00:00:00] Fi Johnston
It's so easy, especially in the early years, to just work yourself down into the ground. Work is an addiction, and sometimes I, and lots of you, use work to escape the things happening in our personal lives that we don't want to face. So what I wish I knew 16 years ago is that investing time in my own health, my own wellbeing, my own mental health, is as important as investing in any other part of my business.
Money Secrets Intro
Are you a small business owner who'd love to be making more money while making positive change in the world? You're in the right place, friend. Hi, I'm Fi Johnston, a chartered accountant and money coach obsessed with small business. In The Money Secrets podcast, I share strategies that you can use to make more money without working harder. You'll hear successful small business owners share what they've learned about money and business, and I'll help you to [00:01:00] think differently and shift your perspectives about money so you can grow your business and your impact. My mission is to get more money into the hands of good business owners, like you.
Acknowledgement of Country
This podcast episode was recorded on the lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin 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 ceded.
This always was and always will be Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander land.
Fi
Today is my 16th business birthday. So I thought I would spend this episode sharing a little bit about my journey, but more importantly, the things that I wish I knew 16 years ago. So in case this is the first time we're [00:02:00] meeting, I'm Fi Johnston. I'm a chartered accountant, a business and finance strategist, and I work with purpose-led business owners to help them grow profitably.
This is the Money Secrets podcast, and as I said, today is my 16th business birthday. So on the 10th of August, 2010 I registered my company, Peach Business Management Proprietary Limited. And isn't it great to be able to, like, have that date solidified so that we can actually remember when it was that we started our business?
So let's go back to 2010, and let's go back to 16 years ago and maybe another two weeks back. I wanna tell you what led to me starting Peach. So, I- it was cold. It was winter. I live in Melbourne. I was 31 years old, and I was feeling a little bit lost and kind of disconnected [00:03:00] from my career. I loved what I did, but yeah, things just weren't feeling as, uh, I don't know, satisfying or fulfilling as I wanted them to be.
And one of my friends, who is very outdoorsy, said, "Look, some friends and I are going up to the Grampians to have a bit of a long, um, sort of hiking weekend. We're gonna be staying in cabins, and you should come because it's just such a beautiful place to be." And so I went with her. It was an amazing time.
And what happened on one of the days that we were there, I remember it was pissing down with rain. It was freezing. The wind was up. If anyone's been to the Grampians, they'll know that it's a pretty wild weather zone. It's absolutely beautiful as well, all of these kind of rocky mountains. It's really popular with rock climbers.
And we went for, what my friend called a walk, but what I would call climbing up a mountain [00:04:00] and climbing over rocks most of the time. And so we went for this walk. We got absolutely saturated. It was exhilarating and really challenging, for me at least. And when we finished the walk, one of the guys said, "Hey, why don't we go and see if the Mount Zero Olives Cafe is open?
I know Jane, who is the founder." So we went to this place that I'd never heard of before called Mount Zero Olives, and Jane was there, and her little retail shop was open. And Jane welcomed us all with cups of tea and probably something lovely to eat as well. And yeah, she just was really excited for us to be there, and she chatted with all of us.
And we got talking She wanted to know who I was and what was my story, and I told her that, you know, I was an accountant and I loved working with businesses that were doing really great things in the world. I had been a tax accountant, uh, for six years, then I [00:05:00] had moved on to working for Mountain Goat Brewery, which was such an amazing experience, and it was a real initiation into what kind of impact-led or independent small business trying to do something good for the world actually looks like.
And I was currently working for a group of venture capitalists, which was a really stimulating, um, role, but it didn't feel as fulfilling to me as what I had been doing at Mountain Goat, where I felt like I was part of something on the ground. It was very guerrilla marketing, community-led, you know, beer making that was about building community.
And so when I was telling Jane all of this, her mind was ticking over. She's an incredibly smart woman, and she said, "Well, how do I get to work with you? How could I book you?" And I said, "Oh, um, here's my phone number. I'd love to work with you. Just give me a call [00:06:00] sometime soon and we can talk about what that looks like."
