Episode 158: Finding Creativity and Ritual and Getting Off Social Media with Yarrow Magdalena of Pink Well Studio
Episode summary introduction:
In this interview episode, Fiona talks to Yarrow Magdalena of Pink Well Studio and Creative Nature Podcast about helping people find their creativity and ritual through different mediums and offerings. They also discussed designing a website with a dad as a client through to the big thing of how you come off social media and why you made that choice. Listen now!
Topics discussed in this episode:
Introduction
Catch up
Life with COVID/Impact on Business
About Pink Well Studio and The Embodied Business Podcast
On Keeping Everything Organised
On Yarrow's Background
Running a Business without Social Media
On relationships and social media
On finding joy and peace and becoming creative
Yarrow's suggestion on practices to feel less overwhelmed and become more joyful
On marketing her offers
Yarrow's recommendations - mentors, books, etc.
Yarrow's most proud moment in the business
Connecting with Yarrow
Conclusion
Get in touch with My Daily Business Coach
Other Resources Mentioned:
Episode 37 - #37 Where to begin when you are starting out in business
Episode transcript:
There are things I want in my life like having more time and space to make with my hands and I want to get to know people. I want to hike and be in the landscape. All of those things. I was always feeling that time was flying by and I had so little of it. Yet, I was spending ten hours on Instagram. I thought that was unbelievable in a way. The other practical thing I looked at was, “What is this doing for my business? How can I justify that time?”
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Hello and welcome to episode 158 of the My Daily Business Coach Podcast. This episode is a small business interview. I love these ones. Every time I interview someone for this podcast, I'm the luckiest person ever because I get to ask you all these questions and it's part of my marketing. How amazing to be doing marketing that you love. That is what I teach so many of my students. How to create marketing that is aligned with who you are and your values and your beliefs and what you want to be putting out. I had to say that. I absolutely love creating this podcast and I love the opportunity I get to interview such incredibly interesting people.
Our guest is no exception. Before I get stuck into that, I want to acknowledge the traditional custodians and owners on the land on which I record this podcast, the Orangery people of the Kulin Nation. I pay my respects to their elders, past, present, and emerging. I acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded.
Before I get stuck into the interview, I want to remind you that if you are looking for a last-minute gift for the end of the year, for Christmas, or Hanukkah, for anything else that you're celebrating right now, maybe getting through 2021, that's reason enough to buy a gift. We have a whole bunch of goodies over at MyDailyBusinessCoach.com/shop, which as you can guess from the URL is our shop.
Everything there from How To Start A Podcast Course if you would like to be doing this as part of your marketing and brand collateral. We also have things like a 90-day content calendar if you're always finding yourself stuck for content, ideas, and a whole bunch of other things. You can find them at MyDailyBusinessCoach.com/shop. Let's get into the interview because I know this is going to be such an important one for so many of you reading out there.
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If you have been following this show, you may well have known that in early 2021, I took part in a mastermind in the US with the lovely Melissa Griffin. In that mastermind, there were about 40 people from around the world, all women or people who identify as women and all running small businesses. I met the wonderful Yarrow Magdalena who is my guest on the podcast. Yarrow Magdalena came in and I remember from the instant that she started talking, I was like, “Who is this person? I need to know more about them.” She was so wonderfully humble, down to earth, so empathetic, so caring, so genuine in her responses to people. I had to ask her to come on to the podcast.
Yarrow is a queer artist and writer and she lives a sloth and slow life in Scotland, but she's originally from Germany. She has a beautiful accent and her business purpose is to help people find creativity and ritual through a variety of different mediums and different offerings. She has Creative Nature Podcast, tarot stories, central textiles, print art, and small group programs. She's also a website designer and has her business, Pink Well Studio, where she creates eco-friendly websites and digital strategies for ethical businesses that are heartfelt and authentic.
The reason that I had to get Yarrow on was to one, talk about her business and how she started it and all of those good things that attracted me to bringing guests onto this podcast. Also, this is the big thing that I know so many of you reading are going to be like, “What? Yarrow does not use social media?” Yes, she's not on Instagram and she still runs a successful business without social media. My mind went, “Phew,” when I heard that on the mastermind call. I was like, “How do you do that?”
It’s not because I want to come off Instagram, you all know that I have a love-hate relationship with Instagram and all social media. It’s because I see so many people put everything into it and not have a brand strategy and a marketing strategy behind it that is not reliant on social media. Also, because it is such a brave step to take when you are running a small business and particularly something like Pink Well Studio, which is web design. Where platforms like Instagram, like other places, are such a great folio piece for you and it's such a great way of accessing people and being able to tap into your audience, present but also potential. I had to have Yarrow on to the podcast.
In this podcast, we talked about so many things from designing a website with a dad as a client through to the big thing of how you come off social media and why you made that choice. Is it a temporary thing or is it something or you're going to stick with forever, as a permanent fix. I know that so many of you will be reading this being, “Fiona, get to the interview already.” That is exactly what I'm going to do. Here it is, my interview with the Yarrow Magdalena of Pink Well Studio and YarrowMagdalena.com.
