Episode 193: Kendra Swalls - Empowering Women Entrepreneurs One Business at a Time

Kendra Swalls is a mom of 2, photographer and educator. In 2012 she started her first business, Paisley Layne Photography, and everything changed. What started as a hobby alongside her teaching career quickly turned into a successful business. In 2017 she left her teaching career behind to run her photography business and start the Girl Means Business brand + podcast. Now she helps small business owners, like you, take their business from survival-mode to success-mode using the same relationship marketing strategies that have been the foundations for her business success.

You can find Kendra on Instagram and check out her Business.

Remarkable Quote:

“Don't be afraid to take the risk. Anything worthwhile comes with a risk.”

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Transcription:

00:00:00 Welcome back to your Next stop. This is Juliet Hahn. In this episode, I interview Kendra Swalls. She has a business called Girl. Means business.

00:00:07 She has a podcast. Girl means business. You can find Kendra at Girlmeans Business on Instagram and you can also find her on her website, girlmeansbusiness.com. Kendra is simple marketing strategies for business owners. She was formerly a teacher, knew she wanted to be a teacher at a really young age.

00:00:25 It's really cool how we dive into that and what her parents did. And then she became a teacher. And then she realized she was missing a creative outlet and that is when her business erupted. And you guys, you're going to love this. This is a really great episode, especially if you are in the time of your life where you're feeling a little like you need to do something.

00:00:45 We talk about having a creative outlet which so many people need and so many people do not realize. So you do not want to miss this. Again. Kendra, swallow's. Girl means business.

00:00:54 I am a storytelling consultant and I help small business owners increase sale by being able to establish and articulate your story. What that means is whatever format you're going on to connect, whether you're going on podcast, whether you're in the media circuit, whether you're doing networking events, it's really important to be able to articulate your story so you connect with that audience. A lot of people leave out really significant parts of their story because they don't think they're important, but really when they are important because that is what's going to connect deeper with an audience. So I really help you get comfortable in your story, taking your personal parts of your story and your business story and really intertwining them so you connect the dots. So when you connect those dots and you're on these platforms articulating your story, you're going to connect deeper with an audience building community.

00:01:44 Having that community then be very interested in what you're doing. Whether you're selling services or products, you're going to have someone want to know a little bit more because of the way that you're able to articulate and connect because of your personal and business story. I give a 30 minutes free discovery call. If you want to see if we are the right match, please. You can email me at [email protected].

00:02:13 Welcome back to your next stop. This is Juliet Hahn. You know, I say it every single time and I'm going to say it again. I'm so excited to bring you someone that has followed a passion and turned it into a business. Welcome Kendra Swalls.

00:02:24 How are you? Hi, I'm great. Thank you so much for having me. So I'm going to give you a little intro about you. So you have a company called Girl means business.

00:02:34 You teach and really coach people and consult people at Simple Marketing Strategies for Small Business Owners. And I can't wait to kind of get into this. People can find you at your website, girlmeansbusiness.com. They can also find you on IG at Girlmeansbusiness and you're also on Facebook. So I can't wait to get into deep into this story because I know you're doing some really awesome things.

00:02:57 So welcome again to your next stop. Thank you. Yeah, it's been a ride. It's been a journey. So, yeah, it's been a lot to get to where I am today, so far from where I started, but it's really good.

00:03:11 I always want my listeners to know a little bit about kind of your background, like where you grew up and a little bit about your younger years. Yeah. So I grew up in Waco, Texas. Anyone familiar with Chip and Joanna Gaines? Fixer upper?

00:03:25 That's my hometown, actually. Funny story, their original store, Magnolia Store, was like half a mile from the house I grew up in as a kid. And so in college, I would go home and my dad would be like, there's this cute little store, I think you'd really like it. And he'd buy me, like, little knickknacks from there her, and he would always want me to go to the store when I was home. And I was like, dad, I don't need, like, I live in a dorm or I live in an apartment with three other girls.

00:03:52 I don't need stuff. And he's like, no, it was just really cute stuff. And so I finally went and of course they had, like, their kids were selling vegetables out of their garden. It was a very cute store. So I always say I knew them back when.

00:04:06 Yeah. But I am an only child. I grew up my parents looking back, my mom ran like a family business. So my great grandfather had started a family business. My grandfather took over my mom and my uncle took over when he passed.

