The $10k mistake I’ll never forget | Selina Ho, sustainable fashion entrepreneur & GTM expert

0:00Welcome to Strategy and Tragedy, the UK Top 20 business show for entrepreneurs. If this is your first time tuning in, then you are in the right place. If you want to hear all things business advice, hear stories from other entrepreneurs, and if you are tuning back in, a very big warm welcome. Now, today's guest, Selena Ho, is a GTM strategist, previous founder of Recloseted, a sustainable fashion consultancy, and now founder of Conscious Collab. She joins us here today to share her expertise. She's also the host of Confessions of a Conscious CEO podcast. So check out her show after this one, where she shares the business advice that she wish she got when she was a little bit younger.

0:40Now, with that in mind, Selena, we are going to open with the first question. What was your 10K mistake? Oh, diving right in. Well, thank you for having me. First of all, I'm so excited. I love that intro. I'm going to listen to it. But I literally hired the PR agency from hell. That was it was so bad. It was just a masterclass and how not to run a business. Wow. And so I'll give you the full details. Yeah, it's good though. So essentially when I was studying Recloseted, my sustainable fashion consultancy, I was in the midst of trying to grow it and scale it. And so one of the problems I had was like, okay, I want to like increase my brand awareness.

1:16Started working with a mentor and it was going well. But at some point she was like, oh, you should talk to this person. They're really good at like getting you out there, really good with visibility. and it was positioned like a coffee chat, but I didn't know this woman had her own PR agency and this was basically a sales call, which I would have been fine with if the mentor was just like, hey, she has a PR agency, talk to her, see if it's a fit to work together, whatever. I get into this call and we talk and then I kind of realized this is basically a sales call and then I was like, okay, you know what?

1:45I'll give it a shot. I've done PR before, it's worked for me. I'll work with you. And I think that was my first mistake. I should have definitely done more due diligence and I think sometimes when things are referred to us, there's that trusted credibility, especially because this is a mentor. I just decided to dive in and I can definitely talk about lessons learned afterwards. But yeah, it was like a 10K investment, 10K USD. And I like pulled my big girl pants on. I was like, I don't need installments. I'll pay you all up front. I'm in this, I'm committed. So I paid her 10K USD up front and then she started the work.

2:17And essentially the first red flag was we were supposed to have a kickoff call where she was going to get to know me, figure out the pitch angles, all that stuff. She ghosted me. She no-showed. And in my seven years of doing client-facing work, I have not once no-showed a prospect or a client. And I'm sitting on the Zoom call 15 minutes in. I'm like, where the hell are you? Yeah, and I didn't hear from her until the next day. And she was like, oh, sorry, I was on a flight. I just like wires crossed, that kind of stuff. And I'm like, okay, that's a bit weird. But okay. And I think my mistake was I just kind of kept making excuses.

2:56And I wasn't like, I didn't put my foot down. But anyway, so that was the first thing. The next thing is we have our meeting. She learns about me, all this stuff. And then in PR, they develop a press pitch for you. So it's like a one pager. And then they sent it to me for review. And on that press page, it was like there was mistakes. There were grammar mistakes. There were spelling errors. And this is what's being put out to publication. So like Forbes, whatever. and obviously it's going to look bad on me. All this is like inaccurate or whatever. So I'm like, okay, can you send me the Canva link?

3:27Like I'll go in and I'll go edit it, which is again, something I shouldn't be doing as a paying client, right? But I was just like, whatever. I don't, I kind of don't trust your quality of work at this point. So I'm going to go in and edit it. And so that was the second thing. And I probably should have just cut ties there. But I, again, I made excuses. I kept going. And then the straw that broke the camel's back was once the press page was fixed, I was like, go ahead. one week into them pitching I get an email in my inbox pitching me to be on my own podcast I died when I tell you my heart fell out of my body I was like what am I being pranked right now wow and it wasn't even I was like oh my god how do you write this email I was like hi Selena I would love to pitch Selena to me no not even it was like to whom it may concern oh my god I know first name i know and it's worse and then in the email there were spelling errors my name as a person getting this is so painful and my name was spelled wrong as well oh my god with an e instead of an e right and then the kicker is as well um and part of it too they were pitching me as like a female woman of color which fine but i had never like okayed that and i always want to kind of be put forward as someone that has all these accomplishments versus being like oh she's a poc like this is my demographic profile exactly and so it was just thing after thing after thing oh my god and at that point i was like i need to stand up for myself this is insane i can't make excuses anymore yeah and i think that process of like standing up for myself asking for a refund being like i'm done like the the owner just took it so poorly she kind of threw all her team members under the bus.

