Episode 376: Nadean Richards of Tottie & One Fine Collective
In this episode, Fiona sits down with the dynamic Nadean Richards, CEO of One Fine Collective, to unravel the lessons she's learned. From diving into SEO For Dummies to her thriving ventures like One Fine Baby and Tottie, Nadean shares how understanding every part of your business is the key to staying ahead in 2024. Tune in!
You'll Learn How To:
Importance of Understanding Your Business
Business Expansion and Identifying Market Gaps
Importance of sales and marketing in business success
Marketing Approach
Embracing feedback and using it for innovation and improvement
Get in touch with My Daily Business
Mentioned Links/Resources:
“My biggest lesson to anyone that owns a business is you've got to understand it yourself and do it yourself. I read SEO For Dummies and Building a Web Site For Dummies. Anything for dummies, I read the books inside out so that at least when I was talking to the developers or the people telling me what to do, I was able to show up on the same level and be able to say, “I don't know about that.” I question them and then that makes them make sure that they're not pulling the wool over your eyes. If you don't understand every part of your business, you're already behind the eight ball so that's the biggest thing that I'll ever say to someone.”
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Welcome to episode 376 of the My Daily Business Podcast. We are in for another brilliant interview with a woman who is so inspiring. I got off the chat with my guest and I felt excited and invigorated. Many ideas were going through my head. Honestly, I sent a WhatsApp to one of my best friends and I was like, “I interviewed this woman and I'm blown away by everything that she's doing, her humbleness.” It made me so excited. We recorded this at the tail end of 2023 and I'm recording this in 2024. I remember thinking, “I've got so much enthusiasm for 2024,” and I felt that heavily after the conversation that I had with our guest.
Before we jump into that amazing chat, I want to acknowledge where I'm meeting all of these people and the land on which I record this podcast. I want to acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians of that land, the Wurrung and Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation. I pay my respects to their elders, past and present, and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded.
The other thing I wanted to mention is that if 2024 is the year that you want to ace your business, fully figure out your systems and processes, understand your marketing, and get some rhythm happening so that you don't feel like you're overwhelmed all the time, check out our group coaching program, it'll kick off in early March 2024.
If you are on the waitlist and you then decide to go forward with it, you get all these extra bonuses, including more one-on-one time with myself. You can sign up to the waitlist and find out all the other information about group coaching over at MyDailyBusiness.com/groupcoaching. If you've got any questions at all, send us a DM, @MyDailyBusiness_ on Instagram, or you can email us at Hello@MyDailyBusiness.com. Let's get into our interview with an amazing small business owner.
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I'm smiling as I record this. Honestly, this conversation blew me away. My guest’s ambition, drive, and idea that anything is possible, we hear that all the time but not that many people fully embody it and I feel like our guest absolutely does. It's contagious when you listen to her. Our guest is the wonderful Nadean Richards, the Co-founder and CEO of One Fine Collective.
Within One Fine Collective, there are other brands that people know so well and that includes One Fine Baby, which is your online one-stop-shop for everything to do with babies. They also have the One Fine Baby Expo, which a lot of people know. In addition to that, Nadean also oversees another brand, the One Fine Day Wedding Fair. They have that in Australia across Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, and Perth, also in London and New York.
In our chat, we talked about how that happened. Also, if that wasn't enough, Nadean also runs a new business called Tottie. Tottie creates bags that not just look good and can basically go with any kind of style or anything else that you're wearing in your wardrobe but they also are super practical and functional. We talk about how she decided to do that in addition to everything else.
Nadean was not an entrepreneur when she first started her career, she was a chartered accountant working at KPMG. Those skills would be instrumental to the success of any business but it's more than that. It's this belief that Nadean has, “Why not have a go at anything and everything?” She's been able to ace everything consistently. That's not to say she hasn't had her challenges. In our chat, we talk about some of those challenges and some of the hardest parts of running many businesses that she has encountered over the last few years.
It's such an inspiring conversation. Nadean is one of those people who you might meet on a plane or somewhere and you'd be fortunate to be able to have that time with her. Her brain fires off and has all of these different exciting ideas. She not only just has the ideas, she also executes on them and executes brilliantly.
If you're looking for a hell of a lot of inspo for your 2024, if you're reading this in real time and it's getting started or maybe you're reading later in the year and you need that peppiness step again, this interview is for you. I want to say a massive thank you for Nadean to come on and share so openly and genuinely about her journey with multiple businesses. Here is my interview with Nadean Richards.
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Hello, Nadean. Welcome to the podcast.
Hi, Fiona. I'm excited to be on this podcast. I'm a huge fan of yours. I've been listening to your podcast for ages. This is a big milestone for me. Thank you for having me.
