Cath:
So I’m really excited to welcome my guest to the show today, and today I have Wendy from Up on the Rooftop, and I’m really pleased to welcome you to the show Wendy.
Wendy:
Thank you Cath, I’m really pleased to be here. Thanks for asking.
Cath:
Fantastic. So upontherooftop.com.au, if I just get that in first, is your business. And would you like to maybe just introduce yourself and your business to our listeners?
Wendy:
Thanks. My name’s Wendy, as Cath mentioned, and I started this business a little over a year ago, and the products are largely sustainable gardening products, it’s kind of a passion project for me and I have a fairly small range compared to many stores, and I’ve gotten into garden and knitting, but main focus is definitely the garden products.
Cath:
Yeah, absolutely. And we’ll definitely dive into a little bit more about what the products are all about in a minute, but before we get to that, how about you share the original idea and inspiration for starting Up on the Rooftop, because I know there are some people out there who start a business because they just want to make some money, and that’s not necessarily the case for you, so do you want to share that origin story for us?
Wendy:
Yeah, sure. Okay, well I’ve been a gardener for as long as I can remember, and looking back on all the practices I’ve employed in all my gardens, they were pretty commonplace, inefficient, wasteful and I’m the sort of person who likes to do things well, do things better. [inaudible 00:01:44] almost.
Wendy:
And moving into my apartment, about five years ago, just under five years ago, meant I had to find more efficient ways to garden in my small space, so this is kind of like my journey, my real life journey, and over recent years I’ve had a growing concern for global water security and food security issues. I remember not being able to sleep one night, one particular night, because I’d learnt that it was predicted that by about 2040, the year 2040, there’d be no more potable water on the planet-
Cath:
Gosh-
Wendy:
And that kind of blew me away, I thought my children, my grandchildren. And I’d known about Olla’s, I should explain, Olla’s are my main product, which are an irrigation vessel, terracotta vessel that irrigates the plants, and I’d known about these for a while and it dawned on me on that night that this was the kind of technology, or low technology that was going to be possibly an answer to my needs, to model water saving methods in my own balcony garden.
Wendy:
So that’s pretty much where it started. You can call it the idea on the [inaudible 00:03:06], which you put in your pocket and think what do I do with this? So that’s pretty much the start. One night, one idea.
Cath:
So it was really born from that big concern and worry that you had, and you really wanted to do something to … well obviously you wanted to do something to help your own gardening situation, but was it at that moment when you really thought that it could be something that you could help other people with as well?
Wendy:
Oh yeah, absolutely. Because the whole concept of the irrigation vessel was something that people had used over a couple thousand years, actually. So it was already in existence, and it had already proven itself, and so I thought well there’s a movement now across the world where people are just returning back to the simple way of life and technology, going back to basics and traditional methods. And that all kind of fit that bill, and so being able to push that out to the community and revive an ancient tradition, just [inaudible 00:04:19] it all made such sense, and was in sync with who I was at that time too, and where people were heading.
Wendy:
You had this state of emergency, the climate change fears, and it all kind of fitted in with that conversation.
Cath:
Yeah. So for the listeners who don’t know what an olla is, imagine kind of like a big terracotta drink bottle really, isn’t it? Bit rounder than that.
Wendy:
Kind of like a big round hollow vessel with a little long neck on it, that you bury in the ground, with the neck protruding, fill it with water, and just uses osmosis to leach into the soil. Really simple, natural forces that are applied, and that’s all it is, literally.
Cath:
Yeah. So basically, the plants take what they need, they don’t take too much and they don’t take too little, so it’s a really great way of managing your water, for sure. Which we all, in Australia, we need these things in our lives because it’s such a dry, hot country.
Wendy:
And we had the drought last year too, and it kind of all fell into place really.
Cath:
So when you had that first idea, what was the … was the first step that you took starting up your amazing Instagram page, or did … walk us through that, the first steps that you took to really get started with this vision?
Wendy:
Well the Instagram started before that. So I was chronicling my gardening journey anyway, before the olla idea came along. And I think I started it because I wanted to prove to people that anyone could grow food in a small place and I should just remind people that I moved into an apartment so I wanted to grow my own food, and organic food, and soils … natural, sustainable practices.
