Podcast Ep 07
Donna: My guest today is Jo Blowfield, and she is an absolute powerhouse. In our conversation today, we talk about Jo’s 17 year business journey that has had its fair shares of twists and turns along the way. We delve into how Jo navigates the beautiful and crazy mix of raising a family whilst building a business.
And she also shares a little about working side by side with her husband for the past 16 years. Jo and I first met through our mastermind group and I knew instantly that I wanted to get to know her more. She is inspiring and so full of positivity. So let me tell you a little bit about her achievements thus far.
Jo Blowfield has worked in the sales and marketing arena for over 20 years in both New Zealand and Australia. Prior to starting the marketing company in 2004, she worked for such companies as flightcenter.com, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, and Thorn EMI. Her passion and professionalism led her to win numerous awards for both sales and team excellence.
Jo currently owns the Sales Mastery Company and The Marketing Company. These have collectively helped over 10,000 business owners in 20 countries to make over 2 billion in extra sales. Whoa! Jo has also a third business, which is a passion project called Business and Sequins which we talk about a lot in the podcast too.
She is a professional speaker, trainer and Toastmaster. And to contribute to the local community. She has been a business mentor with Business Mentors New Zealand for over 15 years, and also advises several charities in their marketing sponsorship and promotions. She's a very, very busy lady. Not only that Jo has published and co-authored a book with her husband, Ambrose.
And Jo even has run her own radio show, ‘A Cup of Jo’ talking to other like-minded women about life and business topics. As a mum, Jo has two very talented girls and she has supported them on the international stage at their chosen sports while representing New Zealand. And I can tell you from watching Jo in action in the 12 months that I have known her, that she is phenomenal when it comes to people skills.
Her work ethic is incredible and her positive energy is contagious. I am so thrilled to introduce you to Jo Blowfield on The She's in Business podcast today.
Donna:So, Hey Jo, welcome to the shoes in business podcast.
Jo: Thanks for having me, Donna.
Donna: I've given you a bit of a brief introduction to our listeners, but in your own words, can you tell us about who you are and what you do and what lights you up.
Jo: Well there’s lots of things that light me up.. Yeah. Well, as you've seen, I've had my I've owned my business now for 17 years! 17 years in business just feels like such a long time. When I look back at it now, I think actually it has been a long time, but it's gone so quickly. We've kind of morphed into so many different things within our business life.
So I'm a business owner. I've got two children as well. I've currently got a 17 and a 12 year old. Two girls who are really cool kids. Really, really cool kids. So yeah. Through that whole time of being a business owner. When I started out business, I started out when our baby was four months old, just realizing what I was wanting to do, I said to my husband I was a bit bored, so I would like to try something new. So he said, what about starting a business? So I looked at starting a business. And so, yeah, so I'm a Mum. I worked full time with my husband. I have now for 16 years. We've worked full time to give up, which is, you know, got its ups and downs. But when you're 24-7 together, you're living together and then you're doing business as well.
Yeah. And just, yeah, loving what we do. Actually. I think that's what keeps me in it is the fact that we're passionate about what we do. So we own The Magazine Company, which helps businesses. Small to medium sized businesses with marketing. So we developed a marketing bootcamp, which we have all online. So we've got customers that come back every year now and just do their marketing plan online with us.
So as a whole, it started off where many years ago we did it all face to face. And now we've taken that online. So we've got the marketing company and then we've also got The Sales Mastery Company as well, so four or five years ago, A lot of our customers didn't want to use us for sales training, which is my husband's passion.
Because as far as they were concerned with a name, like the marketing company, we were a marketing company. So we decided to split the business out so that we've got marketing training and sales training, and they're two separate businesses now. And so The Sales Mastery Company has helped businesses make more money, through proven online sales training. So our flagship course for that is a 12 months sales program that we run people through, which is a personalized program. And so we've developed that over a couple of years, and as of last year that went up online and is going great. Yeah.
Donna: Wow.
