching and consulting.
00:06:31
I also had a lot of good fallbacks. Like, I was a qualified workplace investigator. So if I needed to get jobs in corporate type things, I could. But yeah, having that community made a huge difference just to that sense of there's 1000 ways to have a business. Not just get $100,000 loan from the bank, have a twelve year business plan.
00:06:54
And that was my experience of a lot of different businesses. Because of my role as a consultant, I work with a lot of those more traditional style businesses. Yeah, that's an interesting one right there's. No one way fits. All right?
00:07:09
It happens. And I'm sure you, like myself and many others businesses have our businesses have changed over the years. We start of something and we mold it into something else and it comes into something else. So when you started, you were just you doing one on one sort of work with clients. What was the process and the journey for you to growing in your business, to having your own community, that's part of what you do and building that.
00:07:35
How was that journey and what came about and why really? I guess because community management is a big thing, right? It's huge. It's absolutely huge. And to be honest, someone else's Facebook group is responsible for a lot of my early success in my business.
00:07:51
I found being a solo business owner very lonely. I'm an extrovert. I'm also a connector, nurturer in sacred money archetype. So like anything that says I need people, I've got it like them all the way. It's in your bloodstream.
00:08:05
And so actually, I had a cup holder shaped like an owl when I first started my business and I talked to it, I just needed someone to talk to. So at first I thought I was going to do career coaching. And so I reached out to my existing networks to see if anyone would be interested in me just doing some market research and finding out what they were looking for. And I had three conversations with three ex work colleagues from different parts of my life. And after those three conversations, I was like, I don't want to do this.
00:08:33
I think I've made a big mistake because I don't want to teach people how to play the game in patriarchal structures. I don't want to talk about how ridiculous your boss is and that they're undermining you. It just made me feel so sad. I left this because I want something else. And so then I decided I was going to do the business coaching side for artists.
00:08:55
Because what I could see was there is a gap in the market where everyone assumed artists were just poor and starving and didn't want any help or couldn't afford help. But I had skills that I could really apply and help them with to grow and make sales of their artwork. So that's actually where I started in terms of advertising and getting clients on board. And then it sort of expanded a bit naturally, so I had more creative businessy types. And then about five months in, I realized most of my clients weren't artists.
00:09:28
And the artist clients that I had, they were asking to have conversations around the difference between artistic integrity and commercializing to get clients or to make sales. And I'm not an artist, so I had nothing to add to that conversation. And so it was about five, six months into my business that I then pivoted into service based businesses. But that whole time I worked with people one to one. And the majority of my clients came from being in Facebook communities and just being really helpful.
00:09:59
I didn't know how to use MailChimp, so I would research how to use MailChimp and then I'd make a little step by step process and then I'd say, I've just figured out all the MailChimp stuff. Does anyone want this template of the steps that I followed? Then I did some stuff around blogging, so then I shared that with that community. And every time I did, I'd have all these people saying, are you a business coach? Can you coach me?
00:10:23
And so I was in someone else's group being very helpful, just giving stuff away. I didn't do list growth stuff very well. I didn't do a bunch of stuff, but had a very fast growth of my business. And it was in spite of all the foundations not being quite right, but it was all overcome by being active and a leader in a couple of different spaces and communities. And did you set out to be a leader in that space or was it actually I'm curious and I like the connection in the conversation, so I'm going to be part of that and just join the conversation.
00:10:58
Yeah, I'm just a natural, kind of like, get in what's going on here? Okay everyone, now I'm just that kind of person. And so it was more that I just wanted to be really helpful and I knew that if I struggle to figure out this thing, there's going to be other people who struggled to figure out this thing. So I just love peer to peer support networks and that's actually what I saw those communities as. I didn't set out to make sales in those communities.
00:11:25
Two of them had like promo days where you could promote your services and all that kind of stuff. So I participated in that and that was very fruitful for me. But the main thing that I was looking for was just this peer support network because most of the business owners that I looked up to at that point in time were part of Masterminds or had a bunch of very successful business besties and they had that peer to peer support like Denise David, TTash Leone Dawson. You would see. Like Chris Carr and Marie Folio and all those.
