Here’s what we’ll cover
Kate Toon and I are talking about the good, the bad and the unfun of 12 years in business.
Just recently I received a message from one of my listeners saying that I have the most amazing guests on my podcast! Little did she know that I was about to interview the formidable and highly successful Queen of SEO and Copywriting, Kate Toon.
There are many reasons why I was keen to interview Kate Toon but foremost it’s her general approach to business and life that resonated with me and my approach to business and life.
We discuss;
> The driving force behind Kates change of business model from 1:1 client facing work to courses and memberships.
> Her aversion to the popular tendency to throw around the terms such as ‘reaching 7 or 8 figures’
> The challenge of maintaining our motivation for business over the years
> How the unfun things in business help to build the really successful businesses
> Whether or not we should be setting goals in business and what they may look like
> The road ahead. What does that look like for Kate Toon and the businesses she has worked tirelessly at building.
Links and Resources
- Checkout the Simply Smarter Numbers website HERE
- Checkout the Podcast HERE
- Checkout the Instagram page HERE
- Checkout Kate’s Website HERE
- Checkout Kate’s Instagram HERE
Keep Listening!
Here’s the shownotes
Jen Waterson
Just recently I received a message from one of my listeners saying that I have the most amazing guests on my podcast! Little did she know that I was about to interview the formidable and highly successful Kate Toon. There are many reasons why I was keen to interview Kate but foremost it’s her general approach to business and life that resonated with me and my approach to business and life.
Kate Toon and I are talking the good, the bad and the unfun of 12 years in business. Welcome to the podcast Kate Toon.
Kate Toon
It’s lovely to be here thanks for having me.
Jen Waterson
Very excited to have a chat with you today. I think we’ve got quite a few things in common when it comes to business and how we look at business. I’m really looking forward to exploring that.
But what I would love to do is take a look in the rear-view mirror at your business journey and dig into your transition from one to one client work to courses and memberships but before we do any of that, tell us a bit about you, your business history and the businesses, plural, that you now run.
Kate Toon
Yeah so my background has always been advertising, events, digital, I did a business degree and then left and worked in events for a bit. I got into digital early in the UK when it was just kicking off. Then I worked in lots of agencies until 2009 when I got pregnant and couldn’t keep doing that. I was contracting so I knew there wouldn’t be any maternity leave and that’s when I started my own business.
Back then it was doing all sorts of things, a mix of things, but service-based and about 5 or 6 years in I worked towards passive income, I’m doing air fingers you can’t see them but I am and as you said courses, memberships, shops, downloadable etc. and it took about a year and a half to build that up enough where I could completely give up all of my copywriting clients and not just from a financial point of view but also the mindset of being able to let go of my identity as a free-lance copywriter when I worked so hard to become one.
Now I have three lines of business all under one company called Stay Tooned but I have free-lance businesses, one is the copy writer school where I teach copywriters how to be better and teach copywriting in general. There is a membership, directory, job board and a conference for that and the recipe for SEO success where I teach people how to grapple google and get more traffic and conversions and there’s various courses, a shop and a podcast for that. Then the final one is digital master chefs which is my mentor group where I teach people how to use digital marketing to build a happy and successful business.
Jen Waterson
I’m interested in the fact that you said passive income with air fingers because that’s kind of the thing we’re all searching for and hoping for at some point, and even though I’m skipping ahead here but how long did it take and did it actually ever become passive? That whole transition from one to one to the courses and membership, has there been a point where it actually felt passive?
Kate Toon
No there hasn’t really, I think it depends on the type of product produced. Some of my products are more passive than others, the templates I sell at the copywriting school, they take a lot of effort to make but once they’re made they sit there and when they sell you reach a point where you’ve covered the time it took to make and design them and then it’s pure profit so when I see a pay pal ping for one of those it’s good but that’s not to say that you have to have a website for them, pay for the hosting, deal with the customer service who can’t download the template, pay me fees to pay pal.
Jen Waterson
Yeah and drive traffic to them too I suppose, I guess you’ve been there long enough that at some point the traffic just starts to become quite organically.
