How to manage a portfolio career, The Women's Chapter, Michelle de Klerk

0:00Today we're joined by the brilliant Michelle Pupari de Klerk, founder of the Women's Chapter, the UK's first network for women in business to achieve B Corp certification. Michelle's journey is an extraordinary example of how a passion project started on a shoestring since launching in 2014. The Women's Chapter has reached more than 30 ,000 women through events, thought leadership, membership and pro bono initiatives. Keep listening as to why a portfolio career is nothing to be ashamed of. Hi Michelle, thank you so much for joining How to Start Up today. We're going to be talking all things portfolio careers.

0:35So it'd be wonderful if you could kick off with a bit about yourself, the businesses that you've run, and a bit about your background. Thank you so much, Juliet. I'm really honored to be here. And great that I get to talk about portfolio careers because, caveat or I guess disclaimer, this is something that for a really long time I felt very ashamed of. I thought it meant that I didn't know what I wanted to do. And further down the line, I've come to realize that actually everything that I have done in my very non-linear career has afforded me the skills that I have needed and I guess continue to build on to run the businesses and do the things that I love and drive impact in the way that I do.

1:20So thank you very much. But by way of introduction, I am the founder of the Women's Chapter, which is a B Corp certified movement and community for women in business, both professionals and entrepreneurs. I believe in the power of bringing together women from cross sectors to collaborate, troubleshoot, support one another. So we are a non-transactional community first, which is really important. But I have had many past lives and many of them actually still can run concurrently with the women's chapter because it started as a passion project and then became a business. But my background is that I was supposed to be a lawyer.

1:58So I did a business law degree. And then when it came to going on and actually doing my articles, I was like, I'm not sure if I fancy that. And so I did a postgraduate in media studies and communications. And I went to work for a hard news title. As an intern initially, but I think within my first three weeks, I had a front page spread and realized that actually I was quite good at that. Really loved the chase, but also loved the communication side of it, the storytelling, the connection. And so unexpectedly, I went on to be a hard news journalist. We were quite a small team, which is really great when you're just starting out as a journalist because you get to get your teeth into everything.

2:42But again, I wasn't quite sure if I wanted to be a business journalist or a drama journalist or a travel journalist. But actually, I got to do a bit of everything, which has stood me in really good stead for the work that I do today. So when I moved to the UK after a stunt teaching English in Taiwan, which turned out to not be a viable career path for me, I'm not a very good teacher. And so I will admit that. It's good to know your strengths and your weaknesses. Absolutely. I really hated it. I wasn't good at it. Great, obviously, for travel, but that was also in the midst of SARS breaking out.

3:17So I had a kind of COVID type experience, which was really interesting, obviously, many years ago. Came back to South Africa with my tail between my legs, had to ask for my job back. And then from there, got everything together to essentially move to the UK. So I came to the UK in my late 20s. I was going to be a journalist. Little did I realise that I I wasn't going to be given a job. I could have an unpaid job where I could work the graveyard shift at broadsheets, but I wasn't going to get a paid journalism job because I had no UK experience, understandably so. And so I then landed up working in financial services, first as a PA, and then I worked my way into the marketing department.

3:56And actually the company that I worked for was owned by a holding company that also owned Businessweek. So my plan was, I'll get a job there, I'll make some connections, and then I'll work for Businessweek. But actually what happened was I ended up working for one of their other titles in commodities. I spent five years working in commodities, pricing copper and aluminium, writing market commentary, essentially. Again, really interesting, lots of chat, lots of human connection. I absolutely loved it. But I realized that I either needed to go on and trade and make more money or I needed to do something completely different.

4:33and I took an unpaid internship at the Telegraph. So I had a friend who had a friend and she said, oh, I've got a connection on the personal finance desk and actually they're looking for an intern for a couple of weeks. And I was like, you know, I've got some holidays to take. I'll do that. And that's actually how I got mine in with newspapers in the UK because I went and pitched a travel story to the travel editor at the time while I was there. I was like, right, I'm in the door, I'm on the floor, I'm going to go and pitch. and also the personal finance editor for Your Money realized that I could write.

5:08So I opened post for a couple of days and then he gave me some things to write. And so I carried on writing for them and I carried on doing travel stuff. But then it was from there that I moved into luxury marketing because on the back of a piece I had written that included a hotel group that I knew from back home who had a London office, they invited me in to say thank you for their three-page spread in the Telegraph. and I left with a job offer to be their marketing director. So there was curiosity there. You were tempted to try new things and putting your hat into the ring and that kind of leapfrogging.