00:04:22 And so she was kind of an entrepreneur of sorts because she was running a company completely on her own. It never occurred to me that that was the example I grew up with until much later in life because that wasn't something I had zero interest in running a business as a kid because I saw how much time and energy it took from her. But being an only child, I was able to do all the things I wanted. I played all the sports I wanted to play, I did activities I wanted to do. Just a really great childhood.

00:04:55 We grew up with not a ton of money, but I never really felt like we went without. And they really were able to give me all the things that I wanted kind of growing up and set me up for kind of success later on, even if I didn't realize it as a kid at the time. Right? No, I love that. And what did you want to be when you grew up?

00:05:16 Do you remember? Kind of. I always love thinking about that, like, going back and being like, what did I want to be? I always wanted to be a doctor and then realized with my Dyslexia that I did not want to go to school that long. And so I was like, okay, we'll find something else.

00:05:29 But what was the thing that you really always wanted to be as a kid? There was nothing else other than I wanted to be a teacher. That was what I knew in my soul. I was like, I am determined to be a teacher. And I can remember every time I played by myself, or even if I had a friend over, I was like, let's play school.

00:05:48 And we would set up all of our toys and stuffed animals, and I would beg my mom anytime that I had chore money or if it was like a birthday, I'd be like, can we go to the teacher Store? Because they had this store in town. I have no idea what it was called. I just called it the teacher store. But it was, like, where teachers would go to get sticker charts and chalk and grade books.

00:06:12 And this was back when we had chalkboards and everything was hand done. And I would just walk in there like, eyes wide. I was like, I want all the things. And so that was always and my aunt, she managed an apartment complex, and anytime people would move out of the apartment, they had kind of this basement area where they would just collect the things that people left behind. And I got so excited because one time there was a high school teacher that had lived there for a while, and he moved out and he left behind a bunch of these old high school textbooks.

00:06:44 And I was like, seven or eight. I didn't know anything that was but it was like old history books, and you would have thought it was Christmas morning. I was like, oh, my gosh, these textbooks are amazing. Yeah. So that was always the plan.

00:06:57 And there was never I had one moment in college where I was like, oh, maybe I should do something else. Like marketing sounds fun. I remember having that thought of, like, marketing might be kind of fun, but I was like, no, I'm meant to be a teacher. That's what I'm going to do. Right?

00:07:09 So there was never another option, right? Now, it's interesting because you said your mom was an entrepreneur. What did your dad do? So he was a plumber for a long time, and then eventually my parents, my mom, they acquired another company and kind of merged two small businesses, and my dad took over that part of the business. So they ultimately, from junior high on, we're running this company together.

00:07:31 Right. And so did you love school? Is that why you always wanted to be a teacher? Because you just had such a great experience in school? You had that one teacher that made you be like, oh, my gosh, I want to be that.

00:07:43 Is that what kind of set it off? Yeah. I think in elementary school, I really loved school. I mean, I was teacher's pet. I had some really amazing teachers in junior high and high school.

00:07:54 It was a little bit harder. I did have a few teachers that I really felt the ones that stick out in your mind to this day. But I think it was those elementary years where I really kind of solidified that was like and once it was set in my mind in that age range, I was like, there's nothing else. And no amount of terrible experiences in high school could have changed my mind that that's what I wanted to do. Because I always kind of knew I wanted to be more of an elementary school teacher.

00:08:20 And so that was solidified very early on. Got it. That's so interesting because as kids, we all have as I said, I wanted to be a doctor. I'm very far from a doctor, even though sometimes I say I play one on TV because I'm very intuitive about different things with the body. But I think it's really interesting that that's the path, because a lot of times when people have good experiences in school, it's like, oh, that's what I want to do, because I really love this environment.

00:08:45 So when you went to college, you studied education. If you can give us a little bit of that background. Yeah, so I went to a college in Dallas. So I was leaving Waco for the big city. I went to a school called Dallas Baptist University, and they were kind of known for having a really good education program.

00:09:03 And so I went and did that. And I remember again thinking I had a few moments, I was like, oh, I was meeting other people who were pursuing other areas of interest. And I was like, well, that's interesting because I've always been on this one track the entire time, and I never really looked off in any other direction. And I was like, oh, well, maybe I want to explore some of these other things. And it kind of was one of those things.