5:13Specifically, she said the woman that sent that email to pitch myself to be on my own podcast, she was like, oh, she recently had a baby. She's like in baby mode. Wow. I was like, as a fellow woman, how could you even do that? Such a low man. It was just like thing after thing after thing. So there's a lot there. I've learned so much. But PR agency from hell. Oh, Celine. I'm so, I'm like so glad at least the story stopped there because I was like, if she keeps going, I cannot take it. There can't be more. I cannot be anymore. That's it. But I've got goosebumps listening to you. I feel absolutely horrified as an ex-marketing agency owner myself is just unfathomable.

5:50Hey, gang, super quick interruption, but I promise it's worth it. I want to tell you really quickly about One Day. It's an 18-month MBA program. But get this, you literally start and scale your business for real alongside it. I am a mentor on the program. If you've been following this show for a while, then you may have picked up on the fact that I work there as well. That's one of my other jobs. And I absolutely love it. I've been with the business now for two years, probably a little bit more by the time you're listening to this. And that's why I can say with utmost conviction from being on the inside track, how good this program is.

6:20So you've got the curriculum, the content, the learnings, the resources, the frameworks that add the structure to the chaos and the mess and give you that much needed direction, how you can move the needle week on week on week and get closer to your entrepreneurial goals. Beyond the actual content and curriculum, you've got one-to-one mentorship so with myself for example and then best of all I would argue the community you get access to other entrepreneurs that are on the same journey that you are because entrepreneurship is tough and so being surrounded by other people that are on the same journey who can pick you up when you're down it can also be helpful in terms of sharing other learnings resources honestly I cannot talk any more highly about this program I'm going to drop the link in the show notes check it out if you're a first-time founder if you're considering making that leap into entrepreneurship or maybe if you tried something before and it didn't quite work out you realized actually this whole entrepreneurship game is a lot harder than you expected one day is the place for you the frameworks the guidance the support both practically emotionally is just second to none so check it out let me know what you think now let's get back into the episode my first question to you is is why did you feel like you had to the way you kind of phrased it there was put your big girl pants on and pay the 10k up front like was that where did that come from for you and also how long ago was this just to get the lay of the land this was about three years ago okay yeah what made you feel like you had to pay it's almost like was there yeah I think I was just the era I was in I was like really committed to growing scaling the business and the mentor at the time that I trusted was like hey you should like really work on your visibility and brand recognition and I had been in PR before so I was like okay let's like invest in it and I think there's a certain energy when I like to invest in things it's like I'm all in I'm committed okay and as a business owner myself I know it's nice when like clients pay in full and you have like capital to work with and all this stuff and you don't have to stress about it so I was trying to like so was it coming from that place of like confidence I want to sell these guys exactly it wasn't it wasn't like no no no I wasn't backed into a corner um and obviously if you pay in full it's cheaper than installments as well so there was that piece but I just thought it would be like win-win-win across all boards and I wanted to like fully commit and do this and then it blew up in my face.

8:30Oh, Selena. Did you get the refund in the end? No. So that was a whole other thing that really infuriated me. So another learning. Did you not get a debt collection agency on them? Okay, let's go see the story. Okay, so basically I was like, okay, there's all this stuff that has happened. And if this happened to me, if I was her, I would be bending over backwards. I'd be, I'm so fucking sorry. I would take accountability. I wouldn't throw my team under the bus. I'd be like, I hired them. I trained them. This is on me. What can I do? Right. And there was like no accountability. That was the part that really infuriated me about anything else.

9:06No accountability, nothing. And like, I'm someone that's quite nice, as you know, and I'm never like, I was pissed because just like no accountability. And she was like, oh, we started working. And mind you, they'd done like a week's work. And I was also very cognizant of cutting it off sooner because I knew I wanted to get my money back. And she was like, no, like the strategy portion takes the most amount of time. I'm like, hold up. I went into Canva, edited my own pitch page. You're telling me that like you spent, I don't know, five hours of consulting work on this. OK. And then like they started pitching for a week.