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Welcome to the podcast, Yarrow. How are you feeling about life right now?
Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to talk to you and be on the other side for once. That’s lovely. I feel good about life. I definitely have my worries. I don't want to say that I'm anxiety-free in the pandemic. I'm a bit worried about winter, which is where we're heading into here in Scotland now. Overall, I have a cozy setup. I'm lucky to have a lovely home and it is okay to be mostly home. I have a nice space. I get to be creative here. I live with two little dogs. I have a small garden so I can't complain.
You mentioned that you're in Scotland but your accent is not Scottish. Where are you originally from?
I grew up in Germany and I lived in different places, but I've been in the UK since my early 20s. I used to live mostly in Brighton, which is all the way south, like an hour south of London. I moved up to Scotland a few months before the pandemic.
How are things in Scotland given that we work globally in this life with COVID?
It's a strange time, at the moment I feel because our numbers are going up fast. We have about 50,000 new infections each day. It's relative because we're such a small country, in a way, it is a lot. We're not in lockdown at the moment and we haven't been since August. We’re doing this in late October of 2021. The government is clear that they don't want to bring restrictions back but also our healthcare system is overloaded and it can be difficult to get appointments for anything. People are waiting in line outside the hospitals in an ambulance for up to ten hours because they're overstretched.
It's a strange time. I'm still careful. I have a lot of friends who are dealing with COVID so I want to avoid that at any cost. It's alright. I feel like 2020 has been so much more difficult in some ways because it was such a slog. We were staying and there was so much to think about. To some extent, I feel like I have arrived in this other way of being a little bit. I've always been an introvert so I'm not struggling too much with not being able to access big group spaces. That's okay for me. I do miss my family. I haven’t seen my family since February 2020. They’re back in Germany and it would be great to see them. Having said that, we have found whole new ways of relating. My mom and I do yoga on Zoom together like chair yoga several times a week so that’s cool.
There's so much in your answer. Fifty thousand cases. It’s huge. You're talking to someone in Australia, where if we get over 1,000 it's like, “Oh my gosh.” We've been in lockdown pretty much on and off since March 2020, especially here in Melbourne with the longest lockdown city in the world. It is interesting that you talked about how you're doing yoga with your mom and there are some beautiful things that are coming out of what we've all been going through. How has COVID impacted your business?
Some ways, structurally not that much, because it's always been fully online but I had hoped and anticipated when I moved to Scotland that I would do local networking. There's such a cool scene of artists, makers, and creatives here. I imagined that we would all hang out in cool coffee shops and get to know each other. That hasn't happened but I can't complain. I had a structure for years and years already that was fully online.
What has changed is that what's important to my clients and the members of my community is different. They're dealing with bigger changes than I had to make. That is something that's on my mind a lot. I'm trying to create cozy online spaces where people can be honest about what's happening for them, where they can share ideas, thoughts, solutions, and encouragement, which is so needed. I do a lot more gentle witnessing when things are difficult. Whereas in the past, people were more focused on the next steps and getting up the ladder, whatever that meant to them, growing, being big on Instagram, and all that. That has changed. The nature of conversations that I'm having has changed and, in some ways, it’s a positive change that has been due for a while.
I love how you phrased it. Gentle witnessing. It’s such a beautiful way of looking at things. A lot of people are opening up in ways that they never have before. Alluding to the things that you're helping people with, or how you work with people, I did a little intro overview of what your business is in the intro for this episode. We'd love for you to describe what it is you offer and your businesses because you've got two. Is that right?
That's right. My main business is called Pink Well Studio, it used to be called Yarrow Digital. It’s a small web design studio. We’re focused on eco-friendly WordPress sites. I love doing that. I have been doing it for more than seven years. It's such a joy because I love this transformation that small business owners often go through when they get their 1st or 2nd website where it suddenly feels so much more real and they’re like, “This is happening. I've got a business and an idea.” I'm so pumped to be part of that process. That is at the core of what I'm doing with that business.
I also have a podcast, The Embodied Business Podcast. I host the Embodied Business Community, which is a bit older than three years. It’s a lovely bunch of people who support each other. We have co-working spaces, themed workshops, group support sessions, and we'll make networks together. My other business is me. It’s just YarrowMagdalena.com. In that, to be honest, it's been different things over the years. It's my play business, which I love and that's not to say that I don't take it seriously or that it is close to my heart but it came to be as a personal blog in the beginning because I had been blogging for a long time. Maybe more than twelve years.
When I started my web design business, I had all these old blog posts on that website, and it wasn't right anymore to have them there. They needed downplays. I wanted to hold on to them so I created this other blog initially and I realized that I love podcasting as well. I started a podcast years ago. Initially, I was like, “Maybe it's probably going to be me talking into the mic.” I eventually had the courage to invite people. I was like, “This is fun. I love talking to people in this way.”