Jo: Yeah. And then while we were locked down as well, I started a new business as well, which, you know, locked down….What am I going to do? You know, I was publishing out businesses starting another one and it was crazy. And so, because the sales mastery company is based on sales training, I wanted to understand the psyche of multi-level marketing. And so I started, most people are calling side hustles, but it's very much become a bit of a passion business for me now.
So I started a side hustle, so I could understand the psyche of multilevel marketing, network marketing. And it has yeah changed and morphed and has now become another business for me, which is Business and Sequins, which I'm morphing, the network marketing business.
Donna: Yeah. Wow. So I want to talk about all that stuff in more detail.
Like that just sounds incredible. One of the purposes of starting this podcast is to really share the stories of other women in business, because like we all have a really unique business journey, just like we have a really unique mothering journey as well. And to pull those things together and share that with the people listening, because I hear so often, which I'm sure that you do too that women can often feel quite lonely in business, and it feels like, you know, you look around and you think, how did they do it? Like, how does this amazing woman, just like you Jo have three businesses and children, and she works with her husband, like 24/7 like how does that work we've been in the same mastermind business group for about 12 months now? I think that you're about the same as me, about 12 months. And one of the things that I remember when I first joined was listening to your story of how you totally pivoted your business when June, 2020 hit, which was, you know, when the whole world was thrown into chaos with COVID and there were massive changes that brought for your business.
So I want you to tell us about the before and after of that and how you managed to do that. Like the mindset that you had to get yourself into, because it totally, just changed everything for you guys, didn't that?
Jo: Yeah, definitely. I mean, at the time before COVID hit, our sales training business and marketing company business was 75% face-to-face, and 25% sort of online with dabbling in online, but not really. And when COVID hit, basically, we just got phone calls nonstop from customers who were canceling any face-to-face business that they had with us. And my husband spent two weeks out of the year traveling to Australia, so most of our clients in Australia and so overnight, we pretty much just lost 75% of our business and the conversations that my husband and I had, you know, how are we going to do this? What are we going to do? You know, we had a couple of months worth of money in the bank that we could use to get us through. But other than that, we were thinking, what are we going to do? Because we can't carry on like this. There is no business. Now 75% of that is just gone.
And so that's when we decided to pivot and start helping businesses start going online. So we did everything that we had. And we put it into an online portal that we use. It was a huge amount of work, huge, huge, huge amount of work that it took us to, um, get it all up online. But through that time, when we first went into lockdown, my husband and I, our first reaction was to actually help other businesses.
So through the first two weeks of COVID, we went out to something like over 1500 businesses and the first two weeks.
Donna: Wow.
Jo: And where we did free, we just gave away training online for free for any businesses that needed it. In regards to social media training, we did sales training and we did marketing training.
And so we just ran these free webinars nonstop all the time. To help people, cause we thought to ourselves we're feeling like this, but then other businesses must be just an even worse predicaments than us. And so our first initial thought was to help other businesses. And then it was to pivot our business as much as we possibly could.
And so, yeah, you know, it was the same mastermind that you're involved with Donna and uh, with Tina and Tina, you know, she did that, to kind of change things around and help us pivot our business. And I'm just so thankful because we totally have pivoted our business. So now we're 95% online.
Donna: Wow.
Jo: And 5% face-to-face.
Donna: Isn't that incredible. And it must have been so scary for you, like 17 years in building the business up and then pretty much overnight it's You know, like you said, 75% of it is just gone. Like, how did you, what was the mindset around that? Like how did you get yourself through that to turn up every day to serve other businesses when your business was being really affected as well?
Jo: Well, to be honest, it wasn't our first, I feel like we help business also with the GSA. And so when we were JV, when we were with, before the GFC started and my husband's brother came over from the UK and he said to us, our business will not last, if you are a coaching consulting business, so we were dealing one-on-one.
So we would go into somebody's office, we'd sit down and we would coach them. We realized that we couldn't do that anymore. So through that whole GC, we pivoted our business from one to one to one to many. So we, that was when basically my husband and I traveled the whole of New Zealand from the top to bottom.
We got in the car and we just drove and we networked, networked networked, and we delivered courses from one to many. And so that was kind of a way that our business got, so the GFC, so, already been up against it before, and then COVID, we kind of just looked at it and thought, what can we do? That's outside the square that we can make quick changes and we can see an outcome quite quickly.
