Zhanna Gee founder of Slim By Nature and Delicious Dreams on what it takes to start and then sustain successful businesses.

[00:00:00] Hi, it's Michael Kerr here presenting Small Business Banter.

[00:00:12] A healthy micro and small business sector means a successful economy and a more vibrant society.

[00:00:19] Small Business Banter is about helping regional business owners better prepare for current challenges but also for the next stage of business success.

[00:00:28] Small Business Banter, Michael Kerr, founder of Kerr Capital, advises to business owners.

[00:00:39] Each week I interview a fellow Small Business owner or an expert and they share their stories, their lived experiences, the wins and the losses and their best advice to help you the listener get the most you can from your own business.

[00:00:54] Small Business Banter is brought to you from the studios of 104.7 Gipsland FM and is heard across Australia on your community radio network.

[00:01:04] Thanks also to Kerr Capital supporters of this show.

[00:01:09] I welcome into another edition of Small Business Banter Community Radio and podcast.

[00:01:13] I think this is up to about, I should know exactly but up to about 125 in terms of episode numbers really delighted to welcome in Jharna Jit.

[00:01:24] I am really excited to welcome in Jharna thanks for making time to come and chat.

[00:01:31] Thanks Michael, thanks for having me. I am excited.

[00:01:38] You have got a terrific story to tell so I will let you just if you could give us a minute or two on your personal background that I think is all part of the mix of everything

[00:02:03] up where you are with a couple of businesses and eyes on some more I think.

[00:02:10] Yeah sure, just a little bit about myself. I came to Australia back in 1996.

[00:02:18] I was born in Latvia and my future pretty much was mapped out by my father and my future was meant to be in German speaking country so I lived in Germany for a couple of years and then I moved to Switzerland

[00:02:32] and I went to school there. And then due to situation that was presently in Latvia my parents' lives have changed so they decided to move to Australia and me being an elder's daughter, I was kind of the first one that was in Australia by myself back in 1996.

[00:02:52] I didn't know any word of English, I think I asked to an 18 and I pretty hated my life.

[00:03:02] I called my dad at one point because he was back in Latvia and I did tell him that he ruined my life.

[00:03:07] I had my whole life planned in Switzerland, I had a boyfriend then you know being 18 so I had to start my new life in Australia but now what is it?

[00:03:20] I have 20 plus years being here, I love it you know I have a family I call it home my parents are here my sister is here.

[00:03:28] You reconciled with your father?

[00:03:32] You forgiven your father?

[00:03:35] Yeah he's a fantastic man.

[00:03:39] So what does life look like now particularly and the businesses that you're involved with?

[00:03:49] You've got a couple that I'm aware of. Do you want to talk about just those in a brief way then we'll get into our chat about how you got started and in those businesses.

[00:04:01] To be honest it's pretty hectic. I think for the maybe last two to three years I was in a really good space.

[00:04:11] Running the business I fell on top of the world I had a great team but I think especially with one business in particular we have health and wellness so we in supplements we have a regulated business and have a regulated industry.

[00:04:28] And I've been running this particular business for over 10 years I honestly think I just got burnt out.

[00:04:36] You started from scratch that business?

[00:04:40] Yeah I started from scratch actually started out of my own pain. I've been in a couple of accidents which resulted me in not wearing high heels for a little bit and then my weight I always did struggle with my weight.

[00:04:56] I think back then about 10 or 11 years ago I got to the point where I urgently needed to look at my weight situation and make a decision so that's how the whole sling by nature has started researching the magic pills, the weight loss solutions, anything and everything that's been out in the world.

[00:05:20] I think I've tried it all and that's how the manager was born.

[00:05:26] Right from a very personal situation and you became your own laboratory trying all sorts of things to help you.

[00:05:40] Yeah exactly.

[00:05:45] And I'm guessing not really inclined to give up and say it's too hard you just had to find a solution of a product that kind of worked for you.

[00:05:58] Was that what drove you to some kind of a breakthrough?

[00:06:04] Yeah so I found a product that I traveled on myself. It did work greatly for me and then I sourced a manufacturer back then it was in US.

[00:06:17] And I literally started my first order and I remember it was maybe 50 units once Q.

[00:06:25] Back then again Facebook was just about to start there was no no weight of Instagram so the best way for me to get new clients was the usual you know the road shows the expose.

[00:06:40] I would travel you know four five six times a year with suitcases full of brochures and whatnot and exhibit at beauty spars and beauty exposed.

[00:06:52] And this is actually where I met a column of Matt professor and we're amazing friends till today.