Wendy:
So putting it out on Instagram actually made me accountable, and it really did, because I couldn’t fake it on there at all. So the Instagram came first, and then starting the business came after that, well kind of trying to find something to sell on the business came after that. And yeah …
Cath:
So you were able to really test these products out yourself, and see what they were like to actually use in your garden?
Wendy:
Well I couldn’t at first, that’s the thing. Because I had this idea, [inaudible 00:07:02] idea, and I couldn’t find olla’s here and so I hadn’t seen one, I hadn’t felt one, and a couple years ago, two or three years ago, I attended an urban food growing symposium in Melbourne, and one of the door prizes was this handmade Mexican olla. So the Mexicans use them, a lot of arid countries overseas use them as a traditional form of irrigation and I’d never seen one.
Wendy:
But there was this amazing door prize, and the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. And I just recall sitting there, literally waiting, willing my name to be drawn out of the bowl because I was so desperate to actually see and feel and own an olla, and I won.
Cath:
Wow!
Wendy:
The most fluke-y thing ever, and I remember screaming [inaudible 00:07:59] but that was actually the start of it, because I think had I not actually saw one and thought people use this and make it somewhere, I probably wouldn’t have persevered, because I had to start from nowhere. And there I was, holding this gorgeous vessel, and it was then that I thought I can do this.
Cath:
Yeah, that was the-
Wendy:
Find out how-
Cath:
The clincher. Finding the product. And the other really popular product that you sell is the root pouch, or the range of root pouches, when did that one sort of come across your radar?
Wendy:
Well that was probably … getting the olla’s off the ground took some time, and that probably came along a year, year and a half later. I had quite, by accident, stumbled across the product. It’s an American product, it’s a US company who owns it and they manufacture in China, and couple of people, really small entities here, had a bit of product and I came across it and it also kind of ticked the small space, sustainable product, [inaudible 00:09:08] product, and it’s a perfect product for the small space gardener, all those kinds of things.
Wendy:
And so it was a great adjunct to the olla product, and created a lovely bundle, to make it simple for people to embark on their growing journey and so it made a lot of sense to me, just try to get the product. They are a lovely company, they were happy to talk to me about it and as it turns out one of the other sellers stopped selling it, and the other seller was a really, really small outfit out the back of nowhere, and I offered to buy all his stock, and he gave it to me … or he sold it to me, so I’m now the sole distributor here.
Wendy:
So that came a bit later, there wasn’t the same amount of soul searching and development, or divine. There wasn’t any of that actually-
Cath:
No, because it was a fully existing thing-
Wendy:
Brought the product.
Cath:
Yeah. Fantastic. So I want to talk … I do want to talk about your amazing Instagram page, but should we kind of go next to … what were the next steps that you really took to get the business off the ground? Because you pretty much launched the business properly not much more than 12 months ago, really.
Wendy:
Yeah, that’s a right. Just a bit over 12 months.
Cath:
Just a bit over 12 months. So what were the steps, if you think back to … you’d had the idea on the back of the napkin a few years ago, what were the steps that you took to really get things underway?
Wendy:
Well that part of my journey is probably something that a lot of your clients would face. You’ve got an idea, what do you do with it?
Cath:
Exactly.
Wendy:
I could have brought the products in, wholesale, from people in the States, because in the States you can buy them. There’s a pottery that makes beautiful ones, but they’re way too heavy to ship over here. And another company who were making more of the sort of product that I wanted to bring in, because it had to be a light weight vessel, and I had actually spoken to them. We were away on holidays, and I remember thinking I’m just going to call them and see what they think.
Wendy:
Well I actually ended up emailing them and they said “Sure, we’d be interested in coming into Australia with this product”. And I don’t know … it’s funny how your gut works, and there was just something about the whole setup that I didn’t feel comfortable … not that there was anything wrong with it, but the model was wrong. Because I thought well this product, I can actually produce myself, somehow. I’ll find a supplier myself, I can do it better, I can market it better, and I can do it under my own private label. I don’t need to bring it in all the way from China via the States, and that kind of setup.
Wendy:
So that made me thinking well if somebody can do that in the US, I can do it from here. And so I designed my own, and my own specs, and then I set about furiously googling and I spoke to a couple of friends who have imported from China before, to get some aspects on what the pitfalls are, what to look for and that kind of thing. And importantly, I looked locally in Australia for a manufacturer, and I looked at local potters and they were bringing beautiful robust vessels, in their own little market, but they were so beautiful, they weighed a ton. Freight was going to be a nightmare, all those kinds of issues.