I'm excited to have you. I'm excited because you've just got so much knowledge and I know people will get so much from this. How are you feeling about life right now?
Things are pretty hectic. There's a lot going on. It was funny because I was overwhelmed recently. There were so many Christmas parties. Heading into Christmas, as a mom, is crazy. We're going away to Sri Lanka for the holidays. That cuts off that time where you get the last-minute presents in. Everything is going crazy. I've always wondered about these journaling people, the people who journal as part of your de-stressing and things like that but I've never been able to do it. I'm very much a diary person so I write everything down and plan my week out on a Sunday but I write it down in my diary and I've got my weeks laid out. I figured that was my journaling.
It was this huge moment of, “I'm completely overwhelmed but if I can plan my week out nicely and know what's coming.” I feel calm today. Things are good. Business-wise, we're winding down. We're getting our budgets in place for the next year and wrapping it all up so we can have a good break. We always shut down over Christmas and New Year's. We make sure the whole company is shut down because it's the only time in the year that other people take time off as well. Because we're so customer service centric, we want to make sure we were always on top of that. It's the only time we can all shut down. We take about 2 or 3 weeks off as a company.
That is nice. I worked in retail before I started my business in the head office retail and you can never shut down. You're the person working right up until Christmas day. Sri Lanka, that's exciting. How long are you going for?
We are going for two weeks. I haven't had a chance to find out a lot about it but I've had lots of people telling me things. I'm sure, when I'm on that plane seat, I can start to process the fact that I'm going to Sri Lanka. It's how I work a bit but we'll get there. A couple of days of downloading and then hopefully, I'll be able to relax.
I'm sure you will have an amazing time. I'm also like you with the whole paper diaries. Part of what you're doing there is planning because you have so many different facets to your businesses. Can you tell us a bit about your path to becoming a business owner and what you were doing before this?
I was thinking of the Steve Jobs quote. I often think about how you can't connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backwards. Now it makes sense where I am but I would never have thought that looking backwards. When I grew up, I was a rep netballer so I was very much coached through life. I went to university, I was a childhood accountant at KPMG, and there was that work ethic that was instilled in me. I was very much a people pleaser as well. You're always working and always trying to achieve.
I had a moment when I was in London. I did work in Hong Kong and Dublin, London. I was working for Reuters at the time and I looked at my boss and I saw her pulling many long hours. I was 25 so it was fine, I could go out for a drink after work, that was not a problem if I had finished late. However, I knew she had kids and I knew she never saw them every night. I had this moment, I'll never forget it, and I didn't want that to be my life.
I knew that if I stayed in that industry or that job, it was paying good money, but if I wanted to be a mom, it was never going to work. That was way before all the work flexibility and things like that. I took some time out. I was in London. At the time, I studied photography because I have always been a keen photographer as a hobby. I went back to university and qualified there as a photographer. That's been my journey to becoming a business owner. I started into wedding photography and that's when I saw a gap in the market to create the One Fine Day Wedding Expo.
I’m shocked. I had no idea that you did all these other things. My brother was a chartered accountant. The knowledge that you would have in terms of business and finance and when you said working on your budgets, you'd have so much knowledge to bring into a business. As well as the photography and the way to market things, it's huge.
It's funny that you say that because no one believed I was ever an accountant. They always used to joke about it when I was at KPMG, “I'm an accountant.” They’re like, “Really?” I was always trying to help with the events and things as well because accountants didn't like to organize their own staff parties or things like that. It ended up being a good balance of talent.
What inspired you? When you were saying, “I saw a gap in the market,” I always find this interesting because lots of people see gaps in the market all the time but they don't then go forward and create something. What is One Fine Collective and how did you go from, “I see this gap in the market,” to creating this whole business?
One Fine Collective is ultimately an omni channel marketing business. We deal with life's major milestones and we want to celebrate it. It's all about celebrating life. First off, I did see a gap in the market in wedding photography because I was getting married, I was shooting weddings, and the current expos were sterile. You'd walk in, there's no atmosphere, and you just got shoved pamphlets. You couldn't wait to get out of there. At the end, you were running, like, “Don't talk to me.”
I had two other business partners and we needed somewhere where we could market our own businesses as wedding photographers, stylists, or anything that was part of the wedding industry. We decided to throw a big party at Sun Studios and we got all of our friends to come. We thought only a couple of hundred people would turn up but 1,500 customers turned up and we were like, “We must be onto something.”
The whole premise was about touching the five senses. You want to walk into a wedding expo and you want to celebrate. You want the music, the drink on arrival, and the installations. It was all Instagram brought to life and you want to celebrate and bring your friends and have an amazing time celebrating where you are in that moment of life. We then started having babies. Luckily enough, we had named it One Fine Collective so we were able to have a brand extension and that was a huge learning curve.