[00:06:58] He looked at my formula and he's just said, I can do a better formula for your darling like really okay.

[00:07:06] That's how I literally got my first local supplier and from that day as I said has been 10 11 years now.

[00:07:16] He still guides me and helps me with different formulas and we've created you know a thousand formulas since then.

[00:07:26] And yeah he's a trusted advisor.

[00:07:31] So important in the creation but this you know how you sustain a business is to tap into wise experienced individuals or organizations.

[00:07:46] So that business today how what are some of the metrics is it you know got you subcontracted manufacturing and did you still involve personally in selling or you've got some staff.

[00:08:03] So that business I mean I think it was quite naive when I actually walked into this particular industry now looking back.

[00:08:12] I could have done million behind different things and they would have been easier but I think it's you know when you're actually in the game you just think oh my god you just one step closer you nearly there and you just keep on going it's one step at a time.

[00:08:26] And all of a sudden you look back and it's 10 years and you've been doing it.

[00:08:32] I often think if you knew all those steps you wouldn't you probably wouldn't do it.

[00:08:41] No as I said I could have done anything and so there's so many things that are easier and less regulated and you can run phase ads and you can do Google ads and you you can talk about the product really and what it does where in supplements you really have to be careful it's all about the claims and what you actually tell the client.

[00:09:01] What the product can do that's where the all difficulty and you have to be super careful here.

[00:09:09] But what's your your mission that you're drive for others in this business I mean lots of people listening and that I know around in business.

[00:09:21] What's your personal motivation motivations for you know for staying in that in this business.

[00:09:31] In this particular industry as well yeah for me when I first started a business it was just me right so a sole pranet and I think the fact that our formulas do work so if you if you pick the business you have to have the right heart for it for me it was not mainly

[00:09:50] about making the money it was more about I've got amazing product all I have to do is share the knowledge and the product with you you have to follow what are what we have created.

[00:10:02] And you'll have the success so for me it was a passion it was really just this desire to help any woman who needs to have to have that help with weight.

[00:10:12] What are also throughout the journey what I also have learned that so many women are actually depressed of how they look, how they feel about themselves and normally we do have quite a lot of masks that we wear right you know we have families we have businesses or we we're working we are employed.

[00:10:34] But if we do have if we if we carry this massive suitcase in our head on and constantly worry about how we feel and how we're looking how uncomfortable we are because of the weight.

[00:10:49] It's a lot of energy it it's up a lot of your resources that you could be using someplace else and doing something something amazing with your life yeah.

[00:11:01] You've got no wings to fly you you just nod yourself so for me a liberation of going back to who you know you are by removing the clutter and removing all this

[00:11:16] having a senior had about how bad and how you know how bad you feel and what weight you carry.

[00:11:24] It's for me it became like almost a mission I wanted for women to feel that electrifying feeling I wanted them to leave the life I wanted them to go in the beach and play with their kids I wanted them to wear the dress and the heels.

[00:11:40] So for me I was really compassionate and when as I said every time I would pick up a phone call and speak to a customer I knew exactly the pain points they were going through because I went through the same pain points.

[00:11:54] So for me it became more of a consultancy even though we're selling the physical product and then that's pretty much how we grew we grew from word of mouth even today.

[00:12:05] I reduced all my Facebook ads spend to minimum because we do have a word of mouth people coming to us because someone has recommended our program or our service and you know we're with seven figure business we've we've

[00:12:24] helped thousands and thousands of people across the world so we actually ship the product across the world.

[00:12:29] And we do have a very strong community of women of nearly 8000 women in a private Facebook community who on a daily basis do interact with us we help them we run lives we talk about different topics.

[00:12:42] It's not just the weight loss it's actually just chatting to women and talking about life weight loss is and weight management is just something that unfortunately

[00:12:53] many of us have to go through it.

[00:12:56] Yeah so again it's very striking where you know where it comes from for you that very you know from a personal place and I mean it shapes it shapes the reason for wanting to start a business and do something about it does

[00:13:13] help help or hinder sustaining the business I mean it or you have to layer on other other things you talked about having a trusted advisor or mentor maybe we

[00:13:28] I do want to just reintroduce and she's chatting with me today on small business banter and you do want to talk about sustaining the business and what what you've learned and what you've

[00:13:45] what resources and people you've tapped into because it's just it's the same challenge over and over for a lot of entrepreneurs and business owners.

[00:13:55] They start something drive you carry the cases you go do the sale you know go across the country and but then there's a you know some point where you've got to start

[00:14:06] you do start the question and think about well you know how do I keep maintaining this what did you do.

