Breaking the Invisibility Barrier: Danielle Joworski’s Tips for Women in Business

Nigel Rawlins: Welcome Danielle to the Wisepreneurs podcast. Could you tell us something about yourself and where you're from?

Danielle Joworski: Absolutely. Thank you so much, Nigel, for having me here. I am joining you from just west of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and I am really passionate about helping to make the visibility journey much easier for female entrepreneurs so that they can conquer their visibility fears, boost their confidence, and then really make themselves more visible so that they can grow their business and create the impact that they imagine through the work that they do.

Nigel Rawlins: Yeah, that is so important. Visibility. And it's coming through loud and clear in every one of my guests. And I guess that's what marketing's about too. What makes women a little bit reluctant to be visible?

Danielle Joworski: I work with, like myself I'm over 40 and most of my clients that I work with and who my audience are, they're over 40 years old. So we have really almost stepped into this visability game, especially with social media and this online digital world just really booming in the last couple of years. We've stepped into it, with a different kind of history where we did not grow up with cell phones in our pockets or our purses. We had the rotary phone. Our internet was dial up internet and we could very easily hide and do our work behind a laptop. We didn't necessarily have to put ourselves out there in front of a camera, In order to grow businesses. So a lot of the times when I'm working with clients, especially female entrepreneurs over 40, there's this hesitation to put yourself out there specifically when there's a camera involved, because it just wasn't the role that we were, that we typically had in either in corporate or as entrepreneurs.

So the challenge of being visibility really comes down to, from my perspective it's ourself. It's the image that we have of ourself, the perception that we have of ourselves, and stepping out and allowing that spotlight to be shone on ourselves. It comes down to us really understanding who we are, finding that inner why and drive that's going to propel us through the visibility fears to be able to get in front of our ideal audiences and really get to do the work that we know that we're here to do.

Nigel Rawlins: There's a criticism of some women who put themselves out there that they're pushy. Is that something that they're probably trying to ignore?

Danielle Joworski: I think a lot of times you want to have this conversation. So it becomes, it's not the pushy that they're trying to ignore or they're trying to avoid. It's almost the opposite where they're afraid to sell. They're afraid of what the external perception is going to be from others. They're afraid of being judged.

They're afraid of being canceled, especially in the online world right now. So pushy, it's

no, it's more the external, so people worrying about, who is she to say what she's saying? How is she the expert? And really getting stuck in this, instead of us knowing who we are and that we're here to do it, we are the expert in our stories and what it is that we want to do at our business, really focusing and putting that mirror on the outside world and allowing the thoughts and perceptions of others to really control and impact how we're showing up.

Nigel Rawlins: Now that, that is interesting because it is an issue of confidence. And as the podcast is aimed towards, helping professional women move into business and run their businesses and things like that. But they are experts. They are quite knowledgeable and able to do things. And this is what, upsets me a bit when I hear this is that they lack that confidence.

And I think you've mentioned it, especially for this particular age group probably non tech. The other thing too is once they're over 50, they start to think maybe they're over the hill. And we've had some people on the podcast, gerontologist and stuff like that about ageism and that, that's a self imposed belief in many ways.

So do you think also, ageism and sexism comes into this as well?

Danielle Joworski: I'm going to speak from personal experience and I'm going to say yes, around the ageism because I took my first step into entrepreneurialism at 40 after growing a successful corporate career. And it became, when I made that step, it became, Oh I, geez, I feel as if I'm starting so much further behind everybody else. The entrepreneurs that I was involved with and really connected to at the time, they were younger than I was. So I felt really late to the game. And then the internet made it seem so easy nine years ago to start a business. And then I struggled trying to figure out how to put all the parts together to create this business that would run the way that the perception, again, the internet told us that it would be able to run at that point in time.

Nigel Rawlins: Look, I think that's right. The benefit, of 10 years ago is you had the internet. 25 years ago, when I decided I want to start a business, we didn't. We had fax machines

Danielle Joworski: Yeah. Yeah.

Nigel Rawlins: and telephones, mobiles did come in. So let's just go back a bit to how you got to that point. Now you studied microbiology. You went out to work. So tell us a little bit about your career transitions and how you then came about going into business and then what happened.

Danielle Joworski: Started that very traditional, logical career path, went to university, my degree is in microbiology, and I went straight into corporate, getting a job in a microbiology lab. I really focused on systems, I was in the food industry, I then had my first child. Transitioned into the pharmaceutical industry and really took that very traditional route where I climbed the corporate ladder, which is what I wanted.