5:42You weren't giving up on things, but you were teeing things up for the future. But for you, I want to go back to that thing you said about feeling embarrassed. There was a shame attached to not really knowing what you wanted to do because I am exactly the same. Why do you feel there's a shame attached to it? I think it goes back to that fear of it appearing that you don't know what you want to do or that you can't stick with something. Yeah, the commitment, you're not focused. But also you make your life harder for yourself. I know I'm a jack of all trades and a master of a few as well, but I'm making my career harder for myself by not sticking to one lane in one sector and one trade.

6:16Do you feel the same? I'm massive in the past, but actually I love embracing now this knowledge that that we're not one-dimensional. As human beings, we are multifaceted. And so why should we pick one career path? Why should we be defined as one thing? It also gets boring. You see the same job for 20 years, you're going to burn out, get bored or want to do something else. Totally. And I think for me, and I don't know really when it happened, but there was this sense of giving myself permission to really embrace this constellation style of how I work, how my brain works, how I connect people. And that's one of my superpowers, actually.

7:04And I wish I had known that when I was younger. But I think obviously I'm also, I'm 48. With your age comes confidence and you get more and more comfortable with what you're good at. And then you outsource the things that you're not. And for me, that calm confidence and peace around my portfolio career, I think probably only came when I turned 40 because I stopped caring so much. And I don't have a CV, but I think one of the challenges is if you tried to put all of that onto a CV, it would be really awkward. And you'd be like, wow. Well, also people don't want to understand it either. They don't want to believe that you can actually achieve all of that.

7:45And I've sort of been accused, it's like, well, what do you mean press in New York, Sydney and London, you can't have, I was like, well, I lived in all three places, like, but on your own, it's like, yes, but people don't like the challenge of believing that you're capable of doing all of those things and doing well. But what you said, your superpower, that connection, I really love you saying that, because I'm doing a course this year on purpose, because I thought if I'm going to work this hard, I want to make sure I'm doing the right work in the right place. And I think I've untapped that kind of dot connecting thing of, oh, that person's got that problem I think that person can help them if you're across multiple sectors and multiple industries and with multiple jobs you've got that network that can help and connect really beautifully there's nothing more I love than doing that kind of jigsaw puzzle of people is that the similar thing for you absolutely I get such a buzz when those light bulbs go off Yeah.

8:40And I realized that not everybody can do that. Like, I really thought everybody could, but it is something that not everybody can tap into. Oh, I remember that so-and-so said they needed help here. Or when I curate an event or a gathering for the Women's Chapter now, people always leave having met someone they felt they were meant to meet. Was this realization what led you to create the Women's Chapter? In part, I was running a lot of private client events through my luxury hospitality work, collaborating with luxury brands. And that kind of collaboration community piece was really important. And as part of these private client events that I ran, there were a lot of women that were coming to them.

9:21And I was standing and watching how they were connecting. Those sparks were flying and they didn't know each other. And London is quite a small place. But when you mix the sectors and industries, it's not really. And in those days, LinkedIn was just really gaining traction. People weren't as accessible as they are now. And so I loved seeing these sparks, collaboration, people saying, oh, we're just going to have a coffee. And then from there, they were investing in each other's businesses or becoming non-exec directors for one another or just forging friendships. and I really get such a buzz and a reward from that.

10:04I still do. So it's a very big part of me using something that I didn't know was special but knowing that you need to meet so-and-so because at the very least you're going to hit it off and be amazing friends and have loads in common but actually in your professional careers there may be something really magical in store. Yeah. And you never regret a conversation. And I think so many, I think it's something like 98 % of the UK's economy is a small to medium enterprise and 78 % of that is service-based business. So the amount of conversations, I often look at people on public transport and think, I wonder where they work or what they do and who they've met and what conversation has given them joy that then leads to another connection.

10:50And that is how business is done. Yes, we all work on laptops and yes, we're far too much on our screens in Excel, but it's those magical conversations that you have that lead to an idea, that create something that then gives you job satisfaction and blah, blah, blah, blah. The rest is history. You are absolutely speaking my language. Every year around International Women's Day, there are always these posts on LinkedIn about, so tired of hearing everybody talking about all the things we need to do or talk. And actually, I disagree because conversations lead to connection. Connection leads to collaboration and collaboration leads to change.

