Episode 94: Championing Diversity, Building Resilience and Knowing Your Own Worth as a Small Business Owner - An Interview with Chelsea Bonner of Bella Management
In this interview episode, Fiona talks to Chelsea Bonner of Bella Management about starting a modelling agency that advocates for diversity across different platforms. They talk about everything from how Chelsea got started, what her upbringing was like, and how that influenced what she's gone on to do, but also how she's continued to stay motivated when it has been a very challenging business that she's in. Listen as she answers and shares her story on how she kept going when so many factors in her industry were initially against her with what she’s trying to do.
TRIGGER WARNING: This episode contains discussions on body image, weight and body size. If you need help please contact The Butterly Foundation on 1800 33 4673 or visit https://butterfly.org.au/.
Topics discussed in this episode:
Introduction
Catching Up
Starting Bella Management
The Idea behind her company
About beauty and body standards
Her upbringing
Working as a model before
Standing out as a model agency
How she keeps going
On her new book - Body Image Warrior
Her book's message
Her advice on small business owners on how they feel about how they look
On having genuine campaigns for body diversity
On what helped her keep going
On what Chelsea is most proud of
Connecting with Chelsea
Conclusion
Connect with Chelsea Bonner and her team
Episode transcript:
To be consistent and resilient, overused and underutilised character traits, they're overused words in that they're always in quotes on everybody's Instagram pages and all that sort of stuff. But until you've really been knocked on your arse a few times, you really don't know what resilience is. And until you've heard no for the 1151 time in a row, you really don't know what that means either.
Hello and welcome to episode 94 of My Daily Business Coach podcast. I am talking about something a bit different today. I'm talking with a small business owner who has been in business more than 20 years. But what we're talking about is something that I don't think is talked about enough when it comes to running your own business. And we get into it in detail in today's interview episode. So the small business owner that I'm talking to is Chelsea Bonner, and she is the founder and CEO of Bell Management now.
I first came across Chelsea Bonner back in 2016, so a good five years ago now when she was featured on Australian Story, which is a TV show that I watch quite regularly. And back in 2016, she was on an episode called The Beauty Myth. And what it was really doing was profiling Chelsea and the business that she'd built, Bella management and really her ambition to change the way that brands utilise models and in turn changed the way that the whole of society looks at body image.
For so long, we have seen models that are teeny tiny on the covers of magazines, social media campaigns, so much. And there hasn't been a whole lot of diversity when it comes to body shapes and sizes and skin colours. And I remember watching this episode in twenty sixteen and really reflecting on my own career and watching this woman and thinking on one hand, oh my gosh, she's incredible. And on the other, well I know, you know, the mountain of work that is ahead of her because and has been, you know, all along with her business, just because of the way that society has flourished, really on creating insecurities, particularly for women around how they look. And of course, we could get into the whole patriarchy, which, you know, maybe that's for another episode.
But, yeah, I remember watching this woman and really feeling like, wow, here is a complete change maker. Here is somebody who's actually taking the time and making it her life's work to challenge these things. And if you listen to this podcast before, you will know perhaps that I have had a career that started in the fashion industry. So I started as a journalist writing about fashion. That was what I did and what I have done for a good 15 years. I write about fashion for everything from the back column of the Sunday age here in Melbourne through to Sunday lifts out in the national newspaper in the United Arab Emirates through to profiles of models and brands in publications in Japan and New Zealand and the UK and New York. And I spent a lot of my time talking to fashion brands and writing about fashion brands. I also worked in fashion. I worked as an editor for fashion journal A Street Press back in 2004. And I also edited the first magazine that David Jones, which is a department store, came out with before social media. And I have sat in and stood in and directed so many fashion photo shoots. And I can tell you that I have seen first hand models come in looking pretty great, but healthy. And then they've come back a season later and they are just skin and bone. And, you know, some people are just naturally thin and that's great. But to see these models really kind of become shells of themselves because they didn't fit into a sample size and also to see their self-esteem change and even to see, say, interns or young women that were on the shoots with me kind of not ate lunch or not ate things because they're suddenly seeing the world of fashion. And a lot of the time I can say as well. But, you know, sometimes when fitting models, the sample size wouldn't fit and we would have zips undone in the back and, you know, clips and all sorts of things in there to try and make this illusion that they looked effortlessly beautiful in what they were doing and it was just so unrealistic. Or we'd say things that were so touched up that nobody has a body like that. And I know that there's a lot more awareness around this now, but I remember watching this in 2016 and really feeling so inspired by what this woman, Chelsea Bonner was doing.
And as you know, fate would have it, we received an email earlier this year. We do get a lot of requests for people to be on this podcast. And often sometimes they haven't listened to the podcast at all. You can tell.
But occasionally I'll say, oh, my gosh, yes, yes, yes. And that's exactly what happened when Chelsea Bonner came through. I was like, I know this woman. And I just brought back all the memories of watching this and feeling so inspired by her. So it absolutely had to have her on the podcast. She has recently put out her book, Body Image Warrior: An insider's fight for change in the modelling industry, and you can find that through Murdoch books, you can find it wherever people sell books and we'll link to that in the show notes.
But I've also been listening to that and really hearing her story of how she came to create Bella Management and to create a business that champions diversity across all of the different spectrums. And I think the more that we can do that and the more that people, particularly younger people, can see themselves represented in TV campaigns on social media, the benefit is going to be massive because we'll have so much less, hopefully, of people questioning their self-worth based on body image.