9:39And so at the end, I think I got maybe like six thousand back. But it was just so infuriating. And like the thing that also added to this was I found out after the fact that my mentor got a referral bonus. So up until that point, I love the mentor. Like she was really helpful. But I think just the lack of transparency, then finding out you had profited off of this like really kind of traumatic event that happened to me. I'm just like, what the fuck? Wow. Very, very snaky, very slippery, which I also want to just underscore something you say then for the listeners. if you haven't come across selena before i want to just add testament to how lovely she is like she's the nicest person we are hitting the ground running with this crazy story because we did just want to open with this like insane business lesson on a show called strategy and tragedy but we're not here just kind of like bashing gossiping like selena is so nice and so to your earlier point on how far they had to push you for you to get like angry and mean is like i know selena personally and that is so difficult to even imagine.

10:43Like I can feel my blood boiling just listening to your story, right? So I can't even imagine being in there, being in it. Selena, I'm so sorry that happened to you, but I guess a reframe there, so you said you got 6K back. So I guess a reframe there is the$4 ,000 lesson that you learned from this. Exactly, and I learned so much. Let's dive into some of those learnings. I'm guessing like due diligence and not blindly trusting. Yeah, like I take accountability for the fact that I decided to work with them and I paid. So like that's on me. But I think the big lesson is around referrals. And this is something that I think not a lot of people talk about.

11:20So in like a good scenario, like if you were looking for someone and I referred you to someone and it worked out, that's great. It's like you found someone, they got business and there's goodwill from both sides on me. But I find that the percentage of that going well is maybe like 50 to 60 percent. and so now I tread very carefully with referrals because I have been on the side where I have been referred a business got burnt and it kind of tarnished my relationship with that person that referred it and then I've also now been on the flip side where I have referred a company to one of my clients and I learned from that experience that I am never taking a referral bonus nothing like that if I recommend someone it's because I genuinely know they're going to do a good job and not because I'm going to make like a thousand bucks or whatever.

12:04So I don't do that. But I referred someone to a client. And like this person is someone I've known for years. I've had past clients work with them. And so I trusted them. And they just had like a lot going on, which is fair enough. And then they hired some new team members. And just things were very chaotic. And so my client had a really shitty experience. And then it was just so tricky. Like I was just in the middle trying to manage it. And so now I guess my takeaway with referrals is I would still do it. But if you're like recommending it to friends or clients, I would recommend you maybe have like a slew of options, maybe like one to two.

12:36And then just be like, hey, I have had past people work with them or I know people that have worked with them. But still, please do your due diligence. And then at least it's like less on you. I think the way I kind of positioned it was like it was a no brainer to work with that person. Lots of people have worked with them before. And the thing with referrals is you can't control how other people act. You can only control yourself. And so, yeah, it's really, really tricky because when it goes well, it's great. But there are situations where it doesn't. And then it just puts you in such a weird situation.

13:06Yeah, 100%. Because you can't control how other people act. And like I was literally mediating in the middle. I spent so much time. I like to make it up for my client. It's so much pro bono work. And because I can only control what I do. Right. But it's just it's just frustrating. Yeah. That was like a big lesson around referrals. And I'm not saying don't do it. I'm just saying tread carefully. You've still got to do your due diligence. and I guess even in that other scenario you describe of like having workloads with this other person you could refer and you had all this confidence the other thing that is out of your control is you don't know what their situation is like today so as amazing as they could have been even the 10 previous times you worked with them yeah it's that upfront it's that transparency to your point any other lessons from that crazy pr yeah I mean like just how to treat your clients or customers, right?

13:51Like just taking the accountability, you know, owning up to it and just taking the feedback. I think she was so defensive. And at some points I was like, hey, I'm giving you feedback for how to run your business better. And she just wouldn't take it. So I think really learning that. And then of course, like throughout all of this, doing your due diligence, like really, if you're getting a referral, don't just trust that one referral, talk to other people they've worked with and seeing like case studies or whatever it is. But yeah, it's my$4 ,000 lesson. Yeah, exactly. That reframe, the$4 ,000 lesson.

