The Power of Building a Niche Brand That's Unapologetically You

What if the biggest key to business success wasn't working harder...but having more fun and being more authentic?

In this episode of The Mompreneur Collective, I sit down with Victoria Racca, Owner of The MicroBlading Institute, Brow Sister Numbing Cream, and My Favorite Piercer Jewelry Line to talk about what it really looks like to build a bold, successful business that stays true to your "why" every step of the way.✨

We dive into why choosing a niche could be the most powerful decision you make in your business, how showing up authentically attracts the right clients, and why trying to sound like everyone else online can actually hold you back. 

As moms and entrepreneurs, we also talk about the importance of designing your business around your life and your family. After all they're often the reason we start this journey in the first place right? Your business should support your life and not become the thing that steals you away from it. 💛

Here's what we chat about:

• Why niching down can skyrocket your growth
• How authenticity in business builds trust and attracts your ideal clients
• How creating an ideal client avatar and speaking directly to them in your messaging is everything 
• The importance of replicable systems and process to help you juggle it all 
• Designing your business on your own terms
• Why remembering your "why" matters more than ever as your business grows 
• The connections between your confidence level, imposter syndrome, and relying to heavily on AI tools 
• Why the right partner and support system at home plays a huge role in entrepreneurial success

If you've ever felt the pressure to be everything to everyone in your business, this episode will remind you that the real power comes from building a business that truly reflects who you are. 

Because at the end of the day, the goal should be to build your dream business...not your nightmare.✨

Victorias Links:

VictoriaGlam.com/Links

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Thank you for listening. Your support means the world to me.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Hey mama, welcome to the Mom Preneur Collective. I'm your host and certified life coach, Jamie Smith, and each episode I have honest conversations with incredible moms about all the highs and lows of what it really looks like to be both a mom and an entrepreneur. Whether you're just starting out or you're already deep in the trenches, this show is for you because it's filled with inspiration, wisdom that we can apply in our everyday lives and businesses, and just relatable stuff. Because you know, sometimes it's just nice to know we're not alone. Today our guest is Victoria Raka. She's the owner of the Microblading Institute and Laser Center in Lafayette, Louisiana. She's also the owner of Brow Sisters Numbing Cream and my favorite Piercer Jewelry Line. She's doing big things, y'all. I'm really excited to chat with her today about her incredibly niche business that's super successful while staying unapologetically true to her authenticity every step of the way. Not just in person, but also on social media, which I think is really cool. So let's welcome her onto the show. Hi Victoria, welcome to the Mompreneur Collective. I'm super excited to have you here.

SPEAKER_01 1:16

Thank you. I'm super excited to be here. Very full circle, very full circle to come on your podcast, having you had been on mine. Yes. It's nice to make it to the purple room, the purple chair.

SPEAKER_00 1:27

I love it. I love it. And yes, I was gonna say the same thing, you know, as I was preparing for you to show up today. I was like, wow, wait a second. What a full circle moment. Because I was on Victoria's podcast, which I started to look up because I was like, of course I want to make sure to shout it out on today's episode, but then I couldn't find it. So tell us about that.

SPEAKER_01 1:46

So the cats out of the bag. Uh yeah, I stopped doing my podcasts, I don't know, sometime over the last year. It kind of just petered out. I got really busy with moving parts in the business. I um added on two new services in my business and getting really busy with that, I simply didn't have time for coaching. Um, and it was dwindling down. So I started, I've coached hundreds of businesses. I've coached all through the United States, I've coached people in Canada, I have coached people in Australia, I've coached people in the UK. I still go there every 18 months. Um, I've coached people all over the place. And I loved coaching. I did, but there's a time and a season for everything. So by the end of it, I was saying I only have time to take like three per quarter. I can take three coaching students per quarter. At one point I was doing 50 a month. Wow. And it was the main piece of my business. I've walked away from that because the rest of my business has picked up and grown so much, as it should, right? If I'm worth being a coach, then I should run a successful business. So um at some point I was like, I don't, I just don't have time for coaching. And um, I never did finish that book. It's like halfway done, my coaching book. So I thought, well, what am I doing the podcast for? Because, you know, it's if it's not sponsored, it's not paying you anything. And it is a lot of work. It's a full-time job to to record, to edit, to post, to promote, and then also to research your guests, have them on, get them on, and then again, record, edit, you know, it's a whole thing. So um it just didn't make sense for my business at this time. I'm not saying that I'll never podcast again because I've been on, I don't know, 70 podcasts. I like podcasting. I like talking. I'm a chatter. But um at the moment I simply don't have time for it.