Now, in this interview, we talk about everything from how Chelsea got started, what her upbringing was like, and how that influenced what she's gone on to do, but also how she's continued to stay motivated when it has been a very challenging business that she's in. And she's heard, as she says herself, no after no after no. And how do you keep going when so much she seems against you with what you're trying to do?
So I'm so appreciative that she came on. I love chatting to her. Definitely check out her book, Body Image Warrior. And if you want to connect with Chelsea, you can do that over on Instagram at @chelseabonner. But yeah, here it is, my interview with Chelsea Bonner, founder and CEO of Bella Management.
Welcome, Chelsea, I'm really, really looking forward to having you on the My Daily Business Coach podcast.
Thank you for having me. You're so welcome.
How are you feeling right now? And how, I guess, has covid impacted your loss for your business?
Oh, I've just I don't I actually I think I've got a bit of a loss, but I think I'm trying to just block it out. I think most business owners will tell you it was it was pretty harrowing. It was very similar to actually when I started up the level of sort of anxiety and trying to find out fashion and all of those types of things. It was pretty scary, especially for our business. Not everybody was so affected by the gathering and movement restrictions, but obviously modelling and talent, that is that is literally. Our entire world is gathering and moving so slow and sets and things like that and trying to find ways to do it, send some clients were successfully able to navigate that because they were in businesses where they could set up studios in their own premises. So that was great for them that a lot of our clients don't have.
You know, despites to set up in our studios, and so they weren't able to get exemptions and things like that, so. And in an online world, if you can't shoot your product, you can't sell it. So it was pretty scary for a lot of people even out. Really big clients that we work with really, really huge clients were terrified. So it took about, I think probably. 8-12 weeks for us all to figure out how to move forward and how to shoot during covid, how to get things done, what exemptions to apply for that were relevant, all of those types of things. So, yeah, it's stressful to say a little bit stressful, but also some great things came from it because we had to think outside of the box. And so actually going forward into this new world where covid exists, if at any stage things shut down again, we now know exactly what to do. And in fact, a lot of things that I think, like most industries, we assumed could only be done particular way. We've proven that actually it can be done in three different ways. We've just never had to try it. So, yes, it's been quite an innovative time as well as stressful. You don't want to do it again.
And what's that quote? Necessity is the mother of innovation.
Absolutely.
And so can you tell us a bit about the business that you're talking about Bella Management of which you're the founder and CEO? People listening would have just heard me discuss in the introduction how I came across you a few years ago on Australian Story and just how important I think the work that you're doing is how do you describe what you do and what is Bella Management?
I don't really know how to describe it because I know when people start businesses, they generally sit down and write a business plan and it's all about making money and revenue and turnover and things like that fella has never been about those things. So what I'm trying to do with the help of my incredible staff and talent is change the way we think as a society about what she is and how important self-esteem is and mental health more important than physical looks. And so it's more of a movement rather than a business, I guess.
I love that. Can you take us back to the start? Because if I'm in the middle of reading your book or listening to it actually on Audible and of course, we'll get to the book later today. Yeah, but can you take us back to the start? Because nowadays it's far more common to say models and talent of different shapes and sizes and and more recently, which is fantastic, different colours and skin types and backgrounds. But I know this wasn't the case. I started my career in fashion. I was the editor of a fashion journal and David Jones had a magazine called Precinct.
This is way before social media. And we would only ever get stuff sent to us in a size eight to get if we were lucky and even then a size 10 model. I remember we had one model and a David Jones suit and it was like, oh, she's so big. And now it's still a bit of a thing to laugh. But yeah, I remember those days. Yeah.
And so how did you come up with the idea for Bella and when did it actually stop? Is there a catalyst? Because I can imagine you started a while ago and it would have been very telling you what you do.
Yeah. So I started I actually opened Bella in the year 2000 so twenty years that we've been going for. But for some reason I didn't count the first two years. And I I think start-ups do that a lot because especially when you start sort of the way I did, which was I was still working full time as an agent for another company, as a photographer's agent, not as a model agent. And I was still doing jobs on the side to make ends meet. And I so I really only counted my business as beginning the day I was able to resign from all of the other things I did to keep the business going. Isn't that funny how we do that? We don't count those bits don't need to be fully until I can count it.
Yeah, until I can live off of it and feed myself off of it. I didn't count those first two years. So we're having our 20th anniversary this year. But actually it was last year because you could actually up last year with the loss, you would have been able to have it anyway. So, yeah, it was sort of, I think, personal frustration and personal. Anger and watching people in my own personal life, really close family and friends struggling with mental health and self-esteem issues and confidence issues and eating disorders and drug problems and reliance on weight loss tablets and diets and things like that. Putting that before all else in life, if nothing else mattered, unless you were slim and attractive and it really was just born of that frustration, watching, watching my friends and family really damaged themselves, either physically or psychologically in order to fit into this one ideal of beauty that was so, so unattainable. And having worked as a model agent previous in my career and saying how impossible it is to maintain those standards for models themselves, to maintain high standards and what they had to do to themselves. Some of the most beautiful. Women in our country who were on the covers of all of the magazines and and trained all of the major campaigns and they themselves were struggling to keep at that size. So what chance do the rest of us have?
Yep. Yeah. I remember one model we had at F.J.. She was new, she was young and she was just stunning and like curvy, not still small, but she was Italian and she just had these this beautiful body. And then like a summer went past and then we booked it for another thing and she came back and she was stick and bone because somebody told her, oh, you need to lose a bit of weight. But she'd gone overboard. And I was like, you know, you've lost all your beauty like you did. I just was feeling so sorry for the 18 and I'm so young. It's shattering.