[00:14:16] What did I do you know when you start the business and when you actually start building and growing the business you're so close you're so attached to it

[00:14:26] and you trust no one but yourself right because you just feel like no one else can do it better than you.

[00:14:33] And I get to the point where again with hopefully with some help outside and there's plenty of resources you can tap into

[00:14:43] with some help outside you can learn about yourself that you can't actually run the business on your own you need to have the right people you can't know everything.

[00:14:52] I mean I studied accountancy in university and I hate accounting so obviously I need to outsource that person.

[00:14:59] So what I think the dilemma is how do you actually negotiate that within yourself that how do you release the control

[00:15:08] and hire the right people who can run certain operations for you and you can still have and achieve the goals that you have been achieving if not more by yourself.

[00:15:22] So again tap into the resources with the right business clubs to write people and that's what I had to do.

[00:15:30] I had to literally negotiate for a couple of years with myself that I need staff to help me and I started growing my team from dispatch

[00:15:39] to admin to financial controllers and you know the PR and marketing.

[00:15:46] So I do outsource a lot but also my team is small but we've got nutritionists and natural path on board, we've got our PA, we've got a marketer on board.

[00:15:58] And that's really what you need to make a decision to take the leap and start trusting others who know better in some aspects of the business who can help you grow.

[00:16:11] But before that you said negotiate with yourself so it's giving permission to say if it's going to be successful I need to let go.

[00:16:23] It's okay to let go, I need help it's okay to get help.

[00:16:28] I like the way you frame that you know the go-setting with yourself.

[00:16:32] Yes.

[00:16:33] So we're all forward now and you started to recently started a second business so I'd like to understand why one business isn't enough.

[00:16:49] Why? Why? Business is not enough.

[00:16:54] Not that there's anything wrong with it, I actually love it but I'm intrigued as to you know the your thinking behind it all power to you by the way.

[00:17:11] Yes. Look it wasn't that one business was not enough, one business was yeah it's a big machine, it's a big big vehicle that you need to drive but I think what happened we were in the middle of the lockdown so COVID happened right.

[00:17:28] I've got two daughters, one is 22 and one is eight.

[00:17:33] So during the lockdown my back then 18 year old.

[00:17:40] She was graduating year 12 and there was nothing in her person that well sorry nothing in her eyes that I could see that would excite her to go and live a life to the fullest right so I came from a different country I traveled the world.

[00:17:56] I've seen people, I've tasted different cuisines. I love the world, I love the life right because I was given the opportunity and I made it my life and it's exciting for my elders daughter who's extremely smart kid to graduate high school and not willing to be anyone or do anything but I mean it wasn't as dramatic but I was scared that she'll get to a point where she will just stay in the house and want

[00:18:25] to have that burning desire to live a life so it kind of prompted me to come up with this idea and the second business was born so delicious dreams is all about vision boards.

[00:18:40] Delicious dreams.

[00:18:41] Have you done the vision board?

[00:18:43] Yes.

[00:18:44] No but I will.

[00:18:47] Look vision board is something that you know you go to a new agency, you get a piece of paper and tons of magazines and you just sit for couple of hours and flick through the magazines, cut out whatever resonates with you what you'd like to achieve in your life when you glued on your board and you know and hang it in your wall on your wall.

[00:19:11] So what we have created is it's all in one kit and basically it's a master vision board with 20 or dream, I call them dream sheets and they're all full of different images but the beauty about this particular kit is that you don't need any glues, you don't need any scissors, nothing.

[00:19:35] Everything is included, it's simply you peel off, it's a sticker image, you peel off the sticker that resonates with you or will you like to attract in your life and you just stick it on your master vision board and that's it.

[00:19:49] So I think, Jasmine who is my daughter, she gave me that out of fear, I think that she's not going to learn about life and experience the life.

[00:20:02] I had to start thinking and that's how the new business was born.

[00:20:08] It wasn't planned at all, trust me.

[00:20:10] Yeah, but it sounds a bit like it came from a very personal place again and that's incredible motivation to want to do something.

[00:20:22] Are you on the same pathway as in have you learnt from business one and short circuited some of the things that you might have or if you picked up some learnings and you know,

[00:20:39] gotten a bit faster to where you wanted to get to because you've had experience in another one.

[00:20:46] I think so, I think the confidence, the fact that I can run, do create, replicate something similar just with a different product and a different industry.

[00:20:58] Definitely is something that I was heavily relying back on and the fact that I already had an established team of an amazing team of my girls.

[00:21:11] So I literally dragged them from slim bandage into delicious dreams and to see the excitement of creating because they've been all the, you know, every step of the way of creating the product.