Wendy:
A local supplier, as much as I would like to have supported them, would not have been able to mass produce thousands of pieces, and that was my aim, I was going to sell thousands of these, and a local potter’s usually one old guy in a little pottery somewhere, or a couple … they don’t have mass production setup.
Cath:
Which is a common problem in Australia these days. It’s very difficult to manufacture here. It is a shame.
Wendy:
Yeah, very. And if it’s not that, it’s the expense.
Cath:
Yeah.
Wendy:
And freight is terribly expensive as well. And also, with a local supplier, I’m not a Bunnings, so I wasn’t going to be ordering pellets, I am ordering pellets, but container loads of things from a local potter. So what was stopping them from running a business themselves? Once I got the infrastructure set up, I thought well they could easily do it themselves once they got going, this manufacturer, why would they need me?
Wendy:
So that was another reason why I thought I don’t know about this. And also, how would I ensure quality? Because handmade pottery, there’s lots of inconsistencies with the styling and the quality. And yeah, so I thought no I think I’ve got to pick up the same model as that company in the States, and look over in unfortunately China, or Indonesia, I looked at Indonesia as well.
Wendy:
And I just went through Alibaba actually, and I thought that was a good place to start, to at least contact factories over there, and it was a very interesting exercise. I learnt a lot, simply by doing it, got to know what kind of factory setups were there, and how we were going to communiCathe and in the end I’d kind of whittled it down to two factories, and chose one where I thought correspondence was not going to be an issue. Because I thought well factories, they’re all factories, they kind of make the same thing and you’re really not going to know whether it’s going to be delayed until the first shipment, or go over there yourself.
Wendy:
But I thought their ability to communiCathe with me was going to be fundamental to iron out any issues in the future, so I pretty much made my decision based on their ability to talk to me and to make suggestions and show their proactive desire to work with me, and a lot of luck involved, and it was a very good decision and I’m very blessed to have them, they were a really nice outfit, and [inaudible 00:16:08].
Cath:
And they have been able to produce good stuff for you, haven’t they?
Wendy:
Yeah. It wasn’t without its problems-
Cath:
It never is.
Wendy:
Not major things, where whole containers were kaput or anything, and we visited them early last … [inaudible 00:16:27] before COVID happened, and so that was a year into our relationship, or just a bit less than a year actually, which was really affirming and they were impressed with my commitment to make that trip too-
Cath:
Yeah, it does help. Goes a long way to develop the relationship with them, doesn’t it?
Wendy:
It does. And it is fraught, dealing with China. I was warned.
Cath:
Yes.
Wendy:
But I guess too, I was always prepared to walk away from it. I know it’s a big investment for small businesses, and a lot of people may not be able to make that decision to walk away. They may feel that their financial commitment is such that they have to make it work, but I knew that I’d given everything I could and invested everything I could in the relationship and if it didn’t work out, I would walk away. [inaudible 00:17:04] So that took a lot of pressure off me.
Cath:
Yeah. No, that’s really, really good.
Wendy:
Lucky to have that.
Cath:
So how long did it take for that product development process, and really kind of getting to the point where you actually had stock to sell?
Wendy:
Probably eight months, I’d say. It seemed like a really long time, I don’t know if it a long time in the scheme of things, but I know I got a bit of cold feet initially too, because I couldn’t put an order in, there was something stopping me from doing that, but once I got over that fear. But it took a lot of going backwards and forwards with specifiCathions, [inaudible 00:18:20] but they were pretty good.
Wendy:
They were making a similar product, oh that was the other consideration, you choose someone who’s doing something like what you want to manufacture, so they were producing something that was quite similar and so it was easy to just talk around that product they already had and come up with one I wanted as well, and when I said that it was fraught and there were a few problems, well the first shipment that came in didn’t have our logo stamped on it-
Cath:
Oh no-
Wendy:
Even though I had signed off on a sample that had the stamp, so little things like that. Don’t quite know what happened there. But [inaudible 00:19:04]
Cath:
Oh that’s good, that’s good. And then presumably at some point, you got yourself a website together, and you started to get yourself ready to start selling and launch officially at some point last year?