By the time I got back from the Grampians, I had already decided that I was definitely going to be starting my own consulting business. And I knew that I wanted it to be called something that felt sort of organic and natural and real and grounded. I've always loved trees and nature, and I love that idea of business being, you know, organic and authentic and about c- building community.
It came to me in the middle of the night. It was Peach. Peach was what my business was going to be called. I called my graphic designer friend, who was the one who actually took me to the Grampians in the first place, the amazing Janine Rouget from Red Mullet Creative, and I said, "Janine, I'm ready to start my own business, and I want you to create my brand."
And she was like, "Awesome. Tell me what is the brief?" And I said, "Well, it's called Peach Business Management." And she said, "Do [00:07:00] you know that I grew up on a cherry and peach orchard?" I did not. So it felt like one of those moments where, you know, I met Jane at Mount Zero. We had this stimulating conversation.
She decided instantly that she wanted to work with me. She wanted my brains in her business, and then it all just really fell into place from there. So within a week or two, I had registered my company. I had paid some money to Janine to design my logo. She actually ended up creating a piece of art that became part of my initial brand kind of collateral.
So she designed this absolutely beautiful hand-drawn peach tree, which I still have in a frame. I'll see if I can, um, get a photo of it out, um, so that you can see what it looks like, 'cause it's absolutely beautiful So that was the genesis of my business. Jane Seymour from Mount Zero Olives did become my first client.
She was working [00:08:00] on some other projects alongside Mount Zero. She ended up asking me to join the board of Mount Zero Olives, and the rest is history. I've been working with Mount Zero now for basically that whole 16-year period in different capacities, and they're still one of my absolute favorite clients to work with.
So that is maybe a little self-indulgent to take you down that story of how Peach came to be, but to me it really... You know, it showcases how I have done this. So back in 2010 when I registered my company, I didn't have a plan. I didn't even have much money in savings. I'm pretty sure everything that I had went into paying Janine to design my first brand.
And I was lucky enough to be able to continue consulting a little bit with the venture capital company. They were amazing. They said, "You go out and start your business, and whatever [00:09:00] hours you have left for us, please, let's use them up, but we totally support you going to set up your own consulting business."
So I started Peach without much of a plan. I knew that I had skills that people needed. I knew that I was a chartered accountant. I had experience working in tax and in business, and I knew that I was somebody who could build relationships. When I look back through my career, I can see that building relationships was always what I was driven by.
I'm somebody who chases connection. Even though I'm an introvert 100% and I, I love people, they also exhaust me. So yeah, I'm this person who's always sought out connection and relationships, and building, you know, long-term relationships turns out to be something that has made my business much more successful.
But these are the things that I wish I had known 16 years ago [00:10:00] when I started Peach. I started when I was 31 years old. I had a lot of enthusiasm. I was excited, but didn't have much of a plan. The way that I went about getting clients in the first couple of years worked well, at least it felt like it worked well for me, and it was called I didn't have a strategy at all.
So I would go to different networking events to try to meet people. I would get referrals and I sort of let my community know that I was going out into a business, and could they send people my way who might be small business owners looking for support with their finances and their business planning.
What I didn't know then is that what I really needed to do was work out how to market myself from day one. I used to think that being really good at what I did was how people were going to find out about me, and it's absolutely not true. We've been lied to. This idea that if you build [00:11:00] it, they will come is not true.
What is true is if you build it, tell people that they should come, tell them why they should come, and then give them an experience that's worth coming back for, they'll come. But I suppose part of it is a bit of a mentality that you get from your workplace as an employed person, which is that all I need to do is do really great work and I will be noticed, and I will be acknowledged, and I will be rewarded.
But when you are a business owner, being really good at what you do is actually not as valuable as being really good at marketing what you do In the last 16 years, I have developed my marketing skills so much, and the person who has helped me do that the most is Mia Fileman from Campaign Del Mar. Mia is the best marketer that I have ever met.