Graduating university, that's what I wanted. I wanted to be a manager before 40. I wanted to earn a certain salary by the time I was 40. And at 38, I achieved the goals that I had set back in those university days. Once I achieved it, it became, I almost see it as, it's that be careful what you wish for.

Because when I achieved it, I realized, I looked around and said, this is, no, it's not the path for me. I feel like I lost myself on that path. So I made the decision literally on my 40th birthday to step out of corporate and really try and find to discover and explore who I was. I lost myself at that point in time.

I didn't know what else I could do. I didn't know what my strengths were. I, or at least I felt I didn't know what they were without that corporate title and umbrella behind me. So I stepped out of the corporate world at 40, started my own business, knowing absolutely nothing and believing what the internet told me, that it was super easy to pick up a laptop and start a business. At the end of the day, I failed. I failed to put myself out there. I failed to be visible. I failed to be seen or heard, which as an entrepreneur, you need to be seen heard in order to be found and hired. And so after about two and a half years, I said to my husband, I said, something's not working. This is becoming way too hard and I wasn't seeing the success that I had wanted, so I returned to corporate with a lot of guilt, a lot of shame, and not a whole lot of confidence left in myself. But it was that failure in the return to corporate that actually was the catalyst to where I am today. Because I got back in this environment and I saw different challenges that women in corporate were having. And I thought I don't have those challenges anymore. Why? Oh, because I worked with a lot of different women entrepreneurs who are service providers.

And I had these great support systems now that I never had before. I had this idea let's connect these career and business challenges that exist in my community and I figured, around the world to the solution providers and entrepreneurs in my community. So I got the courage and I learned how to create and then I pitched and ended up producing and hosting a TV show locally for three seasons where I had to obviously get over my visibility fears. Any fear I had of the camera I had to get over because I was looking into one a couple of times a month, and that just created, once I got over that visibility fear, that is my biggest sense of fulfillment, is being able to have that transformation. And then that's what I feel called to do right now, and the passion I have is to make that visibility journey easier for other female entrepreneurs. Because I do not want them to face the same fate. I don't want them to think that it's so challenging to be visible that they end up failing in their business or not succeeding or not feeling as if they're worthy of the success that they dream of. So that's that corporate in and out. It's very illogical.

It's very different, but I, at the point now, after lots of years of reflection of really being so grateful. Grateful of that journey of taking the risks on myself, of really pushing myself outside of the comfort zone and doing things differently at the end of the day.

Nigel Rawlins: I think that's an amazing story. So I want to go back a little bit where you said you felt that you failed in your business and then you went back into corporate, but you found your life in the corporate life very different because of that experience. And the danger, I think, when we use the word failure today it's, it's something terrible.

The other interesting thing, it was that age group, you said you were about 38 when you decided, no, that's not what you want to continue to do. And you want to get out and explore the world. Now, I think that's what happens at about that age and probably younger nowadays, you can head in the corporate world, be in a management position and a very well paid position.

But, if the energy is not there, you've got to get out. So that's really quite interesting because I think that two and a half years, probably, Created a whole lot of

thinking and knowledge and experience that you then used. So let's think about that. So how did you then decide you could then leave corporate again

and do this?

Danielle Joworski: So when I returned to corporate after that first business, I was on a contract. It's interesting because there was lots of opportunities for me to be be a full time permanent position and get into those roles. And I always turned them down. I always said no. In the back of my mind, it was always, I didn't want to handcuff myself into a permanent position because then it would be too easy to stay. And I knew that I didn't want to stay in that world for too long. I just didn't know what to do. I needed to go and just reset. I needed to go and generate some income again for myself. And then that's when this idea for the show came. And for me, it just became at the end of my contract, I made that choice to not extend it. And I stepped out into the entrepreneurial world a second time. But I vowed to myself that I would do things differently. I made a commitment to myself that I would identify all the things that maybe I didn't do so great or I didn't do right the first time. And then do things differently so that I could avoid the same mistakes and I would not have the same outcome.

Nigel Rawlins: That's actually very brave when you think about it.

Danielle Joworski: Thank you.

Nigel Rawlins: The first time you were very brave to go out and realise what you didn't know, go back into corporate, earn some income again, and then come out and realize again, I wouldn't call that a fail, that first one a failure. I think it was a great learning experience, probably a costly one because, and I guess that's what happened with me too when I quit my teaching over probably nearly 26, 27 years ago to go out into business with no idea what I was doing or what I was going to do, which was even crazier.

What things do you think you had to learn when you came out? For example, anyone coming out of corporate who wants to start their own business. What do they need to learn, do you think?

Danielle Joworski: Some of the strategies of my biggest learnings were one, get a community around my, get a community around myself where it's people who have been where I want to go, who can help me. And then point number two is ask for help. I had to incorporate, coming out of corporate the first time, asking for help.

