Episode Transcription

19:Clarity, Vision and Values. The Secret Ingredients to Success in Your Business, with Donna Hann
 

Hello, lovely lady. Welcome to Classroom To Business, the podcast designed specifically for teachers working to become successful businesswomen and creating financial freedom and lifestyle flexibility. I'm Kirsty Gibbs. Business coach and mentor for educators and teachers just like you, who are ready to step away from the classroom and create something more.

The Classroom to Business Podcast is committed to helping you grow your business, break down those barriers to success, and replace your teaching salary without having to work more hours. It's time for you to find freedom and start being your own boss so you can once again enjoy what you do and wake up each morning loving life.

Let's get into it. Welcome to another episode of Classroom to Business. Today I'm super excited to be bringing to you another guest, Donna Hen. Donna is our very first non-teacher guest to the podcast. However, I wanted her to join today because she brings some amazing insight and business knowledge herself as a previous dance studio owner.

Donna and I have been friends. We have sort of worked alongside each other, I guess, in terms of both being involved in a very high level mastermind and just always been there to sort of bounce ideas around and keep track and keep an eye on how each other are going. And I think there's nothing more important in business than surrounding yourself with people who inspire you and cheer you on and.

That's exactly what Donna is. So without further ado, Donna, would you like to tell us a little bit more about yourself and what you do? Sure can. Well, thank you for having me on. I'm excited to be here. As you said, my name is Donna Han. I'm a business coach. I'm a course creator. I'm a podcaster as well, and a speaker, and I love helping women in business to thrive.

So basically what I do is I help women in business to go from feeling really overwhelmed and exhausted and on that path to burnout. The thriving in the business space, making sure that you've got a business that's successful and profitable. And sustainable. And I don't mean sustainable in the greeny sense, I mean sustainable in that we can sustain the energy required to run the business.

And also, you know, along with. Building a successful business. I believe that there needs to be a holistic approach to the way in which we do it, because we also often have a family that we're raising and we need to honor our own self care so that we don't. So a business coach and through the program, That I offer, that is kind of what I do in helping women to rise to the next level and do it in a way that doesn't burn them out in the process and allows and actually brings them the freedom that they probably started their business for, to be in the moment with the people that mean the most to them.

You know, to work within school bells and to be available, to turn up to parade and to help in the classroom and do the things that we wanna do with our own children. And I believe that most women, particularly moms in business, one of the reasons we start our business is to have that freedom, flexibility.

But what tends to happen is we start a business because we're excited about providing a service or providing, you know, bringing a new product into the world. And we have the skills, the technical skills in that area, but then, Once we're sort of through the startup phase and we've got things rocketed rolling, we, you know, suddenly realize, my goodness, this business stuff is a lot harder than I could.

And that's kinda where I step in and help. So Good. And I can vouch, and I'd say that a lot of our listeners can agree with what you're saying. All of the ladies that I work with are educators, you know, they are. Masters at teaching and filling in the gaps for students or extending students, but sometimes it's the business side of things that's missing.

So when we first met, which was a few years ago now, you actually had a dance studio, and that was one of the key reasons why I wanted to bring you on today was to chat to about that because I think that experience aligns a lot with the ladies. Who will be listening. So can you, I know this is going back even longer now, but can you jump back in time and let me know what was it that got you into your dance business in the beginning?

What made you actually say, I want to own a dance studio? Hmm. Well, my dance studio wasn't my first business, so Okay. Probably need to go back a little further even than that. So I grew up, In an entrepreneurial family, so my parents moved from the uk. I was about five I think, with me and my brother, and relocated to Australia, and within I think 12 months or so of being in Australia, they decided to open their own business.

And so I. Was exposed to that from a young age. I would sit behind the desk with mom and kind copy and like put stamp on the envelopes and you know, do that sort of stuff. And we would go to trade fairs and you know, I've a lot from observing my parents and the way they interacted with customers and all of that stuff.

And so always being intrigued by business. I love listening to other people's journeys. I love. Seen, you know, like just fascinated by like, wow, they do that and they, my goodness, look at the lifestyle they have and all those kinds of things. So when I was at university, so around the age of 19, I wanted some extra income.