So I feel like the GFC kind of got us ready for COVID, but yeah. Mindset. So the biggest thing was that my husband and I, we realized that if we were in it together and we had the same mindset, then we could achieve anything. But if one of us, if we weren't on the same page with anything, then we just wouldn't be able to achieve what we wanted.
So one of the first things I did when COVID hit was I went right through every single line of cost in our business, I went through all of the bank statements. I went through absolutely every single cost and looked at it and thought to myself, do we need it? And with our business, one of the big things that we needed was systems.
So I pulled out something like 12 systems out of business, and I replaced them with six, which were quicker, faster, and, uh, that was one of the biggest things that, and I think we saved something like $6,000 a month or something. I think it was.
Donna: Wow.
Jo: Yeah. So we just pulled it out. One of our biggest things that we decided when we went through COVID was that we would pay, we had a full-time office manager and she had a family.
So one of our biggest things was that we decided that we would pay her, her full amount of wages, even if we had to go without, just to make sure, because that was the promise that we had promised. And so even knowing that every week we had a set amount of money that we had to pay, which we get our rent with the pay, her wage for us, instead of getting us down, it really pushed us on to actually make sure that we were getting money in so that we could at least cover all of the bills that we had.
Donna: Yeah. So many things that you were saying there, like one of the things that really stood out for me, if I can circle back to it, is that that GFC really almost set you up ready for COVID. I think that we have challenges as business owners frequently, and even outside of being in business, just in life in general.
And we can get really bogged down in the challenge, but often the biggest lessons are right there waiting for you. Do you agree with that?
Jo: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I think you talk a lot about mindset, Donna, and I think a lot of it comes back to that mindset and being able to look at a problem that you've got, not for the problem, but for the actual gift that can come out of it because, you know, if we had gone into COVID with that mindset of, oh gosh, our business, it's doomed, we've got nothing. What are we going to do? You know, we'll just get government handouts.. what's going to happen. Then we would never, ever have the business that we currently do.
Donna: Absolutely.
Jo: And I think it just all came down to mindset, really, really strong mindset that we're going to get through this and that we're a team.
And I looked at it and I thought to myself too, that we weren't anywhere near as bad off as other people. Yeah. Yeah. At the peak we had clients, some of our clients were far worse than us. And so it just really made me realize that, you know, the hand that we've been dealt, actually, wasn't that bad.
Donna: Yeah. That's like reframing is so important. Isn't it? And I know that with a lot of ladies in business that are juggling a family and sometimes it can feel really hard to like, get everything done that you want to get done. And meanwhile, the wheels are falling off in other areas of your life, but if you can flip your mindset and really think of it like it's a challenge.
There's always lessons of opportunities within that, and if you can, like you said, stick together and work together as a team. Whether it be with your business partner or with your partner, partner of life. That can really make a massive difference to the way that you move through those tough times.
Yeah.
Jo: Yeah. And just even when it's not a tough time, it's just in general in business. Business is so hard. It really is. That's why businesses don't succeed. I look at all the businesses that we started with 17 years ago, and there are only maybe two or three that are still around and that's.
It's really tough being a business owner. I was talking to a girl today who I’m mentoring as a startup. And she just said to me, there's just so much to do. And when I'm trying to juggle, you know, a full-time job to pay for this part, this other job that I've got over here, and then I'm, we're moving and all this other stuff she said, how do you fit it all in?
And I just said to her that you, as you've talked about Donna, lots of times, you need to be really good with your time. That business is really hard. And you do miss out on going to some family functions. You do miss out on hanging, hanging out with your friends. Do you have to say no on a Saturday morning to breakfast with your mates because you've got to grow this business.
And one thing that I always say to her is that do things today that your future self will be thankful for. And so, as I said to her, you know, the time that you're giving up going, having breakfast with your friends now. Yeah. Your future self is going to love you third for doing that.
Donna: Yeah. And I think too, I totally agree with you.
