Shauna Lynn Simon (00:08.878)

Welcome back to the How to Sell Your Home Staging Business, a Real Women Real Business Podcast mini-series for home stagers who are starting to think about what it could look like to eventually sell their home staging business or at the very least, make sure that they have options. I am your host, Shauna Lynn Simon, and I'm so glad that you could join me today. In the last episode, we talked about why you don't always get to actually pick your exit date. And if you haven't listened to that one yet, I'd really recommend going back to it because it does set the stage.

For this whole conversation. The main point of it was essentially this that exit readiness is not the same as selling. So just because you're getting prepared does not mean that you're actually planning on selling tomorrow or even this year, even in the next 12, 24, 36 months. You may not even be sure if selling is something that you'll ever want to do. And that's totally fine too. But being sell ready is about building something that

Could continue beyond you. And if that's if that's what you want to choose to do, while making your business easier to run and more profitable to run now. So today we're talking about the next step. We're going to talk about what actually makes a home staging business sellable. And we're going to start with one of the biggest misconceptions about this. And that is that a busy business is not necessarily a sellable business.

I know, annoying, right? But how often do we hear people say, you know, how are things going? you know, I'm busy. Well, busy is good, right? Is busy always actually good? We're gonna talk about that today because as business owners, we tend to look at what we consider visible proof of our success. The calendar is full, the warehouse is empty, and the phone is ringing nonstop. Agents know who you are. You have a strong portfolio, you've built relationships, you've built a reputation.

Welcome. I am your host, Shauna Lynn Simon. And today we're starting a short mini series specifically for home stagers who have ever wondered, could I sell my hostaging business someday? Or perhaps maybe a little bit more honestly, what happens to this business when I'm done? And although this mini series has been intentionally designed specifically for home stagers, and it's going to have staging business specific references in it.

The information that we're providing is honestly quite valuable for any small to medium-sized business that wants to plan out their exit strategy. Now, hold on a second before you go and flip to another podcast because you say to yourself, you know, I'm not really planning on selling my business anytime soon. So this isn't really going to apply to me. Before you turn away from this, I just want to share two very important things that you need to know. So the first is that just like staging a house for sale, the power and the profit.

Is in the preparation. And you need to ensure that you are preparing sell-ready financials at least two to three years before you even want to sell. Even if you've been keeping great books, how you see your books and how a buyer might see them are two different things. So you really want to ensure that these are in a buyer-ready state, sort of that move-in ready that we're doing for our clients. And that can take two to three years because you can't actually go backwards to fix your books. You can only go forward.

Hey there and welcome to the Real Women Real Business Podcast. I am your host, Shauna Lynn Simon, and I got a question for you. Do you think about money? Like I think about money. Do you think about money? I think about it a lot. and I don't just mean though in the how do I make more money? Where's my money going to come from? How do I get money? Although all that, of course, matters, but I want to talk about the way that money affects our decisions, our confidence, our boundaries, our pricing.

And even just the way that we show up in our businesses. So something that I've noticed over the years, and especially more and more recently, I'm having so many conversations with entrepreneurs about this. And that is that money itself isn't always necessarily the actual problem. The bigger issue is generally the pressure that we're feeling from the money, around the money. So we don't have enough money. We need more money. You know, money isn't coming in the way that we want it to or in the amounts that we want it to, all these different things cause this pressure around money. And what that does is it starts that pressure starts making decisions for us, decisions that we might not make without that pressure. And the problem is that a lot of us don't realize that pressure even exists. So today I want to talk about a couple of things, but one of them is a really big question that I want us to think of before making a money related decision.

Hello and welcome to the Real Women Real Business podcast. I am your host, Shauna Lynn Simon. And today we have really exciting guest. I'm joined by Joy Lynskey. She is the founder and CEO of Jewel Toned Interiors, which is an award-winning women-owned interior design studio based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Now Joy is known for pairing design excellence with operational strategy, leading projects across luxury, multifamily, workplace, wellness, and residential spaces.

with many projects focused on the underserved communities. Joy also brings a broader leadership lens though to the built environment. She served as the first woman president of the Construction Executives Association. So today we're gonna be talking about what it really takes to cultivate a culture of creativity and contribution, how leaders build trust without lowering standards and where to start if you want a stronger team culture, but you're already feeling stretched a little bit too thin. So Joy, welcome to the show.

