Ep 19: Real Confidence- The Confidence to Be Your Own Boss with Special Guest Natalie Benamou
If you're smart and work hard, but just aren't where or who you want to be welcome to your podcast, Real Confidence. I'm your host, Alyssa Dver, and I'll be sharing a bit of brain science, some surprising social secrets, and a touch of tough love. Why? Because I believe confidence is everyone's fundamental right and choice. So, let's get to it.
Alyssa:
I'm always excited to talk to guests, but I think this is a topic that I'm personally jazzed in a different way. Because I don't even remember what it felt like to leap out of corporate into the entrepreneurial world, I maybe I've like stash that in the back of my head. So, when I was talking to you, I should say a new friend. But actually, we met a long time ago and didn’t remember it, which was awesome to figure that out. Natalie, you have this recent experience of going from corporate, to your own thing, starting up. And I really am grateful that you're going to share some of the emotional feelings that you've had around that. So, let's just start by a little background, you were in what corporate doing what, and then now you're doing what?
Natalie:
Alright Well, I'm so happy to be here with you is such an honor. So, thank you for having me on your show. I'm excited. Yeah, I was in trade shows for 29 years. And I wasn't expecting to do that, but that was my career. That was the arc of where I was for the majority of my career. I've always been sort of an entrepreneur of sorts. I started my last company, I was the first employee in Chicago, built it up, we had 17 people, we had a facility, there still is a facility, 33,000 square foot facility. So, I'm a big believer when doors closed windows open, you have to fly through them. If you fly through them, you don't know how good or maybe things aren't as what you expect, but it could be even better. And if there's one thing that happened that I wasn't expecting was to work full time and go on partial unemployment. That was the pivotal moment.
So, if anyone is on unemployment, my heart goes out to you, it is not an easy thing to navigate. But when you're working 50 hours a week. And it's like that, I liken it to the orchestra on the Titanic, you're playing your music, so that so that everyone around you is calm. And you are seeing the iceberg. You're seeing the iceberg. You're not sure how to respond to the iceberg. And I was responsible for leading a team and always wanted to be encouraging. And I think they're all wonderful people, I left on really good terms, but it really gave me the opportunity to rethink where do I want to be? What is my legacy? And I have two daughters, and I wanted to make an impact for women. And I decided this was the moment. If not now, when? So, I took the I flew through the window.
Alyssa:
Wow. And how long ago was that?
Natalie:
That was a year, not quite a year ago, I left the beginning of this year.
Alyssa:
Okay. And as we're recording, this is no COVID The world is really the wheels are falling off. And here you are like I'm gonna fly like, I like to fly.
Natalie:
I figured, you know, and I had interestingly, other opportunities come my way, I had another big, big company want me to take over a couple companies that they were buying and stuff. And I and I thought about it because wow, wouldn't that have been an amazing opportunity? And I decided not to I decided, you know, this is the one time. I have to do this. I can always come back to what I know, but I can never go forward if I don't take that step.
Alyssa
if you can remember a year ago, and you were like I'm gonna fly and go on through the window, there you go.
Natalie:
What was some crazy pills? No.
Alyssa
You know, let's start with the positive like what was it like you were like, what's going to be better? What's going to change in the in a better sense for you?
Natalie:
So, I think the one thing that I wanted was to control the destiny for the future for me and the legacy. So, there's when you're working for another company, as wonderful as it can be. You're not, no matter where you are in the organization. You are still not the final decider unless you're the CEO, right so and even then, if there's a board, there's people telling you. So, for me, I wanted that freedom to explore what is possible and I feel very passionate about women feeling valued, and that was one of the contributing factors even though I was responsible for a tremendous amount of business development my whole career. I was always looked at and pinned in one place and I wanted just to take off.
Alyssa:
You know, I think had to come back to the first part that you just said because something it didn't so much dawned on me. But I think it's really important for both of us and everyone who's listening. The lot, you know, having control having the end all be all say so takes a little bit of balls. Right. And I think granting yourself that you said, you know, I wanted that I wanted to have that. You have to have confidence to even say it, let alone do it.
Natalie:
And be crazy. Just kidding just kidding.
Alyssa:
You know, it almost sounds a little bit at it like that. Right? But yeah, I think that that is the motivator, in a lot of cases for people to be like, I'm done. I don't want to be told what to do anymore. And yet, for particularly women, I think it's hard to say to yourself, I deserve that. I want that, I deserve that I'm capable of it. I don't need to take direction or cater to somebody else's needs right now I want to do my own thing. And that that takes a lot of confidence. So, when you were thinking about that opportunity, what was the scare? What was the like, ooh, it may not work? Or can I really do this? Like what was in your head at the time that? What were the demons?
