[00:00:00] Fi
We've made a lot of progress as a society in many of the areas that we needed to in the last few hundred years. But one thing that has not changed enough is money. If we want to be able to tip the scales towards the favor of marginalized people, we need to understand the secrets to making money in small business.
The more we talk about money and the secret. That usually stay at the golf club, the more likely we are to be able to make money. My mission is to get more money into the hands of good people, specifically good business people like you. This is Money Secrets, the place to learn about the money secrets of successful small business owners.
Because I believe small business can change the world, and in order to do that, we need to be making lots of money. Let's go.
[00:00:51] Fi
This podcast episode was recorded on the lands of the Wie people of the KO nation, and I'd like to acknowledge them as the traditional owners and custodians of this land and water that I live. Work and play on. I'd like to pay respects to elders both past and present. And note that sovereignty has never been seated.
This always was and always will be. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander land.
[00:01:20] Fi
Okay, so today I'm actually in the studio with Natalie Elz from Pin Studios and Mia FileMan from Campaign Del Mar. Hello. Welcome. Hi. Why don't you start by introducing yourselves. Natalie, tell us a bit about you.
[00:01:42] Nat
I run Pinch Studios. We're a creative agency that basically helps industry disruptors get their message out there loud and proud, really rallying their troops so we can get a movement going.
But I help them with their marketing and sales strategy. Love it. And I love how you bring your acting and improv experience to Yes. A situation like this. Everything. It's life. Love it. And Mia? Yeah. Tell us about you.
[00:02:02] Mia
I am the no BS founder of Campaign Delmar. I provide training and mentoring to female entrepreneurs so that they can create smarter marketing that pays off.
And I'm also one of your business partners. You are. Yeah, so we all know each other really well. We feel like this episode's gonna be a lot of fun to create. Yeah. Now the Money Secrets podcast is about how to make money as a small business owner, and why I've brought the three of us together today is because I think the intersection of making money is business strategy, marketing and sales.
[00:02:23] Fi
What I wanna know, I'm gonna ask you first, Matt, yeah. You've been on the podcast before. You were part of my documentary. I was, when I asked you some pretty spicy questions about your experience of money from the lens that you're looking now. What is the biggest lie that you are hearing in the world about money or what or the biggest lie that you've been told about money?
[00:02:42] Nat
I have been told that money is hard to get. Yes, right. I come from an Italian Lebanese household, immigrants, that sort of thing, so that lifestyle and you had to work really, really hard to get money and for them it wasn't actually as much as. I would deem a lot kind of thing. Mm. But the biggest lie I've been told is that there's not enough out there.
I don't know where people are seeing that. I'm not quite sure. But I do know personally and talking to my friends as well in my circle, that we're constantly having discovery calls. People do want to buy and invest now, especially in 2025, we've gone from Covid and sometimes like 2023 and 2024 was really hard for people, but they're like, I don't know about you, but I found that people were asking me.
In October to start in January. 'cause they were ready to, you know, transform the entire business. Yeah. So tho those were the two lies that I. Was told.
[00:03:53] Fi
I love that. I'm hearing in a lot of Facebook groups about small business owners not making any money at all. Yeah, me too. And I think when you start listening to that, you start to drag yourself down into a kind of, not a pity spiral because I'm totally okay with small business owners having day, a kind of a duna day.You knew what I was gonna say, but what I think is that when you assume that you have no power over the money that you can make, it stops you taking action and then it's a self-fulfilling prophecy that there is no money out there because you stopped trying to get it. Well, based on that, I think it's really important.
[00:04:08] Nat
I think I was talked to me about this just before, is your time, your energy, and who you give that to. Yes. So I think it's like, you know, if you surround yourself with five people that all have that mentality. Then yes, your life is going to be in that direction. Yes. I put it on myself, extreme ownership that I wanna surround myself with really successful people who, one I deem successful, but who are like two to three steps ahead of me. Because one, I can strive for more. It motivates me, but also they're telling me a different narrative. Yeah. Than these other smaller businesses in these Facebook groups. I love it. Well, thank you for surrounding yourselves with me and Mia.
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Fi
Mia, what are the lies you are either hearing sort of touted in the world or lies that you've been told about making money?
[00:05:38] Mia
Yeah, it would. That one's the biggest one for me is that the economy and like small business, everyone is suffering and small business is really hard right now and like. The default is just to blame the economy, and that has not been my experience. It's not been your experience, the fact that people are dropping $900 in February for a festival in November, and like you would think a festival is not exactly essential purchase. Yeah, I think it's essential. Yeah. It's essential to us. It is essential to us. I think it's a sensational investment and you will definitely get that ROI. But if we're talk, if we're really counting our pennies, then it's just not true. Mm. So. And I, I'm actually okay with it. I feel like a lot of people went and started businesses during the covid years and everyone wants to be an entrepreneur. And the cold hard truth of it is that it's a very different personality style, different way of thinking that you need to be a successful entrepreneur. You need a risk profile that you and I talk about all the time, and I'm okay with the pool thinning out actually, and people going back to getting well paying.