That was not something I did. In that corporate world, asking for help was a sign of weakness. As a leader, it became, Ooh, she doesn't know everything. As an entrepreneur, we never know anything. It was becoming comfortable, not knowing everything, and then being vulnerable to ask others for help. And the third thing was learning how to give myself a lot of grace. And understanding that, yep, things didn't work out the first time, we're going to do things differently, and then to give myself a lot of grace as I continue to learn. There was quite a few years in between business number one and business number two, and technology had changed. between that. This is number one, but we really didn't talk on zoom or even have platforms like what we're using today. By the time business number two came along, technology came a lot of a long way. So there was a lot of different challenges that I had to face that I had to ask for help. So it was just, getting help right away. Literally I, my last day in corporate that second time was on a Friday. On the Monday, I was already enrolled in an entrepreneurial program at a local university for women entrepreneurs. Because again, I wanted to get surrounded, surrounding myself with the people who could help me, surrounding myself with other entrepreneurs that I could learn from, and I could also help as well. Creating that community, asking for help, seeing it as a strength, not as a weakness this time and then giving myself the grace for when things didn't go so great.

If I wasn't growing my business as fast as, I, you imagine and you really want, it's okay. And reflecting on what are the learnings? What can I do differently? Do I need to get more clarity on my goal? If I needed to change paths and pivot, absolutely giving myself grace for that. But having the courage to really, at the end of the day, grow my business the way it feels really good to me and become more visible and do it in ways that feel really good to me too.

Nigel Rawlins: Okay, let's just have a little talk about that. You found an entrepreneurial course that was available at the time. What was the cohort like? And was the learning that you got there practical? And have you kept in contact with some of those people as your community?

Danielle Joworski: Lots of yeses to those questions. So yes, absolutely have gotten, it's

interesting because at the time you're coming together with all of these different strangers and you never know who you're going to connect with. And people from my cohort, the instructors were fantastic. They were all female entrepreneurs. Again, my cohort were female entrepreneurs and we were all from different businesses, which I thought was really interesting because it means that we were serving a lot of different people. You're getting a lot of different perspectives when we were having group conversations. We were also from a lot of different stages of business. I was restarting from almost ground zero and others were a few years into their business. Others were like me, just starting out and having this idea.

And it was just interesting being able to connect with people at different stages and doing different things to learn and have different perspectives and then just be able to connect.

So that's been a number of years. I've stayed connected with quite a few of them. Some of them have actually become clients as well. So it's for, so for me, that learning, and taking the initiative to, to sign up for that program and become a part of that cohort, that was something that was instrumental for me to be where I am today.

Nigel Rawlins: Actually, that's really quite an interesting thought. That, women, I guess if they're going to do this, should have a look out for those courses. Now, it was specifically aimed at women entrepreneurs, wasn't it? How did that feel? If there were men in there, would it have changed it, do you think?

Danielle Joworski: I think it just would have changed the the vibe of the group, but I think the content still would have been the same. The conversations might have been a little bit different but for me, just that was what is available. That's what called to me. I felt very comfortable being in the group with other women entrepreneurs. I've done programs where men are part of the cohorts as well, and I've enjoyed those as well. It's just when I came out and wanted to start my business again, I knew I wanted to focus on women entrepreneurs. And so when this opportunity came up to be a part of this cohort, it just seemed like a really natural alignment.

Nigel Rawlins: That's why I like working with women. I find them so smart savvy, and I'm a support role. In my marketing services business, I look after the website stuff and can advise about writing and whether it's appropriate and do all the SEO and that I'm just so amazed at their ability, but I think you're dead right about the visibility thing.

And I think that's one thing that we have to deal with. All right. What was I going to say in that way? So what do you think? In terms of somebody coming out let me rephrase that a bit. I'm just going to say I think the big issue that I'm finding through the podcast, when I talk to a lot of very capable, intelligent women, and some of them just amaze me at the amount of energy and the things that they put out.

For example, one Kate Toon runs four podcasts, written about six books runs an SEO agency. She's only about 50 and she's got a a teenage son now, and she's just bought a bookshop.

Danielle Joworski: Good for her.

Nigel Rawlins: And I'm thinking she's a dynamo. So she's got it and she helps women just like yourself.

You've got out there now and you're getting the message out. What we spoke a little bit about maybe the reluctance for women to come out like that. So what do you think gets in the way of women becoming visible. I know we've got the technology there to do it there. So what's the gap, do you think, that they need to jump over or the bridge to get to the stage?

For example, like you who come across visibly, even though audience can't see Quite a powerful presence.