With my Photography by Nadean days, that was not a business that I could easily sell. If I wanted someone to come and work for me, they always wanted Nadean because it was Photography by Nadean and they had heard about Photography by Nadean. One more point to that is to make sure you don't let your domains expire. At the moment, it was doing so well I forgot about it but that's a whole nother story.
We had babies and then we went to One Fine Baby. I went over to New York to understand the wedding industry over there and I saw another gap in the market with the trade shows that they do. Everyone goes over for New York Bridal Fashion Week and they are doing it all out of hotel rooms. I don't know if you know about New York traffic but there is no chance that you can make an appointment on time if you're going from one hotel room to the next. They had cheese in there. If you had cheese sitting around for quite a while, it's disgusting and gross. They've got their beds in the background.
These are high-quality designers like the ones you'd see here. I thought, “This is crazy. We need to bring them all under one roof and have an amazing environment.” The next year, we launched One Fine Day Bridal Market over New York and now it's the biggest show in New York twice a year. When you talk about seeing gaps in the market, that's what I'm talking about, and that's why you can only understand the industry if you are in thick and deep down into an industry. Even if you're into alcohol, golf, or whatever takes your fancy, only you will find the gap in the market because you got to be knee-deep into it.
My mind is blown. How do you get this to happen? When you said, “We went to New York and saw this and then now we've come up with this show that's the biggest in New York,” and when you are from Australia, on the other side of the planet, do you have systems or things that you thought, “I'm going to replicate this, this, and this that we've already seen is proven in Australia. We're going to just take that.” Even in New York, how do you find out about permits, licenses, and all the different things that might be different to the way that Australian councils or areas work?
You're not going to like my answer but it's a bit on the fly. You go through and do a business case and a proposal. Firstly, for us, it was finding the right venue but also getting the sales. We work on a model where we get the cash up front. When I think about it, I'm not too risk-averse but I know I'm not going to give up. If I have an idea and it feels true to my gut, I'm going to keep pushing it well in advance of other people. Lots of people told me no in many things I've done. I have a financial background so if the cashflow makes sense to me and if my passion is there and I want it to work, then I'll make it work, if that makes sense.
I'm putting you on the spot so feel free not to answer if you don't want to. Have you always been like this? Did you have parents who were small business owners and you're like, “I've got that ambition.” There's the practical side of it, like, “Look at the cashflow and look at the numbers, that works. I am excited about this.” Also, there's that level of confidence of having a go. Where do you reckon that comes from?
It's instilled in the way I was brought up in the coaching, the sport, the mentality. I often go back to my first coach, Bob Sheridan. He would bring us all together as girls and he would read out a poem, The Man Who Thinks He Can. It’s that mentality that we can teach our own kids growing up and we would recite it at every match. He would come in and by the end, we know it off by heart.
That's why I hate imposter syndrome. I joined a group when I was five years into the business of women and it came up as a topic and I was like, “What's imposter syndrome?” I had no idea what it was. They were like, “You think you can't do it. Who am I to do it?” I was like, “Wow. Should I be thinking that? Should I be worried?” It made me go down this funnel.
Probably, a year or two, it took me to get my confidence back. I wish I'd not known about that because the more you think negatively, it can affect your confidence. I've never thought of it like that way but that poem had a huge impact on my life. I want to go and find my coach and I haven't seen him in probably 30 years and tell him that.
I love that one because my son plays basketball and he's obsessed with basketball and sports psychology. He watches so many YouTube videos of Michael Jordan saying, “I never gave up. I had 9,000 shots that didn't work.” That's amazing. Those people in your life like that coach, I had an English teacher and he was like, “You're gifted and you can do things with your writing.” Those people come into our lives and they probably are saying things off the cuff but it stays with you forever.
“If you think you are beaten, you are. If you think you dare not, you don't. If you like to win but you think you can't, it's almost as if you won't. If you think you'll lose, you’re lost. Out in the world we'll find success begins with a fellow's will, it's all in the state of mind.”
I love that. My parents had a lot of poetry up in our kitchen. This has instilled me. I'm putting the poetry up in the kitchen because I used to read these things all the time and it stays with you. In your business model, you've got a one umbrella brand and then you have various sub brands underneath and then you have this separate brand, Tottie.
What inspired you to keep bringing these three baby and parenting weddings under one when your life is moving from, “My friends are getting married. Weddings and then it's baby.” Inevitably, you'll get out of that season of babyhood and then you've got parenting. What keeps you inspired by having them all under one brand?
