Episode 28: Defining Success on Your Own Terms with Teresa Heath-Wareing

Hello and welcome to the Mum Means Business podcast, where we shine a light on inspiring women who have one thing in common. When they’re not managing tantrums, homework, P.E. kits and play dates, they are busting their gut to create something from nothing, to turn their passion into a thriving business and build a better life for themselves and their families. We dig into what motivates devoted mothers to pursue entrepreneurship and how they integrate their work and family life.

I’m Victoria Phipps, your host, and if you’re an ambitious mum in need of some solidarity whilst navigating the messy middle of making your big dream a reality, then stick around. This is for you.

NOTE: This is the transcript from the original recording, rather than the edited episode so timings may vary.

Victoria (00:00)
My guest today is the go-to expert for launching and scaling online businesses. An international award-winning TEDx speaker, a Source After podcast guest, host of the number one rated Your Dream Business podcast, which at the time of recording stands at a whopping 425 episodes. She specializes in practical business growth strategies for course creators, membership site owners, and coaches.

With a degree in marketing and a decade’s experience in the field, Theresa Heath Waring began her business in 2013 when she was a single mom to her four-year-old daughter. Her business has evolved a lot since then in line with her personal and family life. During that time, Theresa has overcome challenges in her relationship with alcohol, which she shares openly in her top 50 health podcast, Losing Part of Me. She has acquired a handsome husband, two grown up stepchildren, and that little girl is now a teenager.

With the introduction of her signature Grow Launch Sale program in 2024, Theresa draws on her boundless knowledge and expertise to help entrepreneurs build profitable online businesses in a way that feels aligned with her values. She managed to persuade me to join when I didn’t even have an online business. So that in itself is a testament to her powers of persuasion. It’s usually her digging into my business or lack thereof during our group coaching calls. So I’m excited to turn the tables today.

Theresa, welcome to the Mummeans Business Podcast.

Teresa (01:32)
Thank you for having me and what an amazing introduction. That was awesome. I loved it. I loved it.

Victoria (01:38)
I love doing these intros. It’s like one of my favorite bits.

Teresa (01:42)
Honestly,

and the fact that you said my handsome husband, like, I think he’s a good looking guy. he’ll be very happy with that.

Victoria (01:48)
I know you do.

⁓ good, you might listen to this one then. No.

Teresa (01:59)
Maybe, well, he doesn’t even listen to my own. So, no, I don’t even think he looks at my

Instagram stories. I have to go. Did you see my stories today? And he’s like, oh no, I’m having a time slash can’t be bothered. I’m married to you.

Victoria (02:10)
No, they’re very busy. listened

to one of my podcast episodes, I think, when I launched it, just to check that I wasn’t completely embarrassing. And then he’s been very busy since then as well. That’s how it goes.

Teresa (02:23)
Yeah, very busy. Yeah, manages to do lots of

other things, watches lots of other things, listens to lots of other things. Just not my stuff. So that’s all right. I won’t be too offended.

Victoria (02:30)
Yeah, yeah, it’s priorities

though, yeah. Okay, let’s dive right in. Let’s go back in time. So 2013, you’ve had this big career in marketing and you decide to go solo to bet on yourself and start a business. What made you do it?

Teresa (02:38)
Mm-hmm.

⁓ I joke I had an early midlife crisis. I was such a good swatty employee. Like I loved, and I was like this at school. I was a real swat at school. Like I loved being told what to do and being patted on the head when I had exceeded in the thing that I was doing. I never wanted my own business. I never even thought about it, never even crossed my mind. Like, and I think as well, you know, and we can dive into this, but like,

Victoria (02:54)
Okay.

Teresa (03:20)
It was never in my world. I didn’t know anybody with their own business. had no one in my family. School obviously never talked about running your own business. And for me, it wasn’t even on the table. Wasn’t at all a thing that I was thinking about. And then I went through a divorce and I split up with my ex-husband and I became a single parent. And I think what happened was life had thrown a curve ball. I had…

Victoria (03:23)
Hmm.

Teresa (03:48)
made some big changes in my life to make sure that I was living a very happy life or as happy as I could possibly have it. And even though they were tough changes of becoming a single parent and being on my own, FYI, I’d never actually stayed in my own home on my own until the day my husband left and moved out. It was like, it was humongous. It was huge. So.

Victoria (04:05)
⁓ my god.

That

makes me so sad to think of you on your own for the first time. ⁓ Theresa.

Teresa (04:14)
Honestly, I thought I was going to fall apart. thought,

and my sister came round and I’d got my daughter with me and my sister came round. She’s like, right, I’m to go home now. It’d be really easy for me to stay tonight. But if I stay tonight, we’re starting a precedent. And she left and I then stayed in my own home for the first time ever on my own. And so I’d been through all this stuff and I was like, do you know what? My job was really good. I was head of marketing for agency.

but I felt that maybe I wasn’t appreciated as much or I just felt like I needed a change. So, and I basically, what happened was I went out for drinks with some friends, bumped into my boss at the time. We were both a bit drunk and we ended up having a blazing row in the toilets of a bar, right? Now that is not me. I’ve already said, am a, pat me on the head, tell me I’ve done a good job and I want to please you. I’m like a puppy, right?

Victoria (05:04)
⁓ Right.

Teresa (05:14)
And I thought, this isn’t right. This isn’t working. Like I would never do that. I think I probably need to leave. So having worked in marketing for 10 years, got a degree, was building quite a good name for myself locally. I thought I’ll easily get another job. Handed in my notice, gave her eight weeks notice because I was doing a big project. And I thought that’ll give me enough time to find another job. Like literally the most reckless thing I’ve ever done in my life. And

about three weeks in, I’m having all these conversations with all these other agencies and they’re like, yeah, you’re great, but we can’t afford you. Or yeah, you’re great, but we don’t have a role. And one of my friends who ran a bar said to me, would you consider doing our social media? And I was like, ⁓ let me have a think. And I put in a price of like 300 pounds for the month for their social media, which is wild now. And they went, yeah, great.

And I was like, ⁓ okay, what if I could get like more people to do this? And it was like my boss was a mine reader. And the second this thought crossed my brain, she went, need to leave now. And three weeks into my notice, I had one week left of pay that she owed me, because she obviously didn’t have to pay me for the other four weeks I wasn’t going to do. And I had basically one month’s salary, no savings.

Victoria (06:09)
Okay.

Teresa (06:38)
no partner, I had a mortgage, a car, and my daughter was in full-time nursery at the time. Was she in full-time nursery at the time? Or she’d just left and went… Regardless, we were paying some kind of childcare and no one I could lean on financially and I had to earn £1,500 a month from day one just to keep the roof above my head. So I went out there and hustled my backside off and started a business.

Victoria (07:01)
Yeah.

I think there’s definitely something in that about not having a safety net. You know, you don’t have a choice and especially as a mother, you have to make that work. And you probably also felt you definitely don’t want to go back to your ex-husband, you know, cap in hand and be like, can you help me? That’s not the vibe that we’re going for at that moment. ⁓ No.

Teresa (07:14)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. No, no, that’s not independent woman, it now? by the way, I know we’re not married anymore, but any chance?

Yeah, that wouldn’t have worked. Yeah, it was a nightmare. Now I’ve got a job. Like, really not great timing. Yeah.

Victoria (07:38)
fight with my boss in a bar, it’s a long story. God. That’s such

a lot though for you. That’s massive shifts in almost every facet of your life in a very short period of time. And you rose to the challenge and you did it.

Teresa (07:55)
Literally.

Because I guess I had no choice. Like you said, I think

not that I advise anybody to start a business under duress. Like one of my main questions when I coach people and they go, I need to make money. I’m like, is this money to pay a mortgage or is this money because we need some money? Like there’s a difference, you know? And, but I had no choice. And the other thing that helped me massively is some of the most important people in my life doubted that I could do it. And…

Victoria (08:12)
You’d like more, yeah.

