Rebecca (00:00.799)
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Champagne Lounge Podcast. Today I'm joined by one of my dearest friends and fabulous creative, Debbie O'Connor. Welcome to the show, Debbie.
DebbieO (00:12.703)
I always love chatting with you.
Rebecca (00:15.371)
I am so excited to dive into this and I really want to start back into the conversation that you and I had when we went kayaking. And you were telling me how you started your business and started connecting people when you first moved to Australia. So it's not your usual way of meeting people. So I would love you to start your business journey with when you moved to Australia, Deb, how did you start connecting with new people?
DebbieO (00:42.414)
Look, it was, I must admit, it was very, very challenging. It was over two decades ago now, so it's a long time ago. But you know, I was in a situation where I had no friends in the country, I was married to an Australian. I knew his family, but they weren't very connected in the business world at all. And so I was struggling to figure out how to start my business, partly because
I was five months pregnant and my boss at the time had decided he was not giving me maternity leave. So I had to try and figure out what I was going to do and being a graphic designer, I thought, well, I'm going to start designing for anybody local. And I went to a small little home-based business networking event. And
When I was there, I found out an incredible statistic about our local area. And that was that 10% of the homes in my suburb had a home-based business being run out of it. And I was like, that's a lot because we had about 6,500 homes. And I'm like, that's 650 businesses. How do I not know who these businesses are?
they must need an avenue in which to advertise. So after I had my son, I literally had him strapped to my chest and I went walking around the suburb and every time I came across a house that had a little sign outside the front, I would go knock on the door and say, hey, I'm a local graphic designer. I'm putting together a business directory of all the home-based businesses in our local area.
and I wanted to find out if you'd like to advertise. Now, there were some people who said, absolutely, I'd love to. There were others that said, no, I don't want to at all. But I was able to convert 25% of those advertisers into my first lot of clients. And that's pretty much how I started the business.
Rebecca (02:48.671)
Thank you.
I love that story. I just, because actually I think old school hustling like that sounds right. We're talking two decades later is still applicable now. You know, it's that space of having those connections, having those conversations person to person rather than through a screen or through a text or through a social media platform has so much more traction in an awful lot of ways still, I reckon. And from that space, you're still in the same suburb and you've moved from being
DebbieO (03:00.93)
Oh, I'm gonna do this one.
Rebecca (03:20.639)
at home graphic designer and your career has spanned an awful lot of different things, a lot of fun. We'll throw some awards in there as well along the way and we'll come to your most recent achievement of launching your book. But how was your journey through the last couple of decades to get to where you are today as a graphic designer with your own agency in your own co-working space?
DebbieO (03:46.386)
Yeah, look, there've been lots of ups and downs, and any business owner can attest to the fact that it's never smooth sailing, right? Being a creative myself, I can identify problems, and then I go ahead and I solve them. But at the same time, I get quite restless as well, and I've noticed that about myself. Every three, five, seven years, I need to do something that challenges me a little bit more. So,
For example, when I started off the branding studio and I did this local directory, after doing it for a year and a half or two years, I expanded into another area. So I expanded my growth, I guess. But then I got a bit bored of that. So I decided to package it up and sell that part of the business. Then when I had my son and anybody who has a child that doesn't wanna eat their vegetables.
can understand the stress that you have at dinner time. So I designed a little book for him to go through while he was having his dinner and he started eating his vegetables. So I shared this book of once my mother's group and they all said that their kids were eating vegetables all of a sudden. So I thought, well, I'll just publish a children's book. So I published my first book. It's a cute little children's book.
And then from there, I was working, we were working from my home and my kids were growing up and I realized, you know, it's a hard place for a child when they finished school to come home and I'm telling them, don't leave their bag there because someone could trip over us or you know, you can't make any noise. So it came to a stage where I realized I had to move the business out of home, which was actually a really stressful thing because
I had to find premises. Oh, keep in mind, so this is going back some time. It was just at the end of the GFC. So it meant that businesses were really hurting and a lot of businesses didn't know where their business would be in a number of years, right? We had come through a very, very challenging time. So when I was speaking to real estate agents, they wanted me to sign two, three, five year leases and I was really stressed by this. I think I...