[00:21:21] It took us two and a half years to create the product.

[00:21:24] So, to have that team behind you, the creative mind, the excitement to see the excitement in them, everything happened maybe a little bit faster and again it's just, I think I'm a project based the way I'm built so I like working on projects and seeing them completed.

[00:21:47] A creator.

[00:21:50] Yeah, I'm like at a rudimentary business level what you talked about then is I think there's a lot of complimentary skills that online marketing I imagine is a big part of delicious dreams.

[00:22:04] You've used to the process of outsourcing it comfortable without sourcing.

[00:22:09] You've also got a team that you'd know and trust and you can use them more effectively or more efficiently by saying, look, I've got another, you know, it's another product line in the, you know, in your own personal business.

[00:22:24] So that all makes an awful lot of sense.

[00:22:27] You know, if it was starting a car restoration business, well, you know, that's a million miles away.

[00:22:37] Nothing wrong with the car restoration business but this seems to be quite in some ways complimentary so I think that's a, you know, if we look at what we already know and what we already, what resources we already have we can turn them to new ventures and new interests without, you know,

[00:22:56] really stretching too far.

[00:23:01] So, you know, well, so what stage is that business at delicious dreams?

[00:23:08] So we're launched, we're launched delicious dreams back in January.

[00:23:12] January of 23, 23.

[00:23:15] So you can find us online.

[00:23:21] We still fresh very fresh business.

[00:23:25] It is a little bit different and I think it's actually taking a little different journey as linked by nature.

[00:23:32] Yeah.

[00:23:34] Which is dreams is probably I'm focusing my time that I have not necessarily on e-commerce such but looking for clients or offering this product to organizations.

[00:23:49] So vision boarding is an exercise where it's you could, you could literally, you know, get your team together and spend a half a day bonding through this experience.

[00:24:01] Yes, exercise.

[00:24:03] Yeah, no, I like that.

[00:24:04] You know, it's a highly e-commerce anything is highly competitive but that's a pathway to perhaps changing lives through, you know, sort of that sort of bonding and group work.

[00:24:18] Yeah.

[00:24:19] Look, well, Jhana, we're kind of coming up to the end.

[00:24:24] I don't want to put you on the spot but the reason I do this is this program is to make it the pathway to a small business ownership more of a reality.

[00:24:36] So for you, your partway into your second, well, you've launched your second.

[00:24:42] I think you were also getting into another area of business advice but you're to an entrepreneur or want to be soon to be entrepreneur listening in.

[00:24:52] What's your real couple of things to focus on to get them from where they are to being in business and having something?

[00:25:05] Look, I think for me again, and this is something I had to learn out of my own journey.

[00:25:10] I think you don't spread to things right.

[00:25:14] So don't try to do everything, don't try to create tons of products, stay in your industry, stay in your niche and just do one thing right once that by the time.

[00:25:28] Look after your clients.

[00:25:29] I think customer service is so imperative especially today.

[00:25:34] Sometimes if email doesn't work, pick up the phone call and speak to your clients.

[00:25:38] So just go back to basics and do the job properly I think.

[00:25:46] There's no overnight success like we always would love to hear and read and newspapers, you know, overnight success this and that.

[00:25:55] It didn't come overnight so people actually do work.

[00:25:59] Don't sleep at night and sometimes it takes years before you see those articles and you see the success stories but for anyone who's starting is just.

[00:26:10] And surround yourself with the right people, you know, being in a right environment.

[00:26:16] I love it. Thank you so much, Shana for sharing that.

[00:26:20] That is extremely good advice and get away from all the hypey stuff.

[00:26:26] It's about committing and having realistic expectations.

[00:26:30] We'll post the link to your personal or to the business websites on the notes for the show.

[00:26:37] Thank you so much for your time today, Shana.

[00:26:40] Amazing. Thanks for having me.

[00:26:44] So that is all for today's episode of Small Business Banta.

[00:26:47] I continued to be inspired, bringing you small business experts and other small business owners and hearing their stories.

[00:26:56] If you want to listen to any past episode, jump onto your podcast platform of choice and search Small Business Banta.

[00:27:03] There you will find a diverse and fascinating collection of small business owners and experts openly discussing and sharing their experiences.

[00:27:13] For any of the links, resources or information we've talked about on the show today or to contact me,

[00:27:19] please head over to SmallBusinessBanta.com or you can find us on Facebook and Instagram.

[00:27:26] And it would be great to have you tuning in the same time next week for another episode of Small Business Banta.

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