00:09:28 Like, I was very nervous. I felt like this is the safe path. And that kind of goes back to a lot of things in my life. Early on, I was like, Let me just stay on the safe path. And the safe path is teaching because there's always going to be a need kind of job security.

00:09:45 My head, I was like, oh, you get summers off and all these things. And so I was like, no, that's the way I want to go. And so I did very much like the normal I went to class. I did have fun a little bit. College was great.

00:09:59 I went and did student teaching, and I student taught at a junior high first, and then elementary school. And day one, the junior high was like, no, this is not for me. I do not like any of this. And then I went to elementary school for the second half of my student teaching. I was like, this is where I feel comfortable.

00:10:18 But yes, I got my degree and got a job right out of college and started teaching second grade to begin with and just stayed there for a while. And I think the thing that's interesting and I love kind of tying things together is that you said that your mom had this company and your dad had the company, and you knew that that is not what you wanted, right? You didn't like the feel. And so I always talk to people about sometimes there's the memory of vision, memory, and then there's the feeling memories. And sometimes when we think back in our childhood, whether it's severe trauma or not, whatever it is, sometimes those feeling memories are the most important to kind of explore because you're like, okay, what is it?

00:11:04 So were you ever really kind of conscious of that? You knew early that I didn't love some of the energy? Sometimes that happens with my parents, with the business that I want to go to the safe and that's where you took the safe route? Yeah, I think a lot of it was one, my mom worked so many hours. I mean, it was six days a week, and she was working probably 50, sometimes 60 hours, weeks, depending on the time of year.

00:11:34 And then when my dad joined too, and they would come home, at the end of the day, it was like my dad wanted to talk about work at home because it was kind of the one time a day that they actually got to sit down, because at work they were kind of doing their separate things and running their different parts. And so they would come home, and at dinner, he would want to run through all the things that had gone on in his mind during the day. And my mom was like, I want to just enjoy a quiet night. I just want to turn on the TV or have dinner and not talk about it. And so that caused some a little bit of conflict some times, and I think those are the two things I can stand out as far as the feeling of my mom missed some things in high school, like some of my basketball games she wasn't able to come to because she was working.

00:12:19 There was nobody else to take her place. There were times when she wouldn't get home till six or 07:00 at night. And so it was just those kinds of things. It made it feel like, oh, that's a responsibility I don't want to have, because everything felt like it was on her shoulders. And there's a lot there's a whole dynamic with her and my uncle that was causing some of that, because he was kind of co partner.

00:12:45 But it just kind of gave me this feeling of like, oh, if running your business means that you're never able to step away. Because we didn't really even have vacations as a family. Because she was like, I can't take a week off of work. What's going to happen if I'm gone and nobody's there to pick up my slack? And so those were the kind of memories I have of like that's what entrepreneurship was to me, even though they didn't call it that.

00:13:09 That's what running a business felt like to me. Right. Which is so interesting because nowadays people say, like, if you want to be an entrepreneur, right, you can run your own hours and stuff. So I think that that is so fascinating and I love how you painted that, that your dad kind of wanted to unpack things and very stereotypically it's usually I feel like the woman wants to unpack things and the man wants to just sit and have dinner and kind of unwind. So I think it's so cool that that's like you said, no, I definitely don't want that.

00:13:40 Now, do you think that your mom and dad enjoyed what they did? Or do you think especially for your mom because it was like she took over, was more of like a chore and she really didn't love it, really wasn't what her path was meant to be. Yeah, I think that it was definitely not what her path originally was. She had gone to school to be a social worker. She'd wanted to do something in that field, which, looking back, and she'd probably even say now that was a blessing, that didn't happen because I don't think she would have enjoyed that either.

00:14:13 I definitely think that she enjoyed the business. I think she enjoyed what she was doing and the connections she was making. She and I are very much alike in the sense that we would go out somewhere and everybody knew who she was. Waco was a very small town at the time, and so we would go to dinner somewhere and she'd see people that she knew just from work, from being in the community. And she loved that piece of it, is that this company was a staple in the community and she was involved in a lot of different things.