Teresa (08:26)
spite is a wonderful motivator to go, ⁓ you think I can’t do this? Well, we will see about that, shall we? And I just had to make it work. literally like those first few months, I don’t remember a whole lot about them, but I do remember having to go, okay, well, I think this invoice is going to be paid here. I think this bill is going to go out here. And it was constantly trying to juggle. How am I going to pay that? Or can I put that off for a bit? Or can I, I had one client.

who paid me six months in advance. Like, yeah, they were amazing. And without some of those first clients that I got, there’s no way I would have had a business today, because I wouldn’t have got through those first few months.

Victoria (08:58)
Wow, amazing.

Yeah, but you had to go and find them. And how did you feel when that must have been so empowering for you? Because, and also probably exactly what you needed to kind of, I mean, yes, it’s a deeply uncomfortable situation when you wake up in the morning and you’re like, I actually don’t know how I’m going to pay the mortgage next month. And I have my little girl and I’m in the house by myself and all the emotional turmoil that I imagined that you were going for, that’s going through, that’s a lot.

But then actually when you did go out and find those clients and you could feel it starting to come together, how did that feel? That you were doing it?

Teresa (09:51)
Do you know,

I don’t think I realised it for ages. I don’t think I fully grasped what I did and what I created for a really long time. One of the points I did realise was, strangely enough, when I got together with my now husband and we moved in together, and I knew that if anything happened, I can fully stand on my own two feet. Like…

Victoria (09:54)
Yeah. Yeah.

Teresa (10:20)
And we, you know, personally, we’ve always kept things separately. We both contribute half to the bills, but, you know, we don’t have joint bank accounts. We don’t have anything joint, which felt so like coming to him, even though I ran my own business, because I always had been the main bread earner. Like I’d always been like, ⁓ the person who bought the most money in, like I’d always been very career orientated. So that was always the case, but obviously I had two of us.

And then when I started my business, it was like, okay, well, I’ve got to make this work because I really need this money. Cause if I don’t, I literally don’t have a house to live in. And also then getting together with my husband and matching him and he had a very good, he was in the military, you know, he was running a house on his own. I was running a house on my own, but coming in at that level suddenly felt really like.

weird and different because like I said, I’d always been the one who earned the money. So it wasn’t that that was different, but it was like, I’m running a business and I’m coming in and we are literally splitting the bills because I can match you. And actually in the early days, I more than matched him. And I was the one who paid for the nice trips and the flights and the, you know, my money was almost the fun money, even though I paid half the bills, like it, because I earned more money.

Victoria (11:40)
Hmm.

Teresa (11:44)
And then the business went through many different changes and I went through many different changes and I am way more cautious now than maybe I used to be. I used to be a little bit more frivolous and funny. But like, that was when I suddenly went, ⁓ so if this goes wrong, I can stand on my own two feet and I can run a house on my own. I can live on my own. I don’t want to. I adore my husband. I want to stay with him forever. But there is something so empowering knowing.

Victoria (11:51)
Hahaha

Teresa (12:13)
that if for whatever reason this did not work out, I am fully capable of being on my own, affording to live on my own and doing all those things. But I don’t think I realized them at the time as I was doing them. I feel like I was just in it. I was literally every minute of every day and not only just the money thing, but the trying to navigate running a business like…

Victoria (12:32)
Yeah.

Teresa (12:42)
I thought it would be easy. What an idiot, right? Because I thought like, do marketing, I know marketing, like, this is not going to be hard. And also, I was a mum to a four year old, like trying to navigate doing that and having her in school because she started school, I think. Yeah, so I started my business in the August and she started school in the September and trying to navigate that.

Victoria (13:06)
Okay.

Teresa (13:09)
scenario. And also the other thing, it’s funny now we’re talking about it, how much I realized my life literally tipped on its head. The friends I had, the family I had, that was all changing. You know, when you go through a divorce, that happens. But also I come out of a job where I had colleagues and then I didn’t have colleagues. And then I’m trying to build relationships with people from a kind of professional point of view. then

Victoria (13:20)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Teresa (13:37)
my friends don’t get me anymore because I’ve just started a business or I have a business and suddenly things aren’t quite the same and they’re in partners and I’m not with a partner. Like the whole, my whole world tipped on its head for about a year and a half I would say.

Victoria (13:52)
Yeah, it’s seismic. That’s everything. That’s a catastrophe. Not necessarily in a disastrous sense, but literally your world turned upside down because you all those little things, you we could go on for ages about, you know, the transition when little ones start school and how we need to give them extra care and attention. Like you didn’t have time to really think about that. You’re like, okay, you go to school now. Bye. I have to figure out my life. Go on.

Teresa (14:13)
Can I just say one thing that happened

that was really interesting? So I had gone from having my daughter in a private nursery, you know, because back in the day there wasn’t, bearing in mind my daughter’s 15, there wasn’t kind of the vouchers and things like there is now. So I was paying for a full-time nursery for her. So I was used to paying that money. And then she started school and she was in breakfast club and after school club. And then of course she was going between my ex-husband and I.

And it was hard enough for him and I to work out where the hell we were, let alone her. And I suddenly went from having a nursery that I paid money for, that had my daughter the minute she was taken off me until the minute I picked her back up, to having suddenly all these people in her life. Yes, some of the services I paid for, but basically the big chunk in the middle I didn’t pay for. And I felt helpless, right?

I felt like I had no control on what the hell was happening. And actually she was really struggling. So granted we were going through a separation at the time and the whole divorce thing. So one that was probably having a big impact on her, but without trying to go into too much detail, my daughter and I was 15, but she was having trouble going to the toilet. And this one day I picked her up from after school club and it just happened to be a friend of mine ran the after school club. So I knew her very well.

And she said when we picked her up from school, she was dirty and had been in it all day. And we haven’t been able to clean her up as well as we could have done. But basically you need to bath her when you get home. And I was like, this is horrific. I went into, it’s like, and bear in mind, I’m just starting a business as well, trying to like navigate all this. So I go into school and I say to them, what the actual hell? Like,

Victoria (15:46)
our blesser

⁓ God. Go on.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Teresa (16:06)
you’ve left my daughter in this, they’re like, we’re not allowed to touch her. And I’m like, what? So it’s all right to leave a child dirty all day and this is not okay. Yes.

Victoria (16:15)
Yeah. And she’s four, she’s just started. It’s not like

she’s seven and has, you know, it’s, she’s tiny, she’s a baby still. bless her. Yeah. Yeah.

Teresa (16:23)
Yeah. And she was a baby. Like they’re four, they’re teeny tiny. And, and

I’m like, well, literally after school clubs are allowed to do it. So why aren’t you allowed to do it anyway? I felt completely hopeless, like couldn’t do anything. And it felt to me like, well, I’m not paying the money. So because I’m not paying money and I’m not paying for a service, I can’t control it. Right. So, and, and, and I had been in this private nursery where I was like,

Victoria (16:45)
Yeah, you put your business brain on. Yeah, yeah.

Teresa (16:51)
I could go in and I could go, I’m not happy about that. And they would fix it. And this is at a point where I am trying to manage everything and I’m trying, everything feels so uncomfortable because I’m not in a job that I know what I’m doing. I’m starting a business. I’m managing a house on my own. I’m trying to manage my money on my own. I’m trying to manage this thing with my daughter and she’s going through this change because her mum and dad have split up, but also she’s moved into school.

and she’s now with all these different caretakers, which I hate. So I went home that night and I’d had a discussion with the teachers and I was livid. I was so angry. And one of the teachers actually said to me, we’ve got 34 children in a class, what do you expect us to do?

Victoria (17:19)
Yeah.

leave them in their own poop all day like it’s so traumatic for your daughter because she will have been aware of that all day and obviously she’s processing her own stuff and she’s in a brand new environment like you say you’ve taken her from the nursery where she knew all the innovative companies, the teachers.

Teresa (17:35)
And I was like, that is horrendous. I went home.

Yeah.

And she’d been there since

she was like four months old. Like she virtually ran the place by the time she left, you know? But also the next time it happened, so it must have happened a couple of times up until the point where I’m about to tell you, but the next time it happened, they called me and when she’s had an accident, would you like to come and get her? Right? So I turn up at two o’clock in the afternoon. So one, flipping lucky, I do run a business because, but of course I’m like, okay, well this doesn’t.