Secure jobs that put food on their table without the volatility of, of small business. And that obviously comes from a position of extreme privilege that I can, I'm in a very fortunate position with my business and the fact that my husband has that secure job that I can, you know, ride the highs and lows of small business.
But I'm okay with the pool thinning out. I, I think we have too many small business owners in Australia.
[00:07:13] Nat
Yeah, I think the rose. Colored glasses of the laptop lifestyle. Mm. Is like literally dying down, which is good because I remember in 2020 when I started my business, thank God I was so naive. Right.Jumping in there but is good in the first year, I've gotta say it, is, you just take it on the chin, you keep going. But as I started growing the business and started being surrounded by other people, I'm just like, laptop lifestyle. It's not that easy. Then everyone would be doing it. Mm-hmm. I don't wanna be drinking a pina colada by the pool and doing an email.
I wanna be making some big moves. Yeah. Yeah. I, I've got a question for you. What do you do after the third pina colada? Oh, like an hour later I get bored. After sipping the pina colada, then what happens? Mm, because like. That's when I'm would be bored and I need to go do something else. Yeah. I can't remember who it was, but they were saying that in our generation, everyone wants to do everything in the first 10 years. Right? Like, you know, 30, under 30, 40 under 40, whatever it is. But they're like, but you've got literally 40 to 50 years of work life ahead of you. Mm. Why do you wanna achieve everything right now when you can build and do stuff better later on? Yeah. And that's why I'm like. Never gonna retire because in some capacity I'm gonna either work or support or serve someone.
Mm dunno what that looks like. But yeah, that's, I just can't fathom not being in business. Mm. To be honest. Mm.
[00:08:15] Fi
Yeah. I love that. And I think I have a lot of empathy for business owners who are struggling, so I want to acknowledge that it's tough being a business owner is, it's really hard. Yeah. You know, I've had my business for nearly 15 years now, so it probably seems easy when people look at what I'm doing, but I've got 15 years of.
You know, foundation laid underneath me. So yeah, a lot of empathy for people who are finding that they're not cut out for small business and maybe they can come back in five or 10 years when their situation's different. But one of the most pervasive lies that I hear about money and that I'm hearing in the voices and, and sort of emails of my clients is that the only way to make money is to work really hard. Right, and I think part of it is that Australia is this really kind of multicultural, you know, soup, a beautiful soup. We've got like 97% of us are migrants to this country in the last 200 or two 50 years. And so we've got the convicts, we've got the migrants who came in the fifties. We've got migrants that came in the seventies, eighties, nineties.
Yeah. And you know, the only way to be able to build a life for yourself financially was to work fucking hard. Yeah, right. So a lot of migrants that came from Vietnam, Greece, Italy, China, you know, India, they didn't have the same contacts and connections that a lot of us who'd been here for more generations had.
We've also got this melting pot of the oldest continual living culture on earth being. On this continent and having been here for millennia or however long it actually is, money is very different in a Western lens than it is in an indigenous cultural perspective. So we've got all of these really different cultural sort of frameworks around money.
We've got some cultures where the elders. Child needs to support the rest of the family. We have other cultures where the youngest member of the family is supposed to financially support the family. We've got migrants who came and worked their blood, sweat, and tears to build businesses, but it's now 2025.
And so we're in this multicultural, beautiful tapestry. But there's all of these cultural lenses happening that I think a lot of us don't actually realize or see. And so when I hear people talking about. This idea that the only way to make money is to work hard is because it used to be the only way that you could make money in this continent was to work really hard.
And I also think that when we look to the uber wealthy in this country, we see gambling, we see mining, and we see media. And those are industries that I think we can all agree are not industries that we want. Like we, that we are bore, like those industries are not inspiring in any way. They are basically taking advantage of the environment, the country, and people like gambling.
My God, the people who are profiting from other people's misery, it, they're just horrific industries. Yeah. And those are the industries where people are uber wealthy in Australia. So we've got this landscape that, okay, the only way to make money is to work really hard. The only people who are really wealthy are evil.
And the only way to run a business is with a laptop lifestyle and pina coladas. But how do I get there? And so what I see, particularly in women is. That we start our businesses working our freaking guts out. We spend two or three years trying to work out how the hell do I pay myself? Mm. And then you think, well, if I wanna make more money, I'm gonna have to work even harder.
How the hell am I gonna manage that? Right? So this idea that is being kind of perpetuated by what we see in the media is that we have to work harder to make more money is a lie. Yeah. The way to make more money is to completely change your approach, to look at who are your ideal clients? What are my prices?
How am I communicating my value? How am I nurturing and attracting the right businesses towards me? How am I converting those relationships into being paid customers? That is how to make more money, but that's also the hard part. Yeah, that's what I consider to be hard about small business.