Wendy:
Yeah, well that’s right. So having had a product, and that was all in chain, I had to get the website sorted, that was the other thing. I didn’t know what to do, I really didn’t know what to do in terms of getting the website done. I engaged a local outfit to put together, and as you know, it was a total mess-
Cath:
Didn’t quite work out how you wanted initially, did it-
Wendy:
No. Well, they put it together but that was literally it, they put it together and I found myself having to put a lot of the work into the design and everything, with the copy, and everything. And drive them. We were contracted, so it really wasn’t towards the end where I thought hang on they’re not actually doing much at all [crosstalk 00:20:17]
Wendy:
So we launched it, and I fairly quickly terminated their services and thought I’d run solo for a bit, but that proved stupid and ridiculous, so that’s when I found you Cath.
Cath:
Yep, you came into my world, and that was a fabulous thing for me as well, so it’s been … well, I suppose it’s been a journey for both of us really, launching and growing your business over the last year, and it’s been fabulous to watch how customers have really taken on the products, which I guess is kind of new. Basically, they were new products for Australia, I don’t know whether there had been anything like it used in traditional communities around Australia, would you know that actually? Had they used anything like that-
Wendy:
Yeah, I had a good sense of that. They’re unique, I have to say. Nobody … if a potter’s been selling them to a small handful of clients, that’s been happening since they’ve been making them, but nobody’s done it like this, and put a brand on it and put a face behind it. If you jump onto Amazon, I think you can pick stuff up from the US or China directly, but it’s like anything, you jump on Amazon, you don’t know who it is, what the guarantee is, anything like that-
Cath:
Or even if it’ll turn up.
Wendy:
Exactly. Yeah. I was really determined to create a story behind it, and give the consumer a level of confidence that they were dealing with a person or a team of people, the team my husband and I, but real people who were walking that journey, who were gardeners, who cared about the environment and all those sorts of things so that there was trust in the product.
Wendy:
Really, my product is probably no different from the one the guy’s selling in the States, but in this environment here, I think trust is really important and the liability and that instills a strong brand and the product will sell itself then.
Cath:
Yeah. Well it is a good quality product, but the thing that I think is so fabulous and we’ll make our way back your social media now, is you’re so committed to also eduCathing people about not just how to use the product, but the whole … there’s a whole way of living really, but the amount of value that your customers get from that content and the energy that you bring to it, the intelligence that you bring to it, and you share what you’re doing in your garden and why you’re doing it, and how it works, and all of that kind of stuff.
Cath:
People love that, so I did kind of want to dive into a little bit of your social media, and in particular your Instagram channel, and do you want to just quickly share your Instagram handle here, if people want to check it out.
Wendy:
Yeah, sure. It’s @upontherooftops, with underscores in between each word. So up_on_the_rooftops.
Cath:
Fantastic.
Wendy:
And so that’s my main channel. I populate Instagram and let it feed through to Facebook and I realize that over time, just through interactions with both platforms, is that my Facebook’s tends to be an older demographic, and the Instagram covers the demographic … for me, my niche, 25 through to about 60, 65. Mainly female, and they’re far more engaged on Instagram than they are on Facebook-
Cath:
Yeah, that sounds about right.
Wendy:
Oh okay. So I put my energy into that. And Facebook is where I put some of my advocacy stuff on, because that seems to be a better platform for that kind of thing and so knowing which platform works for which sector helped me to work out where my energies were going to go, and so my social media feed tends to stay away from product promotion actually, and you might find that kind of odd, that I don’t use that platform to boost the product, but that wasn’t the point of my Instagram.
Wendy:
So its origins were just to chronicle my journey, and I’ve tried to stay true to that, and in fact every time I’ve put something up about my product in the feed, there’s a little part of me that goes “Oh yuck”. I just feel uncomfortable doing it, because I know what it’s like to look at other people’s Instagram’s where either they’re constantly [inaudible 00:25:39] products, or b., it suddenly becomes sponsored, and there’s these artificial photos of them holding a hose-
Cath:
Yeah, that’s a bit inauthentic then isn’t it?
