When Passion Meets Profit: How to Get Paid Fairly for Building Pet Brands

Jasmine - Red Bow House: Okay, here we are, long awaited. I have been so excited to talk to you. Welcome to the podcast. ⁓ it's lovely, lovely to have you. I guess what I want you to tell us is everything about yourself, obviously, but let's just start off with the basics. Introduce yourself, tell us what you're about.
Tatum Brown: Yeah, awesome. So, first of all, thank you for having me. I'm very much excited about this chit chat too, and I feel like viewers are gonna get a lot, well listeners are gonna get a lot out of ⁓ this conversation and kind of be shocked by some of the stats that I plan to share with you. But so I'm Tatum, I'm from the Social Dog Company, so I'm a marketing strategist specifically for pet brands. ⁓ it was such an underserviced industry. We've got, you know, bodies for or specialized marketing and business hubs for the fitness. industry, the health industry, tech stuff and no one was doing it in the pet service or well pet industry I'll just say as a as a whole. And so I saw a gap in that. ⁓ And so I help businesses fix their revenue, ⁓ create demand for their services and their products and then build leverage on top of that so they can build profitable businesses as they should.
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Amazing, yeah. And I found it so interesting. Like stumbling across what you do, I was like, okay, so that's super niche, but I think it's so underrated that like how big the industry is, it's basically the baby industry in my eyes. But for pets, because of so many of us are like opting out of having children, our pets are our babies now, and I very much feel that to my core. I'm one of those people, you know, I'm like They're my babies. This is who I travel with. This is everything. So how did you kind of go, ⁓ I see this gap and I'm about to fill it?
Tatum Brown: Yeah, so my business actually happened before I did the marketing strategy side of things. So the social dog company was born essentially from a dog that I unknowingly got from a puppy mill. So I was suffering from mental health issues, I was living alone and someone was like, Hey, get a dog. ⁓ and I was like, Yes, I want ⁓ a certain breed, I want a dash hound, I want a puppy, you know, all that stuff that people kind of go towards when they get their first dog. And people are like, No, go rescue. And I was No, no, no. And so I Got this dog, and basically, yeah, it was from a puppy mill and it was a bag of bones. It was very, very sick. And so from that moment, that was like the ⁓ my god, I'm love with rescue and shelter advocacy, ⁓ foster adopting, all of that stuff. So that's where I got my like attachment to the pet industry, or like dogs and advocating for them. And so I turned that into an events business, and it was fundraising for rescue organizations. Obviously, it was a business too. I'd get partnerships, sponsorships, all of that.
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Right.
Tatum Brown: stuff and it was doing extremely well like really big brands even from America like Tito's Vodka it's in all like the Kardashians and the reality shows and it's a massive brand even they sponsored me to host these events because they saw a way of connecting with a whole market which is the pet industry right so I connected with all these amazing brands they paid me to host events for them to make their brands seem more dog friendly because it's a whole market in themselves pet owners right dog owners specifically But COVID hit and then I lost the whole business. Had to go back to corporate again, so depressed. But you know, when we have entrepreneurial hearts, it's like I think that's part of the depression as well, is like we've lost our purpose because we're working and we're building something for somebody else, and it's usually not aligned. So I was working with like franchise gyms, so you know, yeah, I'm into the gym, but you know, the pets are my thing. So ⁓ eventually I I kind of lost everything at one stage, including a
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Absolutely.
Tatum Brown: fiance three months before my wedding and I lost yeah yeah yeah I lost my dog in the same week I ⁓ had just made been redundant from this other job and so I literally had ten dollars to run in so this is at 35 this is like that shameful spiral of you're like ⁓ my god no one's coming to save me and I need to sort my life out so then I got a job at the Bylinese Animal Welfare Association in Bartley so I took off to Bali and that's where I live now
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Okay. Yeah.
Tatum Brown: Yeah. I mean it was yeah, it was it wasn't everything it was I I couldn't help the way I wanted to, let's just say that there was lots of Roblox. So that's how the social dog company was born because I was like, there's no one servicing the pet industry. It's a three hundred billion plus dollar industry. And like you mentioned before, society norms have completely changed. A lot of women are either having children later in life because they've got their careers and and we're not relying on other people to fund our dreams. And so
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Wow, yeah. Okay. Yep.
Tatum Brown: So we're building things for ourselves, ⁓ which means we're having babies later, or we're opting, like maybe yourself and myself, we're opting not to have children ever or as yet. So we go the pet ownership route. And so there's this industry that's going to just like triple, quadruple over the next coming years, and nobody's helping these pet businesses actually be profitable. Because here's the thing: most of them start a business because they got a dog or a cat or some kind.
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Yes.
Tatum Brown: of animal which they solved a problem for, saw a gap and created a business out of it with no actual business ac expertise. So it's a lot of the time a passion, but they just don't know the business side of things. So that's where I came into it and I still come into it.
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's okay. All right. So I mean, that makes complete sense. And and that's the thing, is the stats that people just don't realize. And I guess because it almost feels like something so joyous that it feels like a hobby. So it's like, ⁓ should I even take this seriously? Or is it just like a craft project that I'm gonna sell at a market? You know, there's still that mentality and it's so backwards. And it's like, no no no, people are willing to pay for. Their pets exactly the same way they're willing to pay for their kids. Here's a question though. I find it absolutely insulting how much leaning towards dogs it is and not cats, because I'm a cat mum, right? So why? Tell me why.
Tatum Brown: ⁓ I th you know what? That's generally a question that I can't answer because it is usually like team dogs or team cats. I am a teen dog because I like I feel just from my my first animal that I had actually before a dog was a cat. And so I had her for like twelve years. So that was amazing. but
Jasmine - Red Bow House: It really is.
Tatum Brown: I guess cats kind of pick and choose when they want to be around you. And some of them can be a little spicy. I'm needy. I want you on my lap. I want you in my space. I want you in my bed. I want you to be like celebrating when I get home. So maybe it's more over, I need validation inside myself. So I choose a dog. Not that dogs can't be like that. I mean, ironically, the first dog I fostered, I ended up keeping as well, right?
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Right. Yeah, yeah.
Tatum Brown: She ⁓ her name was Candy, which is hilarious. I just I think like strip of straight away. She was this big chunky like cross staffy thing, and I was like, no, no, no. So her name was Rosie and she's passed away now. She but she was ⁓ eight years old and when I got her ⁓ my god I just had a brain freeze. Where was I going with that? What was I saying before that?
Jasmine - Red Bow House: She's a little stripper. I love it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You were saying like the the neediness and and she I think you were s yeah, yeah. ⁓ We're all neurodivergent here. I feel like everyone I've spoken to on my podcast is we get it. We get it. These are my girls.
Tatum Brown: ⁓ yeah, so ironically, sorry guys, I have ADHD, which I'm sure a lot of you people listening. Exactly, so it happens to all of us. Yeah. Yeah. So I got this I I ended up with this foster dog who I absolutely fell in love with and to be honest she scared the shit out of me because I'd never had like such a like a staunch dog and it was like is she gonna like attack the other dogs? But she was she ended up being like the mama bear the whole time. ⁓ but she was not needy at all and she would not sit on my lap and she would not like curl up me in bed and she would like sit across the room and just look at me and it was just like I got a dog because I wanted that companionship and ironically I got a dog that was
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Yeah, and she's like, No thanks.
Tatum Brown: No thanks. This is my space. That's your space. You stay in your space. I'll stay in mine. Thanks for having me. Just just speaking.
