Elaine Rogers
This is one of the big conversations I often have more lately with clients scale over growth or growth over scale and scaling as part of the life design as well, because it doesn't mean that you always have to be going forward or up, or better or more, you can scale in any direction.
Finola Howard
That's Elaine Rogers, Online Business Manager for coaches and practitioners. Our conversation in this episode of your truths shared leads to this idea of doing things by design, as opposed to by accident. It's about business by design and life by design. And its planning from a different perspective, one that is both conscious and natural. We also discussed the differences between growing and scaling a business, I invite you to join us. I'm Finola Howard, intuitive marketer, your host and founder of how great marketing works, I believe that every business has a story to tell, because that's how the market decides whether to buy or not. And your story has to resonate with who you are, and with the people you want to serve. And this podcast is about helping you reach the market in a way that feels right to you. So if you're an entrepreneur with a dream you want to make real, then this is the podcast for you. Because great marketing is your truth share. Welcome to your truth shared Elaine, I'm so delighted you're with me today for this podcast episode. As you know, I'm particularly interested in what goes on with next level growth, or how businesses grow, and how they got to where they got to here. And then what happens next. And one of the themes that I found myself thinking about and particularly as we had a recent conversation was this idea of intent, planning consciousness around choosing what the next stage is. And also that window of opportunity where you have to just allow new things to come in. So it's this, how do we balance this idea of intent, consciousness and allowing all at the same time? And I just thought, you're the right person to have a chat with about that. Thank you. And what I'd love to do is invite you to tell let's tell us a little bit, share a little bit about your story to this point, because very interesting story. And I'll let you take welcome.
Elaine Rogers
Thank you so much for Nola. It's a joy to be on this podcast with you today. So yeah, pretty long journey spanning over a few days. Interesting. We kind of Yes, yes, we all get to the point where, you know, we think vintage and ancient is not really, as long ago as it really is, is. So really, it's been a long journey. What got me here today started out with a path I suppose that is very often chosen for you. So school time, those later years. You know, there was you know, the intersect, and fifth year and sixth year, I did a four year intersect. And my second the last few years of school were quite a difficult time in our family. And for me in particular, I was in a caregiver role. I was also trying to do my, my study my exams, and all I wanted to do was be out of such a rebel. The last thing I wanted to do was be in school, be in the home, like no interested in learning or study or anything like that. So fast forward then to sort of you know what to do after school, I did get enough points to get me into a bachelor of arts degree in University of college core core curry lives. And I did that college was a good time for me, I think. And then coming straight out of college in the early 90s. As you probably would remember, we had recession then. So I did a fourth course. computerised stock control, and I got to ride a forklift. So liked it. And from that, I got some work experience. So my degree was just worthless. Any jobs I went to interviews for. Constantly I was overqualified. I was over experienced and that actually was a massive dip, let's say in my confidence. So I went on and tall what can they do? Did the forest course got the work experience? Had fun in the work experience with the other girl in the office? And any of the customers that would bring in I'd be like got a job for me. Anyone got a job? So I just asked every time and eventually I did get I'm a job in an office in in Cork. And I was in that job a couple of years. And I was also in quite a toxic relationship. There was abuse involved. It felt like my life was meagre situation in my, my home wasn't so great. I felt I wasn't in control, even though I was added thing, apparently. And then I got out of that situation, thankfully. And a few months later, I happened to meet this German guy in the pub, through a mutual friend, you know, as great romance stories always happened in Ireland. And we just got talking, he had just come into the pub from work directly from work, he was cooking. So he was a chef in a well known restaurant in Cork, and we started talking about food naturally. And that conversation led to a priority in our friend's house. And then that led to conversations over the telephone. In the old days. The landline was the only communication that you had, I was fascinated by this guy. And we always talked about, like, what are we going to do travelling, I had actually I was in the process of applying for a visa for Australia to go with my then ex boyfriend. And he was planning to work for an overland company doing these big overland trips through Africa. So he'd be cooking. He was the mechanic, he would be the tour guide. It's kind of an all in thing back in those days. And then we thought, well, let's do our own thing together. And literally within two months, I had told my mom that we were leaving the country
Finola Howard
and going travelling, and that was it. How brave Elaine.
Elaine Rogers
I had literally only known the guy. A few months. I knew him I think maybe four months when we left together to Germany, and we went to Germany because we stayed in his dad's garden shed. Now in Germany, they're very fancy, right? Have these kind of summer garden party sheds. But we converted this into a little apartment for ourselves. And we spent six months preparing his sidecar. That was the transport that he had. That was the transport we were going to use, getting our inoculations, vaccines, all that kind of thing, making money for that trip, and buying all of our gear, camping gear and you know, buy gear. But
Finola Howard
just to clarify this was because when you say sidecar, just to clarify for listeners, it was a motorcycle trip you were going on? Yeah, I know. You really are the rebel.