SPEAKER_00 3:25

Yeah. Well, I think what I want to speak to is that she made a very intentional decision to pivot away from the podcast so that she could um, you know, delegate her energy and her time elsewhere to areas of her business that needed her time and her energy more, quite frankly, and that were going to produce more of an income. So it's like, what are the activities that you're spending most of your time on in your business? And are those activities that are money-making activities? And so kudos to you for making a really smart bus decision. Well, you know, mind the business that pays you.

SPEAKER_02 4:00

Yeah, that's all I do.

SPEAKER_00 4:02

Well, I I I really just want to this is where I really want to dive in because I'm really excited to talk about this. Your business is so incredibly feminine and bold and pink all over. And so just share about how you made the decision to go that route and to have such a very niched down lane for yourself in that aspect. Because some people can really worry or be concerned. I've I myself, as a coach, have had many of those conversations where people are afraid to really niche down and and to limit themselves, quote, limit themselves in some aspect. So just another kudos to you because I think it's fantastic. Um, but I want you to share about that.

SPEAKER_01 4:47

You know what it is? It's selfish. I thought of what I would want in a business, and I wanted more clients like myself because we would vibe really well, right? Like you people who flock together, hang out together, they're gonna vibe well together, even in your business space intentionally. And um, the people that it repels, great, I don't want them in my space. Um, people who are going to be bargain shoppers or people who um don't like like my personality, we're not going to vibe well, those people are gonna cause me a problem in a service industry. Um, I don't want to feel like I'm walking on eggshells in my own space. So I just made it hyper who I actually am. And if you like that, then you already like me. So the hard part is done. And with anybody who walks through the door, you know, even unless they're having like an incredibly bad day and they're just out to kick a dog somewhere, um, they're generally gonna have a wonderful experience in my business because what they're attracted to is actually me. So um it's very even though we haven't met each other yet, it's like, oh, we already have sussed out that we like each other. So it was very easy. I if there's somebody who my branding repels, that was the point. That was the point. Like I don't want men in my space. So I made everything hyper pink. I want fun girls in my space. Listen, I've said this on more podcasts than I care to count, but I will say it again. I'll probably say it on stage, I will say it at the pearly gates when I'm interviewed about whether or not I can come in. I love it. I if I had to work in like a med spa with sage green walls, cucumber water, and edge shearing on repeat. Look, I'd kill myself. I can't. I can't. I need a little bit of crazy in my day. I need more upbeat than that, and I need to feel really comfortable with like the cheese made, with the gossip. Like that's why I have an open concept salon. I built it. I well, my husband built it. I could have put dividers if I wanted to. I could have made private suites if I wanted to. I have three suites in the back, they're booth rinners. But in the front room where I work, I want to hear all that. I want to hear all that. Tell me everything. What do you mean? She did what? Who did she leave for? Who was he cheating with? He has how many babies? I want to know. And um, that carries off not even just into my branding itself, but also into our social media and the way that I actually represent the business itself. So you'll see lots of shock reactions or like we'll put music over it and the video is muted. But the faces are like, and you want to know what we're talking about, and you do want to know what we're talking about. Often it's very good tea. But um, yeah, it's just a very like young, youthful, bright, fun, pink, feminine, girly branding because that's who we wanted to attract through the door. And if you focus on that individual, anything ancillary falls off, and you don't have to worry about it because there's nowhere else where men are not welcome to come and get pierced, where women and their daughters want to come and get pierced or get their first tattoo or come and get their permanent makeup, or they bring their mom to get their permanent makeup. We are so hyper-focused on the feminine, we can't lose. Nobody else has that. Everybody else is generic and bland. When you're talking to nobody, you're connecting with nobody. Or I guess they say when you're talking to everyone, you connect with no one, right? That's how they say it.