Jasmine - Red Bow House: I Okay guys, speaking of which, this is my needy girl, and I made a video about her recently because she has to be involved when I'm doing something. Always.
Tatum Brown: You know what? And I do zooms with my clients and as soon as they get on, it's like the animals just like, Hey, we're here, like giving someone else attention. We're over here. It's hilarious.
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Yep. Absolutely. So I mean I'm sorry that yeah, cats aren't as needy. And I guess maybe as well in the business, like it's definitely better as a business to market to dog owners, not just because ⁓ like a stat of ⁓ maybe there's more, but more the fact that like I feel like cats are way less maintenance. Like you don't have to do a whole lot to keep it g a cat sa safe and healthy. Whereas dogs need everything. So much
Tatum Brown: They do. They do. They require a higher level of care, absolutely. And
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Yes.
Tatum Brown: P I mean there's definitely I mean there's whole pe cat shows and things like that. So the cat industry is like equally as big and it's not that I don't work with cat businesses. It's just predominantly I think I've attracted dog businesses. But ⁓ there's a cat you know, there's a couple of c cat raw feeders that that I have as as clients, ⁓ or, you know, a groomer yesterday that I just onboarded, she grooms cats and dogs. So they're still there. It's just like not their primary focus I guess because for them
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Yeah. No, and to be fair, like I was telling you I've I had ⁓ this this frame of time that I was doing I had in total ten different businesses or maybe even more that were just pet in in in the pet industry and it was like word of mouth and it just spiraled from there. But it's always been dogs. Like no one has asked me to do any branding for a cat business. So, you know, it speaks for itself. It speaks for itself.
Tatum Brown: You look at it. It really, it really does. And I actually don't know the stats and it's something that I think after this I would love to look into as in what is dog ownership as ⁓ compared to cat ownership. And maybe that might explain some things as well. ⁓ but I feel like they would be semi the same. how many cats do you have? Just out curiosity.
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Absolutely. Yeah. Well so we had two. We moved with two to Spain. So I don't know if you know that. I live in Spain. I think I've mentioned it. ⁓ but we Ye yes. So yeah, so we moved with two. Then this gorgeous friendly cat came and like plopped herself in front of us constantly in the backyard. And she was super friendly, like would roll on her back to show that like I'm safe, I'm fine.
Tatum Brown: I figured that with the time difference when booking the
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Not like the other strays, because ⁓ there are a lot of strays where I'm at, right? And even though we feed them all, this was the only one that was like, Hi, I'm friend, I'm friend. And so we started slowly like really caring for her. We got her a collar, like with an air tag, so we could see where she is. ⁓ yeah. You're sorry. No, no, no, I'm still here. Can you hear me? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, you're fine. ⁓ so yeah, so
Tatum Brown: ⁓ did I lose you? ⁓ we still there. Okay, great. Yep, yep, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jasmine - Red Bow House: ⁓ she was super friendly and then turns out she was pregnant. We didn't know this. We had already fallen in love with her and we're like, okay, we're gonna raise her kids for a little bit and then find them good homes. The kids came, there was four of them, so we fell in love and now we have seven cats. So that's long story short.
Tatum Brown: Wow, seven. See, and I think that's the thing, get cat cat people usually have more than one cat. Where very few people have multiple dogs. They might have two or three, but it tends to step at stop at that. Although I have some amazing rescue people here in Bali that have like seven rescue dogs and I'm just like heaven.
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Yeah. Yeah. That's the dream. Someone really wants to get in touch with you. No, but can you see me when that happens? Is that are you good with the
Tatum Brown: No, it pops out, but that's o that's okay. So sorry, I thought I put this on mute. Okay, yes, let's keep going.
Jasmine - Red Bow House: No, no, you're okay. It'll still yeah, it'll still ring through the Mac. That's the only thing f I have the same thing, so I'm like always Yeah. Yeah. You're sorted? Okay, okay, perfect. ⁓ so yeah, ⁓ so seven cats and you were saying, Where were we? Wait, I've lost everything. Yeah.
Tatum Brown: Yeah, no, I've just told them to call back. ⁓ no, you were just saying ⁓ we were going on about cat ownership as opposed to dogs and so it's yeah, so I yeah, sats around that. So I've just naturally gravitated towards dogs because A, I I I prefer them. It's not that I would I don't like cats, it's just that yeah, I like the enthusiasm of a dog. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Yes, the stats. Yeah. You there's definitely a preference. There's definitely a preference, and that's okay. Like there's you know, it's not for everyone, and vice versa. Like, love me a dog if it's not mine, but if I think of looking after it, it just mind-boggling how much time and effort goes into it, and I couldn't. I could not.
Tatum Brown: Yeah. Yeah. And s look secretly I ⁓ I love dogs, but puppies Do my head in. I love them, I adore them, give them to me for half an hour, an hour, maybe a couple of hours, but I would never get a puppy again, even if it was a rescue. ⁓ because I again with like my ADHD autism, I I get overwhelmed very easily. So if I have a puppy that is destroying everything that requires a lot of training and things like that, it overwhelms me and it takes away the joy of actually having a dog. So my two dogs, other than the puppy mill dogs.
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Yeah. Absolutely.
Tatum Brown: that you know I learned my lesson around that. ⁓
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Yeah.
Tatum Brown: was I got them when they were eight and ten. So they were older, they were chilled, they slept a lot, like they didn't require a lot from me. So they kind of just coexisted from me. Obviously I still look after them and walked them, but ⁓ it just required a different level of kind of ownership. So I will always go for like the golden oldies. And people go, ⁓ but you've only that's so sad because you've only got a couple of years left with them and I was like, Yeah, but they're also the ones that nobody wants. And they deserve to have
Jasmine - Red Bow House: It's very different. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Tatum Brown: really cool life. So I feel like there's a cat or a dog for everyone. It's just you need to really reflect on your lifestyle and what you can give the animal as well. So yeah. ⁓ I want a bond with the puppy. Okay that's cool, but do you know what comes with with a puppy?
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Yeah. Yeah. It's a lot of responsibility. It really is. Like you're raising a baby and yeah. And I guess like w we we we're carried away because we love animals, right? And we could talk about animals all day, but I wanna hear the business end of things. Like, what have you learned in this journey? Like what's their you know, what should people know?
Tatum Brown: Yeah, yep. What should people know? Something that I actually really love to talk about because it's something that I stumbled across going down rabbit holes researching the industry. Something that people don't really put two and two together is that the pet industry is heavily dominant, made up of females, right? Of women. So it's about 80% of the workforce within the pet industry is females. ⁓
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Mm. Okay.
Tatum Brown: And so when you link females with passion, they started a business from a point of passion. So females, passion. And then across the world in every industry, there's usually about a between 14% to 22% pay gap. So that's just in every industry, right? So we're already aware of those things. Now when you combined those three things together. This is something that really stood out to me was people are being underpaid because we've been conditioned to not expect money in return for passion. Globally, we're already underpaid, and we're doing it for the love. So that's where at the beginning of the conversation people go, ⁓ it's a hobby. ⁓ do you actually get paid to do that? ⁓ I'd love to play with dogs all day. But
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Yeah.
Tatum Brown: The stats around the industry are just absolutely shocking. It's like so I wrote some out which I would love to actually share with you. If that's in the pet industry, because we're females and we naturally overgive, and also the pet industry, because it's passionate, we're empathetic, we tend to gear towards animals, it's kind of like nursing, right? ⁓ you're you're very empathetic and and nurturing and things like that. So it attracts those types of
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Tell us yes. Yeah. It takes a t certain type of person.