Victoria (17:56)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Teresa (18:22)
feel right. I turn up at two o’clock in the afternoon and she goes, why are here? Because she’s like, hang on, no, this isn’t right. And I’m like, let’s go home. I don’t want to. No one else is going home. And I said, well, they’re literally just about to go home. They weren’t. It was like another hour or so. was like, they’re literally, I was just a little bit early. And because I had a meeting, I came in and she was like, this doesn’t feel right either. So got home, looked at my phone when she went to bed.

Victoria (18:44)
Suspicious, yeah.

Teresa (18:48)
And there was an advert for a private girls school that’s like 10 minutes down the road from me. And I was like, I’m just going to go and look, right? Bearing in mind, I’ve just said to you, I had no money, none, not a penny, right? So this is a really smart idea, Theresa. You’ve just started a business. You’re trying to run a house on your own. I tell you what, let’s just rub salt in the wound and go and look at a private school. And I went to the private school with Bea and I happened to know the woman who was headed admissions.

Victoria (19:00)
You’ve got too many, yeah.

Teresa (19:15)
Again, luckily I’d done quite a lot of networking locally at this point. And so I met Hazel who was there and she’s like, my God, this is awesome. You’re thinking about it. And I was like, yeah, I am. I’ve got no money. She’s like, okay, kind of not how it works, but okay. So I looked around the school and I, and I thought about it and I worked out that I was paying for breakfast club and I was paying for after school clubs. There was a bit of money that I was using and they basically said she can be at school from

Victoria (19:26)
Let’s just get that on the table. Yeah.

Teresa (19:44)
8 a.m. and you can pick her up at 10 to 6. And the other thing was that I haven’t said is I was struggling with the school drop off and pick up. Right. Because even though there was a bit of after school clubs, not every night was after school club. wasn’t she wasn’t full time enough school club because I felt terrible as a parent and the constant. Am I there tonight? Am I not there tonight? And but I couldn’t cope with school hours. It was like, hey, the hell does

Victoria (20:09)
Yeah.

Teresa (20:14)
anybody get anything done. I was that, literally, and I was that heathless parent coming in the morning, throwing her through the door, and the last one dragging her at the end, like running onto the playground. And I don’t know about you, but then all the other parents are stood around having a chat and having a coffee and da-da-da-da-da-da. And I am just like, this is not my world. Like, I don’t resonate with these people at all.

Victoria (20:15)
No, I’m in that now. Yeah. It’s hopeless.

Same. Yeah.

Teresa (20:38)
I went to the private school and I had a look around and I was like the thought of being able to drop her off in one place with one set of teachers, with one school and she is cared for and I even said to them, we’re having these issues. Do you, is this something you’d deal with? And they were like, of course we’d deal with it. She’s a baby and that is not what we’re going to do. You know, we will care. Anyway, I went in and I negotiated harder than I’ve ever negotiated in my life.

Victoria (20:57)
Baby, yeah.

Teresa (21:07)
And basically managed to get a whopping big discount on this school, a private school. And I made a decision that even though money was very difficult and I was very early on, this was more important than me eating at some points. when it, and this was what I suddenly came to, to realise it’s just priorities. It’s not that someone’s super rich or it’s not that someone is poor. It’s what are you willing to spend your money on? And at that point.

Victoria (21:30)
Yeah.

Teresa (21:37)
I was willing. The most important things for me was that she was okay. Because if she was okay and she was settled and she knew where she was and we could get her into a better routine, then I could start to settle and I could start to focus on the business. So I made the crazy decision and that’s when everyone really thought I’d lost my mind.

so you’ve literally just given up your job and now you’re putting your daughter in private school. So she went to that school by, this would have been probably the November, maybe October. In fact, I think it was around a half term. We went from one to the other. So she’d barely done a full term. Well, she hadn’t done a term in the state school. And I took her out and they weren’t at all bothered. And then suddenly it felt like one, I have a voice again because I’m paying.

And the only person who knew how much I was paying is the bursar and the head. No one else knows. None of the teachers know in that school. Not really. And they do like, they have a bursar, they have bursaries and they have scholarships and things. Not for four year olds though. She’s not super brave at four years old. But I finally felt like I had a voice, which was great because if there was a problem, I could say something. She was in one place and I had longer days.

Victoria (22:35)
Probably not something they wanted to advertise, yeah.

Hehehehehe

Teresa (22:57)
And again, I think without that, the business wouldn’t be where it is either.

Victoria (23:03)
Yeah, and you know, obviously I can see why people would, you know, inadvertently they might think you were bonkers, but you’re trusting your instinct and you know what you need in order to pull this off. And you need more than five hours a day and you need this, you need to be content that your daughter is looked after because that is horrendously traumatic for her.

Teresa (23:10)
Mm.

Victoria (23:27)
You know, starting a big school, all of it, and especially mom and dad aren’t living together anymore. That’s massive for a four year old to try and get their head around such big adjustments. And you will have had all the mum guilt around that, I’m sure. And then hearing this story and then speaking to school, I get cross because I understand what you mean about feeling like you don’t have a voice. And it’s the same in the NHS, isn’t it? You know, you can’t complain because you’re not paying directly, but you are paying like,

Teresa (23:41)
Everything.

Victoria (23:57)
every PAYE, every National Assurance Contribution you are paying. And I think people forget that. And I think the institutions themselves forget that sometimes. So I have at times got a bit cross with them because it’s important. No, you feel disempowered. Yeah.

Teresa (24:05)
Yeah.

Cause it doesn’t feel like you’re the customer. It feels like, it feels

like they’re the customer. feels like they’re the one who we’ve got to treat nicely. And don’t get me wrong. Like I have, you know, teachers do an amazing job and I would not want that job for all the money in the world. Thank you very much. as a parent, it was, I was so helpless and it was like,

Victoria (24:17)
Yeah. Yeah.

Teresa (24:36)
I don’t know how to fix this. And it seems like a very first world thing to throw money at the problem and put her into a private school. But, and it helped massively. And it was a risk because one, well, one could I afford to keep paying for it? Two, my other thing was she will never feel like she does not belong here. So I will maintain not necessarily, you know, it wasn’t like, know, okay, we’re going to get a

Victoria (24:45)
No, it was your solution at the time. You know, that’s what was available. Yeah.

Teresa (25:06)
private jet night, no. And it definitely was not that type of school. But there’s no trip that she won’t be able to do. There’s no thing she won’t be able to take apart in like, I am making that commitment today when I put her in it, that I will be able to give her, you know, she will have like, I spent 400 pounds on the uniform at the age of four, like a flipping blazer that was 70 pounds that she wore probably for about five flipping minutes. A boater, I mean, she looked…

you as hell in the boat or I just want to say, especially she’s now a sassy 15 year old with all the lashes and everything going on. Like I’d give anything to take it back to those boat days. ⁓ But, but it was what I had to do to make it work and to, and to not feel that constant, okay, well, I can’t settle because I might get a call from school or I can’t settle because literally in an hour’s time, I’ve got to think about wrapping up. I remember having a meeting in the pub.

Victoria (25:38)
haha

Aww.

Teresa (25:59)
next to the school or near the school when she was in state school and I booked it for two thinking, okay, great, I’ll be done by three. And the flipping client wouldn’t shut up. I’m like, and of course, so early days, I’m like, how do I wrap this up with, you know, kindness, but also going, we’re done now, I need to go. And I was late for her picking up from school. Like, not good.

Victoria (26:23)
Yeah, and different times

like now you could say, I’m so sorry, I need to I need to go do the school run, you know, post COVID that’s accepted, but in 2013, and it’s really not that long ago, that would have been deemed as unprofessional to go and collect your child from school. It’s it would have diminished the quality of the meeting overall, it would have left it on a particular note. And you would have been, you know, the person that you’re having the meeting with would have perceived you as less professional, which is

Teresa (26:29)
Yes. It wasn’t.

Well, yeah.

Yes.

Victoria (26:51)
Bollocks, excuse my French, but that’s how it was. That’s how it was.