Wendy:
Exactly. Yeah. And even though it’s my product, I have a level of discomfort doing that. So if you ever flick through my feed, you’ll see very little product in it. I mean, it’ll be placed in there sometimes, but that’s how I grow, but it’s no obviously an ad-
Cath:
I guess that’s the point, isn’t it? Sometimes you might be doing something in your garden where you are using an olla, or are you using a root pouch, for instance, but generally speaking, the content is driven by the bigger vision and the impact that you’re trying to have, and what I love about your Instagram content is how you have been able to attract this really engaged audience on there, and that comes from the bigger picture that you’re trying to work towards. I think, correct me if I’m wrong here.
Wendy:
I think so, thanks for saying that. Yeah, it’s good. I think that’s very true, because you see a lot of people, say in my niche, gardening, food production in small space, we all grow tomatoes for example. Now, there are only so many ways you can shoot a tomato and make it look interesting, and a lot of people go to a lot of lengths to make their product look gorgeous on there. They’ll stylize it, be it a tomato, be it shoes or whatever, or a dress, whatever. They will stylize the shot, and I could have done that do and I’d be up competing against all those people who stylize their tomato.
Wendy:
And to me, that wasn’t the message. Everyone knows what a tomato looks like, it’s the story behind the tomato for me that is important, and so it’s almost like the tomato’s a by product, this is what you can get but this is how you do it. Or this is why such and such … tomatoes, something else.
Cath:
Tromboncino.
Wendy:
Yeah, a tromboncino.
Cath:
Is that how you say it?
Wendy:
Yeah, a tromboncino zucchini, yep, yep. So whatever it is, for me, it has to have a comedic side to it, aspect of it, just to lighten things up a bit, or it has to have some kind of message or instruction on how you achieve this, how you do it, or how it came about. And so people don’t want to read what I write, well too bad. But I think it’s working, because I do get quite good engagement and it’s all that’s part of my journey too, teach people how to grow, to grow sustainably, to regenerate what they have and generally have a better life doing it.
Wendy:
So it’s not the … I don’t know that everyone can take that approach, because there are products where Instagram is simply used to promote a product, but I think what works for me, and I think what would work for a lot of product, is if you’re prepared to put your name to it, and back it, and give your product a prominence that suggests authenticity and a product you can trust and there’s a person behind the product then anyone can do it the same way I do it, if you’re willing …
Wendy:
And it’s a big jump, to put your name out there, to open up your soul to people. That took me a long time to feel comfortable doing that, and that comes back to my own philosophy that if this is important to me, I have to put my money where my mouth is. I had to-
Cath:
You have to share it-
Wendy:
I have to come out a bit. And be less private about it. I think that would work-
Cath:
I agree, and I think there’s probably room for a lot more products than probably think that this would work, too work, this kind of approach to the Instagram or just social media content generally. Having a think about the scenarios that your customers would be using the products, and … there’s always a story to tell.
Wendy:
Yeah, I think so.
Cath:
So sometimes, even if you’ve got a fashion product for instance, what kind of a person is your audience? A couple of years ago, I was working with an active wear brand called Active Truth, and I’m just thinking about that because I’m wearing their leggings right now. So they created their products, and you can get the full range of sizes in their products, but they definitely created their projects with curvier women’s body shapes in mind, as well as pregnant women’s body shapes in mind, and so their audience was slightly different to at the time, what was the mainstream brands. I think there’s probably other brands available now.
Cath:
And so their whole … they take a kind of similar approach with their content, they’re really trying to cultivate a sense of community around the lifestyle, having an active life no matter what size or shape your are, and so they really trying to build community around that idea. And you’ve really built community around what you do, the garden, and yeah your products help with that, and that’s why you’re able to sell so well on your website, but it’s not the … you’re not just primarily pushing the product.
Wendy:
No, and I think the human story behind things always increases engagement, because what is engagement? Engagement is when someone can really feel the journey, or see themselves on the journey, or aspire to that. If you can present that to the customer, and my credo, throughout my Instagram is if I can do it, you can too, that’s in my bio and that’s what I firmly believe, and I think that’s the essence of selling anything, any product that’s authentic, that you can do this too. It’s not hard.
Cath:
I love it.
Wendy:
I have these … when I was looking at what we might be talking about, I was looking at influences for me, on social media, and it encompasses products like a leather apron maker in Victoria, and fabric designer, and a range of chocolates, and some comfort makeup, and I thought well they’re very diverse products, including my products, but what is it that draws me those products, and it’s the story behind them. Each one, is a journey and that’s a real hook I think.