SPEAKER_00 7:55

Yeah. Good stuff. So much good stuff that you just said there, Victoria. I'm like, how I'm like, what do I spotlight in what you just said? Because there's literally so much goodness that I really want our listeners to take away from it. Um, so just my first question is this what would you say to someone who is like just in that place of being fearful that they are going to somehow limit their business growth by niching down? And I think in in many ways, you just really explained that. Yeah. But to someone that wants that direct answer right now, and and I want you to almost just kind of prove prove wrong that that that's not even a fear that should exist.

SPEAKER_01 8:35

First of all, everyone's not coming to you. Everybody's not interested in your business, period. So um, if you're not showing up as your authentic self, if you're not actually connecting with anyone, then you're talking to no one anyway. You're sending to an empty room every time you post online. That's why you have six views on your whatever, because no one's connecting with it and nobody cares. So the first thing that you need to do is figure out who it is you're talking to. For me, that was someone like me. I actually had two ideal audiences because at the time I had two businesses when I was building my brand. Now I have way more than that, which is why I'm so busy. But per business, not per service, per business, you should figure out who it is that you're speaking to. And if it's I want the answer right now, I want to figure this out immediately. I want you to sit down and I want you to think of your favorite client. What is her name? Or she can be an amalgam of all of your favorite clients. Fine, give her a fictitious name. But then I want you to think of every single thing that you know about her. How old is she? What does she do for work? Or what did she do for work if she's retired? Um, how many kids does she have? Is she married? What's her income like? What's her disposable income like? What are her favorite colors? If she's a real person, go and see who she follows on the internet. What brands does she like? What makeup does she like? Um, what celebrities does she follow? Does she follow celebrities? Is she into authors? Is she really political? Um, I recommend staying away from that right now. Hot climate. But if that's, you know, part of at the core of who you're you're going for, I don't know. If people have different kinds of businesses, if that's at the core of who you are gunning for, go and find out all of those pieces of information. And then every time you sit down to figure out what I'm gonna post today or how to advertise this service or whatever it may be, I want you to think that you're talking to her. So there's a specific way, it's very different how I would talk to Jamie versus how I would talk to Jamie's mother, let's say, who I've never met. So Jamie, I might be like, bitch, let me tell you something. Jamie's mother, I would never say that to. So when you're speaking specifically to the person you want to walk through that door over and over again, you just can't get enough of her coming in for your services. That's who I want you to be talking to. And if that's Jamie, bitch, let me tell you, then that's fine. Talk like that. And you will attract more Jamie's. Less Jamie's moms, but who cares? It's Jamie you want through the door. Does that make sense?

unknown 10:49

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 10:50

So much sense. It's called an ideal client profile. If you want to Google it, I'm sure there are a million worksheets that you could download. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 10:57

100% there are. Ideal client avatar, I've heard it called. One of my mentors has, you know, taught me the same thing early on, was just that when you're, you know, typing out the social media posts, like pretend like you're talking to just that one person.

SPEAKER_01 11:11

Stop asking Chat GPT to write your caption. First of all, we know. We know that it's chat GPT. You didn't start randomly popping out three and four paragraphs evenly spaced. Um, the it's not it is for like analogy that chat uses all the time. The M-dash, we know. They say, that's not something or other. That's common sense. That's taking back your power, whatever. That is so common in every single chat GPT response. I can spot a chat GPT paragraph from a mile away and I stop reading because you didn't write it. A robot did, and I don't care. And I guarantee you your audience is not connecting with it. Stop doing that. Oh my god, it drives me nuts. I'm gonna have an aneurysm right now at thinking about it. I mean, my head is throbbing just thinking about how many people think they can crib their way into the hearts of their clients. You can't.

SPEAKER_00 12:03

Oh my gosh. For me, I think what bothers me more about AI, if we're gonna go on that topic real quick, is the pictures. I don't know. I don't know. And I jump on the bandwagon every once in a while with like the funny ones, but it's like when somebody is consistently putting out only AI images, and they're like half cartoons and half person.