Kate Toon
No not really, I’m an SEO person so it’s part of my SEO but there’s always something shinier and you do have to keep banging your drum, I’m not that successful so that’s probably the most passive. With the courses there is just so much work in creating them and then a good course lives or die by the support that goes with it, so when I run my courses it’s a big blob of money but there’s coaching, Facebook groups etc and then the memberships are probably the least passive because you’ve really got to show up a lot even though people are paying $50 a month, it doesn’t seem a lot, but people expect a lot for that.
Jen Waterson
It’s a big commitment isn’t it?
Kate Toon
It’s a huge commitment and we were just talking before the show about you taking 10 days off, who does that? I could not do that, I would have to check in very regularly to keep things going even though I have a team to help with that as well.
Jen Waterson
I hope you don’t mind me asking but since you mentioned how successful you are not, how successful are you? How many lives have you touched, do you have that sort of feeling, how many members you’ve had through your courses?
Kate Toon
Obviously we should not measure our success by the number of people on a list, I think it helps show where I’m at in the greater scheme of things. I’ve had over 1000 take my big course which is not cheap, probably about 10-11,000 people through my smaller courses but all up I’ve probably got around 700 paying members in my membership, god knows what my email list it, I haven’t looked at that in a while.
Jen Waterson
But you’re touching a lot of people along the way, you’re helping people develop their businesses.
Kate Toon
I hope so, and forming quite long term relationships some people have been in my copy writing membership for 6 years now so that to me is very important, the long term of it, I don’t want to be a one night stand, I want to be an ongoing relationship. I’ve seen a lot of people’s businesses grow and change and I feel like I’ve helped quite a lot of people kickstart careers in different ways which is very lovely and satisfying.
Jen Waterson
I bet it is, and that long term relationship means something to you I’m quite certain but it also probably means something to the people in your membership for a long period of time, they have that loyalty so they are trusting the direction you’re helping them go in.
Kate Toon
Yeah and that’s the key to it all, we talk about how much you have to keep waving your arms around to sell a passive product, especially this year I’ve very much gone back to helping the people that have already bought from me, investing my time in the bottom of funnel people not the top of funnel people.
I find that much more enjoyable then constantly trying to attract new people all the time.
Jen Waterson
It’s a great place to start when you do have an established business and you’re trying to grow it, even if you’re trying to grow it in a new direction, it’s the most obvious place to start with those you’ve already worked with and know, like and trust you.
Kate Toon
Yes because that whole marketing channel that we talked about, problem aware, solution aware, these people are brand aware so as long as the product is right and the price is good, they will buy from you because they don’t have to go over all those trust hurdles that you have to get over.
Jen Waterson
Let’s get into it then, what was the drive force behind your shift from that one to one facing work, to courses and membership, was there a couple of things going on that drive you to make those changes?
Kate Toon
I think it wasn’t a sudden decision, it was a slow one, having clients as a copywriter is challenging, you’re always at someone else’s behest, clients can be difficult, you’re always worried about where the next clients coming from, and back then my son was four or five so I only had about 20 hours a week that I could really work, he was in day care, when he went to school, not so much time freed up but my mindset changed and I felt like I could focus and I wanted to do something different, I get bored quite easily.
I was teaching people SEO then I thought a workshop would be fun, booking a little venue and getting setting up and getting the food, I enjoyed the day and I did it a couple of times and I thought this could turn into a course because back then there wasn’t many online courses around SEO in Australia so I thought I could do that. It’s grown from there, so there’s no massive driver, obviously money is always a driver but I didn’t sit down and go I want to make a million dollars and this is how I’m going to do it, I thought I want to do this and I hope it makes me money.
Jen Waterson
Yeah and we’re definitely going to talk about that topic later on but you bought up something about getting bored in business and never something I’ve spoken openly about, is that I think about every two years I get bored with what I’m doing and who with and the challenge, so over my entire working life I’ve changed things up to some degree every couple of years, it’s like I like the challenge of the task at hand and the challenge might be to change, grow, accelerate, decelerate at business but when a challenge isn’t a challenge anymore it becomes boring.