Tatum Brown: Right, right. And so these are things that people don't really think of. So ⁓ You put that together and then you put burnout together because I I specialise mainly in services. So, you know, we're expected to overgive, work longer hours, passion fatigue, ⁓ deal with things like euthanasia, end-of-life stuff, dealing with pet owners that are dealing with reactive dogs and are you already, you know, mentally fried and at their wit's end. You're putting them with reactive dogs, so there's there's injuries and things like that. So there's actually like emotional burnout. out physical burnout and there's a lot of injuries that take place within the the the the pet industry itself like even dog group it's like you're bent over all day ⁓ so people don't think of that and then you put not being paid correctly on top of that and it's just crazy so it's like we're just expected to shut up and be paid whatever you know we're conditioned to told ⁓ be t you know conditioned to ⁓ yeah ⁓ accept
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Yeah. As high as our like glass ceiling, like we put that limitation and just yeah, run with it.
Tatum Brown: Right. So the world already puts that expectation on our industry. But then people in the industry get conditioned to think that. So then they don't have the confidence to actually charge their worth. They're scared to raise their prices, they're scared they're gonna, you know, be ⁓ attacked because of their prices. You know, that happens a lot in veterinary care, working with reactive dogs, even in shelters and rescues. So a lot of workers, again, these are like 80% female dominated. so in vet nursing, 97% are females. 97%. That's insane. Right? Vets in Australia, compared to the vet the men that are vets compared to the women, they are paid 44.4% less.
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Okay. That's insane. Okay. You know what? What's funny as well is the men in the industry, every time I have had a male vet, he's been gay. So it's not a straight man thing, regardless. Sorry, just like I just ri noticed that, you know. Yeah.
Tatum Brown: Let that No, no, no. And we're not here to hate on men at all. That's not it. We're literally just looking at numbers and seeing what the yeah, the the ⁓ industry itself accepts, right? Because there's no bodies advocating for these people. I mean th th there could be, I'm sure there is, but ⁓ I don't feel it's loud enough and I don't feel like it's moving fast enough.
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. That's insane though. They're they're crazy stats, yeah.
Tatum Brown: Yeah, they are. ⁓ so it's and and this goes into, you know, other from dog attacks with dog trainers that are doing reactivity work, ⁓ groomers again, you know, ⁓ dogs biting and things like that. Also, there's a life period when it comes to the service industry as well. There's a life there's you know, there's a the there's a small window because it's money in exchange for time. So you're gonna get physically and mentally burnt out. So I saw all of this and I acknowledge all of
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Yeah.
Tatum Brown: This and I wanted to advocate that as a marketing strategist to come in and be like, you know what? I see you, I hear you, and you don't have to accept what's going on. So then I built my services around not only supporting these people mentally. No, I'm not a mindset coach, but I can support them to raise their prices, to advocate for themselves, to position themselves so ⁓
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Yeah.
Tatum Brown: People see the value in what they're actually doing and they can package their services in a way that they're making more money without necessarily having to ⁓ get more clients. So they can still have some kind of life. Because a lot of it comes from the inner belief that we've been conditioned is no, you're passionate. You should just do it for free or you should do it for cheaper, right? or yeah, like it's it's very much a it's an internal belief as well.
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Yeah. And even if people don't physically say that, it's like ingrained and assumed. So it's not necessarily someone will straight out say, ⁓ you should be doing this for free, but it's like almost like how dare you be charging for this? Like it's it's you know, it really is like that. And I think as well, like going about it the way you do strategically with the facts, with the stats, is so important because Sometimes it's really hard to get that perspective without that information if you're kind of just like in the wind about it and just I think this will work. But no, you're giving like all the right information, and then obviously, whoever chooses not to listen to that, then that's you know, that's fine. But I think what you're doing is so important, and especially hearing the stats about
Tatum Brown: Mm-hmm.
Jasmine - Red Bow House: just how big the industry is when it comes to women being the leaders in this and instead of sometimes like, you know, having a struggle of instead of owning it and being like, Yeah, absolutely, we lead in this and this is how much we charge and this is how much it sh it's worth, there there's misinformation.
Tatum Brown: Yeah. Yeah, a hundred percent. And that a lot of people say, ⁓ but that's what Debbie down the road charges, or that's what the industry charges. Or ⁓ I can't charge that because of where I live and the service industry that I work in my local area. And that's where I also like to challenge people too. ⁓ because a lot of the time we operate from limiting beliefs because we've been conditioned that way. And so we we we take that on and we're like, ⁓ we can't we can't, we can't. And it's like we always can. So there is a so it's all about positioning, which is something that I work on. So we look at their revenue and we make sure that they're first of all that they're charging what they're they're worth, and then we package up their services so we can actually sell them profitably without burnout. But people are like, Well, I can't charge that much. And I was reading an article not so long ago and it was in the New Yorker, and A groomer in New York is charging $1,000 USD for a groom, right? It's a specialty groom, but it's still a groom. Now I'm like, if they can charge it. That means that it exists. It's real. They're charging it, people are paying. And they interviewed the the customers, ⁓ the clients, sorry, of this particular shop. So I sometimes people just need to see right directly and have a mirror held up and be like, you say that it you can't, but people are. So this is
Jasmine - Red Bow House: I'm showing you Yeah.
Tatum Brown: I'm sure you now the difference between somebody that charges eighty dollars for a groom and a thousand dollars is simply positioning and who they're targeting. So anyone can do that. You can still be in some kind of mining town where there's lots of money in mining towns, right? But I'm just going off this because ⁓ I've spoken to somebody about this. And it's like, ⁓ no, but we're
Jasmine - Red Bow House: It's relevant and it's yeah.
Tatum Brown: Yeah. We're just like a little town. I'm like, yeah, but there's money in your town. ⁓ yeah, but everybody else charges, you know, X amount of dollars, it might be eighty dollars. And it's like, okay, cool. Just position yourself differently and go for the ones that actually want to spend the money. ⁓ so it's like go for the cavoodle owners, which require more grooming, right? Rather than the snappies, which don't require which don't require grooming as frequently. So be strategic but also position yourself. Elevate your branding. Don't look so
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Yeah. Yeah.
Tatum Brown: DIY. Adjust your services so they're more premium. It's not working harder, but how can you package an experience rather than just a service? So Yeah, that's what what I love doing because they have aha moments where they're like, ⁓ my god, yes, I can do this. I had an end of life ⁓ pet photographer who, God bless her soul, she's a vet nurse, but end of life means basically, you know, that they're senior or they're due to cross the rainbow beach, so people want these beautiful photographs to ⁓ to remember them by. Now could you imagine the emotional weight in her job? Like she has to support the people but also support and care for the dog, and it's a really sensitive
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Yeah. Yeah.
Tatum Brown: Of time. So that's a lot of weight. ⁓ Just by repositioning her and strengthening her branding, getting her in some articles and publications, she was able to more than double her pricing. But she was accepting less because she wasn't positioned as the go-to and she was positioning her.
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Yeah. Yeah, again seeing it as like, ⁓ poor thing, they need this service instead of, no, I'm a business and there are things that I have to pay for, there are things that I have to manage that no are are worth it, like are absolutely worth it. And I but I think this happens across so many industries, you know, like i this is a very huge generalization, right? But a lot of us don't understand Positioning, don't understand the strategy behind anything we do. And what I would love to know is how did you learn that? Like for yourself, for your business, how did you learn that? What made you go, ⁓ wait a minute, I was thinking like a moron and now I'm not a moron? You know, if the if you ever did. I know that's how I was. So you know what I mean? That's where I'm Yeah, yeah.
