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From Corporate Lawyer to Flexible Business Owner: Building a Career on YOUR Terms! · Work It Like A Mum

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, I'm Elizabeth Willis, and I'm obsessed with helping as many women as possible achieve their boldest dreams after kids and helping you to navigate this messy and magical season of life.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a working mum with over 17 years of equipment experience, and I'm the founder of the Investing in Women Job Board and Community.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: In this show, I'm honoured to be chatting with remarkable women, redefining our working world across all areas of business.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: They'll share their secrets on how they've achieved extraordinary success after children, their boundaries of balance, the challenges they face, and how they've overcome them.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Find their own version of success.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Shy away from the real talk.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: No way! Money, struggles, growth, lost, boundaries of balance.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: We cover it all.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Think of this as coffee with your mates mixed with an inspiring TED Talk, sprinkled with the career advice you wish you'd really had at school.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: So grab a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, make sure you're cozy, and get ready to get inspired and chase your oldest dreams.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: Or just survive Mondays.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: This is the Work It Like a Mum podcast.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: This episode is brought to you by Investing in Women.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Investing in Women is a job board and recruitment agency helping you find your dream part-time or flexible job with the UK's most family-friendly and forward-thinking employers.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Their site can help you find a professional and rewarding job that works for you.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: They're proud to partner with the UK's most family-friendly employers across a range of professional industries.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Ready to find your perfect job?
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Search their website at investinginwomen.co.uk to find your next part-time or flexible job opportunity.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: Now back to the show.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome to today's Work It Like A Mont podcast.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: Today I am joined by Debbie from Glow with Debbie, who has built her own business with Tropic Skincare and now supports others to do the same.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: She's created a flexible business around her life whilst also mentoring and developing a growing team of people who are building their own income streams in a way that works for them.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: Today we're going to be talking about how she got started, what running a tropical business actually looks like, the realities of building an income through direct selling and through community commerce and confidence and personal development and why flexible self-employment can be such an attractive option for women, women looking for something outside of the traditional nine to five.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much, Debbie, for joining us.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: So do you want to take us back to the beginning?
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: What were you doing before Tropic?
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: And what made you like say yes to the opportunity in the first place?
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: And thanks very much for having me.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's a pleasure to be here.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: So what was I doing before Tropic?
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I've had quite an interesting, different career path, if you like.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: I started life straight out of university go as a solicitor.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: I was a commercial litigator, and in the latter part of my eight years doing that, I was a IP litigator.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: And then my husband wanted to go traveling around the world.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: This was pre-kids and he'd never done it.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, well, do you know if I do that, I might not come back to doing this?
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: Because although I didn't hate it, I just didn't want to do it forever.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: I just couldn't see myself going into that office for the next 40 years of my life.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: So despite them holding my job open for me, which was very nice, I came back and decided that I didn't want to do that and that I wanted to run my own company because I think I knew deep down that I wanted to do something for me.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: And at that stage, that was as an event planner.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: And the reason behind that was whilst I was a solicitor, I was also president of JCI Manchester, which is the junior chamber of commerce, and I ran events for them and I loved it.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: I kind of was pushing the paid work to one side to do the voluntary stuff.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I did love it.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: I set up awards ceremonies and loads of like networking type events, and I felt like I'd found my place.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: I like I really enjoyed doing that.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: I was phone, I'm quite a sociable person.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: So I started running them and I was running them for like solicitor's firms and accountants' firms in central Manchester.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: And then one of the young professionals got married and asked me if I would plan her wedding.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I just thought, yeah, yeah, why not?
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: Because um I figured I could do it, you know, I'd figure out how to do it and reach out to the people who I didn't know to help me to be able to do it.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: So and then and then I found that I I really loved that.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that what I loved about that was working with her directly and the people.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: And as I said, I am a people person, and I loved, I realized that I loved um the thanks and the the love that I got from her for doing it.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't know, when you're in a corporate professional job, you don't necessarily get that recognition and reward that you get that I got from that wedding.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: And then, long story short, I ended up pushing out and going specializing in wedding planning.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I ended up going into business with the lady who was probably my main competitor at the time, but we both had a really similar ethos and we'd both be pitched for the same weddings at the same time, and one or other of us would get them.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: And then we built a really big kind of wedding planning business around Manchester Cheshire area, and I loved it, I really, really did love it.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but we then went on to have children, my husband and I had children, and um it came to light um probably early on that my daughter needed a bit of extra support, a bit of extra help, and certainly when she went to school, um it was very evident, and then COVID hit, and um, we had a lot of at homeschooling, and that wasn't so easy.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: And although we didn't lose any business as wedding planners, everything was kind of pushed back, pushed back, pushed back.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: It was at that time where I got that thinking time, I had that time to actually stop the girls.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: Do you know what?