00:11:57
They all talked about the power of Masterminding and peer support and all of those sorts of things. And I felt like I was too early in my journey to be playing with those people. So I was like, I'm just going to create a really good support network for myself. And so that was really my focal point, was just like, I just need to surround myself with people who understand what's going on. I also, like, a few months into my business started to notice that a lot of my friendships were changing or they were built on the fact that we were working the same building and that kind of thing.
00:12:30
So I was also seeing some changes to my friendship network and feeling quite lonely and so that was a part of it as well. I think I was just looking for more friends and looking for more people that understood why I wasn't going to be going out and partying on Friday night and writing myself off anymore because I didn't have the corporate drama and the corporate like, I need to blow off steam. At the end of the week, I was excited and I was feeling really amazing about my work and I go to catch up with friends and they were all just whinging about work all the time and I was like, our entire friendship is based on whinging about work. I don't actually think there's anything else here. And so finding business friends became really important to me.
00:13:19
Yeah, and so relatable right in starting something, feeling that it's actually a really lonely space and what you've known isn't going to get you to the next level because it is that case of I love you as a friend and a person, but we're just not aligned anymore. And moving forward, the Champagne Lounge isn't just a podcast, it's an instant digital community for ambitious businesswomen and entrepreneurs like you, wanting more connection, community and celebrations. So wherever you are in the world, whatever stage of business you're at. If you're looking for that ultimate female cheer squad of like minded women, head over to thechampainlounge.com to come and join us.
00:14:00
So my head can go one of two ways right from that one is you mentioned that you were looking up to business owners that you I'm going to say aspired to without putting words into your mouth in terms of doing their thing, living life the way they wanted to. What was it like for you going through that journey, going from I don't know if I'm good enough to be in that clack in that group yet, to, oh, now these are my best business buddies. What was that journey for you going from where you were to joining them where they are and considering people like that, friends. You are friends with them, we're friends with them. It's a bit of a surreal thing when you start looking at your old journey.
00:14:42
It is. And actually it's really funny because one of the reasons why I was such an early adopter of Denise's Money Boot camp was because I knew her from university. So even though I already knew her and I would consider know friends before that, I always was conscious that she was so much further ahead in her journey that we weren't friends in that relationship. That part was she had her business besties and I had mine at our little level. So it's probably still something that I get a little bit funny about because when I started my business, Leonie Dawson in particular, I felt like she was so famous and I still feel that way about her.
00:15:34
And we only met in real life when I moved here to the Sunshine Coast last year and it was actually the proximity geographically that brought us together and then we started talking, then we decided we would hang out, then we started a local mastermind so it all kind of progressed from there. And actually for our mastermind, it's not really about level of business, it's just that we've got some people who get along and we live in the same region. So I still have a little bit of that impostor syndrome, especially because I haven't hit the million dollar year mark in my business yet. And I feel like when I first started my business, that was the marker that I felt like, well, once I've had a million dollar year, then I'm allowed to be biz friends with those people and it's actually conference. That has created far more opportunities for me to have those connections because they're the kind of people I want to have on stage at my conference.
00:16:34
And so therefore, it almost put me in a peer to peer relationship with them. Because of the event, not necessarily because of the level of success of my business, if that makes any sense. It really does hung up on it. It's one of those weird things that and I'm glad you said it. You hadn't got to the seven figure mark yet and the number of people I talked to and it was even in one of the chats you and I are in.
00:17:00
You get there and you're like, oh, is that it? Is that how it feels like? It's that big milestone we put on ourselves to go. That's where we want to get to. But actually the success of it isn't necessarily hitting the seven figure mark because burnout and not the profit and all the things, it's actually being able to live life and build businesses that are sustainable and supports the lifestyle we want to live.