DebbieO (06:06.506)
my business can't foresee that much, particularly after going through such a challenging time. And I was very lucky to get an office space next to one of my clients. And they said to me, look, we'll just rent this to you month by month. And I was like, that is a godsend because that I can manage, right? So I moved into our first premises.
Rebecca (06:25.548)
Yes. Yeah.
DebbieO (06:33.25)
and two of us moved in. Three years later, there were six of us and we were really running out of space. But that was a very defining moment for me because even though we moved in and we only had to pay month by month, even though I used secondhand furniture, the whole setup cost me $30,000. And nobody warned me that it was going to be that kind of expense, even though
you know, I did everything as much on the cheap as possible. And that sparked an idea for me, which was my next big project, which was my coworking space. And that was where I saw the problem that I had been through as a business trying to move out of home. And I went, how do I alleviate that pain for somebody? And so now in our coworking space, people can hire just a desk for the day, for the week, for the month. But you can hire an office.
Rebecca (07:06.326)
Mm-hmm.
DebbieO (07:31.426)
for as short as just a month at a time. Our longest lease is a year. And most business owners can see a year ahead. So I wanted to take all the pressure out. The offices can come fully furnished if people don't have their own stuff. All the data, cabling, all the wifi, all the technology is already set up for them. So it's about taking that pressure out for those people who are wanting to grow, wanting to develop, but really don't have
Rebecca (07:34.928)
Yes.
DebbieO (08:01.59)
the funds to kind of get their own office space up and running. So that was my next and it was super exciting.
Rebecca (08:06.315)
Yeah, I love it. And I've come from an office space where I was doing month to month. And honestly, I couldn't have found myself signing up to anything longer than that, really knowing, you know, that's my cash flow for it. And that's how it works. So I love that you've built that and done that based on days, weeks and months. And also in doing that, I know, tenants that have gone through your space, and I'm sure through other co-working spaces will then be able to leave and downsize without any of the burdens that
For example, I've got right now of, I've got five desks in my house. I don't need five. There's just one of me, you know, since downsizing, I've got all these computers and all these things that is just another burden for me to then sort out and get rid of. So it's not just the expense of setting up office spaces and doing that. It's actually the expense of scaling up and down when things change. So I love that the flexibility is there. But your co-working space has become a little bit.
DebbieO (08:42.946)
What is this?
Rebecca (09:04.635)
a little bit, a lot of a community hub within your local area. So what are the kinds of things that you're doing in the community? And why did you choose to go down that path of involving the community in the way that you do?
DebbieO (09:19.866)
Yeah, no, community's always been a really big thing for me. And I think it's because, I mean, you hear from my accent, I'm South African. And I grew up in a very small bush town called White River, which is why my business is called White River Design. It's my little connection to my community. And most of my family still live there. So it's very personal to me. But growing up in the African bush and having this very tight knit community where
if something happened, if somebody needed any help, if you needed the lawns laid or fences put up, the message would go out to the community, we would all pile onto that person's property, kids would be there, parents would be there, everyone would chip in, and then we'd have a big braai, which is a barbecue, afterwards, very community-orientated, right? And as I, when I left my hometown,
and I studied and I traveled all over the world. And I felt that there was less of a sense of community, all the big cities that I went into, they just didn't have that. And I feel that probably you being in Maggi, you're feeling what community is like again, right? It's amazing. And I really wanted to have that here in my hometown as well. So what I did was being very deliberate.
Rebecca (10:32.523)
Mm-hmm.
DebbieO (10:43.146)
about how to connect with communities. So yes, during the week we're a co-working space, but on the weekends we offer these beautiful, amazing workshops for people to come and create and connect and learn something new. But even more than that, one of the things that I did was start up what is called our Tots Blanket Challenge, which is our Think Outside the Square Blanket Challenge. And all it is for people to knit or crochet 20 by 20 centimeter squares.
and then we sew them together and we donate them to the homeless, domestic violence survivors and youth in crisis. And it started off, this year was our seventh year and it started off our very, very first year, we donated 49 blankets. This year we donated 572 blankets. And that is...