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: She it was very evident that she she was going to need extra support.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I decided that the time was right for me, that I I needed to step away from my previous business, so I needed to sell it.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: So we'd had a buyer lined up, and then in the end, it turns out, long story short, again, that my business partner bought that business and she carried on with it for another couple of years after COVID, and then she sold it on since.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: But I needed to take the time to be at home to support my daughter to get her the support and assistance that she needed to do that.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I don't know whether you have or anybody has had any experience of that, but it is it's quite a negative and difficult space to be in because you really want to find that support, you need the advice, you need the assistance, whatever that support looks like.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it's a lot of professionals, it's a lot of meetings, it's a lot of shunting your poor little child about from here to there to be tested, to be assessed, to be spoken to, to be on a Zoom that she does not want to sit still for, she does not want to be on, she does not understand.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: But it's one of those necessary evils, but it's quite a place that brings you down.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: And um that's probably where I was when I also discovered that I and I thought it was all that.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: So I have another, I have a son as well who's younger than my daughter, but my daughter was taking kind of all of that time up, if you like.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: And um I discovered that I well didn't know at the time, I genuinely thought I was having a bit of an emotional breakdown.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: I thought I was having a really low place, and what I subsequently discovered was actually I was in perimenopause in my 30s, and I really didn't know.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: I thought it was a mental health issue, and because of everything that was going on, and it transpired after subsequently talking to my mum that kind of she'd been through it all at 40, her mum had been through it all at 40, and that this was something I should have been expecting, but had absolutely no idea about.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but at that time it had massively affected my skin.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: So I'd always been a rosy person, I'd always had a rosy glow.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: I would have been one of those kids with bright red cheeks.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it turned out my skin were it was rosacea, but it's just my rosacea.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: I now know.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it my skin really flared during this period.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: I was I was dry and dull, but with kind of postules and broken out across my face, across my central wave in my face.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: So my skin was one of the things I was looking at every day, looking and feeling like I was looking older every day.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: So I basically went searching for some natural skincare, and that came about because of all of these wellness podcasts that I'd started to listen to.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: So you know what it is?
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: I just there was something going on.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I needed to fix these things.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: So I was listening to podcast after podcast.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: I was like Dr.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: Chatterjee's best customer, everything that he was putting out there.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: I was listening, I bought everything he recommended, and I was everywhere, and then there was a light bulb moment on a Betty Rotka podcast.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: I'm forever grateful to her.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: And she had a Harvard professor on who was talking about the menopause, and I was like, Oh my god, this is me, this is me, this is me, and it really was a light bulb moment.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: I went away, I bought the book, I did the checklist, I ticked every bloody check there was to check.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: Spoke to my mum, that's when I knew.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: Went to the GP, she was like, Oh, yeah, got referred to a specialist straight away because of my age, and you know, was ultimately on to HRT, was starting to kind of pick my life up, and then my light bulb moment was what I was putting on my skin.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: So I'd had this real moment of I cleared out every kitchen cupboard, like every chemical laden product under my sink was put in the bin.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, everything I was washing my pots with, washing my clothes with, I'd thrown away because of all these podcasts I've been listening to.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I distinctly remember my husband coming home one day going, How much is this gonna cost to replace?
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: Look, I hadn't actually thought at that time about what I was putting on my skin and how quickly that was being absorbed into my bloodstream and how that could have a massive effect on my endocrine system.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: And only through educating myself for these podcasts that I'd even thought about it.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: And so, yeah, that's when I then went looking and I did actively go looking for natural skincare because I would say probably eight eight years ago, like it wasn't as in your face as it is now, it wasn't so known, it wasn't so um obvious about these things, and it always seems so obvious to me, but it's only obvious when you know, and you only have you only know because you've gone looking for it, or somebody's told you about it.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so yeah, I went looking for natural deodorant to start with.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: So I always say the um the feel fresh deodorant is what uh changed my life.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um little deodorant changed my life.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: See, I've tried natural deodorant, and I remember feeling really sweaty, but maybe I used the wrong brand.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: So what was lost the brand?
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I to be honest, before I got the feel fresh deodorant, which is the tropic deodorant, I had probably tried five different brands and I'd been to our local health store where we which I have in my village where I live, which is super, and some of them like you had to put them under your arm, warm them up, or they'd be in a glass pot and it'd stick around the edges and you waste half of them, but pretty much none of them had worked.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: So I've always been a bit of a gym bunny, but I was especially one during this period because I was so it made me feel so much better mentally that um for me, I was always at the gym.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: So for me, my deodorant had to stand up to the gym.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so basically, a family member had started selling tropic because she had really quite um bad, broken out acne blemishes, acne print skin, and she'd done it for her own skin.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: And to be honest, not really paid a great deal of attention to what she was doing until I was like, I wonder whether she's got anything that helps.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: So I reached out to her and said, I'm looking for natural deodorant, you're all natural, aren't you?
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, can you help?