So I started a business back then and I worked with a cafe as well, and there was a customer who would come in every morning on the early shift, and he was a businessman. And I told him about my idea and he very kindly took me under his wing and sort of whilst he was having his morning coffee, he would teach me some fundamentals about business.

And I guess that was my first experience of having a business mentor of some kind. And then, you know, that business was a children's party business, so I would rock up dressed as a fairy or a. Princess or a pirate or whatever, and I would run the party for the parents so that they could socialize and just be, you know, enjoying the birthday moment with their little one.

And you know, that was great experience for way back at the beginning about how important. You know, customer service was, and systemization and all of that kind of stuff. It also taught me the things not to do. Cause I made some pretty big bundles back then. And then I decided to travel the world with my backpack and did that whole thing for a while.

And when I came back I worked for a drama company cause I did my degree in performing arts. And so I worked for a drama company in a franchise, which is very like, again, the whole two like. The correlation between tutoring and dance school and all of that kind of stuff. And I learned a lot from that business as well, which I took a lot of the stuff that I learned there and put it into the dance studio.

But there's been other businesses in between there. Like I've had, this is my fourth business, so I'm a bit of a serial entrepreneur cause I love it so much. But with the dance studio, I had two children by that stage. I realized when I looked around my local area that the studios that were in existence at that time, there was some pretty big gaps in the way that they were teaching from a growth mindset point of view, which I know your listeners would totally get what that means, and so, I was actually at a barbecue chatting with a friend and I thought, you know what?

There's a huge gap here where we could build a business, a dance studio that was super friendly and inclusive and nurturing for people who wanna not just grow their dance skills, but also grow their confidence and learn social skills to make friends be school ready. You know, all of those kinds of things.

And so when we opened, so we, I originally opened. That business, the dance studio with a partner. And when we did within three months, we had a hundred students in two locations. So we had like incredible explosive growth when we first opened the doors and we quickly became the go-to in our area because we were doing things differently the way I was just gonna ask you, why do you think you had such quick growth?

So yeah. Because from the get go, I was really clear about the vision, and this is what I talk to my clients about all the time, is that you need to have clarity of your vision of where you want things to go. You also need to know why you are doing what you're doing and the reason why the way that you do it is different from everybody else.

Yeah. So you know. When we think about how many cafes are in the world, there are gazillions, right? Same with dance studios, loads of death studios. And I'm sure it would be the same for, you know, tutoring. There's lots of different options for people to have tutoring, but what is it that makes your business different from everybody else's?

And generally, it comes down to your value set and why you do what you do. And so for us, we had clearly delineated what our core values were for our business. We identified from those core values how we would behave as owners, how our staff would behave, and the expectation that we had for our students in the way that they also behaved in the space and the way that the parents did.

And by having that really clear from the beginning, we were able to shape a really beautiful culture. And it was the culture that separated us from all of the other dance studios in the area, because for us, it wasn't about, Creating dances that, you know, could get their leg up by their ear and do a trip.

We were a recreational dance studio, and therefore when we were doing our messaging on marketing the dance studio, it was always about what we were providing as a benefit to the student, and therefore, obviously that's a high interest to the parent. It wasn't about. How high you could kick or how many turns you could do.

It was about how we were providing and fostering a space that was inclusive and nurturing and you know, was a place where people could feel safe and make, have fun and you know, build friendships. And that was what was the difference, I believe. And that continued to be the thing that grew our business.

So after a short period, I think it was only about. Maybe only 12 months, the partnership broke up. So my partner at the time in business, she also had a full-time job and it was just too much for her. So I took on the business, I bought her share, and then within another 12 months from that point on, we had 300 students and we were absolutely the go-to in the area.

And I think the reason that we did that was because of the culture. It was the way that we expressed what we did, and we didn't just sell like. We have class on Thursdays at this time, and it's this style and it's this age group. We didn't do that. It was, you know, a lot more around the benefits rather than the features being, you know, essentially boring marketing, you know, come on a Friday afternoon, we've got vacancies here.

Like that's boring. Marketing to me. The stuff that draws people in and magnetizes your ideal class customers to you. Is the stuff that they see themselves in. So we always painted a picture of what it could be like if their child came to dance with us, and that was what built our business. That was a really long answer, but yeah, no, I, I love that.

And it's really good because that's when I work with my ladies. That's the exact place that we start at, like, what's your why? Why are you doing this? Um, Obviously there's a why within yourself, but then there's a why, the impact that you're making as well. And then people will jump to, you know, whatever their reason is.