Elaine Rogers
Actually, I just realised before this call that on my LinkedIn profile, I have a job section of the trip that we did. So it wasn't a breaking career or anything like that. There's actually a picture of the site. Check it out as a picture of us back in those days. I looked, I looked nothing like I do know. But so yeah, that was the start of that big adventure. We prepared for it. We planned for it. You know, we were clever. And we made sure that we were self sufficient. By the time we left Germany, I think it was from September 95. embarked on what we thought would be six months trip through Africa. That was the plan. And off we went. So it was literally wild camping on our motorcycle through the route that at that time, I am talking about 30 years ago. At that time, the roots are quite restricted. I mean, Algeria was a no go. So we went through Morocco and Mauritania did all of West Africa, Central Africa, over into East Africa down to southern Africa. And that was I think around a year. So after three months, we realised that we weren't travelling, we were travelling too fast. And we weren't spending the amount of money that we thought we would spend. Probably basing it on European cost of lives, you're spending less, way less. But we had no idea also because we were travelling on a vehicle, whereas a home you're living in, in a home. So it's, you know, slightly different. It's hard to estimate. And it's not like you can just Google it and look it up online or speak with digital nomads. You know, you have to like read the know. Yeah. To find this stuff out. But
Finola Howard
better to overestimate before to overestimate.
Elaine Rogers
What Yeah, so we left with a bunch of traveller checks that we had saved up on that working part in in Germany. So that that trip turned into sort of a two year stint in Africa, if you like when you're travelling, and then we found ourselves in a situation where we could work in Namibia than in the southwest. And we spent a year there working. We ran a safari lodge. It was an amazing Time, I can't say it was the amazing year of our life because it was just part of all of that. And very unique, very different. And it just exposed me to a world that I had never, in my short life experienced before. And that sense of freedom and being responsible for your own self, to the extreme of being responsible for your safety, making decisions around that making sure that you're safe as much as you can, what
Finola Howard
would make what would have made you unsafe, they're like, what was unsafe?
Elaine Rogers
I suppose allowing ourselves into situations that didn't feel right. And that literally comes back to your gut feeling about something. doing your research beforehand, and then speaking with locals in terms of physical safety. Yeah, I suppose physical safety was
Finola Howard
like from animals or from WHO?
Elaine Rogers
People, Civil War animals, animals weren't such a big issue because we were on a motorcycle, we weren't actually allowed into a lot of the national parks that would have had the predator animals. I mean, we've been charged by elephants and you know, we've had like hairy situations, but stack calculated risks and then minimise as much as possible. So yeah, there was that kind of sense of freedom, living on the road, wild camping and, and engaging with locals and experiencing, I suppose, and engaging with extremes of travelling, so you have the the bureaucracy, the corruption, all of that side of things for getting into different countries, leaving countries visas coming up against people are forwarders and you know, having demands and whatnot. Some hairy, physical, dangerous situations, because we stood our ground. But But overall, it was it was fine. And then, you know, travelling through the unknown, you never, you never really know. But you could say that about any country really. So we arrived down into Namibia, I think that was 96. And we met this girl called Ooty. And we were staying in a hostel in Swakopmund on the coast of Namibia. And he passed by on our motorcycle and she saw this whole car in the little parking area and she barges into the kind of restaurant is like who owns that motorcycle outside. So we got chatting with her and Reinhold actually my now husband, Reinhold. He was very ill at that time. So she said, Look, when you get better, and you come to when took, you must look me up, you must come and visit. So we did that. When we arrived in winter, we called her up. And we ended up staying with her for a little while doing work on the bike, that kind of thing. But also, it turned out that she was a tour guide, doing the Safaris. And she had a massive network of you know, Safari Lodge owners or farms that were working in tourism. So she put us in touch with all of these various Safari lodges or hotels. And but I mean, like to go for an interview, you had to drive 500 kilometres or 700 kilometres. So invariably, you'd end up staying at these places. And the interview was just like hanging out for the weekends. It's quite amazing. You know, like meerkats just wandering. And, yeah, it was, yeah, about as close as close to nature as you can get. And then we met a nice German lady in back in vintage look for a cup of coffee. And she was running a safari lodge up in the Capri the strip, which is a tiny little strip in the north of Namibia that borders, Angola, Zimbabwe, and Botswana. So it's way up in that far NorthEastern corner. And she had a large there. So we had a cup of coffee with her and we had the job by the end of the cup of coffee. So we had to get back on her bike, another 1000 kilometres up to the backup to where we had come from. Because we had come from there and ran that place for a year. And we have to leave them because our work visa was off. And we went to South Africa stay with some friends that we had met along the road there. Again, got the bike ready for the next leg of the journey. The next leg of the journey was in fact, we had met to German, a German couple back in East Africa somewhere and they were on motorcycles. And they had been on the road at that stage already for 15 years. Wow. It's hard to even imagine, you know back in those days, and they they told us that because we told them we were going to maybe go on to Australia after And they said, Yeah, Australia will always be there. But South America is gonna change.