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: And literally, she sent it to me in the post.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: I don't even think I paid for it.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: I think she sent it to me in the post and said, You're gonna love it.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, bless her.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: And um, uh, and so I I did, and I was like, Oh wow, yeah, I love it.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, right, uh it's amazing, it stands up to my gym, it does not make me smell, does not make me sweat, it doesn't make me feel sweaty.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I it just it was wonderful and it smelled like citrus and it was daddy's and it's cream, so it goes on under your arm and it actually is really gentle and lovely.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just was like, right, send me your skincare.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: If your deodorant's that good, I'll try your skincare.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: Because I'd always been somebody who looked after my skin, or I thought I looked after my skin.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like my mum introduced me to Oil of Ole when I was 13, and that was my first stage of my introduction to it.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: And then when I got a bit of money, I'd moved to Clinique, you know.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, Oh, and just realized that what I was actually doing was stripping my skin, making this reserve so much worse than it should have been.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: But I wasn't educated on them at what I didn't know, I just thought I was doing what I should do because these big brands that are in big, well-known departments don't that marketing budget they have with a massive marketing budget.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, I'd always had a three-step routine since being about 13.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: So when when I then found these absolutely gorgeous products, I was blown away by them.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I was and I was like, wow, my skin, not initially, it feels so much better.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and you feel it first, and then you see it, and then other people start seeing it.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: Like when we came on here, the first thing you said to me.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: I said she's you're glowing, not she's glowing.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: You're glowing, you look beautiful.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: You can see honestly, your skin, it's gorgeous.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: And if you ever go to a tropic event, 5,000 of us look like this.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's the most glowy event that you've ever seen.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's absolutely, you know, the the the products in there all have such a nutritional benefit that every Tropic Ambassador, whatever reason they come to it, they come to it for the products.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: The products are exceptional.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: The budget, the reasoning, the the why behind everything in Tropic is the product.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: The product is exceptional, and it's all about how it makes you feel when it goes on your skin, having all those nutritionally beneficial ingredients that are kind that for me needed to be gentle.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: They need, I mean, now I can put the most active serums going on my face, but when I when I found Tropic, I couldn't put anything on my face, you know.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: I could everything sing, I had to build up my skin barrier to get back to there.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I just basically then fell in love with the products.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so when um my now leader family member said to me, Well, why don't you just become an ambassador?
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I was one of them people I'm not doing that, why would I want to do that?
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: I've I'm too busy, I've got all this to deal with with my daughter.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: I had probably asked me several times, and actually, the only reason I said yes was because we were at a christening, a family christening, and another member of the family went, Why don't you do that?
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: I said, Oh, yeah, she's asked me a few times, and I was like, Why don't I do that?
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: And actually, that one day I really did think about it, and I guess I was in a better place with my daughter.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, started to get the support and assistance that she needed, yeah, but I also had recognized that I probably needed something back for me at that point, and I was like, Well, do you know what it makes financial sense for me?
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: I'm buying these products every few months and I get a 25% discount.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: I don't actually have to sell a single thing because I've not been in a sales job.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know how to sell things.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: That's how everybody thinks, and certainly how I thought.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I just thought, well, if the absolute worst comes to the worst, I didn't sell a single product, I've got 700 pounds worth of product and it's cost me 198 pounds.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: I'm still winning, you know, and I'm getting 25% discount on everything.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: So that is literally my mentality in going into becoming a tropical ambassador.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: I went for the discount.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: I had to be asked three, four times.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't really think anything of it because I'd not actually looked into it and I joined purely, purely for the discount.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then I enjoyed the products, and I think when you naturally enjoy the products, right?
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I am super passionate about it now, but I when you naturally enjoy something, you naturally share these things, don't you?
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I guess that is what the whole community commerce vibe is all about.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: Like you tell people about your favorite restaurant if you had a beautiful meal, you went and watched an amazing film at the cinema, you tell people about it, and that's just naturally how what happened to me.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't sit out going, I'm going to go and sell some tropic products.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's not how it worked.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: I just said, if somebody would say, Oh, you're glowing.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, Oh, it's these products, give them a go.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: I've got some.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: Do you want to borrow some of mine?
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: And it just naturally developed into me loving, sharing my love of the product.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: And then what I loved the most was seeing them love it.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, they put it on their faces, and I was like, Oh my god, like you're loving it as much as I love it.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: And then we had something to chat about in the playground, you know, and it was like, Oh, do you want to try it?
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: And then I'd take a bag in, and somebody's like, What's that you've got in your bag?
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like, oh, and we are, and then we had a circle of us that were all trying it.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: And and then somebody chased me down the um playground one time going, Are you the tropic lady?
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: I love it.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: I'm the topic lady, you know.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um literally, that's how naturally this thing grew.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: And then people were just, and then after that, it's kind of like, oh yeah, this is fun.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: I I am enjoying it and I can do it.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm surrounded by all these other people who are encouraging me to do it.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: And that was novel as well at first.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: It was going from an environment where perhaps that wasn't the case.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: So certainly in my career as a solicitor, like it's not always the case that people want to support you.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: People might want the job that you've got, you know, people might want the client that you've got, and therefore they're not in a position to push you up and encourage and cheerlead and chat.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: And and it was really um eye-opening for me at first to go into an environment where everybody wanted you to succeed, and everybody was genuinely nice, like a nice person.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, oh wow, look, this person here, I've never met them, and they've told me to do this, and I'm gonna I've done it and it's worked, you know.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: It was it was lovely, it's a lovely, lovely environment to be in, which is is is exciting to be honest.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: And then I started realizing that that I could do it because I was starting to get recognized, and like I said from the wedding planning, what I've realized now about myself is I love a little bit of recognition.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: I know, yeah, I really do.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's from being a when I was a solicitor, I would close massive big million grand deals.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_01: I went to the Supreme Court, like, and I got I didn't get a thanks off the client because it was just business, it was just put the phone down, it was what was expected of you.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: And you know what?