To me, business boredom is a thing.
Kate Toon
It’s a huge thing, when the challenge is a chore, I’m somebody who has lots of ideas so I enjoy making the thing and selling the thing the first time and then I don’t enjoy it quite so much, so in my business I’ve reached lots of summits that I’ve set myself, I’ll do this and then I’ll get there like oh I’ve done it and the problem is I’ve made these things that people still want to be delivered and people are enjoying and I’ve learned that it’s not meant to be fun all the time, there is a certain amount of just turning up and doing the work, and then you’ve got to find your laughs when you can.
That’s why I do indulge in shiny object syndrome, just to keep myself fresh otherwise I’m going mad, but there’s only so many times you can pivot before you turn the full circle and you’re back to where you’ve began.
It’s a case of how do I keep on keeping on when my financial motivation is gone, the numbers aren’t driving crazy, the positivity isn’t filling your bucket. How do you fill your business bucket? It’s a challenge I think.
Jen Waterson
Yeah and it’s interesting you refer to the fun stuff and the un-fun stuff, I often talk about the un-fun stuff because I come from the background of accounting, I do CPA, I don’t do tax accounting these days, I help business owners grow by looking at their numbers and helping them from a consulting perspective but that involves looking at some un-fun stuff and you’ve got to do that.
Kate Toon
Yeah a lot of my days are astoundingly dull and thankfully the drum I always bang is you’ve got to enjoy the struggle and the day to day, you can’t just enjoy the glory. The man who gets up at 4am in the cold and rain and has to do that for months for one day of glory, so you can’t just do it for glory and I think that’s not seen because people don’t see the hard work that goes into these things, they just see the shiny picture on Instagram when you launch.
They don’t see the hours of you fiddling around with an excel spreadsheet, it’s very un-glamorous in reality.
Jen Waterson
I’d love to talk to you about goals. If we’re going to do the un-fun stuff then we’ve got to have some goals in our sight that are engaging and inspiring, I’m not a huge fan of setting revenue goals, personally I found those goals in isolation uninspiring and unengaging, and I really want your opinion on the fad of people wanting to set these seven or eight figure goals shortly, but before we do I often speak to my clients about what financial freedom looks like for them and I encourage them to think about setting financial goals and freedom goals. Freedom goals being the more lifestyle focused goals.
While each of those lifestyle or freedom goals are the thing that are driving us, I feel like we’re more inclined to do the un-fun stuff than take care of things when time does get tough in business. What sort of goals do you set for yourself in the past in your business, what drives you Kate?
Kate Toon
I don’t set goals at all, I don’t believe in goals in any shape or form, I’m actually reading a book called atomic habits at the moment which is really anti-goal.
Jen Waterson
So am I, I’ve actually got that one.
Kate Toon
So I’ve never set financial goals, I guess to a degree I very much agree with you, I try and write finance and experiences together, I don’t necessarily think I want to make $150k in my launch, I think if this launch goes well then I can pay for the family to go on a holiday. It makes the money into something meaningful rather than just figures on a spreadsheet but obviously in the early days I just wanted to make enough money to survive.
These days I think my goals are I want to have a generally easier life, I want to have a good vibe online, in business it’s hard not to go through business without creating some enemies along the way and whether you mean to or not, some people just don’t like you, so I just want to have the kind of day to day where I just come to my desk and work a bit but not too late and I don’t have major stress and not freaking out and swearing at my computer, they’re not huge goals, but just to have a nice day to day is very underrated.
Jen Waterson
Yeah that’s very important, at the end of the day do we work to live or which way are we looking at it here? Are we living so we can work? They’re really nice goals.
Kate Toon
Yeah and I’ve had periods of extreme stress in my business, periods where I’ve put aside my wellbeing, physically and mentally, put on lots of weight and periods where I’ve been working all hours. It’s just awful, I don’t regret them, they were things I had to go through to make my business what it is but if that what it takes now I’m not going to do it anymore because life is short and stress if a genuine killer and we need to acknowledge that.
