MIC recently sat down with Suz Chadwick for our monthly podcast, Wingrove Street, and discussed her four rules for a streamlined and profitable business.
Suz Chadwick is a business and speaking coach with over ten years’ experience as a brand consultant. She works with global brands as well as entrepreneurs to create business and personal brands that connect and stand out. Recognised as a Top 10 Branding Coach by Yahoo Finance, she is also a contributor to entrepreneur.com, the creator of Brand Builder’s Academy, the Bold Speaker’s Collection and Brand Leader’s Lounge.
Suz’s impressive journey in branding starts back when she worked for a recruitment company. Inspired by a social media consultant whom she met with one of her clients, Suz decided she needed a change and offered to work for the consultant for free one day a week during her maternity leave.
By the time she returned to work, Suz used her new skillset to offer employer branding to big clients. She put herself through different courses and built a brand consulting business within a corporate setting that went global.
“It was amazing,” Suz shares. “It was following the breadcrumbs. It was like, what do I want to do? How can we make this better? Who are the people I need to learn from?”
This bold attitude and desire to remain passionate drives Suz in all her career decisions. After building up her business on the side, she left her corporate job to go all in and build a business community through events.
“I ran those breakfast events, dinner events, conferences,” she says, “where I’d get a lot of clients.”
After a couple of years, she realised that running beautiful events didn’t make much of a profit. “I had to make a decision that I was going to move from a business brand . . . to a personal brand.”
Suz culled about 80% of her business. She was doing workshops, speaking, coaching, running events, before she made the decision not to do anything that wasn’t profitable. “I had so much more time. I was making so much more money and it was joy.”
“Now I really ask myself, is it aligned to my purpose? Is it something that I feel I’m being really productive with? Is it profitable? Does it bring me pleasure?”
Asking these key questions has helped her keep her business very streamlined and as profitable as possible.
As for the three top skills that she would recommend for other businesses that want to survive and thrive, Suz lists her number one as know your numbers.
“I just can’t say this enough,” she says. “Know your financial numbers, know your conversion rates, understand how much it costs you to get a customer, keep a customer, things like that.”
The second is to be a risk-taker. “You’ve got to start to be visible and you’ve got to start to take risks . . . I am the queen of asking for what I want . . . I’ll be like, that looks amazing. Can I do that? Or do you want to collaborate? Or can I have this? At the end of the day, a no is just a no . . . and you’ll go on to the next opportunity.”
Her third recommendation is boundaries. “If somebody asks you for something and you don’t want to do it, you just say, thanks so much for the offer. Unfortunately I can’t do that. You don’t need to explain yourself. It’s fine for you to just say no.”
To wrap up the podcast, Suz shares a final piece of business advice.
“Always look for the opportunities and go after the things that you want, and be really tenacious with that,” she says. “When people ask you for things, make sure that it’s aligned with what you’re here to do and the type of work you want to be involved in, and the relationships you want to have. I think that if you can balance those two things of opportunities and boundaries, I think that you’ll have a thriving business.”
We thank Suz Chadwick for being the MC at our Digital Solution program wellness event, Remotivate, Reengate, Revitalise, and for sharing her experience and wisdom on our podcast!
Melbourne Innovation Centre is delivering the Digital Solutions program across Victoria. To learn more about how this program can support your small business, click here.