But then the next step is, like you said, what makes you different. Yeah. And for some people, like in tutoring, for some people it is their niche. So they've got training in, you know, working with children who are dyslexic or they are. Helping students to who are gifted and talented. But it's really interesting because so many of us focus on those skills, which is fantastic.

I mean, that's not a bad thing, but some of the businesses that I've seen who succeed really well also go another level deeper, which is what you're talking about, and it's more about. The values of the actual business and looking at that whole, that child as a holistic thing. Not just, we're gonna improve your grades and build your confidence, but how does that impact in the day-to-day life of those children?

And that's what I say to my ladies, like, what do your parents feel on a day-to-day basis? You know, what are the little, when they wake up in the morning, what are those? Anecdotal moments that you can share with them that they're struggling with. So, you know, my child doesn't wanna go to school. They hate reading.

We argue about homework every day. And I think marketing and your messaging, when it talks to that, like you're saying there and flips it around to. We're not just creating good dancers, we're not just creating confident, you know, capable students. We're creating a whole space where these kids are going to enjoy learning.

They're going to develop a love for learning. Like your kids, they're loving dancing, they're laughing, they're having fun, and I think that's so much more. So you have to, the days of marketing. In the traditional sense are gone, we now need to market our business from the emotional connection. Yeah. So humans wanna buy from clients and you know, we have such amazing resources at our fingertips now, thanks to social media.

You know, it used to be that it was only the big businesses that could really afford marketing, that really was in front of people's eyeball. Now we all have it at our fingertips. But the thing is that we need to understand that when people are in, when they're searching for, you know, solving their pain point, or for you to be able to provide a gain point for them, we need to be marketing from an emotional perspective.

Yeah. Not to be manipulative, but you know, it needs to be at a deeper level. And this is why brand, like really understanding the psychology of branding. Is important because it gives substance to your marketing. And what I'm talking about there is like, you know, often people think their branding is just like colors and logo and that kinda stuff, but it's not.

It's about what is the personality of the business. If your business was a person, what would their personality be? You maybe bright and bubbly, would they be someone that you're magnetized to because they just have this kind of explosive, contagious energy, or are they kinda, you know, elegant and they kind grace and flow through the room?

Like you have to think about the personality of your business that you're creating and how your ideal customer is gonna identify themselves in that. So when we're talking about, and I'm getting probably a little bit deep level here with branding and marketing, but when. Really magnetizing our idea clients to our business.

They need to feel as though by working with you, it's an extension of their identity. You know, and that when they enroll their child to do tutoring with you, that not only are their kids getting, you know, the support that they need from, you know, an education point of view, but they're also getting the support that they need from a nurturing perspective, if that's what it is that they need, and that they get to know you as a person, or they get to know the teachers or the educators as a person.

So that they go, I wanna work with that person because when I look at they're caring, they're, they're also, they hold people accountable. They're not a pushover, whatever it.

What your neon sign is for your business, the big flashing billboard that calls people in, and also the type of personality that your brand has. And that has to be woven through everything that you do. Yeah. A lot with your values as well. So yeah, it's pretty impactful and it's, there's a lot to it, right?

But it's something that I recommend that all business owners dig into, and I'm sure you probably do some of that in your programs that you teach as well. But I know that it's definitely one of the biggest. Ways that I can impact the women that I work with is when we dive into that stuff, it's like, And then it doesn't feel like you're spelling all the time.

Exactly that. That's just what I was gonna say. I actually just went into nearly everything you said. Then I was on a phone call with a lady just last week, and that's exactly what it was. So she's sort of saying, I need to work on my marketing, but when we went back, it was her branding and so many people just think branding is picking a logo and colors and fonts and making sure you stick to that, but it is a brand.

It's the personality of your business. It's you want to be seen as and what you want people to feel when they see your brand, what you want them to think when they see your brand, and it's so important to get that right. One of the things you can do to help with that is when you are having a conversation or when you've received an inquiry, really hone in on the type of language that they're using to describe what it is.

Whatever it is. That they're contacting you for. So if they've got a child who is a high achiever and needs extension and that's where you are really, you know, Building a niche, then keep your eyes out, keep your ears open for the type of language that they use, and then use that language, the words of what they're going to be looking for.