Finola Howard
So they were tracking what they had the world was changing at the time how, you know, what was what life looked like in those countries, then you could see was already really changing. So you are going to see the stuff before disappeared? Yes,
Elaine Rogers
exactly. Because somewhere like Australia will change politically and all of that. But the bigger changes that you know, it's not, not a lot has happened in the last 30 years. In that sense, South America has changed so much since. So we're glad we went and we did go over, we shipped the bike over, we flew over, and we did all of South America, that was another year. And then into Central America, Mexico, arrived up into the states. And we stayed with a friend again, a guy we met on a motorbike in South America. And we did, we travelled with him for a few weeks in Brazil. But he went on home, and we arrived at his place just to hang out and actually work on the bike again. So you have this kind of constant, you know, maintenance of us and our CD sidecar vehicle. So we went to visit my uncle and aunt, Julie and Charlie who lived in San Francisco. So we were staying with dog in Silicon Valley. He was working in one of the startups at the time. We were convinced then by my aunt, she was like, Well, what are you going to do? We sit down, we probably go through picking or something up in Canada. And she said, Well, why don't you hang out here and see if you can find work here. We were like, This sounds much more exciting than free plugging. So we she invited us to stay. And we ended up living with her for a year with them for a year. And I picked up work as a childcare. So like I had, I don't know, three or four different families that I looked after their kids. And I like get them all together. And that was kind of the start of my real entrepreneurial sort of, you know, how am I going to manage all of this, bring these kids together and get paid better than charging one person working for one person. And Reinhold got work as well. So we did that for a year. And that basically gave us enough money then to continue on. But also, just to skip ahead a little bit. Actually, when we got back to Ireland, we had more savings than what we had left with. So all of the money that would have cost us travelling, was spent, obviously, but we worked and saved our money in Africa in San Francisco. So, you know, we're we're quite intentional that way and clever that way. So
Finola Howard
you had an adventure, and still saved. And so that was like five years? Isn't that what you said? That
Elaine Rogers
was five years in terms of? Yeah, so after San Francisco, we continued on in the States, that was very much around the big nature stuff. So Canyon lands, the Grand Canyon, the Rocky Mountains into Canada, the was life. And the I would call it extreme nature. So the likes of Alaska and northern Canada are just, you know, your your it is really to your own devices, you have to rely on yourself more so than anywhere that, you know, you might have access to something and 50 kilometres or 100 kilometres out there. You're really on your own for hundreds and hundreds of kilometres. And it was actually the mosquitoes drove us out in the end.
Finola Howard
But it's a really lost art, isn't it this whole idea of self sufficiency. And yes, like when we when we think I mean, it's something that's talked about a lot about how our kids are, you know, wrapped in cotton wool because they're playdates are arranged or everything is monitored all the time. Whereas this is you making a choice, sometimes just in the moment, and it is about survival and adventure all at the same time. Yeah, how did that set you up? Then? When you moved? You then decided to move to France. Is that correct?
Elaine Rogers
So at the end of 99, we had finished our five years and we arrived back into Ireland for the millennium, basically, and Ireland with our next stop. But we did want to do the whole you know, settle down together, because don't forget, this was a five year relationship that had started from kind of nothing. And that was the only that was the only relationship that we knew was on the road. So we wanted to try out well how are we going to survive together in in normal, you know, living making house we both know you can house so let's make house so we have to get the job. Oh, well, that kind of stuff, get the mortgage. So that took a few months to get together. And that worked out. What we wanted was our little cottage down in West Cork. And we ended up with a little cottage up in north cork, because we just actually weren't willing at that time to kind of stretch ourselves and West Cork property, it was pretty expensive. So we still got our cottage but up in north cork, and we were there 13 years altogether. And that's when I sort of, you know, went through my whole morphing, because I fell back on the office work when we came back in order to get a job to, to fulfil that, that need of pleasing the banks, and having a wage or salary. Then, once that was all done and dusted, and we were quite settled. I, I had been training a little bit, actually, when we got back first, I did my ECDL if you remember that that's my, you know, using Microsoft Office. And I was training it in Cork in the city before we got the house. So I don't know, I think I must have liked that and decided, yeah, I don't want to work in an office anymore. I want to do training. So I went off and I did various courses, did my advanced ECDL, my Microsoft Office Specialist qualifications. And I did a train the trainer course with the Irish Institute of training and development. And I just then stopped gave him a notice that like the way I left Ireland, I just stopped my job, give him my notice and declared myself self employed.