SPEAKER_01 12:24

It's not really you. It's not even close. So everything that we're describing right now is inauthenticity. Yes, exactly. No one, no one on the planet connects with inauthenticity. Everybody wants their craving for authenticity because everybody's using Chat GPT, everybody's pretending to be somebody they're not. They're trying to be as bland and generic as possible to attract because they think it will attract as many people as it can. It can't. And when someone shows up as their real self and just says, fuck it, this is what happened, and starts telling you the truth about the business or about where they're going or what they're working on or what happened, people love it. They lap it up, they love connecting. Yes. I get, I'll I'll point it to you like this because I've heard a um, I've heard clients say this a million times to coaching students. They say, Well, people don't really care when I post about my business, but when I post about my personal life, that's when I get all the likes. Yeah, no shit. Because people like you as who you are, but what you're posting is and them not responding is telling you something that's data that says we're not interested, not in your business, not in your service, in this persona that you're using to sell it. So this bland, generic, whatever, no one's connecting with it. That's why no one's liking it, commenting on it, viewing it, saving it. Nobody cares. You have to make it as authentic as those personal posts are.

SPEAKER_00 13:44

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And something that I want to highlight about you specifically, Victoria, is that you do such a good job, you know, coming from the, you know, AI photos conversation. So that like you do such a good job of showing up authentically, not just online and on social media, but also in person. And those two go hand in hand, right? So if I'm connecting with somebody on social media that's got this whole other AI persona going on, and none of their words are ever their own, none of their pictures are ever their own. And then I meet them and connect with them in person, and it's a totally different experience for me of that human being. There's something wrong with that. And you do a good job of being unapologetically you both in person and seen on TV, baby.

SPEAKER_01 14:31

As seen on TV. I think it's got to be exhausting and the imposter, so you're just feeding your imposter syndrome at that point because you can't ever live up to being the computer that you're not. So every time you have Chat GPT write a response for you, every time you ask ChatGPT what the answer is in your business or how to respond to this client, or um, you know, what to say in this post. And then people show up and they expect Chat GPT to come out of your mouth and you can't do it. That is going to feed your imposter syndrome. Listen, when I started out, I had such imposter syndrome and I didn't know the term. It wasn't until someone named it for me that I was like, oh, oh, everyone feels like this. Okay, bet. Well, now that I know that everyone feels this way, I'm all in. I'm going all in. And after that, it was rockets from there. But um, I needed almost like permission to be my authentic self. Once I found out that nobody is actually like feels like who they are, like Drake, the rapper, probably feels like, I'm really more of an actor. I'm probably not a very good rapper. Like, please. Yeah. I feel like once someone told me we're all faking it till we make it, then I was like, oh, bet. Okay, fine. Yeah, we're all in it, in the same boat. But that that chat GPT has got to be just making that 10 times worse. Because you could never be the computer. You could never process that fast. You can never have all the right answers. Nobody has all the right answers, by the way. Sometimes we have to find them. And if you're using Chat GPT to find them, that's fine. But if you use it as a crutch, then you'll just never come into your own. You'll never have full confidence in yourself.

SPEAKER_00 16:01

Right. I believe that so hard. And you're absolutely right with um, you know, going back to what you said about just how you can't like show up as the computer and speak like Chat GPT does in person. I had that exact experience last month. I remember meeting someone, talking to them, and the way that they were speaking and just their delivery was so completely different from everything that I'd seen on social media that it really had me thrown off a little bit. I was just like, wow.

SPEAKER_01 16:28

And what's wild is that it's it's so meta, like it's it's circular thinking, right? Like everything that you're wishing you could do because the computer can, the computer's trying to mimic you. Have you noticed that? When you talk to ChatGPT, it starts to talk back to you in the lingo that it thinks you want from it, like it wants to talk like you. Oh yeah. So I mean, wax on, wax off. What's happening? Yeah, everybody wants to be each other. Just be yourself. Everyone's dying for that. They're craving for you to just be yourself. There's only one Janie in the world, there's only one Victoria in the world. So if you show up as yourself, you're ahead of the game.