Like literally, if they're, if it's coming outta their mouth, that's what they're gonna be looking for. It's like, you know when you're buying a new car and you've decided that you're gonna buy a Toyota and then you see them everywhere, it's because our brain is wired to think that way. So if they're using particular words that describes their child and their needs, Start using that language in your messaging because as soon as I see those words and with you, instantly, you're starting to build some connection and you're starting to build a relationship.

So that would be starting point if. Anyone listening is like, oh, I dunno what that is. That's one of the things. And then the other suggestion there would be to actually reach out to your current clients and pick up the phone or if you opportunity to see them in person and just asks. And I used all the.

I would literally have a notepad and a pen and I would wander around to the parents who are waiting for their kids and I would just say, Hey, I dunno if we met before, but I'm the owner of the dance studio cause I didn't teach all the classes in the end, I didn't teach any of them and I'm just wanted to have a chat with you.

Always looking for ways to improve our business and to make the experience better for you. So I'd love to know what was it about dance kicks that you were attracted to? So we're asking, we're getting research around what was the attraction, and then, so that was all my first, always my first question was, why did you join?

Or what was it that attracted you to join? And then I would ask them, why do you stay? Because you know, there's two areas of our business that we need to work on for revenue. That is new inquiries coming in and retaining the existing clients that we have. So if we can understand why they stay, then again, we listen to the language that they use.

And we put that into our marketing message. It also means that if we know why they stay, then affect the experience that they're currently getting. And that was a really pain. The other question is, if you were speaking to, um, how would you describe dance? And I would also make that as well. So those were the three questions that I found really my messaging really, hon.

So in a dance studio, it's not often that you'll have one-on-one sessions. Most of your services are groups. In a tutoring business, a lot of ladies just revert straight to one-on-one sessions, and with that comes the inability to. Increase your revenue with bringing staff on or yourself having to work more and more hours so you hit this ceiling income.

I am a massive advocate for groups. It doesn't work for all students, but I do encourage my ladies to look at it as an alternative way to increase their impact. But also their income. So as an owner of a dance studio, how did you manage groups? Because I think for a lot of my ladies, they're like, these mine blocks around, I can't provide a quality service when I've got more than one student.

So how, I know dance is a little different to tutoring, but can you sort of share strategies or or reasons why it worked for you guys then? Yeah. I think the beautiful thing that you have in a tutoring situation is that if you can get kids who perhaps are struggling in the same areas and you, you know, you've got the curriculum there that you can work to, that becomes the framework, right?

So if you've got a strong curriculum that you are confident in that, even though within that curriculum the kids might have slightly different, you know, struggle points around that. If you are all over it, like if you're really confident in that, you'll be able to. You know, manipulate that to work for whatever the kids need at that time.

So what we did, we had a syllabus for the dance studio that was, even though we're a recreational dance studio, we did follow a syllabus because we wanted the students to be able to learn at a national benchmark so that if they moved to a different town and had to join another dance studio, they could like easily sort of slide into wherever they were at.

And we would always. You know, there was always such a variation of skillset in the room because we went by a school grade rather than by age or by ability, and so we would, you know, just make sure that there was opportunities to provide either. In some instances we did peer to peer learning, so. We would take the kids who are really strong and say, let's use the example of a step change.

I think most people would know, kinda roughly. Yeah. We would take the kids who are really strong in that and partner them up with someone who wasn't and get them to practice it going up and down the studio. So that peer-to-peer learning is actually really, really great. And you guys would know that as educators in that, the way that.

Their little brains are working. The way that we describe it might be different to when one of their buddies describes it to them. And so that worked really well for us. We would also, you know, just do our best to cater in the moment We would get someone working on this, and then we would work with the other kids on this.

And so I think, like you said, you can't grow your business if it's. One for one, like it, it's really, really hard to grow your revenue in that space. And I think the other thing to consider is that when you go to a group model, it's actually probably more affordable to some of your parents as well.

Exactly. So you know, where we think sometimes as a business owner that we have to, you know, do the highest quality possible, and that has to be one-on-one that obviously has a higher price point to. Group tutoring. And so you may actually be cutting out some of your market that would otherwise really appreciate and benefit from what it is that you do.

