Chapter 1: What does success mean beyond visibility in entrepreneurship?
Hello, hello, hello, and welcome back to What is Public Relations, the podcast. I'm your host, Laura Perks, PR specialist, working with entrepreneurs who are ready to become niche famous so that they are seen, heard, hired and paid as the authority. Today is another guest episode and I cannot wait for you to listen to all the knowledge bombs she has to drop because this woman is phenomenal.
She has an incredible way of weaving identity work into growth and leadership from a business perspective. So put your hands together and give a very big warm welcome to Jodie Hayward, your business woman... You're, like I hear her say, your business wing woman. So Jodie, please introduce yourself in a much better way than I just have.
What? That was amazing, Laura. Thank you so much. What an epic introduction. I'm so happy to be here. Thank you so much for inviting me on and for that very kind introduction. Essentially, I am everything that you just said I am, and more, of course. I'm a wingwoman, so I'm the CEO's right-hand man, let's say. Right-hand woman.
Okay.
i'm i blend identity leadership and alignment work with the expansion growth refinement efficiency of the back-end systems that essentially allow ceos the freedom that they need to create and to scale the business that they've worked so hard to create in the chaos oh my god the chaos
I think everyone is going to be able to relate to the chaos.
Yeah, all the hats and all the things and all the bits you have to do to get to a certain point.
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Chapter 2: How did Jodie Hayward transition from a COO to a purpose-driven entrepreneur?
You think you can take a breath, but actually, no.
And actually, how, because, you know, for the listeners, they might be thinking, oh, my God, how are you blending like identity and alignment with kind of business operations? How did that come about? Talk to me about your journey.
Ooh, that's a can of worms there. So essentially I started in the online business 2016 and I worked pretty much
pretty much straight away as this kind of wing woman, fractional COO role where I would stand beside, you know, the CEO and take what they wanted as a vision and be able to whistle it down into the goals, the action steps, everything that needed to be done, the team, you know, I kind of just had this natural ability for it. Um,
Which is great because I'd spent the previous 30 years or whatever it was trying to find my natural ability. It's not like I just stepped into it. So then I built a business from that helping CEOs. But I built a business that looked good on paper. It was multi-six figures. But I was literally dying inside of it. Like, I wasn't leading myself. I didn't have the identity I needed.
I was pouring myself into everyone else apart from me because of all my stories, because of all my beliefs that I had, not being good enough. You know, literally used to describe myself as a recovering wallflower. And it came to a point when I was pregnant with my daughter where I was like, I can't do this anymore. This is not who I want to be. But also...
this is not what I want to pass on to her. This is not what I want her to see. Just for context, she's my first daughter. I've got two older sons. And when I had my laptop on my pregnant belly whilst I was having contractions, trying to fix the internals of a launch that I was managing, that was kind of the point for me. I was like this, I'm done with this. So I let go of the business.
I made like, it was, it took some months of going backwards and forwards because I'm the main breadwinner in my house. It did, you know, it was going to and did put us in quite a hard financial situation, but I knew it wasn't right for me anymore. And what I found through this pivot was,
over the last couple of years is that my intuition my ability to be a mirror my internal knowing my gift if you like is alignment and identity and it's walking the path that you're meant to walk and understanding that everything is happening for us it's all happening for a reason that you can have the life that you want to have
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Chapter 3: What challenges arise during the 'messy middle' of entrepreneurship?
They just didn't, they didn't like it anymore. And what I actually realized is that I just never let my vision evolve. You know, I never stepped into who I needed to be, who I wanted to be to claim the life that I wanted to claim. So after going through that, I recognized that you can't have the systems, the efficiency, the team, blah, blah, blah, if you don't have the identity.
And you can't have the identity if you're not going to back it up with the systems. You know, you can't create success without both of those. They're yin and yang, you know.
And I love that. And it's interesting because I went through something similar. And I'm sure I've shared it on the podcast before. So I'll do like a little whistle stop tour of the update. And it was towards the end of 2023. And things just weren't feeling right in my business. Now, I love PR. I've been in it since I've been 21 years old. I studied it at uni. It's very much I live and breathe it.
I will die on the hill for it. But things just weren't feeling right. I was attracting clients that my intuition was telling me they are not good clients. But I had this story running through my mind of you need to bring in the income. You need to bring in the income.
know because you don't feel good enough because you're not helping out with the family financially and it doesn't feel like it does and it feels much less than and i knew i had to force myself to go inwards and after a couple of months i thought right that's it i'm out of the trenches only to realize no i was only one step forward i'm now back in the trenches and it took
18 months, I think, to really understand who am I? How do I want to work? Who do I want to work with? And, okay, 18 months in a... 20-odd-year career is nothing. But when you're in it, my God, it's really fucking painful. It's uncomfortable. And again, it's putting that mirror up and realising you said yes to those clients. You allowed them to disrespect you.