SPEAKER_00 17:04

Yeah. So to just go all the way back to where we started in this conversation, real quick, I just want to say that for anyone who's got any sort of fear about niching down in your business or, you know, limiting your business in any way because you want to decide this is the type of person that I want to serve, and this is going to be the only person that I've served, this is actually something that can do quite the opposite for you. It can actually be the thing that skyrockets your business to that next level. Um, and I believe that with everything that I have, and I've seen it be true so, so many times. I'm sure you have as well. So if there is an ideal client that you have in your mind or someone like Victoria said earlier, that you would just have so much fun working with, and you would actually, you know, just genuinely enjoy hanging out with that person while you work. I mean, isn't that the part of the joy of entrepreneurship? We get to design like all of it. We get to choose who we want to work with, how we spend our days, what our, you know, how we spend our time and our energy. It's just amazing. So part of your power, too, as an entrepreneur is getting to choose who the heck you work with, who I work with and what I work on.

SPEAKER_01 18:17

I say that all the time. I, as a business owner, could have so much less stress, so many fewer wrinkles, so much less gray hair to cover. If I just threw on that red shirt and went and worked at Target, I would clock in, I would do my job, I would clock out, I would go home, and I wouldn't think about it twice. When you are the business owner, you carry the rate of weight of the world constantly, all the time. What am I doing all of this for if it's not on my terms? What am I doing all of that for? What am I worrying about? Oh, what's my latest headache? Hazard insurance on a building that costs$10,000 a year plus uh re-amortizing and whatever like that has nothing to do with my job, but it's a hat I have to wear. And it gives me such headache and such stress. What am I doing all of that for if I also have to do things I don't want to do with people I don't want to do things with in a place that I don't want to be? You get to choose all of those things. That's the whole point of building your own business. You have to build your dream, not your nightmare.

unknown 19:15

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 19:17

Really clap, really quiet because we're by the mic. That's good stuff. That's such good stuff. Well, what do you think? I mean, you have so many things going on. So I guess before I go any further, share about all the things that you have going on in your awesome business, and then share how you juggle it all. And what's the hardest part for you in all of it? For somebody that's like, you know, I have this business, but I also have this idea and I have this idea and I want to start this too. How do you make it all work?

SPEAKER_01 19:43

Tell you what my grandpa told me. Darling, you can't ride two horses with one ass. Somebody's gonna have to stay in the barn today. And that is true. That is absolutely true. So if you have 13,000 ideas, execute one and then figure out which systems worked when you executed and apply them to the next thing and do that again and do that again. Make it a replicable system. That is a word you will hear me say a thousand times in coaching. Replicable and systems. Otherwise, you're if you're guessing your way through it, then it's gonna be a whole lot of this, no predictable income, no sales forecasting, nothing reliable. Um, and you're gonna be in the fourth quadrant all the time, always trying to put out the fire in front of you every single day. That is the correct answer. How do I do it? I put out a fire every day. That's not true. Uh no, I've actually figured out my businesses over, you know, I've been in business a decade now, and I've kind of figured out what to, what hazards to watch out for, what happens at this time of year, um, when the slow months are in the beauty businesses or service in based industries, that there's no money in the Jays. January, June, and July are the slowest. And that's because everybody just blew their load on Christmas, or because school let out and now we've got to figure out, because you know I work with moms, uh, we got to figure out child care or little league camp or our summer vacation, and they're not spending money on the other things. Or they're going to the beach, they don't want permanent makeup or a tattoo right now, or nobody, it's not, it's navel season right now because you can't swim for two months. Nobody's getting their navel pierced in July. So you just kind of have to know your industry and settle into it, and you get you find your groove and then you implement your systems. So I own the microblading institute and laser center, where I do permanent makeup. I teach permanent makeup and I do piercings for ladies and girls, and I do tiny tattoos, meaning like handwriting tattoos, heart freckle tattoos, little small things that are like an inch to two inches. Um, I have someone else in the shop who does big body art. I don't do big body art. And I do laser tattoo removal. So my old boss from uh I used to run a boys and girls club. My old boss actually called me a couple weeks ago and he was like, Victoria, I saw your billboard. You're doing tattoo removal now. And I said, Yeah, bought a doctor. So I started doing tattoo removals. And he said, So you put them on. And you take them off. I said, Yeah, you got to get them going and coming. And he said, That is the biggest racket I've ever heard of in my life. I said, I haven't removed any of my own tattoos yet. Don't worry about it.