So as you said, I agree, and that you can create that bigger impact, but it doesn't necessarily mean that you need to lower your standards. It just making it more accessible than more people. And I think it's also about identifying really clearly at the beginning of the onboarding journey. With those clients coming into a group co.

Uh, group coaching. Sorry, that just rolls off the top. Cause that's what I do a lot of group tutoring is that you explain to them what the expectations are. You know, if you want one-on-one, then these are the benefits of one-on-one and this is the higher price point. And if you are after a lower price point than my recommendation is the group tutoring program that we have here are the benefits.

And here, the reason that the price point is this is cause X. It's just about having those conversations upfront and you get to set the expectations, right? We always think that as the clients, we have the expectation. We actually set the expectation as the say, this is what you get for this price point, and these is the outcome, right?

We set that and then the customer takes that on board, and then we have to make sure that we honor the expectations that be set. So, yeah, I agree. Like, you know, Group setting is, you know, either that or you need to grow your team and you need to be able to facilitate multiple sessions happening. One. Yeah, and I think it's, man, I say this all the time to my ladies, it's not, it's making sure that you in yourself believe that a group session is just as good as a one-on-one session because it's.

And I use this example all the time. It's like going to the gym. When you go to the gym and you have a one-on-one session and you pay your personal trainer a hundred dollars an hour, that's much more expensive and it's one hour. Then you join maybe a group, you know, CrossFit, whatever you, you join something where there is multiple people in there.

And you might pay $25 an hour. That doesn't mean that you are getting less out of that session. Like I can guarantee you're gonna still walk away from that group session hot and sweaty and sore, just like the one-on-one. But you are paying a different price. You're paying more for your one-on-one because you're the only person there and you get all that person's attention.

And in tutoring it's the same. You can still offer really high quality services and I think. Dance studios are a prime example of that. You guys pretty much only run groups and you are still able to provide high quality services. The next question I have, you just kind of mentioned it there, because. As we know, if you are not growing your groups, you are having to grow one-on-ones, which means you need more staff.

And I know you know, whether you do one-on-ones or groups, at some point you're going to need more staff. And I know that as a dance studio owner, you had quite a few staff. So what sort of challenges did you have in managing so many staff and how did you overcome those challenges? Yeah, look, I think people management can be one of the hardest parts of writing.

And you know, at one stage I had 10 members on my team. And you know, that was because I thought, well, the more teachers I have, you know, the more I can grow the business and that kind of stuff. But what I realized when I grew this team to 10 was that there was a massive shift in dynamic. And I didn't like it.

So essentially I pulled back and I reduced my team size for me and everyone's different, but for me, like five or six is pretty good. For the studio that I had, like I had 300 students in two locations and the two locations, there was two days a week when those locations were running at the same time. So kinda, I had to have a big enough team.

But what I realized was small and mighty. Was better than having a big team. And so when creating a team, again, it comes back to that same piece of around of values. You know, the values played such a massive part in our team because, you know, I knew what the core values were for the team, but I also hired team members based on those core values they needed to align.

And then what we always did through our training sessions was we actually mapped out. The key behaviors that I wanted to see. In the studio from our teachers against our values, and I'm gonna use a teacher word. I know you're gonna love it. We did a rubric. We did. Yeah, we did. So we took our values. We had five core values, and then we mapped it out and we did.

What would it look like if we were a one star studio? What kind of behaviors would we be seeing in the studio if we were running at one star incongruence with our values? And what would it look like if we were running at five stars? We kind of did one extreme to the other, and then we did it kinda in the middle, which was our three star.

And, I dunno, did I talk about this in the master class that I did for you? Yeah. You did? Yes. Yeah. And it was really powerful because what happened was, We could see very clearly that, say, if we're talking about customer service excellence, one of our values, and number one star would be like, yeah, rocking up and you know, not really saying hi to the parents, but maybe not greeting them by name or, you know, welcoming the kids into the studio, but not really taking a keen interest in how their week was.

Whereas Five Star was like, you know, greeting the parent by name and saying, oh, I love what you're wearing today. That looks really great on you. And oh, How did it go last week in class when you stood up and did your presentation? How did that go for you? You know, we would always go to the next level, and so when we mapped that out and it was very, very clear and I actually got the team to do it with me.