Yeah, it is. And we'd watch a lot of the young models would leave our care and go over to the European markets and be told or the Asian markets and be told to starve themselves to get down to those ridiculous measurements. And they'd be too scared to ring us and admit defeat because they you know, that's all they ever wanted was this international career. And now they had it. But in order to keep it, they had to starve themselves or we'll take a cocktail of drugs and no food in order to keep it. And they didn't want to admit failure, so they didn't want to ring and tell us what was going on. And we wouldn't know until they got home and walked into the agency. And your heart would just you fall through the floor looking at what they've done to themselves in order to maintain the career that they thought they wanted. And we were watching young women and men, but mostly young women burning out by the time they were 20 or 21 and they were completely burned out, completely fraud, and never wanted anything to do with the modelling industry ever again.
Well, when most people are just starting their careers.
When most people are just starting their careers. Yeah, well, and it's much better these days. But it has been such an unhealthy industry for so many hundreds of thousands of models for so many years. And even one of my friends works at one of the top agencies in New York. And he had to resign a few years ago. He said, I just can't do it. I just can't do it anymore. It is like child sex trafficking. That's what it feels like to me. Because these days, massive big agencies say they go over to Russia and a lot of very poor countries in western Eastern Europe and recruit young models and offer them a thousand dollars a month and free accommodation in New York. And to them, that's so much money to them and their families. And then they live in these horrible apartments with 20 of the models in the middle of Manhattan and get sent out to parties as escorts and host restaurants and anything to pay their advance back.
Basically, if it's never free money, it's always an advance. The same thing happens a lot throughout Asia as well. It really is a terrifying industry for a young person to be involved in unless they've got really strong guidance and managers who are ethical and parents who are watching and understand the industry. And and that's the problem. Most people do not understand this industry. So I guess I'm a bit of a mother in that way because so many of my talent over the years have not you know, they parents don't understand if they haven't been born into this business and they and they don't really understand it and all of the pitfalls. And I try my best to try and help people not fall into that. But of course, there's pressure and things like that. But I can't control, but I certainly do my best well. So there's a lot of reasons for started.
Yes. And talking about parents of being born into it. I've been listening to your book and obviously I have watched you before and followed your career. But you had a really interesting upbringing. From what I understand, your mom was a model and your dad was an actor.
Yes. That would have been challenging for any young woman or man.
But did you feel pressure on you to be in the same roles as you grew up? I mean, it's similar to, you know, if your parents are doctors, you have maybe a pressure to be a doctor. Did you feel that it was exactly the same?
I never really thought I would do anything different because I loved I loved the artistic community that I grew up in. We were always surrounded by actors and dancers and models and musicians and, you know, people, directors and producers and. People from all walks of creative life were always around us, so it never occurred to me that I would do anything outside of that. I always thought I would end up being an actress or something like that. I didn't think I'd end up being an agent was a bit old. But certainly when I was young, like a little girl, I always thought I'd end up being an actress or involved somehow on stage in some way as I got older and started watching. How little control my parents actually had over their own careers and that this agent person seemed to be the one that that everybody looked to for advice, for business advice, for personal advice, for money advice. I thought that that sort of was a more interesting role for me.
Mm hmm. And so when you started Bella and you've talk about this a lot, you've always been champagne body acceptance and sort of a holistic approach to this when you started it because you had the background working with other agencies and you'd worked as a model yourself, if I'm correct.
Yes. Yes. That's one of the first plus size models in the country. I think it was about three of us at the time. And there was a couple of other models who were Brunette's and me. So I was the blonde, blonde plus size model of the whole kind of blonde one.
Wow. And so when you started Bella, how did you do to sit down and kind of nut out like you said, you didn't do a business plan, but did you think I'm going to be different to the other agencies because I'm going to do X, Y, Z, or was it I'm going to be different because I'm going to represent plus size models? Or how did it kind of come about that it would be different to existing agencies that were out there?
Well, I just come back from New York where I'd been modelling out there and they treated plus size and have models with the same respect as they did any other model of any other size, which they didn't do here. We were treated in a very tokenistic way, but we had to be certain clients wanted plus size models and everyone had to relent to that idea. And we were we weren't dressed well. We weren't given the same hair and makeup. We weren't given the same opportunity for beautiful photographs and things like that. Basically, if we ever got to work, we were we were treated as the fat and happy ones. So we always had to be dressed to look as big as possible, and we always had to be smiling as much as possible. We weren't allowed to have any shape. They just put these enormous clothes on and they'd never show waist or cleavage or anything like that. They never dressed us in anything that was form fitting or hair and makeup was always done to make us look 20 years older than we actually were, because for some reason they thought that only middle aged and older women were curve. Certainly nobody under the thirty five was curvy. And so it was just working out there as a model and saying the difference. I thought we really need to introduce that here in Australia. And it was something that I really frustrated me as well, that people didn't take me seriously because I was a plus size model and not a model. Whatever the different. Not apparent, apparently not a real model unless you're under a size 10. And so I thought, no, I'm going to bring all of that knowledge back to Australia and I'm going to treat my models and my talent the way I want to be treated, the way I've always wanted to be treated. And I want them represented to the industry in the same way with the same opportunities. And yeah. So that's what I did with Bella. And in the beginning it took a lot of photo shoots and things that I have to pay for personally in order to show clients what could be done if they would just shoot us like everybody else, if they would just give us the same hair and makeup, the same fashion, the same lighting, the same great photography. If we had the same equal playing field, we were more than capable of pulling off beautiful fashion looks and being just as inspirational or aspirational as a model of any other sort of.