Finola Howard
How fast did you make that decision? And
Elaine Rogers
it's very hard to say yeah, that was like it was it was fast in the sense that I knew I had to give notice. Probably it was four weeks, I don't remember. So you could say it was four weeks had been it been festering before that. But also I had done my training and stuff. So this was without actually consciously realising I was putting the things in place to be ready. So there was no like plan was nothing written on paper, no goal setting any of that kind of stuff. Yeah,
Finola Howard
but I kind of have to contest with you about this, because I think you inherently plan and then you say, Well, I didn't plan it. But I actually think because you prepare so well. And you kind of weigh it up. So a plan doesn't have to be on paper to be a plan. Yeah, it's that kind of, you know, clarity of what's the next step. That's, to me is the plan. And
Speaker 1
also possibly from travelling as well, knowing that you can still jump into the unknown. And you know, what's the worst that can happen? So I'm saving, you know, I'm not heading into a new country that I don't know about, or am I gonna fall off the side of a canyon or something. I'm safe, physically, and financially. So the worst that could happen was that it didn't work out, I'd have to get another job. And maybe my my ego would have been crushed a little bit. So I think, you know, it was making a big leap. But it didn't, it certainly didn't scare me. And I was old enough to be scared to know, I was I was in my 30s at that stage.
Finola Howard
What does that mean? Old enough to be scared.
Elaine Rogers
I'm mature enough enough life experience Enough. Enough years behind me to have lived and not be very young. And it's one of the things actually that I did learn on that road on that trip was youth is an amazing force. It provides naivety that is really important for travelling, because that naivety gives you confidence and courage and strength as in physical strength, the strength of the mind as well to just be to make a decision or decide on something and then go and do it. So now when you're older, I think the planning is more there's probably more conditioning, more fear, there's more life stuff that you kind of bring along with you almost as baggage and you have to it to look
Finola Howard
after that. But do you think you can let that down? Like you know what I mean, I that was for myself and Kevin doing the campervan and doing that taking that three months off and not knowing how are we going to figure this out. And then even, like, only just doing things like booking the first night or two because we wanted the freedom to explore and have the adventure. And for me that was obviously later In life, I mean, I would have done my mad crazy stuff when I was in my 20s and all the rest of it. But I think we need to take leaps, you know, to the maturity, it should help us, in some ways take more risks should.
Speaker 1
And I suppose it does in a way. But there's that sense of consequence also, that you don't, you don't have when you're younger, because you haven't had an experience of it. So you can't be afraid of consequence that you're not aware of. And you don't know what you don't know. Bringing all of that then into decision making as you're older. And also, I know, in my own case, I do have to be more better prepared in myself when I think about things. And yet, by the time comes to do that thing, it feels like you know, there was no, it feels like that is spontaneous. But I think, really, it's not. So yeah. Sounds a bit like I'm fooling myself here.
Finola Howard
No, I No, I don't think that at all. I think it's, you're quite, it's why I'm interested in this conversation, because it is this idea of consciousness. You know, what do we actively choose and what we create space for? Because there's periods of growth in businesses. And I hear this, the cycles that a lot of businesses go through. And I know this from having been in business for 25 years, but I know that things happen every few five years, we change a business fundamentally. And often when you make a big change, there's a cliff edge, and nothing has happened. Nothing is happening. So if, for me, I just trust let's Okay, the cliff edge is okay, because we're just moving. Do you know what I mean? I,
Unknown Speaker
I do a
Finola Howard
carbon reinvention thing. And you know this, from the reinvention? I know, you have reinvented?
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah, there's an element also, you know, of excitement about that, that, I suppose it's, it's, it's a risk benefit, sort of trade off as well. If you really want something, and you're afraid of certain things around that plan around that, that goal, or around wanting to do that? You have to sort of balance that out, and then decide, yeah, I'm going for this, what is the worst that can happen? You know, we can put off so many barriers. And all our barriers are different. So if you were to pull out a whole range of barriers, you'd pick two or three, I'd pick maybe a different two or three. But a lot of that also depends on our circumstances and where we're at. Yeah, of course, you know, and if you're, let's say, financially, not secure, but you're financially okay, then what's the worst that can happen if you decide to start a new product or start a new business or change your job, you know, it's, we all have different, different challenges. Kind of in front of us, there can be a wall or something that you could more through will
Finola Howard
talk to me about life design.