[00:12:25] Mia
Yep. And I completely agree with everything that you said and you're so right. And I love that lens that you've put on it from the fabric of Multicultural Australia. And my parents migrated here in the seventies, and you know, a lot of Greek business owners, they have fish and ship shops. They have factories, they have IGA stores. It's very much you roll up your sleeves and work equals money.
Mm-hmm. What I find particularly difficult about running a small business in the first couple of years is figuring that stuff out. Yes. Who is my ideal customer? What is my offering? What is my value proposition? And what we don't talk about is that now four years in business. Is substantially easier for me.
Yes. Like I spent 10 months overseas last year, made more money and I could only have done that in year three, not in year one.
Fi
Mm. And a lot of the people that are talking about how easy business is, they're five years in. Yes. They're not, they're not one year in, they have a foundation underneath them that they forget to tell us about on Instagram.
[00:13:17] Nat
Exactly. Yeah. I mean, I got sucked into that when I first started my business and I was looking at people who were 10 years or even eight years in business. I'm like, I wanna do that. I wanna be there. You can't skip that. But I actually think, yes, you need all that, you know, business strategy, marketing, sales, but on top of that, it's mindset. Mm. You don't have the right mindset. You're never going to see like who values you. Yes. So you need to own that confidence, but to do that, you need to actually work on yourself. Yeah. Which is what I did in, I think it was 2021. I wanna say. That was the massive change. I did a huge mindset piece. Worked on myself, knew who I was going to impact the most, then I worked with you on my financial literacy.
Mm-hmm. And then I could easily go, okay, this is the business strategy I wanna do. 'cause I know my purpose so well and I know who I wanna help and I know how to communicate that now because I have the confidence in myself.
Fi
Mm-hmm. I love that. Um, Mia, what's the best advice that you would give people about making money through their small business?
[00:14:10] Mia
Please be across your numbers. Honestly. Uh, I'm at a point in my business where it's application only to join Marketing Circle, and that ha is facilitated through a call. If I get on a call with someone and I'm like, Hey, what's your ebit? And they can't tell me, then we are not gonna work together. Mm-hmm.
Like, it's just, if. Uh, I'm afraid to look at my numbers 'cause they scare me. You obviously do not have the mindset and the, the proper framing of running a business if you're afraid to look into your, your bank accounts. Yeah. So know your numbers and not be afraid of them. Every month on the first day of the month or a couple of days later, depending on how I'm tracking.
And if it falls on a Sunday, I will reconcile the month earlier. All my money coming in, all the money coming out. I know Xero does this, but I do it so that I can be like, do I need that subscription? Mm, do I need that subscription? Oh my goodness, I've made $15,000 last month from this product. Why aren't I talking about that more?
Mm. You know, and really being across those numbers. Love it.
[00:15:02] Nat
Now what, what advice would you give for somebody wanting to make money in their small business? This might sound a bit fluffy, but I would say always think of everything as an opportunity. I wake up every morning and go, you know what? Going into my emails is another opportunity for me to find more relationships, more leads, more people that I can communicate with.
So always being on the lookout for that opportunity and like having that third eye kind of open and finding that is really, really important. Important because I know some people who would, you know, even if tMm. And being okay to put that line out there. Yes. So, yeah. So actually talk about what you do and why you do it. Actually talk about what you do and who you do it for. Exactly. Make the obvious. Obvious. Make the obvious. Obvious.
[00:16:01] Fi
Yes. I love it. Well, my advice about how to make more money in business would be to start by following Campaign Del Mar on Instagram.Then go and follow Pinch studios on Instagram, and then come and follow Peach Business on Instagram. I think this is a fantastic place to end our podcast. Thank you so much for being here. Any, any last thoughts to share? Yeah, I actually do think that that's. Thank you very much, but the best place to start is with you.
[00:16:17] Mia
Yeah. Yeah. I always say that to people first. Oh, I'm thinking about working with you and fee. Well, then you go to fee first. Get that financial literacy, get the money. Psychology, understand your business strategy, and then you come to me and Natalie, because then you are more willing to invest and you see the value of where your money can go.
Yeah. I'm actually second, and then they come to you because what I help them do, make their marketing work well enough where they can outsource it to you. Yes. Which is. The dream, right? Everyone wants to outsource their marketing. They don't wanna have to do it. Yeah. Um, and I'm not gonna do it for them.
But you are. I'll take it. Yeah. So then it's like, come and learn enough to be dangerous with me and then come to you. That's the cycle.
[00:17:06] Fi
I love that. 1, 2, 3. So then Mia, then Nat. Love that. And basically we are your Charlie's Angels. Yes. I love that. Thanks so much for being here, ladies. It's been heaps of fun.
Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you.
[00:17:11]
Thank you so much for listening right up to the end. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Money Secrets, where we talk about the money secrets of successful small business owners. If you enjoyed the episode, I'd love it if you subscribe to the podcast, but leave us a review or share this episode with one of your friends.
I hope you learned something. I hope you got a new perspective and I really hope you enjoyed the listening experience.
