49: Angela Henderson: Owning Your Business Journey

Angela Henderson is a great business coach, based in Australia. One of the reasons I wanted to speak with her, was because I absolutely love her level of energy and creativity and how she’s always doing different projects. 

Her Beginning

She started her business journey about 10 years ago in the e-Comm business with over 1400 different e-Comm products. She had a second income stream, signed as one of Australia’s leading parenting influencers, she worked with Netflix as one of their top 30 influencers and a lot of big national chains and international chains.

She now works as a business coach with amazing women from around the world, helping them get all the pieces in place and have consistent five-figure months and then on the six and seven-figure years but without burning out in the process.

The idea for her first business came as she sat down on the floor with her nine-month-old son, surrounded by a bunch of electrical toys. The bells and whistles were ringing, and as a 15-year mental health clinician, she wondered if that was really helpful, if her son had a chance to create his own memories, if he had a chance to really think for himself. That’s what led Angela to start her first Finlee and Me business, bringing wooden toys that helped children develop fine motor skills, gross motor skills, imaginary play, color recognition, and ultimately using their own brains to come up with that creative side of things.

After nine years, she decided to wrap it up and move to the next thing. As a fellow ADD, I completely agree with Angela that sometimes a business served its purpose; it was fun, it was engaging but you start to get bored of it. You can really love your business but you might go through phases of boredom and it is okay to move on. Finlee and Me still has close to 70,000 fans on  Facebook, and Angela is planning to leverage that audience for a new foundation that she is developing currently, which will be her legacy.

Here’s Her Two Cents!

Don’t Forget the Fun

Angela believes that it’s important to keep in mind that your business can be fun. Often, people forget about being playful in their business, being curious, and having fun. The quicker you can add fun and play into your business, the quicker it’s going to just evolve into something quite beautiful.

When You Work, Work Hard

Success doesn’t come overnight. It takes determination, being able to pivot, and know when it’s time to do it, it takes courage and it is hard work. You do need to work hard, but you also need to work smart. And working hard doesn’t equal hustling. It’s quite detrimental to people’s overall mental health and leads to burnout. You just have to start working smarter and if you can start working smarter as early on as you can, everything will flow a lot quicker. 

Run Your Own Race

There is no point trying to duplicate what others are doing, because it probably won’t work out for you. You’ve got to add your own flair, you’ve got to add your own zest, you’ve got to throw in some sprinkle in there right because that’s what makes it you. It’s okay to pivot, it’s okay to do things differently, it’s okay to say no and it’s okay to follow that intuition. It makes that business journey so much easier.

When Things Change, Adapt

If you are a business owner today, in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, you need to know how to adapt. You need to develop a mindset where you are looking at it as an opportunity. You can still make money by being consistent, regardless of where you’re in your business. You need to actively choose how you want to show up in your business. We need to be responsible for whatever actions we take because, at the end of the day, the choice is always ours as to what we do, or what we don’t do. 

What’s Your ROI?

We need to be able to look at our data and see where the biggest ROI for our business is, instead of assuming or having beliefs that aren’t actually validated. Business owners need to be able to look at their financial data, number data, and time. By tracking your time and allocating that time with doing a particular task or activity, you will be able to start making better-informed decisions for your business. ROI, time, and financials are still imperative for business growth.

Network, Network, Network

Your network = your net worth. Conversations lead to connections which lead to conversions. Connections are one of the most primary things that you should be doing. When you have connections you’ve got a lot more low-hanging fruit than most people have because you’ve got the ability to put into those relationships like into a bank account and eventually if you need to, you can ask for things back from that. As your business grows, you actually shed yourself, but you also shed friends and family. Because as you start to grow, people might not be growing with you or they might not be growing at the speed that you’re growing. It actually will have nothing to do with you, it’s what’s going on internally for them, and they can’t cope with it. So, surround yourself with like-minded people. 

Assess where you’re positioning yourself to build your networks, both in-person and online. How are you doing it- are you joining masterminds, are you joining summits?

Sit down, write a list of people who are actually in your field, and asses: who supports me, who do I support,  where am I showing up, how am I giving back how, how can I make other people’s lives better, and nurture that.

Love + Magic

Maggie