Key Takeaways
- What Wendy did when she realized that she liked helping others more than she enjoyed running her own retail business – and why walking away from the business to work as a coach and teacher helped her and her store thrive and grow.
- How one-on-one coaching organically led Wendy to the one-to-many model – and why she never worried about value getting lost along the way.
- Why continuing education helps Wendy improve her services as a provider and keeps imposter syndrome at bay.
- What Wendy loves most about her membership site.
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“I don’t know what it is, but you just can’t do everything well. That was a hard thing for me to realize.” – Wendy Batten “Being alone is tough. Entrepreneurship can be tough. We call it solopreneurs for a reason. Bringing these people together makes me happy.” – Wendy BattenEpisode Resources
WendyBatten.com Paintpreneur’s Inner CircleTranscript
Read The Transcript
[EPISODE]
Shelli: Wendy Batten, welcome to the It’s a TRIBE Thing Podcast. How are you, my friend?
Wendy: I’m doing awesome. Thanks for having me.
Shelli: Oh, it’s our absolute pleasure. I’m so glad we got a chance to chat and I got a chance to hear part of your story as we started rolling at the top of this and I’m wondering if you could share with our amazing listeners how you got to be in the position you are, who you are, who you serve, and how you serve them, and where that all started at the root.
Wendy: Such a good question. Yeah. So, I’ll start with who I serve and tell you how I ended up here. I help creative brick-and-mortar retailers, primarily paint retailers, manage the business side of owning a brick-and-mortar retail store. We’re all creatives at heart or most of my retailers are creatives at heart and they’re having a hard time wading through the business weeds which I was too. So, I have been an entrepreneur for a long time. I have lots of business experience and I ended up in this position, I guess, because I had a store and I didn’t know what I was doing. Even though I knew business, having a retail business was a whole new ballgame and I love my store. I still have my store as I decided to – I had it for three years before I started reaching out for help and getting help and running a very successful store and funny story is, I don’t know, sometimes it’s hard to go back to the beginning, right, but my children all left home is pretty much what happened and my husband and I decided to downsize our life and live more purposely. So, I sold my store franchise, my business, because I found myself loving helping other retailers a little bit more than I love being in my store.
So, we sold every, I mean, I love my store too. I guess that sounds funny but we sold our store, franchised our business and we ran away from home. We sold everything we owned. We did. We did. We sold everything we own. We sold the big house and the big life and all that kind of thing and we ran away and we lived in a fishing village by the sea now. And I still am the creative director of the stores. I have a satellite location in this little town that I live in now. We moved to our cottage by the sea. And so, we still have ties with the stores. I still run my stores that I serve and I feel full every day because I actually am able now to help other retailers thrive in their businesses too. So, that’s the short version of the story, but now I live in a tiny fishing village by the sea and every day I get to spend working with retailers all over the world is amazing.
Shelli: Well, I will say this. Before we started the interview, you were kind enough to share your view from where you’re sitting at your computer and I love that like literally, you’re looking out this beautiful picturesque window on the ocean and I just love the fact that you are able to design your life in such a way that you’re living authentically and congruently with who you are and what’s important to you. I’m interested in knowing that one of the things you were saying was you – so you had the brick-and-mortar business and then you were finding it more rewarding to be helping and serving other people. I was wondering what the transformation or what the challenge was if there was one in between switching from one gear to the next. Because many of our listeners have a brick-and-mortar business and are teaching or consulting or doing something in some fashion and are also thinking, “Hm, I wonder if it’s possible for me to sort of make that transition as well?”
Wendy: I am a community collector. I don’t know if that’s the right word. I have always been one to ask for help and grow communities around me. I didn’t know I was doing that. I mean, it kind of happened with my other businesses. I used to own a coffee shop and I like growing communities. So, while I had my brick-and-mortar and my community of customers was amazing and I have an amazing, we still do, we have an amazing customer base. We just celebrate five years. I was there to serve. We had an amazing time. They all came. So, that was a community I love, love, love and I love being there, but at the same time growing a community within my realm like my paint world, my paint lines. I became an educator for the paint lines. I became a collector of community. I started my own community of fellow paint retailers just so we could rah, rah, rah each other up. That’s actually still a group that I run and love and with. So, I love learning. I’m a learner and I’m a helper. I’m an encourager. I’m a natural encourager for people. And again, you don’t really realize this. This is just happening and it was happening.