If ever there was someone who had dropped their performance level as a teacher, I would never come at it from a place of like, you're not doing this, you're not doing that. We would go back to that, those expectations of behaviors. Mm-hmm. And it was very, very easy to say. Okay. Remember when we did this activity in our training session and we were mapping out what a one star would look like at the moment, the behaviors that you're demonstrating, and I maybe might not have phrased it that way, but you know, what I'm seeing is that you are doing these kinds of things down here, and where I want you to be is here at a level five, like a five star rating.

So what can we do? How can I support you? Helping you to go from here to here. So it was very easy then to coach them on lifting their performance level without becoming like a personal attack and without there being any room for you. Any kind of like feeling on their part of being discriminated or victimized or anything like that, that then could land me in trouble with fair work.

So it was very much above board and it meant that there were no dramas in my team. I feel like it probably also would've meant that if that situation did occur, Like you said, it took that personal side of things out, but it made it really clear for that person. Like there was no, oh, but does she want me to do this or does she want me to do that?

Because it was like you said, you as a team put it together and then you could show them exactly what to do. And I love that you've done this because as teachers, yes, we know exactly what that's like. You know, we give our kids an example of what an a. Essay looks like, and we say, this is what we want you to be working towards.

They produce their work and we come in and give them feedback on that. So I love that example. So I'm really glad that you shared that again today,

that coming through as well, because you know when we get our marketing message right. We will attract the right kind of clients, which is fabulous. But you know, occasionally there are a few that slip through that maybe are not our ideal client. And then, you know, we've had experiences where, you know, the parent was speaking really disrespectfully to one of my teachers, one of my team.

And so I had to make a phone call to them and address that behavior and let them know that it was out of congruence with our studio values. It was inappropriate to, to use. You know, the language that they chose to use in that moment, and whilst we appreciate your frustration and are here to resolve whatever it was, I can't remember what it was, but you know, I can't allow that to continue.

So should you like to continue coming to our studio, then you know, these are the sorts of things that we need to see. So, It's just so important to know what your key values are and then map it out against what behaviors you wanna see, and then hold strong to that, you know, and make sure it's infused throughout your culture, within your business.

Awesome. The next question, it might be a bit big, so I'm happy for you to just sort of summarize it, but what sort of. Systems and automations did you have in your business? So this is something that we work on a lot inside of the tutoring, growth membership. Most ladies, like you said at the start, they've started business not to be busier than they were before.

They've also started a business to be a business owner, not just an employee. Again, they are after more flexibility and freedom. So I would love to know what sort of systems and automations you guys put in place to allow you as the business owner, to not have to work or overwork more than you were if you were, you know, in a nine to five job.

Great question. When I started the dance studio, I was pretty much teaching almost all of the classes and you know, the last two years I was. The last two years I was teaching one class, which was just my adults, and then the last 12 months I wasn't teaching any at all. And I was, you know, was still generating, you know, multi six figures.

And the experience that my clients were getting was unchanged. And the way that we did that was because everything was systemized. Like anything that we did more than once became a system. And wherever possible we automated. So we actually had a CRM system, which was specifically for dance studio owners, and I presume that there would be some kind of CRM system available for managing a tutoring business.

But we used that wherever we could, and we got really familiar with the different capabilities of it, and we used it as much as we possibly could. And the reason why. That brought so much freedom and flexibility is because it wasn't dependent upon me. You know, the systems that we created became like the manual for the business.

So when a new team member, whether it was a teacher or you know, I had an admin team as well, they would refer to the systems that we had in place, our standard operating procedures, and they would work to those. It also meant that if there were any mistakes, I could bring that up again, similar to what we talked about with values, it would need to be a personal conversation.

It could be, Hey, I noticed that when you updated our online store that you missed some of the stock. And now we have parents saying that they can't buy the jazz shoes that they need, but we know that they're in stock. So what happened? And then we can go through, we'll actually, look, it seems like you've missed steps seven, eight, and nine in the process.

Can I just remind you to always follow the process, do the checklist. So it was just always a way to help with that. The other reason why I coach on this all the time is because when you build systems into your business, you are building saleability for your business. You're building value in that. If you ever wanna sell your business, you can't.

You're creating a manual that someone else. Can step in as you as the owner and they can instantly start earning the same revenue that you have been earning. And when I sold my dance studio, that's exactly what happened. It was a beautiful, easy transition. The experience wasn't altered for our clients.