00:17:20
Yes, right. Yeah. That's a marker of success. I've always been very conscious that I refuse to stay up past 09:00 P.m. In order to have that million dollars.
00:17:31
Right. I have not seen a lot of sunrises in my life and I care not to see another. I like to sleep in. So yeah, there's lots of parameters that I have around that and so I know that when I do get there, I will have got there in a space where I've been able to do it with the lifestyle that I want and with the hours of work on my terms and those sorts of things. So I think for me there's so many things that I thought I would be allowed to have or would be able to do when I hit the million dollar year.
00:18:04
But I already have those things and so I feel like it's probably going to be a bit the same for me. It will be a great milestone to have reached in my business. But a lot of the shine is taken off it because the things that you think you need to have a million dollar business to be able to do, like fly business class all the time, you actually don't have to wait for a million dollar business to do that or being friends with million dollar business owners. You don't have to have a million dollar business to be allowed to be friends with million dollar business owners or going to the movies in the middle of the day. You don't have to wait.
00:18:37
I have two different personal trainers, right? I had all of these things that I had initially been and this is part of the work that Denise does in Bootcamp, right? All of these things that I'd been placing into my future. When I have a million dollars, then I can have all of this. And what I was doing was like slowly going, well, just have that now.
00:18:54
Oh, just have that little bit now. It's made a big difference I think just acclimatizing to the level of income and the lifestyle that I want to have beyond the dollar amount that my business brings in. Yeah, I think the numbers can really start getting cloudy sometimes, can't they? It's that lifestyle piece and it's having the people around you that can share in that celebration of doing business and life on your terms and giving you advice in terms of how to maximize what you do have, right? That's the winning piece.
00:19:26
Now, on the flip side of that, you've grown your own community. You've got conference up the back off the back of that. What's it like watching the community connections in the group that you've created and what came of that? Why then build a community, build a group when you were already part of so many that were working for you? What was the driver behind building one?
00:19:51
So in February of 2014, the groups that I was in that I liked the most, I saw that there was this shift that happened when they got big. So they would go one of two ways. Either they'd get so big and there'd be so much promo in there that it just became a spam fest and the admins just left it, right? It was just like this wild and the peer to peer support network part disappeared. It was just people were dumping promos and running.
00:20:21
They weren't actually stopping and engaging or they'd go the other way. Where the admin was so fearful of that happening, they almost locked it down. And it became all these conversations where you couldn't actually talk about your business freely because you weren't allowed to mention that you had a business or you know what I mean? It was just so controlled that the peer to peer support was really hard. Because it's like I want to ask, can someone give me feedback on this webinar sign up page?
00:20:48
But the admins would be like, no, that's a link. You can't share it or can't share it. You can't do that. And so I was just looking for to basically replicate. I want to go back to that feeling of peer to peer support.
00:21:01
So I started a Facebook group with the intention of it being a peer to peer support group. It wasn't to do with promoting my business. It had nothing to do with my growth, like my marketing and my growth strategy was separate to it. I was just looking for biz besties and I'd made a decision. It's going to be a thousand people.
00:21:18
And once it gets to a thousand people to bring new people in, we have to get rid of people who aren't engaging. So it's going to be like the best thousand connected people and we can talk about our businesses freely, but with nice guidelines so that it doesn't become a spam fest. I want to be in between those two kind of spaces. But very quickly it just blew up and it took off. And I had like 500 members pending and I was already at 1000 and I was like, I'm going to have to either take it super private and secret and this is all we get forever.
00:21:50
Which made me feel really sad. But there's probably other people who would really benefit from it, or I go over the 1000 people, but I'm just trying maintain this feeling, maintain this sense of peer support and community and a space for all of us. And it just skyrocketed from there. Within a year, we were at like 8000 people. And is it still maintaining that momentum and still has the community feel?
00:22:21
It definitely maintained the same feel. We're at 35,000 members now. But Facebook doesn't promote Facebook groups the way that it used to now. Right? So I don't recommend having a free Facebook group if someone's starting one today.