So, while I was working my brick-and-mortar and I was growing and I was getting better and bigger and lovelier and people were awesome and I did know my store had changed. It was growing too fast. I was also at the same time I was coaching, consulting, and working with the paint lines, helping them, they were wondering from the retailer’s point of view I was doing retailer training. So, I was involved with the paint lines, helping them. I was helping customers and I think you have to just step back. I had to step back and say what’s important and you can’t do it all even though you wanted to. I’m a doer. I am like a doer. I do all the time. I am always looking at ideas and my brain is a squirrel brain, but I had to really take a deep look and I think anybody that’s interested in doing that, I think, or trying to because I do see other people. They’re doing their creative side or their creative work or they’re running their store or they’re doing other things and they’re adding revenue streams really and I think you need the ad revenue streams. Maybe that’s a little bit of coaching, maybe it’s one-to-ones. I don’t know what it is, but you just can’t do everything well and that was a hard thing for me to realize.
Shelli: Yeah.
Wendy: I had to really step back and say, “Well, it’s best for my store and my customers what’s best for me, what’s best for my coaching clients,” like what was best for my paint brands which I still work with my paint brands. I love, love, love them. I had to just really take a step back, and I think that’s what I would encourage anybody to do is if your focus is like 20% on everything, it’s just not good so I realize that in order to take care of my baby, my brick-and-mortar store, which I loved and adored and I still do, I had to give that baby over to somebody else and that’s why I sold the franchise and best decision I ever made because it’s just thriving now so, yeah.
Shelli: That’s amazing. So, I wanted to chat also about what it looked like when you started serving and helping and teaching other people because you did end up starting a membership site so I wanted to sort of switch gears and chat about that a bit. And I’m curious to know what is the unexpected gift that you got by starting membership sites? So, you mentioned you had this brick-and-mortar business and it’s growing so fast, you have the heart to serve, and you like building communities and you’re an encourager. So, how did that translate into the membership site? And also, if you can tell everybody who’s listening what your membership site is called as well and what you teach and share?
Wendy: Certainly. So, I’m going to say working with the paint companies and then I started a free Facebook group which at the time it was just a private group with a bunch of my friends that were paint retailers. So, that’s how it started, and then people started asking to grow the group and that is sort of the group and then people would come on and they like, “Hey, I need help with this,” and I don’t know everything. I still don’t know everything. I am not the queen guru of the world, but I do know a lot of people and bring people together so I can find those people. So, they would ask questions that say, “Oh, I don’t know. I don’t do that in my store, but ask Susie she knows,” that kind of thing and connecting people with people. And the group grew and then people were asking if they could have basically one-on-one coaching so I came out with these prices for coaching and then that sort of all happened while I still owned the store and then I realized that I was charging for coaching plus doing one-on-one coaching and that sort of where it started mostly with my group of people.
And one-that-one is awesome and I love it and I just totally love watching my people grow and thrive, the people that I would work with. And honestly, one of the biggest things I had to battle with and I think everybody has this, and you know it and you hear it all the time but it was the imposter syndrome like, “Who am I to help all these people?” but I was helping them and they were getting results and I was like, “Okay. Well…” and then the next would ask, not advertising that, just doing it, just doing, I guess. And so, the group grew and then the whole transformation of like my kids left. My daughter moved to New Zealand and during that whole period of time, I was kind of like I can’t serve one-on-one all day long so the stores. So, I’m still involved with the stores and make a little income there and I still work for my paint companies. I am a believer in multiple revenue streams as an entrepreneur because you never know especially with retailers and other things, whatever. The creative business is weird. I still love painting. I still teach paint workshops. I had a beautiful studio here in my little fishing village of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia where I am.
So, I started to think and I started to learn a little bit about one-to-many and again, these are terms. I didn’t know that term. Whatever. One-to-many meaning if I could talk to five people at the same time or eight people or whatever and that’s what happened. I did a small coaching group basically getting everybody, helping everybody get ready for the holidays. It’s three years ago now and it was so rewarding for me to watch them all like just rock their fourth quarters and it was really rewarding and I think I had 42 in a group and it was a Facebook group.