Speaker 1
So designing the type of life that we wanted to live. And it probably is, now that I say that out loud, probably does go back to that sense of freedom and choice that we had on the road. And it permeates through my work also in anything that I do in my professional life. But the life design piece came from when we were living in Ireland. And we were doing really well. So everyone was moving forward and moving up. And we went right through the Celtic Tiger, then there was the crash and burn. And it I honestly couldn't get my head around the fact that we're in the biggest fall of recession that we've ever had, you know, the other recessions before that we've been skewed, as through through a few of them phenomenon. I think this one was quite, you know, drastic in how fast it happened. And yet, people were still clinging on to that, you know, we still have to live our life and have a big house and the big car, I know I'm probably stereotyping and all the cliche, but still going out to restaurants still going to party still hanging out in that way. And everything was so going up and up and up in price and everything was getting faster. And it was that that that kind of you know, buying into the rat race, the consumerism, the materialism, and you get carried along with it, and it feels normal and it becomes the new normal. I for some reason Isn't, and I think it was because throughout the whole Celtic Tiger, when we arrived back in Ireland and setup home, you know, playing house and all of that. It just didn't, it didn't feel right to us to follow that trajectory that everyone else was going on, we actually wanted to step out of it all a step back from at all, not to the extent of, you know, going off grid and all of that. But just to slow it all down, and you can slow it down when you're living in it. And it's demanded of you, by society, by your social circles, all of that, you know, there's no such thing as as meeting up with a friend and going for a walk in a forest. Now it does happen. I know it does. And that happens a lot more now, thankfully. But you kind of you know, you'd meet for coffees and meet for lunches and brunches, and everything was cost and everything was was out of nature, so to speak. Maybe that was on your own circle of friends, I don't know. But we did not take off like everyone else. When, when everything was great. You know, we didn't upscale everything our house, our cars are, we kept everything the way it was, everything was functional, everything was fit for purpose. We saved a lot of money. We availed of any kind of schemes that were going there was a massive government savings scheme way back, where we put away the maximum amount and I think you got like a Euro every five pound every five pounds or something. We actually build some extension on our cottage with that money. You know, we were clever, we were I would say clever because it wasn't scrimping or anything like that we still had a great life and still went on loads of holidays and did travelling and everything in between. But this pace of life, and we were on this hamster wheel with everybody else. And we just wanted to step off. I grew up in County Wicklow in my my young years primary school age, and I remember those years were as five kids, well, maybe for the fifth one was only tiny. But we would literally leave our house in the middle of the countryside, and my mother would not see us several years dark. But we would be could be two miles away from home. And you're talking about little kids, we were on under 10. And we were building igloos and, you know, tree houses, and pulling my father's off a scrap car pulling the bonnet of the car up to the field to toboggan downers, in the snow, that kind of freedom and sense of self responsibility, and that access to nature outside your back door. So we moved to rural France, we're literally in the foothills of the Pyrenees, everything, all of that is available to me, outside my my litigate, I've access to the mountains of access to the forests, of access to nature, and nature of nature in my garden. And we knew that we had to make a big change to in order to achieve that, bring it back to basics back to a simpler basic life, where we just used what we needed. And everything that we have was fit for purpose. The only indulgence that we really have is the motorcycles. And that's you know, that's that's for play. So that's okay. And we're sort of morphed a bit like that as well. So like I had back in Ireland, I had done my coach training. So I discovered coaching, that was part of me coming into my mid 30s, the biological clock was ticking, the pressure was on from family friends, so I knew you guys gonna, you know, start up and babies and all of that. So I took Ryan who died for dinner one night, and I said, right, this is the time we need to make a decision here. And what came out of that, and that was from self work I had done to that coaching course that I did. And we agreed that okay, babies weren't on the table. That was fine. But I wanted to get married. I wanted my day out. So we got married the following year. And it has simplified things that's for sure. Especially since we've we've come to France it has made things very much easier in dealing with the state and bureaucracy and everything. Tax and everything. I'm digressing,
Finola Howard
no, but it's cut. It's conscious. You're You're what I like is this idea that you've identified the things that are important to you weighed up what you're willing to give up. Perhaps that wasn't I don't want to be putting words giving
Speaker 1
up a pension and giving knock your VHi and giving up monthly salary, and giving up the safety net of, you know, your social circle to give all of that up, and maybe have a part of it when you move or when you move away, or make a massive change in your life. It's like people say to us, Oh, you're so lucky to live where you live. And I honestly telling them like fear, like telling them to
Finola Howard
go, because it's not that you chose it. No,
Speaker 1
it's not luck. It's this life design. It's our version of life design. I don't know what the actual meaning of life design is. But that design was very, a very personal thing. But it, it fed into the way also that I work and the type of work that I do, and why I have sort of reinvented myself over the years. And some of it, it's not that I didn't have control over. But when we came here, our house still wasn't sold in Ireland. So we had that headache, and financial insecurity, that money was locked up in an asset that we couldn't actually get rid of, because of recession and everything else. So we we ended up just dropping the price and to be rid of it and to be rid of the that horrible overhanging you know, trying to look after a place in another country, when you're starting, you know, a new, a new part of your journey or your adventure. But I was going to continue coaching, and to do online training, because I had been doing a lot of online training, remote style training, blended learning stuff, I got more into soft skills back in Ireland as well, you know, doing courses with the Eleos. And I think there were enterprise boards back then various different things, but it was like the soft melding with the with the heart, but it's going to continue coaching, once we get our finances sorted, and I realised that the internet here such a simple thing, and the Internet couldn't even support a basic Skype call, you know that the video would drop or the call would drop. And there's no way that I could build a coaching business based on technology that doesn't work when it's in necessity, because it would have had to been remote or virtual. So I thought, Well, what else can I do? You know, what am I good at? What do I like? What do I think the world might need? And what could I get paid for? And what fit into those four categories to give me my purpose was going back to my knowledge and my love of all things tech. Because my degree was in it. My degree was in computers and mathematics, and logic, all that kind of thing. And that just sort of transposed, I suppose into digital marketing, building websites. Back in those years, you know, anyone was able to build a really good website, I know that we have the builders now and all of that. But the it was the the needs were based were much less than they are now, building website is very complex now compared to you know, 1015 years ago. But it definitely was an area that I really enjoyed. I knew that I could somehow get my feet in there. And then I discovered the virtual assistants world. It's a whole there's a whole industry. And I connected with various virtual assistants, and decided, yeah, I could, I could, I could market myself as like a tech fee. And immediately started at the top of the range above the top of the range because I knew the skill set I was bringing to the table. And I knew I also had the coaching skills and the negotiation skills. And what was really important for me moreso was with the clients that I work with, I always need to know and understand their why, why they're running this business, why they built this business, and what's it all for? Not at the end, but as as they go through that journey.
