EPISODE 59 - DEFINING "SUCCESS" AS AN ENTREPRENEUR, BUSINESS FAILURES AND THE EARLY DAYS OF BUSINESS BABES COLLECTIVE INTERVIEW WITH TAYLOR ALLER - PART 1
LISTEN TO THE EPISODE HERE:
This is part one of a conversation Danielle has with Taylor Aller, a past guest of the podcast who asked if she could put Danielle in the hot seat for a change and interview Dani on the podcast, and she agreed!
THE EARLY DAYS OF BUSINESS BABES
Danielle shares how working in so many different industries as a student and young adult (everything from Service, to Events, Beauty and Social Media Management/Marketing) made her a diversified factotum with skills and passions for a bevy of vocations. She found, though, that she didn’t “fit in” to the corporate world and events she attended, and started Business Babes Collective in an effort to connect with other young women like her - female entrepreneurs with big passion in need of community.
Danielle admits that she never anticipated how her small get-togethers would grow into full-sized events. She found that her vision and business grew organically as she learned what worked and what female entrepreneurs needed and loved from her events.
Danielle shares some of her biggest failures (PEOPLE-PLEASING, BURNOUT, SHINY OBJECT SYNDROME)
Taylor asks Danielle to share her top three mistakes as an entrepreneur:
Mistake Number 1 - Danielle shared about her journey as a serial people-pleaser and mistakenly thought her niche was just “All Women” - which was very broad and not at all scale-able. Danielle’s question “How can I please everyone?” led to her next biggest mistake…
Mistake Number 2 - Overworking! Danielle was incredibly passionate about her business and mistook a lack of boundaries for hard work. She worked around the clock, which quickly led to burnout - her passion dried up, her anxiety peaked, and she dreaded what once fueled her. Burnout, however, opened an opportunity for Danielle to ask herself “How can I do this differently?” to make her business and her lifestyle sustainable.
Mistake Number 3 - Danielle shares that she has Shiny Object Syndrome and chased after too many strategies (ie multiple social media platforms) to grow her business instead of putting her energy into what was already working in her business.
Danielle defines success in her business and as an entrepreneur
Danielle shares how she came to terms with the fact that her perfectionistic and people-pleasing tendencies were not serving her well in the growth of her business and she still has to ask herself regularly “What does success mean to me?”
Danielle’s definition of success has evolved as she has grown and changed and she shares how it has shown to be exceptionally true since becoming a working mom. Danielle finds purpose in both working and being a mom, and works on balancing both well. Success isn’t defined by her income level or other milestones, but contentment and knowing she is making an impact in both her journey as an entrepreneur and a mom. Taylor shares how Danielle’s definition is a more forgiving, flexible and freeing definition of success, since we are always growing and changing! Danielle shares that she does need to pause regularly to check her achievement-mentality and re-shift to an impact-mentality. She closes on the topic of joy in serving others - how much more joy she finds in serving other people - and how becoming a mother has put that into even more perspective for her.
Connect with Taylor Aller:
Taylor’s Website: www.tayloraller.com
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TRANSCRIPT
Danielle: [00:00:00] Welcome back to the business babes collective podcast. Today, we have something a little bit different for you. This is part one of a conversation that I have with Taylor Aller, who I actually interviewed on the podcast a few weeks back. So if you haven't listened to that episode, I highly recommend it.
It is episode 46. And if you wanna get to know Taylor a little bit more, she is incredible. She's one of our mastermind members. She is an action takers club graduate, and she's just a great friend of mine and an incredible woman. So she asked me if she could actually put me in the hot seat for a change and interview me on the podcast.
And I agreed. So today is part one of our conversation. And in this episode, Taylor asks me all about what I did before I launched business babes collective, the early days of launching this brand, how I define success in my business and as an entrepreneur and also some of my biggest [00:01:00] failures. So I think you're gonna really enjoy this conversation.