00:14:44 I do think that the pressure she felt and the responsibility she felt was a burden she carried with her until and a stress until they sold the company and was able to retire. My dad, I do think he enjoyed it again for the same reasons my mom did. It was more of a let's be part of this community, let's be involved and get to know people and kind of the same thing and that's sort of entrepreneurship in general, there are going to be parts of it you love and parts of it you don't love. But I think, looking back, they would both probably say, I wouldn't change the fact that that's the path they went down. No, that's interesting.

00:15:23 So now I'm going to take you back to college. So you graduated, you got that second grade teaching, and was it everything that you expected? Did you just love it to the bits, or was there parts that you were like, it's not what I want, not what I expected. For the first two years, I really loved it. It was all the things you build up in your mind of, like, this is the stuff I'm looking forward.

00:15:47 I can't wait until I have my own classroom and I can do these things, and I can decorate this way, and I can have all the I can be the teacher, all the things I had thought about doing since I was a kid when I was doing it for my stuffed animals. And so the first two years and I had an amazing team I worked with. I loved the school. There were so many things that I really, really enjoyed. And then about year three, I was moved to a different grade level because I had been hired as the last new hire on that second grade team.

00:16:18 And so when they didn't need, like, seven of us, I think, is how many there were, they were like, well, Kendra is the first one to move to a different grade level because she was the last one brought onto that team. So I got moved to third grade, and from there, I just kind of I wouldn't say went downhill. I definitely still enjoyed my job, but the haze of the new was wearing off, and there were parts of the job I was really not enjoying. And about year five is when I really was like, I need something else. Like, something has to change.

00:16:57 I don't see myself doing this for the long haul. I didn't really know what that was at the time, but I was like, that's when I started getting that sort of inner voice that was like, there's something more than just this every single day, right? No. And that's interesting. Now, did you feel ever like you were failing because this is something that you wanted to do forever?

00:17:19 And so were you ever fighting those feelings of being like, no, just stick it out. This is your dream, this is what you always wanted to do, or when you made that decision, like, okay, I know this is not what I'm supposed to do forever. It kind of was like a switch that was like, oh, good, or did you ever beat yourself up? I never felt like I was failing at that point. At that point, I was still kind of like, it's education.

00:17:42 Like, I'm going to do something in education. It just may not be like, I'm going to be in the classroom. It was more like, okay, I stepped into the education realm, and now let me see what other areas I can explore. And so that was when I decided to go back and get my master's. And I was like, well, maybe I should do counseling.

00:18:00 Like, maybe that would be a good option, or maybe I knew I didn't really want to go into administration, and so I ended up going into my master's degrees in curriculum and instruction. So I was like, oh, I really love going to trainings, and I love learning. I just love being a student for the most part. And I was like, so if I can help other teachers improve what they're doing, then maybe I could go into curriculum. And so I did that, and that gave me enough of, like, a spark back that I was like, okay, I'm still doing education.

00:18:31 I'm just kind of making my way up. Like you said, you climb the corporate ladder. I guess I was trying to climb the educational ladder of still being in that bubble, but being in a different place in that bubble. So it didn't feel at that point like I was letting go of this dream I'd had for so long. Right, which makes sense.

00:18:50 And so I love that. So then how long in the curriculum? So how long was your master's? And then when you kind of went into that next pivot into that next. Phase, so I started my master's degree.

00:19:03 It was, I believe, two or two and a half year program. And then while I was doing that, I got a job as a math coordinator, essentially for the district I was in. So I was overseeing a couple of different campuses, and I was traveling back and forth to these different campuses. I was like, okay, maybe this is the change I need. I'm not in the classroom all day.

00:19:23 I get to move around. I get to do these different things. I got to spend time working on my master's content, and that was enough to kind of keep me going for another, like, two to two or three years. In that time, I had started doing photography as a hobby, and I was starting to have people pay me to do photography for them. And so I kind of built this side business.

00:19:45 And so now this is when I would say it was probably year seven, or it was probably year eight. So I'd finished my master's degree. I'd been doing the math coordinator job for about two years, and I built up this little side business, and that is when everything kind of changed. I ended up I'd had my first daughter. I ended up moving to a different school district, and it was not a good move.

00:20:13 It was a really difficult year for me, and I was like, okay, something's not sitting. Like, this is not it anymore. I really don't think this is where I see myself again for the long haul, and things inside of me started changing of like, I had my daughter now. I didn't love that I was not home with her. It was looking back, I think I struggled a little bit with postpartum.