Teresa (26:54)
Totally. It really was. And COVID

did us such a favor for that. Like, I remember a client, I had a client that was an Amazon seller and they were going to be quite a big account. This is, when I started the business, it was more of an agency. So we did done for you marketing and they wanted to meet me and my team in my office, right? And I had a virtual team. wasn’t, they was UK based actually. They weren’t international based. They were UK based, but

Victoria (26:58)
Hmm.

Teresa (27:23)
I didn’t have an office, right? And back in the day, that wasn’t a thing. Like the virtual world was still very unusual. And I remember saying to my VA at the time, who did live fairly local to me, I remember saying to her, should I hire an office and pretend it’s our office? And she’s like, no, like, don’t be ridiculous. But like, she came to a meeting with me to make us look more official, which…

Victoria (27:27)
Yeah.

You

Teresa (27:49)
She did nothing to do with the work. Like she was my VA, but like, I wanted to look like I was this big important thing. And I used to kind of make out like we were bigger and the dream was to have an office and a team and now no, no, no, no. And like I said, think COVID did us the world of good for that because suddenly people didn’t look at you like, oh, you’re not a real business if you work from home or if you haven’t got a proper team or office or like people started to realize that actually that’s okay and you can still be awesome.

Victoria (27:53)
Yeah.

Yeah, it was a great leveler in that respect. Even, you know, the highest flying gentlemen about town in the corporate world wearing their suits and whatever, they’re at home and their babies are screaming in the background. And we all have to get real with each other about what’s actually going on. And I love it for that. I didn’t like everything else about it, obviously, but I think in that sense, it also built a lot of trust in the internet.

Teresa (28:30)
Yeah. Yeah.

Victoria (28:46)
where there hadn’t been before, know, everyone had to kind of get to grips with making payments online, you know, online food shopping kind of took off all of this. had to, that all had to break down. We had to just learn to live that way for that period of time. And we have never, never really gone back to that kind of more skeptical ⁓ perception of online businesses, which is a good thing.

Teresa (28:51)
Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah. Okay.

Victoria (29:12)
So let’s talk about how your business evolved because

as you said, so are you mostly doing like social media work? Like you’re doing traditional agency style work, but from your non-office and it’s all virtual, you’ve got your team online. So how did it evolve over the coming years?

Teresa (29:21)
Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

And obviously I pretended that we were way bigger than we were. you know, we this and we that, even it was like me in a VA to begin with. So I started to discover the online world and what happened was basically I was, I’d got a marketing degree, right? I spent 10 years in marketing. I knew my stuff. However, when I moved into the social media space, there were some other big players in the local space where I was selling.

Victoria (29:33)
Yeah, I know.

Teresa (29:56)
And I went to a networking meeting once and someone introduced this woman as the main social media person in the county. And so I went and had a conversation with her and I was like, I just want to check, what did you do? Is there a course I should do? Is there someone I should follow? I don’t want people to think, I don’t want to say I know what I’m talking about if I don’t. Because I was expecting this woman to be like, yeah, well actually I used to work for Twitter. Do you know what I mean, right? ⁓

And she basically said, I used to have a cleaning company and I used to tweet and I was really good at it. So then people started asking me what to do. And then I just did this now as a business. And I remember thinking, what? Like, so you’ve done nothing and you don’t have marketing and you don’t have this. So in my kind of, I don’t know, frustration.

Victoria (30:35)
It’s that simple.

Teresa (30:41)
I then decided, well, not only am I going to have my degree, which I already have, I then obviously started that signed up as a Chartered Institute marketer thing and became, I don’t think I was a fellow. think I, I think I was like a couple of years off being able to be a fellow, but anyway, I was part of it. And then I started doing all these courses and I started to find, and I did all these conferences of like all these online people talking about social media, people with big accounts, people who were obviously well respected.

And I remember the first I did with Mari Smith, who was the big Facebook person. And I’m sat in my house with my now husband and I’m on a, I’m on a, like a webinar, the first ever webinar I attended. And I put my name in the chat and she, like, first my husband’s like, so what she’s where and she’s live. Like it was so mind blowing to him and to me. And I put my name in the chat and she said,

Victoria (31:32)
Crazy. Yeah.

Teresa (31:37)
Hi, Theresa from England. And my husband and I were like, wow, this is crazy. This so-called online celebrity has said my name, which the tech that you know, mean, like it was just weird and so amazing. So anyway, I started doing all this and I was like, and I was doing it to go, no, I really do know what I’m talking about. Like, I mean, I should have taken the fact that a marketing degree and 10 years experience is enough, but no, apparently not. need to do a lot of online courses. So we did all the stuff.

just to kind of prove my point. And then as I was doing it, I was like, this is good. Like, this is smart. I like this. And then I started to get picked up to speak locally and I was doing chamber stuff and I would put myself forward for like a networking meeting and I would teach on social media. And I was trying to get that name built for me to get clients. But then what happened, and I was getting clients and I was getting a team, which is great. So now I had about three or four people that worked for me, all freelance.

but we had clients and we were turning six figures, which don’t even ask me how that happened because I’m not entirely sure. And then I started to get picked up to speak in other places and I was like, this is awesome. And then I got picked to speak in the States and I was like, this is un-fricking-believable. But I still didn’t have an online business. But because I was doing some of the bigger stuff, I had then started working with people who did have online businesses. So I was consulting for them.

and also doing done for you stuff with them. And then we basically got to a point where I was like, I need to do this for me. Like it’s all well and good that I’m helping all these other people, but I can’t tell someone what it’s like to sit on a webinar and have no one turn up. I don’t know what it’s like to open and close a car and maybe not have anybody buy. Cause I’m just doing it with other people. And it took me probably another year to go.

Okay, now I need to actually do it because I sat on my own course obviously for a year and mindsets and absolutely pain in my ass. I by this point, I was going to the States a lot and I basically said to my husband, I want to fire my clients and I want to go all in on the online business. And like I said, when we first got together, my money was like, God, I’m with this woman and she’s doing amazingly well when she’s earning all this money and we’re doing all this cool stuff. And then obviously I’m like, yeah, you know, all that money.

I just want to stop it tomorrow and try and make more in a different way. Is that okay? And he was like, yeah, all right, let’s try it. So I did. I fired my clients and I said, I’m really sorry. I don’t think I’m for you. By this point, I’d already started to get the comments of you’re never here. You’re going to have an American accent soon. You’re always over there. Like, you know, I look at you doing all these things.

Victoria (34:24)
Hahaha.

Teresa (34:28)
And so I shifted and stopped my clients. I kept obviously some consulting clients that I was doing online stuff for, but basically moved fully into the online space and felt like I started a business from scratch again.

Victoria (34:42)
I love this because the sort of sensible advice is to kind of do them alongside each other. And it’s the same, it’s the same when you talk about, you obviously you left your job and decided to start a business. It’s all quite sudden and it’s like, okay, chapter closed, chapter open. And same with this, but this one you’re actually deciding.

Teresa (34:48)
Yeah, I do all the things I tell everyone not to do.

Mm-hmm.

Yes. And I did have a safety net with my husband. Like, so that’s why…

Victoria (35:12)
I’m just going to do it. And actually…

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, the first one wasn’t of

your choice necessarily in the same way, you know. Yeah.

Teresa (35:21)
Yeah, yeah, so I had the

kind of, I had a conversation with him. Now again, I’ve always held my own, but it was kind of a, if I can’t, can we, you know, can you help me for a bit?

Victoria (35:38)
Yeah, which is, which is also lovely for you to be able to say that and ask that and ask for help. Because I think I imagine, you know, as empowering as that independent woman journey was for you, you become exactly, yeah, that’s something really comforting and lovely. And the fact that he immediately was on board and like, yeah, I’ve got you. That’s, I’m, that makes me really happy. That’s really nice.

Teresa (35:51)
⁓ having someone I could lean on was gay.

And the other thing

just to mention was with my daughter, she was born in November and I was back at work in February. I had little to no, because I was the breadwinner. I was the person earning all the money. So to be able to then in a different season of life, but go to my husband and go, if this doesn’t work out, can you hold us for a bit? And he was like, yeah, that’s fine. It was awesome.

Victoria (36:13)
Yeah.

So nice.