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: I remember putting the phone down that day, going, God, could have even said thank you.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I've I've worked years on this case, and then from the wedding, I was like, I was the most important person in this person's life.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes I was like, So I've only planned your wedding, but like I would in fact be invited to the Christen, and I would plan the sister's wedding, and and I was like, Oh, I like that.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: And and then all of that you get the tropic in abundance, you get recognized for everything.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I've got awards, I've got bags, I've got umbrellas, I've got merchandise for doing something that I love.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like I I love that I like my shout out in a little group.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: I like to know that people have gone, oh, she's done well today, and my name's in a group, you know.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: And you and I think recognition is such a big, big part of my journey, and it's a big part of everybody's journey in my team now because I recognize that people like that as well.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, it's um it's a it's a long and convoluted answer to that one question you've asked.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: I loved it.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, so you had a year where you were just, I guess, sharing the products with people that you knew, and then what made you at that point think, I want to step this up now?
• 19:40
  unknown: Yes.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: I know you're a leader now, so yeah, we were a leader at the beginning.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm uh I'm a senior in a senior leadership position now, and actually, quite excitingly out my entire downline.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: We're going to be uh trying to become executive downline this month, funnily enough.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: So quite an exciting team, which is which is a big step, which is very exciting.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I'll come on to that in a minute.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: So, what made me want to venture into the world of leadership?
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I'd kind of been talking to Claire, my upline, about it.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um she's your family member, is she?
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so she's the one who gave me the joder.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: So um, so she kind of because she'd obviously branched out into leadership and was really going for it.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I was always a bit like, I don't know whether or not I want to do it, I don't know whether or not it's for me, I'm not quite sure.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_01: And then somebody approached me, like, and I think that's how the first thing came, like, and it was a bit of a joke, really.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: So somebody I went to university with, she was a lawyer, she uh oh no, sorry, the very first person didn't go to university with, um, to be my second person.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the first person I met whilst I was working on Camp America years ago, and she'd had uh yeah, I know, and she'd had um she was just having um a different situation going on in her life, she wasn't happy in a job, and I kind of jokingly went, Well, come join my topic team.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: I said, You could be my first person, like we'd have a laugh, we'd and it almost surprised me when she went, Yeah, I might just do that.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, Oh, oh, well, look at that.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: What do I do?
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: What do I do, Claire?
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: Claire, what do I do?
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then she joined it, and then I saw the fun she was having, and then I realised how much fun and enjoyment it was.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I guess it helped that she was a friend of mine, she didn't live locally to me, she was in Scotland, so it was like we started it it started really being fun for her and enjoyable, and she was always gonna do it as like a little side hustle for herself, and she'd actually um done the very first mama.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know, she was at Avon rep all those years ago.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: So she knew what it was all about.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: She knew how to do it, she knew that she'd enjoyed it, she knew that she loved the products, and so so that was that.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: And then my other friend who came who I went to university with again just kind of said it in a way she was really fed up, she was moaning about her job, and I was like, Well, come and join me.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: And our other friend who she also knew, she was like, I might actually just do that, and um, she did, and it's and it's um developed, and funnily enough, she's now going for leadership within the role because it's like it finds you, Tropic.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: So there is a kind of thing where some people say it finds you at the right time.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: And for me, when I went looking for that judgement, I probably didn't know that I wanted to grow that team.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: I joined for a discount.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: Then I figured out, oh, I quite enjoy sharing it, and then I was like, okay, maybe these two people have found me.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: And then Tropic landed something that was brand new called the development retreat.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: And you got to go to the Belfry Resort in Birmingham, five star luxury spa resort for the weekend, all expenses paid.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: If you um you had a few incentive criteria, and I was like, I've got two of them already.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_01: I only need another one.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe I'll give this a go.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: And then again, I've never been somebody to set goals or kind of uh do anything that was kind of really.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: Out there, like so bit, bit, and then I thought maybe I'll go for that.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: And then I kind of never said it out loud, but I set it in my head and I was like, maybe I'll go for that development retreat.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: I never told anybody I was gonna go for the development retreat, but I knew deep down that I quite fancied it, and um, that was really what spurred me on, and then I was like, okay, I'll go on it, I'll go on the opportunity call, I'll give that a go.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: And then after the opportunity call, I was like, right, I'm definitely gonna go for it.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: And then I got it, you know.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: I got um, so that was at that stage, it was the top 50 in the company got who weren't already leaders, got to go on this development retreat.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I remember being on on a weekend away in York and they were announcing who was where on the leaderboard, and it was all very last minute at the end, you know, moving about at the end, right?