00:20:38 There was a lot going on in that year. But I look back and I'm like, that's the pivot year for me of when everything took a turn, and I was like, I'm no longer happy with this career choice. Something else needs to I just need to figure out what the other thing is. And it wasn't clear at that time what that was yet. Right now, when you picked up the photography, do you think that the whole time that you kind of like in school when you're like, okay, I don't know if this is my path anymore.

00:21:03 Were you looking for a creative outlet? Do you feel like now when you look at because I find so many of us and so many people don't have it. And I think that that's where it's really sad, because everyone has creativity. I mean, people know my story. I didn't think I was creative because I didn't get into that gifted and talented in third grade, and they told me, oh, it was the creative kids.

00:21:25 And so I gave myself the story because I couldn't draw that I wasn't creative. And throughout my school and education and my athletics, even though someone might say athletics is not a creative outlet, but there is something there that is a creative outlet. So when you stop doing all that and then you're doing real work and you don't have that creative outlet, is, I feel when a lot of people kind of bump up against the wall and they don't know that that's what it is. So was that something that was really kind of profound for you? Were you like, oh, I'm looking for a creative outlet, or was it just photography kind of fell on you and then you realized later, oh, that's what I was looking for?

00:22:04 Yeah. So, no, I think I didn't really know that that's the words for it. I was looking for a creative outlet, per se. I just knew that I needed something to fill this sort of, like I don't even know, like, the words hole inside. But there was something I was craving.

00:22:19 I was craving something, and that filled that craving for me. And I'd always love photography. As a kid, I was the kid that always had a camera with me. I had pictures all over my room. My friends would get annoyed because I'd be like, hold on, I'm going to take a picture.

00:22:33 Back when Disposable cameras were everything, and even in college, one of my classes, I took a film photography class, and I learned how to develop film in a dark room, and I learned all the basics of what makes a good photo. And so it was something that was like, I'd always kind of enjoyed. And then when I started picking it up as a hobby again and learning digital photography, started doing it as a business. I was like, oh, okay, this is the thing that kind of makes sense, because I've seen the thread throughout my life of how this has been something I've always enjoyed. But as far as that feeling of, like, I knew I wasn't happy in my career, in the teaching career, and the photography was the thing that was like, this can be the thing that helps me get out of this.

00:23:21 I just didn't know immediately how to do that. I was like, how do you turn this thing that makes me, like, $100 on the weekend into a career into a business that can actually get me out of my teaching career? And so that's when I really started diving into the business of running a business. And I found that I was spending more time and hopefully none of my former principals are listening, but I was spending more time in my classroom, actually editing photos or sending emails to potential clients, or I was doing my business during my class time day. And I was like, oh, this is becoming hard to balance because I no longer wanted to do what I was doing in my job that was paying me.

00:24:07 I was wanting to do the other thing. And it was starting to kind of the lines were starting to blur, which. I think so many people right, that's where so many people get into that they realize, wait, I really love this. I'm really good at it. Can I make this?

00:24:20 And there's so many people that don't explore that. So as you started exploring it, if you can kind of take us through that journey, and then how you created Girl Means Business and where that went. So that one year that I had that was terrible. I left that school, and I ended up getting a job, doing, like, a math coordinator job in a school that I loved. And again, it was one of those things where I was like, okay, well, maybe it's the school I'm at.

00:24:47 I kept trying to change all these different things, thinking like, well, maybe it's just this one thing. So when I got this other job, and it was essentially like an educational dream job, I mean, I was not in the classroom, but I was on the campus. I loved with people. I loved doing something I really enjoyed, that I had a master's degree for. I was making decent money.

00:25:06 Still wasn't loving it. I still was missing something. I still was craving this freedom that I didn't have. And so in the three years that I was at that job, I really went all in on my business. I started learning how to market my business, grow my business.

00:25:22 And it was to the point where I remember having a conversation with my husband, and I was like, both of them are. Here. They're both right. I'm spending equal amount of time. And at the time, I had one daughter who was a toddler, I was pregnant with my second daughter, and I was like, I can't keep doing 100% of both.