Danielle Joworski: Thank you. So, I'm going to say based on my own personal experience, it becomes myself and not having this image of myself as that expert. When I was in business the first time it became who's going to, who's going to want to hear what I have to say? And who's going to what if someone doesn't agree with me? I remember very vivid, vividly, I would spend hours recording videos only to delete them off of my phone, or I would actually end up posting them on social media and doing, you can't see my hands right now, but I'm crossing my fingers on both hands. So I would post and I really hoped that nobody saw it. Because for me, it was this, I didn't feel I looked like someone who was an expert. I didn't feel like that I sounded like an expert. And then there is this idea of who's, who even wants to hear what I have to say? Do I actually have a solution that somebody wants to hear? So it was this idea around appearance. And my appearance holding my back. Then there's the fear of blunders and things not going so great. So when I'm speaking, if I stutter, and I do when I get really nervous, I stutter. And, or I use those ums, which when you do a lot of public speaking courses, they really give you a lot of trouble for using those filler words. But there's the blunders that happen, whether it be technology or how we're speaking or freezing, because sometimes my brain moves faster than my mouth or vice versa. And there's the confidence piece where a lot of times I felt I can't step out or I can't do X because I'm not confident yet. Over time, I've learned that confidence is an outcome of taking courageous actions because of a deep rooted burning desire and belief in either who you are, what it is that you want to do, the impact that you can create, or even someone else's belief in you. So really understanding that courage it's an outcome, and understanding that confidence is an outcome. And when I needed to find confidence, when I felt like I didn't have it, looking at all of the experience that I've had, leveraging that, because that's the proof that I've done hard things. That's the proof that I've overcome visibility challenges.

That's the proof that I am able to do things that are way outside my comfort zone. So leveraging that experience to create the confidence that I needed in a moment to do something very particular. So confidence. A lot of times I can't do this because it's confident. I was having a conversation a while ago with a client and she said like I can't do a webinar yet because I'm not confident.

I don't feel confident yet in my ability to do that. And I said, it's not confidence. It says you have to have the courage to do all of these little steps that are required, that are a part of holding a webinar. Holding a webinar is the outcome. And that's the big, beautiful thing that people see that very visual thing. However, there's a lot of these little invisible steps that we have to take in order to actually have a webinar and post it and record it. And it became, it's not the confidence, it's the courage. It's the courage to do all those little things. It's the courage to put yourself out there. It's the courage to stand out and be your unique self.

It's the courage to give your perspective and to be vulnerable. And just at the end of the day to say, I know I'm here to do something bigger than myself. I have to find the courage to push through the fears because somebody needs my solution. Somebody needs my help.

Nigel Rawlins: They definitely do. In that regard, somebody would think, okay, I need to have courage to do that, but where do I start? Where would you suggest?

Danielle Joworski: Making things a lot smaller. A lot of times we think, especially when it comes to visibility or like the example I just gave around the webinar, Oh, I want to do a webinar, but it just looks so big and there's all of these invisible things that happen behind the scenes that until you do it, you don't know that they're there.

And like you having this podcast, there's a whole bunch of technology that your audience listening is not going to know that you had to do. So we get really stuck so, so many times and so often in this is the big goal, but where we are right now is so far away from the end result that it just seems overwhelming.

There's so much unknowns, there's so many risks, and then we just shut down and we continue to hide. So start getting the courage, have a goal that you want to work towards and then break that goal down into small steps. And make those steps as small as you have to make them in order for them to feel manageable, to not feel so scary, where you can use just a little bit of courage instead of a lot of courage.

It's going to all depend again, what your drive is and how big that belief is, how much courage you need to take a step. So to start developing the courage, break things down into small steps. At the end of the day I think of the picture of Hopscotch we have that we play here in Canada, I don't know if you have the same thing where it's basically squares on the ground with numbers and you can throw a rock onto a number and then you're jumping on one leg on all the squares to get from one to ten. To get from the start to your goal or the number one to number ten, you can take every single step and hit every single number from one through ten. Or you can skip. You can skip one number. You can skip three numbers. It all depends. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter. You're still going to get to the same place, whether you take 10 single steps or you take three leaps and a small step. It's understanding what are you comfortable with? What feels good to you right now? And then just having the courage to take that next step. Focusing on taking one step at a time. Learn from that. Apply it and then keep moving to create the momentum.

Nigel Rawlins: That would suggest a coach to help them through that would be very helpful. But the problem I see there, and I guess that's why I don't do any webinars or get on the internet, is I don't know, even though for 25 years I've been running a marketing services company, what would people want to hear from, say, me?