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: And then they shouted my name out as 14th, and I was like, Oh, I was so excited that I was going to go on this development retreat.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_01: And then there, at that development retreat where you got lots of training and coaching and mentoring and different perspectives, that was where my mindset changed.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, Oh, you know, I've run businesses before, I've had a big four buttons for before.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: For me, this was fun, but that's where it switched to, oh, this could actually be a really business because I'd never really invested the time to really look into that because it wasn't really what I was looking for.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_01: And then when I looked into it and I understood the growth plan and I understand, and I heard that diamonds were making 13,000 pounds a month, I was like, as a minimum as a minimum.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay, right.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: I'm all right with 13,000 pounds a month, thank you very much.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: So, um, so I just thought, yeah, my mindset flicked, and I came away from that in uh I can't remember when I came away from that, but I think it was April um time, and then by the end of that year, I think it was in November, I was a leader, and again, that was interesting because it's one of my closest friends.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: So, in order to be um, no, sorry, yes, within got that wrong.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_01: So I think April, I think, to the June, I was the leader, and then June to the November, I was a senior leader, and that was because I developed another leader within me, and that sounds like, oh my gosh, she's doing something really complicated or whatever it is.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_01: I was just sharing what I was doing, sharing my love.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: So the same love and passion that I have for the products that I still have for the products.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_01: I just shared for the opportunity because for me, I was like, Well, look what it's doing for me.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm really enjoying this, and you there's no reason you can't do what I'm doing, there's no reason you can't do this, and you know, and it and what I do do really love about the Tropic Opportunity is that it's for absolutely everybody, like whatever you are.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_01: So the lady who's my leader now, she's a full-time teacher, you know, she has a full-time and she's a head, you know, she's like she's like a head of languages, she is uh a high, high demanding job.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: The lady who's going from a leader this month to get us to an executive is like the same second friend that I had in who I went to university with.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: She's um uh also a teacher, funnily enough, but on like the legal practice course or whatever it's called these days to teach solicitors.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_01: She's written the book on land law, she's got a big uh professional career, and she's like having, and I do find a lot of women come to this in their midlife.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: Not everybody, I have lots of youngsters, but I have a lot of midlife women who come to me and either they go, I want a complete change, or I want something to start taking over.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: Do you know what?
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe I don't want to do this for the rest of my life.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: But the bit that I had when it was almost forced upon me because my husband wanted to go traveling and I had it a bit earlier.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like a lot of people come to me in their 40s in that same position.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, right, I can then have other people who don't want to go back after maternity leave.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_01: And they're like, actually, I love these products.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: I've enjoyed just sharing them a bit.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe I want to step it up a bit.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_01: And what I'm finding now is I've got so much passion for helping other women achieve this in a way that suits them.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: So whether or not it is as a like a little side hustle and they want to just get going to make a few extra bits of money to pay for Christmas or to pay for luxuries.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: I had one who desperately wanted to send um her son to private school and wanted to be able to fund that.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's quite a big expense.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's a little bit more than a side hustle, but she is running it alongside another job.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I have the majority of the people in my team, and there's 80 of us now, um, run it as a side hustle.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: Some still do it just for their discount.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: That's absolutely fine because there's no pressure to do it.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_01: Other than that, nobody has to actually sell anything.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, then there's people who are like making, and they'll come to me and say, I want to make a thousand pounds a month.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I go, right, I know I know what we need to do.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: I can do that.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: I want to make£4,000 a month.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, let's get a plan because I know exactly how you can do that, and that's what's the benefit.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_01: Everything's out there on the table.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: We can make it work for whatever you want to do.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_01: And it's it's really lovely to watch the people make the progress and be a part of that change and see that confidence grow because of that community element and see them achieve something that they never believed was possible at the outset.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_01: And if you'd have told me when I joined for my discount, you'll be going for executive level downline leadership that this month, like I'd be like, you are mad.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_01: Like I've joined in for 25% off my products.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: I don't even probably plan on sharing them.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_01: And and it's amazing how that can be your way in, or somebody can come in, like uh Lady Cordleani, I was on a Zoom with the other day.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_01: She was like, She came in, absolutely no, I want to be diamond.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: She had the growth plan in front of her, she ticked off every month.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna be this at this stage, this at this stage, this at this stage.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_01: She was diamond in two years, two and a half years.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_01: Like she knew she was coming in with that mindset, and that's absolutely great because it's there for those people as well.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: But it's equally there for those people who don't even know it, you know, they joined like I do.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I I I do, I do love it.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_01: I am passionate about it.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's such um an amazing uh company to be part of, and every element of it I love.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_01: So from the mentorship and the coaching and growing teams and businesses and watching them grow to the product to the um, you know, the the wider elements of the infinite purpose, the charity elements, the support that we do.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_01: I love all of that as well.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, that's that's how does it compare to traditional business?
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: Because obviously you've done a traditional business and now you're doing this.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, what's the difference?
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think?
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_01: Well, what I would say the difference is is um it's easy to say your business is flexible.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_01: One of the things that was uh kind of come out as a saying on the development retreat was it's flexible, but it's not optional.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so if you want to be that diamond in two years, it's not easy, right?