SPEAKER_00 22:10

Not that one just be.

SPEAKER_01 22:11

And then subsequently, I opened a second business that was supporting the first one. So when I first opened the microplating institute and was educating, um, those students would get a kit in class that had all of the implements you needed to actually do permanent makeup. And that was probably my biggest sort, like the my biggest drain on um on tuitions, right? Is that I was at the mercy of the market. So what other people were charging for products, if that went up, I would either have to go up on tuition or I would lose some of my paycheck, putting into a couple extra hundred dollars now per kit. So um I decided to start making everything that goes in that kit. So I started making my own machines and microblades, and um I got her, I didn't make needles, but I got a really good deal on them with a manufacturer that I could just like buy them at uh wholesale basically. And then I thought, well, why don't I just sell this stuff online too? I have so much of it, especially with the wholesale. So I opened up browsister.com. Well, sorry, I missed a step there. So I named that instead of also the microbladian suit, I named those products brow sister products. And I opened up browsister.com so that people after the class could purchase without having to drive to my shop and need be there because I'm not, I don't live there. And um also people elsewhere could buy them from me because some of my students would say, Oh, I want to try your numbing cream. I have the best numbing cream on the market, barn. Period. Pink cream from Brow Sister is the best numbing cream on the planet. Um, and it sells itself. I have spoken on stages in Prague, in London, uh in Bali, all over the place. And someone, my friend Alice usually will go around with a little tray with a bunch of q-tips and a little drop of pink cream. She'll put just a little bit on your on your lip. And by the end of the the um talk, people will say, And it truly is. Um, so yeah, so I started selling online and that was doing really well. And then this summer I accidentally went viral on TikTok. I have um 60,000 followers on TikTok now, and most of them are Louisiana or women around the country or whatever. And now I am doing pop-ups in New York and in London in June, uh, doing just piercings. And people kept saying, Oh my, there was this one particular piece of jewelry that everybody wanted, this navel ring that's actually a floating jewelry, which go to my TikTok, victoria.glam, if you want to know what that is. And um, it was a bow. So it's a cute little like rhinestone bow on the top of the belly button, and then it floats on the inside. And people kept saying, I wish I had known about that. My piercer told me I couldn't have a belly button ring because I'm heavier or uh because of the way my belly is or whatever. And I think that floater would help me. Where could I get one like that? Where could I get one like that? So now I sell it. So I opened up my own um piercing company. I own the trademarks on all my names. So I own myfavoritepiercer.com, I own the trademark on that, and I sell all of that jewelry on myfavoritepiercer.com, which is a subsidiary of Brow Sister. So um I'm busy, but I still make little league practice. I leave at three o'clock every day, unless I'm doing inventory. This week I did leave one day later than that. But um, I built my business around my family, and you just have to keep people call it your why. I'm sure you've said that a million times in this podcast. Like, bring it back to your why, remember your why. You have to remember why you started all of this and don't stray from that. So I started all of this so that I could be the kind of mom that I want to be, the kind of mom that I had. If you're sick, I'm staying home too. If you have a field trip, count me in. If you are off for the summer, we're going to the pool on Fridays. So I need to be available if I'm going to do all of that. So I build my business hours around my kids' schedule, which coincidentally worked out really well for me. Somebody pointed this out yesterday. She said, that's so great that you get to go home, like when your kids get off the bus, because most tattoo and piercing shops don't open until like noon or one and they're open all night. That's not when my core audience is available. Not your mamas. Not my mama's female. Yeah. I'm sure you see that with your um uh with your dinners or luncheons. A lot of mompreneurs say, I can't come to dinner. I have to cook dinner. 100%. Yeah. So when you said um, what was it last month was going to be a lunch and everyone was like, Oh, I can make this one. That's literally you have to tailor your business around your why. And so that has been incredibly helpful. Yes, I run a million businesses, but I also am a mother first. And um, I might be an overstimulated mother. I might be a mother on pro panelol, pro pra pro pre pro lololol, but I'm there.