A few years later after dad started teaching group classes. Now I'm also offering handmade prints, which I love doing and I've written a book called Rituals: Simple & Radical Practices for Enchantment in Times of Crisis. I allow myself to experiment with that business but it's going into their action of creativity of creative space sessions. It always reflects where I'm at in my personal life and what I need right now and that is how I got through to the pandemic. It’s by finding creative ways of expressing myself and making my home nice and prioritizing creativity and making things with my hands off-screen. That's been important to me.
How do you keep everything organized when you're running so many different things especially the play as well? That's cool because I'm guessing that there's not as much structure. There’s a lot of in there.
I'm asking myself a lot, what is essential and I do just that. It's definitely been a process. I always loved having two businesses because I love being able to try different things and feel that I'm in this creative flow of my days. Nothing is ever the same and I get to change things up if I want to and that's important to me. I have good systems in place. I use 17Hats for all my bookkeeping, scheduling, contracts, forms, and all that so it's all in one place. I have automated everything that can be automated. Everything that's humanly possible to automate is automated.
I keep the essentials. I asked myself what brings me joy as a task. I have an assistant who occasionally helps me out but she's not a staff member or on a ton of hours. Everything is pretty lightweight. That also means that when I pivot or make a change, I don't have to consider a big team, what they need, and what is supportive to them. I enjoy that freedom. It has downsides but honestly, I don't work full time and I haven't for many years. My rules are pretty generous, and there's definitely spaciousness so it seems to be working.
I love that you've created that for yourself. Did you grow up in a family where this was celebrated or where maybe your parents didn't push a 9:00 to 5:00 on you? How do you think you've had this ambition to go and create your own type of work lifestyle?
My parents are funny people. My mom is a kindergarten teacher and my dad is working in software development as a freelancer. He supports other small businesses where he is with their systems and he's done that for a long time. I've seen him do that. I do think that and especially my grandparents would have loved me to have a “real job.” It's not necessarily something that was always actively encouraged but it was also not actively discouraged.
I did have a lot of freedom in growing up and making my own choices and finding my own way. In my early 20s, I did vocational business training first in Germany, which is a two-year combination of business college and working for a company. It was a culture shock if you're 18 and you're coming out of school. That was good for me because I learned the value of time and space to learn. I appreciated education so much more, after those six-week blocks in the company because those were long days and my little teenage body wasn't at all used to a full-time week.
Afterward, I studied with the Open University in the UK which is a big distance university. I did an open degree with them, where you can combine different subjects to follow your interest. That was unusual, but good for me and it allowed me to gain confidence in different areas and own that I wanted to do things differently. For 5 to 6 years, I was working in different eCommerce companies. That was a different landscape back then. These were companies that started out with 2 or 3 employees and they exploded within half a year up to 100 people.
I was a management assistant. I loved and hated it. Honestly, I loved it because it was such a dynamic, fast-paced industry. I got to have a lot of responsibility very young. I got to experiment and be in different roles but I didn't love being part of such big teams that were changing so quickly. I was overwhelmed with being in an open space office. I also didn't enjoy working for time. I wanted to have more time and space for my own creativity.
In my late 20s, throughout my summer term, I did an MA in Creative Media. Afterward, I started this business. I did a big business online training at the time in 2015. That helped me open my eyes to what's possible when you do it yourself. Up until then, I had this idea that I would probably have to hire out a lot of staff. It's been such a joy, especially in the beginning to teach myself how things work, and even when I do hire out nice to enjoy this feeling of like, understanding how something functions and how it's built. That's been great.
You’ve done a lot. You’re not 60 and you have done so much stuff in your time already. That's huge. Did your dad help you with any of your system setups?
No, his business works differently. I made his website a few years ago so we do talk about business sometimes but I needed to do this myself. That was important to me.
Was he a good client?
Yeah. He was the only client I've ever let look over my shoulder. I know people are different and how their websites are built. Some people want to be super involved and meet on Zoom. I share my screen. I love doing that too. Some people want to get it done but my dad and I sat together at his computer, and we looked at the different options and made decisions together so that was interesting. I loved doing it. That was cool.
I'm not a website designer but I've built a few websites. I built my sister's. She runs a GP practice and I built that for her. She was with me and she kept going, “Ah. Wow. You made it so easy.” It was nice for her to see because she's a doctor. I have a rough understanding of what her day looks like because I’ve gotten to doctors but she has never worked with a business coach so she was like, “This is what you do all day.” I was like, “I don't because I'm not a website designer, but it’s one tiny part of things that I could do.” It was fun to work with her. I wanted to talk about something.
I met Yarrow at Melissa Griffin's mastermind that we both went through. I thought you were lovely and you're so gentle and you got this wonderful nature about you. It had come up in the conversation that you came off social media, and I was like, “I need to talk to her about this.” I always say to people on this podcast, and everywhere that I have a love-hate relationship with social media.