00:22:32
At the time, Facebook had like a dedicated suggested group section in the sidebar and even in the app, every third or fourth post was, hey, look at this group, you might want to join it. Now it's, hey, look at this ad. So it's not growing the way that it used to, like organically. As my business succeeds, then people find the group and then they join that way rather than the group grows. And then some of those people find my business and all that kind of stuff.
00:22:59
And I definitely feel like we've still maintained that sense that it's peer support network. I mean, I have people who 80% of their sales come from my Facebook group and I love that, right? It's so good to see such a highly engaged group with still 35,000 people in there. It's inclusive, it's intersectional, it's a really fabulous space. And the things that I see happening, like someone who met someone else through my Facebook group was their bridesmaid at their wedding.
00:23:28
Like people who've met each other through my community have thrown each other baby showers. They're now best friends. I've had people go on trips to Europe together and the origin story of their friendship was in our group. And that is just wild and magnificent to me. And I love it so much.
00:23:47
It just makes my heart sing that I've created that opportunity that I was afforded by other people's groups when I started. I feel like it's almost like a paying it forward and it's just fabulous. And that's a golden thread, isn't it? There the golden thread of community and connection. And you need to have the right community for you at the right time and have that and you're right.
00:24:08
Feed it forward and keep it going. And that actually gives me all the fields to know that you've got people in there that have done friendships and travel and all those things. I think it's beautiful because business can be a lonely journey by yourself. And to find people that are like you, think like you, that encourage you to do stuff, is just so fantastic. Now to wrap up, because we've done both sides.
00:24:29
My final question for you, TTash, because I ask this to everybody. As women, we don't celebrate milestones enough, right? We don't high five ourselves enough. We don't acknowledge the things that we've done what's one thing that you've done and achieved in the last, let's say, quarter, that you should have celebrated more, but you kind of went, did that next shiny thing. Let's go.
00:24:51
Well, I sold out next year's conference, which is in September next year. So over a year in advance. We don't have any tickets to my conference next year remaining. How did you celebrate the sellout? Yeah, so it really still hasn't landed, though, right?
00:25:07
I celebrated the fact that tickets had sold out. David and my partner. David and I've got these fancy wines that I've been saving for Acasia. So we cracked one of the fancy wines, and we spent a whole day basically, just every time we looked at each other, I was like, I just sold out conference. And he was like, you just sold out conference.
00:25:25
So we definitely celebrated in that way. I remember we were sitting watching some random thing on TV, and he just nudged me on the shoulder. He's like, guess what? You just sold out a conference. Trying to get that feeling to land and that sense of celebration.
00:25:40
So absolutely. I feel like I've celebrated the milestone. But also, there are things that that means that I still haven't even landed yet. It means that maybe I could run another something or other, because I've got a whole year in which there's times scheduled to promote conference and get ticket sales. I don't have to do that anymore.
00:26:04
All of the budgets, right? So I've got all these budgets for conference based on if we sell this many tickets. If we sell this many. Yeah, we've sold them all scenarios anymore, like that spreadsheet is finished. So, yeah, I think it's the little things that it means that I will continue to be celebrating all the way up until this conference, I think.
00:26:26
Yeah. I love that. It's a big milestone, and there's lots of micro celebrations along the way. I think that's fabulous. I love it.
00:26:35
TTash, thank you so much for coming on the show and chatting all things business, community and celebration with me. It's been fab. Thank you. And I'm really excited for Champagne Lounge as well. Oh, my gosh.
00:26:45
You've created such an amazing space, and so thank you. I'm excited to experience the in person version, so I'll see you there, too. You will indeed. TTasha will be at the Brisbane event that we've got on the 5 September. So if you're listening to this podcast before the 5 September, head over to thechampainlounge.com grab your Ticket for the Roadshow.
00:27:05
We'll be on stage having a ball with champagne. Thanks, Tash. Thanks for listening to the Champagne Lounge podcast. If you'd love to be part of our thriving global community, head over to thechampainlounge.com to join us.