11:24We do need to have the conversations, make the noise, talk to each other in order to come together and have that meeting of minds where we can drive change together. So underestimating that power of a conversation and how it leads to a connection or a spark and how that fits into that change chain reaction is really important. It's so simple when you think about it. It's everything for sure. So if somebody's listening and they're thinking, God, I've got my day job and then I've got my side hustle and I've got this passion project and I've got this idea for something else, it can feel slightly overwhelming.

12:01What advice would you give them to manage that overwhelm? I think it depends on overwhelm around having multiple passions and projects and getting energy from all of them and understanding how to prioritize your time. I don't think there's one solution. I do really believe in niching down. So I think you can have a portfolio career and you can do multiple things, but you do need to have hyper-focus within those channels. And also ask yourself the question whether or not, if you're struggling with this idea, do I take something that I'm really passionate about, my passion project, and turn it into a business?

12:39So side hustle to main hustle. I want to encourage people to ask the question, will it erode the joy that I get from this if I make it commercial? Because something I have learned along the way is that, and in many ways it's a regret, the women's chapter would have been way bigger, way more impactful if I had got out of my own way much earlier on. And this obviously brings in imposter syndrome, et cetera. If I'd got out of my own way and actually invested in it and believed in the power of it, because I knew it held power, but I wasn't sure anybody else would believe me. And why would they believe me?

13:18Because I've done so many things. So I do really wish that I had paid attention more, that I had drilled down into the details, that I had made a commercial sooner. Because the more commercial we've become in that, the more profitable we've become as an organisation, the more impact we can drive. Well, this is the whole premise of B Corp. You have to be a company, not a charity. And you have to put people and planet above profit. But you have to have profit to be able to do that but the imposter syndrome thing how do you manage yours i keep a catalog of success oh my definition of success so the things that i feel proud of are achievements and i try to write them down i have them on notes on my phone because in times of low confidence, low energy.

14:10This time of year, everybody's like, they've just run out of steam. We need to remember how far we've come. And I think particularly women are not very good at this because we don't stop often enough to really give ourselves credit for how far we've come, how much we've achieved, how much impact we've driven. And when you catalog those little successes, even if it's just a little bullet point or something that you feel proud of that makes you feel great or stick it up on your notice board in your office, it can remind you because it's evidence-based. It is. It's fact. Yeah. When we're ruminating, when we feel anxious, when, you know, particularly in midlife, so many women are dealing with the whole biological phenomenon of perimenopause and how that impacts your confidence and your body, it's really important to have evidence-based facts that you can go back to and go okay hang on a second i may be feeling really awful in this moment but look at that look at what i've done what i've achieved how capable i am it takes you out of yourself doesn't it it makes it bigger than you and your business is bigger than you you work for a company it's it isn't you you aren't it you have to keep the two a little bit separate and the other thing around imposter syndrome or just a tool that I use a lot to manage my confidence, my desire to over-deliver is to focus on the things that I can control.

15:38And I have to remind myself of that often. Yeah, exactly. And in the last 10 years of you doing the women's chapter, you will have gone through many cycles in the country. And a lot of friends this year have said, God, business is really tough. It's worse than last year, which I didn't expect. But the world has fallen apart numerous times. There's nothing you can do about that. If you can keep your head above water and keep going, great, but you can't beat yourself up for things you can't control because it's a waste of energy and energy is everything you need, the fuel to keep going. And I think with the women's chapter, going back to my piece on wishing that I had done something sooner, and I have to say that I was pushed to take it seriously rather than it was an actual choice that I made.

16:21So for a very long time, I was very comfortable running my passion project. And in 2019, just before everything with COVID happened, my marriage broke down very suddenly and very unexpectedly. And I found myself financially exposed completely. And I had to look at my career, my income. I had to think about, what am I going to do? I don't have contingency plans anymore. I am the plan. So I have to really think about where do I invest my time and how do I do something that I love, but I make sure that it can pay my bills. And just like when I started the women's chapter kind of full time, I'd been made redundant.