Rebecca (11:36.013)
Wow. Yeah.
DebbieO (11:38.094)
community, that is entirely community. But the interesting thing is that people within our local community are telling their family and friends who might be in Queensland or we've got one lady from Perth, from country Victoria. All over the place, people are now getting involved and we literally get boxes or bags full of squares sent to us.
We run the challenge from the 1st of April to the 31st of July. And during that timeframe, it is insane the amount of people who are sending stuff through and the community spirit that is built just around creating these squares and these blankets. It's phenomenal.
Rebecca (12:20.543)
I think it's amazing and I'll make sure I'd put a link to that in the show notes because I know that you'll accept, you've just said you'll accept squares from anyone, anywhere to send them to you during that time. And I also love that you get people together to stitch those squares together into blankets as a bit of a community activity within your space. Is that right?
DebbieO (12:40.226)
That's exactly right. So we have these sewing bees and we get everyone to come together. We put on a cheese platter. We have wine and drinks and people can just come in and have a little knit and a natter and connect with their own community as well. It's great fun.
Rebecca (12:57.767)
think it's fantastic. I would definitely be knitting more squares for you if I didn't make triangles by mistake.
DebbieO (13:04.59)
You can actually hear those. Yeah.
Rebecca (13:06.091)
I think it's practice. I think it's practice. Now, I know from you being one of my closest friends and also a member of the Champagne Lounge that you have won some amazing awards recently for a project that has been on your mind and you've been tinkering away for a while. I'm the proud owner of Deb's book of the first copy that she had printed in a special, luxuriously feeling cover. Deb, what is the book that you've just written and why is it so...
important to you, but also to the community that you're now sharing that with.
DebbieO (13:40.414)
Yeah, so the book is all about brand personalities and it's based on Carl Jung's 12 archetypes. So it's using psychology based strategies. And the reason why I got into this in the first place was when I first started my business, I had a lot of people coming to me going, Oh, Debbie, can you help me with my branding? And what they meant was, can you design me a logo? They had no idea what branding actually was.
And so I, once again, I had this problem and I needed to solve it. And I knew knowing, I mean, I'd studied philosophy and industrial psychology at university. And so I knew that if I could use a psychology based strategy that it would start to make sense to my clients. And the interesting thing about these archetypes is that we all actually know and understand all of them without having to be taught them. So if I were to say to you, an innocent maiden,
heroic prince, a ruler over all the land and a wise old woman, you probably conjured in your mind not only what they look like, but also their personality traits. Now if we take the same principle and we apply it to branding, it means that we're starting to build brands with personality. And by having this type of framework where we say, right, you are the hero or you are the rebel,
It means that not only does the designer or the copyright or whoever have a very clear structure about the language and tone and look and feel, but the client understands intrinsically how their brand should pitch up, how their brand should make people feel, and it keeps them on track, which is great because a lot of people, what happens is their brand falls flat because they just aren't consistent.
So I took all of that knowledge and all of this information that I've been building up over the last decade or two, and I put it into a book, but it took me four years. So it is a gorgeous book and every chapter has been designed so it looks and feels like each one of the personalities. So it's a bit of a visual feast for the eyes, but your one is very special because it comes
Rebecca (15:48.317)
It's a beautiful book.
DebbieO (16:03.818)
in the limited edition velvet cover that we had. And I really wanted something that was going to be special. Something that for the people that were supporting me and pre-ordering, they would get that cover. And it was limited edition. There were only a hundred of them printed and only the people who pre-ordered got those. And you were the very first person, as soon as I said, my book's on sale, Beck, you were the first person who bought my book and I will forever be grateful for your support.
