Joanna Jensen on selling a business, life after exit, and rediscovering purpose

0:00Six Degrees of Purpose:Welcome to Six Degrees of Purpose, where Ollie and I have the privilege of having conversations with business leaders, entrepreneurs and practitioners about the meaning of money, wealth and purpose. We've got a really incredible conversation lined up for you today. We were lucky enough to be joined by prolific entrepreneur and founder Joanna Jensen. Joanna sold and built and sold at number one skincare brand, Child's Farm to PZ Cousins. and it's a conversation about how you rediscover your purpose after building a business and going through a sales process. Today, she is an author, a columnist for the Sunday Times.

0:37Six Degrees of Purpose:She's written a fantastic book called Making Business Child's Play, which I'd highly recommend. And she's the chair of the EIS Association. So she is one very busy individual, incredibly well-placed to share insight with us today. You can find us on Spotify and Apple. Please do give us a review, a follow, and a like. You can also find us on thisis6.com. So we look forward to hearing who you would like to hear from us next. Joanna Jensen, welcome to Six Degrees of Purpose. Thank you for joining us.

1:10Joanna Jensen:It's a pleasure.

1:11Six Degrees of Purpose:Delighted to have you on. We'd love to just dive into the conversation. Now you have done an awful lot of work backing businesses and delivering expertise to particularly female founders. One of the stats that stuck with us is how 95 % of female-owned businesses tend to be addressing a need. We thought that was very interesting. It's something we see in our client base. We'd love to hear a little bit about the need that you were creating Charles Farm for. We know the personal story, but we'd love to hear any other needs that you were creating the business for, or whether it was a means to an end for you.

1:47Joanna Jensen:Yeah, a great question, Olly. I mean, I think the reality is there's always a starting point, that light bulb moment where you come up with that idea. And as you say, 90 % of women, it's because they have a need. And for me, that need was a daughter with really bad eczema. She had atopic eczema, really poorly skin and a lot of pain. And it was really, really unpleasant. But funny enough, I was talking to somebody this morning and it reminded me of that time when I started Child's Farm. And my then husband had been in the same role for 20 years and he got made redundant. It was 2008. It was when the banks were having another crisis.

2:31Joanna Jensen:And I knew we couldn't afford to carry on living where we were if we didn't make a change. And I didn't want to go back to my previous job, which was also in the city. so not only did I rent the house out and do B &B but also rented the barn out for weddings I used that as an opportunity to start this business because I knew we needed money not B &B money not wedding money but proper money if we were going to stay in our home and I had a newborn in my arm so it all came as a really tense time I suppose but so for me it was a motivation and then subsequently we got divorced so even then the motivation was greater I needed to be financially independent so I could bring up my girls and for me that was the key driver yes I'd created a solution for Bella's poorly skin but I'd done that the rest of it was to make sure that that changed our lives what did financial independence mean to you then and how does it difference what it means now?

3:38Joanna Jensen:For me, it meant not relying on another person to take charge of the purse strings, which I found really difficult, especially when they did a really bad job. The other thing was to know that I could give my children everything that they needed, not, you know, toys and gifts and things like that, but a decent education, the opportunity to take advantage of circumstances as they came across. In my life as a child, we were scrimp and savers. There was never enough money. You know, everything you had to sort of beg, borrow and steal and we were always working. Now, my girls in the holidays always work because they know if they want something, they've got to go and find the money for it.

4:18Joanna Jensen:But they've been very lucky and had fantastic educations and have the opportunity to do the career that they want pretty much on their terms rather than being forced to do something that they don't necessarily want to do, but it's cash.

4:33Six Degrees of Purpose:Is that a result of values that you instilled in them growing up? Or is that something you told them when they were 18? This is our expectations. How do you approach that journey with the kids?

4:44Joanna Jensen:Catherine, you're a working mum. Yes. And I think the rub off of being a working parent around your children is fantastic, because they see what you're doing. So for my girls, it's been two-pronged. One is they've seen me as this example. I mean, a bad example because I am a workaholic, but an example of someone who is giving it their all and will turn over every stone for perfection, probably too many stones. And then the other half of it is the fact that I tell them, if you want something, that's great. What are you going to go and earn? How are you going to earn the money to get that? and it's nature and nurture.

5:26Joanna Jensen:So they've seen by osmosis what I've done, but I'm also reinforcing that with the fact that I don't want my kids loafing around the house, having no values and having nothing to strive for and no ambition. That really does wear off. And I think it's so important. I've seen too many kids who've come from wealthy families who have absolutely no purpose. And that's why we're here, isn't it, on this planet. And as you get older, you realize that we're not here for very long. But that's what we're here to do, is to leave behind something. I always say, you know, I want an epitaph that says, she did something, or she made a difference.