Not just a pretty face, your husband.

Teresa (36:35)
Exactly. You know, he’s, he

has many good qualities going for him. I mean, don’t get me wrong. We’ve got something we need to improve, but he definitely has many good qualities. Always, always.

Victoria (36:44)
There’s always room for improvement to

reason. Okay, so you’re going all in and again, yes, you’ve got your safety net and that you’ve got your husband and he’s got his income and you’re not the sole breadwinner and that’s lovely. But in your mind, you’ve created the space for you to actually give this the attention that it needs in order to make it a success. I think this is something that I have never done.

if I’m honest, because everything that I’ve done in business has always been on the side with a view to it growing to take over from the thing. And it never quite has grown that much. And I do wonder, I don’t hope for it because right now we’ve got a whopping great mortgage and it would be a disaster. But I do wonder whether that’s a missing piece in that.

I work really hard, but I don’t have that absolute necessity that we’re homeless if I don’t get that client or do that thing or, you know, win that pitch. And I think there’s something really brave in that. And it’s often not of people’s choosing, like it wasn’t for you, but to make that decision deliberately this time and in the knowledge that you needed that headspace, if you were still doing this client work, you wouldn’t be able to give it what it needed to make a success of it.

Teresa (38:11)
Yeah.

And there’s the whole thing of like burning the boats, right? And I am, I’m a very cautious coach in the sense of I made those decisions for me. I would never suggest someone else makes those decisions if they’re not comfortable with them. I would never want anyone to take a risk that could lead to something that was disastrous. Obviously that first risk I took wasn’t really

Victoria (38:18)
Hmm.

Teresa (38:40)
It wasn’t my doing, but it wasn’t as much of my doing. The second one was of my doing, but it was, I had already built up enough that I knew about that I could go, you I think this is going to work. But it’s that whole thing of, you know, the saying of burning the boats that, know, when people used to get to an island, when probably someone from England were trying to take an island that didn’t belong to them, they would burn the boats. Cause the thing was we win or we die. Right. So we arrive on our boat.

and we burn the boats and we either take over this land or we’re done. And I think sometimes, and like I said, I say this with all caution, I think sometimes having your back against the wall, having to prove something to yourself, having to prove something to someone else, having to pay a bill, having to have no choice but to make this work, that’s what makes it work. I have coached hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of business owners over the years. And there are some who…

will never ever get there because there are too many get out of jail free cards, like way too many. And that’s not their fault. And it’s not any judgment. You know, there are some people who don’t ever have to earn the money and the drive isn’t big enough and that’s all right. Like, and I think we need to be really mindful of like, you don’t have to be that person.

Weirdly enough, I was literally just talking to a friend of mine this morning who, I actually sent her a voice message, she’s in America and she was talking about the fact she’s just been at a very high profile mastermind and I’m very jealous and that she gets to hang out there and I don’t. And she’s at this mastermind and she’s like, I feel like, you know, should I be trying harder and da da? And is it because I’m just in that room with those people? And I actually said to her, I look at your life and I go, I’d love that. Like she earns.

really good money, she has a beautiful life, she does not work crazy hard, she has such balance, she gets to do what she wants. It’s like you’re winning, like you’re winning the dream. But because she sat in a room with other people that were super motivated and like trying to build and trying to do all the things, because this mastermind is specifically from going from one level to another, in her head she’s like, I’m not trying hard enough. No, but you don’t have to because you’ve got what you’ve created the life you want.

Victoria (41:02)
Mm-hmm.

Teresa (41:05)
And that’s where the whole your dream business comes in. So if you like to bring in the money that you’re bringing in and to not have to work that hard and knowing that you have got that back up, then who says you have to bust your ass and, create a six, seven figure business. You don’t, you know, you can go, I love the fact that I get to dabble in this and dabble in that and do this thing and do that thing and do them all really well, but not, you know,

Victoria (41:22)
Mm-hmm.

Teresa (41:35)
not be seen at the top of my industry or not be standing out like as the go-to person or not having people look at me like, you you’re always working all the time, but I’m balancing it with everything else. That is absolutely fine. But I feel like sometimes we think that we’ve got to, we’ve got to go all in and we’ve got to work really hard and we’ve got to do those things. I love it. I want to say one more thing about putting my daughter in that private school.

I don’t like doing the school run. I like working. I like, you know, I liked being the person that I am and working like, so I didn’t crave for those school runs. I didn’t crave for having a home at three. Like I didn’t, I’m just not that person. And you know, I might be a heinous parent because of that or not, but that wasn’t me. I was never that person. So for me, that suited me from all sorts of ways.

Victoria (42:10)
Hahaha.

Teresa (42:32)
So I don’t want someone to sit here and listen to this and think, God, I need to like ship my daughter off to school or my child off to school so they’re in there all the hours so I could do all the work, so I can hustle. I need to put myself in a position where I have no choice but to make this work. You don’t, you don’t have to do any of those things. They worked for me. And interestingly enough, sometimes, you know, like, cause things are easier now and they are nicer cause my husband’s…

Victoria (42:39)
haha

Teresa (42:59)
left the military, but he has a better job than he ever had and earns more money than he ever has. Like, you know, but now there’s a part of me that’s like, that isn’t right. need to, competitive side wants to earn more than him now. Like, you know, so that’s kicking in, which is great. But like, it doesn’t, it has to be whatever works for you. And, and yes, I want people to be ambitious and I want them to achieve things and I want them to be amazing, but that looks very different from one person to the next. And just because someone else is out there,

achieving certain things or doing certain things doesn’t mean you have to. So you don’t have to burn the boats. I do. And I that worked for me. And that works for lots of people. Some people that would paralyse you. That would literally make you go, I can’t do it. So you’ve got to do what works with you.

Victoria (43:47)
absolutely. It’d be too terrifying. Yeah.

Yeah, totally. And I think this is why ⁓ your approach to coaching is so refreshing in that respect because especially, you know, and I understand that the online business world has gone through its own meandering path, but you know, you could go back to just pre-COVID and COVID. You know, there was a lot of, you know, this is the way, do it my way and you’re

have a life like me and give me this money and I’ll sell you my course and I’ll show you how. And I think actually there’s so much more nuance and it’s about deciding what success looks like to you and then going for that. And I think, you they say you should put yourself in the room with all the people that you feel kind of like they’re going to stretch you and people that are steps and steps and steps ahead of you. But actually also be careful about which room you put yourself in because do you want what they have?

Do you want to work that hard? And actually, do you have a lot of things figured out that are of are aligned and make sense for you? And so it’s just picking out the bits that don’t work. I know we did that exercise, I can’t remember what it’s called, you were in one of the group calls where you have that circle thing. What was that? Like a dart board and you’ve got all the different elements. That one, yeah. And actually that was really important because your life isn’t just your work. And when I actually went through…

Teresa (45:02)
Yeah, the wheel of life. Yeah.

Victoria (45:14)
and sort of assessed each different area of my life. And it’s everything, isn’t it? It’s, know, family, relationships, money, work, everything, play, rest. And there were only really two that I had beef with, and that was work and rest. And actually to acknowledge that everything else, which is actually really, really, really, really the most important stuff, is good.

Teresa (45:26)
Mm.

Because it’d be so easy

for you to be like, look, the work is terrible. But hang on. You had all those other high marks. And also, the season of life that you are in, your children are young. So that is going to have a knock-on effect on how much energy and free time you have and how much work you’re doing. So it makes perfect sense. And I think that’s the other thing that people aren’t considering. Like, they are looking on a surface level of

Victoria (45:40)
But actually it doesn’t matter, this is great. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Teresa (46:02)
Well, they earn this or their life looks like this or they’re achieving all these things. Like I said, I put my daughter in private school so she could be there from eight till six. And some people would go, well, that is Hina. She was four years old. I know, right? But but also she’d done nursery from eight till six. So for us, it didn’t feel any different. But like that was how I did it. And that fit with me. But for someone else, you’ve got to go, OK, well, how does my life look?