And I would assume that if you're lacking confidence, and you're female, and you're an expert in your field, and you're feeling this, what am I to talk about?

Danielle Joworski: And that's a big fear too. And what are you going to talk about? You talk about just the conversations that you have when you go networking. What questions are people asking you? What are other, coaches or experts in your network in your industry, what are they talking about? But then what's your perspective on that topic? We don't always, we always think that we have to be novel in what we talk about or how we share something or how we're visible. A lot of times though to keep things easy, just look at what other people are saying and then apply your unique perspective to it. Express yourself it through that topic and in a very unique way that is you. So we don't always have to reinvent the wheel, that's a big visibility truth, or myth, is that at the end of the day, you can talk about the same thing over and over again. Because then it actually helps establish you as the expert in X, whatever that topic is. And especially if you're on social media with the algorithms, chances are your audience isn't seeing you do all those 10 posts. So they're only going to catch a couple. So we always think everything has to be novel. No. Repetition is actually how we, it's a powerful way to learn. It's also a powerful way for other people to learn what you do and what you are an expert in.

Nigel Rawlins: You hit that on the nail.

Repetition is everything in marketing. So one of the things that I am seeing out there and with my clients too, for example I've been working with a client for nearly six years now. She's too busy to talk to me this month or last month because she's got a big contract and I just work in the background and I haven't spoken to her for a couple of weeks.

Often you're going to have clients who are experts in their field. They're flat out doing the work. Now, what we're talking about here is actually marketing, and I keep saying in my newsletter I talk about the Eisenhower matrix, the important that's not urgent is your marketing. Where does a busy person find the time to do this and why should they do it?

Danielle Joworski: So why I'll start with that and to market yourself. If you're a business owner, in order to be seen and heard, you have to be found and hired, which means you have to put yourself out there. You have to find a way to market yourself and get in front of your ideal audience. That's the why. If you want to grow your business, if you want to do what you feel called to do, you have to be found.

Which means you have to shine that spotlight on yourself and share what it is that you do. If not, people can't find you and they can't hire you. And just like how, like the how is important. There's so many different ways to be visible, to market yourself right now. And I get this question a lot, and that's where a lot of my clients struggle is.

Everyone else is doing this, but I don't feel great doing that.

My response to them is then don't do it. And it might be this great marketing tool, but is it something that you can adapt to make it more your own? You can adopt certain elements of it, but not everything. Or you can just abandon the, that entire strategy that's working for others, but it's not necessarily vibing with you. My big message when I work with female entrepreneurs is at the end of the day, alignment is huge. How you market yourself, it has to feel good because if it's not feeling good, then you're not going to want to show up. You're not going to want to market yourself because you're not putting yourself like you're not feeling good putting yourself out there, which means you're not going to want to do it. And then when you do, there's an energy. Your audience is going to feel that and then they're not going to be attracted to it. It's actually going to do the opposite effective of marketing. So for me, it becomes understand, how do you want to put yourself out there? That feels really good to you. What does visibility look and feel like to you?

What are you doing? How are you showing up? How are you seeing yourself? How are you hearing yourself speak? And then find different strategies that aligned with that vision. And then again, you can adopt something, parts of it, adapt elements or just abandon strategies when they don't feel good. They might have felt really good when you started them, but then over time your business and yourself, you grow and evolve and they no longer feel good. You have the ability to abandon that and try something different and really explore what feels good.

Nigel Rawlins: Yep, that is exactly right. That's what they've got to do. But they've also got to make the time to do As I said luckily, some of my clients have got me working the background, keeping an eye on things. But social media actually putting posts out. For example, I post to Twitter.

Facebook automatic. I do a lot of automatic postings but you've still got to come up with the content to put stuff out there. Now, I signed up for a Twitter program the other day and it wants me to put out five times a day and I'm struggling keep up with this stuff. But you can automate lot of these things, but they still need the time put together what are they going to say.

And as I said, a lot of clients and probably a lot of your clients get word of mouth work. Or they have their regulars on retainers, for example, all mine are on retainer. So I've been working with some of mine for 15 years which is incredible. Some people get work automatically.

They're the expert, they get asked to quote or something, and then they get the job. So they're continuously working. So they feel that maybe they don't need to do the marketing. But I keep saying with this Eisenhower, the important that's not urgent is that you need to set the time aside and work this out.

You can't always be working. You've got to be, oh, running the other parts of the business. Again, Should they make time for this? What are your thoughts on it?

Danielle Joworski: Oh, yeah, because there's only so much time and I don't necessarily believe in time management. I believe in activity management. So you can manage your activities because at the end of the day

time is time. And it see, as I get older, it just seems to fly so much more. So it becomes really somewhat understanding what at the end of the day, what is your business goal?