She has taught me so much about how to communicate, how to market myself, how to get really clear about who it is that [00:12:00] I'm trying to target and what kind of messaging they need to hear from me. She's taught me how to run my own campaigns. And actually, next week I am going to be shooting my third major brand campaign, which is very exciting, and I can't wait to tell you all about it.
But what Mia has done is she's turned me... I think we started working together about six years ago, and she's turned me from being a great business owner to being a great business owner who knows how to be a great marketer as well. So thank you, Mia, for all that you've done to help me market myself, because what I wish I knew 16 years ago is that marketing is how you actually become known, how you become recognized, how you make money the easy way.
Referrals are great, but if that is all you are relying on, that is really dangerous because word of mouth and referrals you have no control over, so you don't have the ability to say, "Hey, I've got some availability. I need to fill it." That's what [00:13:00] marketing and having an email list and a kind of pipeline of clients does.
And that's something really specific about marketing that I wanna say, is that what I really wish that I had done 16 years ago is build an email list. Back then, I knew what an email list was, and I knew that other people had them, but I just couldn't work out why somebody would want to read an email from me.
Thankfully, I've now worked out what to write about and how to keep people engaged and how to share information that's useful in my weekly, uh, newsletter. And if you're not subscribed, it's called The Peach Weekly, and you can jump in the show notes to go and subscribe. I send an email out every Wednesday morning at 10 a.m.
Melbourne time, and it's a mix of business lessons and strategies that you can use to make more money in your business. And I also go and find examples of great businesses from around the country to profile and explain what I think they're doing really well. [00:14:00] So I really wish that 31-year-old me had started an email list 16 years ago, because I think having an email list is one of the most invaluable assets that you can have in your business Something else I wish I knew 16 years ago is that making money starts in your mind.
I think I was arrogant, and I think a lot of professional services people are arrogant when we start our businesses. We are so clever at what we do. We're really intelligent people. We are highly skilled, and I knew a lot about accounting and finance. So what that cost me is that I wasn't as open to going and seeking as- advice and support and coaching from others as I should've been.
And I see this a lot with people who've worked in professional careers, either corporate or small business, but in professional, you know, roles. I see us coming into small business, and that sort [00:15:00] of curse of knowledge hits in a few different ways. It hits in the way that our clients have no idea what we're talking about because we're sharing the intellectual version of what we do rather than the version that they actually would like to hear about.
But it also stops us from getting advice and support because we have a little bit of an arrogance around our intelligence. It's a little vulnerable to share that, but when I look back, I think, "Wow, why did I wait so long in my business to get support and get advice and get coaching?" So I always outsource things like branding and design and, you know, I did do some marketing in those early days.
I had a sort of street-facing shop for four years in Elwood. That was a big part of my marketing. It was the most gorgeous little shop front. And, um, yeah, so I did outsource things, but I wasn't paying for advice and coaching until well into my business. And I think if 16 year [00:16:00] ago me had invested in coaching and advisory and sort of expanding my skill set beyond what I knew already, my business would've been so much further ahead.
So if this is you, if you are someone who's been in business for a while and you haven't sought out the right kind of coaching or advice or support, please do it now. There are amazing people out there who can help you with so many different things. And if you need a referral, please feel free to reach out to me.
I know lots of professional and creative service providers that can help you with all of these different parts of your business I think another thing that I wish I had known 16 years ago in my business is that making money starts in your mind, like I said earlier. I wish that I had realized that there was so much that I could do to help me make money the easy way.
Even though I'm an accountant and I have a lot of skills around [00:17:00] finances and managing money, I didn't realize how much my own mind was holding me back from making money. We don't realize that our own mind is often holding us back from achieving things that people with far less skills and far less qualifications or experience are achieving because they have been open to the idea of changing the way that they think and behave in their business, and that is what leads to great results.
Thankfully, I now know this. I now teach this. This is what we do every single week in Good Money Club and with my one-on-one clients, is understanding that making money starts in your mind, and that there are so many things that you can change about your approach to things that really make a huge difference to the results that you get Another thing that I wish I knew 16 years ago is that my desire to [00:18:00] connect with people is actually something that sets me apart.