We were lucky to have the foresight. We couldn't get One Fine Day at the time. We said, “One Fine Collective.” We had the One Fine Day, which then is easy to transition into the One Fine Baby, which I learned again by having Photography by Nadean. If you can make it as broad as possible, then it opens up more opportunities. Even for selling, at the end of the day, it makes it more valuable as a company. I'm always looking for the next best thing, I can't help with my brain, and try to be best-in-class. We've also got trademarks for all the One Fine Pets.
It could be anything. It's clever.
My parents want to do One Fine Retirement. They're like, “Come on, boats, and holidays.” Everyone's like, “What about One Fine Funeral?” No, I'm not going to go there. It opens the customer life cycle. Once we've got them at One Fine Day, it's chopped and changed. It used to be weddings first and then babies but now it's whatever you want. We have a customer who understands what the One Fine Day concept is.
They know that if they're going to walk into an expo by One Fine Collective, it's going to touch all the five senses, it's going to be Instagram-brought-to-life, and it's going to be a great day out with their family and friends. When they hear that One Fine Baby is there, they're like, “Okay.” It's an easy transition into that customer life cycle. We also market to both audiences. It's like, “My sister is having a baby,” to the One Fine Day audience or if it's One Fine Day, we go, “My sister is getting married,” to the baby audience and things like that. It's been a good way to lengthen that customer life cycle.
You talked about this life cycle and you can have that one audience who travels. I often think of Destiny's Child and Beyoncé because the people that were in Destiny's Child hitting up the clubs in the early 2000s then became parents who understand all her other music and her being this business woman and everything else. I love that they have grown with you and the brand. How do you then market to each of these different people in different stages of life as well as the actual small business owners who are selling their wares or promoting stuff as a trade show holder or somebody there? How do you map out the marketing and the different platforms for each of these groups?
We are a marketing platform. It sounds like we're an expo business but we've turned online as well and that was the huge thing that happened to us with COVID. Luckily enough, we launched a shop in November 2019 and that's what saved us. That is a huge marketing opportunity for any brands or businesses to have their products in our shop. We've got over 2,000 products.
We rank number one in Google for thousands of baby and wedding searches so we market there as well. If you put best baby carrier, best baby monitor, or anything like that, we come up number one in Google so that's another touch point of how we market to them. Even if they don't know about us, we're coming up on Google. We've launched a podcast with One Fine Baby called Cold Coffee, Hot Mess, which we're lucky enough to have you as a guest on.
We continually market through content platforms. We're always making sure that the content on Instagram that we're turning up is relatable, entertaining, valuable, and is teaching people things. We all also have the expos where we are continually marketing to people. It's this whole omni channel approach, 24/7, and we're always there.
We used to be like, “We'd do an expo,” and then that's it. Now, we have the data of all the customers coming through and then we can keep talking to them online through our shop, our podcast, and our social media channels. It's always cross pollinating as well. We're always like, “Do you know someone having a baby or do you know someone getting married?” We can continually test that data year after year.
Did you have this foresight in 2019? No one knew there was going to be a pandemic. To have the shop and open that, where did that come from? Was it exactly like you say, “We want to have not just this big expo and then nothing for six months and then another expo.” Were you like, “This is going to help us with recurrent revenue and stabilizing our revenue.”
It was data-driven. I was frustrated that we would get all of these email addresses and all of these people who we connected with and they loved our brand. Now and again, we speak on social media but then we lose them once they get married. I was like, “How do we continually talk to them? With the babies, how do we sell them products or keep that conversation alive and not just drop off the radar and all we are was an expo to them?” It didn't make sense to me.
As you said, a huge opportunity for revenue growth was the driver. It was a massive project, I can't even tell you. If anyone understands building websites and development, it was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. We launched the shop and it had only just been pressed live and it still wasn't 100% right and we had all these celebrities and famous influencers and everyone turning up and I'm like, “It's not even live.”
I remember waking up that morning, “How am I going to do my speech?” It luckily clicked over. We just have to do it, make it happen, do your best, and see what comes out of it. Thank God, we did because a couple of months later, that's what saved our business. We lost hundreds of thousands of thousands of dollars overnight on that 13th of March and it was the shop that saved us, for sure.
You seem like someone who absorbs as much information, you're a lifelong learner, you're very curious, and you're very ambitious as well. Did that shot like an eCommerce? I've worked at some of the biggest, like Amazon. It is gigantic to do that stuff and tag things correctly and make sure that the customer journey for every single product is going to be great.
Where did you get all of that knowledge from? It's different to running an expo and that sort of stuff. Did you work with other people or were you like, “I'm going to learn this,” because you've aced it each time? There's something in you that gets curious like a researcher and takes in everything. What do you think has helped you the most to build that actual platform?
It’s getting the right team. I had an incredible girl, Robin, who's still on my team. She was my biggest supporter and she never gave up. She and I were in the thick of it. My biggest lesson to anyone that owns a business is you've got to understand it yourself and do it yourself. I read SEO For Dummies and Building a Web Site For Dummies.