14:22Oh, I feel like that was a bit of a gut punch. I feel like the wind's knocked out of me. I mean, even just, I mean, you saying about like, how you handle that situation from, you know, the agency's perspective, but it's also like, this sounds like such an extreme situation where even just like the basics 101, like, maybe show up to the kickoff call. yeah like it's gonna be late or if you're on a plane be like oh my god yeah like don't just leave them hanging that's such bad customer experience yeah and in terms of just before we do move on i'm curious have you changed your approach in terms of how much tolerance you now give other people because like if we recap that pr story where it was like they didn't show up to the kickoff there was like sloppy mistakes grammatical errors on the like press release just one thing after another like do you now call it out sooner yeah for sure I think my tolerance for bs is a lot lower now and I also just don't feel as bad anymore because I remember that I got burned this one time and I'm like no I can't just keep letting things slide so I understand things happen so I kind of have like a one slip-up rule if you have one slip-up and it's okay like I'll give you another chance but after that I'm done same saying this like I can't have this happen again i need to learn from my four thousand dollar mistake so funny how much this echoes a little bit from what we were just saying earlier because like once is a mistake life happens these things do happen but but the other thing as well as like in this particular instance is so much of it happening right at the very beginning because it's like you get one chance to make a first impression and typically like in any partnership relationship there is a honeymoon period so that's where you're like surely you get excited like you've just signed a new client even if things okay maybe drop off a cliff a little bit but like if you're not wowing performing from the get-go there is no hope for afterwards so a bit of a lesson as well to anyone who's maybe a if you're running an agency yourself I mean I don't think any of you need that kind of warning but maybe from the client perspective to like do your due diligence hold your ground especially in the beginning have a one slip up rule but also it's like recalling my experiences as a marketing agency owner there is an onus on the client to set you up for success that isn't the case here in your pr story but um it kind of there's it does take two to tango it does it's a two-way but it goes back to you saying about you paid 100 the full deposit like that's amazing i think as someone that's a service provider i'm always very cognizant whenever i work with other service providers i try to be like the best possible client i try to give them everything they need set them up for success right do everything on time yeah and like to still be handed basically a pile of poop I'm like okay it's like no hope oh Selena's so crazy all right so let's dive into building up this side hustle so this was for your previous business recloseted so tell us a bit more about that how you launched it I know that you you built that as a side hustle alongside your main job.

17:30There might be listeners here who have still got their day jobs and they're trying to build a sustainable business to allow them to break free of that. So what was your story there? Yeah. So when I graduated business school, I drank the Kool-Aid, I climbed the corporate ladder. And when I was 23, I was working on this multi-billion dollar portfolio. It was like an internet telecommunications company. And at 23, I was really lucky. I was basically helping my manager pull off this multi-million dollar project. And essentially, it was a rate increase. So basically, everyone's internet was going to go up by like$3 to$5 a month, which doesn't sound like a lot.

18:06But if you have like millions of customers, it's a multi-million dollar project. And so it was really high stakes, lots of executive attention, drinking out of firehose, nothing could go wrong. And I really enjoyed how much I learned and the work aspect of it. But obviously, from a values perspective, I was like, I don't think we really need to be increasing this just to like look good to shareholders these are also like everyday people like do we really need to do this and so I kind of grappled with that and in the back of my mind I had always known I wanted to do something on my own but I just didn't know what and so I kind of was sitting on it I one year into my job I think the rose colored glasses really fell off and they disappeared and I was like okay what do I want to do what do I want to do and there was like a few months of me really trying to figure that out and so if anyone listening also struggles my advice to you would be just to like sit on it and be patient.

18:55I think a lot of the times we're like, oh, I could start like an Etsy business or I could start like a Amazon, like, you know, dropshipping business or whatever. But I think you really do have to be so passionate about what you do because as you know, it takes so much hard work and time. So you really do need to love it. And so I sat on it for a bit and then I feel like the universe works in magical ways. But one day I was wearing this polyester bus to work and I have kind of sensitive skin. And so I end up getting like a skin rash and I was in this meeting I remember being really itchy like I was fleshing up and I was like oh my god I need to go to the washroom so I went to the washroom figured out it was polyester and I remember my mom had always said polyester is not a good fabric but like as a kid you're like whatever I'm still gonna buy this but then I went in the washroom googled it and I found out that polyester is essentially made out of crude oil and so we wouldn't go to the gas station boil oil all over our bodies so why are we doing this and so that really led me down a deep dark rabbit hole of what fast fashion is and I know you've had past people on about sustainable fashion and a lot more people know about it now but eight years ago it wasn't as big as it is now like most people were still shopping at Zara for 21 whatever the high street so I think like that was a rude awakening and once I found that out and once I realized that my family members and the people around me didn't really know about fast fashion and the impacts of it that lit a fire under me.