What is that vision that you're working towards? What does that look like? Where are your strengths and your gifts? Especially if you're a business owner, I'm all about focusing on you being that visible CEO. You're the visionary. And so what does that entail? And then if you can, what are things that you can delegate to others like yourselves, your clients delegating certain work to

you? What are your must do's that you love to do that you do not want to get rid of? And then what are your boundaries around things as well? So for social media, again, it's this, There's the pros and cons of social media, but we are in that digital online world right now. So for me, it becomes just start small and pick one. I call it the rule of one. What is one thing you can do every day to get one step closer, 1 percent better to achieving your goal. So if you need to be on social media for your business, pick one platform. And then is there systems that you can use? Is there automation that you can use to take your time out of it? But understanding what do you really love to do? What is your brilliance? What are other things that have to happen in order for your business to run? Can you delegate them or do they even really need to be done? Or can you not do them short term, long term? But at the end of the day, it's all about someone has to have really good clarity around their business, how everything operates. How much time do they want to invest in being visible in certain strategies? Because there may not be a return on investment. So it's studying your data, settling your analytics and then making the decisions. And sometimes it may not make any sense to be putting time into a certain activity.

And other times you may look at your data and say, Oh, it really does make sense for me to be putting more time into marketing, but I just don't have it. Okay. But when you have the data, you can then make much more clear decisions on where to spend your time and where the things that, again, you can delegate or you can just stop doing.

Nigel Rawlins: I think that is so spot on. It's not about time management. It is a strategic decision, but you've got to have some sense of strategy and thinking. So really, now we're talking about how you actually run a business. You have to do the work to earn your money. But, for some of my clients, look, I've just rebuilt a big website for one of my construction companies I work with, believe it or not. They do fairly big jobs. They don't need that many clients. The website that I do for them and do all the writing on it for them. It's only just an, a backup because word of mouth is where and they repeat customers cause they, they build big multi story apartments in the snow and they're experts at being able to get in there when it's warm and get the thing done.

So they're continuously busy. They don't need that many clients. They still need a website, but they just need it managed. But one of the things you mentioned there was outsourcing or delegating.

How important is that?

Danielle Joworski: I think it's really extremely important, especially as you're growing a business. And I was reading this book called Rocket Fuel, and it talks about how these companies that are growing and scaling, you've got the CEO who is visionary. In order to be in that visionary role, where they're thinking of these great ideas, how are we going to grow?

And then they're that very visible face of their business. You have to have this like this person in behind the scenes almost as if it's the engine to the sports car that's making it run. And the CEO is the sports car. And the COO is the engine. And they're called, it's the visionary, the CEO, and then the integrator. So for me it becomes like understanding what is your role? Do you have to delegate? Yes, over time. If you really want to grow and scale to a certain level, again, going back to having a very crystal clear goal. What is your goal for your business? How big do you want to grow? How fast do you want to grow?

Because we can, in some cases, control a lot of those variables. The understanding you can only grow so, so big and so far and so fast by yourself. And understanding what are your strengths. And do you want to continue to be the CEO? I know of a female entrepreneur. So she was, she's obviously the CEO, but she hired an external CEO and she brought in someone else to be the CEO of her business because she realized that wasn't her strength. But it's still her company. So delegating, I think it's really important for you to understand what your strengths are. What do you love to do? Where is your brilliance? What comes really easy to you? And then start delegating as you want to grow. Again, having a crystal clear vision. Delegating activities because you can't do everything You know, at the end of the day, you can't do everything.

If you want to sleep, if you want to have a life, if you want to spend time with the people that you really care about, and actually be present with them, even from a self care perspective, you have to manage your activities. So that you have the time to be where you want to be. So delegating, absolutely.

But I think you need to be clear on what's that business goal? What are your strengths? What do you love to do? What are the things you really don't want to do? And then start finding people that you know and trust to take on those elements of your business so that you have the time and the space to create the freedom to focus on where and how you grow your business and also be with the people that you want to spend your time and your life with.

Nigel Rawlins: You're spot on. We do that already. If you've got an accountant, you've got a bookkeeper, you've got somebody who mows your lawns, we're delegating all the time. I would suggest probably the first one is, for a small. Independent sort of professionals, maybe they'd get a VA or, depending on their turnover too, because, it can get a bit expensive when you're outsourcing.

All right, let's talk about your business now a bit more. You do quite a few things. So there's two sides to do the things that you do, but you also run a business. Obviously, when we're talking about visibility, you're making yourself visible. Tell me about your business. So first of all what are the things you do and can offer? And then we'll talk about some other bits.