00:25:41 Something has to give. And so when my youngest daughter turned one, I put in my resignation to my teaching job, and I was like, told my husband, like, give me one year if I can make this work, and we're not living off of ramen noodles, then we'll explore this. And if I need to go back to teaching, my principal was amazing. She was like, wherever I am, you have a job with me if you ever need it. So I kind of had that security of knowing, like, I can go back at any time if I really needed to.

00:26:11 And so in 2017, I left teaching and ran my photography business full time. And it was hard, but it was great. I finally was able to see the potential of what I could do when I had the time to actually put into it. And at the same time, I had this really amazing community of other photographers and small business owners that I had been kind of going to the last several years for tips. And I actually created the Facebook group for them.

00:26:40 So I was sort of like their leader. And so when I announced I was leaving, a lot of them knew I was not happy teaching. So when I announced I was leaving teaching, they were all like, that's amazing. Tell me what you did. They were all cheering for me, but then they were like, in my DMs, like, okay, tell me how you did this, because I want to do it too.

00:26:59 So I started kind of giving, like, doing one on one sessions or like, little mini mentor sessions. I would host, like, little workshops here in the Dallas area. And I found I was repeating the same thing over and over again. And so I was like, this is clearly something people really are needing. And the business side of it really I don't want to say it came naturally, but it was the part of business I really loved and enjoyed the most.

00:27:24 And I realized that not everybody felt that way, that what was easy and fun for me was not always easy and fun for everybody else. I was like, oh, this is what I need to be sharing with people. And so I started the Girl means business. Podcast first. That was kind of the first step, and then that led into the entire coaching brand of, okay, I'm going to start with the podcast.

00:27:45 I'm going to put it out there. I'm going to see if people have any interest in this. And then it started kind of snowballing from there, and I realized this was the perfect way to take something I was really passionate about, which was the marketing and the business and bring in the thing I was really good at, which is teaching and knowing how to teach other people how to do things. And so the two things combined together, it was like this magical light bulb, like angels singing. Like, this is what I'm supposed to be doing all along.

00:28:14 I'm still teaching. I'm just teaching in a different capacity, right. Which I love. And I love that kind of your family's history of them running and owning a business is what you are doing now, but you can also put your own spin on it, right? You know what you didn't love when your parents had it.

00:28:33 So you can say, okay, this is where I now have kids. I want to be the parent the way I want to be the parent, and you're able to kind of run it. And I think that's what all of us learn. Whether we've had a great childhood, not a great childhood, we've had good times or bad times, we always pull something out of our childhood from our parents, siblings, whatever it is, and we can mesh it into our own. It doesn't have to be our story.

00:28:59 It doesn't have to define us, but we can take it and move from that and catapult our own life and our own and make our own story for our family, which I'm sure kids are going to look and say, wait, I don't want to do that because mom and dad did it. Or Wait, I want to do it because mom and dad did it. I mean, there's so many times where I laugh and I'll say to my husband, like, oh, I hope that wasn't a time that they're going to be on the couch with the therapist. Did I just make this one of those days? But if you can tell us a little bit about that, how you're running it, the way that you want to run it, with having kids and helping others.

00:29:35 I think the biggest thing for me, and I said this earlier, was that my mom was never available because she was always working and not say that she wasn't there for things. She did the best that she could. I mean, she tried to come to as many things as possible and take off when she could, but I saw the toll it took on her as far as the long hours and the weekends and things like that. And so for me, I've taken that and I've said, I don't want to be the mom that's like, I'm too busy working to do these other things because at the end of the day, I'm doing this, what I'm doing now, because I want to have the time with them. And so I kind of have like a hard stop when my daughters have softball or basketball or gymnastics or dance or whatever they're into.

00:30:22 I'm there at the practices, I'm there at the games on Saturdays when my daughters had basketball games. It was like Saturday was a family day. Or when we go on vacations, I try not to work a whole lot on vacations. And so having those boundaries and being able to say, like, okay, I want to get my work done, but I also want them to know that they have my full time and attention and then also the balance of I want them to see what I do. Because for a lot of times in the summers when I was a kid, when I got older, my mom would let me come to work with her sometimes, and I would get to answer phones, or I would kind of get to help her in the office with filing papers and things like that.