And it's so interesting that you had to do that, and I remember even like looking through magazines and when they'd have a plus size model in London and it would almost be on the cover, like, wow, look at this, somebody that's bigger in a magazine, it would look around society. Most people are not as small as a model or they're not as tall as a model. All the different things like it seems so crazy to have to convince companies, hey, normal people can look good, too.
Yeah, but it's crazy. I'm still doing it 20 years later. Yeah, that's the craziest part to raise. Although we've come we have come a long way and I'm so grateful to all of our incredible clients who have jumped on board this journey with me and who really, really do want to create change within their businesses and understand who their actual customer is. There is still. Probably 90 percent of fashion retail that do not understand it and are not on board with it. So we've gone from it, just not being done ever really to, you know, maybe picking up, say, five or 10 percent or five percent of the fashion modelling market is now. But we're nowhere near an equal balance. It's not even close to being an equal balance. And I feel like I have done my job properly until we are 50/50 at least.
And how do you how do you keep going, because I know a lot of people listening to this may not run a modelling agency, but they'll run other businesses where they say, for instance, get it all made in Australia or they're doing something that goes against the grain of their industry like you. How do you keep going? Because sometimes, say, for instance, with a product based business, there is always the temptation, oh, let's just get it done offshore. I'll make a much bigger profit margin. How do you keep going? Challenging this constantly and constantly. Like you said, it's 20 years and retail companies are still not going above, say, a size 12 or even a size 14.
Yeah, well, I mean, I could have probably made a lot more money and had a lot more stress if I'd just had a scatted models for overseas agencies and placed them overseas and taken a commission, I wouldn't have had to do 90 percent of the amount of work that I've had to do. But, you know, it was important that it happened here in Australia, but also when it comes to trying to. Keep going, I think, to be consistent and resilient, overused and underutilised character traits. I've used words in that they're always in quotes on everybody's Instagram pages and all that sort of stuff. But until you've really been knocked on your arse a few times, you really don't know what resilience is. And until you've heard no, for the one thousand one hundred and fifty first time in a row, you really don't know what that means either. So I love Bernie Brown's quote. Unless you're in the arena not getting your arse kicked, I'm not interested in your love. Is it just that really is what business you've lost. Successful business doesn't make you successful every day. It means that you've got you can find somewhere enough strength to get up again and hear another no tomorrow. And I don't know where that comes from. To be honest with you. I wish I had the magic bullet for that. I've seen so many great businesses fail because people cannot they just cannot take the criticism. They can't take it. And that's fine. But it's not running a business isn't for everybody. It is a lot of work. There's a lot of pressure. It's a wasted job. So it really isn't for everybody. But I think the people that that can hang on and do through people who are just built like that, we're just we're just built to balance or at least crawl, crawling forward, you know?
And I think that remain really there's been so many times over the last 20 years or thought, this is enough. I'm so tired, I can't do this anymore. I've tried. I've given it my all. It's just not working. And then I will get up the next day, go, oh, well, I'm just going to try this one more thing. Just I'm just going to try one more thing and see if that works. And and that's really the whole trick to it is just that I just keep trying one more thing or trying one more way to say it or trying one more way to pitch it or you know, I often say no is not a no. It's just give me a better idea. We'll give it to me in a different way, give it give it to me in the way that I need to hear it. And so sometimes I have to go back to Brands twenty, fifty times before I can put it in a way that I get it. And but once I do, it's worth it. It's with it's worth albino's. So for me at least that maybe there's something wrong with me.
No, no I don't think it is. I think it's fantastic. And I thank you for all the work that you're doing. And not just and I don't say that lightly, not just for women, but for all the people coming up who aren't even born yet, that things will be changed and challenged. And so that then when they're growing up, perhaps they won't have as many issues or problems with their self-esteem because they see everyday people on TV and in magazines and and everything else like that. You have worked in this business for twenty plus years and just actually launched a new book, Body Image Warrior. You said your first book. I should have researched that.
Yeah, it is my first book. It was rolling around in there for a while. I just couldn't sort of. Get a minute to start putting it down on paper, and then one day I just I think I think I might have actually been on leave and I just started to write and it sort of started to just come out and very, very naturally, I didn't sit down, go, OK. And now I'm going to write a book. It just sort of bubbled up and it was time. And I'd done a lot of work on myself. I just had a complete mental breakdown. If he probably six months before this and put myself into cognitive behavioural therapy in Thailand and spent a month trying to figure out why I was such a workaholic. And and I know it's because my passion and my work the same thing. So, you know, but I had to learn how to manage that. I was really terrible at managing or putting any boundaries around. You know, I did a piece of work on several different time zones. I put a lot of pressure on myself, but I've since learnt how to balance that. But yeah, so it was a combination of things, though. And and it just it was time. It was just time to rush it. And I felt like I'd reached a point where maybe the world was interested or ready to hear it as well. Because, you know, if you've only been in business for a couple of years, you can't really write a book about it.
And so that was going to be my kind of question, like, why now? But what do you hope? Because I'm reading it at the moment and there's so many interesting stories and funny stories. And I started working in fashion in 2002 was when I started writing about it from magazines. They're always full time, so yeah, before social media. So a lot of what you're writing about and is similar, I'm like, oh yeah, I remember that. I remember that. And then you got stories about going to like tantric sex massage.
I was like not what I was expecting, but when I put that in there, every one of my friends who knows that story is like, you don't put that in the book. I am putting it in the book because it's really important, I think, for people to know that however you come to accept your body and. However, you come to feel comfortable in your own skin, even if it is weird and random, is being tricked into going on a massage, and then it's worth writing about because it may help somebody else connect with themselves. And so I think it's important to share. Plus, it's just a really funny story. Yeah, well,
I was listening to it thinking, oh, she's going to say then she gets there and it's a really it's a health retreat and she feels weird or something, but yeah, it was I was just like, whoa.