Danielle Joworski: Absolutely. So one thing that I'm doing is, and I've been very open in and sharing my own business journey, where I got to the end of 2023 and I realized that my business wasn't giving me joy anymore. This beautiful business that I created and I grew and I was successful.

I met my metrics for success. I was no longer getting as much joy out of it as I wanted to. So in 2024, I switched things up a little bit where I used to do coaching. I used to have a coaching program that I delivered and that was really the most thing that I did. Now I'm going back to my roots and my true passion, which came from the TV show. And I'm really focusing on local entrepreneurs. So running workshops, collaborating with other entrepreneurs and really highlighting them. And allowing them to be visible. So that's something I'm working on now, but I'm also doing a lot of fractional COO work for small business owners who they're stuck in the weeds and they can't grow their business because they're doing all the day to day things. My background in corporate was compliance, operations, processes, training, so I get to use all of those very analytical skill sets to help other people to be the engine for their business, that they can be out there as a very visible CEO. So that's what I'm focusing on right now.

Nigel Rawlins: Let's just talk about the C O O. What does that mean? Now the interesting thing is you mentioned operational. I think that's really important, because, if you're a one person business, you do need to step back and look at the operational side of it. So talk to me about what a C O is.

danielle-joworski_1_07-17-2024_191022: COO. So a fractional COO is something that is becoming more popular, at least here in Canada. And so the fractional chief Operations Officer, where you're taking a lot of the Day-to-Day work off of the plate of the CEO, so that they can focus on sales conversations, they can focus on being more visible, coming on podcasts and networking and closing the bigger deals.

So from an operations perspective, it really varies depending on the business and the stage that they're in. I've created lead magnets and workbooks, presentations webinars done some reconciliations and some invoicing. So it really varies, which I love. I love variety and I love being that invisible engine behind other people.

So they can be more visible at the end of the day. So it's all those day to day activities that are keeping entrepreneurs hiding or stuck in the weeds that allows them to just, again, have that freedom to really focus on those growth activities for the business.

Nigel Rawlins: That's a business a lot of independent professionals who've had corporate experience can be running, in any country that they're in, who's listening to this. When you say fractional, what does that mean?

Danielle Joworski: It means part time and really all depending on however many hours the business needs. One client is 15 hours a week, another client is 10 hours a month. So it's really understanding what are the needs of the client. And then I'm How can I best support and serve them?

Nigel Rawlins: That's perfect isn't it? An independent professional, you only need, what, four or five of those, and, as long as you've got more than one that's quite a viable business, isn't it? Alright stepping back how do you organize your whole business, because the way I look at a business is you've obviously got to get revenue by doing something, by offering your services, but you've got to do your marketing, you've got to run the business, hopefully, it's profitable.

How are you the COO of your own business? Okay.

danielle-joworski_1_07-17-2024_191022: Like we've talked about delegating. So I delegate out those activities that I do not find joy doing those things. Like my bookkeeping, my accounting, I have someone else doing that. I have at different periods of time over my business, I've had someone else doing my social media, but I've always taken it back.

I actually like creating my posts. I like being that voice For me, that's very important. I put a lot of time and effort into developing my voice, and again, that courage to share my voice. I've always taken my social media back for myself as well. But, there's always this big pressure to scale to whatever that number is or whatever that audience growth is. But I'm actually lucky where I, most of my clients come from repeat or referrals. I have a very loyal client base, so I just get to, I just get to be, so I don't have to focus too much time and energy on a lot of activities like I still need to do marketing. So I have a strategy for that. I have a mastermind group that I'm a part of where I can bounce ideas off of, so I don't necessarily have to hire someone to do my marketing. I do my own PR and I have systems set up for that. I also do a lot of asking. Again, going back to when I stepped into business a second time, one of the things I learned was ask for help. When I have conversations with people, I always ask them, how can I help you? Is there something that you need in your business? How can I help? Can I make a connection? Which when I ask for the help, it typically becomes reciprocated. So someone will ask me, how can I help you? And it becomes can you connect me to someone who can help me with X, Y, or Z? And that's how I find that I've been able to work smarter, I've been able to work faster and manage a lot of the activities in my business without the overwhelm.

Nigel Rawlins: Now that's an interesting thing I've just thought of. Do you think women are more confident in asking other women for help? Because as a bloke, I probably don't ask anyone. I try and, I just try and figure it out or I'll buy a course and go nuts with 20 trying to get through them. What do you think?

danielle-joworski_1_07-17-2024_191022: Speaking of her experience, again, my background was I wouldn't ask for help. I've since learned from help and I learned to ask for help more because of really watching other female entrepreneurs who were very generous with wanting to help. It just makes me want to help as well. I had to learn, so I had to learn that skill set so it didn't come naturally to me.