Part one of this conversation, and I'm really excited for you to tune in today. Before we dive in, though, I wanted to let you know that we are just two weeks away from our first in-person event since 2020. I honestly cannot believe it. I'm so excited to be hosting an event in Vancouver on May 18th at the Robert H.
Lee alumni hall at UBC. Come join us. We are so excited to be in person again, we're going to have some incredible speakers vendors. There's gonna be networking, food, photo booth prizes, and so much more. I cannot wait to meet you in person and to network with you and get to know you and also just introduce you to our community.
So if you wanna grab your ticket, you can go to business babes, collective.com/vancouver. And we also have an event happening in San Diego. So our San Diego chapter is hosting their first event as well since 2020 on May [00:02:00] 15th. So if you're in the San Diego area, you should definitely check that out. It's going to be a networking event at a gorgeous winery.
So go to business babes collective.com/sandiego to check out all the info and to grab your ticket. So let's go ahead now and dive into the episode. Welcome to the business babes collective podcast. I'm your host, Danielle Wiebe, in this podcast, you'll learn tangible business tips and strategies on how to grow successfully and sustainably.
We'll also interview seasoned entrepreneurs. So you can listen in on their stories and see behind the scenes of what it took to grow and scale their businesses. Let's dive in as we discussed the wild, exciting, crazy challenging rollercoaster ride of entrepreneurship.
Taylor: Hey everyone, this isn't Danielle. This is Taylor and I am taken over the business babes podcast today because I get to flip the seats and put Danielle in the hot seat today.
And we are going [00:03:00] to interview her. Yeah, you heard me right. We get to interview the founder and CEO of business babes collective, and I get to walk you through a bunch of GC questions. So Danielle, welcome to your own podcast.
Danielle: thank you, Taylor. I'm very excited to be here today and yeah, I'm excited for this conversation.
Taylor: So go ahead and ask all the juicy questions. I'm a little bit nervous actually. now, you know what? It's like, I'm, I'm so excited. Thank you so much for letting me interview you today. I know when we had my interview several weeks ago that we had talked about it and flipping the script because you have such a great story when it comes to business babes.
And for those of our friends listening, they're probably curious to how things got started, what your biggest mistakes were, how the pandemic affected everything. So today we're gonna get all into that. I'm super excited. So to start, can you tell us a little bit, like, what did you do before business Babe's community?
Because I've known you for years. I know some of this story, but I'd love to hear. Kind of [00:04:00] in your own words, share with everybody here. What happened before this chapter?
Danielle: Yeah. Okay. So, I mean, it depends on how far we wanna go back then. I definitely, uh, have had a lot of things before starting this community.
I've had a lot of past jobs before, a lot of different types of jobs and different industries when I was still in high school. My first job was at a restaurant and I'm so glad I did that because I think like the service industry. I think taught me a lot about just people and, you know, handling, difficult or stressful situations.
And so, yeah, I worked in the restaurant industry. I've worked in the events industry. My mom has had her own business. My sisters had her own business, so I've kind of like helped them. My sister had a wedding planning business. So I supported her in planning and executing events. My mom was in the high end electronics industry in sales.
And so I worked for her traveling [00:05:00] around doing international sales for electronics. I also was, had a business in the health and wellness industry. I worked for a spa at one point. I'm trying to think of like all the different things that I did it. Is crazy, like so many different. And I know like with your story, it's similar too, like so many different industries and different paths, and I've also owned my own business in social media management and like marketing and, and all of that.
And I had a business partner with that when I was still going to university. And so. Yeah, that was kind of before. And then while I had my own business, I was, or kind of like doing a few different businesses at the same time. That's when I started networking. That's when I started trying to put myself out there trying to build relationships.
And that is sort of what led me to creating business babes collective, because I always kind of felt like I didn't quite fit in. I was normally younger than a [00:06:00] lot of the people there. I. Felt like I didn't fit into this like box of kind of this corporate feel of what business felt like to me. I wanted a place where it could be fun and it could be exciting and could start conversations and be open with one another and, you know, collaborative and all of that.