Jen Waterson
Yeah I get it, I’ve been there myself in positions where you think okay this cannot continue, we cannot continue to operate the way we’re operating this business, somethings got to give.
I think once you’ve experienced that extreme level of stress or burnout, those hugely uncomfortable times you get when running a business, it then gives you a little bit better perspective on your goals, whether they’re written down or not, your lifestyle is what you’re working for.
Kate Toon
Yeah and I think sometimes people get so obsessed with the numbers and detach that from their life and the thing I always talk about is there is always going to be an exchange, no one gets to earn seven figures without something giving. Unless you’re lucky have a rich husband, investor or wife, generally you’re going to have to work long hours, sacrifice, other things are going to come second. That’s cool if you want to do that but don’t underestimate that and the exchange.
Jen Waterson
Understand what you’re giving up.
Kate Toon
Yes exactly.
Jen Waterson
So seven or eight figure revenue goal setting, there seems to be this magical million dollar cushion, reach a million dollars in sales and all of your dreams will come true. There seems to be a lot of that out there, I don’t know if there really is or if it just appears that way on Instagram or maybe it’s just the businesses I follow but give us your opinion on that million dollar mark or seven or eight figure goal scenario.
Kate Toon
It’s interesting because I come from a copywriting background and back then it was 6 figures that everyone was trying to get too every month. I think the thing that’s happening is it’s very much the male entrepreneur and business owners that aim for that 6 or 7 figures but it slipped into female entrepreneurs and we can see these women doing amazing things and want a piece of that.
It’s a simple figure to put out there but that figure heights so many things, you’ve reached a million dollars now let’s really break down what your expenses are and what your true revenue is. Let’s look at how much of it is going to tax and how many team members you have and what you actually take home, I know million dollar companies where the person whose running it still isn’t paying themselves a salary so it’s really nonsense and they don’t tell you anything about the truth behind the business.
Jen Waterson
It’s kind of ego-driven number I think.
Kate Toon
It’s Instagram culture because Instagram is all about how many people liked your photos and it’s like you asked me my numbers early on and they’re not that impressive, I don’t have a massive email list, follow me on Instagram you’re only one of 7000 people, it’s not that many. Other entrepreneurs in my space have got 50, 60, 70,000 people but I’ve never needed a lot of people and likes to sell stuff.
Again, it’s a figure that people put out there to make them sound good and when you drill down into the revenue behind it, it’s often a papier-mâché metric.
Jen Waterson
Yeah it doesn’t squat when you haven’t got the profit that goes with it, it doesn’t mean squat if you’re sacrificing every waking week doing this thing and sacrificing your sanity to get there.
Kate Toon
I know people who are earning 50, 60, 70k a month, that’s great, but they’re spending 40k on Facebook ads, I would rather 30k and not spend the money on Facebook ads.
Less risk and less stress. I know people who have got offices with people working there and with all of that they’re making 80k a year, and that’s a much easier way to make 80k a year than having all these people report to you and a building you have to rent and light bills to pay. Do you need all this stuff? I think a lot of it can be for show.
Jen Waterson
Yeah and I think another one of these ego-driven metrics is things like the number of employees you have, the number of people you have working for you can be an ego-driven metric. That’s expensive and also really consuming taking care of managing people.
Kate Toon
I didn’t ever want to have many employees because I used to manage a large team agency and someone cried every other day, not because of me, because agency life is horrifically stressful so my team are all sub-contractors and I did try employing someone and didn’t like the responsibility but still, it weighs on me when I look at my bill of what I pay for all my supplies, there’s a lot of money I have to make before I actually make money for myself.
I’ve done it very incrementally and slowly, bare minimum of people, I never over-employ. We all have to shore up our ego one way or another I guess.
Jen Waterson
And I guess you can make, I’ve seen businesses make a million dollars in sales but only come out with 50k in profit at the end of the day and not pay themselves, but then I’ve also worked with multi-million dollar businesses but that doesn’t mean there’s much left at the end.