Cath:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). I definitely agree, and I want to chime in here and we’re not going to spend a lot of time talking about specific marketing strategies that you’ve used to grow your business because it boils down to the same basics really, you have a website that is designed well, and you use email marketing and social media advertising and blogging et cetera et cetera, you do all of that. But the reason it works so well, is because you have … your focus is on that audience and the content that’s eduCathing them and helping them and that they’re super engaged with, which you know they’re engaged with your content because it’s helping them create that lifestyle and have that for themselves.
Wendy:
Yeah. Yeah. And I think, you mentioned those things that we’ve been doing, of the emailing and the blogging and everything. Well it wasn’t happening before.
Cath:
No.
Wendy:
Until you came along, and when I decided that I needed to take the business to another level, or at least try, and that’s when it really, really started happening.
Cath:
Yeah, and I mean this was a whole new business for you to learn, the business model, and what you have to do and all of that sort of stuff, but you did it pretty quick. It’s been 12 months, or just over.
Wendy:
Yes, it has. Within that first 12 months, we achieved six figures in revenue, within 12 months, and then we should be reaching double that in the next little while-
Cath:
At least. The rate you’re going.
Wendy:
Yeah, depending on if I survive. And I attribute all of that to the business advice that I’ve received from you, and when we decided to ramp it up and just see where we could take it, and six months of good financial investment into that-
Cath:
Which required some big orders of product. That was really where … you really had to make that decision at that point, didn’t you?
Wendy:
Well that’s it, I think business is growing steadily, we’ll get to a point where you think oh boy, do I increase my product range, do I need more product? And if I do, what infrastructure do I need behind that, to sell that but also take the business to the next level, and that’s where with you guys I decided no I’m going to have to invest in the Facebook advertising, SEO work, and all those things to build the brand.
Wendy:
So I guess the stage I’m at now is escalating the brand building. I’ve got the awareness out there, but I’m very conscious of competitors coming in on the market too, so there as an imperative to really invest-
Cath:
Try and grab that first mover advantage as strongly as you can.
Wendy:
Yeah.
Cath:
Yeah. So good. Now, as we … well before we wind things up, was there anything else that you wanted to mention that maybe didn’t go so well, or just any piece of advice that you’d like to pass on from all the learnings you’ve had over the last … since you learnt?
Wendy:
There are so many. There are so many. Well, things that didn’t go so well. We’ve been pretty fortunate. There’s nothing happened that’s been disastrous-
Cath:
I was sort of thinking that first website that you had, and you really didn’t know how a website would work, or what should be on it, and ended up not getting the help that you needed at that point in time.
Wendy:
That could have been the end of it, at that point. I was so frustrated, and honestly I think I found myself in a bit of depression over it, because you don’t know what you don’t know, and no more truer than when you are running a business. You’ve put money into it, and you don’t have a business background, thankfully my husband’s financial, but he’s never run a full business, he’s just been a banker, so totally different business, and so between the two of us we had no idea.
Wendy:
And I think the lesson I’ve learnt, I learnt early on, and I’m still learning, is not to be afraid to ask for help, even if it’s just because you’re overwhelmed by the enormity of what you’ve taken on or you’re losing confidence or you simply don’t know how to do your metrics, Cathherine.
Cath:
Yes-
Wendy:
Which I still don’t do. The simplest things. I think for a person that jumps onto this passion project, who comes from a vastly different background, who has an enormous amount of skill, experiences and careers and whatever, and you’re at the top of your game when you come to something like this, I’ll be the first to say I’m a total bumpkin. I’ve had to learn everything-
Cath:
It’s hard going back to being new at something isn’t it?
Wendy:
Oh it’s terrible. It eats your confidence like nothing else does. Honestly, when I could run a department or run a business before, I’m not [inaudible 00:38:46] departments, like IT, accounts payable-
Cath:
It’s all you now isn’t it?
Wendy:
It is all you, and I don’t know how many times I’ve mentioned in our academy group that I’ve just been in tears, night after night, just not knowing what to do. So I think that’s probably a fairly similar story for a lot of small business owners-
Cath:
I’d say so. And knowing who to ask for help is really difficult sometimes.
Wendy:
That is difficult, and yeah that’s a good point actually Cathherine, because you can ask a lot of people and they will all give you different advice, and that is even worse for your confidence, because you’re not able to discern what is truth, fact or what’s going to work. And so I think finding the group or the person or the consultant, whatever, who you trust and then just place that trust in that person and go for the journey and the ride, and trust in the process.