SPEAKER_00 26:43

You're showing up, you're doing big, big things. You're doing amazing, sweetie. You're doing so amazing. I mean, you really are impressive. You have so much going on and just so much to, I don't know, so much value to offer people, and it's just really inspiring. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 27:01

I think a lot of people have um found that I'm a little polarizing. So I sound great on this podcast. I sound like I really know what I'm doing and I'm a pleasure to hang out with, but I am a Scorpio first and foremost. So I am very no-frills. I am very just cut and dry. It is what it is. It's a yes or it's a no. There's no in between, there's not much gray area in business decisions. I don't know how there could be. So I'm a little unapologetic about that. We're either gonna do it or we're not gonna do it. So, in coaching, some people would say, Oh, I'm really attracted to that. I like everything that you've built and I don't know how to do it myself. So would you coach me? Absolutely, sure. And then we get into it and they're like, Oh, I can't do that because I can't do it because, or it's too hard for me, or I can't do it. I don't do super well with I can't, or I can't figure out, or I don't know, or maybe, or I will, or kick the can, you know, oh, next time, oh, in a week, oh, in two weeks. I am very much, you have I we sat down and said, we're gonna coach for 12 weeks. We're gonna do at least these three things very tangible. We can check off we did or didn't do them. And if you're gonna sit here at week six and tell me why you still haven't done your homework from week one, I'm going to cancel you and keep all of your money because you're wasting my time and you're wasting your time. And usually that's enough to get people to say, No, no, no, I'll do it, I'll do it. But I um homie don't play. Yeah, not that game, not the wishy-washy. I just don't do wishy-washi.

SPEAKER_00 28:24

I know, I know. Those are the best clients, are the ones that you know are just fully committed. They're all in, they're like, I'm excited for the next session. They're texting you about what they got done. And it's just, yeah, those are that's how you know you have the right client too.

SPEAKER_01 28:39

And yeah, literally. And I will get um problem clients, they have a problem for every solution, and I will continue to throw solutions at you. And that is incredibly frustrating for someone who is committed to losing. So if you want to stay where you're at, don't call me. Amen to that. Amen.

SPEAKER_00 28:56

Oh, well, what do you think? I mean, when it comes to like the the being present, being the present mom part of things, I'm sure that there was a learning curve for you in that when you started your businesses, would you say, a decade ago? Yeah. So, like you're this like confident, you know, sure of yourself woman today that clearly has a good level of balance in your life. You're doing well. When you first started, when you look back, what was maybe the hardest part of that journey, like getting to where you are now with it? Postpartum for sure.

SPEAKER_01 29:33

Postpartum was the hardest part of the journey. Um, just you know, your your emotions are everywhere, your sleep is a mess, you're adjusting to becoming a new person, a mother. Everything looks different after you have kids. Your body, your sleep patterns, your health, your wallet, your lifestyle, the things you're interested in. Everything looks different after you have children. So that in and of itself was an adjustment. Lucky for me, I opened my own business. Um, and then two weeks later found out I was pregnant. So I got to prepare for it a little bit as I was building the business. I didn't have to rebuild it around being a mother. But um that was definitely postpartum was the hardest, most unexpected part of it all, I would say.

SPEAKER_00 30:15

Yeah. In what way?

SPEAKER_01 30:16

Just figuring out like who I was as a business owner, because I was a brand new business owner, and figuring out who I was as a person.

SPEAKER_00 30:23

Yeah, so more like the identity piece of it than also the balancing the time schedule.