Yeah. Well we're all so right spiking the velvet and the vagina.
And so I wasn't either.
So it was in addition to what you've just talked about, it being an entertaining read as well. What are you hoping that people take away from it and who have you really written it for?
Really. I write it to show people that contentment. And living in your body in true contentment and really not thinking about it, other than is it well and healthy? It's not something that just happens overnight, nobody just gets that like that, it is a journey and hopefully by reading my story, it will be a much, much quicker journey for that person than it was for me. And that's why I share that, because I don't want somebody taking 20 years to find contentment. I want them to find it soon, much sooner than that. And I think that the way that we help people learn is through storytelling and sharing our lived experiences. And I think that that was the only way I knew how to tell my story was to sort of tell all of it, you know, the ugly bits and the funny. Hmm. So, yeah. So that's what I've done.
Well, it's a it's a great book and we'll link to that in the show notes as well. And it is called Body Image Warrior. Now, obviously, this is a business podcast and similar to what you've just been talking about, sharing your story. I'd love to get your thoughts on something which challenges a lot of small business owners. And I know because I work with them and get the same comments over and over and over, a lot of what I talk about speaking gigs or whatever will be about showing humanity in your business and showing the place behind the brand. And I know lots of times people are like, oh my God, that means more photos of me on social media or talking on panels or generally being out there more and lots of small business owners, regardless of how confident they might come across or how successful their businesses are or how many followers they have on social media, they will say to me in business coaching, oh, God, I hate the way I look or I don't want to get a photo shoot or I would never wear that or I can't put myself out. I don't have the confidence to do that.
What would be your advice? Because you're working with people who genuinely they are judged on how they look because they know. What is your advice, I guess, for small business owners who feel that they really can't step into marketing themselves because of how they look or how they feel about how they look, not how they actually look.
You really just I mean, I think what helps what helped me do it initially was thinking that it's not actually about me. So just removing my ego from it completely. It's about advancing the business. It's about people knowing about the business. And so just take out any of my personal feelings or shyness or natural sort of introverted nature. How are people going to know about my business unless I talked about it and how they were going to put my business into the press unless I let them take a picture of me or I went and sat on a television show and and talked about it. And I wasn't comfortable in the beginning. I was very uncomfortable with that whole idea because especially in my industry, I wanted my talent to shine. Not not myself, but I learnt that the more I spoke about my business, more familiar with my business, the more bookings that led to the more interest. And so it actually benefited my whole team whenever I showed up. So it wasn't actually about me at all. It was about the business as a whole. And that maybe that will help. I mean, my business is a little bit different to every sort of normal type of business. But I think if you think about. You know where you want to go with your business and your staff, you know that I always want everyone to have a job. I want to employ as many women as I possibly can. The way to do that is for the business to be as successful as possible. So if that means showing up and being a bit uncomfortable for a minute, I'll just do it. And then as the years went on, I just didn't care anymore. If I take a photo of such good advice, especially that take the ego out of it.
Yeah. So if I wanted to do my hair, I mean, some of the especially some of the TV interviews I looked at, I'm like, oh my God, I don't know, like Carrie and Kennedy from 1960 to the way they do my hair up and but you know what? If that's their format, that's the show. That's the audience. I get to talk about my thing. I get to introduce my business, my product to a whole new demographic of people. That's what they respond to. So I just take my wife from all of that and go with the flow and it gets easier. It gets easier and easier and easier. The more you do it, the easier it gets.
Yeah, I agree with that totally, I would love to know, because you've just got such an incredible background in this. What advice would you give to companies, particularly, say, apparel companies who are listening to this and are thinking, yeah, I want to be more inclusive of not just body size, but diversity in age, in skin colour and ability. What do you think they can do that feels genuine and not like, oh, I'm jumping on the bandwagon of being tokenistic and I'm just going to throw somebody who's bigger or a different skin colour than we usually use in there. Is there advice that you would give? Because I think a lot of small businesses right now, if they haven't already, they are really thinking and trying to challenge things and say, yes, we shouldn't be doing that. We have been doing it that way for a long time. Is it tips or advice that you give to people to do it in a way that is genuine and doesn't feel like they're going to do it this month and they'll have one big personality or something?
Yeah, don't do that. My top tips are, I guess firstly, I don't believe in tokenism generally because what people call token is actually game changers. So you have to have the people who go first. You have to have the people who start. And so I don't really like that word tokenistic because someone has to do it. Someone has to start it. You just have to stop. So if your customers come back to us, like, well, what are you doing it now? Jumping on the bandwagon to go? Yeah, we are. Because actually we realise we've been a little bit wrong or our data hasn't been really correct and we thought we'd correct that. So here you go. I mean, people are only going to applaud that if you come at it from that angle. The other thing is that the data is all there. I use the Australian Bureau of Statistics a lot. I constantly get their updates and things like that about who who are Australians, who are we? What is that demographic? Who does have the money and the and the just the absolute fact it's not even taking all emotion out of it. The fact is that 80 percent of Australian women are a size 12 to 20. That is a fact. So if you are not marketing to women in that size range and you're a fashion retailer, then you're just mad because it doesn't make any financial sense at all to spend all 100 percent of your marketing budget on marketing to less than 10 percent of the population. It's that's just crazy talk. If you look at the statistics, it back that up the studies that backs that up. There are so many now. And we've seen we've seen clients go from things like two hundred percent, three hundred percent increase in sales just by going up one or two sizes in the models that they use. Incredible, amazing results. The other thing is that we have a ageing population, so actually the people with the most disposable income are women over 40. So in their 40s and over, that's who has the most money to spend, not just on clothes, but on travelling, on shoes, on beauty products, on all of those and everything that you can see of cars on homes. Women in their 40s who are normally a size 14 to 16, are the ones who have the money that you want for your business. So when you when you break down the stuff like that, it just for me, I can, you know, even taking out all of the altruistic reasons why I do what I do just from. Absolute common sense. Why are you not marketing to the biggest demographic with the most money, you know, to me just makes no sense. And the other thing too is it doesn't even matter if you're selling products that are for men. It's women who make those decisions most of the time. In almost every study that you look at, 80 percent of the time, it's women who are making those choices. So if you're selling a car, why it was using blokes to sell cars and houses, property, things like that. It's just it's funny to me that this stats, the research, it's all readily available and yet gets so ignored.