Anything for dummies, I read the books inside out so that at least when I was talking to the developers or the people telling me what to do, I was able to show up on the same level and be able to say, “I don't know about that.” I question them and then that makes them make sure that they're not pulling the wool over your eyes. If you don't understand every part of your business, you're already behind the eight ball so that's the biggest thing that I'll ever say to someone.
Have you seen the Beyoncé film, Renaissance, that's coming out?
No.
In it, you can see her talking to these men who are creating this huge spectacle of her concert and she's talking to a camera and she's like, “You can get a 30-foot camera.” They're like, “No, you can't. It's not possible.” She's like, “I googled it so it is.” She's like, “Even at the level that I'm at, you'd want to know your stuff.”
I couldn't agree more.
We've talked about the eCommerce site but also you've got this huge background and still doing in the running events. What do you think are some of the biggest myths around running events and what tips would you give to people? There are people reading this who might not have run an event yet, especially with the pandemic, being scared off, but now be thinking, “It's been a few years. I want to add this into my business model.”
One of the biggest myths is that doing an expo is expensive. It’s like, “Why don't I just put that money into online advertising and I can sell my product there and it's so much easier?” That was the big reason why I did start Tottie because I wanted to prove to myself so that my team could be confident as well in selling. Why do you do an expo? It's not just about sales. If you have that mentality, you're not going to win because it's so much more than that.
There's data capture, meeting your customers face-to-face, and growing your email list. It's asking these people right in front of you why they love your product or are there any improvements or things missing? You should see the first Tottie that I made, it was a baby bag. It is different to what it is now. It's all down to the expos and the customer feedback, “I'd like a luggage strap or I'd like this or that.” Now they're like, “This is the best bag ever.” I'm like, “You guys helped me make it.”
It’s connecting with like-minded business owners because everyone knows how lonely it is owning a business. Even to meet up for coffee now and again, ideation, “What do you think of this color on this product?” Maybe do a competition or maybe share photo shoots. It’s that networking ability on site. It's a great opportunity to launch a new product and create some press around it and get some content. The list goes on with how many opportunities there are by doing that activation or expo style adventure in your business.
We have vendor sessions. About a month out from the event, we talk them through this and I say, “It's not just about the sales, it's this and this.” Half the people have not even planned or thought about that side of the thing. They then can make their own goals. I'll have a customer feedback form and maybe they can enter this or I'll have a competition on site, “I noticed that so and so is at the event. I'll connect with them, for sure.” I'll make a beeline so they can plant it out.
I also say that a rising tide lifts all boats. I try to get this message out. If we all come together, we're all in the same industry, no matter what industry it is, if it's travel, golfing, baby, or wedding, let's grow together and help each other out. It’s so massive but you don't meet everyone. The ones you meet, why not make a connection and build it up together? That's what I'm all about and I'm always about supporting other businesses. I'm friends with all my competitors. It's all mutually respectful and it's a good way to be.
Can you tell us a bit more about Tottie? We've touched on it a little bit. Going from, “I saw a gap in the market and I wanted to do this.” How do you go and get a bag’s brand made? I used to work at a bag’s brand, I'm head of marketing, and there's so many little parts to bags, little zips, trimmings, sews, threads, and things that could go wrong but also things that are amazing. Also, there are competitors coming out and copying you completely. Tell us about that brand.
I started it in COVID. I wasn't able to go to China at the time and it was Alibaba Express. I searched for a baby bag and I got a few samples out. Maybe it cost me a couple of hundred US dollars. That was the first iteration. I got the sample and then I tweaked it slightly and then I sent it back and that was the first Tottie. It was pretty easy, to be honest. The barrier to entry these days in making those types of products is pretty easy, hence the high competition in all areas, products, and copycats.
I took it to One Fine Baby and I tested it. I bought 500 bags and tested them. To be honest, I didn't get the best feedback. If I'm totally honest, they wanted stretchy side pockets and they wanted all this stuff. I was like, “I didn't even think of that.” I had these 500 bags to sell. I was like, “How am I going to do this?” I did the iterations and because I had that database, I was able to email them a couple of months later and sell them the new bag that they created. I made this whole dance and picture around it and it sold out straight away.
From then, it grew and grew and then I started doing color variations and different styles. That was the baby bag element. I then realized that the moms of the baby bag owners really liked it and they started using it as travel backpacks. My mom took it around Europe. My friend's moms were taking it around Europe and they're like, “It's weird that it's a baby bag.” I'm like, “It's not a baby bag. It's a travel backpack that has accessories. It has a change mat and it has pram straps.”