Finola Howard
Why did you need to understand that? I mean, you know, I'm a big believer in that as cornerstone to the business and business growth and and building your team around you. But why? Why was that important to you? Simply for
Speaker 1
that reason? It was important to me. So why shouldn't that be important for other business owners as well because we often fall into things and you know, I fallen into things. We often fall into a business or a way of working or an industry without putting any thought into it and then we just kind of continue on that way. But a lot of business owners don't realise as well. Okay, once you're kind of up and running, then you have the freedom if you want it to change completely or to transfer Those are two more four to two words I really dislike from COVID is pivot. And resilience is another one. But that's a whole other thing. But, but but just just be open to, okay, I started doing this work, I don't have to continue doing this work, I could do something else very easily. Knowing and having the confidence as well, to not convince but that clients or potential clients, they can see that in you that I really knows what she's talking about. She's not an expert in any one particular thing. But I'm like the chain of all trades that brings it together in a way that it does gel together. So it's not all just different bits, I can do that, or that or that. For me, it's all interconnected. So my training background, my coaching background, you know, my online digital skills,
Finola Howard
when did that morph into that lovely phrase that maybe everybody doesn't understand. And you might explain it, which is OBM
Elaine Rogers
OBM, it stands for online business manager. I'm not actually an OPM, in the strict sense of the phrase, an online business manager generally works with business owner managers, like an office manager, they manage the people, the projects, the operations. And that'd be the bones of it, it could involve other things. But my client base is basically single business owners who mostly coaches based in Ireland, they will often have associates on board, they're still a one man band, because you know, they're not employing people, virtual
Finola Howard
assistant morphing into OBM. How did that happen? Like how did because that was a shift, that was a conscious shift, why that shift, the
Elaine Rogers
love for, for coaching, and using coaching skills in kind of a tech situation, if you like, you know, implementing data, analytics tech, being in tune with the business owner as to their why. And that becomes a very natural connection and a very natural relationship, then, with the business owner, they start talking about, you know, their services, their products, we can talk about the financial aspects of them, or the financial parts. But very often, it's like, well, I'm thinking, I'd like to do this, or they might do some extra training. And then they want to bring that into the business. And we talk about it. And it just felt so natural that well, I'm actually OBM. And when I'm still just a virtual assistant, and OB adding in the way that we're talking strategy here, you know, we're talking about possibilities and opportunities, we're not talking about how to set on paper. And that was a very natural progression. And I had never heard of the term OBM, even when I was when I was a virtual assistant. But in 2019, it came into my periphery somehow, I don't know how. And I discovered that this is really, okay, so this is where it gets, it gets interesting, because OBM is apparently a step up from VA, because you're doing deeper work, you're doing higher end work, you're obviously charging more, I did not see it that way. Now, it was part of scaling as well, in the sense that I did not want to work with more clients. But I wanted to be bringing more money into the household. So I wanted to scale as opposed to grow. And I definitely was not going down the route of you know, setting up like a VA agency or anything like that where you have people.
Finola Howard
It's a nice clarification, I want you to scale and not just grow.
Elaine Rogers
Yes, and this is one of the big conversations I often have. More lately with clients scale over growth or growth over scale.