Nigel Rawlins: And I guess there's some point where you need to pay for it too. For example, IT support. I'd pay for somebody to clean up all the wires on my desk. I put a picture the other day. There's wires hanging off everywhere. It's reasonably neat, but there's lots of wires. I would pay somebody to come in and sort that out and really neaten it up for me.

So there is a point where it's nice to ask, but there's a point where you can't go past where you need to pay for it, isn't there, I think.

Danielle Joworski: Absolutely. Yes. And I think. that's where a lot of entrepreneurs and, maybe your experiences is different than mine, but I find a lot of times the entrepreneurs, especially when you're working with other entrepreneurs, it becomes we're so great at helping, but then all of a sudden, what's that tipping point where you have to stop and say the next time there needs to be a conversation about payment. And for me it's that shifting where, and this is where I struggled, especially in business. The first time it was, you just want to help and becomes, Oh, that, that money conversation could be really challenging. Cause I think definitely there's a money mindset sometimes in some money limitations around doing things that we love to do and serving others and things that just come naturally to us. We don't necessarily attach a value to it or we have a hard time shifting from the volunteering to then charging for a service. So I think that there's definitely some barriers and some limitations sometimes, but definitely like over time, just, yeah, it becomes, I want to pay you. I want to pay you.

And then the other person says no.

Okay. So I'm sending you a gift card that, or I'm sending you flowers, but I feel like there has to be some sort of exchange of energy in some way.

When you are, when you're helping and then when you're serving and whether you're charging or not charging, but at the end of the day, we can't have hobby businesses that are super expensive, If we're not charging people for for our services.

Nigel Rawlins: I think that's the line there. Whereas you end up becoming a hobby business and you can't pay for the toys and things and the technology and all the things you want. Okay, so tell me, who would you like to work with?

Danielle Joworski: So I love to work with female entrepreneurs who are over 40 and starting their businesses, either at that idea stage or they're up to five years, who have that clear goal that they know what they want to do. They just need help overcoming those visibility fears, the doubts, the worries, the fear of the blunders, thinking it's confidence when it's courage.

Like those women who just, they know they're here to create some bigger impact. They're just struggling to feel comfortable and confident putting themselves out there and allowing that spotlight to shine on them.

Nigel Rawlins: And this can be across the world, can't it?

Now so working with you, what does it involve? When somebody contacts you and said, look, I'm one of these people I'm in this situation, how do you start with them?

Danielle Joworski: Starts with a conversation. And I don't call them interviews, I don't call them discovery calls, nothing like that. It's just a conversation at the end of the day. It's understanding what is your business? What are you passionate about? What is your biggest challenge right now? And can I help you through my very diverse skillset? And if not, it becomes, can I refer you to somebody else who's more suited or who's a better solution for you?

Nigel Rawlins: That is fantastic. Now that is so helpful in that regard. Okay, do you want to talk about a couple of practical things that they might like to try and then we'll talk about how you'd like to connect with them and your newsletter because in your newsletter you had an offer there as well, didn't you, I think.

Danielle Joworski: I did Yes. Yes. Yeah. So in the newsletter, it's just, if you go to my website, you sign up for my newsletter, you get a visibility audit. So it's really understanding and helping you to gain clarity of how visible are you. So often we think to be visible, it's all these big, bold activities and strategies such as coming on and recording a podcast or doing a webinar, but there's so many small, tangible actions that we could be taking, and I call them baby steps, that are just as powerful from a visibility perspective. An example is having a call to action in your email signature. What do you want people when they receive an email from you and they get down to your email signature?

What do you want them to do? Is it a booking link to book a conversation with you? Is it a link to go to connect with you on social media? There's so many little things that we can do to be more visible in our business that often they're so small we don't think of them, but they're really powerful.

So that's in the the visibility audit. That's a part of when you sign up for my newsletter.

Nigel Rawlins: That sounds like a very generous offer. I would recommend that highly. All right. Thank you very much. How would you like people to connect with you?

Danielle Joworski: The best way to connect with me is on social media. I'm on LinkedIn and Instagram. And if you like what I'm sharing on those platforms, you could always DM me as well. Again, I, like I said here, I do my own social media. So if you do DM me and have any questions, you will be getting me responding to you.

Nigel Rawlins: That's fantastic. Danielle, thank you very much for being on the podcast. You've been a wonderful guest, you've given us lots and lots of stuff. So thank you for that.

Danielle Joworski: Thank you Nigel for this opportunity and for making the conversation easy.​