Hello and welcome to the Real Women Real Business podcast. I am your host, Shauna Lynn Simon. And today I'm joined by Danielle Kepics. She is the founder of Empowered Mind and Body and co-founder of Unconventional Collaborative, a community for practitioners who want to elevate their work. Now Danielle's background is seriously multi-layered. She's worked as a physician assistant, had a master's in counseling psychology, and now blends that experience and expertise into an integrative coaching approach.

that helps people improve energy, hormones, digestion, sleep, libido, and so much more. So in this episode, we're gonna talk about a whole lot of things here. I think we're gonna get into a little bit about what it looks like to leave conventional medicine, start a business before it's perfect, and build something that's sustainable that actually fits your life. So Danielle, welcome to the show. Hi!

Hello and welcome to the Real Woman Real Business podcast. I am your host, Shauna Lynn Simon. And today I am challenging the idea that the newest strategy, the loudest expert or the latest business trend is automatically the smartest path forward. For many of my "Accidental CEOs", as I affectionately refer to my "Accidental CEOs", these are people who followed more passion than plan and woke up one day and realized, oh my goodness, I am the CEO of a company.

What I find for many of them is that the problem is not that they don't know enough. It's that they have started ignoring what they already know works in favor of whatever is currently getting the most attention online. Whatever that latest fad is, whatever that latest trend is, that latest hack. And there's a very good chance that one of the smartest strategies that's available to you right now is actually something that you are already doing or something that you used to do, but you've started to dismiss it because it doesn't feel new, exciting.

Hello and welcome to the Real Women Real Business podcast. am your host, Shauna Lynn Simon, and today's guest is Tre Balchowsky, a coach who helps founders and entrepreneurs build influence, win trust and close clients or funding by finding their voice and learning to tell their story clearly. Her clients have closed an incredible $142 million in funding. She's helped deliver 17 TED and TEDx talks and her work is grounded in the

Very simple belief. Public speaking and storytelling just aren't optional extras for business owners. They are learned skills that make your ideas understandable, memorable, and easier to say yes to. So Tre, welcome to the show.

Hello and welcome to the Real Women Real Business podcast. I am your host, Shauna Lynn Simon, and today's guest is Carrie KC West. And she is an international and award winning bestselling author, speaker and narrative coach who helps entrepreneurs and leaders to reshape the stories that quietly shape how they lead, earn and make decisions. With a background in filmmaking from the American Film Institute and counseling psychology from Penn State, Carrie blends storytelling with

deep insight into human behavior. Her work is centered on authorship, helping people recognize the internal narratives running in the background and consciously write what comes next in business and in life. Carrie, welcome to the show.

Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Real Women Real Business podcast. I am your host, Shauna Lynn Simon. And today we're talking about visibility and about some of the assumptions that we make around this and some of the simple tweaks that we can make in both our mindset as well as our actions that can make a really big difference. So first, let me start by telling you a little story. I was driving to my run the other morning for those of you who have been here for a while.

you know that I'm one of those crazy runners who runs at around five o'clock in the morning. And I actually oversee a women's running group because of course at 5 a.m. it's dark out and we, know, safety and numbers and all. And so we meet at different locations around the city, depending on what day of the week it is. So it's around five o'clock in the morning and I am driving to the run meetup spot. Completely dark out of course. And as I'm sitting at a light, I watch this cyclist come just flying off the sidewalk.

Hello and welcome to the Real Women Real Business Podcast. I am your host, Shauna Lynn Simon, and today's guest is Sherry Andrew. She is the owner and financial coach at Money Mindset Financial Coaching. Now, after being fired from a nearly 17 year career, Sherry rebuilt her relationship with money from the ground up, starting with the systems that helped her manage real life finances without shame or restriction.

She later launched her coaching business in 2018 and she now helps individuals and entrepreneurs and especially those with ADHD to create simple supportive money systems that bring clarity, confidence and consistency and actually work with their lives. Sherry is an accredited financial counselor, Canada and a certified professional financial coach. And her clients are known for making meaningful progress like paying off debt, saving and hitting financial goals.

Hello and welcome to the Real Women Real Business podcast. I am your host, Shauna Lynn Simon. And today's guest is Shannyn Schroeder. She is the founder of EF Bomb Coach. Don't worry, we're gonna explain what that F really means. It's EF Bomb Coach. And Shannyn helps neurodivergent women better understand executive function, hint, hint, and build supportive systems that make business and life feel more manageable. She's got a background in executive function coaching, special education, and years of real world business experience.