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's not something that's just gonna happen.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: You gotta put some work in to get there, but it it is totally flexible.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: So if you want to do it at seven o'clock in the morning, ten o'clock at night from a sun lounger when you're on your holidays on an aeroplane, it's absolutely fine.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: If I want to take my daughter to a medical appointment in the middle of the day, I do not ask to ask permission.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_01: If I want to show up as sports day for my kids' sports days every single time and always be that person volunteering, I can do that, you know, and I've got that flexibility.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_01: And if you just want it to be a little side hustle and you just work on a Tuesday when you've got two hours and you want to make 200 quid a month, it's that.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_01: And it is that, it can be that, but it and you've got nobody breathing down your net.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: But if you are that person who wants to be that diamond earning 13,000, 15,000 pounds a month and you want to do it in two years, it's structured, it's not optional, it's structured.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_01: You have mentorship, you have coaches, you have supporters supporters.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it's the difference between you are not doing it for someone else, you are doing it for you.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_01: So I guess it it in order to be that person, you need grit, you need determination, you need to have self-motivation, and you need to have desire, you need to want it for whatever your why is.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_01: And for me, the biggest lesson I've learned is what is your why?
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_01: Like understanding what's happening.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_01: Why did I become a solicitor?
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like I fell into it.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_01: I think I actually wanted to be a barrister because I like doing drama and I thought being a barrister was just acting all of them.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_01: I was just standing up on stage, I thought you make a bit more money.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_01: So um I and then when I went traveling, like coming back to becoming a barrister was like I'd bought a house and it wasn't really as reliable.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_01: So I ended up falling into becoming a solicitor.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_01: I never had a real passionate why I wanted to be one.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_01: And the difference when you are running your own business, even if it's a business like Prophet where you've got all that backroom support of a multi-million pound company, is really understanding your why, why are you doing it, why you why does this work for you?
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_01: And that why can change.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_01: So for me, why did I become an ambassador?
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I came an ambassador for the discount because the products were bloody amazing and I wanted a discount, you know.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_01: That is why I became an ambassador.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: Why did I start to grow a team?
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_01: Firstly, my why was well, because I wanted to see if I could.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to see if I could get on that development retreat.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_01: Now, my why is I am so passionate about seeing other people achieve their goals, see other people um strive to achieve something that I know that they can achieve, but they never believe that they can achieve.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_01: And helping them to do that through mentorship and coaching, I absolutely love that.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_01: I love seeing them succeed more than I feeling my own success, if you know what I mean.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_01: Because that's just an aside, that happens because I help them, if you know what I mean.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_01: So that that having that really strong why for me is the biggest difference.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and the why, right, that has always stuck through all of those stages for me has always been to get something back for me to prove to my children that you can do whatever you're passionate about and be a success, um, whether or not that's a fine, whatever your definition of success is.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know, for some people that is financial, for other people, it is the freedom and flexibility to work as they want to.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_01: So, whatever your version of success is, that you can make that happen in your own way on your own terms, doing something that you are genuinely passionate about.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_01: And that why remain with me from the outset right through to now.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_01: So um, I would say that's the biggest difference um in terms of the the model.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_01: I guess the mod the business model is something that people are always like worried about because they don't know.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because it has a bit of a you know, I I work in network marketing.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: So you chop it.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_00: I know you've you've had your um you're using a different phrase, but you know, we unless we do find people like, oh, it's a pyramid.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's a scam.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's a scam.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, it's a scam.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: No one makes any money out of this when you're like, well, how are we doing it then?
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: Honestly, honestly, I do, and so does a lot of other people, and so does Susie, who's sat on Dragon's Den now.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_01: You know, she's gone full circle from being an apprentice and being tired to being a a a dragon on Dragon's Den.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_01: And Drop Pic's been the biggest growing beauty brand in the UK for the last seven or eight years on the run now.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_01: Those these scams don't exist, they wouldn't exist, they'd be shot down, and I think it just comes from um people not understanding, people really not and not wanting to take the time to understand how the business model works because the business model is just a different business model.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_01: Most people in an organization work in a pyramid scheme.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_01: There's a CEO at the top, and there's layers and layers and layers, and generally people at the bottom get paid less than the people at the top.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_01: That's like a traditional pyramid scheme, if you like.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_01: But I always sit and talk to people and you know, people who say it's a pyramid scheme, and I say, Well, what do you understand a pyramid scheme to be?
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_01: What do you think that is?
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_01: Because you why would I, as your friend, and by bearing in mind, I I went on a girl's holiday recently, and with there was nine of us there on this girl's holiday, all nine are ambassadors in my tropic team, right?
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, would I have my best friends in a team if I didn't believe in it?
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_01: Would I share that opportunity?
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_01: Because for me, it's an opportunity.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_01: So whether you call it network marketing, MLM, direct sales, um, community commerce, as we're now talking referring to it at Tropic, it's about sharing a passion.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's always been about sharing a passion.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_01: And the way that the business model works, it doesn't matter what level you're at, you put the effort in, you can get the reward out.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_01: The the um growth plan at Tropic, it's called a compensation plan at other network marketing uh things, however that is, is designed to the more the put in, the more you put out.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_01: You don't have to grow, you know, you absolutely don't have to grow if that's not for you.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_01: If you just want to sell products, you can just sell products and make a 35% commission on them every time you sell them and make yourself a very nice little living if that's what you want to do.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_01: And if you want to grow, it's all designed and it's all out there.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_01: But it really is, it's like everything in the world, it's about education and understanding.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_01: And there will always be people in the world who um dismiss it because they don't understand it.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I was having a conversation with somebody the other day, and it was um things that are not understood can be dismissed out of hand.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_01: That uh, you know, it can be in this instance, we were talking about additional need.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_01: I've already touched on the fact that my daughter has additional need.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_01: People don't believe it's real.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody's got this these days, everybody's got it, it's just it's just an excuse, it's just an issue, it's that, it's yeah, because it's not been understood, you know what?