Shelli: Oh, wow.
Wendy: Yeah. It was a six-week kind of thing.
Shelli: So, quick question for you. Okay. So, you started with brick-and-mortar and then you went to the one-on-one. When you first learned to the one-to-many model and started sort of serving several people, did you have a concern at the time? Because I’m sure this is something many people would wonder, did you have a concern at the time that because you are so used to going deep with people with the one-to-one coaching that you weren’t going to be able to make the same impact with a one-to-many model?
Wendy: Yes and no. I do still feel like a lot of what I would tell or coach one-to-one was this sort of the same thing over and over again. I don’t mean that in any kind of broad stroke, but it was principles are the same, and even with my small group, it was at a holiday boot camp is what we called it and I was in there every day. I was in there talking to them every day. They all had my email address and I think that’s the start. I knew the common problems. I think I was hearing the same thing over and over so I was addressing those. So, going deep with people, and I still love, I still do one-on-one, I love doing one-on-one, but I can have more impact to retailers by doing like that boot camp really sort of solidified things for me that there was a need for it. And what happened at the end of my boot camp, they were all like, “What’s next? What are we doing? How can we keep chatting?” The thing was they all became involved in other’s business. They all were like involved with, you know, so-and-so would say they’re having trouble with this.
So, my big group, which at that time was probably about 300, my free group, that was just a bunch of painters that I knew and then that most of those people came from that group and then that group wanted an even deeper connection amongst themselves. So, I didn’t know about doing a membership so I have coaches. I have a couple of coaches and I belong to some membership sites that help other people and again, that whole, “Who am I to do this? What?” I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m terrible at tech. It’s a miracle I’m sitting here with you today.
Shelli: I love it.
Wendy: Yeah. I am a really good painter. I am a good speaker to my people. I love my people. I can talk all day long, but tech side I don’t know what I’m doing. It’s just the whole negative who am I to do this, but they were asking. So, started thinking about that and started pulling ideas together and a membership is what my idea so I started the Paintpreneur’s Inner Circle is what we call ourselves. Very original. Everybody is in an inner circle. Well, so Paintpreneurs is what we call ourselves because we’re paint retailers. For the most part, my retailers paint furniture, sell paint lines, upcycle, recycle, own vintage stores, loose spaces, those types of stores. It’s actually gotten a little bit broader even though I’m trying to keep it in shape. I have different other creatives that own stores in my group now. And I just started educating myself so I took courses. I went to a conference. It was crazy. My husband thought I was crazy. I invested money we did not have. My very first big course on memberships, I put it on a credit card and almost cried because I’m not that girl.
So, I took some gambles and hope that it would work because I didn’t know what it was doing so, I needed help and I started asking around and just started putting it together. I just started one foot in front of the other. I don’t know. I didn’t really know what I was doing. I hate saying that but I really had no idea because I feel like odd.
Shelli: Well, I think that’s actually where the strength is though. You said, “I didn’t know what I was doing and I just started,” and I think that sort of anything amazing and impactful that’s ever happened to the world started at some point if you trace it back to somebody making a decision, even though they didn’t have all of the answers and just starting. And I heard you mention a couple times you’re talking about imposter syndrome and I hear this all the time and I’m wondering for you as somebody who didn’t have the tech skills, didn’t really have all of the how-to figured out, and felt sort of initially even though you are being asked like, “Who am I to do this?” what advice would you give other people who are standing in your shoes at that time, who are standing on the precipice of something that could potentially be great and amazing and rewarding for themselves but are maybe having those same feelings?
Wendy: So, a couple of things I think that you need to do is first of all, you need to get out of your own way which we hear, so I reached out to people that I didn’t even have maybe amazing relationships or anything with like just I sent an email to somebody who is already doing a membership who I felt was kind of like of similar level like, “You don’t look like a techster,” but yet you’re doing this. I think we have a tendency to look at the big guys doing things and I couldn’t imagine that. So, I reached out and people are so gracious and kind and I’m a big believer in what’s going to happen is they just won’t answer my email and so I emailed somebody and I asked their opinion. I also really knew my customers and I don’t think you should jump into anything without having some kind of like if I built this, will anybody come? I had so much feedback that they wanted something and I really didn’t know what it was going to look like. That sounds terrible but I really didn’t know what it was going to look like at first until I started educating myself but I educated myself on what I thought I wanted so I took the course and I started talking to those people because there’s people in that world that there’s terms and there’s a whole world out there that you don’t know, that you don’t know.