Natalie:
I think we all have self-doubt, at some point, the most confident people you could ask Oprah, and she'll tell you, there's moments, right? Like, it doesn't matter who you are, you could be you know, someone like that of that stature. And she's, I'm sure had moments in her life and probably still does, although she would never admit to it. So, I think the thing is that just you don't know what you don't know. And I took a lot of courses. I'm a big course taker. So, I always am immersing myself in online learning. I and I also like to finish my online learning. Some people will take the online courses, they'll do one course, and they disappear. No, I like to speed through it. I want to learn as fast as I can. As I start every day I read every day, I'm a constant learner. So, I think that gave me a little confidence. But there's always that doubt of like, well, I have to figure this out, because I have other people relying on me. And I've always had that I've always been responsible for revenue generating for companies. I mean, at one point, I was 70% of a business in my revenue. And so, I'm used to that kind of responsibility, but it was a little scary being 100%.
And it's also a little bit harder to sell yourself than someone else's products
Alyssa:
A little or a lot harder.
Natalie:
Its personal. And I've I struggled a lot, and I've done pivots. And the one thing I will say, to your listeners is don't be afraid to make a pivot. Even if you think like, oh, but I said I was going to do this. It's okay. To take a left or a right in the midst of when you were making your big, big thing that you're doing. A lot of lefts and rights point.
Alyssa:
That's a great point pivots are not wrong, that doesn't acknowledge a mistake, it means that you found more information and a better path. And you know, you're absolutely right. It's not even being afraid to pivot is almost being eroded pivot because it means you're on a better course. Right?
Natalie:
Totally. Yeah, I've taken a lot of those pivots last year.
Alyssa:
It gets a little dizziness after a while, right? You know, speaking of pivots, you know, anything particularly surprising, like you start down a path and you're like, oh, shoot, that was dumb, or, you know, not the one I want to go down any particular shocks in the process?
Natalie:
Yes, the biggest aha moment for me was I talked to my friends, that's, you know, I started Her C-Suite after talking to women and saying, how are you doing? And they said, I felt siloed I feel siloed they still do women still do. I mean, these the statistics are out. The surprising thing was, I thought I was so confident about executive women. And I thought, oh, I mean, that's my space, I'm going to invite all my friends. And this is going to be great. And we're all going to be in this big community together. The surprising thing is that a lot of Executive Women are really busy. That's not that surprising. And it was just really hard to gain traction one to one. And I wasn't expecting I was not thinking that I was like, oh, I'm going to start with my friends. We're going to do these circles as mastermind, everybody's gonna understand what I'm doing. Great. And I have this amazing community of women that have lifted me up over and over again throughout the last year. So, I would say you need you need your people. You need your entourage. That being said, the I really thought going direct to the customer was not going to be what it is. It's really hard. And so, I've pivoted to really b2b. That is where we are as b2b, but it took a little journey and it's not that we don't accept individual people but the to grow and make an impact. It has to be b2b. So that was my biggest, biggest pivot move. Aha. Wow. And there's dark, dark moments. I'm like, you know, all these conversations and no one's buying for me what is up?
Alyssa:
Yeah, yeah. So, you know, dark moments. And that's a very practical real example like nobody's buying from me. Did you take it hard mentally? Did you feel it was you?
Natalie:
Yeah. So, I've sold over $110 million. In my, my career. As I said, I was 70%. And one point I had a $20 million in trade shows $20 million years pretty good. So average person does about 2 million, 1 million, 2 million, 3 million. So that kind of puts it in perspective. So, I thought, I’m a way maker. I'm confident I can sell ice cubes to eskimos. It’s going to be great. No. So get on these calls. And I would coach people, actually, which is, okay, I'm learning, right? Like, I'm going along, I'm having these conversations, tell me where you're at what's going on? Did not matter, pricing did not matter. It was just a very big learning curve. So, some of it is your messaging, some of it's what you're offering. And some of it is understanding that maybe what you are doing needs to just have a little adjustment. And that's what I've learned. But, boy, it can be hard sometimes.
Alyssa:
Sometimes.
Natalie:
Yeah. As a, as somebody who owns two companies you know what I’m talking about.
Alyssa:
Yeah, this is not my first rodeo is either. There is a daily moment of oh, shit. What did I get myself into? How am I going to get out of it? Why isn't this work? You know, all those? And, you know, they're not even just self-doubts. It's, it's really almost like that moment of what was I thinking? Right? So, you know, going back to your, your corporate gigs, is there something that you like, you miss something that you just didn't expect that you would miss maybe?