Rebecca (16:34.283)
Oh, thank you. Do you know how I managed to do that? And I think this is a trick that a lot of business owners don't do. And it's also something that my current site doesn't enable me to do for some of my stuff, but you made it so easy with, I think you had a QR code or something at the event and it enabled me to pay using Apple Pay on my phone. And so I just clicked my way through it in about three links. And I think before you'd even changed the slide, it had been ordered.
DebbieO (17:02.494)
It was so quick, I couldn't believe it. I'm like, man, go girl, I love it.
Rebecca (17:06.991)
Yeah. So for business owners out there listening, Apple Pay, seriously, it's a game changer for people purchasing in the moment and making those decisions super, super fast, which I think is awesome. And you've won a couple of awards for that book, which I thought was really exciting in the last few months.
DebbieO (17:22.974)
Yeah, look, that's been really, I think, probably the most exciting part. Well, we hit number one, Amazon number one bestseller, which was one of the things, but we've just won a Sydney Design Award for the actual design and publication of the book. So that really gives a lot of validation to it. The fact that we've produced this book that not only is very useful for designers, copywriters,
business owners themselves, but it's also beautifully designed. And I think that was what really stood out and made me feel very, very proud.
Rebecca (18:01.587)
Yeah, no, it's very special and to be recognised in both ways, both as a book to read and also its design factor is just testament to you and the creativity that you have and the love you've put into the book, which is amazing. Deb, now you're probably one of the biggest community people that I know. We've talked about community, we've talked about being part of it, having impact in it, but, you know, just loving everything about community that give back the all of the things community.
Why has the champagne lounge been something that you wanted to be part of? And not just because we're friends.
DebbieO (18:36.094)
Okay, well, can I just say that I would never have met you if I was not originally part of a community that we met at. It was a women's networking group and I got to meet you and I've met so many beautiful friends that way. Unfortunately, not part of that anymore. It's changed and so I don't have that in my life anymore. So when I heard that you were starting up the Champagne Lounge, I was like, for sure, I've got to be part of it because
Rebecca (18:44.297)
Yeah.
Rebecca (19:03.819)
I'm gonna go to bed.
DebbieO (19:05.47)
You have such a wonderful way of being able to bring people together, highlight the best in everyone. You have an amazing memory. Like you remember so much stuff and I love, love 10 a.m. on Monday morning when I get to jump on the Champagne Lounge chat and hear what everyone's been up to, connect with other people and it's just a really beautiful place.
to hear what people are doing. I mean, I had an issue the one day, and I must admit, I did hijack one of our conversations, and everyone was like, no, let's solve this problem for you. And people gave me advice and giving me support, and it was just so wonderful. And I promise I won't hijack things like that, but everyone was so willing. Yeah, and everyone.
Rebecca (19:57.799)
It's that's what it's there for. It's what it's there for to jump in with a problem and for people in the room to go, I can help solve that right now. Like, let's just go. Yeah.
DebbieO (20:06.586)
And honestly, like within 20 minutes, everyone had my whole problem sorted for me. It was fantastic. And you know what I think it made me really feel in that moment was that I wasn't alone. And so often in business, we do feel like we're an island. You know, we do feel like we're carrying all the weight of everything on our shoulders. But having that moment to just, just be human.
in a space where there's no judgment, I just love it. I absolutely love it. And I reckon that everybody should be part of some kind of network, but particularly the Champagne Lounge. I just love the feeling and the way you bring people together and how you treat people back is just amazing.
Rebecca (20:54.175)
Thank you, my love. Oh, that was beautiful. You almost brought tears to my eyes with that. That was gorgeous. Thank you so much. I'm so, I said, I'm so glad you're part of it. You're part of my world. You're part of my orbit. And you inspire me all the time with your creativity. So the feelings are very much mutual. Deb, I have loved having you on today's show. I'm gonna link all the things in the bottom of the show notes, including your Instagram for where people can find you because you are a force to be reckoned with. And I just love it. Thank you for coming on the show.
DebbieO (21:25.123)
my friend, always lovely chatting with you.