I used to think it was kind of, I don't know, embarrassing that what I really wanted from my clients was connection and friendship. I wasn't interested in working with people who I didn't feel that I had a connection with, and so I would seek out working with people that I felt we could really sort of vibe with and gel with.
And what I've always strived to do in my business is to deliver services that really make a difference to my clients. But in order for me to be able to do that, I really do love to feel connected to my clients. What I realize now, 16 years on, is that that ability to build relationships, to build connection, to create space for my clients to be able to have conversations they're not able to have with other people, that is actually my secret sauce.
And me desiring this kind of connection and [00:19:00] relationship that I'm wanting to be in with my clients actually is a good thing. If somebody ever says to me, "Don't take business so personally," believe me, there are many times I would like to not take it so personally, but for me, business is personal. Small business is a part of my DNA.
I love it with every ounce of myself, and I love working with small business owners who are just as passionate as I am.
Good Money Club Ad
I'm gonna guess that you are a small business owner who really cares about making money and impact. Me too. It's why I designed Good Money Club, which is a place for female small business owners to come together and learn about financial literacy, how to make and manage more money, and how to think differently about money so that you get different results. We talk about money every single week, and I promise you, it doesn't feel gross. The more you learn about money, the more you [00:20:00] immerse yourself into the kind of strategies that work for small business owners. You are gonna see yourself feel calm with money, and that is gonna lead to you making more revenue, paying yourself more, and really thinking about money in a whole different way that feels good. Check out the link in the show notes to find out more about Good Money Club, and we would love to have you in there.
Fi
Another thing I wish I knew 16 years ago is that if you wanna be on a stage, you need to put yourself there. If you want to create an opportunity for yourself, if you wanna take an opportunity by the reins, you need to take it by the reins.
So, you know, I used to look at other people achieving things that I really wanted for myself, and I used to wonder what I was doing wrong and why wasn't I getting those opportunities for myself. And it might have been things like being asked to speak at an event, or [00:21:00] being somebody who had won an award.
By the way, I've never won any business award, and do you know why? Because I have not applied for them. Side note, it's actually quite difficult to find business awards that suit my business sort of type and what I do, but you can't win business awards without applying for them. You can't get onto a stage without telling people you want to be on a stage.
You can't launch a podcast without launching a podcast. So I think what I'm trying to say is that I wish I had realized that it's really up to me to create the opportunities for myself. Being good at what I do is not going to get me onto a stage. What is going to get me onto a stage is throwing my hat in the ring, telling people that I wanna be on a stage, showing on Instagram or in any, you know, capacity that I can, that I can speak and that I have opinions worth [00:22:00] sharing, and that I am a communicator.
So I used to feel envious of people who seemed to be getting all of these opportunities that I wasn't getting, but I now realize that it's me who needs to create those opportunities. Even when it feels really gross and cringey and uncomfortable, the only way to get good at something is to try it and try it again.
So if you are somebody who wants to be on a stage, or you wanna be on a podcast, or you want to be nominated for an award, it's you who needs to nominate yourself for those opportunities When Mia Freeman and I decided we were launching Ripple Festival, part of the reason why we wanted to do it is because we wanted to get ourselves onto a stage that we wanted to be on.
We also wanted to get other people onto our stage, and we wanted to create an experience and a community around this idea of small business owners lifting each other up. Now, if [00:23:00] we had known how hard launching a business festival was going to be, we would not have done it. It was hard financially. It was hard physically.
Our relationship really had to go through a lot of different stressful moments. Anybody who's worked in events or putting on live, you know, in-person conferences or events knows that they're really stressful. There's nothing easy about getting a group of people into a room and designing a program that's gonna keep them interested, engaged, and feeling like they're receiving value.
The reason we were able to put Ripple on is because we did it together. Neither of us probably would've had enough courage to do something like that on our own. The two of us coming together meant that we could borrow courage from each other until we felt that confidence that comes from knowing that you've done something, and you will be able to do it again.