Kate Toon
Implementing profit first is a huge eye opener for me because as my money did start to increase, how am I still poor, where did my money go, it was going to tax and expenses because it’s so easy to buy another subscription or course that you don’t need, those are luxuries.
I did no personal development for nine years and I’m fine, I’ve never done a course. So it’s really interesting and I think the more we talk about money the better.
Jen Waterson
Yeah that’s it, you could be making 500,000 in sales and have a 200,000 profit, every business is different, it’s the way you run the business and the industry you’re in, there’s so many factors that come into it.
At the end of the day I think if you’re making 700,000 in sales and you want to make more money from your already established business, you’ve probably got a handful of different places you can start, sell more stuff, and you mentioned you went down that path of selling more stuff to people you know like and trust you, so that was a kind of easy.
Kate Toon
Yeah I do sell to fresh people but I also really like my margins and obviously I’m in a virtual world, I can do my business form anywhere, I really should find these figures for you but my expenses is still only like 20% which is pretty low for what I do. That’s the same as when I was a copywriter, I had no expenses. Expenses were electricity and internet and I’ve tried to maintain that.
I spend a bit more now because I have staff and don’t want to work so hard but yes.
Jen Waterson
You’re able to make those decisions knowing what your numbers are and knowing if you do employ somebody else to take care of x you’re probably able to save yourself x number of hours in your working week and you’re okay with that.
Kate Toon
Exactly and also just not exhausting yourself as well.
Jen Waterson
Yeah that’s right so to make more money as an established business, you’re either going to sell more stuff, or get more efficient or smarter with what it is you’re already selling, so start looking at how you’re doing it and do it better, differently, spend less which you just mention and people underestimate that one.
Kate Toon
The other thing though is to spend more which like I used to be really stingy and not want to upgrade my email package because my list got too big so I’m going to spend half an hour every week deleting people from my email list. The increasing fee was like $20. Don’t be so money tight that you’re being foolish.
Jen Waterson
Yeah so working smarter not harder.
So what advice if any, can you give to those who are forever turning their wheels, that are working big hours in that space where you were a while ago, working the big hours but there’s only so much you can earn while doing that and looking at how it is you can work more effectively, less hours but still make the money you want or more.
Kate Toon
I think it’s really important to work out how much money you need to earn. It’s really important to understand your baseline, like your mortgage, it’s so boring and I know it’s really basic advice but it’s surprising to me how many people don’t know that. If everything stopped tomorrow how much money would you need to live and survive? And then how much money more do you want? And what are you willing to give up for that?
It’s really about a couple of different things, moving from one to one to many, instead of doing your service for one person try and find a way to do it for five people at the same time. I think it’s about not necessarily doing the do but showing other people how to do the do.
For example, maybe as a mid-level copywriter, $130 an hour, but as a trainer showing someone how to write their homepage copy, you’d maybe charge $400 an hour because it’s a zoom session and they’re recording it and you’re selling your IP and intellect. Suddenly that hour has over doubled in value.
I’ve done all the different things and yes I do make exponentially more than I did as a copywriter but there’s a lot that goes with that and I’m not necessarily sure that the grass is greener but by the time I finished being a copywriter I was probably earning around 200k a year with all the expenses I talked about and I didn’t have a team and didn’t have great big Facebook groups and podcasts and websites. All these mechanisms, and I could take 10 days off because I could tell my clients cya I’m not working for 10 days and put my out of office sign on.
Now I have 600 members in my group who are there every day and I can’t just go I don’t want to be here for x amount of time, I can to a degree, they’re paying for me to be there so I’ve exchanged this glorious idea of I’m so sick of having five clients to now having 500 and it’s not bad, it’s just different.
Jen Waterson
Yeah I guess people need to just take that step back from the business and turning their wheels forever, just take a step back at some point and have a good look at their business, what parts do you love doing, what parts do you not love doing and what do you want to try, is there some sort of burning thing that’s been in the back of your mind?
Putting numbers around them and having different revenue streams and understanding which of those revenue streams are profitable and which are not, not just profitable from a dollars perspective but from the time that you’re putting into it.