I'm always making sure that I'm looking out for my future self, because it really does make a massive difference. And also circling back to something else that I think that you were saying is about having those boundaries. And sometimes it can be really tempting to go and say yes to all the different opportunities that come your way.
But in fact, if you do say yes to all of those things that actually lifts your overwhelmed to a whole other level, because then you've got to squeeze more stuff into the time that you're already pressed for. And so what's your thoughts around boundaries? Like, especially, I have a lot of ladies who are within my program and they're wanting to get more of that balance about spending time with the people that they love the most and checking in with self care.
And sometimes the business just takes over. And you've been in business a long time. You've been working with your husband for a long time, and I know when you speak about your husband, there's so much love between you guys. And not only that, but you've raised two beautiful girls along the way.
Do you have any advice around setting up boundaries to make sure that you're really looking after those who mean the most to you and looking after yourself whilst also building a business?
Jo: Yeah, I mean, it was really tough when we were starting our original business. When we started that business originally, some of the things that we've decided when we started out business was that I would always do school drop off and pickup.
That was my non-negotiable because I could talk with the kids in the car, and I just, that was just one of the things that I was dead and my husband a great, because our two daughters dance internationally on the world stage. And so we did a lot of, we've done a lot of traveling with them. And one of the things that my husband had said to me right from the beginning is that I might not be there for school pickups and things like that. But if you tell me it is something big, I will be there. As I said, I can't always make the little things, but I will always make the big things. So our daughters, because they danced internationally and competitions and things like that. He was always at competitions and he was the only dad that was there for the whole of the competition.
And he would work in between those competitions, but I'd said to him it's a big deal. You need to be there. So he just made sure that he was there.
So we've always created boundaries around pickups and drop off of our kids, but also to our children feel like our businesses are a third child in our family. And so we've been quite straight up with our children as well in regards to telling them what it means to have a business and what it means to have parents who own a business.
So our children know that at the moment we take all school holidays off. That is our big thing that we take school holidays off has been school holidays with them. I've also said that this year I'll go on every single school event that my child does. And so we've just explained to them that we own a business so that we can be able to do that so that we can spend that time with you.
And I asked our 12 year old, what sort of things was she wanting me to do with you this year? That really would mean the difference to her and her big things were come on all of my school trips and coach my team. So those were the two things that I just knew, I ticked off her tank who love tank, and I just went yet.
If I can just turn up and do those things, then that is it. So I just make sure that on a Tuesday and a Thursday, I'm there for practices, and then on a Saturday morning, I'm there to coach in her team. Yeah. So I think just really good communication around what it means to have a business and what it means to children in regards to time that you can spend with them, but also monetary as well.
Because, you know, we've told our children that owning a business means that we don't have a ceiling on how much we can earn. So it means that we can afford to spend time with them. So we've always just communicated a lot with our family and communicated a lot with them. My husband Ambrose, and I have a big thing too.
We, we don't talk business in the bedroom. That's always been a big thing for us. And when we first started our business, we used to work from home. So we used to actually leave out of the front door and then go around the back and then come back in, because it was just that separation for us being able to separate home life, to work life.
So for many years we've done it. But as you go along, you find what works for you, but you really do need to kind of sit down and have a bit of a family meeting, talk about what each family member is wanting, and then just look at how you can set up those boundaries and rules and things like that. So that everybody feels like they've been heard and appreciated and they've had time.
Donna: Yeah, I couldn't agree more. That's just fantastic. What about when the girls were younger? Like a lot of the mums that are starting businesses like yourself and like me too. Like my kids were both six months old when I started different businesses and there's this fear or this guilt that in working on the business, you're not spending time with the babies. Like when they're little and my kids are both now at school for the first year, they're both off at school, which is really great, cause I'm literally working between school bells and I've put boundaries around that for myself, much like yours with school pickup and stuff like that. But when your kids were little, how did you go about it then?
Jo: I had many days where I cried, nonstop all the time. And I was so racked with guilt. It was guilt from myself, but it was also guilt from other people. And it was guilt from my mother's generation as well, who keeps saying, oh gosh, oh, she's at daycare again. And you know, our child was the child that went to daycare from 8:30 in the morning, till 5:30 at night.