6:08Joanna Jensen:That's all I care about. I don't want to be known as someone who was, you know, dust, and it didn't matter. I've got so many thoughts on this,

6:17Six Degrees of Purpose:as you might imagine but that constantly moving forward and always finding direction towards that purpose comes with a need for energy it comes with a need for passion for something that you really love and your girls must have seen that and felt that and felt the resilience probably that had to come with that is that a value you feel that you've instilled in them and that you hold dear to yourself as well that resilience of just carrying on and getting on with it well we

6:49Joanna Jensen:talk about resilience a lot particularly in the younger generation at the moment and i can say that my girls are incredibly resilient because i'm afraid i'm not very patient you know oh i can't do it have you tried oh oh i'm not sure i want to do that why you know with children we were told god forfend you actually turn around and said i'm bored we'd be told to write a poem write a play paint a picture you know there were a myriad of other things for you to do now of course you can watch a million movies on any channel you can go on your social media and fall down a rabbit hole for half an hour but my girls i'm really proud of them and actually both of my stepchildren so I think my husband and I are very aligned on this is nothing is a gift.

7:40Joanna Jensen:We are so lucky to live in this country. I know potholes and all, but we live in this country, which allows us to have a roof over our head, to have food in our fridges and opportunity that girls and boys can learn at the same level that people in this country are not having to give birth in a multi-story car park whilst it's being bombed. We have so much just by the virtue of living in this country. I don't think we appreciate it enough. And I know my children, I was that parent that would say, there are people starving in Africa that would love to finish that macaroni cheese, and they would eye roll and all the rest of it.

8:22Joanna Jensen:But it has actually instilled a sense of value within them both. And it's a joy to see that. I'm more of a stick and carrot person. I'm not, as you probably realize, I speak my mind. And I think that's a good thing. Most of the time, sometimes I can cause enormous offense, but I think it's really important that we're allowed to and we're not cancelled for being frank because being frank gets shit done and it's stop people. You can stop people having a, you know, we can all have a fantasy, but if it's an unrealistic fantasy, don't encourage that. It's like I'd say to guys that used to work with me, you know, don't have an idea and run off and squirrel around for days and weeks and then present it.

9:11Joanna Jensen:Ta-da! Check first if that idea is going to form part of the strategy that we have in place because nobody wants someone to put their blood, sweat and tears into a project that has no relevance to your strategic or tactical direction. Does that make sense? Do you think people overrate ideas and underrate execution? Yes. I always say there are founders and there are entrepreneurs. Anyone can found a business, but entrepreneurship is about taking risk and understanding and weighing that risk because if you go at these things blind i use an example in my book making strawberry marmalade if your granny is the only person that says they think it's a good idea the alarm bells should be firing in your brain because a survey of one is no value to anyone I mean, I get people that say to me, I've even had people that come to me and say, I want to be an entrepreneur.

10:17Joanna Jensen:Great. What's your idea? Oh, I don't know. That's why I wanted to speak to you. You know, the idea has to come from a place like you guys want to make purposeful investing and purpose behind the choices you make around money. I wanted to help children that had poorly and eczema prone skin with a product that worked for my own daughter there's purpose that we're creating something that is going to add value to people's lives when i was told that someone was creating a pad that you could kneel on while you gave your child a bath and this was revolutionary and i said what like a gardening pad or a cushion you know you have to sort of draw breath and you know there's huge amounts of passion behind that idea obviously but i think

11:08Six Degrees of Purpose:it's our duty to stop people making costly errors i recognize that frankness and also embrace that as a trait uh that said as you rightly referenced it's not always the right thing to do i put my interested to hear if there was a time where there was a piece of advice you gave and actually you

11:37Joanna Jensen:wouldn't have given it again oh god there's so many times so many times i'm one of those people that i internalize everything so i'll say something and then afterwards and in my head i'm going god you bloody cow why did you say that how did you do that you've really offended them you've really upset them because the head and the heart don't they don't they're not very joined up and I spend my life apologizing. And that is, you know, it's a good thing because I'm conscious and it's a bad thing because I can offend and upset people. It's a lot easier now. I think I'm better at it now, I hope, because I'm not stressed up the wazoo.

12:21Joanna Jensen:Although saying that at the moment, I am very stressed up the wazoo because my cup runneth over. but it is it is i think it's what makes us human and as long as you're conscious inside and you can apologize and mean it when you apologize not this oh i'm sorry but it is genuine heartfelt i'm really sorry i probably said the wrong thing and i do apologize you see I've got two girls my eldest says sorry but my youngest says sorry I'm really sorry I shouldn't have done that so the eldest we get really cross with and the youngest who will have done something utterly criminal apologizes immediately and we get them we're stumped and we have to get oh right okay but but don't do it again I know I won't I'm really sorry

13:14Six Degrees of Purpose:But interestingly, apologising in business has previously been seen as a weakness. But I think the best leaders are those who are most vulnerable and can recognise when they can say it, but also when they need to apologise.

13:30Joanna Jensen:It's taking ownership, taking ownership of your actions. You know, accept it, accept the part that you've played, accept what decisions you've made. But the people who it's very hard to warm to are the ones that don't. And they're blameless. The Teflon team, as I call them.

