Episode Transcript
[00:00:07] Hi, there. I'm Wendy Hill, and I'm so excited for this first episode of Confessions from the home Office podcast. Welcome, and thank you so much for being here. I need to make my first confession of the podcast. I am so out of my comfort zone, and I am nervous. I am scared, and I know that I will get better with time. So, for years, people have asked me to write a book about my life, my kids, my work. There's always funny stuff going on. I do not have the attention to do that. So here I am, working on a podcast. So I've been working out of my home office for 20 years, almost 20 years. It'll be 20 years in February. That's before working home. Working from home was popular. I have so many stories to tell you about juggling home life, work life, client stories. I will not call anybody out. Industry changes, technology changes, stories about all of my dogs and my two kids that are now in college. There's just really a lot. So my house is always fun, a little bit of chaos. And I'm just glad that. I'm glad that I've been here for all of it. Some episodes will be just me. Today will be just me, and other days, I will have guests because I know you might get tired of just listening to me. So, by the end of this episode, for any of you that are stuck with a career decision or don't feel like you can take the leap to go out on your own because you just don't have everything figured out, you will have a few insights. So you know that most likely you can. So, here we go.
[00:01:30] So, we're gonna wind back to 2004. I was working for a local marketing firm. I had been there for a couple of years, and before that, I had worked for the big agency where I was, like, drinking from a fire hose, learning everything.
[00:01:44] But where I was working then was pretty busy. I was married. I had my son, Austin. He was two at the time. And that kid must have been covered in flypaper. He picked up every germ, every time he went somewhere and someone sneezed or it had a stomach bug or it had a cold the week before, you know, Austin was sick, and it drove me crazy. I felt so bad for him. And daycare was necessary because we were both working, and I was starting to have to navigate specialists and kind of figure out why he was sick. Like, we were seeing infectious, infectious disease and pulmonologists and all these things, and that was stressful. And our parents were all still working at the time. Nobody had retired yet. And we were running out of sick days. And so I looked at all my client work that I had at the agency and thought about meetings and schedules and all that. And I asked my supervisor, I said, can I submit a proposal to work from home two days a week, kind of a hybrid work arrangement. And my plan was that my son would still go to daycare. I might drop him off a little bit later. Cause I wasn't having to drive downtown. And I might be able to pick him up a little bit earlier because he was close to the house, and if he had a bad day or he was really sick, he could rest at home. He was one of those kids that you could put on the couch with a game or the tv, and he would not bother me. So he was good, and he knew what to do to get better. So my supervisor said, sure, you can submit the proposal. But the agency where I worked was owned mainly by men, and most of them were married to women who stayed home with their kids. They didn't work outside the home. And so this hybrid model was really met with some hesitation. So here I am, female, working full time, have a kid, no plans to just to stay home and raise him. But they were very gracious, and they agreed that I could write the proposal and submit it and that they would consider it. So the proposal was awful, and the reason why it was awful is because there was not much research with what I was wanting to do back then. The only thing that was really virtual was either someone who owned their own business and worked out of their house, or it was someone in the Philippines or that, or in India that was a virtual assistant, and they really weren't working from home. But that's. That's really all the research I could find. So I stumbled writing it. I stumbled editing it. I stumbled putting it all together. I submitted it. They eventually approved it, and I started the juggle of working from home and working downtown in the high rise. So here's what happened. I started working from home. Nobody would call me on the days that I was home. They would say, oh, we know you're working from home today, and so we'll just talk to you when you get in the office. And I thought, well, what's different than me being down the hall and you calling me in my office from the art studio or from production or whatever? So I said, let's. Let's get on the phone. Let's talk. There wasn't a lot of video calls back then. Maybe Skype a little bit, but I'm here let's keep things going. So, it was pretty quiet the days that I was home. You know, I got a lot done, got a lot planned, got a lot of stuff submitted to creative, but it was just. It was just really strange. So things kept trucking along. Clients seemed to be okay, and then we did peer reviews, so everybody reviewed people that they worked with, and. And this was. This was a service that we did for our clients. We said they decided to do it for the staff. And right before fourth quarter, the surveys came out, and there were no complaints about me not getting my work done, but there were complaints that I had a special work arrangement. And as far as I knew, no one else had asked for that special work arrangement. So that was really on them. But still, I was kind of like, you know, I'm just trying to make this work with my son, my family, my sanity, keep things going, keep the client relations going. And I thought, you know what? My son's only little once. I'm just gonna keep moving ahead. I'm not gonna sit here and think this isn't working or these people are saying this, or people think that I'm being. Have a special treatment or whatever. So something clicked. I wasn't Madden, but that little voice told me it was time to go, and I was just gonna start my own business.
[00:05:45] So over Christmas break, I told my now ex husband, I'm like, I'm gonna quit when we get back. We were both off the last week of the year. When I get back, I'm turning in my two week notice, and I'm leaving. And he was like, well, what's the plan? I'm like, oh, I don't have a plan, which I always have a plan, but I did not have a plan in this situation. So, are you struggling with marketing? Visit my site, wendyhill.com, and let's figure out how to take marketing off your list of stressors. Whether you're a startup or an established business looking to outsource, I have solutions tailored for you. From kickstarting your marketing efforts to completely outsource services, we'll help you tackle your to do list and reduce your stress. Visit wendyhill.com today. That's Wendy with an I, and let's transform your marketing strategy. I went back after the holidays. I think it was January 3, 2005. I had my letter ready to go with my two weeks notice. I talked to the owner of the agencies, and that's who I was reporting to at the time, and let him know I was out of there in two weeks. He seemed a little caught off guard. But at the same time, I wonder if he was a little relieved that his only hybrid employee was gonna be gone and maybe some of the grumbling would be gone. So over the next two weeks, everything is great. You know, like when you're getting ready to go on vacation and you're counting down and you're passing things on for people to do, and you're like, oh, I'm gonna be home. I'm not gonna have to do any, you know, I'm not gonna have to do this. I'm not gonna have to do that. So the countdown goes on. They take me out to lunch the last day, and after lunch, I went and picked up Austin from daycare. We went home and we just kind of looked at each other, and I thought, hmm, I wonder what I'm going to do. So what did I do? I did not hit the ground running. I watched all six seasons of Sex and the City on dvd, and that took a couple of weeks between juggling, taking care of him and doing things around the house and. And just trying to figure out a little bit about what I was gonna do. But it was fantastic. But really, that was kind of ridiculous that I did that for a couple of weeks. So once the 6th season was over, I decided, no more excuses. It was time to get to work.
