Rewriting the rules: What rebels can teach organisations

“I think one of the main skills that an intrapreneur needs is diplomacy. You need to be able to manage upwards, downwards, sideways. You need to get people’s buy-in, engage them in your ideas rather than ramming them down their throats.”
Kate Toon

Kate Toon, an award-winning entrepreneur, author, and digital marketing expert, joins us for an insightful discussion. From her humble backyard shed, Kate has built a thriving business universe, empowering thousands through her educational platforms and marketing expertise. As the author of Six Figures in School Hours and Six Figures While You Sleep, Kate has seamlessly blended entrepreneurial success with the challenges of growing a business while parenting.

In this episode, Kate shares the valuable lessons learned during her transition from intrapreneur to entrepreneur. She discusses the importance of adaptability, creativity, and the relentless pursuit of a vision. Kate offers insights into navigating corporate life, highlighting skills like diplomacy, confidence, and resilience, while also exploring the freedom and challenges of entrepreneurship. She dives deep into the realities of balancing business ownership with multiple roles, emphasising persistence over passion.

Kate also discusses how to foster safe, consistent environments where intrapreneurs can thrive. Drawing from her business experience, she shares examples of empowering her team to take ownership of creative projects, like themed book displays and community initiatives. She concludes by reflecting on the evolving definitions of success and the importance of aligning professional goals with personal values.

In this episode you’ll hear about

• The key differences between entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs.
• How adaptability and creativity drive success in both roles.
• The importance of persistence over passion in achieving goals.
• Why diplomacy and confidence are essential in corporate environments.
• Lessons from Kate’s journey balancing business and parenting.
• Strategies for managing multiple roles and staying focused.
• Creating environments that foster creativity and autonomy.
• Recognising and harnessing the skills of intrapreneurs.
• Dealing with setbacks and building resilience.
• Redefining success by aligning values with goals.

https://youtu.be/QasNcl36lVA

Key links

Kate Toon’s Website
Kate Toon’s LinkedIn
Books by Kate Toon: Six Figures in School Hours, Six Figures While You Sleep, The Confessions of a Misfit Entrepreneur
The Clever Copywriting School’s Website
The Digital Marketing Collective’s Website

About our guest

From her humble backyard shed, Kate Toon has masterminded an ambitious business universe, empowering thousands through her digital marketing and business expertise.

She’s the author of “Six Figures in School Hours,” a testament to balancing a thriving business while being a dedicated parent. And she has recently released her latest book “Six Figures While you Sleep” – which I can highly recommend to anyone that has their own business and is looking to grow it.

As the founder of The Digital Marketing Collective and The Clever Copywriting School, Kate’s influence spans across educational platforms, memberships, conferences, and more.

Her accolades include being voted Australia’s Most Influential Small Businesswoman 2022 and winning Businesswoman of the Year 2020.

With a strong presence on the global stage, including speaking engagements across Australia, Europe, and the US, and a million-plus podcast downloads, Kate Toon is a force to be reckoned with in the entrepreneurial landscape.

About our host

Our host, Chris Hudson, is a Teacher, Experience Designer and Founder of business transformation coaching and consultancy Company Road.

Company Road was founded by Chris Hudson, who saw over-niching and specialisation within corporates as a significant barrier to change.

Chris considers himself incredibly fortunate to have worked with some of the world’s most ambitious and successful companies, including Google, Mercedes-Benz, Accenture (Fjord) and Dulux, to name a small few. He continues to teach with University of Melbourne in Innovation, and Academy Xi in CX, Product Management, Design Thinking and Service Design and mentors many business leaders internationally.

Transcript

Chris Hudson: 0:07
Hello and welcome to another insight sharpening episode of the company road podcast, where we’re going to explore the paths taken by intrapreneurs and entrepreneurs alike to drive significant change and innovation. And today we’re joined by an extraordinary guest, Kate Toon, whose impressive journey as an award winning entrepreneur, author and digital marketing expert, uh, offers invaluable lessons for us all to look out for and to carve out success in our respective fields. So. Kate, from your humble backyard shed, you’ve masterminded an ambitious business universe and it empowers thousands of people through your digital marketing business expertise. And you’re also the author of six figures in school hours and six figures while you sleep, which is all about balancing thriving businesses while being a highly dedicated parent, but also looking for ways to grow your business in some way as well. So you founded the digital marketing collective, The clever copywriting school, you’ve got lots of things going on and I’m really excited to be going into some of those today. your influence therefore expands educational platforms, memberships, conferences and much, much more. And you’ve been voted Australia’s most influential small business woman in 2022. Uh, and in 2020 as well, winning business woman of the year. So you’ve done a lot of stuff and I’m just simply delighted that you’ve been able to join us on the company road podcast. So welcome to the show. Okay. How are you feeling?