You allowed them to default on payments. You left it too late before you had those difficult leadership conversations. And again... I launched the Aligned Authority Accelerator towards the end of the last year because I thought I can't be the only one who's gone through this pivot. And I want other people, especially women, to know.
It's okay for you to stop and pause and reflect and change direction. It doesn't mean you're a bad person. It doesn't mean you're shit at what you do.
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Chapter 4: How can comparison hinder your business growth?
But somewhere along the line, you've come off, you've kind of come away from your true North Star because you're following trends or you're going in a direction that your clients are taking you. And you're almost too far in before you realize, hang on a minute, this isn't the path that I want to take. But getting back to what you want, nobody's teaching this.
Yeah. And but there's two there's two strings of thought here. Right. It's yes, that people are creating and not coming back to their North Star. They're creating what they think success should look like. It's someone else's version of success. And you're right. Excuse me. We do. We train people how to treat us. one of the first steps is 100% responsibility, that 100% responsibility.
But then the other side of that is that it's also okay to change our North Star. It's also okay to, and we should as leaders, like I've got opinions now that were completely different three weeks ago, three months ago, six months ago, but that's part of leadership. That's part of growth. I expect that now. I was consistent with my vision and my thoughts in the wrong way, you know?
And that I think really online business now it it frustrates me online where I think there's this narrative that this identity work is like, oh, you know, just just it takes time. It takes work. It's uncomfortable. Literally, I call that 18 months that you described. I call that the messy middle. And that is the part I've kind of become the person that I needed at that point through that.
You know, I've become that light at the end of the tunnel to kind of hold your hand and say, this is the process. You're not doing anything wrong. This is the process. It is really hard. But also to say, pull up your big girl fucking pants. You chose the road, less traveled. You wanted to have a business. You want to be an entrepreneur.
There are certain things you're going to have to do that you don't want to do. It's not always going to feel good inside. Most of the time, building a business is fucking boring. It's doing the boring stuff day in, day out, because you know it is that that compounds, you know?
Yeah, of course. And it's getting those foundations right. And I recorded a podcast episode.
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Chapter 5: Why is visibility important and how should it be approached?
I was a guest yesterday and the host I was talking to, she was like, oh, my God, you will not believe this. I spoke to somebody earlier, incredibly successful, living the life that she has has been working hard to do. she runs her business from her phone. She was like, how the hell are people running their business from their phone? I can't even cope running from a laptop.
And again, it just shows that you have to build it in a way that works for you. Obviously, this person just loves doing everything. I mean, the phone nowadays does everything. We don't need a laptop. We don't need an iMac or a desktop, but it's how we prefer to work. And it was almost, and she wasn't almost, she wasn't,
being derogatory about her is, oh, my God, how is she earning all this money from a phone? It was just like, wow, I didn't realise how much that kind of laptop lifestyle does exist and it does work for some people, but it's not going to work for everyone.
And you've got to figure out what works for you in terms of how you want to show up, the clients that you want to work with, where you want to work from. And I guess that all comes into...
the identity and being in alignment with who you truly are absolutely but also understanding that one it's going to take longer than possible that than you think it's going to it's going to take longer and it's only your stories the self-doubt the comparison that is stopping you from being that consistent long enough to see the treasures at the end of it.
The reason that people come into entrepreneurship is because the treasures at the end are so big. But the reason the reward is so big is because it's so hard. Entrepreneurship is 99% an internal journey. Running a business is not that hard. Like every strategy contradicts each other now. It's all Googleable. You can do it through chat GPT. Do you know what I mean?
But if you're not going to be the person you need to be. You could have all the strategies in the world and you're still not going to be successful.
All happy and you're going to just constantly be kind of striving for the next thing because you don't know how you're meant to feel when you get to where you want to go.
Yeah. And I think one of the biggest things that stops people when it comes to like visibility is this comparison. You cannot have happiness where there is comparison.
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Chapter 6: What is the significance of authenticity in PR?
I want to be like her when I grow up.
Yeah, totally. And it's interesting because I was an emcee at an event towards the end of last year. You know, a lot of us, we go to events and there are some real like power players on stage and they're successful and they're multi six and seven figure business owners and they're talking about their journey, which is brilliant. It's inspiring and it's empowering.
But also when you're sat there listening, it can make you feel slightly inferior. And I remember saying towards the end of the event, I said, there are women in this room that you look up to, but there are also women in this room who are looking up to you.