And so that's really what sparked the idea for business babes collective was creating a community for female entrepreneurs who wanted to connect, wanted to collaborate, wanted to grow their businesses and do it with other people.
Taylor: Mm-hmm well, you definitely executed on that vision. Let me tell ya. But I, you know, I see business babes now we've known each other for years, so I've kind of seen it grow and shift and evolved. But I know at the very beginning it was not what it looks like right now. I know like the very first few events were not what we see now. I mean, we have an event coming up. I'm so excited to get, to see everybody in May. I get to hang out and connect again in person, but can you tell us a little [00:07:00] bit after you decided you took all these puzzle pieces from these different parts of your life and you created this kind of masterpiece you saw this need that needed to be filled of a space for women to feel safe, to connect, to actually do it through warmth, generosity and kindness rather than like tossing out business cards to everybody. What were the first few events? Like? Can you take us in there? Paint the story for us? What were those first few events like for you when you first started?
Danielle: Yeah. Well, and mind you, like, I didn't have this big vision. I think sometimes when I tell the story, obviously it's like in trying to condense it into this, you know, short story, but really when I started hosting these little events, I didn't actually think that it was gonna be creating this whole community.
And I didn't really see it as like building this business, I didn't know it was going to become a business of my own. It was more so something that I wanted and just bringing women together. So the first few events were very, very small. I think the first event that we had was maybe 10 people in this [00:08:00] little, we hosted at this garden kind of center and we had a few appetizers, we had drinks and we just sort of all like stood in a circle and introduced ourselves and started conversations.
Like, it was pretty awkward to be honest, like it wasn't didn't necessarily this like huge success, but it was really cool because there was really amazing people there. And we all got to connect and we all got to network. And I realized in that moment, how powerful that was of connecting women. These were all women that I had networked with. And so I thought, well, if I can bring these women together and they can network with one another, you know, we can kind of create this sort of community. And so hosted that first event. And then a few of the women were like, okay, well when's the next event? Oh, I don't know. So then hosted another event and hosted another event.
And at that time too, like, it wasn't really branded or anything like that. I had a meetup group. So, some of [00:09:00] you might know meetup.com. I kind of threw my events on there so that it was more public. So it started with people I knew. And then I posted my events there and people started finding it. And I think at that time, I don't even remember what it was called.
It was like women's networking night out or something. I don't even know it was something random. And, yeah, it just sort of grew and grew from there. And just month to month, I thought, okay, well what can I do next? Or where can I host? And so I would connect with, I connected with a hair salon and asked them if I could host the event in their salon.
And then I connected with a clothing store and asked if we could host the event there. And I would connect with these, you know, catering companies and, and all these other people and try to kind of bring these events together. And then eventually it became, oh, it would be kind of fun if we did like a panel and we had speakers and, and people could learn from them.
And so we started bringing on people to speak at these events. And so it all kind of happened [00:10:00] really organically. And yeah, it was just sort of step by step, I guess you could say of just kind of putting the puzzle pieces together and figuring out what people wanted, what people liked, what people didn't like. and it was a, oh my goodness. Yeah. A lot of learning along the way, you know, starting off from selling tickets for like $10 each and, you know, losing a bunch of money along the way, and then, you know, gradually growing that and making it more established and yeah. So, it kind of, it's one of those things where, when I think back to it, I just, I really just put one foot on, in, in front of the, the other and figured out like what, okay, what next?
And so I didn't necessarily, like I said, have this big vision for what. What I wanted to create until later and then it just kind of like hit me where, oh my gosh, like this is becoming this community and you know, this is kind of like a movement, right? And so that didn't really hit me until probably about, [00:11:00] I would say maybe six months in.
Taylor: Mm gotcha. So what would you say were because if you're putting one foot in front of the other, you're bound to step in something stinky so , can you tell us, like, because it's so common as entrepreneurs and I'm sure those of you listening can totally relate that. You're doing the best you can.