Kate Toon: 1:28
I’m good. Yeah. Listen to your own bio and you think, God, I sound like a. I don’t know, something or other, but I feel that was spread over a very long period of time. So yeah, no, it’s great to be here. Lovely to talk to you.

Chris Hudson: 1:40
Thank you. And in today’s discussion, I think we’re going to delve into the lessons that intrapreneurs can really learn from entrepreneurs. In previous episodes, we’ve talked a lot about this where entrepreneurs are out there doing their thing. And people, the poor intrapreneurs are stuck within organisations doing their thing. And it feels like that the worlds are very separated. So I think it’d be good to bring that together, talk a bit about adaptability, creativity. the relentless pursuit of one’s own vision and how that kind of brings, learning from entrepreneurs really into the intrapreneur’s kind of realm. Kate, you’ve run courses in communities that have helped thousands of entrepreneurs. so maybe we can see what we can learn and maybe we’ll start with you. you’ve been in both worlds yourself as an entrepreneur now and your journey is really inspiring. So what were you like as an intrapreneur before you turned to entrepreneurship?

Kate Toon: 2:29
I was horrific. in fact, I don’t know if the word intrapreneur existed, when I was a girl. so I worked in ad agencies and various places until I was about 34. And I was a horrendous, intrapreneur because I have vague objectionable defiance disorder. I don’t like being told what to do. and I always just thought that my bosses were idiots. Uh, sorry, all my bosses. Some of them are great. You are, there’s a few good ones. So, the good ones, you know who you are. But I think, you know, I didn’t like being told what to do. I didn’t like being accountable and having to report back. I wasn’t a particularly good manager of people. So pretty horrendous, really. I think that’s why many entrepreneurs leave and become entrepreneurs because they’ve struggled to fulfil their bits and bobs within an environment. you have to have a really good boss and a really good team to let you actually flourish as an entrepreneur. And I. I just never found that good combo. I don’t think.

Chris Hudson: 3:26
Yeah. Okay. And do you think you had entrepreneurs in that mix that you learned from in that respect?

Kate Toon: 3:31
if I’m honest, I learned a lot from my bosses. I’ve just disparaged and dreadfully, and you know, there were some amazing people that I’ve worked with over the years. You’ve gone on to do great, great things. but yeah, I always, I struggled in that environment. I struggled in the nine to five but I equally was too cowardly to go out on my own. so it was a difficult position of wanting to break free from it, but not being brave enough. And it wasn’t until I got up the duff that the choice was somewhat taken away from me. And I had to start my own business, with no real clue what I was doing. Because the joy of being an intrapreneur is, Someone else is footing the bill. you still get your sick leave. You still get to go and put your tuna casserole on in the microwave at lunchtime, and you just don’t get that as an entrepreneur. it’s scarier, I think, but you are completely free. and that’s both good and bad.

Chris Hudson: 4:20
Yeah. Okay. So now that you know what, you know, as an entrepreneur and you’ve worked with hundreds and hundreds of entrepreneurs, let’s talk about maybe some of those things and what solopreneurs or entrepreneurs can be teaching intrapreneurs maybe, and what are the lessons that maybe you would have wanted to have learned or, what would you have loved to, to do as an intrapreneur do you think starting out, if you think back to your career and some of the things now, and now with the confidence that you’ve got as an entrepreneur, what do you think you’d do differently?

Kate Toon: 4:46
Well, I think one of the main skills that an entrepreneur needs is diplomacy. you need to be able to manage upwards, downwards, sideways. You need to get people’s buy in, you need to get people on board. And if you’re slightly belligerent and think that you know better than everyone, which was me, that was hard. So I wish someone had shown me how to be a better people person. How to engage people in my ideas rather than ramming them down their throats. And yes, you also mentioned confidence. this horrendous version of me I’m describing is in the last few years where possibly I had more confidence, but still wasn’t great at the people stuff. In the early years, I had no confidence. I did have good ideas, but I didn’t feel, who was I to bring those up to people who are more senior than me and who were more skilled in my eyes. So I think those are the two skills that would have really helped me as an entrepreneur, diplomacy and confidence.

Chris Hudson: 5:40
Yeah. Great. Great. And do you think in that instance, where you’re seeing a lot of people come out with ideas in those roles around you, I think as an entrepreneur, You’re either going first yourself, you’re putting yourself out there, or you’re observing what other people are doing in that situation. So did you find that a lot of those opportunities were sort of passing you by a little bit? And what would you say to your younger self now, if that were to happen today?