I can see what it's done for accessibility, community, and being able to literally connect with anyone around the world but I can also see the downfall of it and people get stressed out and overwhelmed and feel like they're competing. You want to be looking like everything's great all the time. I'd love to talk about what led you to come off social media, which will be everyone's question, how can you continue to run a business without social media?
Thank you so much for your kind words. That's sweet to hear.
You're welcome.
It's a difficult one and it hasn't been a straightforward decision. I want to be honest. In 2019, I remember starting to talk about this. I was like, “I'm over this. This is taking up so much time.” I was looking at older people that I had looked up to growing up like Clarissa Pinkola Estés. To be fair, she is a psychologist and a writer so it’s a different field. I was like, “These people had massive careers and they’ve never been on social media, why can I?” I thought it was out of reach. It's going to be maybe another 5 to 10 years where I need to build my list and my podcast, and maybe one day, I'm allowed to step away.
That summer, that was the summer I moved to Scotland. I looked at my life from different angles. I decluttered if you will. I did like Marie Kondo for my life. I use an app called ZenScreen to see how much time I was spending on Instagram. That was the main platform that I was on at the time. It taught me that I was spending, on average, ten hours and it absolutely blew my mind because I didn't feel that it was effective to justify that much time. It wasn't me spending ten hours on Instagram, making things, or talking to people, I was often scrolling. Some of that time would have been in queues, public transport or that kind of thing so it wouldn't necessarily have been quality time that I lost.
Nevertheless, there were a lot of headspaces that went into it as well because even when we're not on it, we're often thinking about it. I also was in this experience of feeling like I made this big leap of moving to Scotland by myself. There are things I want in my life like having more time and space to make with my hands. I want to get to know people. I want to hike and be in the landscape. All of those things. I was always feeling that time was flying by and I had so little of it. Yet, I was spending ten hours on Instagram. I thought that it was unbelievable, in a way. The other practical thing I looked at was like, “What is this doing for my business and how can I justify that time?”
A page on my own website that I had made had all these different lanes in one page so I could see how many people landed on my page each month, and also where they went from there. I had about 100 clicks. Some people would check out what I was doing and some people would maybe sign up for my newsletter.
Overall, it didn't justify 40 plus hours a month so I did this experiment. I left for half a year and I wanted to see what would happen and nothing much happened to be honest. Nothing would change but it was a peaceful time. I worked on a lot of scenes, which are these little self-published booklets. I blogged more, I sent more podcast episodes, and I enjoyed it, honestly. I came back at the beginning of 2020, to see what my friends were doing, and then the pandemic hit and I couldn't let go. I was like, “I need to scream into the void with everyone else and see what people are eating, what their pets are doing, and that kind of thing.” It's important, the pandemic information.
I was back for that year for 2020 but I didn't post strategically anymore. I wasn’t thinking about the right time to share something or being on video, whatever. I was there to process and hang out with people. At the end of the year, going into the Christmas holidays, I again deactivated my account and as I was in that break, I was like, “I don't want to come back. This is it now. I've had enough. It's distracting me. It's keeping me from doing what I want to do.”
I deleted my account completely. I was at 6,500 at the time so that's totally relative. To some people, that's a lot. To some people, it's nothing but it was a lot of work that I had put into that profile. It felt like it's a big step to completely delete it whereas before I had deactivated my account. There were a few things that I did leading up to the first break that I would recommend people think about if they were interested in and leaving maybe or deactivating.
First of all, I sat with myself and I asked myself, “What am I getting out of this? How can I meet those needs in other ways?” It’s a sense of being a part of something, being part of communities, being inspired by what people are sharing, and also recognizing that sometimes I do need distraction and that's important. It's a valid need at these times, to have to want to look at the screen and be like, “I’m going to let the next twenty minutes pause and check out of the world.”
I made a list of what I got from it and I thought about other ways in which I could meet those needs. I also made a big exit sheet where I saved lots and lots of contacts with people that I wanted to stay in touch with. The thing to remember with what that also is if someone has a public profile, you can still see what they're sharing. You don't have your own profile so you're not completely cut off. It's not like you suddenly live under a rock. You can still check stuff out.
I made that list and I let everyone know that I was leaving so people had a chance to subscribe to my newsletter if they wanted to and many people did, which I'm grateful for. I did it and pressed the button. Instagram gives you four weeks to change your mind. Your account is deleted but you can restore it if you change your mind. I remember I had that in my calendar. I made this little notice that this is going to be the last day to decide. The last day came around and I was like, “This is good. I'm ready.”
I need to exhale for you. There'll be so many people reading this who are like, “I want her life off Instagram.” Thank you for taking us through the whole process and what you did because it wasn't a spur of the moment, “I'm sick of it. I'm deleting it. I'm coming off today.” A lot of time we have that idea but I love that you broke it down into, “These are the steps. I looked at the data I looked at and all these different things that came into play for it.” Can I ask, on that day that was the D-day when there was no turning back how did you feel?