Finola Howard
Let's talk about that. And
Elaine Rogers
scaling as part of the life design as well. Because it doesn't mean that you always have to be going forward or up or better or more. You can scale in any direction. You can go left, right, up, down, back. Whatever feels right. And in my case, whatever feels right for myself and Reinhold and our home and our, our life together. And individually. It's
Finola Howard
a good distinction. Yeah, I'm not sure people realise
Elaine Rogers
if you Google the difference between scaling and grow, you know, if you've never heard of that concept before. There's a lot of information out there that'll help sort of differentiate the two. But actually that to get technical about it. So, growing your business means you bring in more income, more turnover. But as your turnover goes up, your expenses go up. Right? So you bring in more people, they cost more money. So everything goes up together and you're growing, growing, growing. But scaling means that your turnover is going up, but your expenses are not going up. So you're charging more, or you're you're doing this.
Finola Howard
It's a change of business model. And it's a change of perspective. Because, yeah, it
Unknown Speaker
can be yes, it's really
Finola Howard
important distinction for people to get to tell me about some of the interesting parts of being an OBM, some of the kind of unusual things that you've worked on with clients.
Elaine Rogers
The unusual part maybe comes into the fact that I don't really niche, I attract coaches, because of my background. And because I get work through word of mouth and referral, Bush, I work, I've worked with all different types of business owners, and I think the age and also where they're coming from in their backgrounds. You know, see, if coaches who would have been creative before, they come with very different problems, struggles and ideas for their business, someone coming from quite a business background, or even like myself, you know, more technical, business background, they'll have different challenges, they'll find certain things a lot easier. And certain things a lot more difficult. I've clients that like they just can't even say the word money, not to mind talk about money. And I'm like, Well, we have to talk about you know, why you're doing this particular service or programme or idea that you have, they're like, well, will it work unless you put in enough effort, and it will work? But what does that mean for you? So does that mean more profit? Does it mean that you can provide a service that's supported by it's not going to bring in a profit, but there might be another service on the other side that makes enough profit to cover this one? Because this one you want to do for different reasons? Because you want to bring a certain methodology into all schools in Ireland, or, you know, you have a vision, it's about the vision, really.
Finola Howard
I think I went off on a tangent. So it's, again about consciousness. Talk to me about sustainability. Because this is a very recurring theme in many of our conversations. Yeah,
Elaine Rogers
so it depends, like sustainability means different things. So sustainability can mean that your business is fit for purpose, and the tools you use in your business are fit for purpose, and will support business growth, or business scaling, or whatever sustainability then is, you know, it's a, it's a huge importance in our life here, where where we are in France, we want to have a sustainable way of, of living our life. And that includes being more conscious of, you know, circular economy, and I suppose are zero waste, or what is your net zero waste, and all that kind of stuff, what comes into the household, and what goes out, and how that balances. When I do with sustainability with business owners in companies are in business, the way I would phrase it is sustainability by design. So there's no point in taking on, you know, a platform or a tool, if it's got all the bells and whistles, and you're going to use 10% of it. So there's two elements to that. One is you're paying way more than you need to be doing for a platform or two. Secondly, is is costing a massive amount of resources in terms of co2 emissions around the world with data centres and processing, and all that kind of stuff, the stuff we don't see. And also that it will never be fit for purpose, because it could be that the support for that particular platform is way above what, you know, a single business owner might need. And then you know that also the other sustainability piece is to look at the the processes and tools you have in your business and are they are they ethical? And even simple things like you know, where are they investing their money and bring that into the home as well. We're now looking at our, our banking and our investments, insurance companies that we work with, where are they investing their money? If they're investing it in oil, I don't even want to know. I
Finola Howard
like this. This, this journey that you've Going on seems to have brought you to hear like it when, as you tell that story. So I mean, often on a podcast, there'll be the discussion of how many stories, how many people's stories do we tell Finola? How many people's stories do I have on the podcast? But I suppose what I'm one of the things that I want to share on this podcast is there's a reason why you are where you are. And it's because of all the incremental steps that came along the way. And the adventures early on, and the the, the design piece that live by design to now being sustainable by design, to actually choosing the life that you want. And that is something that's important to share, I think, because we're at a point in the world and in society where we kind of have to make those choices now. Yeah, absolutely. What would you leave people with today in terms of, if they want to flip their thinking, to, you know, scaling, as opposed to growing or growing, as opposed to scaling and designing and choosing and choosing a business that supports your belief system? That is, by design, sustainable by design, life, by design, business, by design, not passive by design? And like, again, I reiterate this carbon that you said the other day of, I'm not really not really into the planning, but by design is planning is Choice. Choice is planning, actively choosing. That's why I wanted you here. So what would you leave them with, in that space, to encourage people by design, I think,
Speaker 1
behind every business, the business owner can lose sight of the fact that behind that business as a person, meaning them, and very often we forget, or stop looking inward, and really just connecting with ourselves and what our true wants and needs are, and instead looking outward. And the outward piece is, it's prevalent now. Because we're always looking at what other people are doing on LinkedIn or on their websites or in, you know, speaking with them in networking events, or whatever it might be that we kind of lose sight of ourselves a little bit. And I would just say, you know, come back to basics is a big one. However successful your business is, or however many services and products if on the go, you know, there's such a movement, just take a bit of timeout, break state and to use a coaching term. So get yourself out of your normal environment. For me, it would be out of this office. And this office is conducive to working. But it's conducive to implementing and having, you know, important conversations with my clients. But I need to be out of this room to do any kind of creative work or creative thinking, or deep work. So get yourself out of your normal situation, and get into your head a little bit. And just get a feeling try and get a feeling for Am I on the right track? And am I doing this for the right reasons?