20:19And I was like, this is it. This is what I want to do. And so, yeah, it was just very, very organic. I started researching more about it. I self-published an e-book about like sustainable fashion and how to be more conscious. And then a few months into that, I started meeting some sustainable fashion brands locally. And I knew a lot of them were struggling. They were very creative, like really wanted to do stuff, very activist-y, which is like the people I'm drawn to. And I had these business skills. this background and I was like let me help you and then that's how the consultancy was born it was very very organic my first three clients I worked with them for free I did a beta test I remember being so nervous I was like oh I wonder if they're gonna work with me but it was like literally pitching to work for free like who's gonna say no to that but yeah that's how it started and I obviously still needed to keep my day job because I needed to support myself but I was doing this at nights on the weekends and we can kind of talk about managing a side hustle but That's how it started.

21:14Okay, amazing. And I'm just curious, this e-book that you produced and published, did that help to get you more clients at all? Did you use that as a marketing tool? A little bit. So that was more consumer-facing, and then the consultancy was more B2B. But I think it was just a way for me to stay accountable and learn about this because sustainable fashion can be quite technical. And for someone that wasn't, like, I didn't go to fashion school, I went to business school, I wanted a way to be able to collect my thoughts and, like, dissect it. So I learned so much about materials, so much about like end of life, the whole process of like how to create a garment, all that stuff.

21:47And so it was just a way for me to be kept accountable. But of course, clients were also like, oh, that's really cool that you did this. Like it really shows you care. Yeah, there was definitely an element of that. Credibility to your brand in that as well. So how far did you manage to take Recloseted? Yeah, so I ran it for over six years, scaled it to multiple six figures. And yeah, it was it was really, really good. At which point did you leave your job then? um so I was supposed to leave it earlier but then COVID happened so when COVID happened my job fully became remote um and so if we go back in time I was like about 24 when I started it and at 24 you have so much energy right I just look back and I'm like I don't think I could do what I did then because back then pre-COVID I was going into my job Monday to Thursday four days a week my commute was an hour each way so that's like two hours of my life just like sitting on this train and so I did that Monday to Thursday and so I would like leave the house at eight get back at like six have dinner go to a workout I would work out too and then I would start working from seven to like one or two a.m wake up the next day do it all again and then on the weekend sometimes I would like hang out with friends on Saturday or something and then work all day Sunday and I'm just like I did that for like three years and then when COVID happened or like just before COVID happened I was I don't think I can do this anymore.

23:06I can't live like this. It's been three years. Like I need to sleep more than four hours a day. And then COVID happened. And then my job went fully remote. And a lot of clients started pulling out because of COVID and like how uncertain it was. And I was like, holy shit, I don't think I can go full time. So I decided to hang on a little bit longer. And then it was when me and my partner moved here three and a half years ago, I was like, okay, this is it. This is the sign. We're going to move halfway across the world. I'm going to do this full time and then give it my all yeah wow incredible um yeah just on that note if anyone happens to be in their 20s listening to this I think I know my audience pretty well so there might only be like one or two of you out there but one big piece of advice like lean into this energy that you've got because it doesn't last I have had some other incredible um entrepreneur stories where there was one I was reflecting on earlier where they built this business when they were in their 20s I think maybe even while they were at university like very young and they had all this amazing success and basically they've been able to use the profits that they made from this incredible bit and just keep on reinvesting reinvesting and now they've got like multiple businesses and it's incredible it's like what you were able to get off the ground I mean through like pure hustle when you did have all that energy when you were in your 20s when I was really hungry oh my god so bring us to post-covid your like late 20s were around 30 at this point was there a point where you were able then to transition away from the full-time day job so anyone who is trying to quit the day job and trying to make their side hustle the main dish what worked for you in terms of a managing your energies especially as you are starting to like feel that candle burning at both ends but also from a I guess a business development a sales perspective to get it generally like generating enough revenue to be able to quit the day job oh my god there's so much there okay so I think from a managing the workload perspective let's start there I think in my early 20s I was so hungry and I was ready to grind and hustle and the one thing looking back I wish I did differently was I wish I worked smarter and not just harder so as hard as it may be because you are time strapped I would recommend you set aside a couple hours a week just to do the strategy piece I think because I felt so time constrained I would just continuously go go go go and then some of it would just be wasted work and so it like really really set aside two hours to really make sure the strategy is correct and then from a balance perspective I used to burn out so much I mean just listening to it It makes sense, right?