I want to give you a bit of context. I had an issue with Instagram. Someone reported my account and I was upset about it. I teach a lot of marketing. I'm constantly like, “Get off social media. Social media is not a marketing plan.” I was in marketing before social media came along and people put too much of everything on a platform that they can't control. For a brief second, I was like, “What's the worst? What if I come off Instagram altogether?” I have to say, if I'm being honest, it was a bit of a relief. I was like, “Imagine if I didn't have that in my life.” I would miss it too much and other things but when you have that D-day, how did you feel? Did you feel complete relief? Was there any part of you that was like, “What am I going to do?”
To be honest, I did worry about being forgotten a bit. That is human and normal because I used to post so much and it was this easy, brief way in which people could hear about what I was doing. I also think that in a way, it created a false sense of knowing each other. With my real-life friends, I sometimes felt that, because I posted about business stuff, they thought that we had been chatting. I know that sounds weird but I don't know if you know this feeling of you have close friends who maybe don't live in your area, or it's a pandemic. You don't physically see them but everyone keeps posting it so you feel like we have been talking but you haven't.
It's changed my relationship sometimes and honestly, there were times in my business, not necessarily in 2020 so I feel I put a lot of love and energy into as best as I could having honest conversations in that time. Before that, there were times where I was maybe going through a breakup or making some difficult choices, or whatever it was being a human and having a life. Because I was sharing cheerful stuff on Instagram, my friends thought, “I heard from Yarrow. It's fine.” I was like, “That is my business account. This is not all of what my life is.”
Sometimes I had to do a bit of work of contextualizing that and saying, “This is my business account.” It is honest and I'm sharing what's going on for me within reason. It's different and that has impacted my private relationships as well. In that sense, there was a big feeling of relief, I was like, “There's this big thing off my plate. I don't have to worry about it anymore. I can focus on other things that give me joy now.” Also, I was a bit worried about being forgotten.
In the beginning, especially, I picked up my phone for that hit all the time and there was nothing there so it was strange. In the summer of 2020, I switched to a non-smartphone. I had already made that decision. I had up until the end of 2020 where I only used Instagram on my browser, which we already talked about. That's helpful if people want to cut down on the time that they spend on it. You can still post. When you use it on your browser, you can right-click, go into developer mode and switch to mobile view and you can pose. That’s a sneaky little trick everyone should know about.
It’s a good one. Thank you for being so honest and sharing the whole, “Maybe I'll be forgotten.” That's something that everyone goes through. I loved as well that you're talking about relationships because we all do that. I do that. I see a friend who's gone before COVID on holiday and I'll think, “I saw your snaps. I don't need to talk to you about the holiday,” but we're seeing most of the time the highlight reel we're not seeing, “The kids were driving me crazy. I hated it,” and other things that go on. Did you find that whilst you were ready to do that, and maybe, make more time to phone people and see them and talk to them, did you find that other people were not? I know you said it changed some of your relationships. Did they happen that time as well?
Yes, I would say so. It was mutual and we had a lot of chats about how we're using technology. Something I wanted to do was to send more photos individually to people. I have a friend, for example, who is into mushrooms. When I see a cool mushroom in my garden, I'll send my friend a picture. Because image sharing is beautiful, and it's a way of being in touch with people. I wanted to make a point of not missing out on that experience. There is some sweetness in thinking about what you want to share with one particular person rather than everyone. Some of the pictures are weird and I might even say ugly, or badly lit, whatever, but it doesn't matter, because they're my friends. It wouldn't fit on my Instagram account and that's okay.
That totally makes sense and it's so beautiful, that it's much more intentional, what you're sending to people, rather than random things that are sent to 6,500 people and everything else. When you were talking about that whole journey, you were mentioning what brings you joy and other things that you were going through. I know that joy and helping people find their creativity and ritual, and all these things are things that you help people with. It seems obvious but I'd love to know your take on why you work in those spaces? Why is it so important for people to stop and think about their rituals, think about creativity, think about where they're finding joy and peace from?
When we set out our businesses often enough, we talk about finding our ICA so it would be our ideal client avatar, where we're thinking about who we are serving. What does this person want? What did they struggle with? What does their base look like? For me, it's always been helpful to do that for my younger self. I'm thinking about what would I have needed years ago when I was starting out or was at the beginning of my business, or even younger than that as a teenager, in my 20s, where I was making choices about my future in these big ways.
If I had more ritual, more self-trust, more slowness, more guidance, that would have been such a game-changer for me. I want to give that to other people as much as I can. It's something that makes sense in my body. We're all different. We have different ways to contribute. Nothing is worse or better necessarily but that is my jam. This is what I have to offer. It feels so much joy sharing that. It's strategic, but maybe also embodied, intuitive, playful, and it feels good so maybe that's a bit of a hippy answer.