[00:07:48] Well, what was I gonna do? Like I said, I had no real plan, but I knew I had skills from the agency and the agency before, and I'd worked in healthcare marketing before. So I started writing down all the things that I knew how to do and all the contacts that I had. I knew I could talk to people and find out what they needed, whether it was overflow work or true freelance work or something. And so, unlike the steady paycheck of having an employer, not knowing where my next check was coming from was scary. But it got me moving because we needed money. We were a two income household. So that was 2005, and at the end of January 2025, I'm going to celebrate 20 years of being a business owner. Did I ever consider taking a full time gig? No, not really. I took a couple of director of marketing jobs that were contract where I would have one big client and then some project clients. And a couple of times I interviewed for some full time jobs because I thought this could be intriguing, or it was a big company, and I thought, well, maybe down the road I could work with them. But never did I get my hopes up or think, I'm going back on a payroll. I'm going back into an office over the years, being able to be home with my kids when they came home. A lot of times I'm still working in the office, but it's been great. I went through a divorce, was able to do that without having to deal with an office, able to go to lunch, friends, family, go to the doctor's appointments, dentist appointments, the vet appointments with all the dogs. So I wouldn't trade it for the world. Are you getting started or restarted with marketing? For your business, visit my site, wendyhill.com, and download the Market Momentum kickstart guide. Inside, you'll discover a step by step roadmap to launch your marketing that delivers results. Don't leave your marketing to chance. Firing off bottle rockets is not great for your budget or for your results. Grab your free market momentum kickstart now and launch your next campaign with confidence. Visit wendyhill.com to learn more. That's Wendy with an eye.
[00:09:43] So now here's where we get into the big things. Let's talk about making that life changing leap into entrepreneurship. If you're thinking about quitting your job and launching your own venture, whether you're just going to do some type of side hustle, some freelancing, or you've got a big business plan of what you're wanting to do, I've got some hard hunting advice for you. Number one, I want you to trust your instincts. When you have that nagging feeling in your gut that refuses to quiet down, it's time to pay attention. Your intuition. I'm reading this because this is an important statement. Your intuition is often your subconscious mind picking up on signals you haven't consciously processed yet. I don't want you to ignore that when you keep hearing it over and over again, it could be a catalyst for your next big move. Does that answer pop into your head at 03:00 in the morning? Don't ignore that. My closest friends and my family know that 03:00 a.m. is when I wake up. And the answer that I've been reeling, trying to figure out, the answer comes in my head or information for the next step. It gives me some peace to go back to sleep, not up all night, just, just a few minutes. And it gives me the calm to move my business forward many times or to get through something on a personal level.
[00:11:00] So here's the second one. Set a do or die deadline.
[00:11:04] Misery is not a long term strategy. If you're miserable, you need to set a date of when you're going to make a decision like I'm going to give myself 30 days, I'm going to give myself 60 days. Don't give yourself a year or two years. You need to give yourself a firm cutoff date. I strategically chose the end of the year and the beginning of 2005. And let me tell you, it was a game changer. I think if I had gone back after Christmas and just said, oh, I'll just get through this, I'll get through a quarter, I'll get through six months, it would have just kept going. But when you draw a line in the sand or you turn off the light and walk out the door, it's amazing how quickly you're going to come over. Overcome mental barriers that are holding you back. A deadline creates urgency and it forces you to take action.
[00:11:47] And the next thing is, I want you to embrace the rush of being an entrepreneur. Having a steady paycheck may help you sleep at night, and, boy, sometimes when clients pay late or pay slow, I get that stress. But let me tell you about the adrenaline surge that comes from landing your own clients.
[00:12:03] It can be addictive. If you thrive on the hunt and the satisfaction of closing deals, breaking free from the nine to five might be your calling, even if it's just a couple to get started. But once you do it and you're like, I wrote that proposal, I closed that deal, they signed it, we started working, they've paid. That's addictive.
[00:12:24] But stepping out on your own is not for the faint of heart. If your self esteem is in the trash, if you are in a situation where things are really bad financially for you, if you just got something extreme going on, you might want to wait. But because it takes guts, determination and a willingness to bet on yourself, but if you're ready to take charge, the rewards can be really extraordinary.
[00:12:50] So ask yourself, are you ready to stop dreaming and stop doing? A lot of my friends, we talk about overthinking and just spinning, spinning, spinning with things. And sometimes you just have to stop. Dreaming is a great thing, but sometimes you have to stop the overthinking and just take action.
[00:13:05] So with that, I'm going to wrap up this episode. If you have stuck with me this whole time, thank you so much. And you probably hear the siren outside. We live right off of main road. There's so much more to share to help you about starting a business. We'll get into some episodes with marketing tools and all that's changing all the time. So you have to keep up with everything that's going on and shortcuts and just some more great stories. So I hope you'll join me for the next episode. Subscribe to the confessions in the Home office podcast and never miss an episode. Thanks.