The bag is a travel backpack that is perfect for everyone and anyone who likes to travel, whether it's taking it to the beach and putting on your wet swimmers. We've got this special pocket down the bottom that no other bag has. You can put the swimmers and the dirty and the wet stinky stuff. Whether it's nappies, swimmers, or beach towels, it's all the same concept so why don't I change the psyche to be like, “I've got a travel backpack and I've got a baby backpack,” and then it transpired into cross-bodies that are super organized.
I've got these cute bum bags that we use as backpacks and not actual bum bags but you can use it as a bum bag. We've just launched a work tote. It's all about being organized. As a woman, life's hard enough. Tottie has been there and done that and she knows what works. Let's make organized backpacks and bags to make your life easier. That's how it was born. It’s fully road-tested through One Fine Baby and I’m happy with the success that it's grown to now.
I love how you say all of this so humbly, like, “I just did this and I did this.” Meanwhile, I'm like, “I transformed the New York bridal industry. Now I've got all of these women traveling in retirement with my new bag.”
You're very kind.
I know this is an annoying question to get but you have children and I have asked men on this podcast as well who are dads, how do you do it all? You've got so many different things happening. Do you have the same team who works across all of the businesses or do you have different groups of staff in each business? I don't know if you've got a head of marketing but do you have that head of marketing who looks after all of the different sub brands? Do you have multiple offices and studios? How does it all practically work when you have this and that and everything else? Yes, they all interconnect but they all have their own objectives, goals, calendars, and everything else.
I try to be very much focused on doing one thing and doing it well and that's what I like to be but unfortunately, in this day and age, I can't but I try hard to do that. There are certain things that I value that are much more important. Yes, I've got a team of thirteen. My sales team is very product-specific. I've got a One Fine Baby sales team and I've got a One Fine Day sales team. Marketing as well is specific, One Fine Baby marketing and One Fine Day marketing because they're unique and you need to understand the customer journey at those two touch points.
Apart from that, pretty much everything is sliced and diced a bit like finance, HR, operations, on the ground event management, administration, and eCommerce. The One Fine Baby is split between eCommerce and Tottie. Everything else is pretty split out but it makes sense because it's operational. That's how it's been able to coexist. Tottie is very much my passion project. For every bag sale, we give a birthing kit to a woman in need. That's been my getting out of trauma.
The trauma I went through with One Fine Collective through COVID, I'm still processing it. Tottie has been my little love child that's kept me happy and kept me going whilst I've had an incredible team to help me with the One Fine Collective. As a business owner, when you experience that level of deep stress, when you think you're going to lose it all, the dollar sign is crazy and all you want to do is keep the business alive for your team so they can stay in jobs, you can't understand that level of stress.
Tottie has kept me alive but now it's to a point where I'm employing someone to do the marketing for it and to take that stress off me. I'm excited about 2024 because I'm going to get back to that CEO level. I have been down in the deep and I've had to. You just gotta do what you have to do to survive when your business is on the verge. Now, we're in a good space. We've had huge growth in the last two years. To answer your question, it's all a bit piecemeal apart from those two key elements of sales and marketing.
That's amazing. You are somebody who dives in and learns. You're very intelligent and can pick up a lot of things as well. Who else has helped you with your business? Do you have any mentors or even mantras? You had that great poem that you had from your coach. Do you have any books, tools, or apps that have helped you in terms of building all of these different businesses?
I did have a wonderful mentor before COVID and then I couldn't afford it. I wouldn't say I have a mentor as such. My husband is incredible, he has a finance brain as well, and he's the most supportive both on-site and behind-the-scenes and has been. He's joined the company as full time CFO so that's exciting. My mom and dad have the business acumen themselves and that hard Irish work ethic. I arrived here when I was 1 and they came from a war-torn Belfast and they were right in the thick of it. They showed me what hard work was.
I believe that KPMG taught me an incredible work ethic. Entrepreneurship is 24/7. There go the huge highs but very huge lows. If you want to stay best-in-class, that set me up well to have that work ethic and never-give-up attitude. Understanding cashflow is my number one priority and I get stressed out when I can't look at the future. That is my gift. One of my strengths that I can say confidently is I can see what's ahead of me.
Even when I'm driving, I'm looking to see what the next light is or which lane I need to change. That's how I can set myself up for success. That’s why I listen to your podcast because I'm always trying to find what's best in class and what do we want to aim for? What are those companies doing? Even if they're not in my industry, what do they do well and how do we bring that? I prefer to look at other industries and what they're doing. I look to the beauty industry or other industries that can teach us what can we do better in the baby industry or the wedding industry or learn from those.