No. That's a beautiful answer to such a reminder of what's important. On that note, we're still going through this pandemic. It's been so hard on everyone but particularly on small business owners, especially small business owners that our physical spaces like shops, restaurants, and places that have had to shut down event businesses. They're having to face challenges that they've never had to face before. Do you have any tips or anything that you could offer anyone reading who's like, “I would like to feel some joy right now. I don't know where I would start or I don't know how I can feel less than overwhelmed right now 24/7.” Are there any practices or anything you would suggest to someone listening who's maybe in a frame of mind of, “I would love that but I don't even know where to start.”
I want to begin by saying those feelings are so valid. No one is alone in that and it's not a personal failure to feel that way in any way. A few things that come to mind for me, first of all, finding people that you can be honest with. That's been important to me. There is this shiny world of Instagram but the culture of that is changing too. We're supporting each other by sharing more honestly, what is up for us. If Instagram isn't the right space for you to do that for whatever reason, then maybe starting a blog or starting a podcast or changing the direction of your newsletter to be more intimate and be more of a story time space could be a great way to do this.
I know that when I send honest newsletters, I often get beautiful replies. I appreciate the conversations that come out of that so much. We have to be clear about what we need from our work. I share this two-list exercise, for example, it's on Episode 37 on my podcast. I invite people to make one list with everything that they need from their work and that could be money. Of course, that's important financial stability, but it might also be something like being seen as a human, being allowed to have bad days, make mistakes, change your mind or it might be a certain way to creatively express yourself. Having freedom in your days feeling inspired and that kind of thing. Those things are important as well.
For me, there's definitely a need for honesty and intimacy with people that I appreciate. I'm making a lot of time for that and how I share content or give myself time to make things and that feels nourishing because it allows me to think about where I'm at and not feel that I have to hide these parts of myself, because there's nothing worse than having anxieties, worries or feeling frustrated about things. At the same time feeling that you can be honest about that like there's nowhere to say about those things.
The other piece that comes to mind is also being honest with our communities or clients. In September of 2021, I did something I haven't done before, which was a five-day back-to-school sale. I had an accident back in December 2020 that meant I was unable to walk for a few months. I was in the hospital for ten days. It changed my life in a big way. I had to go a lot slower. In many ways, it was like a homecoming, honestly. 2020 also allowed slowing down but being physically stopped in my tracks has changed the way about a lot of different things.
Usually, I was often working spontaneously with people so someone could come to me and say, “Can you make me a website like yesterday?” I would say, “Sure. I can book you in 3 or 4 weeks.” That's okay and I love working with people at the beginning stages of their business. I love that energy of invention and creativity, the spark. I love it. This winter, I often came around and September and I was like, “I need something different this year. There's a lot of uncertainty going into this winter. Will there be another lockdown or not? What is possible for me to do with the time and energy that I have?”
I did this back-to-school sale and offered 30% off everything I was doing. We can have a whole other conversation about pricing, and whether discounting is ever a good strategy but for all kinds of reasons, it felt right for me at the time and it meant that lots of people booked really far into the future. They said, “This is amazing. Thanks for being so honest. I know that I want a website sometime next year but I'm happy to make a deposit now and we'll work it out in February or March.”
Also, lots of people said, “I'm sorry. I don't need anything right now but I love witnessing you saying what you needed, which is that stability through winter of knowing what products you're going to work on when. It inspired me to be more honest, as well.” That was cool to see and it made me pause and think like, “What if we said what we needed and see if people wanted to collaborate on that? Maybe it's not what they needed too but at least we tried.”
Before that humbling experience of the accident and the pandemic, I maybe would have been too proud to say, “I need more stability and more further booking into the future.” I would recommend that people maybe share a bit more about what it's to be a small business owner right now because many people want to support us. If they have never worked for themselves, they might in many ways not know what that's like. They don't know what it’s like to navigate all these things. That's not to say that they don't have their own struggles but they're different. Being transparent and sharing can be a big game-changer as well.
The third thing I would say is probably building independence and looking at what systems are important as well. When I left Instagram, for example, I asked myself, “Where are most of my clients coming from? How do they find me? What are they looking for?” I've been doing more work on SEO but also on recommendations encouraging people to recommend me if they feel it and an easy and natural way. I don't give big incentives or I don't have an affiliate network in case but I do recognize that a lot of my clients come through recommendations.
That's such a kindness and sometimes people would be super happy to recommend us, they don't have that on their radar so much so why not say, “This is a tricky time for me in my business. I have this physical space that I needed to close down but I'm still selling online, and being recommended makes such a difference to me right now.” That's what comes to mind.
Thank you so much. That is so helpful and I kept hearing over and over this ask. Just ask. We don't do enough asking in all parts of our lives. People are more and more told, “Be resilient, get through it, chin up, keep going, grind,” and not stopping and saying, “I need some help right now,” or, “This is my situation.” I'm guilty of even my mother-in-law asking, “Can I help?” I'm like, “No. I've got it covered. I can do it all.” It's amazing what you've said, and asked for ways to get those testimonials or get those referrals happening.