That was just the way things were. The times that we had to put them in. So there was a lot of guilt there about doing this, but then again, we've got that mindset where we're trying to build a future for our family. So it kind of was offsetting that guilt, but it is really, really tough. And it's not just pressure from us.
As women, we carry that workload as well of the home life of cleaning, tidying, yeah. As I said to you today, you know, the average use in a woman, 174 minutes a day of cleaning. I mean, you know, that is a lot of time, and so, the moment that I started giving myself relief to get a gardener, get a cleaner, things just started rapidly changing in my life in regards to, I didn't walk past the pile of clothing anymore and feel bad and racked with guilt because there's a pile of clothing there and I should be folding that instead of doing, you know, something that could potentially be making our family money.
Donna: Yeah.
Jo: And through the times as well as owning the business, everyone, every business owner, I think at some stage it goes through your the mind, should I go back to work? It'd be just so much easier if I went back and got a job, I could earn more money if I went back and got a job. And I mean, I had a time where I thought I wanted to, I looked at the business of selling ice creams down on the walkway during summer. And I pitched it to my husband and said, look, what about if I stopped doing the business and I go and I sell ice creams over summer? and he just, he just said to me.. ‘You know, it's such a bad idea because you know, it's a seasonal business. It's going to be a seasonal job and you'll eat all of your own profit, not really great idea’. But you, as business owners, we do that. We do it. Can we look at other opportunities and go being an employee versus being a business owner because of that less stress, but I wouldn't change what we've done being a business owner for anything. Now I think we'd make horrible employees now because we're just so entrenched in being our own business people. Yeah
Donna: I couldn't agree more. I think too, like, like you said, there's that generation that goes, well, if you're stressed and you've got a three-year-old and a six month old at home, like, what are you doing?
Like, you don't have to do this business, but at the end of the day, it's about really connecting with yourself and with your soul. And I think that if you know that you're a woman who's made for more than being a stay at home, Mum that's okay. You don't have to fit the cookie cutter Mums, especially in the younger days.
And I think too, like this, like you said, this pressure that comes from other people and for me, it was the judgments of other people or what I perceive to be the judgments of other people that really, hooked into me. And so I had to work really hard at changing my thought patterns and also not really giving a shit what other people thought about what I was doing.
You know, so my kids were happy. They were healthy, they were fed, they were loved and they knew that they were loved. And so in our home that was working for us. So it didn't matter what other people thought of me at that moment in time. And often like, It says more about them than it does about you when it comes home.
Jo: Yeah. I've I mean, I've, I've been that mum. I mean, I've been the mum that has been concentrating so much on emails that I've forgotten to pick up my child, you know, and then you get the call from school going, you know, your child's here, come and pick them up and you go, oh gosh, that's right. And so I have, I've been there, I've been that parent and you know, you do.
At some stage, you've just got to know that what you're doing is actually been going to benefit them in the long run and that the life that you can give them will be far worth it. And that they will actually say, you know, my little side hustle has just paid for my family of four to go for a whole week of skiing down in the south island of New Zealand.
It paid for everything, I paid for the flights, the food, the accommodation, the ski passes. Everything. And when I was down there, I just explained to the girls that, you know, the times that I'm working late, this is why, because I've been able to afford for us to come down and do this. And this is out of my little business.
And, you know, they were like ‘Wow, Mum, you know what, that's so amazing. So this is what you've been doing’ and I just think, yeah! That’s the benefit of owning a business and of what you can do for your family, just far outweighs any of that, um, guilt or pressure. I know it might not feel it at the time, but it certainly does.
And yeah, I've been very guilty of bashing myself up many times for not being, that perfect mum and you know, and not realizing that it's photo day, and then when you get the photos back realizing that your child is no, we've got a messy top on and her hair is all messy, and yeah, but it's just part of it. It's just part of it.
And in the end I actually laugh about things like that now. And I just think to myself, you know, it's just part of it. There's some things that are going to slide. And it's okay if they do.