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_01: And it's I feel like part of my job is to educate people on what it actually is, on why I am so passionate about it.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_01: Or I've had family members in the past.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_01: Well, don't she just sell a bit of Tupperware?
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_01: Has she really got a job?
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_01: You know, because I work from home, because I work from my garden, because I can take my dog for a walk in the middle of the day.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a choice that I've made to work in this way so that it suits me so I can go and prep my children up from school at school time, you know, that I can, and it might mean that I go on a Zoom at eight o'clock at night, but I'm making a choice to do that.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_01: But for me, community commerce, network marketing, MLM, whatever it is, is it's just another business model that works very, very effectively if you want it to do that.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not just those at the top who make the money.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_01: I know lots of leaders in our team who are making uh more than enough money, never want to become diamonds in them in the organization because they found their place where they want to be, because they are making a lot of money, and it's not just the people at the top.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's for me, it's always whatever you put in is what you're gonna get out.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and and and that's where it's different because if you were in that standard pyramid structure of a corporate days, and then and along the bottom, you're gonna be paid, you're gonna be paid whatever you whatever you whatever it is, you know.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_01: You could put in half a day's worth of effort and uh sit around and have a chat with your your colleagues if you want to and be paid the same as if you had been slogging it out, putting four hours extra in there every single day.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna be paid the same.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_01: And where that works in with us and with you is you're gonna be paid even more because you've put more effort in.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's as simple as that.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_01: And the choice is yours.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_01: There's nobody telling you you have to, but if you want to, the opportunity's there.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, that's how I kind of see the difference in the business model.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_00: I think as well, what's the beauty of like a business like Tropic is the cost to entry is so low.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_00: Becoming, you know, setting up a business as someone that set up a traditional business like you have with your events, you know, it costs me absolutely thousands of pounds to set up investing in women, thousands upon thousands, and you then you you come across a business like Tropic and you're like, and you get it all.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like you know, it's just start up for what,£180.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_01: £198.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_01: You can pay it interest free over three instalments,£66 a month, right?
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_01: You can have a business with a multi-million pound business in the background, giving you everything from your social media support to your marketing tools to your IT advice to your business support structure, and a team of people behind you going, set this up on social.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_01: This is how you create this, this is how you do that.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_01: There's an online training.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I mean, as an individual setting up your own business, there's no way you could afford this.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_01: I know how much it cost me to set up my event planning company, my wedding planning company, how much I invested in just building a website, which you don't know how expensive it is to build a website, you just get a website, you know, you're just giving it as part of your 66 pounds.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like, so not only are you getting nearly 700 pounds worth of product for your 198 pounds, which you can use, totally up to you.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_01: You can share it, you can use it, and every and the whole point is that you use it so that you fall in love with it and then you share it, but all of that backroom support is invaluable.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I I always laughed that like one of the worst things that could ever happen to me when I was running my own business was when my printer broke, like and I had no idea what to do, and I had nobody to call.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_01: And it was like, who do I ring when I can't get my copies to do something?
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_01: But there's just a team of people who know what they're doing, who are happy to help, who want to help.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_01: So for me, it's such an ideal way of going in.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_01: And that price, that entry price, will never want to go up because that's what Susie started her business with all those years ago when Susie was doing the body scrubs on the market when she was 15 years old.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_01: That was how much money she had left before her and her mum were going to get evicted from their rental accommodation.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_01: So to her, that figure is so important.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's so important that it it's tropic is about empowering women.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_01: We have so many synergies here, don't we?