Many times, when you ask people “I've been meaning to get in touch with this person who would benefit from your services or your product.” It's that reminder of something that you're probably going to do anyway. It’s putting it front and center. I love that. You alluded to it when you thought, “Where are my sales going to come from?” If we go back to social media, you mentioned that you're into systems so I'd love to know how you market your offerings. When you had this 30% off, how did you market that? If social media was not one of the connection points that you would usually use to spread the word? How do you set that up?
My main channels now are my newsletter and my podcast. I love both. I love the depths that they offer. For the sale, I sent four emails over five days, which is something I've never done before. It worked because I allowed people to opt-out of that sequence so there was a big button at the end of that email that said, “I'm going to send a few more emails about this. If you don't want to hear about it, but want to stay on my mail list, maybe that’s okay. Click here.” I didn't have a lot of unsubscribes.
People enjoyed the honesty and even if they didn't buy anything, often they wrote me back and said, “Thank you so much for sharing that.” That was cool. My podcasts, I love them. I have two. One is called Creative Nature and the other is called the Embodied Business Podcast. Honestly, it works because I give myself a lot of grace with them. I do podcasts regularly, but not always to a schedule. In 2021, after my accident, I took a break from doing a whole lot of new interviews. I allowed myself to bring out a new episode when I had time and energy to do that. Before that, it's been a beautiful way to have more in-depth conversations with people.
Honestly, as an introvert myself, there were so many cool people I wanted to talk to, and I wouldn't have necessarily been like, “Do you want to have a coffee on Zoom,” but inviting them on my podcast felt much more doable. It's been an incredible way for me to build community and I care so much about independent media and being part of DIY culture. I love themes and all of that space. It was a natural thing to do for me. If people are interested in finding more ways of making their own stuff, I would recommend starting with thinking about the format that works for you. For me, that's audio. I can hit record and talk all day long if I want to. I find that easy and fun, and it's a great way for me to share.
I found video much harder, honestly. I have made some videos, but it always takes me much longer to get it right and to feel good about it. I'm focusing on audio and that's great. I love writing as well, but it doesn't always come as naturally as hitting record so I'm finding a balance with that. As to come back to your actual question, I have always made a point of building my newsletter list. That is important to think about and something that has helped me was to offer free workshops from the beginning. That was back in 2016, 2017 when I started offering these tech design system-related workshops for small business owners.
They used to be once a month. At the moment, they are almost once a month. I would say, every six weeks or so. They're such great fun. They're a fantastic way to build your list. I show up for not with a ton of expectations. It's not a funnel where I have a launch coming up and I do this free webinar and people get ten emails afterward and they have two days to sign up to something. I do them because it's a great way for people to get to know my work and imagine what it might be like to work with me. That's great, especially for people who have never hired someone in this way.
It's also great for me because I see what people's questions are and what content I might want to create from there so I'm never stuck for what I want to record as a solo episode or what I want to write a blog post about. It’s a big thing off my plate because a lot of people take time to generate ideas. To me, this is a generous win-win. People get to learn something for free. Without necessarily landing in a funnel. We get to know each other. Often people become clients. It feels playful and easy. I know that's not for everyone but there are other ways of building community offline, online, outside of social media. A newsletter and independent media are important pieces.
I can imagine people taking so many notes and being like, “Let me follow suit.” I know that we're coming to the end of this chat, and thank you again for getting up so early over in Scotland to do this. I'd love to know if you have had any mentors or coaches. We both went and worked with Melissa but do you have any mentors or books or anything that you would say, “Yes, 100%. This helped me and I would definitely recommend it to anyone reading.”
I know this is going to sound like such a hippie response again. To be honest, I found it hard to find books or mentors in the business world that I enjoyed and resonated with. I did a regenerative business building online course with Starhawk, which is an unlikely business mentor. For those who don't know her, she's a Richie feminist, eco writer, who has been around for decades and is now sharing these permacultures leaning ideas for growing your business. That was cool. Other than that, I do a lot of tarot and a lot of writing.
I already said that this is going to be an out-there answer but it’s important that we build self-trust because it's so important. It's so tempting for us to always look outside of ourselves for mentors or for guidance or to or to be searching for this blueprint. I'm so sorry to say it does not exist. That isn't a blueprint that will guarantee your success in any way. You are going to be a better business owner if you learn to trust your intuition and yourself. For me, pulling a few cards and seeing how I respond to them is a pragmatic and grounded way to find that clarity.
I love that answer. I often say to friends or whatever that there have been two not great clients in six years. In both times the first time I talked to them, it was my gut that was like, “Do not go here,” and yet, I went there because I was like, “Money. Security.” Often, we know the answer but sometimes we're like, “Someone told me.” It's like, “Yes, of course. I know that I've known that. I've been telling myself that.” It's like we're seeking validation or something of something we already know. That skill is something that everyone, whether you're a small business owner or not, should develop that trust with yourself and feel what comes along. I often say to clients, “It's data and gut. Look at both.”