The business is, you know, doing really well still. And the reason why that is, is because there's system processes there. Yeah, there is a CRM for tutoring, but it's not amazing. It's a little clunky and a lot of people have issues with it, so unfortunately it's not, we don't just have a, an amazing software, I guess, that people can turn to, but we now, my members especially know how to turn their systems into automations and their processes into systems, and then automations because.

I did exactly what you did as well. So my business or businesses, all of them. And I was able to just say, here you go. Here is this for you to take? And even, you know, that's what I say to my ladies, if you want to step away from your business, You need this in place. If you want to duplicate, you know, have a second location.

You need this in place. If you want to sell your business, you need this in place. So it's not just about the here and now getting our time back. It's about that long future, you know, long term future plan or even if you don't know what it is just yet, when in case of emergencies. Totally. Yes. Yes. You know, if I rewind back to when I had the studio, you know, when Covid hit, we went from face to face to online, which is pretty bloody hard as a dance studio to teach kids online.

But we were able to pivot so quickly because we had systems and processes in place. We just had to tweak them. Another example of where we kinda were faced with that, kinda like emergency, Which took me out of the business completely was when my dad was diagnosed with a terminal illness. I wanted to be by his side.

He lives on the other side of the country to me, and so you know,

was to completely. Unplug from my business because the systems and processes were there. My team were well trained. They knew that it was like a dire situation and that they had to really step up and be me for a couple of months, you know? And in that moment I was so grateful for the systems that we had built over time, because otherwise, you know, I would've missed those last days with my dad.

Which you can never get back. No, exactly. You can't. And that's, again, it goes back to we. So much of why we've started business is to have that freedom. You know, people think, oh, being a teacher, you get all of these holidays. Yes, you get holidays, but you also are doing work every night and you're doing work on the holidays and you know, there's all this extra stuff.

You can't, even if you're a teacher at your child's school, it doesn't even mean that you can go down to the oval and watch them when they do their cross country or their athletics carnival. You don't have that freedom and flexibility. But when we have our own business, if we set it up properly, I mean, I remember a time where I went to New Zealand on holidays.

This was years ago with my family, and nobody even knew that I was gone because everything just ran smoothly the way I needed it to. And I could still jump in and check emails here and there and you know, that really systems and automations is such a massive part of allowing us to have that freedom for the things that really matter.

Thank you so much for your time. I just wanted to. Ask you one more question before we finish up. What would be your takeaway business tip that you could share with our ladies today? One thing that you wish you knew in the early days of business. Just one. Yeah. Yeah. I know we could definitely talk for quite some time about all of them, but what's maybe one that you wish you knew?

Look, I think being prepared to work hard at the beginning and roll up your sleeves and get in with it, like there's not really much we can do to get around that at the beginning, but I think knowing exactly what you need to work on to get the fastest growth, to get that cash flow into your business asap, if you can figure out what that is.

Then do that. If you don't know what that is, find a coach that does and work with them to fill your skills gap. Learn whatever it is that you know that you don't currently know, or build up the cash flow as quickly as possible so you can outsource, you know, work within your superpowers and the areas that maybe you know, that you have a weakness in.

If you don't wanna learn that or you feel like it doesn't really return the biggest bang for the for the business, then outsource it. I'd also say once you've gotten through that phase, set up your boundaries. So set your business up in a way for it to be not dependent upon you, like what we just discussed, so you can take the time off.

You know, I think the thing is like what I would love people to really take away and really lean into after listening to this podcast episode is to do what you love. In the way that you love it, that allows you to be with the people that you love. Awesome. And that's not always an easy thing to do. I think it's a constant work in progress because your business will grow through seasons and so will your family.

As we know, our children grow and they go through different challenges and different seasons, and just where we think that we've got. You know, things under control. They go and, you know, do something different and you know. But if we can always keep in mind that you wanna be doing what you love, you wanna do it in a way that you love it, right?

And you also do it in a way that allows you to be with the people that you love. That's the secret to it. So yeah, that would be, Probably. Yeah, I think I did four tips then. Not just That's alright. You're allowed. They were good ones. So we'll let you get away with it. Thank you so much, Donna, for coming on today and sharing all of your insight and knowledge.