00:31:04 But I never fully understood what she did on a day to day basis. And so when my kids get in the car at the end of the day and I ask them how their day was, my oldest one now has gotten where she'll say, look, well, what did you do today? And I used to just say, oh, you know, I worked, but now I'm like, oh, I had a podcast interview with this person, and we talked about this, or I worked on this project that I'm launching, or I did this or this or this. And I want her to know that she's kind of seeing what I do so that she better understands. Like, when I say, hey, I need to go do this thing for work.

00:31:37 It's not just me going and locking myself in an office. She understands what it is that I'm doing. So those are kind of the two main things I try and I say try. I try to really implement as much as possible so that there is a nice and I don't like the word balance. I always like to say, like, harmony.

00:31:55 There's a nice harmony to it. Like, it all kind of works together for the most part. Right, because you're right, because I feel like that word balance. Are we ever balanced? No.

00:32:06 I feel like when I first get out of bed in the morning and I put my feet on the ground, maybe I'm balanced then, and then the rest of the day, we just go with it. Chaos from there. Totally. So I love that you said that, and I think it's really important for women to hear that because a lot of women will say, I just want balance in my life. I just want balance in my life.

00:32:24 And really, what is balance? And I think when you say harmony, harmony, you really can picture it's just flowing and working together, and that's a difference than balance. So, I mean, Kendra, this is amazing. Do you have anything that you want to close with? I know we already talked about where people can find you, but if you have anything coming up that you want to share with anyone that's listening.

00:32:46 Yeah, I mean, just make sure you follow me on Instagram. I do have some fun stuff coming up pretty soon. I'm working on a couple of new programs. One of them is a little more the photography side. I'm working on an iPhone photography course for Moms, just something fun to help moms really feel like they can capture their kids everyday lives.

00:33:06 I do talk a lot about going back to our balance, but, like, the harmony, I guess, of using social media in your business versus email marketing. And I have a couple of courses on that as well, so you can just go check all that out over on my Instagram. Love it. And then also, don't forget to follow Kendra's podcast, Girl Means Business Podcast, where you can get a lot of these tips because give us a little bit about what you do on your podcast. Yeah, so on the podcast, it is a mix of quick tip episodes where I'm kind of giving, like, here's the and I try to keep it pretty up to date as far as, like, okay, here's what's happening over on Instagram, or the one that I recently launched was about selling and how to sell the destination, not the journey.

00:33:48 So it's things like that mindset, making sure that women feel like that they have someone who gets what they're doing, because that's a big part of entrepreneurship. You feel very much alone. So I want them to feel like they have somebody who is kind of like the friend that comes along and goes, no, I get it. I've been there. It's very honest conversation.

00:34:08 I don't do a ton of editing to it, so it's me talking as if we're sitting across the table from each other. And then I have incredible guests on, like yourself, who come on and share their expertise. I make sure that the guests I have on are people that I really admire and look up to and I think bring a lot of value. So it's not just kind of this person's pitching this or this person's pitching that. It's really people coming in and understanding who my audience is and sharing value with them.

00:34:34 So it's a mix of those two types of things, but it is very much just, hey, this is a friend of mine that I'm having a conversation with every single week. That's awesome. Well, thank you again for joining your next stop. I love hearing your journey, and I know you're inspiring others, and especially moms in spaces that maybe are out there not loving what they're doing. They need to really think it, and I think a lot of people need to think about that creative outlet.

00:34:55 We all have creative needs, whatever that looks like, that's going to fill you up and get you through some of your hard times. And so I really challenge my listeners to do that. So, again, thank you so much, Kendra, for joining your next stop. Thank you. You guys know what to do.

00:35:11 Like rate review. You might have listened to this and been like, oh, I love her story. That's so cool. But you don't know who in your life needs to hear this, so share it with as many people as you can. Don't forget to follow Kendra on IG.

00:35:22 Girl means business. And don't forget to follow her podcast. Girl means business. And you can also find her on the website Girlmeadsbusiness.com. And don't forget to follow me again.

00:35:32 You can find me on all your socials. I am Juliet Hahn or Juliet Hahn on LinkedIn and Facebook and the podcast Your Next stop. Don't forget to subscribe. We will see you guys again and enjoy your day. I hope you've liked this episode of your next stop.

00:35:47 Please subscribe to my channel, share with your friends and join in each week.