Astrid Caddeo began her mortgage broking business simply as a means to satisfy her list of desires at work — flexibility to do whatever you want, whenever you want — and not be accountable to anyone but yourself. After working for a fabulous and flexible job on a cruise ship overseas, it is understandable why you wouldn’t want to force yourself back into a typical 9-5 tiring shift for someone else.
What Astrid failed to foresee in her new career with her business, Loan Market, was the impact she kept making on her clients’ lives.
Her passion for what she does allows her to not just arrange home loans but also personally connect with her clients. Astrid now gets invited to dinners with her clients. They send her flowers to show their gratitude towards her work. They send her photos of their babies and weddings and share their lives with her.
Astrid had landed in a place more wonderful than what she had initially anticipated — a place to leave positive footprints on others lives.
Advice that Astrid wishes she’d been given when she started her business:
- Arrange to have your systems and processes in place early on whilst you have the time. Ensure they are well documented and detailed in expectations and standards. You’ll be thankful that you invested the time early on when you get busier in your business. It’s so much easier to train new people or delegate roles when you can hand them a guide that spells out all the expectations, standards, processes and contacts.
- Network to meet like-minded business people, not to promote your business. The connections you make, the information you pick up from having conversations with people are invaluable.
- Make yourself accountable to someone. This could be a group or people in similar business to you, or a mentor. When you work for yourself, by yourself, it’s easy to push things aside and find reasons why you can’t do certain things. But having a group or a mentor can keep you accountable to get projects off the ground.
Astrid’s advice for someone who’s thinking about starting his or her own business:
Try not to be everything to everyone. Find one product that is going to solve one problem and market it well and build on it. As a service provider, find your perfect client, the one you want to work with, and the one you want to help solve problems for.
Having a narrow focus can help you become clearer on what you offer. Your conversations to people become more compelling when you know what you and your business stand for.
Your marketing material becomes easier to create. Where you should spend your money becomes apparent. You will know when to say yes and no. It can help you stay away from the ‘shiny ball’ syndrome and keep you focused on the ideas that will make a difference.
For Astrid, these knowledge areas and skills are essential for anyone starting in business:
- Grab ahold of a masseuse you can go to regularly, to get the stress kneaded out of your body.
- After the first step, think about the things you’re good at and like doing. Then get better at them by reading or doing courses that train you.
- If there are things you don’t like doing or aren’t good at, don’t beat yourself up about it and find someone else who can do it better for you.
- Concentrate on articulating your offering. Be able to tell people about you and your business so that it just rolls off your tongue, and let your dedication and enthusiasm show through your words. People will want to hear more when you are excited about what you do.
We asked Astrid to identify the problems in her company that HerBusiness membership solves:
“One thing would certainly be connection with other businesswomen. I’ve attended a few Roundtable meetings and it’s fabulous to be in a room filled with collaborative women all dealing or having dealt with the same things that I have. They can relate and offer valid, practical ideas and solutions. Sometimes you just need to clear your mind and have someone suggest an idea that could end up being the solution to your problem. It helps to lighten the load and not feel like you are in this alone.
My other joy of HerBusiness would be all the online training. Finding time out of my day to attend conferences or courses can be difficult, so having access to many of the online programs is great. I can watch webinars from wherever I am without having to worry about traffic. I can listen to things in my own time when it suits my schedule. There is so much good content, which reminds me I need to get back into it and see what gems I can find that will help me with my next three months of business. :-)”