Kate Toon: 6:01
Yeah, I mean, I think, you also, one of the important things is to get good at working out if your idea is a good idea yourself, and putting together an argument that you can then. Talk to other people in, and often I would just have the idea, but not do the back work to justify and explain and give examples so that I’ve just got a blurt out an idea. And then obviously nobody took it seriously because there was no gravitate to it. Do you know what I mean? It was, I had no, there was no, and I think this will work because. So I don’t know if opportunities pass me by. I just think I always saw working in a corporation as a job. Do you know what I mean? I worked hard and I worked long, but it wasn’t my baby and I found the whole structure of kind of working all year in the hope that once a year I might get a pay rise or I might get a promotion. I found that really challenging and soul destroying. Cause I could work 12 hours a day or I could just sit and Google mini breaks all day and it made no difference So I think. The amount of motivation I found since I left that environment is very different. But as I said, I don’t think I fitted the mould. And many of the people who I teach are either neuro spicy, slightly odd. wacky, creative, whatever, and they just can’t work in that environment. And I think I’m not sure I’m answering your question at all, but square peg, Round hole.

Chris Hudson: 7:19
Yeah, I mean, it feels like you’ve got to be a certain breed, right? To succeed and flourish within those organisations. So yeah. what’s been your observation of those people and what do you think they do well?

Kate Toon: 7:32
Well, I think it’s the sort of things that you teach and that you’re going to be teaching, is that working out where you sit in the ecosystem, building relationships within the business, not being too ashamed, afraid of tooting your own horn in a way that’s not repellent, doing your research, presenting well, all those things that I was incapable of. So, thanks for making me feel terrible about myself. No, I’m joking. Looking back, you know, I think, it’s interesting to think who I would be if I went back into that environment. I sort of think now I’m unemployable. Could I go back and work within an environment like that? But, you know, I think these days, it’s 20 years ago, that I was in that kind of environment. And I think these days there is more space for bright minds and you can even see in recruitment ads that people are asking for that kind of person for entrepreneurs. They want people who can be self motivated, self sufficient and can lead within the business. and I think, I’m not sure that was such a thing in my day. You did your job and you did as you were told, and I think that’s changed. And I think that is the influence of entrepreneurship. And I think that is people moving back and forth between the two. Many entrepreneurs that I work with try it for a little while and then they want to go back into that environment, but they have all that energy that they built up as an entrepreneur. Now they’re bringing it into the company. So I think times have changed as well, which makes me sound very old, but yeah.

Chris Hudson: 8:55
Oh, I agree with that. I reckon back in the day, if you think about even the word entrepreneur and how many people, how many entrepreneurs people could name, on their hands, they probably wouldn’t get to five, right? you’d maybe know Richard Branson that bit by then. Yeah,

Kate Toon: 9:06
that’s it. That’s it. And it’s become such a term now. And I wrote a book called The Misfit Entrepreneur, and I really looked at what entrepreneur means. And all it really means is someone who takes risks within their business. And to be honest, all of us, Take risks. If you own your own business, literally the virtue of having a business is taking a massive risk. So we are all entrepreneurs. It’s just synonymous with people lying on Porsches, counting their cash or people having islands in the middle of the ocean. And What entrepreneur really is and what it’s portrayed to be are two very different things, I think.

Chris Hudson: 9:38
Reality is pretty different as we know. It’s

Kate Toon: 9:40
pretty boring. It’s a lot of spreadsheets.

Chris Hudson: 9:42
It’s a lot of spreadsheets. You’ve got to do your taxes, all of the admin, all the hats that we have to wear.

Kate Toon: 9:48
Yeah.

Chris Hudson: 9:48
so as an intrapreneur, so you’ve got the luxury of just being able to focus in theory on the thing that you want to be doing the most.

Kate Toon: 9:54
Yeah, I think that was the biggest realisation for me and I think it’s a big realisation for a lot of people leaving a role and starting their own business. You are good at the thing you are good at, but to be an entrepreneur or to be a small business owner, you need to be really good at everything else. So, you know, I left and became a copywriter because I was good at writing, but really I only spent about 40 to 50 percent of my time writing. The other 50 percent was new business, marketing, finances, legals, social media, relationship building, networking, all the other stuff. And I had no idea about that because I’d been in my little fluffy bubble. Someone would come in in the morning and say, can you write an ad for American Express? And I’d have also. They’d give you like two days to write a 20 word ad, because they have big budgets and you’d go and play pool in the room and have some drinks and watch a bit of telly and then write an ad five minutes before you met with your creative director. And as a business owner, you can’t do that because every hour is money. So it, God, I was a fool to leave. That’s what I realised.