Again, I was a single parent, right? My ex-husband, we got to the point of him having her half and half. So we, by the time everything settled in with school and everything, we literally had half and half. So for one week, basically, out of two, I wouldn’t have my daughter. So again, you might look at me and go, well, how’s she managing all that? And I should be doing more or I should be, you know, she’s got a five-year-old by this point and she’s achieving all these things.

There is so many nuances to it. Like there’s so many. And I have a very addictive personality. So I will happily sit and work all day, every day. That doesn’t make me a great person or a nice human or a, you know, that doesn’t mean I have many friends because I don’t do a lot of social things. Like everything’s a trade off. and that…

Victoria (47:14)
Yeah, swings and roundabouts. Yeah, yeah,

Teresa (47:19)
why doing something

Victoria (47:19)
yeah.

Teresa (47:19)
like the Wheel of Life is so important because when we do those things, like I’ve had periods of my life where my free time, my hobbies and my family have been high, but my work’s been low. And then I’ve had times when my work and my money and my personal achievement has been off the scale, but my hobbies and my free time are on the floor. and again, the other thing that’s so good about this exercise is it shows that it’s a balance and that it’s almost like a, well, balance is the wrong word because it never balances.

It’s almost like a dance. It’s almost like a, it’s constantly shifting and moving. And you, I always talk about like, imagine your time in your life is like a hundred percent, right? You only ever have a hundred percent. You can’t have more. And therefore if you are suddenly spending 50 % of your time on work, you only have 50 % for everything else left. So all those other things that you’re trying to do, and then suddenly if something happens and

your home life kicks in because, you know, I’m having to move my daughter to school or I’m getting divorced or whatever it is, then that again is going to take up a bigger chunk. Well, that time’s got to come from somewhere. I’m not going to make more. There is no more. 100%. That’s it. So if I’m going to take off that, then other things go down. And as women, and I think, I think for me, why I’m like this is I went with coaches who were men. This one guy, first, one of the

I paid for a very big expensive program and he used to go surfing every day and he had no children, no dependents, no anything. And he’d be like, get up at five and do this and do this. And I would be like, you haven’t been up all night with a toddler, you? Like, what planet are you talking? Like, and I just thought, you can’t relate to me at all. This makes no sense. So your, your ruler of what success looks like is very different from mine.

And I think there are lots of coaches out there who basically go and especially in the online space, if you’re not hitting this, if you’re not doing this, if you’re not having this, you’re not successful. Well, that’s not the case. know, yes, you could be earning more money. Yes, you could have bigger, better, whatever it is, but you’re going to take some time and percentage away from those other things. And as a mom and as a woman, now I’m at the point of, you know, my daughter’s 15. She barely wants to spend any time with me, which, you know,

It’s all right. She’s 15. But my health, my own healthcare and my own, like how I look after myself, that’s the percentage that gets squashed. So that’s the thing I have to watch because I can put all my percentage into work. And then when my daughter’s here, into my daughter, and then that bit gets left and lost. So it’s always a dance and it’s always a bringing back in, which is why we do those exercises.

Victoria (49:40)
You

Teresa (50:06)
probably at least once a year, probably twice a year, because we need to remind ourselves and again, depending on the season we’re in, okay, this is where I am today currently where needs focus or what have I let slip or where do I need to bring myself back to? And sometimes you’ll look at it and go, well, I’m exactly where I need to be. And actually this for right now in this season, this is where I need to pay this attention. And I think that is where as women, especially,

we need to get that empowerment, that we are making a conscious decision based on where we are and what is happening in our lives, that we don’t get swayed by the person going, you could be earning more money, you should have a bigger business than this, you should be doing X, Y, Z, you should be achieving way more. When we’ve sat back and gone, actually, how do I want my life to look? What’s important at this point? And I’m making my decisions based on that.

Victoria (51:07)
Yeah, it’s so valuable and actually you think you know this stuff, but just doing it, physically just stopping because we’re all in the weeds aren’t we, but just stopping and actually taking the time to think about it. And it left me feeling so grateful as well for all the things that are good. And I know I don’t take them for granted. I’m in a beautiful stage of life in that I have my children and my parents and we’re all.

Teresa (51:25)
Mm-hmm.

Yes, yes.

Victoria (51:35)
together, you know, my parents don’t live far away and Chris has his parents and everyone is broadly speaking healthy. And that element comes into it because that won’t always be the case. Life’s not like that. And it’s just appreciating these things. And also realizing, like you said, women were so ready to kind of, especially moms, you know, if something has to go so often it is the health and wellbeing stuff. And with me at sleep, it’s like, I’ve got that a hundred percent. I want to

Teresa (51:57)
It’s us.

Victoria (52:03)
Be a very present mother and look after my children. That’s the non-negotiable bit. Poor Chris, his bit gets like squeezed a lot. So sometimes his is down by like 5%. Work is massive, but it happens when I’m supposed to be asleep. So, I mean, it happens in the day as well, but it also happens when I’m supposed to be asleep because I take on too much. So that takes out rest.

Teresa (52:05)
Yeah. Yep.

Yeah. Yeah.

Victoria (52:26)
And my rest is squeezed and then you can see it when you get really honest with yourself as well. And that’s what the exercise forces you to do. And there are so many things like that that are just important to acknowledge because as you say, they do fluctuate. So tell me, I just want to touch quickly on your, your grow launch cell program, because I feel like, and I’m kind of drawing inferences based on various snippets of conversations that we’ve had that you feel really good about it.

Teresa (52:40)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Victoria (52:55)
in a way that perhaps you haven’t felt particularly like this is the thing. You haven’t really felt at ease or like so confident and so happy with your offering in the past. So tell me, just tell me why you feel so good about it and what you love about it and what it does and how it helps people and all the things.

Teresa (52:55)
I do.

It’s so good that you’ve said that because I do. Like I feel, I’ve been in business now 11 years. And like I I went from agency to online business owner where I offered my first course I offered was on content creation. And then I had a membership for any business. And then I had a pathway for another, like for any business. it was just, cause I knew I could help all these people and I wanted to serve everybody. And I was just basically trying to be so kind and do all the things. And then it wasn’t until.

I got sober in 2023 and then I woke back up at the end of 2023 and 2024. looked at everything and I finally had the guts maybe to go, no, I’m fricking ace at this. Like this bit in my business, this bit of like helping someone grow their online business. This is the bit I’m really good at. Like I geek out on this stuff. I love this stuff. I know it like the back of my hand and it’s funny that

Frendor is just talking about who’s in this, who’s at this very high level mastermind. When I see a go to these things, I’m like, my brain and my knowledge is in that room. My finances are not. So you’ve got to hit a money thing to be in some of these rooms and my money is not right. And that is frustrating, but I could talk for another two hours about why that’s the case, given that the challenges I’ve been through and getting sober and literally

nose diving my business for 12 months and then coming back from it and then niching. And when I got into the niche and when I decided that actually, yes, although I love helping everybody and I hate going, I’m not for you anymore, actually, this is the thing that I’m really good at. And if this is the thing I could do all day, every day, this is the thing I’ll do. So I created, and the online space had felt so horrible and yucky for such a long time.

And I hadn’t known where I fit in it because I tried to do the strategies that everyone talked about and I felt like I wanted to scrub my skin in bleach. And so then I didn’t do any of the strategies and then I wasn’t making it work. And then I finally found a thing of, okay, these strategies aren’t inherently bad. How people use them sometimes is bad. So I can find a way to make them work for me and my audience and my customers that doesn’t feel like we literally want to scrub our skin.

Victoria (55:17)
You

Teresa (55:37)
And I created this program. when I created it, I knew no one else wanted to, like, you don’t need another course. No one needs another course. Okay. Now there are exceptions. I’ve just bought a puppy training course and that is very proving, very helpful. Right. But you don’t, don’t buy any more. We bought all the courses, right? So it’s not necessarily about the course, but there are gaps in people’s knowledge. So I wanted to create something that answered all the questions, but did as much of the work for you as possible. Cause

Victoria (55:48)
No.

Teresa (56:05)
Launching, which basically is just a campaign. So doing a marketing campaign every few months to get more people into your online program, whether it’s a course or a membership, is hard work. And I knew that. And I’d been consulting for lots of people and I’d been doing it many, many, many times over. So I’d got all the emails and the spreadsheets and the swipe files and all of that. So I was like, I am going to create as much as I could possibly create to take it off them, but at the same time, give them support where I can actually tell them what works for them.