17:10So I got given a kick, which I think so many business owners, particularly those that start businesses later in life that you know that's the kick they get me included you get pushed and you have no choice someone's very brave starting a business in lockdown i don't have a job there's no choice but actually that's where those of us that have this entrepreneurial spirit which is often what drives our spectrum of interests and how we get pulled into multiple projects is because we are hardwired to see opportunity it makes you laser are focused on profit as well because there is no backstop your mortgage payments are going to continue to go out whether you like it or not and you have no salary you suddenly get very good on the detail of what matters and where you're going to find that revenue which I don't think is a bad thing because I will never treat money or experience money the same way and I'm forever grateful for that doesn't matter how well the business is doing or how stable I am financially I will always have that mindset around money, which so many, unfortunately, female founders say, oh, I can't look at the numbers.

18:13I don't understand the numbers. It's like, you have to. You're running the red light on your business if you don't get afraid with your numbers. With the Women's Chapter, you're celebrating 10 years this year, I believe? 11, actually. We've just hit 11. 11. Congratulations. Thank you. How have you managed the balance between your other roles and that role, given you're the founder of the women's chapter and you have other revenue streams in your life like how do you balance that week i had to have honest conversations with myself about what really set my heart on fire which were the parts of my consultancy work that i really loved but that i was also really good at and then let go of certain elements of that work and keep the things that i really wanted to carry on doing because when you're growing a business it can be very easy for that to be everything that you do.

19:07And I've always had to have one foot in each. My consulting work and the work that I do in the travel industry is incredibly important to me. It's a very big part of my identity. And I think in some way or another, I will always work in that industry. It's the wanderlust, it's the guest experience, all of that, the storytelling, everything. I love travel and it sets my heart on fire. So I feel very fortunate, actually, that I get to have what I do for the women's chapter, which inspires me. I mean, I'm surrounded by incredible women all the time. And I have created a community and a support network for them.

19:49But it's also that for me. And then I have the work that I do in the travel industry. And I did have to let go of some of the projects and things that I was doing that I realized this is a gut thing, right? When you take on something that isn't really aligned with your values or your purpose. And one of the biggest lessons I've learned, and actually it was told to me by Tamara Lohan from Mr. Smith many years ago, she said. We're taking a quick break from this episode to ask, are you thinking of starting your own podcast? If so, this is great news because we run a course that will train you how to produce your own podcast yourself.

20:30This course is for people who do not want to outsource and pay someone else to do it. You want to learn how to do it yourself. We teach you everything that you need to get up and running with your own podcast show and so much more. Just DM us at hello at Fallowfield Mason to book your spot. You can always afford to walk away from people or projects that don't align with your values. Because they end up costing you more money in the long run and more time and more stress, more effort. But it's so hard when you're starting a business to say no to someone that wants to give you money. I think I was second year, I remember firing a client.

21:08It's the only time I've had to do it. But the way he spoke to a colleague of mine, I was like, absolutely not. No. And he was so taken aback that I ended the contract, not him. Because as a service provider, typically you're the one that gets kicked to the curb and you're the lowlier one. And we have now set up a way of onboarding clients that you come in at an equal level of respect. and we get paid at the first of the month not the end of the month we ask them to fill out a questionnaire before we have a call with them so for me it was really shocking to have to fire a client but I thought I have quite literally the agency to be able to do this and I do not regret it for a second so what would you recommend a founder do to shore themselves up financially so they have that ability to say no that's a difficult question actually because I think with every business it's different but you mentioned earlier about being in your numbers I, by nature, am not a spreadsheets analytical person, but I have to force myself to do that because firstly, it helps you to focus.

22:04It helps you to really focus on if purpose is something that's really driving you in your business, it will help you to see where you can drive purpose. And so being financially savvy doesn't mean that you have to have all the answers, ask questions. we do a lot of that within the women's chapter really encouraging women to take control of their personal and business finances and have the difficult conversations make sure that you are not just signing up for things or taking on costs within your business that aren't absolutely essential so i would say definitely really look at your numbers start as you mean to go on.

22:46And that's really being analytical about, right, I have this passion. I have a problem I want to solve. I know I can solve it, but who else will this solve the problem for? Who is my audience? What are my values? But then also, where am I going to make money? Because unless you are driving revenue, you cannot make as much difference as you may want to. You don't have a business. And I think a lot of people go, oh, I just want to do this bit the business. It's like, without cash flow, you have no company. I don't think there's any shame attached to that. People are like, oh, I'd just rather be a creative and let someone else worry about that.