Yeah, that's how it is. Well, yeah, because you wouldn't you wouldn't look and think, well, I want to cut out 80 percent of the market. I'm going to have a really successful business.
I mean, if you're a marketing manager came in and said, you know what, we're going to ignore 80 percent of the market and only market to 20 percent. You go, excuse me, are you talking about.
So, you know, that's what I often when I'm when I'm talking to large groups of people and CEOs who are running big companies like Google and Facebook and those types of people, when I'm in a room and I explain it like that, you can say that like lightning bolt right through there. But not what. Hang on.
But yes, it's so it's so interesting. There's a company in the US, I think they're still going called Birchbox and they do like makeup and stuff. And when I went, I went on a retail tour and they that was the first time I heard that 80 percent of women will never buy big brands, make up like the doors and stuff that 80 percent of women just choose that makeup in Priceline or the supermarket or one of the cheap, whatever they can afford. And I think like, oh, my God, looking for magazines, you wouldn't think that. And it's interesting these statistics come out because it does flip the way that you're thinking about, you know, like, for instance, in this apparel, anyone listening, it would be like, oh, my gosh, I'm totally missing out if I'm selling into the Australian market. And I'm sure it's similar in most Western countries, at least it's baby steps too often cited clients I've lost 20 years who I have never previously used to model about their sample size, which is normally size. I might seem really extreme to you and your whole team and everybody to go from using a size eight model to a size six model tomorrow. I completely understand that. That's not what I'm asking you to do. I'm asking you to have a look at who your customer is and then find some middle ground. So a size 12 model might be perfect for your brand. Most of the product that you sell is around a size 14, but you normally use a size eight model. Why not just try using a size 10 to 12 and then add 12 to 14 and you will mix it up five eight model with a size 12 model and then gradually introduce different sizes into your marketing. That way you don't have to just jump all in overnight. I understand that it can be a really confronting process for some people and also to educate the customer as well. But we just did it with witchery. One of our models is a first model they've ever, ever used in the history of retrade. We believe that. Well, yeah, looks familiar, but yeah. And we just did that last month. It came out and L's in all of the posters are all over the website everywhere, and she's a size closer to a size 14, but 12 to 14, but closer to 14. And it has gone absolutely gangbusters. The amount of engagement we've been watching this social media engagement when they post when a regular sized model in a garment and then they post a photo of Elle, the engagement and the numbers and the comments and everything just shoot up. And even when I posted about it on my LinkedIn. The amount of women that jumped on there and said, this is amazing, I will now shop at Witchery, you know, because they see themselves represented.
That's right. So they feel it makes people feel included. And that's really what sales is when you break it right down and you write all of the sales books and Neidjie for years at university, what it comes down to is people feeling like they are a part of your brand. So, yes, what sells product sells everything is feeling like you belong.
One hundred percent. And I think what you said then about really taking the time to look at the data and even visually see your audience, I often work with e commerce brands that predominantly online or they might wholesale. And so they're not seeing people coming to a store. And we look at the top people that are spending the most really, and it might be the top one hundred, the top ten thousand, and then creating some sort of event that those people can come to because it's often quite interesting to look around and be like, this is the bulk of this is real money.
Yeah, that's right. I mean, those types of things, I think for online retailers would be would be amazing along with surveys and those types of things would be really helpful for them to see their customer actually or even just doing Shafak online to Tagus in your favourite outfit that you wear from us. And that way to win. I don't know if dollar voucher or something, but that way you're getting photos of all of your customers and seeing who they are. Yeah. Without even having to hold an event. Yeah. So I'm all about events, especially after covid, but that's also that could be a really quick way to say, hey, who your actual customer is and and how they wear your clothes, because often there's a disconnect between how advertising agencies think you want your clothes to look and who's actually buying them. And if you're doing well now, imagine how much better you could be doing. And if you're not doing so well, will this 80 percent of the market sitting there waiting to spend some money with you? So it breaks my heart when I say. Fashion retailers, so many of them closed over the last three or four years in Australia, we've lost so many amazing Australian labels. And it's because if you if you look, in my opinion, if you look at what they're doing in the UK and the US with their marketing, they are so much more inclusive. They offer so many more sizes and models and the talent is so much more diverse. So they're appealing to Australians. And so Australian money is going offshore and our own brands and labels here are closing their doors because they still have this old elitist, outdated ideal. Mm hmm.