You're trying to figure out things, you know, you see a need, you're doing your best to fill it, but you're gonna make mistakes along the way. There's gonna be an oops. There's gonna be a stinky step. You know, what were some of maybe like the top three stinky steps that you took? What were some of those mistakes that happened in the beginning before you kind of got a little more clarity around six months in, and we're gonna talk more about clarity later.
Cause I know you've had a big shift since the pandemic too. But what were some of those mistakes maybe that you made in the beginning that if you could shift, maybe you would.
Danielle: Yeah. Well, I, I always, I mean, there's, there's definitely like three mistakes that I always kind of share with people that I personally made that I see made a lot in the entrepreneurial industry.
One of them, one of the [00:12:00] biggest ones, especially getting started was that I was trying to please everyone. Like I wanted everyone on my event. I was like, I. And I thought my niche was like women, like just like women. And it's like, yes, it was for business women, but I was like, but I also want, you know, corporate women and I also want, and so I was trying to just please everybody, which as most of you probably know by now, if you've been an entrepreneur for any length of time, that is a really, really difficult way to scale a business because you're being pulled in all of these different directions. And you're trying to please this person over here that wants one thing, but then this person over there wants something completely different. And for me I'm like, well, how can I please them both. So I'm just gonna do both things.
I'm gonna do morning events and evening events. I'm gonna do workshops and big events. I'm gonna do, you know, one event on. You know, health and wellness in another event on [00:13:00] writing a book like I'm gonna do it all. And so that led into my second mistake , which is working all the time, 24/ 7, and really just like not having any boundaries in place and just letting the business take over.
My entire life and it just sort of became this thing of, and again, at that point, it, it wasn't really even a business. Like it was something I was doing on the side, but it was kind of taking over everything else. Cause I had these other things going on. You, you know, these other businesses or side, jobs or projects, and, but this was taking up most of my time and because I was passionate about it, which is a great thing. But when you don't have any boundaries around it, you're trying to please everyone. I got into these spaces where it was pretty much about six months in where I was like, I don't know if I can do this anymore. Like, this is the burnout exhausting. So [00:14:00] exhausting. I remember a specific time and I've, I think I've shared this before, but I remember this specific time waking up. It was the day of the, the event. And I woke up in the morning and I just had this like heaviness. I had this. Anxiety and heaviness of like, I don't wanna get outta bed.
Like, I feel so anxious and heavy and I'm nervous about this event. I don't think it's gonna go the way I wanted it to, but I worked so hard for it. I'm not gonna have the attendance that I wanted and I just felt exhausted. I'm like, I don't even know what else to do. And so that was like a really big kind I would say turning point for me in figuring out, okay, what can I do differently? Like, what are some of the things, because I just sort of felt like I was running my business day to day, like I said, putting one in front of, in front of the other had no systems in place. I had no processes in place, no boundaries, like I said.
And so really that was like [00:15:00] the one turning point. There's been many along the way. but that was like the first turning point of, okay. How can I start to do things differently than I've done them before? Because , you know, if you try to do the same thing over and over and you're expecting a different result. It's not gonna happen. Right. So that that's, I would say was a huge thing for me as well as hitting that burnout and realizing, okay, how can I do things differently? How can I move forward from this?
Taylor: Yeah. Those are really hard lessons to learn. Yeah. And I think, especially as. Women, we kind of have this propensity to try to please everybody and to try to do everything all at once and all by ourselves.
And, and like you said, you just hit that all eventually. And those are super key learnings of, you know, recognizing and appreciating. You're not here to please everybody. And then at the same time, like you said, setting those boundaries so that your work doesn't become completely overwhelming and you get lost in this tidal wave of passion, like you mentioned, but it's exhausting.
Danielle: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Well, and I, I think [00:16:00] the third the third mistake that I made is kind of related to the second in that. And they all kind of relate to each other is I also was trying to kind of chase all these different strategies of how to grow my business. So, you know, I was like, okay. I knew that Instagram was really important cuz my ideal person was on Instagram.