There is no two people currently in Grow Launch Cell that I have given exactly the same advice to. Now, I will tell someone, lots of you, to go and watch a particular module or go and see that thing or go and find that out and then come back to me and have a conversation. But for me, we didn’t need anybody else just telling us a cookie cutter way of doing it. And we needed that high touch of…

One of the things I do, which I love is I look at people’s sales pages and I look at their funnels and I look at their presentations and I’ll literally go change that, move that, do that. that’s what I needed. When I joined a program for 15 grand, this program was for 12 months, 15 grand for 12 months, they didn’t even know my name. And the advice was absolutely ridiculous. I would sit on these coaching calls and I would sit there thinking,

Victoria (57:22)
Yeah.

Teresa (57:30)
this is wrong, you’re giving them the wrong advice. Because I knew more about running the online world than this person did, even though they were big in the online world. But again, they were a male, they had no experience of what it was like to be a mum or a female or anything other than who they were. And I just thought we need something where I can pay much more attention and where I can, when someone can come to me and go, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, what do I do now?

like that alongside, well, here’s the templates, here’s the swipe files, here’s me looking at your stuff and here is the resources if you need it. I am, and it’s funny, this year has been my best ever year financially and it’s felt easy. Selling Grow Launch Cell has felt easy. Now, I don’t say that as in it’s been easy, because it hasn’t. Like I’m in a launch currently and…

I have put no effort into it. It’s a teeny tiny launch with a teeny tiny audience. And I have looked at every single one of those people who are in this mini launch and I’ve gone that they’re those two people I really want to buy. They’ve given me reasons why they’re not. I’ve looked at the other handful of people. I say it’s a launch. It literally is the tiniest thing. And no one will really know I’m in a launch. No one else is going to buy. And I’m all right with that because I’ve put like I haven’t put a lot of effort into it.

Victoria (58:50)
Yeah.

Teresa (58:53)
I’ve put all the effort in showing up and doing what I do and helping them, but I haven’t marketed it heavily. I haven’t done those things. And I’ve looked at the people on the list and gone, you’re not right, you’re not right, you’re not right. And therefore I am very happy with how it will end up. So it hasn’t been that it’s an easy thing to sell. It’s just felt easy because I’m so confident in it. I know it’s good. I know I’m good. And I know if someone needs that particular help and can afford to join my world, they will get it and it’ll be awesome.

If they can’t afford it and if it’s not for them, then that’s fine. No worries. And I’ll see you next time. Cause I’ll be doing this in one, two, three, four, five years time. And I know I will be. And I think in the online space, there is too many people who have come and gone, who changed their mind, like the weather, who changed their expertise. Like, wow, I don’t know how you suddenly become an expert in this. Cause last week you’re an expert in something else. No, I’ve been doing this for a long time and I will continue to do it for a long time. And yeah, I love it.

Victoria (59:42)
Hmm.

I don’t mean this in any way to sound patronizing because you’re older than me and very much more experienced, but I’m really, really happy for you because I can feel it. And I think just in the coaching calls, like I think what you’ve put together is a really, really beautiful and quite natural blend of, you know, the high touch personalized coaching and really, you know, what is it? It’s like the coaching element, an hour once or twice a month or two hours once, twice a month.

Teresa (1:00:03)
Thank

Two hours, twice

a month, yeah.

Victoria (1:00:25)
host a month and we get to learn about each other’s businesses as well. And in that sense, you’re building a community. And because it’s like-minded women, predominantly, I know there are a couple of guys in there. It’s, we all kind of look out for each other and we all, and you’re kind of creating a network in that sense because we all get it. A lot of moms in there, like it’s, it’s really lovely. And then you’ve got all of that practical stuff in the actual course itself there.

Teresa (1:00:28)
Mm. Yeah.

Victoria (1:00:54)
as and when each person is ready for it. But I think, it’s, I mean, you do, you know, everybody’s business. It’s not like you just know them, you know what they’re doing, you know where they’re up to. And I think that is what we need because so much of it, it’s not just about having the information, it’s actioning it. And it’s the accountability and the support and the encouragement and you know, the commiseration even when things don’t go quite as you’d hoped and the, okay, well, let’s, let’s go again and we’ll tweak it and we’ll do this.

Teresa (1:01:01)
Literally.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that is the thing, a lot of my

job is brushing someone down, rubbing their knees and going, come on then, off we go again, let’s go again. Like, and that’s the thing that’s gonna make the difference. Like if someone is sat there on their own and they followed the advice, they’ve done all the things and it doesn’t work, they don’t know why it doesn’t work. Whereas what happens when someone comes to me and goes, these are all the things I did, I can normally give them some insight as to why it didn’t work. And in some rare occasions,

Victoria (1:01:26)
Yeah.

Teresa (1:01:50)
We don’t know why it didn’t work. Like I’ve got, you know, the lovely Kristen is in the group who’s been working hard on her business and it just hasn’t been working. And we have literally, I’m as frustrated and as mad as she is. And to the point where we just don’t think they want to pay money for the thing that she’s selling. And we’ve, we’re actually changing. She’s actually shifting her business to something else, which has been a long time coming because we were, we were looking at this one, like we’re trying to make this work, but.

Having a, someone like me go, can see why or how we can improve this next time is great. But also having someone like me who has done hundreds and hundreds of launches, launches with people and myself and that can go, you did all the things right. It just didn’t work. Like there’s a lot of reassurance in that. There’s a lot of feeling of like, okay, well it’s not me and I’m not going mad. No, you’re not.

Victoria (1:02:33)
Yeah. Yeah.

Teresa (1:02:40)
Because I think when you’re on your own and you’re thinking, I’ve done all the things and it didn’t work, you come to two conclusions. One, this stuff doesn’t work or two, it’s me, I don’t work. And either way, you won’t want to try again. Whereas if I can look at it and go, that’s what I think happened, let’s go again, then great.

Victoria (1:02:52)
Yeah, no you can’t.

Yeah, and it’s knowing when to quit. And by quit, I mean pivot. You know, because sometimes, you know, what you do, you’re concentrating on the launch aspect of it, but sometimes it’s the product. You know, like you said, when you went into business, you know, you’re like, I could do this to be easy because I know about marketing, but marketing is one element. You have to find the right product and the right people and put them together. And that’s the bit that kind of comes first. And then this launch stuff, but yeah, you’re right. you, I,

Teresa (1:03:02)
Yes. Yeah.

Yes.

Victoria (1:03:25)
And we’re so quick to just blame ourselves. I mean, it’s a female trait, you know, okay, well, I’m crap at this or no one like, I mean, I came to you and I was like, I just don’t think anyone likes me. We do that to ourselves. So just like, I just don’t think anyone likes me. ⁓ So I’m just gonna, you know. Yeah.

Teresa (1:03:27)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

It changed! It changed!

And sometimes we have to have really honest conversations. I didn’t go, you’re right, no one likes you. But

like, I have had to say to someone on a coaching call, and it was a really hard conversation of, don’t think your product’s right. Like, I don’t know who would pay for that. And, and that’s a hard thing to hear. And it, but again, I wouldn’t be doing my job if I let someone go through all the process of trying to sell the thing they’re selling.

when I know that is gonna be such a difficult sell. And again, you and I had a conversation about your Instagram where it was like, I’m gonna be really honest, but this is coming from love because I want you to succeed. And again, I think that for me, hopefully people take it the way I mean it because I know them and because I’m getting to know them. I think when you’ve worked with coaches, go… ⁓

Victoria (1:04:19)
Yeah, yeah.