Yep. Oh, thank you. We actually lived overseas for a long time and my husband was a model. He was a graphic designer, but he became a model in London. Yeah. When we came back, I remember we moved to Carlton and there was all these billboards and I was like, oh my God, they're the same models that they had before and they're still the same kind of top five that you'll see on car ads and billboards really, really still with the blonde haired, blue eyed kind of Australian. And it was just really I was like, wow, you would know because. Yeah, I mean, obviously a lot of my friends and models and colleagues travelled the world all the time and they come back to Australia and they like I never I keep forgetting when I'm leaving here, I forget how. Little diversity there is in our advertising everywhere, and I'm going to say some of this is amazing and then I kind of get used to it and I come back and I'm like, holy crap. Talk about why Australia. It is just really, you know, a bit stuck. So we're seen some great. Some companies are really doing some great things now, which is brilliant, but we just like I said, it's just such a small amount of people who are challenging the status quo. We just need way more brands and way more labels to get on board with this and everything from from lipstick's to healthcare to what kind of size 16 woman buy power or half or laundry detergent know things.
And gosh, and if anyone is listening to this thinking, well, I'd really like to say some good examples of that one in the US that I often point people to. Is Evaline just the way you know, if you want to buy a pair? I often buy change from there and Tuffs from there. And if you want to buy anything, you can actually click on your size and see a model in that size wearing it rather than get what it was. I love that song. So good Iconica doing some really good things with that now as well. With their digital. You can click on the size of the models and say, look, it looks like on the body, on that size model, it's just such it's just it is an absolute no brainer. Isn't it amazing how long it takes to come into the market in Australia?
It's like, oh my gosh, really? But, you know, we've talked a lot about your really changing the way that all people accept their shape, particularly women, and obviously a very determined and hardworking. What else besides your own resilience, your own strength. And they kept you keep going. What has also helped you building your business? Have you had any mentors? Have you gone through any courses or books or even quotes or mantras that you feel have helped you build your business?
I read and prayed and prayed and prayed and prayed and that unfortunately, in my business, people have to be competitive to be mentors. I mentor, try to mentor young agents coming through. I'm quite happy to share any knowledge I have, especially as I was coming through. There really wasn't nobody is going to tell you the secrets. It's a bit of a cutthroat industry. So there really wasn't anybody except my parents who were great sources of information as former talent themselves. And my mom ran a modelling agency in NASA for a few years. So she was a terrific source of inspiration for me and knowledge and just really good at helping me. Not out problems along the way and ways to do things. But really it was just trial and error. And I was so naive when I say, if you knew what you were getting yourself into a star. And it's kind of true, if I if I had known all of the different challenges I was going to have over the last 20 years, I may not have ever started. So I think ignorance can be a really good thing. Sometimes I think business. But if I could do it again, I would just say to people, it doesn't matter how brilliant you think your idea is, don't even think about making money for the first three years. Just just expect to run at a loss because then anything else is a bonus and you're prepared for the worst, because almost every business in every different area of life that I've seen and I've got a lot of friends who own all sorts of different businesses, they've not turned any profit for at least the first three years. Nobody that I know of that you've got to be prepared to invest back in business. I don't a lot of businesses fail because they say in the first year, people start making money and they start drawing a big salary and they run off and buy a big house and then they wonder why their business dies because they're not reinvesting into it. So and you say that, look, particularly in fashion, when you see these brands come up out of nowhere and people look like they're doing really well, and then all of a sudden they fold and it's because they're paying themselves ridiculous amounts of money, you know, right now in the business. But there was one that happened to last year that nobody could understand how it happened until it went into receivership and everyone got to say their financials. And we looked because we were fascinated at how this business, it was doing so well and is absolutely killing killing it in Australia could possibly have gone under. And then we saw what the director was paying himself and we thought, well, they go that so. So things like that, just to be really aware of trying to have as much money saved or a lot of credit or something like that right from the get go try couldn't 20 years ago, nobody would lend money to women. They wanted to open businesses, especially unmarried women. We wanted to open businesses. So I had to do it all the hard way. It's a bit easier to get funding. These guys try to have as much as you can before you open doors, rainy day money. Just try to have as much of a buffer as you can to get you through those few hurdles that you're going to have in the first three years.
Oh, such good advice. And on that, I guess, what are you most proud of from this long journey that you have had? Like, I mean, massive congratulations. It's good for any business to go beyond five years, let alone twenty. So, yeah. What are you most proud of?
Oh gosh. I mean, there's just been so many, so many moments that that people probably wouldn't even think of as being big moments. But it's such an accumulation of little things. Like I remember that ten years ago we counted that we had models in twenty one pages of Australian Women's Weekly across all different types of ads and fashion, editorial and brand campaigns and things. Twenty one pages that just that was incredible. You know, Robyn, really being on a billboard in Times Square in New York, that was one of the most amazing moments of my career. But I think overall it's the letters, the letters that I get from parents, mostly parents, just thanking me for saving their kid's life. You know, that they. That couldn't get through to them. They couldn't tell them they wouldn't listen, and then they saw a story or they saw one of my models or they saw something that I did on television or something that helped them start to eat again or start to change the way they think about themselves and walk out of the house in short shorts, you know, just those little moments. That's that's what it's all about for me. And watching my nieces grow up, walk out the door in the swimmers and go down the beach and not even think about what they look like. That's that's just so cool, you know, and not feeling like they have to cover themselves up.
Yeah, well, that that I've got, like, tingles because it's just I have a niece who's 13 and I actually just had a friend's daughter over yesterday who's nine or 10, actually. And yeah. Just that's what you want. You want to go through the same hot. I don't want them to even think about it, you know, and yeah. Just be themselves and know that there's so much, so much more to life than that. Yeah. And they are so much more than that. And that's the ultimate goal.