She blends practical tools with self-acceptance to help women to stop blaming themselves and start working with their brains instead of against them. And so in this conversation, we're going to be talking about ADHD, executive function and why business can feel so much harder than it needs to when the advice you've been given was actually never built for the way that your brain works.

Hello and welcome to the Real Women Real Business podcast. I am your host, Shauna Lynn Simon, and today is a very special two year anniversary episode. And I just want to say, first of all, thank you so much for joining me today. If you're new here, welcome. I hope that you enjoy the show and you will continue to join us each week. But if you've been here for a little while, I just want to say thank you so much for your support. It truly means the world to me. That started as a passion project of mine a couple of years ago, and it has grown incredibly.

beyond my wildest dreams. has been something that has not only fulfilled me and a passion inside my heart, but I hear from you guys constantly about how much these episodes are helping you. So I just want to say thank you so much for inviting me into your car, your home, wherever you're listening to me and allowing me to be a part of your journey. I want to ask, let me start this episode by asking you, how many times in the last few days have you said, I'm going to deal with that later?

Hello and welcome to the Real Women Real Business podcast. I am your host, Shauna Lynn Simon, and today's guest is Jane Harris. She's the co-founder of The Virgin Hair Fantasy, which is a luxury wig and beauty brand, and she is helping women reclaim confidence through hair and self-expression. Now, Jane started her business with just $500, and she grew it into a multi-million dollar global company. And this was all while being a homeschooling mom.

a mentor and a speaker. She has taught and mentored hundreds of students through her wig and beauty business trainings. And she's passionate about helping women feel empowered, not just in how they look, but in how they show up in their lives. And so we're gonna be talking about what it really takes to scale a product-based business. We're gonna talk a little bit about the confidence side of beauty and of course, some of her practical tips on how to wear your wig better. She's got a challenge for us and everything. So Jane, welcome to the show.

Jane Harris (02:45.176)

Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here. It's such an honor.

Shauna Lynn SImon (02:49.774)

I can't wait to dig into your story a little bit, because it's a pretty impressive story. Like you didn't just build a wig brand, you built a confident brand and you did it on literally like a shoestring kind of budget here. So let's go back. So when you started the business, you mentioned you started this with $500. What did it look like? Where was that $500 being spent? How were you?

Hello and welcome to the Real Women Real Business podcast. I am your host, Shauna Lynn Simon, and today's guest is Fabienne Fredrickson. She is the founder of Boldheart and for more than 20 years, she's been mentoring thousands of women business owners and helping them to grow and scale without sacrificing their freedom or their relationships or their peace. She is known for helping women move from overwhelmed at six figures to building leveraged, self-managing businesses.

on a path towards seven figures while reclaiming their time, including the bold goal of having 14 weeks of vacation a year. Imagine making seven figures and actually taking that much time off. She's the author of The Leveraged Business, How You Can Go from Overwhelmed at Six Figures to Seven Figures and Get Your Life Back. And today we're gonna be talking about what that leverage really looks like, how to scale without burning yourself out, and how to build a business that supports your life instead of.

consuming it. So Fabienne, thank you so much for joining me.

Fabienne Fredrickson (02:50.766)

I'm happy to be here, Shauna Lynn. Thanks for having me.

Shauna Lynn Simon (02:53.87)

I'm super excited to talk about this because of course, you know, let's talk seven figures is kind of the hashtag goal. But what I find when I'm speaking to a lot of women is exactly what you like. You've touched on this. You've you've nailed it with the I'm already overwhelmed at six figures. How the heck can I scale to seven? And this is such a common misconception that in order to "grow" you need to just do more of all the things you're already doing. And when you're like, I'm already at capacity, how can I

Hello and welcome to the Real Women Real Business Podcast. I am your host, Shauna Lynn Simon. Thank you so much for joining me today. I want to tell you something that you may not be aware of and that you may not even want to hear. And that is that most business owners, don't really build a business. You think you've built a business. What you've actually built is a really expensive job. One that doesn't even necessarily pay you the same as you would get paid if you actually went out and got a full-time job.