25:39You're sleeping four hours. You're working two jobs, two demanding jobs. And you're still trying to like have a social life, live your life. And so how I would manage it now and how I try to do it now is I really try to be more preventative versus reactive. With burnout, I would just like work, work, work, work, work, burn out, fall off the cliff, rest, and then like have enough energy, work, work, work, work, work again, and then fall off again. And every single time I burnt out, I would also beat myself up over it because like it comes across as you can't take care of yourself. So now I'm more preventative.

26:10So what that looks like is every morning and every evening, I ask myself on a scale of one to 10, how overwhelmed or how burnt out or how exhausted I am. And I think that check-in is really good because otherwise, again, it just sneaks up on you and then you're burnt out and you haven't planned for it. And the thing that really, really resonates with me is the fact that your body needs to rest regardless. And so you either rest on your own terms or your body will force you to rest. And so the preventative piece is important. So if you're at like a six or a seven or an eight, you know, things are getting dire.

26:41You're about to fall off the cliff. So implement some self-care. And I think the thing with self-care is it doesn't have to look like a getaway. It doesn't have to look like going to the facial or the spa. It's like I like to do like I have like a little menu on my phone and I have like low lift things, medium lift things and high lift things. So low lift things are literally things that are easy and free. So just like sleeping more, walking outside, eating better food, you know, all those things, meditating. Meditating is huge. And then the medium thing is just like doing a face mask, going to a workout class, going to a Pilates class, you know, like Pilates, going to Pilates, you know, maybe doing a staycation, seeing your friends.

27:16And then like the high lift thing is maybe actually going on holiday, doing a staycation, all those things. And so I think planning that out in advance before you're burnt out is really important. And then when you feel overwhelmed, you can take a look, pick something from the menu. And I really think self-care is not selfish. Like you cannot pour from an empty cup. So you really do have to take care of yourself. So that would be like my two biggest lessons learned, really taking time for strategy, but also taking time to take care of yourself and doing it in a way where it is sustainable. You can do bits and bobs every day and it doesn't have to just sneak up on you.

27:48Love that. Love that. And this really ties into the mission of your show, which is the business advice I wish I was given sooner. This ties in so perfectly. This is like big sis energy. This is like the caring kind of mom, just like I've been there. I've been through it myself. a couple of reflections come to mind with me one on the make some time for the strategy had exactly the same conversation with another first-time founder who's leaving their corporate job as well and they and they just you feel this pressure and it's so normal and first of all you know i want to validate that i'm like it's so normal it feels like you're free falling without a safety net you've gone from having this monthly paycheck and now what do i do and then it's the easy thing to do is to just kind of flit around like a headless chicken but as counterintuitive to your point as it may seem i use just to put a bit more structure around because it's like structure to the chaos is the 80 20 rule right so the pareto principle of like literally translating the 80 20 to what the discussion we were having was like if you have 10 hours in a day literally two of those eight hours let's just take because it's an easy round number right but like take those two hours in the morning right like have a slow easy breakfast think about it brain dump plan it all out to then set up those next eight hours for you know better success yeah and then the second one just the preventative really resonated as well and what you brought to mind was how we take better care of our phones than we do ourselves and how we don't not all of us at least anyway don't let our phones get down to that like one percent battery and like drain it all out we make sure that like we plug in our phones overnight they get a proper recharge and then we're using them properly the next day so we need to take some of that for ourselves as well so that we're not just like crashing and burning I love that that really resonated from the business development side of things what worked for you to help your side gig take over the main job okay so great so that's a great transition piece I'll get really tactical on the sales piece and then we can kind of talk about like the actual transition as well because I have a lot to say there so from a biz dev perspective if we look at your sales funnel right traffic nurture conversion I think the most amount like the more things you can do for lead gen the better but obviously you want to do it well so one of my top things for lead gen was actually SEO because at the time eight years ago there weren't a lot of people in the space so I if you search up sustainable fashion consultant like I was the top thing that popped up and I got so many leads from that so seo is not dead it's still so important especially now it is right and so that's so important get that set up asap because it takes time and then the second thing that was really really great also was referrals ironically so I do a good job with my clients so I would be referred and so that was great and I think the three beta clients I started with that I worked for free that got me more business because they We're like, oh my God, this girl Selena, she's great.