Tatum Brown: No, I'm just there. We we all do it. We all do it when we get into business. We undercharge because we want clients underneath our belt and we're still learning the business game, right? So we don't like we're not all born into business and like flourishing. I when I started my business I was heavily undercharging. So I I was a marketer but I didn't know how to have a business. Yeah, I'd have other businesses, but again I just I don't know, w we all need mentorship, right? And so I was making eight hundred dollars a week. I was totally burnt out, severely undercharged.
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Yeah.
Tatum Brown: because people were saying that they couldn't ch they couldn't afford my services. and I was also desperate to make money at that time because I was just coming out of the relationship I told you and I had ten dollars to my name and you know I was trying to rebuild. But I was like working probably 60 hours a week for like eight a hundred dollars and I got myself a mentor.
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Yep.
Tatum Brown: Right. And so she ⁓ she really helped me identify business models because at that stage I didn't really understand business models and bus your business model will reflect how scalable and profitable your business is, right? And also how much balance you have in your life. As business owners we don't have balance, but we get more balance when we get business model right. Yeah, yeah. So was
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Yeah. That's a joke. No, but you you get there. That's what you build towards.
Tatum Brown: Yeah, so that was point one. So then I changed my offering to look different so I could help more people, raise my prices, all of that stuff. So that was learning curve one. So business mentors, so I always recommend do that and doing that. And that's why I essentially do that with my clients now as well. and then the second one was I learned the hard way. When you're in your own business, sometimes you're too close to it. And so In my own business, I put out a program and it went really well for a while, but then I started attracting the wrong kind of people because I probably got a little bit lazy in my marketing because I was doing so well, right? And we're all guilty of doing doing that. And so the next lesson was.
Jasmine - Red Bow House: He
Tatum Brown: It really does matter where you position yourself, how you brand yourself, how the words that you're you're using, the content that you're creating, on who you attract. So when I changed that and I was like, okay, I've been putting this off too long, I'm aware of my own problem. I've outgrown some of my own clients as well. I think you know, as entrepreneurs and and you're a go-getter yourself, we're really driven. So we're always educating ourselves, we're always like doing stuff, reaching for the stars. Started a podcast, you know, like all these amazing things and applying ourselves, we outgrow a lot of our own clients as well. So we want to solve bigger and more strategical problems, which means a different target audience. So I think when
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Yes. I think being neurospicy as well, like we love a challenge. We're like, ⁓ let's figure this one out, you know? So when something just becomes mundane, we're like, ⁓ it's not fun anymore. Do I even want this?
Tatum Brown: Yeah. We want to be challenged and we genuinely want to help people. So we we love solving we're problem solvers because we can spot patterns really freaking well So yeah and then the second one yeah so the second one was I just I realized that I had outgrown some of my clients which feels really uncomfortable to say sometimes because I love those clients and they were some of my first clients and I am so grateful for them because they believed in me when I d was just getting started.
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Yeah. ⁓
Tatum Brown: But I I couldn't help them. I I I was losing love for what I was doing because I I needed to be challenged because I was growing. ⁓ so some clients I grew with and some clients I I couldn't because that was their that was their own limitations or it was just where they they were comfortable or where they were happy to be and that's cool as well. So I think that really
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Yeah.
Tatum Brown: shifted things for me and I was like no no no I really understand the value of where you position yourself, how you position yourself. So something that was my branding was I was bright pink. I'm working with dogs. I've got blonde hair, I've got big boobs.
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Little Bobby Girl.
Tatum Brown: I was called a social media girl. Right? And everyone would say, ⁓ my social media, my social media. And I had a client refer to me and was like, ⁓ yeah, I was talking to, you know, blah, blah, blah. And I said, Yeah, my social media girl said this. And I was like, my ego was a bit like, mmm. But also I was like Interesting because y you want to be known for something and whatever you're known for is what people were reflecting back to you. And so when people were going, ⁓ the social media girl, I was like, Okay, yeah, cool, that is a specialty in its own. I don't specifically specialise in that. I specialize in ⁓ strategy, right? Across like all of of marketing. So I I'm helping you with strategy, making you more profitable, creating the demand, fixing in the revenue, ⁓ building leverage, all of that stuff. So my I I strategize in that section, not social media.
Jasmine - Red Bow House: I think because strategy is such an unsexy thing to a lot of people. To me, it's sexy. To me, I'm like, ⁓ yes, like give me all the details, give me all the juice. But it's not as sexy as marketing. Like the way people see marketing or social media and all the buzzy stuff, the trendy stuff, the visual things, people like, but any good campaign that you see, any great marketing that you see in any way, like whether it's a billboard, whether whatever the way it's delivered, at the end of the day has some great strategy behind it that you don't see. And and that's what I mean by not sexy. Like people don't realize the back end of work, especially when you are a small to medium business and you're not, you know, it's different for a CEO of Fortune 500 to sit there and it's like, ⁓ just get this person to do this and this person and they'll do the dirty work for you. But you you don't have that privilege when you are majority of your business to really understand all the hats. And that's why finding someone that can do that for you, whether they're teaching you to do it or whether they're doing it themselves, like is so important. And I just wish strategy was sexier. Like I need it to be sexy.
Tatum Brown: Yeah. I agree with you. Yeah. 'Cause it actually makes your business feel a lot lighter when you have strategy. So I'm just gonna say strategy. Let's just break it down for people that don't have like the marketing jargon, which is like it's basically planning out your business so you can take your yourself from point A to point B. You know, ⁓ without a plan, you're literally throwing things at a wall and hoping it sticks. Like you're just hoping. There's no actual ⁓ plan of how to get from here to here. So without that, you make your business twenty thousand times harder because you're always guessing. You're guessing what campaign to put out, what social media to put out. How do you even achieve your business's goals? And again, I'll break that down. How do you charge ⁓ how do you change from going to ten ten thousand dollars a month to twenty
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Yes.
Tatum Brown: thousand dollars a month. How do you do it from twenty thousand to thirty thousand? You need a plan. Right? You can't just wake up every day and feel lost in your business. And that's a lot of the weight that these business owners are carrying because they don't actually have any direction in their business. They just think that they post on social media, they do the ⁓ job within their own business, like servicing or you know, selling on e-com or whatever it is, and they think that that's where it's at, or you just send an email, or there's no actual plan from well, how do we take you from here to here to here to here? ⁓ so a lot of
Jasmine - Red Bow House: When you're doing like this and going everywhere, there's no way to actually really get the numbers to say to support your case and go, ⁓ that is actually working or this isn't actually working. And I think a lot of people go, Okay, even if they've been convinced and they're like, Yes, no, I need strategy. Great. They jump into it and they don't realize there's still testing that has to go in within that. It's not just okay, I can give you the best direction based on everything that I've personally learned. But it's not copy paste. So we do have to trial and error it and that's okay. There has to be patience and understanding and all of these things. There's just not enough information about it. Or at least it's not the baseline. You know, the baseline is I've gotta go to ASIC and register my business name and gotta get an ABN and a bank account. That's the basic knowledge. But like there's so much. ⁓ yeah.
Tatum Brown: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It really is. And again, that's why I'm so passionate about what I do is because a lot of people get a dog, get a cat, and it's like, let's start a business, and then they just wing it, and I see so many businesses closing down. And I also see so many people doing it harder than it needs to be. Like business can be hard, but also if you just do the thing that you're avoiding to do half the time.
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Yeah. Yeah.