It's always figuring out cashflow, number one. How am I going to pay my staff? It’s making sure there's enough money in the bank to buy that infantry and forecasting appropriately. If I want to have a massive Black Friday and if I want to do $200,000 of sales, I need the stock to be able to do that. I can't just aim for it without the stock. That needs to be thought of 4 or 5 months earlier and to have that cash ready to go to buy that stock. It's all about trying to see what's in front of you and not just playing the balls you have that day, if that makes sense.
It makes so much sense. You're preaching to the converted. The very small exercises that has such a huge impact that I'll do with clients or in group coaching is the at-a-glance calendar. If you're trying to have this huge Mother’s Day sale, what needs to be happening in November the year prior to do this and this? Especially with social media and everything else, people think you can just get it tomorrow and you can do this and everything is instant. No, you need to have this foresight and it sounds like you completely have that.
Even understanding your best sellers. Even if you've got the stock for everything but your best seller is the one that's going to sell out but you still got stock left over, there's no point because they don't want that stock. They want to sell us. It's seeing what are the most sought-after products and making sure you have that on hand. Also, the other thing I do use is Gmail, it’s everything to us. We use the chat and docs. Everything is in one place.
Another thing we use is Later. We schedule all our social media through Later. We use Xero. Canva is my best friend. I love it. It changed my whole life. We use Dropbox and HubSpot for sales. We use DotDigital, which is an Australian company. I don't know if you've heard of that. We used to use Klaviyo and I was sick of the customer service. DotDigital is incredible on hand and fantastic, it’s great with our flows. As a group environment, we use Monday.com.
There are so many things. What are you most proud of from your journey so far?
Staying alive, to be honest, and turning it back into the multimillion business that it deserves to be. That was a huge one. We've only just celebrated that, my husband and I. Looking at that forecast, we're back. New York was a huge one. I'll never forget that first champagne that was standing on top of the event as we wrapped and the lady that owned the building was like, “Congratulations.” I was like, “I had so many near-heart attacks over this.” She's like, “That's what we do. You, outsiders, we break you down. Once you're in, then you're in.” That was a moment for me. It was a special one as well.
You have so much. I'm sure your parents are so proud. If people are wanting to connect with you, are eager to participate, attend, or learn more about One Fine Collective and their events or shop online, where is the best place to go and see all of this?
I got a few different websites. Everything is how it’s named. @OneFineBaby on Instagram. Online, we've got @OneFineDayWeddingFairs, which is online and Instagram. We got @OneFineDayBridalMarket for Instagram and online. Tottie is @Tottie.Shop. You can find me on Instagram and I'm ingrained on that Instagram. I talk to my customers all the time and I've even made friends with them. I’m having a lot of fun over at Tottie. We're trying to give a lot back. Hopefully, you can catch me there.
Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day. Thanks for taking the time, Nadean.
Fiona, this has been on my bucket list to do this podcast with you and it's a real moment. Thank you so much for having me on. I've thoroughly enjoyed all of your podcasts and you've definitely contributed to my success as well. Thank you so much.
Thank you. It's my absolute pleasure. I'm so glad we got to connect. Bye.
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How inspired are you, honestly? I got off that Zoom call with Nadean and I felt so inspired and I felt like anything is possible. My mom used to say that to me all the time and I even put it as the acknowledgement at the start of my first book, Passion Purpose Profit. I put in a quote from my mum, which is, “You can do anything you can put your mind to.” Nadean is an embodiment of that. I know that I felt super inspired and it definitely was an amazing time to have that chat for me personally. I know that sounds selfish but part of having a podcast is that you get to talk to these amazing people.
At the end of 2023, I felt like, “This has been a huge year. Maybe next year, I will pull back and not do as much.” After I talked to her, I was like, “No. I want to do this and this.” I was excited again. I want to say thank you to Nadean. I would love to know what you took away from this episode. You can always DM us at @MyDailyBusiness_ on Instagram or @MyDailyBusiness on TikTok.
Nadean would love to hear from you. You can find her on Instagram, @NadeanRichards. You'll also be able to find all of the businesses that she is working on and creating on the bio for Nadean Richards but that includes One Fine Day Wedding Fairs, which is @OneFineDayWeddingFairs, @OneFineBaby, @OneFineDayBridalMarket, and @Tottie.Shop. You can also find a link to their podcast, which is called Cold Coffee, Hot Mess, such a great name. The number of times I said to people who were going back after maternity leave, “At least you'll be able to get a hot coffee or a hot cup of tea.” I remember reheating my cups of tea and my cups of coffee so often in the early days of being a mum.
I would love to know what you took away. I'm going to highlight two things that stood out for me amongst so many. The first was when Nadean talked about the fact that if she had something in her gut, she was going to go full-ball at it even when other people said, “Do you think that's a good idea?” Maybe even said outwardly, “No, I don't think that you're going to make it like that,” or, “I don't think that's going to work.” She trusted her gut.