Shelli: Yeah. Exactly.
Wendy: And I guess just being bold enough to ask people brave enough to just start experimenting. I do just one foot in front of the other. It’s scary. It’s like learning to drive a car. The first time we got in the car, we didn’t have a clue what we’re doing. We’re scared to death, and now we just drive. First time you start talking about a membership or you start and I actually don’t like being salesy and then how can I sell things if I don’t want to be a salesman, all these things. But you have to get over it. And I keep saying those imposter syndrome because it’s fear. It’s not maybe imposter syndrome as much as fear. Fear is crap like it can stop you cold. So, just my advice to be just to look at your ideas, talk to somebody who’s already doing something similar like something along the same line. So, I did talk to somebody in the creative world that was running a membership site similar to what I kind of wanted to do, like not exactly the same, and got some really good feedback and got some direction. That’s how I found the coach I needed and the group I needed and the course I needed. I would not have had a clue how to find that without doing that. So, that helped. I don’t know.
Shelli: Well, it’s amazing when you reach out to people how gracious they almost always are, and people will look at, and to your point, you said you weren’t looking to be one of the top dogs because that can also cause fear to flare up so that you look at them and it’s intimidating. You think to yourself, “Well, I could never be like them,” but if you look at the people that are five, six, seven steps ahead of you that are relatable, all of a sudden it becomes doable and those people will almost always take the time to answer your questions to pick up the phone because they remember what it was like to be you. And I also love what you said too, you knew your topic. You knew what they were asking for, you didn’t have it all figured out, you just started, and then you let them guide you with respect to like what else do you need, how else can I serve and support you, which direction do you guys want to go?
And then curating if you didn’t have the answers, finding people who did, and that’s something I think that could be easy to be missed as well. It’s you don’t have to be the person who knows everything. Nobody is that person. But having a membership site and getting the same questions and allowing them to guide you with respect to which direction this is going also allows them to see your expertise through your perspective, which oftentimes means you have this network of people that you can call on to come in and to teach and to help and to curate their information as well. So, it doesn’t always have to be the person with the membership site solely alone. It can be a case of like let’s co-create this both with the members and with other experts.
Wendy: Absolutely. I think that’s really a good point. Again, so I started as like what am I doing here, but you have to meet your people and you have to have your own values because I don’t know how to say it properly, but I have a certain – nobody is for everybody, first of all, so I’m not about the hustle. I hate the word hustle, so I don’t impact that into my retailers. I don’t tell them they got to hustle to make money. They know that about me and they either love you or they don’t kind of thing. Sometimes people may join our group or they want to come along the way with us simply to be encouraged or holding your hand or know you’re going to kick their butt. I always say I’m hand holding and butt-kicking every day, that’s sort of what. And I had that part down before I even had my teaching plan if you will or whatever. I mean, I’ve got that kind of down now but, yeah, you have to kind of – I did not have a lot of people. That was my other problem. Problem? I don’t know. Fear. I didn’t have a lot of people. I didn’t have thousands of people on a list and thousands in a group. I started with 400 people on a group and an email list that was less than that.
Shelli: How is your membership site doing now? What’s your favorite part of it?
Wendy: My favorite part is watching confidence grow in all kinds of areas of business and we share our wins every week and wins can be like, you know, I made it through the day without crying because at this time of year it’s really rough for retailers or a win could be, I taught my first class and I rocked it and I feel so good because just it can be anything. My favorite part is watching them become friends and support each other. I think that’s my favorite part. Some of them have meetups. I don’t have a big group. Honestly, we started in February of 2018. My first what was I thinking launch but I did it and I had 30 people join out of my 400 list, and I thought I was going to explode with happiness and then we had another little launch in August and I just had another little launch. I’m just baby steps and I have 91 people in there now that I love and I know all their stores. I’m at that stage where I know everybody. So, watching them connect, watching them grow, watching them be confident in their business is just, I don’t know, it’s the best. It’s the best feeling. It’s like, “Look at you all becoming great retailers,” and that makes me happy.