Tatum Brown: It actually becomes a lot easier. It's because we end up negotiating with ourselves, and that's why having a plan and having a mentor and someone that strategizes with you can keep you on track. Because again, coming back to the pet industry, we're very emotional beings, and that's not putting us down whatsoever. I mean, it's a fabulous thing. We need more empathetic, ⁓ you know, caring people in the world. So I'm proud to say that I'm part of the industry that has that. But because we are so emotional, we make emotional decisions. And that comes with business decisions around pricing and posting and sending the email and asking for the sale and all of that stuff. So having a strategy brings it back to ⁓ reality and knowing your numbers, which you just said, which again creates hate, hate doing. I get it, I'm it too. But knowing our numbers Let's us make informed decisions rather than emotional decisions. Like, I can't charge that much. Okay, let's look at your numbers. Is that service actually profitable? I was working with a business trainer, I just had a retreat here with business owners in Bali, and I had a dog walk around and she was making like $20 from her dog walks. And I was like, Do you see how now you have a goal of say $20,000 for this month? Do you see how like just in one day you're only making $100 from that service? So realistically, you're not gonna be able to make that thousand that $20,000. without burnout. So when we break things down, and this is what a lot of business owners don't know because they jump into it from passion. And I these these are things that I can show them because then it wasn't like, ⁓ but I love I I can't charge that much. It's like, well you actually have to or you have to make a really hard emotional decision by not actually offering that service as a service if you want the business goal of twenty thousand dollar months. So emotion
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Yeah. Yes.
Tatum Brown: reality and that's where I bring the two together. So
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Yeah. No, that's incredible. I think it's it's you you mentioned something as well before about having a mentor. And so I've actually never taken that path. Like I don't have a mentor. I've gotten I I'm just like blind leading the blind over here, right? And I it's been coming up multiple times. Like maybe I should talk to someone. ⁓ because I feel like my business is scaling so so fast, which is great. Like I'm seeing the results. But I'm like now I actually do need to do the opposite. I need to slow down. And that actually happens a lot as well. It's like the burnout phase is what I'm facing now. But I want I want to do less and earn more. Like it that's the dream, right? And people That can I mean I can see it for other people, I can't see it for myself. And I'm not a marketing strategist, I'm a brand strategist, completely different things, but still like the strategy I can apply to other people's business. I cannot do it for myself. And so when it comes to you, if someone is jumping into a pet business, right? Are you your full like offering mentorship as well as strategy? Or like what's like what do you offer?
Tatum Brown: Yeah. Yeah. So I combine the two together. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I do group mentorship, right? So I will have a whole lot of business owners. ⁓ they're all sitting at a certain level and basically I mentor them so I provide resources, templates, so they get things done quicker. ⁓ we do the mentorship calls every single week. We work on their numbers, we have workshops. So I'm
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Like how can I take you, you know?
Tatum Brown: not only supporting them in a strategy sense, ⁓ I'm also helping them, I guess, implement things as well because I think P it's A lot of people can get information. We've got Claw, we've got ChatGPT, we've got ⁓ AI and things like that, but it's actually the implementation and then strategizing specifically for your business as well. ⁓ so that's where I come in. So I do that in a group setting. We have the mentorship calls every single week. I also offer support, you know, from like Monday to Friday within a group environment. I have ⁓ a platform that we use and all the resources and modules and training stuff is all in there, and then we do the call. every single week. So and that's that has what has me sorry, let me say that again. That's why I have been able to scale my business without burnout because of my business model. So my business model allows me to still have one on one time with people without the burnout of you know back to back
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Hehehe Yeah. Yeah.
Tatum Brown: calls all day because again I do I mean I had three calls yesterday and my brain was dead because you have to use your brain and you have to be really present and then you're switching up different problems as well within different businesses. So there's no way I could do that. And to be honest, I'm not a peoply people person. I'm a dog person. I like to hide away and I like to get things done behind a computer and and isolate. Like I spend ninety percent of my time on my own. And that's not saying I don't love interacting with my clients. I do
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Yeah. So true.
Tatum Brown: I love it, but I can only do it for bursts of time before I burnt out. So that's how I looked at my business model. And it was scalable because I can bring people into my program. it's a six-month program, and I'm helping multiple people at once. So I'm making a bigger difference within the industry. It suits me and my personality. It also suits my business goals as well and my financial goals. ⁓ So they don't necessarily they can still be implementing things because there's the resources trainings that ⁓ they don't need me attached to that I can point them in the direction. They come back to me, I either review ⁓ or we discuss or we support or we challenge ways of thinking and things like that. And so it's still very, very manageable. And I'm sure as my business continues to grow, that might look different in another year's time.
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Yeah.
Tatum Brown: as well. So it's just ⁓ this is a message for other people listening as well, is your business model doesn't always have to stay the same. You grow, your business grows, things change. So don't
Jasmine - Red Bow House: I think people have a hard time understanding that fully and what that looks like until it's happened a few times. Like I think we go into it going, I want to do this, so I'm going to do this and make like just wring it by the neck until there's nothing else left of it. But this it's so important to go through the pivots, th to go through the changes and grow with your business and be willing to. ⁓ but going back to the program, I think as well something that really I f is underrated is the community aspect and like being able to be on the journey with other people and not feeling so alone when so many of us are starting businesses by ourselves. And yeah, I think that's important.
Tatum Brown: Yeah. Yeah. So people cannot just learn from from me, but they can learn from one another that at that are at the same level, or either slightly above or slightly you know, like everyone can learn from everyone. And the cool thing is, so I hosted a a retreat here with 10 businesses flew in from, you know, ⁓ the US and and Australia. And it was so cool and it was the community aspect because they were all sitting around because ⁓ I did like a money making challenge and they were all sitting around and it was so funny because there was there was a
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Uh-huh.
Tatum Brown: whole pattern in the room. ⁓ and because they were saw that pattern that they were experiencing within themselves, which is the maybe overthinking, overwhelm, struggling with the numbers, all of that stuff, being challenged, they weren't like, ⁓ I'm not bad at business. I'm actually normal and this is a normal feeling and this is a normal thought. And I can relate to people. And so that feeling like you're part of something and you're not alone is
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Yeah.
Tatum Brown: Such an incredible feeling because we start to realise that we're actually giving ourselves a really fucking hard time a lot of the time. And we're going, When nobody else does this. Right. And you we see it on social media. I mean your social media looks absolutely divine and you look like you just have your shit together and your policy and you know, I'm looking at this girl going, ⁓ my god, I just want to be associated with her.
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Yes. Worst critics, absolutely. It's all a lie.
Tatum Brown: Reality, I'm sure that you have stuff going on in your life that nobody knows about, or business struggles that you don't want to talk about. And ⁓ am I good enough for this? Can I charge this price? Like all of this, like how do I scale my business? Or you know, like I want to give up, or why am I finding this so hard?
Jasmine - Red Bow House: So much stuff. Yep.
Tatum Brown: And so even people like, you know, ⁓ we're we're sitting in our in our positions, even we go through that. So I think coming back to you said you don't have a mentor, my mentor is more probably business, but I have a mindset coach. So even like having a mindset coach with a business coach, so I'm navigating my business, but then I'm navigating my mindset as well. So I I recommend both and I know it can be an investment ⁓ and not everyone can afford that because expensive.
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Yeah. Of course, of course, yeah.
Tatum Brown: But I think even It has allowed me to grow my business substantially. So it's been an investment ⁓ that is for sure that I've seen a return on. Because my mindset, like I've had a lot of mental health struggles throughout my whole entire life. That's why I gravitate towards animals because I find comfort in them over humans. Yep. Yep. So ⁓ yeah, working on my mindset has definitely helped grow grow my business. But yeah, I I think mentors, having a mentor, having someone in your corner just to bounce.