Teresa (1:04:34)
You know, again, the stories I hear are unbelievable, but like, you your products wrong, change it. And they literally have no idea who they are or what they do, or they literally know nothing about the person that they are as a human and how they like to work. So actually, you know, we just had a conversation before we got recording about someone I worked with that wanted to do something. And I said to them at the beginning, this is not going to be easy. This is going to be hard, but they really wanted to do it. So it was like, okay, let’s go, let’s try it.

because it’s not my business, it’s theirs. And yes, I could give them a much easier, quicker way to make money, but that wouldn’t make them happy and that wouldn’t fulfill them and it wouldn’t be what they wanted. So I think for me, hopefully people take it from me and they, when I occasionally, I don’t always have to give it, but like, because I’m getting to know them and understand them. And also I’m not going, you’re wrong. I’m going.

Victoria (1:05:11)
that’s not what they want.

Teresa (1:05:28)
I think this might improve if we tried this, or I think this might feel different if we did this.

Victoria (1:05:35)
Yeah, and so much of it is communication style. And I think the fact that you know who you’re talking to, you understand that there are certain ways that you could express that advice that would entirely crush their spirit. And you need to be more gentle. And there are other people you know you can hit quite hard and they’ll be able to bounce back. And I think that is something that is completely lacking when you get those kind of anonymous programs. And so I…

Teresa (1:05:54)
Yeah.

Victoria (1:06:01)
talk about you all the time I think it’s all great I still don’t have an online business but I am working on it come January

Teresa (1:06:04)
Well, thank you.

Hey, we, right,

but you have done a lot, right? So you say that like, you know, I’m just sat here doing nothing. You are absolutely not. And I also think, you know, you wish you were doing nothing. But like, I think as well, what we have done is understood lots of things and also stopped you from going down.

Victoria (1:06:18)
I’m not doing nothing. That’d be nice. ⁓

Teresa (1:06:34)
potentially a very, very long rabbit hole of doing something. Again, it’s that when do you quit? When do you, when do we know enough’s enough? And I think there’s a couple of conversations that we’ve had about stuff that you were doing that was like, actually you’ve done it. I think, yeah, I think we need to make a decision on this. And even, you know, again, super honestly about the podcast, this podcast we’ve talked about, okay, let’s not expect anything like.

Victoria (1:06:41)
Hmm. Yeah.

Where’s the ROI? There. Yeah.

Teresa (1:07:02)
when you started this, it was like, just want to do it because it’s nice and it’s going to be fun. And you’re excellent at it. As I have said many, many times, you’re a great interviewer, but there was no, you know, there was no right, okay, we’re to start the podcast and then we’re going to find a way to monetize it. And then we’re to make money by Tuesday. That wasn’t the case. And I do think sometimes that

Victoria (1:07:11)
Thank you.

Teresa (1:07:24)
can be paralysing and that can be, and then you give up on things really quickly, not you personally, as in people give up on things quickly, because they’re like, well, where’s the money or where’s the result? Whereas I think sometimes just enjoying the process. And that’s the other thing, like that getting the money or the win is just the end. It’s just, or it’s just one part of it. So if you hate what you do, but you just have that five minutes of brilliant, I just checked my Striper account or I just got an email with saying I’ve earned money, but literally you want to stick needles in your eyes every time you do something.

Victoria (1:07:26)
Hmm.

Teresa (1:07:54)
That’s not great. I had a program that I used to run, which was a much smaller group program with like four people in it. And I used to do individual calls. And I had three lots of these at any one time, which meant I was doing, I don’t know, 15 odd one-to-one calls every other week. And I was earning really good money from it. And it was easy to sell. And I literally…

hated my diary. I would look at my diary every week and be like, man, I do not want to do this. And I stopped it because it was like, this doesn’t fill me with joy. So yes, I am making easy money or felt like easy money doing that, but I hated it. So I didn’t do it. So again, you’ve got to do the thing that makes you happy. Regardless of what it is.

Victoria (1:08:23)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And I love

this podcast. I love this podcast. Like, and it’s, not everything is, has to be a monetary exchange. You know, I’ve had such amazing conversations with other women who are trying to figure it all out, just like I’m trying to figure it all out. And that connection, you know, if you could put a price tag on that, that’s so important. And I, know, I now I’m starting to get messages from other mums who are trying to do this stuff.

Teresa (1:08:45)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Victoria (1:09:09)
and manage their kids and work it out in a way that feels like their dream business and saying thanks so much for doing it because it’s made a difference. And I really love this episode because I’m trying to do what she’s doing and it’s great to see that I’m not alone. And I think that has value. Money isn’t the only thing that has value. So.

Teresa (1:09:27)
It’s not. And

the fact that like someone somewhere is listening to this that you don’t know and is spending time with you and is engaged and is like that is mind blowing still to me now. Like when someone shows up to something that I’m like, I’ve never met you before. This is so cool. Like, you know, and that you’re making a difference. And I think that sometimes

Victoria (1:09:35)
Yeah, it’s mad.

Yeah.

Teresa (1:09:52)
in business because it is a lot about money and of course it is we have mortgages to pay and mouths to feed and you know and experiences to have but I think sometimes we forget about the the non-financial sides of I never get Sunday blues I get to yesterday afternoon after my calls I was feeling very tired

Victoria (1:10:09)
Mm.

Teresa (1:10:13)
I finished for the day. My husband’s been away for three months. He comes home on Thursday. I am not working Thursday or Friday so I can hang out with him. Like I can do that because I have my own business as well as seeing someone progress or seeing someone create something or seeing someone like you start a podcast to be fricking amazing at it. Like that is worth everything. And I think the more we can appreciate that the better. Because like I said, the money is just the point on which it comes into our bank and then we normally have it go out again.

Victoria (1:10:18)
⁓ exciting! Yeah!

Teresa (1:10:42)
If we don’t love what we’re doing in between, we are not going to stick it out. And that is why I think most businesses that I have worked with fail because they’ve either created something they didn’t like or they were just in it for the money. And therefore when it got hard, which it does and always will, they couldn’t stick it out because it wasn’t, it wasn’t lighting them up.

Victoria (1:11:07)
Yeah. ⁓ so much good advice. Theresa, everyone go and join GLS. I love that it’s GLS. So I keep saying JLS. Everyone go and join GLS at the next launch. It should. my God. Yeah. Next time you go on stage, just start. I’m not sure either.

Teresa (1:11:13)
Yes, please. Yeah. I know. I love that. I feel like it should be my theme tune or something. ⁓ I need to find a really good JLS song. I don’t even think I’d know any of them. I’m going to, this is how

I’m going to procrastinate this afternoon. I’m going to start playing JLS songs as if there’s any that I love that fits well with me that can be like my theme tune. I love it.

Victoria (1:11:38)
think that sounds like an afternoon well spent. Go for it. I think you definitely should do that. So I have one last question for you before I let you go before I let you go and get on with your day. We’ve gone way over but I knew that we would because I love talking with you. looking back, I think you know what’s coming. Having all these experiences and having been a mum for all these years and a step mum, what would you now say to yourself at eight years old? Looking back, what would you tell her?

Teresa (1:11:40)
I think you’re right. I think you’re right.

No, sorry. Yeah, I talked to him like…

I would tell her.

that all those crazy dreams that she had, because even from a very young age, I remember thinking, I want more. I remember asking for elocution lessons, like when I was about 10 and my mum being like, what flipping planet are you on? I would just say, just flip and do it and go for it. And you can have anything you want. If it’s humanly possible, there’s no reason why you can’t do that.

Victoria (1:12:23)
Wow.

⁓ I love that. Okay tell me where everybody can find you. Where can they track you down online?

Teresa (1:12:49)
You can find me on Instagram is my favorite. I say favorite. None of them are my favorites. I hate social media. ⁓ don’t have a Instagram is the one you’re more likely to find me on. So go and find me on Theresa Eithwaring over there. TheresaEithwaring.com or if you are a podcast listener, which you are, then you can come and check out the Your Dream Business podcast, which is about in fact, by the point this goes out will be on YouTube. So come and find Theresa Eithwaring on YouTube. That’s a scary thought.

Victoria (1:12:55)
That’s good to say, is it?

Teresa (1:13:18)
And you’ll find me over there as well.

Victoria (1:13:19)
Yeah, it’s exciting though.

Amazing. Thank you so much for your time, Theresa. This has been awesome.

Teresa (1:13:26)
Thank you so much for having me. It’s been really good fun.

Victoria (1:13:30)
Thank You