And if someone were to offer you money for your business tomorrow, would you even know what you're selling them or how to sell it to them or how to value it? Like, do you think that your business even has value to it? I'm going to tell you something you might not want to hear. that is that most service businesses aren't actually sellable, at least not in their current state. And that might be surprising to you, but it also might kind of resonate with you too, because think about when you started your business.

We first start our businesses. We're all excited about the launch of it. We're thinking about launching it. We're thinking about growing it. These all sound like fun things. And the last thing on our mind is exiting the business. But honestly, it should be one of the first things that we think about when we launch our businesses. And it doesn't mean that you have to have the exact plan in place. But if you built your business as one that you would want to be able to sell one day, even if you never sell it, what that's going to do is it's going to make it that much easier for you to be able to run your business today.

Shauna Lynn Simon (01:50.094)

Hello and welcome to the Real Women Real Business podcast. Today I'm being joined by Sonia Barney. She's the founder of Kaivari and Sonia Barney Designs and is an award winning interior designer with over 20 years in the industry and 10 plus years as a business owner herself. She created Kaivari to connect designers with the right coaches, the right resources and the right community so that they can grow sustainable businesses without getting overwhelmed by all the options that are out there. Now, full disclosure.

Sonia has been a client of mine and she's also learned from multiple other coaches over the years. So she brings a really grounded perspective on what makes coaching worth it and how to choose the right person when everyone seems to be promising the same results. So today we're gonna get real practical about coaching. We're gonna talk about how to know when you need it, how to choose the right coach in a sea of options and what to ask you can feel that you're clicking with them with confidence. So Sonia, welcome.

Sonia Barney (02:47.778)

Thank you for having me, Shauna Lynn I'm just glad to be back.

Shauna Lynn Simon (02:51.182)

I'm excited to have you on, especially because of course I've been a little bit on this journey of Kaivari with you. And I want to kind of like, let's for anyone who doesn't know who you are, maybe they didn't listen to the previous episode that we had you on the podcast. Let's just kind of go back to basics and tell us a little bit about your background, your interior design background and what kind of brought you to where you are today

Shauna Lynn Simon (01:50.35)

Hello and welcome to the Real Women Real Business Podcast. I am your host, Shauna Lynn Simon, and today's guest is Zahra Carol Baghdadi, fractional CFO and Financial Strategist, and she is the founder of Crunch TimeZ CFO Services, Inc. So Zahra works with startup founders and small business owners who are tired of reacting to cash flow surprises and want to lead with clarity. She's known for breaking down finance into practical, relatable insights, and today she's going to walk us through

the three numbers that help you to stop flying blind. I'm gonna let her share exactly what those three numbers are. So you're have to stay tuned to check it out. And we're gonna talk about not only what they are, but how to use them to make smarter business decisions. Zahra, welcome to the podcast.

thank you so much for having me, Shauna Lynn

Okay, so let's start from the beginning. So let's see when you're saying that founders are flying blind financially, what does that actually look like in real businesses? Because I think a lot of people think like, I don't know, like I know what's going on here. I'm running my business, I'm getting sales in, my clients love me and you know, I've my website works great. I think a lot of people tend to look at all that front facing kind of stuff. So when you say they're flying blind financially, what are they missing here?

That's an amazing question to start with. So I work with a lot of founders that when they come to me, that's the position they are in or they have been for a bit. yeah, financially flying blind. And what I mean by that is they have a lot of cash surprises. they often tend to ignore looking at their bank accounts, which you're going to get to it later on. But then they're like.

Shauna Lynn Simon (01:50.062)

Hello and welcome to the Real Women Real Business Podcast. I am your host, Shauna Lynn Simon, and I want you to tell me if this sounds familiar. You send out a proposal to a prospective new client, a couple of days pass, you don't get any reply, and your brain starts to write an entire Netflix series about all the reasons why you haven't heard back. This is incredibly common, especially for high achievers. High achievers are accustomed to being told that they're doing great things.

that the world is going to be handed to them, that everything that they touch is gold, essentially. And so if we don't hear from someone, we automatically go into kind of this worst case scenario. And today we're going to be talking about how to turn those spirals into a repeatable process that allows you to remain calm, professional, and avoid the stories that we're telling ourselves. Because this is happening pretty constantly. here's the thing. Here's what's happening. The reality is that our brains

hate uncertainty. What your brain's going to try to do when something is uncertain is it's going to try to fill in those gaps. So, you you might be telling yourself with this proposal situation, for example, you're saying, well, I think they're shopping around. They're going to try to find someone else. My price was too high. They hated the proposal. I didn't get the scope of work right. I didn't nail their vision. You know, that if they're questioning anything, you immediately start to think,

