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Transcript

The 80% Rule: Why I Turn Down Most Sponsors · Making Cents

• 0:01
  Hey, team, it's Frances.
• 0:03
  A little bit of a different one this week.
• 0:05
  The TVNZ Business Breakfast asked me to come on to talk about behind the Scenes of Making Sense, the podcast as a business.
• 0:13
  So if you've ever wondered about how.
• 0:15
  This place actually works, the dollars and cents of it all, the highs, the.
• 0:20
  Lows, what I would do differently if.
• 0:21
  I had to start all over again.
• 0:23
  Well, this was a lovely chat about just that.
• 0:26
  Enjoy.
• 0:33
  Welcome back.
• 0:33
  Financial journalist Frances Cook has spent years helping New Zealanders make sense of their money.
• 0:39
  But two years ago, she took a leap of her own, leaving traditional media to launch her own business from a spare room at home.
• 0:46
  I was terrified of the business side of things.
• 0:48
  I was terrified of how to actually make money from it, which actually I just kind of jumped.
• 0:53
  I just did it and it actually worked out really well.
• 0:56
  But I'm quite glad I didn't overthink it because if I stopped to think about it for too long, I wouldn't have done it.
• 1:01
  Let's talk about the business side of it then.
• 1:03
  What kind of areas did you find that you had to upskill really quickly in?
• 1:08
  Actually, some of them were just like admin sides of business.
• 1:11
  You know, just payroll taxes, sending invoices, doing all that properly and doing it in a proper legitimate way.
• 1:19
  You know, you've got to give people a proper paper trail for all these things and then to figure out how are we going to monetize this in a way that doesn't ever hurt the audience?
• 1:30
  Because when you're talking about money and you've got it's content, it's conversations, you've got to make sure that you have partners that understand that and that work with that.
• 1:43
  So I think I've probably ended up working with maybe 20% of the people I've had conversations with because I'm so protective of my audience and I'm just like, I, this has to be first and foremost about helping them,
• 1:54
  about understanding money better.
• 1:56
  It's not about selling things to them really hard.
• 2:00
  And some businesses haven't understood that and haven't been a right fit.
• 2:03
  And I've had to be so firm in that, so really growing a shiny backbone and a strong spine.
• 2:08
  What do you know now that you wish you knew at the beginning of your journey?
• 2:13
  It's funny because I talk to people about personal finance all the time and I say, don't be scared of the share market just because it's not for people like you to go back to myself at the beginning of
• 2:22
  this, don't be Scared of business because it's not for people like you.
• 2:26
  Never thought of myself as an entrepreneur, never thought of myself as a business owner.
• 2:30
  Never really had that desire.
• 2:31
  It was just the only way I could talk to people in the way that I wanted to.
• 2:38
  And so I just had to leave.
• 2:39
  And yet I've found the business journey amazing and I really, really enjoyed it.
• 2:45
  And I have been better at some of the areas that I was most worried about.
• 2:49
  The areas that I was most scared have turned out to be strengths.
• 2:52
  Maybe because I was so nervous about it and so determined to do my research and do it right.
• 2:56
  But, yeah, if I could go back, I'd say, don't be so scared about it.
• 3:01
  It's going to be fine.
• 3:02
  Just put in the work.
• 3:03
  And then it turns out.
• 3:05
  And I wonder, was there a time where you did get it wrong?
• 3:09
  I would say the big thing that I'm always scared about now being independent media.
• 3:14
  I don't have an editor.
• 3:15
  Now, I know that editors have been cut a lot from traditional newsrooms, so there's fewer of them, but they're still there and they're an amazing quality control.
• 3:23
  And when you're talking to people about money, you've got to get it right.
• 3:26
  Don't mess up the facts.
• 3:27
  This is important.
• 3:28
  This is people's money.
• 3:30
  So it basically just requires more time from me dotting every I, crossing every T.
• 3:36
  And every now and then when we, you know, we'll do a social media cut down.
• 3:41
  And I think it's made sense because I know what I was talking about originally.
• 3:46
  And then it goes out to the world in a way where we've simplified it too much and it is too simple to the point where it's mildly inaccurate.
• 3:54
  That really annoys me.
• 3:56
  And you just have to delete it, move on and do better next time.
• 4:00
  But, yeah, the lack of an editor means that you have to be so onto it with your quality control.
• 4:05
  And I am super aware of that.
• 4:07
  The longer I stay in the independent media space, I'm like, we don't just need to be as good as traditional media.
• 4:14
  We need to be better because the standard has to be raised.
• 4:19
  This is people's money.
• 4:20
  That was CEO of Making Sense, Francis Cook.
• 4:24
  This podcast can only give you general information about how things work in most situations.
• 4:30
  It's not individual financial advice.
• 4:32
  If you're after that, a financial advisor is always the best bet.