We’ve got to love that so much. I shouldn't have that on my desk.
We can see all the data sometimes and it's still for whatever reason does not feel like the way to go. Other times you can be like, and I always say, “Data and gut.” When we finish this off, what are you most proud of from this journey that you've had in business so far?
My friend Sophie Dyer said to this question, “I'm glad I'm still in business.” That feels true for me as far. After all this time after the accident, after the pandemic, we’re still in it but I'm happy to still be here and I found a way to be myself and to have a nice life. It's simple. I love the way my week flows. I am aware that so many people don't have the luxury of loving what they do and having spaciousness with their time. That’s something I feel proud about.
What a beautiful way to finish this lovely conversation. When people are reading and they're thinking, “I need to connect with Yarrow.” What's next for you? Where can people come and find you because it's not on social media?
They can take me out over at PinkWellStudio.com. They can come to a free workshop. I have a big festival planned for February 2022 because it’s my seven-year business anniversary so there will be a virtual retreat weekend, which is free, and I'm looking forward to that. I’m planning a chat group exhibition of thoughts. I don't know what that will look like yet exactly, but I'm excited about it. The other work printmaking and creative space sessions that's over at YarrowMagdalena.com. My newsletter is the best way to stay in touch and hear about stuff.
Thank you so much for all your insights, tips, and ideas. I absolutely loved having this conversation with you. Thank you for making the time.
Thank you so much for having me. Fiona, it was amazing to speak to you and I loved the question you asked and the space that you created so thank you so much.
You’re welcome. Bye.
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I know I say this after all my interviews, but honestly, how much wisdom was shared by Yarrow in that conversation? Honestly, I could have written notes and notes about what she said but I didn't. I was listening, being present but I'm definitely going to re-listen to this a few times. There are so many ideas and insights and real world genuine, beautiful advice that was given to not small business owners, but people in general, and those are some of the things that drew me to Yarrow. Her genuineness, her warmth, and the real belief that she has in humanity, in community, and in coming together. It’s so much beauty and wisdom. I would love to know what resonated most with you. For me, so many things resonated, but two that I will draw your attention to.
The first was when it comes to getting off a platform like Instagram to look at the data as well. What is this doing for my business from a number’s perspective, because we can all say, “I want to get off social media,” or, “It's so annoying.” It may well be a huge source of traffic or sales or whatever it is that you're trying to measure in terms of your business. To remove that entirely, may not be the best fit and it might be, “I need to figure out how to use this in a way that feels aligned with my values and my beliefs and the way that I want to run my lifestyle.”
I love that she looked at that. It wasn't a rash decision of, “I'm sick of it. I'm going to come off it.” It was so considered and well thought through. The other thing that I loved was about being honest with your audience and taking them on the journey. She talked about the sale, “This is what's happened and this is why I'm going on sale. I'd love your support.” It’s being real with people and we don't see that enough.
I know I've mentioned it before, but, when COVID first hit and lockdown happened here in Melbourne in March 2020, I'd started a group coaching. They were the first group. I got on the call and I started crying and I was like, “I'm the person supposed to be leading this. I shouldn't be doing that.” I needed to. I needed to be like, “I'm as stressed as everybody else's right now. I'm freaking out as well. What's going to happen to us? What's going to happen to business?”
I was able to gather my thoughts. I'll always be forever thankful for Kate Stokes of Coco Flip, who jumped in and let me gather my thoughts for a minute. I always remember that session. Everyone was so open and sharing. When you can do that when you can be open and be like, “It's not all perfect. This is what's going on right now,” it allows other people the space to be able to be open and real as well. I absolutely loved that point that Yarrow brought home.
If you are reading this and you're thinking, “I'd love to connect with Yarrow,” you can't do that on Instagram but you can definitely jump on over to YarrowMagdalena.com and you can find Pink Well Studio, her design and mentoring business over at PinkWellStudio.com. That is it for this interview episode. I absolutely loved chatting to Yarrow. I know that everything she's talked about will resonate with so many people who read this.
Don't be a stranger. Do drop her line going on over there and connect. If you think that there is somebody in your life who could well use the wisdom that was bestowed on us from Yarrow Magdalena, make sure that you share this podcast with them. If you think your audience might benefit from it, I would love it if you might share it on Instagram and tag @MyDailyBusinessCoach so we don't miss it and of course, I'll let Yarrow know about any of those and take screen grabs and send them to her as well.
That is it for this interview episode. As always, if you enjoyed it, please hit subscribe and if you've got 5 seconds, maybe even 2 seconds, you can leave us a review. It helps other small business owners around the globe benefit from these beautiful interview episodes as well as my longer coaching and my short tip episodes. Thank you so much for reading. See you. Bye.
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Thanks for reading this episode of My Daily Business Coach Podcast. If you want to get in touch you can do that at MyDailyBusinessCoach.com or hit me up on Instagram at @MyDailyBusinessCoach.