Donna: Yeah, absolutely agree. Yeah. I've had those same experiences too, but you turn up to school and you've got your child dressed in school uniform, and everyone else's free dress day and you're like, oh my God, where did I miss that? And so then you do a u-bolt back to home to get the clothes, to drop it back. And then yeah. You know, missing your first appointment for the day. Like it can just, those things happen. But I think insight in listening to what you were saying about like teaching the girls, the lessons, well, this is why I do business.
Like my kids are not quite at the age yet to fully understand the impact of that because they're five and eight, but, they do understand that, I talk to them about managing a business and they've just started raising chickens so they can sell the eggs and like we're talking about how they do that, how they build a little business and how that they can get repeat customers and why they charge this much and where the money goes to. And they've got to account for expenses. Like they're learning all of that stuff. So, and those are life lessons that they'll take with them forever. And the other thing that I loved hearing, when you were talking about that is we're actually showing our children that they can build their own dreams. Like they can have an idea and grow it into a business that supports their family. And like that's amazing. It's teaching them that they can dream big and achieve those things. It was interesting
Jo: because when our girls were younger, I remember I had a conversation with one of them and about, you know what I did during the day and what daddy did during the day. And you know, I remember her saying, ‘oh, you know, daddy he works all day, works really hard and he makes us the money’. And then I said to her, what do I do all day? And she said to me, ‘oh, you sit on the couch and watch TV all day’. I just, I just remember thinking to myself, she’s just got such a wrong illusion of what I do, and I talked to my husband about it and he was one that actually said to me, have you talk to them and actually educated them about what you do. Because obviously in their mind, they've got an idea that a Mum drops them off at school, comes home, sits down watches, TV, and then cooks dinner. And he said, you know, ‘just educate them, tell them exactly what you're doing’. And so that was a bit of a wake up call to me to actually take responsibility myself so that I could educate my children. So then they can understand that it's not just dad, that's working habit. It's mum and dad working hard together.
Donna: Yeah, cause actually you started the business, right? Like it was your business to begin with. And then your husband joined you in your business.
Jo: When I started the business, my goal was that he was a full-time employee, was it 12 months later, he would then join me and my business full time. And so, yeah, 12 months to the day he joined me full-time, so we decided that we would get the income and the business, that to a level that would cover his wage. And so we did that 12 months later, he finished. So we've just put together a new plan as well for my new business.
Donna: Yeah. Tell us.
Jo: The third business. So we've decided that in 12 months time, I would like him to be able to decide whether or not he wants to work anymore.
Donna: Wow. So you are hoping to retire your husband. That's incredible.
Jo: Yeah. He won't even retire when I want. What I want is for our main business to not be our main business anymore. And for him to have a bit of fun with it and decide what he wants to do with it. And actually choose because my idea would be that he only worked a couple of days a week and then those other, or even we looked at it even from nine til 12 every day. And then, you know, from 12 onwards, we did different things like, you know, writing a book and stuff like that. So I feel like what's our third, what's my third business that gives us an option to be able to do that.
Donna: Yeah.
Jo: Yeah, so that's kind of my goal. So, you know, he just said to me the other day, well, I'm hoping in 12 months I'll be a kept man, but I'm just thinking well, I'm hoping maybe.
Donna: So tell us about Business and Sequins. Tell us all about this new business that you started.
Jo: Yeah. Well, as I say to you that, you know, 12 months ago I started this new business, which was network marketing and watched it just started off with a product that I've used on our daughter, cause she's dyslexic K-12 road, she's dyslexic. And she's also on the spectrum for autism as well. So I looked for product that could help her and I found this amazing product. Absolutely love it. So I looked at just becoming on board with that and looking at selling it. And from there, I've kind of just looked at what else I could do. And obviously I've got a passion. I've got a passion for fashion. Anything Sequin, I love, I love anything. sequin. I love, um, network marketing, but I also love business in general, and I love helping women start businesses. That's a really big passion for me is helping them and mentoring them and coaching them and helping them start businesses. So Business and Sequins is a membership where women can come on, they can join the membership.