Also, she looked at the data. Often, when I talk to business owners, and I've done this myself a million times in my own business, it’s to look for the data but trust your gut. Nadean trusted her intuition and her gut and her instinct but she also used her skillset as a chartered accountant to run the numbers and to see if this financially could work from a cashflow perspective. I love that she combined that gut with data. That is important to do. If she's got an idea in her mind, she will go forward with that. That is an inspiring thing to take with you, especially even if you've been in business a number of years.
This is my ninth year in business. Sometimes, in my own business and also in people that I've worked with who have been in business 10, 20, or even more years, I’ve seen that we can either get a little complacent or not feel as excited about things. I love that Nadean has continued to innovate, change, and adapt. That must be quite motivating for her as well.
I love that first point of, it doesn't matter what other people are saying. If you trust that this is going to work and you've run the numbers and you've had a go and you think that this can work financially or whatever the data points are that you need to feel secure about and you have that instinct and that gut, go for it. I absolutely love that she talked about that because look at what she has created by trusting her gut and looking at the data.
The second point that stood out was when Nadean talked about launching her new business, Tottie. There were so many points in what I'm about to say. She talked about launching the baby bag at One Fine Baby. Firstly, there's the community that already exists and she already had an email list and she had people that were in that segment.
She'd already built a community before she then created a product to launch to that community outside of what she'd already created with One Fine Baby. There's that point, which I always think is sometimes missed by people who are like, “Become an overnight success.” You do need to build a community. Especially if you're looking at marketing for 2024, it’s asking yourself, “How am I building a community around this,” versus sell, sell, and sell, which is what a lot of people use marketing for.
Back to the point that I honed in on and enjoyed hearing from Nadean. She launched this baby bag and she admitted that people's feedback wasn't as amazing as she thought that it would be and that she had 500 units. She was like, “How do I sell these?” Without taking that risk and then launching it and then having those real at-the-coalface conversations with people who are going to be the people who are using your bag and potentially loving your bag and then sharing it with all these other people is what she took on board.
She could have let those conversations and that feedback hinder her and, from a mindset perspective, be like, “Nobody likes it. It's a failure. I'll just forget that idea.” She didn't. She was like, “The first iteration was not the greatest. I'm going to take this feedback though and then I'm going to contact people and be like, ‘Thank you so much for your feedback. Here's what we've done. You have been almost a co-creator in this new bag. Would you like to buy it now that we've updated things?’”
That honesty from brands being able to say, “We didn't get it quite right but we've taken on board your feedback and this is what we're going to do,” speaks volumes. It also creates that connection and community to happen because there's a level of trust there that people are like, “One is you listened to me. Two, you valued what I have to say. Three, you've made the changes. Four, you're inviting me to be part of this community with this product and this new baby bag.”
There are so many lessons in that from having a community in the first place through to not giving up and then through to, “How can I use this feedback to fuel innovation in the future?” I love that mindset because many people give up at the first shot. I've seen it so many times when I used to be a journalist a lot more and I wrote for all sorts of magazines. I would have friends that were really good writers that would say, “I wish I was writing for Cool Hunting, Nylon, The Age,” or whatever it was. I'd be like, “Email them.”
They would have such a fear because either they'd emailed somebody once and they hadn't got back to them. In their head, they'd taken that as, “I’m a complete failure,” rather than, “Maybe that person is busy and didn't even see the email or see my submission,” or they had never done it and they built it up into such a fear thing in their mind that it was too big to overcome.
It’s the idea that she has of having a go. If you get it wrong, you get it wrong, you can learn from it, and you can change things and move on rather than, “This one time, something happened so I'm never going to try it again.” I love that so much. There were so many other things that I've taken away from this conversation and I hope that you take away as well.
If you want to check out anything that Nadean is up to, you can follow her on Instagram, @NadeanRichards. You can see a bit more about One Fine Collective at OneFineCollective.com. If you are in the space of needing anything baby-wise, check out OneFineBaby.com.au. If you are in the season of getting married or looking at that or you're somehow related in that industry, a wedding cake designer, stylist, florist, and all of that, you want to check out OneFineDayWeddingFair.com.au. You'll be able to see so many things there including the directory and how to plan your wedding or how to become an exhibitor. There's so much there.
If you follow Nadean Richards on Instagram, in her bio, you'll be able to find the links to all of the businesses. The other one that we talked about a little bit is Tottie, which is amazing, and I've been checking out their bags and so much good stuff in there. You can find them at @Tottie.Shop on Instagram. You can also find them online at Tottie.com.au. Thank you so much for reading. If you are interested in group coaching, go and check it out at MyDailyBusiness.com/groupcoaching. We interview people on a first-applied first-come basis. Take care and I'll see you next time. Bye.