30:48Like go work with her. And so that was kind of my first foray into getting my first few clients. And then social media, like content creation. I previously, my podcast, I rebranded it recently, but previously it was called Recloseted Radio. I did it for five years. I did it pre-COVID, scaled it to one of the top 5 % of podcasts in the world. And obviously that brings a lot of leads as well. And I find from a sales funnel perspective, the podcast is more on the nurturing side. So I would jump on with sales calls with people. And I found that if people listen to the podcast, it was so easy to convert.

31:21It was like butter. It was so easy because we built up trust and credibility. So I started doing things where I would send people podcast episodes beforehand so that I could start to warm them up. But yeah, just from a biz stuff perspective, it really is just like doing the content, doing the SEO, going to the conferences, networking, referrals. It's just all the things. What comes to mind is that you've already listed like five different channels. so like as amazing as they work for you this kind of ties back into like your time management and especially if you do have a full-time day job as well so how do you go about prioritizing yeah so that's the thing I also preach now sustainable business as you know and so I'm very cognizant that you should not go out and do all that right now that's going to burn you out and instead you need to take it piece by piece because nowadays to stand out things need to be done really well so I would start with SEO for sure because like I mentioned it takes time for the bots to crawl And like once you're done, it's done.

32:16So I would start with that. And then next, I would try to figure out what you can do IRL. Because I think nowadays everyone's online and it can be hard to crack that net. We've had those conversations. It takes time. And so if you're short on time, try to set up a referral program if you haven't already. Really nurture that. And or if you know that like conferences and events happen, like muster up the energy and the time to go to those to network. Because I do think nowadays people crave that in-person connection. and then if you have time after that pick one social media channel go all in on it make sure your ideal customers are obviously if they're not on tiktok don't spend all this time doing tiktok if they're on linkedin be on linkedin but yeah just like pick one channel go really really deep make your audience do it really well and then you can expand so that's kind of how i would hierarchy at least for a service business obviously if you if you have a product-based business a little bit different but that's what i would recommend nice okay love that well that kind of segues you do this for a living so advising people on gtm strategies that stands to go to market if anyone is isn't already familiar before we get on to that let's wrap up the recloseted story so how do we end that chapter yeah okay so basically i went from side hustle to main hustle and the thing that was actually very like challenging about that was the mental piece because financially logically i knew i could support myself i knew that this business making multiple six figures it was out earning my corporate salary I knew I could make the pivot and the switch but for some reason it took me eight months to really actually plunge and I think a lot of it is like my upbringing like I my parents are amazing they immigrated from China in the 90s and so I'm a first generation Canadian but like there is so much value in like security and stability and obviously because they gave up like security and stability for me to be secure and stable they were always like no don't leave your job it's so good it's so cushy you can work from home just keep doing both meanwhile I'm like dark circles I'm like oh my god I'm dying but okay so like there was that piece and it's not that they weren't supportive or whatever it's just you know they're trying to look out for you and that's all they know so there was that piece and then just I think I just had to work through so much personally like I had to really just understand that I could do this I just really had to have the confidence in myself and I've always had confidence in myself.

34:34So I don't know why this was so difficult. I think what ended up really allowing me to make the decision is I came to peace with the fact that my corporate career at that company had really maxed out. Like I didn't see myself getting into that next promotion. I also realized I wasn't learning as much anymore. I wasn't being challenged. And so literally, I was just there for the paycheck. And I was like, hey, I can just pay myself, it'll be fine. And then it sounds kind of weird, because a lot of the times people's dreams are to be a founder and entrepreneur and quit their job and stuff but a lot of people don't talk about the fact that you kind of do grieve a little bit your corporate career and what that could look like even if your dream is absolutely to be an entrepreneur and to do your business full time there is a bit of a weird grief thing that people don't really talk about so like allowing that to happen accepting it for what it was and not like belittling myself or being like no you're not a founder if you like grieve your corporate career like no it's fine like there's there's this like what if or whatever that comes up, right?