Shelli: Well, it’s amazing what we can do when we don’t feel alone, especially alone in our in our challenges. So, when you have a group like yours and you can reach out to each other and get to know each other and also like wins like, “Hey, I made it through the day without crying,” is a valid win for people who are going through the same thing, but it also enables people to be able to support you in a way that perhaps others can’t from outside of your community.
Wendy: Absolutely. I think one of the things that I see over and over again is I love being here because you guys get me. It’s like that’s what I see because we all get like we all get that you don’t want the paint order to arrive when your store is full and all the boxes and the UPS guy. We all get that. Nobody else gets that. You don’t get that. We all get the late-night and the painting, and the customers. We get the revenue. So, yes, being alone is tough – entrepreneurship can be tough. We call it solopreneurs for a reason sometimes. So, bringing these people together makes me happy. It’s all about me now. It’s all about my happiness while these people grow their business. That’s it so, yeah.
Shelli: Well, you know what though, to your point if you can have a business that’s rewarding, that’s fulfilling, that’s financially viable, and allows you to be happy while you’re doing it, then #winning.
Wendy: Yeah. I guess. So, there’s always times as an entrepreneur that you’re like, “I should be, I should be, I should be, I should be doing this,” but one of my coaches reminds us all the time to look back like over the month, look back. So, I actually have for the last year have been on an Evernote doc. I put a note of what I learned this month because I learn something new every day. We all do like I got to learn how to Zoom live on Facebook. Every month there’s something you got to learn. And it always seems funny because I look back at some of this stuff that I’m doing today that’s just second nature that I did with the membership site and every time we launch, we learn something new, and as our group grows, we learn new things and I’m so lucky, really lucky, but it’s not luck. I mean, we create our luck but I do think that you have to look back at what you’re doing but designing a purposeful life and doing what you love is rewarding. Yeah, it is very rewarding. Even though, again, I’m looking I’m like, “You should be doing all these things. I should have a big course. I should have all the things,” but you know what, where I’m living in my fishing village. I’m very happy here. I get to travel. I’ve been invited to retreats in Italy to teach and we just spent a month in Italy teaching at a retreat for like what?
Shelli: It’s amazing.
Wendy: Well, it was and I was in New Zealand for a few weeks in April and life it’s not fancy I always joke and say. Everybody has to design their own life and what’s ideal for them. So, right now I’m really fortunate. I love my 90 schools that are in my group. I still do one-on-one coaching as everything’s on the go but I still have my hands in my stores. Then there’s always growth, there’s always things we should be doing, but we have to look at where we are and what we want.
Shelli: Absolutely.
Wendy: So, I love that you were able to design your life by exactly that, by design instead of evolve because it needs to look like what you wanted to look like and my goodness, looking at the view you have, good job.
Wendy: Well, thank you. You can’t hear the squirrels. I have an old, old house here. I have squirrels in my wall so you design the life that’s not all perfect. It’s the same as in our business and there are squirrels running up the walls. It’s all good. Life is good. I know it sounds funny but, no, thank you. Yeah. I have to say I have only been able to do this, I really do love my membership and I do see amazing things happen for it, and I encourage people and if they want to reach out to me, I am an encourager for other people that want to do it. I love talking to other entrepreneurs but I encourage you to really think about what your gift is and what you have to offer and what people are continually asking you for, and don’t be afraid. Just go for it.
Shelli: I love it. Well, thank you so much for hanging out with us and sharing your incredible story and your gifts. And if people are looking for you online, where is the best place they can find you?
Wendy: They can find me at WendyBatten.com so it’s B-A-T-T-E-N is how you spell my last name and, yeah, you can reach out anytime. I have a contact form there, my email is there, and you can find me there anytime and again, I’m an encourager of fellow entrepreneurs, so anytime and I’ll just reach out. It’s my pleasure to help, let you know, or guide you and if you have any questions about memberships or what it’s like to live in a house with squirrels. I don’t know. Whatever. No, it’s all good. But it’s all good so, yeah, it’s been my pleasure. Thank you so much.
Shelli: Awesome. Thank you so much for sharing your time and it’s been our absolute pleasure.
Wendy: Thanks, Shelli.
[END]