I think the last thing that I wanna share about things I wish I had known [00:24:00] 16 years ago. Now, I know that this has been a little bit of a rambly episode. I didn't have any notes. I just wanted to speak from the heart on this one. I didn't wanna share business lessons like how to increase your pricing and how to manage your money because that's what I talk about on all of the other episodes.
What I really wanted to share is some of the more kind of human truths that I have discovered through running this business. So the last thing that I want to share with you is that 16 years ago, I really wish I had known that my health is the key to being successful in business. I think it's so easy, especially in the early years, to just work yourself down into the ground.
And let's be frank, work is an addiction. It's just that it's m- a more acceptable addiction than many of the others. Work is an addiction because it feels satisfying. It's, it's amazing to feel needed, and sometimes [00:25:00] I and lots of you use work to escape the things happening in our personal lives that we don't want to face.
It's much easier to open up the laptop and reply to someone's email than it is to try to work out why a friendship is breaking down or, you know, something is going on in your life that's difficult. So what I wish I knew 16 years ago is that investing time in my own health, my own wellbeing, my own mental health is as important as investing in any other part of my business.
My business has taken a really big toll on my body. I have found that over the years I've found it really difficult to work out how to take on the stress of my clients without it becoming my stress, and I'm definitely still working that out. Particularly through the COVID time, there was a lot of financial distress.
There was a lot of real anxiety and panic [00:26:00] around what was going to happen with our small businesses as we went through this really difficult experience, and I'm really proud of how I held myself and how I helped my clients through that experience. But it really took a toll. I'm sure that a lot of you will resonate with this idea that our businesses can really suck the life out of us And it can be easy to fall into this pattern where we overwork and we over-invest our emotions and our time and our money and our kind of bandwidth into our businesses.
But we really need to make sure that our health, our relationships outside of our business and inside of our business, that our relationships are strong, that we are eating well, that we are moving our bodies, that we are taking care of our mental health, that we are seeking joy. It's something I've been really trying to focus [00:27:00] on since I had my appendix out in an emergency surgery one week before Ripple Festival this year, and it really sucked every little bit of energy and kind of compassion or joy that I had inside myself.
So since then, I've really been trying to seek out joy wherever I can. And that can be something as simple as watching how my dog's ears jump around when he goes for a walk with me. It can be as simple as, you know, being able to pack the dishwasher really well. It can be something as simple as the gratitude of being able to have my groceries delivered.
It can be finding joy in things like, wow, isn't it amazing that my business allows me to take my dog to the beach on a Friday morning and be there as long as we want to? Because I've designed my business to work that way, that I actually have time in my schedule to do [00:28:00] things outside of work. So there's lots of little places that we can find joy, but we really need to seek them out, not just because our business will be better because of it, but also because this is the human experience that we are all having So look, I'm going to stop this rambling conversation here.
I hope you found something useful in all of these weird little nuggets that I've been sharing. The things that I wish I knew 16 years ago was that making money starts in my mind, and there are so many people out there who could have helped me much sooner with coaching, support, and advice around the areas of my business that I wasn't strong in.
I wish I had started an email list 16 years ago instead of maybe eight years ago when I started mine, because having a strong email list is such an amazing asset in any business. I wish I'd known sooner that being really great at what I [00:29:00] do is not as valuable as being really great at telling people that I'm really great at what I do through my marketing.
I wish I'd known that if I want opportunities to come my way, I need to create them. I need to throw my hat in the ring for speaking opportunities. I needed to launch my own podcast. I needed to create a small business festival because I wanted to create a stage that I wanted to be on and that I wanted to put others on.
And I wish I had realized earlier in my business that my health and wellbeing is more important than anything that's ever going to come in business, and that continuing to overwork and over-invest my time in my business has not been positive for me overall. I love my business. I love this podcast. I love that you listen in every week.
The podcast is growing. I'd love to see what you think about it if you could share a review or a [00:30:00] rating on the podcast. That helps more people find out about it. And yeah, I love my business. I love being able to be a small business owner. I love that that is my identity, and there are so many things that I do now that make my life and my business better that I wish I had known about 16 years ago.
I'll see you in next week's episode
Outro
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'd 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 [00:31:00] experience