35:31So it was just like a layered all these things. And then more tactically, from a financial perspective, I also have some tips. So obviously, your business needs to be making money. But I think there's a strong difference between business revenue and the salary you can pay yourself. So I think that's the mistake I made. The business was definitely earning enough. But I also like wanted to reinvest back into the business, I wanted to hire to scale. And so as a result of that, I'm obviously not going to pay myself six figures if I'm trying to like hire people as well right so I think that's the piece that I wish I kind of differentiated a little bit more but at the same time like I had eight months worth of savings saved up like I knew I would be okay and so it's not like I went into it recklessly but for listeners listening I would try to save up as much as possible I would say at least six months of like your rent groceries minimum whatever and then make sure that your business can be self-sustaining can pay you the salary you need to get by and then and then you just do it and like the moment I did it the weight on my shoulder just like I didn't realize I was like holding such a big weight for three and a half years I was just like wow I feel so much lighter I can sleep eight hours finally my partner makes fun of me now because I'm like sleeping all the time now but I'm like I did not sleep for like the majority of my 20s so leave me leave me alone I sleep so much now it's great I love it I love it But yeah, those are kind of like the lessons.

36:52I appreciate you breaking that down and really giving those specifics and being so open with sharing like even your financial situation and giving other people that view into like, okay, Selena had like eight months. And I think whatever runway you have, I agree with you, you know, minimum six months, that's always kind of the rule of thumb. But I would say the higher you can go with that, the more risk that you can take with your business. because to your point on managing those finances whatever your revenue is in your business doesn't necessarily mean that these are salaries you can pay yourself because you do want to reinvest you might have other costs involved in that and and I think another lesson I just want to underscore there is you don't want to you don't want to build yourself almost like another dead-end job just because you're the director of the company like that can still happen even if it's your own business and what I mean by that specifically here on the finances is unless you've got either that breathing room on the runway on the savings or you found product market fit and you're just doing so well like financially you you can also kind of back yourself into that corner because you've also just been so comfortable coming from a corporate career as well right so you can be like no why did I leave this job earning this much to earn so much less in this business but you do need to take those risks in order to get it to that next level in order to scale up so that you can then pay yourself but it is still a risk yeah so you've got to be aware of that was there any it's really interesting what you mentioned on kind of the grieving as well and i feel like i'd love to talk a bit more about that because you're right i don't think people talk about that enough and i think with any changes and transitions there's always some sort of grieving within that so can you just expand on that first of all like what that felt like how you worked through it yeah so So when I talk about the grieving, it's kind of it was essentially the end of that career at that company.

38:48And I knew like I was getting promotion after promotion and I knew the next level like it was there, but I just didn't want it. And it was just really weird because all my colleagues would be like, oh, this is like what we're all working towards. And I don't really like so. So then there's that piece. And then I think there's the piece of obviously leaving the cushy, stable, I get a paycheck every other week kind of thing. And just being like, holy shit, is this the right decision? And I think at the end, just knowing that irrespective of recloseted, I would have to go find another job because I had kind of like tapped out at this company.

39:26So if I was going to need another job anyways, why don't I bet on myself? and worst case scenario if this all goes up in flames I can get another job and I would be exactly where I was right with lessons learned and all this stuff and so I think that really helped the fact that it's like this is over irrespective of recloseted that really helped so quick hot take on that do you think that after being a founder it makes you more or less employable I don't know I think I think in some regards it's a bit of both like I definitely think I'm more employable because I have so many skills and I definitely could do so many different things I'm so resourceful I could do whatever but also at the same end like I just I feel like I have no tolerance for corporate politics now like that was my one thing I was like why can we not clock into work do our freaking jobs and go home like why are we trying to like take credit for other people's work why are we trying to like throw people under the bus why is this happening like I just had no tolerance for that and I think now I have even less tolerance for that yeah um And then maybe like bigger companies, they have so much red tape and things move so slow.