Gosh. And working so hard at it. So thank you so much for coming on to the podcast today. If people are listening to this and they're thinking, oh my gosh, I just need to connect with Chelsea and let her know what I took from this, where is the best place for them to connect with you?
Probably my Instagram. I'm pretty good at responding to people if they ask me. Just @chelseabonner. Yeah, and if you want to talk about work or anything like that, just go to the Bella Management website. And it's not just me. I have a whole team of people now who work with me, incredible people who all care as much as I do. So any one of them know if you can't get me on the phone, any one of them will be more than happy to help you. And and if you want us to come and talk to you about how we can help you with your brand and moving into this area of advertising, I'm more than happy to do that any time.
Oh, that's fantastic. Thank you so much. And of course, we'll link to your new book as well. Body Image Warrior, which is out by Murdoch books in the show notes. But thank you so much for your time and for everything that you've worked so hard on for the last two decades. Plus, it's really making such a difference here and globally as well.
Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.
You're welcome. Bye bye.
Wow, what a truly refreshing chat. It is so lovely to hear all the kind of ways that Chelsea has been challenging the norms and also just how open and transparent that she was around. It hasn't been easy and how she's had to pick herself up and try and try and try and that, you know, she's just so passionate about this and she really wants to see change happen. And in some ways, it is annoying. Frustrating. I guess it must be hugely frustrating for somebody in her position that things haven't changed to the extent that they could have. I absolutely loved how much insight and tips she gave to small business owners, especially those in the apparel business, but also small business owners on how you can start challenging things and really rethink the way that you're doing things and not think, well, this is the way it's always been done.
So we'll just carry on, you know, really start questioning things, looking at who your audience is and making sure that what you're putting out mirrors who those people actually are. So, yeah, absolutely love chatting to Chelsea. If you resonated with this and you took something away and perhaps you want to get in touch with her, the best way to do that, as she mentioned, is over on Instagram at @chelseabonner.
And of course, we'll link to that in the show notes along with Bella Management, which you can find at bellamanagement.com.au.
Two things really resonated with me from that. I mean, so much did, but two things that stood out. One, to look at the data. I love that she mentioned that multiple times. Look at the data around your audience. Look at who is actually spending the money. Also look at data that's available like the Australian Bureau of Statistics or depending on where you're living, I'm sure your government may have a statistics output that they put out that you can find out a little bit more about your demographic, even things like asking poles and social media, asking customers and clients for feedback surveys. All of those things can really act to help you get a better understanding of who you're actually talking to and the ways that you can market. And I loved as well with the data how she brought up the facts. You know, factually, it is you're missing out on potentially eighty per cent of the country and that big spending power from the plus 40 or over 40 women. That group which I'm part of, that, you know, potentially do have more disposable income and more opportunity to purchase goods of all of all sorts. What wasn't mentioned on this, we chatted about it after the recording ended was that it's not just apparel brands. I've worked in accessories brands. And very much you know, I was saying to Chelsea, accessories don't have a size. And that is why they can be very popular amongst women and men and, you know, all people that can't see themselves in in other businesses. So, yeah, I just absolutely loved that she talked about the data. And the second thing that really stood out was just her absolute determination to drive this forward. And of course, you talked about, you know, potentially working too much and having to work through that as well. But overall, just the amount of resilience that she genuinely has cultivated because there's been no after no after no. And I love that she talked about no doesn't mean no. It means bring us a better idea. And I think that is a brilliant way to look at things, especially if you are a company like Bella Management, where you're working with bigger brands, where you're pitching yourself to companies quite often, or to perhaps your service based provider who's pitching yourself into corporate to really look at what do they need and how can I reverse engineer that into my proposal or my pitch deck to really speak to it? And what else could I come up with? And let's think outside the box. I love that just in terms of any type of business to not always take. No, as that's it. That's the finite concrete last answer that to really think about what else could I put forward?
As always, I'd love to know what you took away from this. So come on over and let me know. Over on Instagram, you can either share what you took away from it and share the episode. Just tag at @mydailybusinesscoach. Feel free to tag Chelsea Bonner as well or, you know, hit me up in the DMs. Let me know what really resonated with you. I think it's such an important conversation, particularly for small business owners. I do, like I said, work with a lot of them. And when we talk about branding photos, getting themselves out onto a panel, putting together a pitch deck, even just updating the about section on their website and putting a photo, you know, that can be very daunting to people. Doing an Instagram story with their face to camera can be very daunting. And it's not as simple as just, you know, have more confidence. You know, I think it was really great that you talked about. Taking yourself out of it and remembering that this is for the benefit of your audience and the benefit of your business, so, yeah, absolutely loved it.
If you would like to check out the book, it is called Body Image Warrior, and it is available from Murdoch books. I'm sure you can find it on all sorts of online retailers or find out your local bookshop or gift store and see if they have it. I am partway through listening to it on Audible and it's a great book, really entertaining and lots to think about. So that is it for today's podcast episode.
As we mentioned at the start, if this has triggered things for you and you feel like you do need some support, if you're in Australia, you can contact Butterfly Foundation on 1-800-334673, or you can check out Beyond Blue for helpful links or call Lifeline on 13 11 14.
If you're listening to this outside of Australia, please check out your local mental health support such as mine in the UK, seven cops in the US and mentalhealth.org.nz in New Zealand. So as usual, you can find a full transcript of this episode, along with links to everything that we mentioned, including Chelsea's book over at mydailybusinesscoach.com/podcast/94 as this is episode 94. If you found this useful, I would love it if you could take two seconds to hit subscribe and leave us to review. It just makes it so much easier for other small business owners across the globe to find us. Thanks for listening. Bye.
Thanks for listening to 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.