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.
Tatum Brown: ideas of ⁓ and come together as a community is really cool. So a lot of people actually like that one on one mentorship where I'm like, actually I like the I like the group aspect because I can
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Є
Tatum Brown: I can learn from others and I can also find my tribe because owning a business is really lonely, even though I'm not a people person. It's really lonely. Like I can have my biggest cash month ever in my business. I have no one to celebrate with. Because if I tell my friends or my family, it's like I feel like I'm bragging or they think I'm bragging. And it's like, ⁓ shut up, we don't really hear about it. Or I get a reaction, it's like, ⁓ that's cool. And I'm like, then it's not the reaction that I was hoping for. Because I want to
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Absolutely. Yeah. No. Yes, yes.
Tatum Brown: celebrate. I'm like, I'm so proud of myself. I worked so hard for that. But you can tell your business that.
Jasmine - Red Bow House: I think Yeah, I absolutely. Absolutely. And I think like I we've mentioned that I people's ears are gonna bleed because of how much we've mentioned like the tall poppy syndrome on this podcast in Australia specifically. And just like, yeah, your friends can love you to bits, but they're never gonna understand. They're never gonna be your biggest champions, unless it's like your bestest best friend. That's a different story, because I got me one of those. ⁓ but you know, just I feel like
Tatum Brown: Okay.
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Yeah, you don't want to overwhelm the people around you, the people who love you and care for you unconditionally with all this information that it is just like business because that's what your head leads with. Like I don't know about you, but my head's like always about my business. I'm sitting watching a show and I'm like, ⁓ how will this impact my business? You know? ⁓ so I think yeah, you're absolutely right. The community is so important. I used to run women's circles, so I know how many how like how having that community is so important and
Tatum Brown: Wait.
Jasmine - Red Bow House: having knowing that you're not alone in the process and that your thoughts are quite normal because it's likely we've all had them, but it can be very isolating. I think that's the perfect word to explain. Like, cause it's you're not alone. Like you've got people around you, but it's isolating because you're like, I'm just doing completely different things than what you're doing, not in a good way, not in a bad way. Just we can't relate on this topic and I don't know who to talk to. But I think I think I really do have to look into something like that. I mean, I'm part of a group right now that, you know, we kind of chat like that, which is great. But I think having it more of a mentorship program of sorts, because yeah, I I don't want to feel like I'm bragging. I don't want to feel like, you know, all of those. So, okay, did you have a moment in I'm sure y maybe you've had many, but one that really sticks out where you felt like it was a setback, but you were able to kind of turn things around and something good came out of it.
Tatum Brown: Yeah, good question. There's two, one recently and then one when I first started my business and it's not necessarily it has something to do with my business, but it's not it relates to how I started my business. So ⁓ and this is for people ⁓ that feel like they're starting over. ⁓ I mean I'm I w I'm thirty nine now, but I started over at thirty five and again 'cause I had mental health challenges I always ⁓ I I always w loved entrepreneurship and I wanted to do something along those lines, but my mental health always sabotaged me and ⁓ so this is business and not business and then I'll tell you another one. ⁓ but basically I did I started to share earlier which was because I had all these mental health problems and then I'd kind of lost everything. sorry, I won't say lost absolutely everything, but I lost my business the first time. I then met ⁓ my fiance at the time. We were together a couple of years, got engaged three months before the wedding.
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Hey.
Tatum Brown: He literally like called it off and dropped me off. I had a breakdown one night. ⁓ I went to hospital, ⁓ all of the sedation stuff and whatever. He picked me up, dropped me off at my mum's and that was the last time I saw him. And and so that I had no money in the bank. He'd been supporting us. He was a great guy, so not talking him down whatsoever. But I had no money in my bank, ⁓ because he'd been supporting me because I'd been made redundant but without a payout because I'd only been there less than six months. My dog died in the same week. I also got COVID. I was thirty five back at my mother's house on a blow up mattress. Like it was humiliating and I had nothing. And I was like Nobody's coming to save me. Nobody is coming to save me. And so that's how my business was born. So I just want to share that if you're in a business struggle at the moment where you feel like you need to pivot your business or you're just starting out or you're growing and you've but you feel like everything's kind of falling apart, just remember some of the hardest times provide you with a trampoline. So because of all of this and literally like I was suicide. Like I was so bad, so bad. It was horrible. But my business wouldn't have been born and I wouldn't live in Bali. I wouldn't have money in the bank that I didn't think of. I wouldn't have been able to help as many people as I can and also donate to rescues and send money to my No, you're right.
Jasmine - Red Bow House: so sorry it's my turn just dying something went somewhere yes you wouldn't have I'm so sorry Jesus whoa okay
Tatum Brown: ⁓ that's you You tried over there? You look cute you look cute doing it. No, that's right. ⁓ yeah, so that's my first business lesson is it's not even like before I even started my business, is that your lowest points either in business or your personal can actually provide a trampoline. So when you're down here, just see it as a really cool opportunity to reset your whole entire fucking life, right? So that that's the first one. And then the second one actually happened last ⁓ last year where I started attracting clients that weren't fully aligned. And I worked with them because I wanted to genuinely help them. But because when you attract the wrong client and they either don't show up or they say nothing's working or like They're just not doing the work that's required to own a business and to grow. And when I don't get results from my clients, what I don't have a business, right? So I start I work and it all kind of happened at the same time, which is obviously I have to own that as well because I'm attracting these people through my business, right? And I'd out I'd outdown this. Yeah. And so I was struggling mentally and I was like, I'm not good enough. I'm gonna lose my business.
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Yeah, absolutely.
Tatum Brown: Don't want to sign any clients, so then I stopped taking clients for three months because I was like in this crossroads of like, what do I do? This has been so successful the past two years, but now I'm attracting these people, I'm not fulfilled anymore, I'm not passionate, ⁓ I'm not getting the results because people aren't showing up and doing the work, and it's like it was just all this, like, what do I do? and panic set in, and I was like, I What do I what do I do? Like what do I actually do? So for three months, ⁓ I honestly felt like I was losing my business because I had made the decision. I wasn't taking on clients, but then because I'm so close to my own business, I was like, but what comes next? Because my identity was attached to this. And then to go from these people over here to a completely different market requires updating my branding, updating my positioning, updating my message. Like it's it's it's a lot. So I stayed stuck for a good three months on like
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Yeah.
Tatum Brown: How do I move from Tatum over here to Tatum over here, which is a new standard, new version, new level, new like and I'm so excited by this, but it requires a transitional period. So I want people to realize that that is gonna it happens in every business, right? I've learned I've learned this, I just thought I was
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Yeah. Like literally word for word, like almost what you so three months, so August, September, October last year, I I I went down from everything down to $700 in my bank account. Like everything was gone. I w there was nothing. The pivot and and that's the thing, you s you nailed it absolutely. It's the pivot of being able to let go of the people you no longer align with.
Tatum Brown: Yeah.
Jasmine - Red Bow House: And being okay to move into this new space, but r also being able to recognize that that's that's what's happening, and not you know, buying into the the the pressures of it because that's easy to lose yourself and just like give up and just you know, but it's like just that that crucial if you can it's like the last test, right? If that crucial thing, if you can overcome that, there's a rainbow to to catch up to, and yeah.
Tatum Brown: Yeah. Really?