Kate Toon
Absolutely. I think you talked about diverse income streams, that’s been so helpful this year, I moved into doing a lot of speaking but obviously that just got taken away this year so revenue stream just died. Thank goodness I had other things to fall back on.
I started my passive income with one word document, one template that I sold for $7. I still work full time but every time I got that pay pal ping for the $7 it felt like I’d just been given money and every time I added to that little by little because I needed to keep the money coming in. I think the other thing is don’t expect it to happen overtime, people look at where I’m at now and it’s taken me four or five years just to go from a copywriter to doing what I do now. It takes a lot of time to build that up and that’s the other false thing on Instagram, I know we know it’s not true and that there’s no overnight successes but it can sometimes feel like that. There’s no fast route to success. I talk to a lot of people and there’s no fast route.
Jen Waterson
It’s almost like indulgent by constantly signing up to these things. The thing is, it just takes time and un-fun work, but hopefully also fun work along the way but you mentioned earlier about the fact you don’t spend a lot of money on personal development. That you run your own race, you haven’t used business coaches in the past have you?
Kate Toon
No, I’ve never had a coach or been in a mastermind. I was briefly in a membership, which was a good one but I never really took advantage of it because I think most of us know what we need do to we just don’t do it. Even if I just spent the next year draining my brain of everything I’ve picked up, I’d still probably have some stuff left. Don’t get me wrong I think I could’ve got to where I’ve got a lot faster if I’d taken advice and I have talked a couple of times with a man who runs flying solo but I’ve never been in one of his $10,000 masterminds and I haven’t bought the course on how to master Instagram, I don’t know why, maybe because I’m British and I’m tight, I don’t know. I’m just too busy to do the work.
Jen Waterson
That’s probably a very good point, when you are busy doing the do, which is the difference between those who can be successful and those who are a little less successful is that you need to do stuff. Like you said, we already know what we need to do, we just need to sit down and make it happen, just do it.
Kate Toon
And not be frightened of it. I think you’ve hit the nail on the head there Jen, the difference between the people who succeed and who don’t are the people who tend to sit at their desks and just do the work, it’s not about dreaming big, it’s just about sitting down and making the thing and making it over again and turning up and being persistent. I just think I ware people down and they buy my stuff.
I am here every day talking to people and they’ll be like things aren’t really working out and I’ll be like what have you done this month for your business? And they’ll be like nothing. Start and work and it really is just trying.
Jen Waterson
It’s interesting, I was in accounting for a long time and we own an accounting business as well, that’s my husband’s baby and I left that because accounting bores me to tears and I moved out of that to go and do what I love doing which is helping business owners work strategically to grow their businesses and I left our other business and we sat down and had a conversation about what are you going to do now? I wanted to do something, I wasn’t exactly sure what it was, and we sat down and he asked, what are you good at? And one of the things that kept coming up is getting stuff done, I am a gun at just getting stuff done and I can’t sell that but that’s got to be a benefit when it comes to growing and building a business and maintaining a business over a period of time.
Kate Toon
I think the ability to organise yourself, to be your own boss, me myself and I, to make a to do list, sit at your desk and not get distracted, to just do the do is a huge thing, it’s incredibly hard to motivate yourself every day as a business owner when things have gone terribly wrong, to come back in the next day and pick up the broken bits of what you made and try again is really hard.
That’s what I think is the difference between those who do it and those who don’t.
Jen Waterson
What’s next for Kate Toon? You’ve been in business for quite a few years now, you said you started out in 2009 so let’s talk exiting, we don’t start businesses and expect to run it for the remainder of our years. Where are you in your business right now and is exiting on your radar?
Kate Toon
Such a good question it’s what I’m thinking about all the time, how to climb back down the mountain because I built a monster now and how do I dismantle it? I don’t quite know yet and it’s something I talked about with Robert, I’m not quite ready to let go of some things, I’ve got three businesses and I could kill one of them, I’m not quite ready to do that. He said to me, when you are ready you’ll know, you won’t feel any regret and you’ll see other people coming into your space picking up where you left off and you’ll be like good on you, I’m so glad I’m not doing that anymore.