And we've put in the, just different things that can help them with, um, life in general and just business as well. And so one of the things that we've got is we've got a podcast. And then as I said, we've got the Facebook membership that's coming up and being released as well. And it's just building a community because one thing that I've realized is that I'm a really good cheerleader. So, and you need somebody to cheerlead you. I will cheerlead you all the way to the finish line and I want to be there for other people, both in business and just in life in general. So hence why it's Business and Sequins, cause I can cheer you on in business and you know, just normal life as well.
So I'm really excited about it. It's the first time that I'm really putting my face to anything because I've always kind of hidden behind my husband, even though I started the business, I always did all the stuff at the back and kind of pushed him to the front. So it's the first time that I'm really putting my face to anything, and it's been interesting. It's bringing up lots of roadblocks and lots of things that I’ve just gotta go do. I didn't really do that. I'd normally just slap my husband's face on it.
Donna: Yeah. I love that you're out there cheering people on because you are an amazing cheerleader and I am so grateful that our paths have crossed.
Like, honestly, I just admire you so much for everything that you've achieved, but also just so positive all the time. And I love that. Your journey through business, have you always had a community of women around you to cheer you on?
Jo: Do you know what... I was thinking about this and it's only been in the last couple of years to be really honest, because I've always been quite an independent person and wanting to do things for myself and by myself, that's why I haven't really overly, like my social media is I haven't really overly told people about the success that we've had or what we do. It's just something really private that we've just kind of gone on and done. And so it's only been in the last couple of years that I've actually. Started having these groups of women that started to cheer me on and women that are nonjudgmental and just really happy for you to achieve.
And it has been quite life-changing actually. And even with, you know, with my third business, the women in the area, it's just to be around a group of positive women who are all trying to do the same thing and cheer each other on. It is quite a unique feeling. And business is tough and it's even tougher when you're in it by yourself.
Donna: Absolutely. I couldn't agree more like having a, a group of like-minded women around you that are traveling the same journey as you, but not only, working it out as they go along too, but like able to support each other and share ideas and all of that kind of stuff, which for me is like a big passion project of mine as well in the Ready To Rise Program that I offer is making sure that, you know, we're building that community around it as well.
That it's not just like, same as yours. Like it's not just, here's a course, go and do it. Like there's more to it than that. You need that cheerleader around you or that, you know, the team of cheerleaders to lift you up and keep you going and give you inspiration and for you to be able to give back in the same way as well, because I agree it's totally life changing.
Jo: Yeah, the community as well within, I'm looking at creating. It isn't just all my stuff that's being put in there. Like I want to utilize women like yourself, Donna, and to our membership. We're able to bring specialists and then talk about, you know, your different journey and because you know, your journey, we'll, we'll definitely connect with somebody in that membership group. And I just. I'm going for the whole abundance thing, rather than that scarcity model, where I want to share a lot of things with different people, because we've got so much business knowledge that we just want to, a lot of it we want to give away actually now we've decided that we just want to yeah, give it away and just help other people succeed.
Donna: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And that only feeds for more abundance for everybody, I think.
Jo: Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And business, you really have to have that abundance mentality because it's when you've got scarcity, that things start getting again to trouble, And we've always come at things with, you know, one of the big things that our businesses, a waste down through everything is given even through COVID through the GFC, as given we gave and gave and, you know, as much as we could through everything, just because, you know, I always just kind of think that there's always somebody worse off than you.
So if you can help just another person just make all the difference to them. And so, yeah, we just, I'm really excited about this new business. I'm feeling very scared at the same time, because as I say to you, yeah, I haven't really put myself out there, but I am excited with the opportunities and I'm excited about the people that I'm going to need.
Donna: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I wish you all the best with it. I think it's going to just fly. Absolutely fly.
Jo: Yeah. And I wanted to just say, you know, your, was it coffee and coaching?
Donna: Yes.
Jo: That you do is incredible for anyone that is listening to tune in. Donna is, her coaching is so good. You know, you've just got such great value in there, Donna. It was excellent.
Donna: Thank you. Well, that happens every Wednesday at 10:00 AM on Instagram or Facebook, I just do a very quick. 15-20 minute session sharing different business tips, or like similar things to what we've talked about today, like mindset things. And, yeah. Thank you for saying that. That's lovely of you.