Jasmine - Red Bow House: That's how it feels. So it's like when you were saying this, I was like, Yeah, absolutely. Exactly this. Exactly. Yeah.
Tatum Brown: Yeah. Yeah. And that's where ⁓ the emotional resiliency comes in as well and self belief. So a lot of the time business isn't about business itself, it's about the mindset and our limiting belief. So I'm a big Tony Rollins and, you know, motivational kind of speaker stuff. I mean Yeah, yeah, we we go all day long. Yeah, so I think if you can understand that you just because you're feeling that way doesn't mean that
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Yeah, I'm a woo woo girl, so I mean, yeah, energy, numerology, all those
Tatum Brown: It's wrong or you can't do it, it's just an opportunity, and you do have to take a step back, and that hits the ego, and that hits you financially, and it feels really shit. But what got you f to where you are and it's gonna get you to that next level, which ⁓ however you want to measure that, I'll say financially, what got me to 20,000 isn't gonna get like a month isn't gonna get me to 50,000. I'm gonna need a whole new mindset for that. So this opportunity of everything crumbling and self-doubt and all of that stuff. but getting up and still moving forward have your moment rest we both had three months but you come back and you use it as a trampoline and I'm a whole different person I have
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Literally.
Tatum Brown: Hold bigger boundaries now. I have different standards for the clients that I work with. ⁓ I communicate those standards, so we're all on the same ⁓ page. Like I just have different business goals as well. And I think a lot of the time the guilt as well as the ⁓ I'm not good enough or this is going to require a new level of myself as well. We also don't want to let down our current clients, which
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Yes.
Tatum Brown: really hurts because we val we genuinely value them, right? And it's not that they we don't want to work with them anymore. It's just like I feel like my calling's different sometimes. Like it's it's
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Can I ask, in all honesty, did your heart do the drop when you had to f like, I remember first having to email a client after this big transition had happened, going, my prices have now changed. But like, I'm not talking about, ⁓ there may be like $100 more. I'm talking we've gone from $500 to $10,000. Do you fit in this new demographic? You know, not in those words, but how did that feel? Like did you have to do that? Did you have that moment of yeah?
Tatum Brown: Actually, because of the program, I didn't renew a lot of people. And there's people I've kept in the program that I have renewed, so I'm still working with a selective group of people. ⁓ But in the new program, my my prices are definitely different. But then also I'm targeting a different audience because they have to have a certain level of income.
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Yeah.
Tatum Brown: become more affordable where some of the other businesses wouldn't be able to afford me. So ⁓ thankfully I just I actually ⁓ no I've had two clients come over into the new program with the different pricing and that's actually I was never challenged whatsoever, which is awesome because they already know they've experienced the value but also they are the ones earning earning more. So no thankfully I didn't but I think when you're doing that for a lot of people because again this is something that I'm teaching
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Кос. Okay, perfect. Yeah.
Tatum Brown: in like I didn't have to do it on this particular occasion thankfully ⁓ because I just created something new which then this was like the price so I didn't actually raise the prices in the current program I just stopped I didn't bring you I didn't renew ⁓ people that ⁓ I didn't think fit that particular program. So but when it comes to raising prices it's I think if you position it in a way where you're upgrading them.
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Yes, yeah, of course. Okay, okay, yeah.
Tatum Brown: So this is an upgrade and not saying, ⁓ prices have increased and the electricity's increased, because you're putting that burden, you're putting that burden on the client or the customer, and they're like, it's not my problem, you run the business and it shouldn't be their problem. So how can we position the price increase?
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Yeah. Yeah. That's true.
Tatum Brown: to add value and to s be seen as an upgrade, right? Is it are you bringing AI into your business so they're actually gonna get ⁓ you know things delivered faster or are they going to you know have a platform that they can ⁓ do everything automatically rather than manually? ⁓ what is it, how are you upgrading your services?
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Yeah. Like I think yeah, how do you how are you adding value without like without it feeling, you know, like such a quite quite a huge leap or jump for them to make? Yeah.
Tatum Brown: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So how does it value ⁓ how does it make their lives easier, better? How do they get better results sooner? Like just collapse everything and be like, well, what's the upgrade here? How's it gonna upgrade their life and the way that they're doing it? Like do they spend ⁓ you know, three hours having to onboard at the moment? Or I know some some of the meta ads, you know, business owners It can take like a month for their ⁓ onboarding and that's like a month of ⁓ missed revenue. So if you can position it as like, well actually ⁓ we're now charging ten thousand dollars a month because the onboarding process actually allows us to get you know, you to start seeing a return on your investment within three days. That's a total upgrade and people will absolutely pay for that. Is it a quicker service delivery? ⁓ because you don't also have to always include more. It's just like how can you streamline the processes or get quicker results or things like that? So that's something it value doesn't always have to be an exchange. Is it digital resources?
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Yeah. I think, yeah, you hit it on the head as well. Like it's strategic communication as well, right? Like that comes into it. So like I I was sitting there, I remember I was just like completely like, Okay, what had happened? I had clients come back for new projects, right? So not the same projects, but they would ask for, you know, XYZ, whatever, and I would Put together a proposal. Now that's something that I didn't even used to do. Like I didn't even put together a proposal. I'd send them an invoice and be like, this is how much it is, right? So that alone I feel like helped me convert them. What surprised me the most is kind of like what you're saying is that like you had people just transfer over with no problem. And but that fear, that initial like, ⁓ my god, I'm actually gonna do this, and but they already know me. They don't know this new girl who I'm becoming or I am. And it's like such a hard transition to make emotionally. And again, it falls into what you were saying. Like we run our w businesses sometimes too emotionally. And that's where the business side has to jump in and go, actually, no, that's totally fine. And you rip off the band-aid to get it done the way it's supposed to be done, rather than, ⁓ but I feel bad. Or also assuming, assuming what people can afford can be so detrimental to your business. The assumption, like how dare you? The audacity of us going, ⁓ you don't look like you can afford me. Like, who are we to judge? You know?
Tatum Brown: Yeah, yeah. A hundred percent. And that was something that I learnt in my business was because I hear it a lot, ⁓ I can't charge that much for my clients, right? And it might be a fifteen hundred dollar dog training package or, you know, two thousand five hundred and it's like, ⁓ no, what is it gonna pay that? And then I'm like, Well, you know the price of me and probably sixty to seventy percent of people pay in full with me. They 'cause I have I also have payment plans, right? I y I obviously it's a ⁓ a little bit higher for for payment plans so people choose to to pay up front. But that means that people have money. It's just that they're more selective on what they're spending it on these days. So how do we communicate how it actually benefits them? So the clients that crossed over into my new program, ⁓
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Yes, yeah.
Tatum Brown: They had her they had reached a certain level where they needed different problems being solved. And a lot were around they were getting, they were like fully booked, but they just weren't fully profitable, right? And they were getting worked out. So the current program didn't really ⁓ sorry, the old program didn't really address the profitability. It was like, how do you like ⁓ email marketing and social media and website and like there was like it was an array of things where the new group, it's more strategic, it's more about problems.
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Yeah.
Tatum Brown: profitability, fixing ⁓ you know their revenue and things like that and just being more strategic about things. So when I was like, hey, I think this is actually gonna better suit you because this is where you're at now, these are your current issues, this is gonna stop the
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Yeah. So you're growing with your audience, essentially. Yeah.
Tatum Brown: Yeah, yeah. Some people I was. The people that were doing the work definitely have grown with me. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. They're locked in. So ⁓ when I communicated, well, okay, this is where you're at now, this is where you wanna go, you've reached a roadblock here, this is what that program solves. So they like, ⁓ okay, no worries and they didn't flinch at the Like it like, Okay, cool, no worries, no worries. So, I think when you
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Yeah, that's so good. No problem. Yeah.