Wendy:
Because even signing up with you, it takes time to earn someone’s trust also, so I had to learn to trust you, and because I’m a sort of personality as a lot of people are, who question everything, and think they know better sometimes too, when you know you don’t, the truth is you don’t. So you have to, at a certain point, just trust the process, and have faith that the person you have chosen knows what they’re doing, which absolutely worked well for me.
Wendy:
It’s not easy-
Cath:
It’s not easy, no-
Wendy:
Running a small business is not for the faint hearted.
Cath:
No.
Wendy:
But it can make you such a … bring you out the other end such a bigger, better person. It’s incredible, the amount of learning …
Cath:
It can be extremely rewarding, once you do get some momentum, and you can start to see that the impact that you’re having. I mean obviously you want to have an impact on your bottom line, in a positive way, but ultimately, especially for people like yourself with a passion project like this, where you are trying to help people do things differently, and make a positive change in the world.
Cath:
So to start to see that happen is pretty rewarding too.
Wendy:
It is rewarding. And then also, when things go wrong, as with anything, you just try to turn it into a learning, developmental thing, that it debilitates you.
Cath:
I think if I think back to my start out in business as well, it was pretty similar to what you were describing actually, with trying to find a factory, and going through all of that, I guess the development, product development and getting your first orders, and something’s wrong and all of that kind of stuff, and dealing with international factories and international service providers and all of that sort of stuff, I just look back and it’s like oh, it’s like an international business degree in 12 months-
Wendy:
Exactly-
Cath:
Because of the amount of learning you go through is incredible. You can’t think of it as being a mistake, because you just learn from it and move forward, and do better next time.
Wendy:
Yeah. There’s such a personal growth journey, running a small business.
Cath:
Yeah, absolutely. And I always … I definitely want to finish on a win, and you had an amazing win, well it kind of happened a few weeks ago now, but we all saw this on Friday, and so tell us what happened?
Wendy:
Oh well. Yeah, it was simply amazing. Someone, somewhere, I think through my Instagram actually, pointed Gardening Australia, the TV show, ABC Gardening Australia to me, and I received an invitation to appear on one of their episodes, so they came along … at first I was going to say no.
Cath:
You were not!
Wendy:
Yeah, yeah. I knew it was a wonderful opportunity and must do, but the stronger voice in me was saying no don’t do it, because you have to put yourself out there and your face is going to be on TV, and all those things-
Cath:
Yeah, it’s hard.
Wendy:
But the stronger part of me said no, do it, and so yeah they came up in August, the spring edition, and it was screened on Friday night, so that was quite a journey too. So honored to be asked, and the response has been really positive and I’ll see where that goes.
Cath:
Well-
Wendy:
It’s lovely that it’s being quoted out there now, and seeing what I do-
Cath:
I think all of your hard work, especially creating the content that you’ve created, and curating the audience that you’ve curated, obviously stood out to the right people, and landed you this major national media opportunity which I know was incredibly nerveracking and not the easiest thing to go for, but an amazing win for your business, for sure.
Wendy:
Thank you. Yeah, I have to pinch myself really, when I saw that. Thank you. It was good, so see what happens form that.
Cath:
Definitely. And so can people go and check that out on our Instagram page, and your Facebook page, and I can’t remember-
Wendy:
Yes, they can-
Cath:
Is it on your website as well now?
Wendy:
Yes, it is. It’s everywhere.
Cath:
Everywhere, fantastic-
Wendy:
Everywhere I can stick it-
Cath:
I will make sure-
Wendy:
My website-
Cath:
Yeah, share the links here, and I’ll add them into the show notes as well.
Wendy:
Okay. Lovely. Thank you very much.
Cath:
Yeah. So Up on the Rooftop, go and check it out. Like I said, I will share the links on this podcast episode show notes, you’ll find it at Cathherinelangman.com/episode-43, so you can head there and get through to all of Wendy’s links to her website and social media channels, and I definitely, definitely recommend going and particularly checking out her Instagram page. So thank you so much for joining us on the show Wendy, and sharing this-
Wendy:
Pleasure-
Cath:
Amazing story and journey in your business. It’s so fabulous to listen too.
Wendy:
Thank you Cathherine.