So I'm like, okay, I'm gonna build my Instagram. And then this other person over here is like, well you have to be on Twitter. Like Twitter is where it's at. I'm like, well, okay. Like I guess. That's where I have to be. So then all of a sudden I'm spending all this time on Twitter and then someone else is like, well, no, you need to have YouTube channel.
It's like, oh, okay. Like, I guess I'm gonna be on YouTube as well. Like it was like, literally I'm like, okay, I guess I have to be on everything which fed into the, trying to please everybody fed into the, you know, working around the clock, not having boundaries. So. a lot of those things. I mean, those three things are all related.
Mm-hmm just from kind of like a different [00:17:00] perspective and it's this for, for me, it was being okay with. Having the few things that I did and knowing that I wasn't gonna please everybody, I wasn't going to be able to grow in every single, you know, aspect of the business or platform that my business could be on social media platform, whatever that is, all it went.
And being okay with that. So I think my perfectionist tendencies, my people pleasing tendencies, my, you know, I've been ingrained in my mind since I was young of like being a hard worker, which I think has helped me in a lot of ways. But also it's this like constant, you have to be productive all the time.
And so that is definitely something. I've had to work through in growing my business because the burnout is always something, even though it's something that I have overcome a lot of the times, and I have a lot of those boundaries, it's still something that is a [00:18:00] constant struggle for me. Mm-hmm because I.
That it's my natural tendency to just work so hard for something. And it was like, even when I was in university, it was like, I'm gonna study so hard for this test and I'm gonna stay up until super late. And then I'm gonna wake up at like 5:00 AM and I'm gonna cram until the last second of my, until my test happens, when I take my papers away, like that was my mindset always. And it, sometimes I bring that into my business as well. It's just like, well, if I just work a little bit harder, I can have, you know, I can move the business forward and it's just, it's letting go of that. And also realizing that success always is isn't that success that you see in the world?
It's like, what does success mean to me? And, and understanding that
Taylor: so well, answer that then, please. I'm so curious. what is success to you? Because I'm sitting here nodding along like crazy because I like most of the people listening do have. [00:19:00] I'd like to say a high work ethic and I tend to be perfectionistic too.
And I totally resonated when you're saying, like, if I just work a little harder, if I just wake a little earlier, if I just go to bed a little later, you know, and it's so seductive to fall into that and you see it everywhere, like you said, like this person on social media is telling me to do this and then this other person's telling me to do this and you know, half the time we're just winging it.
And we don't really know what we're doing. I think you really hit something precious here about defining success for yourself and letting that be your guidepost. So share with us, please. Like what's your definition of success?
Danielle: Hmm. yeah, and I think for me, it's, it's evolving as well. Like I think sometimes it evolves and different stages of my life it will evolve too. Because obviously, you know, recently I've had, I have daughter now she's 10 months. Yeah. And so for that, like before it, you know, my values were other things and now I have, you know, this beautiful baby. And so for me, it's like, okay, I, [00:20:00] for myself, I want to feel peace and content in every day. And I also want to be present for her. And that doesn't mean that I'm not gonna be working. That's not what that is, but it's like balancing that, like, okay, so there's gonna be sometimes when I'm working, there's gonna be sometimes, but when I am with her, I wanna be present and I wanna be feeling content in that moment and present in that moment. Cause I think a lot of the times, and I'm sure a lot of parents can probably relate to this where it's like, you either have guilt when you're working or you have guilt when you're with your kids. Cuz you feel like you should be working.
Like there's that like guilt yeah. And so, and so it's just like, okay. Like realizing that it's actually okay that I have these like big goals and this vision for what I want my business to look like, and that I want my business to be a success and the, and the impact that I wanna make for other people through my business.