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_01: Tropic's infinite purpose is to create a healthier, greener, more empowered world.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_01: That more empowered world, it is the reason why Susie chose to run the business with this community commerce aspect.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, she could have gone and put her products in big department stores and paid them a margin instead, probably a bigger margin, maybe even a smaller margin than what she ultimately ends up paying out to ambassadors these days.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_01: She did not want to do that.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_01: She wanted to empower women mainly, there are men, but mainly women, to start up um their own businesses, to get their own financial freedom, to get their own give back to themselves, whatever their reason for wanting to start was.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um that's why she chose this business model.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_01: Not because it was of a massive benefit to her, but because she wanted to invest that money in other women.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_01: And that shines through in Tropic from top to bottom in everything we do.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_01: So for us, the 10% pledge for the world.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know whether this is something that you know about that infinite purpose, is Topic is obviously now a multi-million pound company.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_01: It started from its roots on the market, like I said, with her making these body scrubs with a recipe her grandma had taught her and going out to the market and selling every week.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's now a multi-million pound company.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they've earned hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of awards for all of their amazing products, but that bit has never been forgotten and it's always been about giving back and empowering.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_01: So 10% of all Tropics product uh profits go to fund good causes all around the world, in the UK as well.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_01: One of the biggest things is we are the biggest partner for United World Schools, and I don't know whether you know about that, but so far today, we have built five tropic schools in some of the most remote parts of the world where ordinarily children wouldn't have access to any education, especially the girls.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_01: And this bit gets me the girls just would have been forgotten because if anything, it would have been so the it's about empowering not just the girls, the children, and that in turn the community.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_01: So we fund the schools, our 10% for the world, then funds the teachers, the teaching um equipment that's needed throughout the year.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_01: And what's really gorgeous now is a couple of people on my wider team have actually been out to the schools that have opened, some in Cambodia, one in Nepal, we've got some in Madagascar, and um seen directly the impact that the cleanser that you bought on Tuesday is having in somebody's life in Nepal who before that would never have had any access to education.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_01: And they've gone back actually because of COVID, they couldn't go back to the couldn't go to the opening of the Nepal one.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_01: And some of the people, sorry, the kids who were kids in their very first school are now teachers in our newest school.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_01: And it's the empowerment of the entire community is incredible, and we'll never stop doing that.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_01: But it's a massive part of Tropic's Infinite Purpose.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_01: So we've planted forests in Hampshire, in the Amazon, we've done coral reefs in the Great Barrier Reef.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_01: We support the women, um, women's aid, which was a big one at our glamour's event this year, and it was really quite powerful and poignant because in a room full of pretty much 5,000 women, she would went the lady from Women's Aid was saying that one in four women suffer domestic violence.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and one in four women, they look around that room, there's a lot of women in that room of some form emotional or physical abuse, and um how we support them through our glamies event and our ticket sales, um, and the Winnie Mombaso Foundation and um the the Beauty Better Shared, um, not Beauty Better Shared, um, I've forgotten what it's called, straight off the top of my head.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_01: But basically, we fund products for not just ladies, all people who are going through cancer treatments, and we lots of our ambassadors are volunteers for the um the organization.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_01: We go and we do little demos on people who were going through it.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_01: And in fact, in December, because one of our diamonds um I just sadly passed away last year from uh from cancer, she created her own range as her legacy, which is super, super gentle products for people going through um cancer treatments, and a hundred percent of any proceeds made from those products will go directly to the bowel movement charity because she died of bowel cancer, which is something that's really, really um um has affected my life a lot as well.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_01: So for me, it's that need that I could go on with the amount of charities and support.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_01: Like there is a massive amount and it's intrinsic within Tropic.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that that coming right from Susie and Carlton at the top feeds down through all of us.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's about so much more than just beauty products, it's about being part of a movement and a community that wants a better world, that wants change, that wants to empower young people and women alike, and wants to do that in a way that suits them and their lifestyles and their flexibility.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's why I am so passionate about it.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's so much more than me sitting at my kitchen table saying this cleanser's gonna work really well on your skin, you know.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um it is it is deeper and it's ingrained within us.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I think you know that shines through in pretty much every tropical ambassador that you come to meet.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_00: I've like loved our conversation.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_00: I've literally I can feel your passion through this screen, even though we're sat at that 200 miles away from the other.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_00: But I can like feel like I'm just like, yeah, oh my gosh, that your energy, Debbie, is fantastic.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_00: So if someone's listening to this, they are enthusiastic as enthusiastic as you are, or maybe just want to have some questions.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_00: How can they learn more about tropic opportunity?
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I as you've probably gathered from today, I love a chat.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_01: So please just pick up the phone to me.
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_01: I'm happy for you to share my details on your website.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I love and I will talk to anybody openly about the tropic opportunity because it's what I am wholeheartedly passionate about.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_01: So that's the best way.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_01: But I have I've got a website.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_01: I would say my website is more geared towards my facials.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_01: So if you want a facial while we have a chat, please look in and we'll do that at the same time.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you'll be having the gorgeous tropic products on your face.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you can find me on Instagram.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_01: So if you just want to sneak and start stalking me for a bit first before we have a chat, I'm glow with.debi on Instagram.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_01: So probably get a good insight into me.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_01: I share a lot about the kind of personal life on there as well as my products, and that's probably the best way to reach out, or just find my page on your website and it says quite a lot more detail about how the opportunity might work for you.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_01: But um, I would say just find out more because don't dismiss it, you know.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's something there for everybody.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_00: And if people just want to try the gorgeous products, I guess they can reach out to you as well.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_01: I've got an online shop, but the best thing to do is just message me because then I can simply give you the best advice because there's no one size fits all with skin, everybody needs something different, so we can have a chat.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_01: I offer free consultations um where I can tell you exactly which product's going to work best for your skin.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_00: Lovely.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you so much, Debbie, for joining us.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's been a pleasure.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having me.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to another episode of the Work It Like a Mum podcast.
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_00: If you enjoyed this episode, please rate, review, and subscribe.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_00: And don't forget to share the link with a friend.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_00: If you're on LinkedIn, please send me a connection request at Elizabeth Willis and let me know your thoughts on this week's episode.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_00: You can also follow my recruitment site, Investing in Women, on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, keep on chasing your biggest dreams.