I’m not quite there yet, I’m 46, so 50 feels like a bit of a milestone and I did sit down the other day and stuff around, what do I want in my super at 50, what do I want in the bank? I read a statistic a while ago that said when you retire as a women you need to have around $650,000 in super, I do not have anywhere near that.
Jen Waterson
But you’ve got time to work towards that and it’s amazing what you can do when you’ve got that little goal, a lifestyle goal.
Kate Toon
I’ve done a few things, I bought myself a car, I put a bath in my back garden, little things, I’m not a super extravagant person who likes fancy clothes and jewellery. It’s back to the same thing, I want to be able to live a nice life and I want that to carry on, I want to live not in financial luxury, but in financial security and not have to be terrified all the time. It seems like a small goal but that’s what I’m aiming for. In terms of exiting, there will be a point but I’m not sure if I’ll sell everything, I thought long and hard about am I building a business to sell, I’m not.
Again, I spoke to a lady who gave me permission on that one, she said I’m not building a business to sell, I’m building a business to make as much money as I can while I’m running business and then when I’m finished, I’m finished. I’ve had someone who offered to buy part of recipe for SEO success but how long I would have to be involved and how long I would have to stay.
Jen Waterson
It’s a hard job particularly when you’re so intertwined in it and you built it that way and that’s what you love but to give that to somebody else, that’s a bit frightening.
Kate Toon
It is frightening, and after you’ve sold they still expect you to turn up and be the figure head and be a bit of a puppet, I’m just not sure I could do any of that. When I’m done, I’ll pop a grenade over my shoulder and walk away into the sunset.
Jen Waterson
Thank you so much for that conversation Kate, I’m certain my listeners would have got something out of that because we went through a lot things so there’s lots to think about.
Is there anything that you’d love to finish on, to let the listeners know what is it that you’d love to leave them with?
Kate Toon
I feel like I’ve come across as a little bit of an old maid, going oh well be careful what you wish for, I guess I want to flip that and say along the way I’ve been all the things, I’ve been boastful and talking about my numbers and I’ve been excited and made all the mistakes and yes I’m a bit more sobering about it all now but I was an enthusiastic fool at the beginning and I would encourage people not to be too sensible, listen to everything Jen and I have said and then ignore it and do what you want to do anyway.
Jen Waterson
Like you said, you followed your gut.
Kate Toon
Yeah half the fun is in the stupid things you do. It’s not in the best decisions that you learn, it’s in the worst decisions and I just want people to not be fearful, I always think what’s what worst that can happen, if you work at that baseline of money that you need to keep your house, keep your family, feed yourself, work to that and anything on top of that is a bonus and appreciate it and be grateful and don’t spend the money before you’ve got it.
There’s so much adventure and I just want everyone to give it a pop because I’m so glad to get out of corporate life, they won’t have me back now, it’s not been an easy ride, it’s really good fun and at least you get to choose your own seat, that’s the most important bit.
Jen Waterson
Yeah choose your own path, and I think we’re all going to be really keen to see what your path is from here, whether you do hang around for a few more years or whether you just pull the pin on that grenade and go.
Kate Toon
We will see, I don’t know.
Jen Waterson
It’s exciting either way, and I think the thought of life after business excited me, my husband is 50 so we’re kind of getting to that point where we go what are our fifties going to look like? You don’t start to think about that until you’re into your forties because it always seems too far away doesn’t it. But it is kind of enticing to start thinking what is life going to look like in our fifties?
Kate Toon
It’s exciting and scary as well.
Jen Waterson
Thank you so much Kate Toon, that was fantastic, absolutely loved having that chat with you, where can people find you if they want to start following you, have a look at your website?
Kate Toon
Yeah I have a rather foolish name, Katetoon is my website and that’s my handle on every social media platform, but yeah KateToon is where you can find out all those bits and bobs if you want too.
Jen Waterson
Thank you so much and wherever you are listening in the world, thank you for tuning in and we shall talk again soon.