And, and that's all good, right? Like that's [00:21:00] good. And for me, my faith is really important to me. And I, I do believe that like, God has called me to this and I do believe that there's a lot of purpose in what I'm doing, but then I also believe that there's a lot of purpose in being a mom. And so it, and so success for me, doesn't isn't like, Income level, it's not a certain milestone, I guess that I'll hit in my business. And of course I have goals and I have milestones that I can work towards, but that's not what success looks like to me. Success for me is feeling content in both of those things and feeling that I'm like, knowing that I'm making, making an impact in both areas, I think is success for me.
Taylor: Say that again for the people in the back success is a feeling it's not a metric. Yeah. You know, I think that is a incredible and really powerful shift of shifting that definition from metrics and goals over to do I feel like I'm making an impact. You know, that's a much more [00:22:00] forgiving definition of success, but it's also, like you said, a much more flexible definition, because it will change as the seasons of your life grow as an entrepreneur. You know, it's very, very different from when you start to where you are now to where you're gonna be. That is so powerful. And I think that gives you freedom. Would it not?
Danielle: Yeah, it does. It does. And I think too it, and trust me, I there's moments where I do get really caught up in the numbers in, you know, even like I've kind of gotten away from really caring about social media stats. I really don't care about that at all. But obviously now with podcasting, there's all these things that you can check, like your downloads and all those things, and those are great. You know, metrics to see, okay, is it growing? Is it working? Are people resonating and all those things, but it's just as easy to get sucked into that.
Right. And so I constantly have to remind myself, okay, Danielle, what are you doing this for? What is actually like the purpose behind what you're doing? And if you're only focused on the numbers, if you're only focused on that, [00:23:00] Then you're missing the whole point of what you're doing, which is creating an impact and making a difference for other people.
And so I think a lot of times, you know, As humans in general, mm-hmm we like focus so much on like, what can I achieve? Or like, what accolades can I get? Whereas if we focused on like, how can I make an impact in the world? How can I improve other people's lives? Not only would that actually help us become more successful ourselves, but it also is so much more.
We feel so much more joy when we are serving other people than when we're just like, it's all about us. So like, I think about this even with, you know, with my daughter, Rosie, like it's crazy because before her, my husband and I talk with a lot before Rosie, we would always just do things for ourselves.
Right. It's like well, what are we gonna do for fun? What are we gonna do for this? What are we gonna do for that? And now it's like, it's all about her, but [00:24:00] we actually have more fulfillment and joy. in that, you know, because it's like, it's like, We have to be more selfless but it's like, there's more purpose in it too.
So it's an interesting, like flip of, you know, when we can do things for others, we actually are more fulfilled and joyful than if we're just only focused on like what we can get for ourselves. And I think like some of the most joyful people are people that are serving other people. And so I actually don't even know where I was going with that. And I don't even know where that was going, but anyhow
Taylor: All success related. But yes, I, I think ultimately it's boiled down to that success is that feeling of making a difference. It's that feeling of serving others and being of service and it's shifting away from the metrics, using those as tools and not as markers of success. The success is more about the feeling and the purpose behind what you're doing. Yeah. Yeah. I love that.
Danielle: All right. I [00:25:00] hope you enjoyed part one of Taylor and I's conversation. I can't wait for you to tune in on Thursday to hear part two of our conversation. She asks some really amazing juicy questions, so stay tuned for that.
But in the meantime, again, if you have not grabbed your ticket to either one of our events, either in Vancouver or San Diego, Go to business vapes, collective.com and then click on the events button. It'll be dropdown for Vancouver and San Diego. We hope to see you there in person. We have been waiting since 2020 for this.
So come join us in person, hang out with us network, meet some new business connections and friends, and we will see you there. And in the meantime, we'll see you on the next episode of the podcast.
If you love this episode, make sure you screenshot post and tag us on Instagram at business. Babe's co want to know when the next episode goes, live, subscribe on your podcast app. And while [00:26:00] you're there, save us a review until next time. Keep dreaming big setting goals and taking action.