Natalie:
Well, the one thing I love is presenting, and you understand what I'm saying when I tell you this, because you speak. So, I love solving people's problems and presenting like those two things and being creative and solving things in a way that people don't expect. And being very blue ocean strategy about how I bring that to them and not. And so, I would say that that was hard. Because when you're an entrepreneur, you do everything yourself. You're on a team of seven people or whatever, good luck. Those people are talking to you right now. You I miss my team. They listen to this, they'll know, and I cherish them still, I still talk to many of them. So, I think there's that part of it, but I've now mastered like, okay, if I go back to the b2b thing, I can still solve people's problems and still present and get creative. Yay.
Alyssa:
Yeah, yeah, you need to be not even a jack of all trades. It's like, really the dishwasher or the window cleaner. You know, everything and I ever have, I won't even throw him under the bus because I got an email today from somebody. And I was like, are you freaking kidding me? Like they ask you to do stuff that they don't realize they have a whole department to do and you're a person who has to do 4 million other things. No, I can't do that. All right.
Natalie:
Thank you. Why haven't you said that to me? Well, it is not my priorities. My customers first new customers, new customers, and customers top. Right. That's your Yeah, maybe down on the list. You know, you do those things that you want to do.
Alyssa:
you know, sometimes you have to do things to get paid, right? And like, yes, accounts payable people hello. Small businesses cannot fill in the 15th form. So, you know, it is oh my gosh, yeah, we could do a whole bunch of series on that small business. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. No, it's pretty amazing. But you know, not for the faint of heart, that no, it's not for the weak of stomach or heart or anything out? You're absolutely right. So, I mean, you know, going forward looking into the future now that your kind of over that year one mark, and they say that startups need two years before they even really can start to move forward in a pattern. I actually think it's more like a three-to-five-year period. Personally, from what I've seen, not just my own businesses, but I teach at the Entrepreneurial Center. So, you know, I think that two-year period is not for everybody. So, I don't want to put that on you at all. But like if you look forward a year out from now, what are you most worried what are you most looking forward to?
Natalie:
I think I'm most looking forward to having made impacts for women. And in a big way with companies. You know, that's the scalability part of it is when you go to a company and they have 100,000, or whatever the number is that exponentially when we lift one, we lift, we raise the whole tide. That's really important to me. I think the scary part is, you know, you have to, there's a lot of business in between. And it's the smooth, you got to get the smooth ride going. So, investors and all of that that part is a little bit scarier. And it's hard, again, like pitching investors, when it's your thing is a little bit different than, you know, delivering a product or things like that. So that would be probably what I would say.
Alyssa:
Yeah, no, I can appreciate that. Anything that you wish you knew, a year ago, and you know, when you were making that, should I open the window decision, anything that would have been really good to know, then?
Natalie:
Well, I spent a year developing a platform and a very complex platform. And I think I would have liked to have known what I know now before I spent a lot of time perfecting this wonderful platform that everybody loves. But there were a lot of things I could have done to gain momentum with customers that I was, you know, when you're doing everything, all the hats, and I'm really lucky to have an amazing, amazing creative director who's been with me since the beginning. She has created seven websites for me, and then we're partnering kind of on this, on that kind of she does, like everything, so I couldn't live without her. And so, Megan, if you're listening, this is this goes out to you. But I think that it's just so easy to look at the whole everything and I'm a visionary. I'm not an integrator. So, I'm like 5000 ideas every second. Oh, I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna do. We're gonna make we're gonna have you know, rewards in the platform. Let's do that instead of like, what are we delivering to the customer? Yeah, a lot of a lot of a lot of investment. You know, self-funded, so a lot of investment in tech.
Alyssa:
My friend, my second time friend, I love my second time friend, finding ourselves crossing paths again, many many later, we're going to talk again, for sure. podcast, and otherwise, we're going to friends of show notes and ways to reach you. But just a quickie on the actual podcast best way to find you as what is?
Natalie:
Both at HerCSuite.com or I'm on LinkedIn. And I love hearing from people. If I can help you in any way, reach out to me.
Alyssa:
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for your wisdom and your bravery. And we're, we've got you covered in the back. We are big fans. Thank you.
Natalie:
Thank you, likewise to you, too. I'm so excited. Thanks for having me.
Alyssa:
Of course. Thank you. So, before we completely wrap up, I want to let you know that full transcripts and show notes for this and other episodes can be found on the website, www.AmericanConfidenceInstitute.com/podcast. I also want to remind you once again, that the best way to get confidence for yourself is to give it to others and you can do it so easily just by liking and sharing this episode on your favorite social media channels. You can even give me some confidence fuel by sending in any comments about the topics I've covered, or ones you'd like me to consider for the future. So, for now, this is Alyssa Dver thank you for helping to bring more confidence to the world.
This podcast was produced by Mindful Media. All rights reserved by Alyssa Dver and the American Confidence Institute. Music written and performed by Jeff Weinstein.