23:24Then go work for someone else. I've got in the habit now, it's almost a form of meditation. If I'm having a stressful day, I'll just look at the spreadsheet, run the numbers, and it brings my anxiety down because I'm looking at forecasting, I'm looking at month end, and it's fine. It's all fine. It's okay. And not wasting that time on worry, I think, has helped and freeing up your headspace. Do you offer within the women's chapters modules or coaching or support to members or on that if anyone's listening? We have a corporate partner that we're going into our fifth year with them now. And actually this is something that's been really interesting in the evolution of the women's chapter is that I did kiss a few corporate partner frogs before I found our existing partner, which is Rathbones.

24:07And the real point of difference in the way that they've supported our community is they didn't just come in to sell to women because women have been defined as an interesting audience to sell into because as we know we hold 85 percent of consumer power we make those decisions globally in our homes in our businesses and we're actually recording this on black friday so yeah and obviously we're very interesting from a wealth management perspective. But they started to think about, and this was something we co-created with them, how could they support our community beyond selling us products and services?

24:45How could they open up their black books of contacts to us? So for example, one of the investment managers made a connection between one of his clients and one of our members who was looking for investment, and she secured investment for her business within two weeks. so it's again it's that cross-sector power but and bringing together professionals and entrepreneurs but also going beyond the transaction thinking about how can we be more financially savvy more financially secure and future-proof both our personal and business lives by utilizing our networks and our communities but by asking questions asking for help so So, and with them, we do run webinars now around the budget.

25:28They had a special budget hub that was set up. People could ask questions. So we do really encourage that. Don't put your head in the sand. Ask the questions. Ask for help. And actually, it's worked out to be incredibly successful, both for them, but also for us, because the confidence around financial security within our community has grown exponentially. and as a result our businesses because as a founder your personal finances and your business finances are inextricably linked especially when you're a service provider and you are your business to a certain extent you are far more exposed if you go down it can often mean that your business goes down so there are a lot more factors at play i think from a financial perspective that you need to think about and certainly that was the position i found myself in december 2019 thinking what am I'm going to do.

26:19I've got a thriving passion project, which I've never needed to pay attention to the numbers and make sure that it made money because I didn't really have much financial responsibility. I put my share of money into the joint account every month. But then suddenly when you do have to be responsible for one of those things yourself, it forces you to grow up and pay attention really quickly. And I'm really glad that I did that because I was going to say it's so exciting, though, once you've mastered it. and the autonomy that you have and you can be so proud of yourself for having done this and look what you've built look what you've achieved for so many and you're helping as you mentioned with purpose so many other people do the same for you looking back when you started in 2014 what do you wish you'd known or what would you have done differently start sooner by the sounds of things start sooner and just start yeah i would have taken myself more seriously i would have written a proper business plan.

27:17And a business plan doesn't have to be a formal business plan, but map it out. Think about the problems you can solve, the tools you have, the skills you have, and really map it out and take it seriously and speak to other people. We spend so much time in our own heads. And that's why the community around us is so important because if you have trusted people around you that you can be vulnerable with, that you can use as a sounding board for your ideas, you'll get to where you're going much faster or you will also take less wrong turns. A hundred percent. The problem, shared problem, halved thing is never to be underestimated.

27:59That's why I love co-working offices for that exact reason, because you could be sitting next to a total stranger and just say, can I just ask you a question? Or you eavesdrop a little bit on their Zoom calls and like, can I just have a quick chat? And you never, ever regret those conversations as we said earlier it's fantastic one of the benefits that came out of COVID I think and when we were all forced online was that people became a lot more accessible they had more time and we were really fortunate with the women's chapter because again it was one of those things where we were given a kick to move everything online and start running online events and I remember before we ran our first event I was like I don't know how to do this I'm not a techie I'm so glad that we did that.

28:41But when we moved our business online and we ran two years of free online events where some of the most remarkable female business owners in the UK gave up their time to come on and share advice and guidance, it was a really rewarding experience for me. But I think what it demonstrated was if you don't ask, you don't get. The worst thing that can happen if you reach out to somebody to ask them, and you do need to be respectful of their time, is that they can say no. Yeah. And then just ask the next person. Yeah. You're never going to run out of people to ask. Totally. Have a head list of connections.