Donna: Ah, thanks. To finish off our session today. One of the things that I have grown to know about you is that you seem to like, make up your mind to do something and then you just get on and do it. And you are an absolute powerhouse in getting stuff done.
Is that something that you've naturally done or like that you had naturally done or have you developed that skill? Because a lot of ladies are like, I just, I know I need to do it, but you kind of get that stuck in that procrastination. Like what do you do? What's your tips for people who are in that spot?
Jo: One of the biggest things is that over the past couple of years, I've really gotten to know who my inner critic. And I realized that my inner critic loved it when I procrastinated or I tried to perfect something or I was just lazy because my inner critic loved it when I was stuck. Loved it when I was just not moving forward. And because I've gotten to know my inner critic really well. I know now that it's actually my inner critic, that's stopping me because they don't want me outside the comfort zone. So now I've just decided that actually I accept that when a critic is there, but I just say, thank you very much, but I actually really need to get on and do this.
And another thing too, is that I use the Pomodoro technique, whereas 20 minutes on a timer on my phone and I, everything. I see timers for everything now. Whereas I go, even on things like tidying my room, if I'm tiding my bedroom, I'm like, I can't, I'm going to give myself 40 minutes to tidy my room and then I just hit the timer. And then I go for that 40 minutes and get it done. And I try and beat the timer all the time. And so I think that's how I, yeah.
I say no to my inner critic. And I also manage in time lots as well. I do that a lot. And lady, the other day that I was speaking to said to me, you know, how do you put 60 hours into, um, a 24? And I just said, you know, using things like a timer and, um, just being really clever with your time and things like Facebook and Instagram and Netflix and stuff like that.
It's all there as a distraction. And so I kind of use it as a reward, you know, if I can do three hours of work, then you can have an hour on Netflix. Yeah. Just to try and get the work. But if you think I work hard, my husband is 50,000 times faster than I am at everything.
Donna: Well, you sound like an amazing team, like an amazing team and hopefully one day I'll get to meet him.
Jo: Yeah. Well you should, if you want to interview him, I'm sure he would be happy. He's great. At sales.
Donna: We can bring him on the podcast show to have a chat about sales.
Jo: Yeah, he's great. But he we've taken a long time to figure out how we work together. And even sometimes he comes at things he's university educated, whereas I left school at 15, so we come at things very differently and yeah, it's been an interesting process getting to figure out how we both work together and what are, what he's good at and what he wants to do.
And then what I'm good at and what I like to do then kind of trying to figure out how they can combine together.
Donna: Yeah, I think that could be a whole nother episode, Jo, on working together with a business partner.
Jo: Yeah. 24 7 and yeah. Yeah, it is. Yeah. Yeah, because I know a lot of husband and wives, you know, the husband kind of takes that front, you know, does all of the sales and all of that kind of stuff.
And then, you know, the woman kind of does all of the accounting and all of the admin at the backend. And so that has been the way that we've been for a very long time in our business. And you know, I'm not all of those lovely. Oh, you the one that answers your husband's phones.
And so, yeah. So with the new business now stepping out into the forefront of it as means yeah. But switch and roles now. And so he's now learning to kind of be there and supportive for me. Yeah, well, I'm stepping out into a bit more of the limelight, but you know, in 12 months time, he's hoping to be a kept man.
Donna: So, well, I heard that that happens to both of you. So it sounds right. It's really exciting. Yeah.I loved talking with you today as always. Thank you so much for being on the podcast. If people want to know more about what you do with Business and Sequins or with the other businesses that you run and what's the best way they can find you?
Jo: They can find me on Instagram and, uh, JoanneBlowfieldd on Instagram.
And they can also look up, uh, we've got the sales mastery company.com, the marketing company.com and also businessandsequins.com. So that hasn't been business and sequence hasn't been well, hopefully it has been launched and yeah, you can definitely get hold of me through there.
Donna: Excellent. Well, thanks, Jo!
Thank you,
Jo: Donna. Thanks for having me.
Donna: No worries at all. Have a great day.
Jo: You too. Take care.