Exactly. Exactly. But I also think that a lot of people and this is going to pay a few people off. Sorry.
a lot of people will sit there and go but you don't understand like i've got four kids i've got this i've still got a job i blah blah blah do you know what i mean everyone people say like we've got the same 24 hours in a day no we haven't no we haven't we've got different life commitments different things going on outside that's absolutely okay but but you can continue to live in your excuses
And you will never find success there. You have to literally choose. It's self-leadership 101. You have to choose to go, life is hard at the minute. Guess what? It doesn't get easier. There's always going to be things thrown at you. But you have to choose to move anyway. That's what that's the only difference between someone being stuck and someone being successful. They move anyway.
And they understand that even when life is hard, everything's happening for them. Everything's happening for a reason. You know, I completely believe. And now, you know, even at the moment, we're going through a really, really tough time. I'm going to say the hardest time we've probably had ever.
Yeah.
But my overwhelming emotion and lens towards this is curiosity, because I know the lower the lows, the higher the highs. I can't wait to see what lessons come for me out the other side of this. Like I'm excited for that. I absolutely know the universe is always conspiring with me, you know, to bring that success forward. As long as I take the action that I need to take.
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Chapter 7: How do personal stories impact business success?
Equally, I can now share that as my story. And that story is probably more relatable to people than me saying, oh, I've just secured a double page feature in Forbes for one of my clients.
Yeah. And you like, you've lived that experience now. And that lived experience is then going to go on and have such a bigger impact. You know, it's not just about the story angle that you can tell, but it's the impact you're going to have by telling your story in a way that, look, I went through this. I come out the other side. You can do it too.
Yeah. You know, a hundred percent. And this is why I love podcasts. Like I've been a champion of podcasts for years for myself and my clients and And I often say to people, don't think of PR as Forbes, the Daily Mail this morning. Yes, they are absolute legacy titles. They're hero titles. Most people have heard of them. But you don't have to start there.
You know, start smaller, start more niche, start with what's comfortable. And what's more comfortable than having a conversation with another person who's genuinely interested in what you're doing? So for me, I like to say to clients, start with podcasts.
And even if they've only got 100 listeners, 98 of them could be people who then choose to follow you, who then choose to work with you, who then rave about you to all their friends and clients. So often I'm like, I think people get so caught up in what can be that they're actually completely ignoring what's right in front of them right now that is super accessible.
And also... again, I might piss people off. You might disagree with me here, but when people are coming from the angle of, I want this because it's going to give me X rather than showing up to serve and showing up to impact, that's always, that's, It's self-absorbed. Like, do you know what I mean? It's just for you.
When you show up to serve, you will find success finds you very much quicker than it would when you're going, what's my ROI on this? Who am I going to reach? Blah, blah, blah. Obviously, there's a strategic lens to everything, of course. But when you show up to something like this, you have to show up to serve.
You know, and whether I'm serving in, I don't know, a magazine you'd find in a shop corner or Forbes magazine, the impact I'm still having is, you know, it's about that impact. I could impact 12 people in the corner shop and nine people in Harrods where my magazine is now. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah.
I have been saying for years that. If one person hears what I'm saying and can relate to it and can change one tiny thing about their business or life, I've done my work.
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Chapter 8: What steps can you take to align your identity with your business goals?
Exactly that.
My impact doesn't necessarily have to come back to me in a monetary way. One thing I see a lot with the online space, especially, and in one of the previous episodes, I did have a conversation with Lisa Johnson and she said, I've had so many people come to me say, you helped my friends with the six-figure launch. I want to get there. And she's like, why?
and she said unless you can tell me why I'm not interested because I've made money yes I've made a lot of money but that wasn't the driving force that was almost the kind of
the the bonus of the impact that I wanted to create and again I think so many people and it's it's easy to understand why we're bombarded with messages constantly on every single social media platform on the tv the radio for everything is money money money success at sex success it sounded like I said sex I promise it's all right that's all good as well Make sure you get lots of it.
But again, it's that you've kind of, you either don't know what your own path looks like or you don't know what you want because you're following what everybody else has and you think you want it.
I think that people... People are confusing the wants with the needs. So what actually people are looking for generally is freedom. And there's two types of freedom. There's freedom from and freedom to. So ultimately, the first step, they're looking for freedom from. Freedom from their nine to five, freedom from their debt, freedom from whatever it is, you know.
Then we get to the freedom to, freedom to travel, freedom to home educate my kids, whatever it is, freedom to be a mum. But there's a massive gap between the start of freedom from and freedom to, you know? And I think that we, it's okay. What happens is that we come in and we go, right. And just this, my story was, I would need to home educate my children. I have massive problems.
beliefs that this is not the time or place for about the UK's education system. And I wanted to home educate my children and I needed something that facilitated me being at home. That's why I came into this world. That was my why. What I didn't have was the vehicle at the time, you know?
So I think many, many people coming to this with the bigger why the freedom from wish, and they're looking for the vehicle. And I think it's all very well and good for people to question, um, everyone's why, but that comes at a certain point in business. Let's face it.
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