Finola Howard
How often should a business owner do that process? Because I even this morning, I was writing. I was writing my email shot today I'm releasing it. And I notice I'm very consciously bringing in my awareness to what state I'm in now. And is that conducive to where I want to go next? And it's, it's much more regularly now than it ever was before. So in your experience, even in from your own perspective, how often would you go into that state of checking in of how am I now? What where am I taking this business? What do I want all of those things? How often I'd
Speaker 1
be lying if I said it at you know, every, every whatever, every few weeks, every few months or every few years? I think it's a when things start feeling like they're getting beyond or out of control. That's an obvious sign. When you're happy and everything that you're doing and you have this lovely sense of alignment, everything's in place. I will see like, if it's not broken, don't fix it. I wouldn't see a need to sit back and think, Am I really Is this really okay? If it feels okay, it's okay. Because everything is working towards you know, wherever your unconscious is kinda sending you I suppose that when things go wrong when a business owner like when we fail, and we feel like failures and it's Some of the emotions that I've been going through recently, it's like, oh my god, I'm not doing this. So I must be failing. But failing is knowledge. Failing is feedback. And as we know, we can use that opportunity to learn. But knowledge, knowing it is also power, because knowledge is always power. And by messing up something or doing it wrong, or not getting it, right, that is information, it tells it helps us to guide helps to guide us. On the flip side of that there's always space for us, sometimes you've just got to wait for the signal to kind of comb. And I'd imagine women are a bit more in tune with that. It's Oh, I, you know, I just had a gut feeling about it or an intuition, or it was just a sense or a feeling that I have.
Finola Howard
But I think it's an action. You know, I think it's an active state, I think it's very often businesses will coast for a while because the status quo is serving. And all of a sudden, that status quo can change. Yeah, whereas you know, that tuning in peace, which you will hear women talk a lot about a lot, that tuning into what feels right, all that stuff. It actually is an action, more than just a reflection. I feel, yeah. Because I liked this idea of business by design, sustainability, by design life by design, I would even go as far as to say, weekly or monthly, that active state should be pressed. Your thoughts?
Elaine Rogers
I can't agree or disagree, or, you know, I gave my thoughts on it. And I think, yeah, for me, it just feels more fluid, or more. Maybe spontaneous, or something I don't know, I but I do know is that change is the only constant that we have in the world. And we're always in one of the four stages of change. And when we're in the comfort zone of change, it feels comfortable. And I'm rarely in the comfort zone, I get very bored very quickly. And I will do it unconsciously, or subconsciously sabotage something just to get myself out of it. Not even knowing consciously of doing that. Kind of makes it kind of fun, though, because you never know what yourself is going to do to sabotage yourself in an amine in a good way. But that air, that part that, you know, coasting along as well, even for a business, a business has its own energy, the business has its own cycle of change. So that when it's coasting along and comfortable, at one point, it's just going to kind of go stale, or stop. So it you know, something's got to happen. And something always does happen to either stop it or, or push it into a different different parts of those four C's of change.
Finola Howard
parting words, Elaine?
Elaine Rogers
Oh, parting words, based on you know, what we've been speaking about today. I would just, I would just invite everyone to just check in with themselves. You know, everyone is a parent or a business owner or an employee, or an employer, we all have so many roles that we that, that that we play in our lives, and that could be uncle aunt or, you know, grandparent. But just and I suppose maybe it is tied in with what you've just said about the business, you know, we do need to check in with ourselves regularly. So I agree on that one regularly. And also, when you feel things are getting out of control, like we did in Ireland, myself, my husband, you can give yourself permission to step off that hamster wheel and and be okay with that. And the fact that no one else follows your goals with you. That's okay, too. And as long as you're healthy and safe, you can achieve anything.
Finola Howard
Those are good parting words. Thank you so much for joining me.
Elaine Rogers
Thank you.
Finola Howard
Hope you enjoy that episode. And if you'd like to find out more about Elaine, then connect with her on LinkedIn and check out the smart ob m.com For more information about how she works. And if you'd like to support the show, please follow or subscribe on your chosen platform makes all the difference to the impact that I'd love this podcast to have on the world. deeper conversations that allow us to grow, to celebrate each other's truths and to know that there are many who are working with a greater purpose in the world.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