13:53Six Degrees of Purpose:Yes. There's a lot of them out there at the moment.

13:55Joanna Jensen:Oh, there's a lot of them out there. And I find it, you know, I'm lucky. I'm in a position where if I don't like that, I can just walk away. And, you know, no skin off my nose. But they're out there. And I think that's why people that you do business with and people that you work with, it all boils down to chemistry. Never underestimate how important chemistry is. And we spoke earlier about the fact that, you know, sometimes your business is not for some, but it is for others. That's chemistry. We talked about my investor who pulled out at the 11th hour. I never had any chemistry with him, but I was so desperate, I compromised my ethics and values.

14:36Joanna Jensen:And thank God he did pull out. Otherwise, that business would not have been mine for longer than a year.

14:42Six Degrees of Purpose:Did you have gut feelings about that at the time? Yeah.

14:46Joanna Jensen:He's an absolute arse. And just really unpleasant and rude and egotistical. And that's when ego gets in the way, walk away. When it's all about ego, walk away. Because that changes everything. And you're never going to be good enough. You're never going to do the right thing. You're never going to be seen in their eyes as anything other than a cog in a wheel.

15:15Six Degrees of Purpose:So when it came, I'd like to bring it back to purpose and think about the sale to PZ Cousins, because a sale process is never straightforward and always takes longer than people expect it to. And there are so many different factors at play. And you had a very clear purpose before the sale.

15:33Joanna Jensen:How did that change?

15:39Joanna Jensen:well when they approached us they were saying things that absolutely resonated with us which was about purpose sustainability absolutely everything say i felt they were very safe pair of hands if you're meaning when it how did it change when i left i felt like a lost soul did you i felt like that minister without portfolio. And we talked about things that I would do and they very quickly were not part of my remit anymore. And I completely understood that, but it didn't, you know, this had been something I'd lived and breathed for 10 years, 11 years. And suddenly it wasn't there. A girlfriend of mine experienced the same thing.

16:21Joanna Jensen:She didn't stay on. She actually sold her business completely. And she had a breakdown because she felt, she said, I just, she even took up dancing. But I mean, she just said, I feel like I've got no purpose. And somebody said to me, actually, my lead investor, Andrew Leake, had said to me, don't do anything for six months, sit on your hands. And six days it took before I invested in another business. Six days. Six days.

16:47Six Degrees of Purpose:Between you completing and you starting. Yes. I'm pathetic. Okay.

16:52Joanna Jensen:So no self-control whatsoever. I just couldn't go from this manic full on to less so. And I think that took me about six months to sort of come down from this huge high and this huge, you know, I was just full of stress and exhaustion and everything. To not start swearing at Instagram took about six months. Did you expect to feel bereft in some way?

17:23Six Degrees of Purpose:And did anyone talk to you about how that might feel after selling?

17:28Joanna Jensen:No, no. Weirdly, I didn't know how to feel and nobody spoke about it. Now, of course, I've got a plethora of ex-founded friends and we talk about it all the time. And people that are on the verge of selling will get in touch and say, please tell me, how am I going to feel through all of this? And what's ironic is my husband used to say to me, stop moaning and look at your bank balance. It didn't cut the mustard. Looking at the money made no difference. And I thought I'd made the most enormous mistake by selling the business.

18:01Six Degrees of Purpose:You regretted it.

18:02Joanna Jensen:I did regret it for a while. I regretted it because people went on and did other things. I regretted it because this thing that I'd nurtured and created was now going in a different direction. So that was the control freak in me going, ah, lots of things. The money was no compensation for yes I could buy nice things and we could go on nice holidays but as you get older as well you realize how much is enough how much do you really need do these things really matter I'm going to end up in a box at some point you know it doesn't matter whether I've got a decent telly or a nice car it's irrelevant um and that's when I very quickly my lens changed from moaning to helping and to using my experience as I say to share with others what took me six months and six minutes yeah have you always known that you were a solution provider always I was annoying as a child intensely annoying I was told this ad infinitum my youngest gets the same moniker too.

19:16Joanna Jensen:But I was told the whole time I was too full on. I was too busy. You know, I always wanted to do, I was always offering solutions. We do Bella's only 17. And yet she'll turn around and say, don't do this because whatever. We listened to her. And I turned her to my husband and said, why are you listening to her? She's talking utter bollocks. But we listened to her because she's so compelling. She says it was, you know, such such determination. And that's what I was like. And I see me in her all the time. And where I was slammed down the whole time for it, I very much say, you know, go for it, Bells, but I'm just going to ignore you on this one.

19:59Joanna Jensen:And that's really important. And, you know, she's got ADHD, I probably did too. But, you know, it's sort of, I've read endless books about how to get the best out of her. I know as a child, my mother did nothing to try and get the best out of us. So I just want to be sure that, you know, to understand the way her brain thinks and works is a lot easier for me because we're so similar. And our purpose for all of our kids is to get the best out of them. How can we see the best that they have to offer in their life?