Tatum Brown: People are like, ⁓ I love my lo loyal clients and it's like, yeah, people are only loyal until it doesn't suit them, by the way. So ⁓ if anyway if it was like, ⁓ I'm so loyal to you, then they're gonna be like, Okay, if I have it within my budget, then I'm gonna I'm gonna happily, you know, ⁓ stay on with you if it means a price difference.
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Yes. Yeah. Yeah, I think value is a big one. Like I think if people, you know, loyalty it does come and go. Like we use that word too often. It's so lightly used. It's like I'm not I don't think I'm loyal to anyone other than my husband, like to that level. Like loyalty is a strong word to use for a business transaction. You could absolutely love the journey that I'm But I might say something wrong that completely turns you off one day. And that's okay too. Like that's not we don't have to align on everything. But I think like, yeah, you from what it sounds like, is the value is probably the most important thing, right? If you can I don't wanna say prove your worth, but that's technically what it is, right? Like you've proven you've done the hard yards and I think it's okay to say, no, I've actually
Tatum Brown: No.
Jasmine - Red Bow House: done the work to prove what I am right now and having those boundaries and setting those and being comfortable with that. That transition though was not friendly for me. For me it was like, ⁓ whirlwind whirlwind of emotions, like where are my so fish out of water. That really was what it was like. But now just feeling so confident in where I sit and I never would have thought to do a podcast. Like this was this was not a
Tatum Brown: Yeah.
Jasmine - Red Bow House: thing that I you know, just little things like that, putting myself out there, really showing up for my business like I should have, but you can't like look back and say, ⁓ I should have, could have, would have. But you just move forward, you grow and you've got to be willing to put that in because it really is, and even that pivot, that pivot point that we were talking about, the three months, that could happen again because it's setting us up for the next time. And that's okay. Like it's just that's the cycle and you get used to it and
Tatum Brown: Yeah.
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Business is a funny thing and they keep saying I think like the most trending thing that I keep hearing is that if you want to, you know, develop you as a human being, start a business, don't go to therapy. You know, like that's it'll change you in ways you didn't even know you wanted or needed to be changed. And it's it's brilliant. I love it.
Tatum Brown: There. Yeah. Your business i I I've heard that one too and your business can only go as far as you're willing to take it. And if you're stuck, the old version of you who doesn't take risks, who doesn't set boundaries, who bleeds their time, who says yes to everything, that person is do you think that person's gonna be able to hold a hundred thousand dollar a month business? Absolutely not, because they're they're leaking energy, they're leaking time, they're leaking resources. So that if you think of it that way Is like the you need to grow as as a person. It requires self growth. So that's the uncomfortable because you n you never were able to ride a bike, right? You had to learn a bike. You fell off a million times. Training wheels, then the training wheels came off, and then you were still twelve and you were riding around the streets and you'd come off your handlebars and you'd go crying with all your grazers back to your mum. Like but now you can ride a bike. I mean, I haven't ride ridden a bike in in years, so I
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Я It hurts my ass, I'm not into it, but it's fine.
Tatum Brown: be a bit wobbly. It became second nature, right? Same with like spelling a word like dog, D-O-G. I couldn't spell it at one stage of my life and now I can and it's like I don't even have to think about it. So But it wasn't easy to learn those things. It required self-development and and you to grow and build confidence on you know maintaining a the bike or being confident in spelling something or learning how to sound it out. And that was if we go back to when we were children, we didn't get to adults by not learning. It's just that at adults we're harder on ourselves. So when we feel resistance, we're like, ⁓ we're not built for this. Danger, danger, danger. Whereas kids, we're a little bit more enthusiastic. We kind of we're a bit more resilient. We get knocked down and we're like, ⁓ because we don't care what people think at well I no, maybe that's true to a certain degree. You know what I mean? We're more flexible, we bounce back a little bit easier, right? ⁓ but also, yeah, so I I just think when you're transitioning from one part of your business to another, just because it's hard, it doesn't mean that it's wrong or you're not capable. Like, yeah.
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Yeah. I mean to a certain degree. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I totally get what you mean. Yes. I think that's why having conversations like this is super important to really put things into perspective for especially when people are jumping into business for the very first time or you know, because it's very easy to take things at surface value and watch these reels of people p so put together and they've got every word down pat and they're just amazing and we're just like Soaking it all up, eating it all up, and it's like, ⁓ I want to be like that person. And it's great, don't get me wrong. It's great to have a vision of who you want to be. But the back end of it, every single time I've spoken to some of my favorite creators because of this podcast, they've time and time again been like, You should see my drafts. You should see my folder. You should see, you know, all the suffering that happens behind the scenes. That it's okay. Like it's it's important to know that you're a not alone. B, you'll get there. What you need more than anything I think is resilience. Being willing. That's it. And then see what happens. Yeah.
Tatum Brown: Yep. Yeah. Yeah. And something that I've reframed which has really helped me. So when I screw up in my business or ⁓ you know, I've put in a call at the wrong time or an onboard. hasn't been completely smooth. Look at problems and moments of screw-ups, right? Or mistakes or whatever it is. Look at them, reposition them as moments like opportunities of growth and learning. So ⁓ something happened in an onboarding yesterday and it didn't go completely smooth. And rather than beating myself up, going, ⁓ my god, I For this and I screwed up and I look like an idiot. It was like, okay, apologized in the moment. And now I was like, already, I'm like, okay, so how can I make this better? How can I make this smoother? How can I ensure that that doesn't happen? Because you don't build a great business overnight. It's like you're constantly refining it, refining it, refining it. So the the moment like, ⁓ my god, I screwed this up or I did this or you're waiting to feel ready. No, no, no. How do you learn?
Jasmine - Red Bow House: He Absolutely.
Tatum Brown: By getting thrown underneath the bus a couple of times. And then you learn to look for twice.
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Yeah. Yeah. It's it's a hard lesson to learn and you just Yeah, exactly. Exactly. No, it's ⁓ it's been so good to talk to you and ever since I mean, it was just surprising that your y what you did was so niche because the way I found you was videos and videos just like talking business and I'm like, ⁓ I can relate to this too. And I I had no idea until actually going to your page and following that it was like All about pets and I love the way that you can transition those two because it a lot of it is applicable. So for anyone listening to this, don't think, ⁓ you know, I'm just I'm not a pet business, I'm not gonna relate. No, she her content is fantastic, she's always got something to say, and yeah, I would absolutely implore anyone to to check out what you do because you do it so well. No, you are very welcome, and ⁓ yeah.
Tatum Brown: Yeah. Thank you. ⁓ thank you.
Jasmine - Red Bow House: I'm gonna wrap this up. Thank you so much for being here. thank you to our listeners, of course, for listening and watching and doing your thing. ⁓ yeah, is there anything else you would like to say?
Tatum Brown: No, just thank you so much for having me and thank you for providing a platform for women to connect on and also share their stories. I know especially for my industry with my ⁓ audience listening to this, I feel like it's gonna really hit home, but also it's spreading awareness into other industries as well. So thank you just for being able to have this platform for me to be able to share, you know, the stats ⁓ around the pet industry ⁓ and yeah, just in general, like the self-belief, the the pivoting, like all of the the mindset stuff. So thank you so much for having me.
Jasmine - Red Bow House: Yes. It's been a pleasure. Thank you so much and goodbye everyone.
Tatum Brown: Thanks.