Well, they don't trust me. Or if they ask you a question about something, this is one of my favorite things. I have this happen. I've had it happen with team members, with my clients, where, you know, let's say you send them the proposal, someone responds back and says, hey, can you just explain what this charge is here? And immediately you get your backups and like, well, they don't understand the amount of work that goes into this. And that charge has to be there because of this, this, this, this, and this. I get that. But they're just asking a question. So instead of getting into defensive mode,

Shauna Lynn Simon (01:49.998)

Hello and welcome to the Real Women Real Business Podcast. I am your host, Shauna Lynn Simon. Today's guest is Christine Blosdale. She's also known as the Expert Authority Coach and is a five time number one bestselling author, an award winning radio personality, and the host of the Expert Authority Coach Podcast. And with over 25 years in personal branding, magnetic marketing, and multimedia, including creating content for brands like America Online and Microsoft.

She helps entrepreneurs, coaches, authors, and thought leaders step into their brilliance and become the go-to authority in their field. Her style is simple, easy, and my favorite part, it's fun. And most importantly, it's effective. So we're going to be talking about how women can go from invisible to in-demand, build authority without burnout, and get seen in a way that actually feels authentic. She is speaking our language, so Christine, welcome.

thank you so much, Shauna Lynn I'm very excited about being with you today. Thank you.

I've been looking forward to this conversation because, we just had a little bit of an off-camera conversation about the importance of understanding your authority and being able to project that authority out there. And at the same time, there's probably some people who are wondering, like, what does this actually mean? So if someone's meeting you for the first time, can you tell us what is it that you actually do?

Right. Well, you know, I used to be like a lot of my clients that come to me and I used to say, what do I not do? Right. I'm a writer. I'm an, you know, I'm a published author. I'm a speaker. I do this. I do that. I help people create podcasts. It was all these different things. And then I realized that my messaging was being diluted by all of these really cool things that I like to do. And I have a lot of women come to me.

Shauna Lynn Simon (03:10.382)

How do we sum this up?

Christine Blosdale (03:37.182)

And they're in the same boat. They're very creative. They're very talented and they can do many things as we're women. We can spin a lot of different plates. But what I've what I've found over the years is that that message gets diluted. And what happens is your potential clients or customers are completely confused and they really don't know. They might like your posts or they might like, you know, "Oh she's cool. She looks cool. She seems cool."

Multi passion is the name of the game, yeah.

00:01:49:22 - 00:02:16:24

Shauna Lynn Simon

Hello and welcome back to the Real Women Real Business podcast. Today I am joined by Abby Bradetich, the founder of IlluminEssence Creations. And Abby is an embodiment-led brand and web designer and content coach. She's got over 15 years in marketing and design and a background in professional dance, and what she helps women to do is actually to stop performing online because we're all doing this kind of performance act online, whether we know it or not.

00:02:16:24 - 00:02:28:08

Shauna Lynn Simon

Sometimes she helps them to ditch the so-called rules and build an online presence that really feels like them and actually works. And I can't wait to dig into this conversation. I think you're all going to love it. So, Abby, welcome to the show.

00:02:28:14 - 00:02:30:06

Abby Bradetich

Yeah, thank you for having me.

00:02:30:08 - 00:02:53:24

Shauna Lynn Simon

I'm super excited to talk with you because I absolutely love I think you and I have connected on a few different things, but I love the way that you help women to really show up authentically. And I've talked with other guests about this, about this buzzword of authenticity that has been so overused the last several years that almost feels disingenuous now when you say the word authentic.

00:02:54:04 - 00:03:06:19

Shauna Lynn Simon

But it is really what you're doing. So let's start with a little bit about your origin story, because you've got kind of a cool story where you went from dance to marketing and, and created this whole brand around it. So tell us a little bit about your background.

00:03:06:21 - 00:03:29:07

Abby Bradetich

Yeah. No, I totally hear you on, on the whole authenticity word thing, and I, I hate that too, because I'm like, it is it? But it's real. It's what we're doing here. But it has like gotten this whole like taboo idea around it. But yeah, I, I grew up dancing and loved that we were my family is very artistic, so it was really encouraged for us to actually pursue those types of things.