SPEAKER_01 30:27

How can I give one hunt, you know, you got two horses, one has to stay in the barn today. Uh neither can. I can't put a baby in the barn today. And my business is brand new, it's a year old. So what am I? I can't walk away from it. I don't have systems in place, I don't have employees in place, which but don't get me started on employees. That's another episode. I will not be hiring anyone. You can be a booth renter. I will not be paying the state to pay you your paycheck. I'm not doing that, I'm not interested. And I don't want to deal with everybody else's problems. I have enough problems. But um, oh, we don't need an episode. I just wrap that was it. That was my feelings on this. That's it. It was just a lot. It was a lot. But I will tell you, and you're gonna regret opening this topic for me because I do not have a satisfactory answer for you. I'm so sorry to tell you this. Uh, my secret weapon in how I balance things as a mother and a business owner is my husband. And not everyone can have an Andrew Rocca. I know that. I have the best GD husband on the freaking planet. I assume he had a really good dad. His dad passed away before we started dating. I assume that I owe all of that because it definitely wasn't his mother. But he lived with his dad, you know, his single dad, this whole time. So it must have been him. I must owe this all to him. But my husband has been the best mother that ever lived. And I'm a really good dad. My husband does all the grocery shopping, he does all the cooking, he does the laundry. Even if I put a load in, I will forget. I have the memory of Dory. My brain is at full capacity. So I will forget to put it in the dryer. He will put it in the dryer and tell me later, I finished your laundry. How did you even know I had something in there? I don't know. He uh builds everything for me, he fixes everything for me, he handles all of the hard bills. So think mortgage, insurance, car notes, et cetera. And I handle all of the soft bills and the investments. So I buy the Airbnbs, I buy their income properties, I pay for vacations, I pay for Little League, I pay for all those things. And we just don't even have to think about it. It runs like a machine, a well-oiled machine. So there's no tension or pushback from the family unit at home. It just runs the way it's supposed to because I have a really, really good partner in life. And not everybody does. The person you marry determines whether or not you will be successful in life. Bar none. Yeah. I know everybody's not that lucky. You know, some people are single moms, and that's a lot harder. It's still navigable, but it's harder. Yeah. It's easier with a partner. 100%. Yeah. A partner who believes in you and works with you. Yeah. Because some people have worse than both of us, they have a partner who is contrarian to everything that they want.

SPEAKER_00 32:56

And gosh, I feel sorry for those people because I, like you, feel very grateful for my husband and feel like he's a huge part of how I'm able to stay sane through all of it.

SPEAKER_01 33:07

Yeah. So I wouldn't own a business if it wasn't for my husband. I give him absolutely 100% of the credit. He built it, he maintains it, he fixes it, he's there in a heartbeat, he handles everything at home. Like I just have to exist. That's it. I live a life of side quests. I'll try it out. Sure. Why not? Let's do it. I have a safety net so I can make all those jumps really fast. Oh gosh.

SPEAKER_00 33:28

Oh my gosh. I love it. Well, Victoria, this has been so amazing. What do you, what do you hope that moms that are listening take away from this conversation, from everything that's been all gold?

SPEAKER_01 33:38

I hope if you are a mom who also runs a business or wants to run a business and you're watching this podcast, that you realize, A, you're not unique. Ever all of us have the same struggles. So you're not alone in those struggles. And B, if I could do it, you could do it. Period. If I could do it, you could do it. If I could figure it out, a dumb stripper from freaking Lafayette, Louisiana, who never did anything else with her life, just one day decided, I think I'll go to Harvard today. You can do it too. There's no reason that you can't. It's like she woke up and said, I think I'll go to Harvard today. That is my life. I just decided I just decided to do it and I did it. Why can't you do it?

SPEAKER_00 34:15

I love it so much. Everything that you just said, too, is such a big part of why this podcast exists, right? To help other Mompreneurs feel like they're not alone. Yeah. And to feel like if she can do it, you can do it. If I can do it, you can do it.

SPEAKER_01 34:27

My friend, um, my friend April Meese was on a podcast and it was being live, it was live on Facebook Live, way back on a group that doesn't even exist anymore. I was um, I had my phone on, I was listening to it while I was driving down Pinhook by that Walmart. I know exactly where I was, and I heard her say the term imposter syndrome. And she started talking about it. And I pulled in and I picked up that phone and I was watching that live. She had my full attention, and that changed everything for me. So you are one podcast episode away from finding out that you are who you think you are.

SPEAKER_00 34:59

Hmm. Yes. So good. So good. All right, y'all. Well, cheers to raising humans and building something meaningful until next time. Until next time. Hey mama, I hope you enjoyed today's episode. If you did, please share it with a friend. It would mean the world to me. And be sure to check out the episode show notes for all the links and resources on how to connect with me or our amazing guest, Victoria Raka, and to learn more about all of her awesome businesses. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you have an amazing day. Bye.