Chris Hudson: 10:57
Yeah. Well, I mean that, that’s what keeps a lot of people there. And I think there’s the social aspects, there’s other things that people want to work for in the environment that they want to work for. but you balance those multiple roles as within your role. Currently, you’ve got the business empire, you’re a parent, you’re pursuing personal interests. these are things that everyone has to do, alongside any work that they do. Right. So, From intrapreneurs, you know, what strategies can they learn from your ability, do you think, to balance a lot of these multiple roles and spinning of plates effectively? Is there anything there that you think has really helped you?

Kate Toon: 11:29
Yeah, I mean, I think my core skill is project management. that’s kind of the role I played in my roles within companies, but being able to manage your time effectively and self motivate is everything, whether you’re in a company or out. So, in agency, you have to track your time. You have to hit like 80 percent billable hours. And so at the end of each day, you’re sitting there going, I spent 17 minutes on this. I spent 24 minutes on that. And sometimes you look back at your day and say, and you’re like, how can I make up hours for it? Cause I didn’t do anything today. nothing good happened. So the ability to plan your day, to modulise tasks. So you know, I’m a big believer in Parkinson’s law that the task will for all the time you give it. So when I do a to do list, I don’t just have a list of tasks. I have the time I am giving to each task, Pomodoro method and 25 minutes Chunks and all that kind of stuff. So the ability to plan your day and map it out in time chunks, but then the more important ability is then to do the list that you made for yourself. and actually sit and work through it and not jump to the sexy task and not get distracted by your inbox and not waste hours going down rabbit holes. And I find that often people who have ADHD and other kind of neurospicy, that’s where they really struggle is Following a linear path of A to B, and also following a path where the end results and the dopamine is a very, very long way away, like doing the boring stuff and not leaping to the thing that gives you that instant reward. So yeah, I think that’s the main thing, coming to your desk every day with no boss and doing what you said you were going to do. It sounds like nothing, but that’s the main thing. And I think that’s true in a business or out of a business.

Chris Hudson: 13:16
Yeah, there was a term in organisations that was often used. It was called self starter. I don’t know if you’re ever caught by that. It was like, you got to be proactive, you always got to, don’t just do what you’re told, always be told. You’ve got to be out there kind of,

Kate Toon: 13:29
take the initiative, finding

Chris Hudson: 13:30
things to do.

Kate Toon: 13:31
Yeah. But the thing is as well, I think a lot of people are good self starters, but they’re not good self finishers. the number, the path of unfinished dreams that people tread, like little ideas that when they actually got into them, they realised maybe it was harder than they thought it was going to take longer, or they just got bored. The ability to keep going when you’re. absolutely bored stiff of the task and it’s lost all its glamour and glow, that’s the true succeeder, I use the example of the marathon runner, you know, like if marathon runners only were excited about the day, they could not get up at 4am and run in the dark for 20 miles, right? You have to enjoy the struggle and the boring bits because without that you’ll never get the glory.

Chris Hudson: 14:09
I agree with that. I’ve been doing some reflection on myself like I did a personality test yesterday, which another guest on the show, Lisa Johnson was kind enough to run through her new piece of kit, the elements kits is what it’s called. And I was coming out with these different archetypes and saying what do you mostly relate to? And actually the amount of ideas that you have, it sounds like it would be a superpower, but actually it’s really hard to control sometimes where you should be focusing. And then your inner critic is obviously coming out to say, that would be rubbish or nobody would like it, or why would you do that? So you can have very far flung ideas that sound amazing in your head. But what’s been your, what’s been your process for kind of coming to a truth around what is worthwhile investing time in?

Kate Toon: 14:55
Like, I mean, I don’t think there is a really clear methodology. I try to outline one in my book of really looking at what you’re good at, what you enjoy, what people want, and what you think you can get done fairly quickly. You Venn diagram, but the truth is we are often the worst judges of our own ideas and the only way to really see if an idea is going to work is to finish it. And put it out there, most of us ruin our ideas and self sabotage before we ever get them out there. And we just say, it won’t work, it won’t work. We never know if it will, but also the ability to put it out there and have it not work repeatedly, but still push it out there until it does. That’s the other thing. People give up too quickly. We live in this, Amazon prime binge culture where everything, we want everything to yesterday. and I, again, I sound like an old bat, but pleasure delay is really important and realising that, it’s not going to happen the first time you have to keep going. So my, the way I choose is to, what am I excited about? Because you have to have a degree of excitement, like if I came up with an idea that was utterly dull to me, I couldn’t get started, but then you have to keep going once the passion has died. You’ve heard me say this before, Chris, but ideas are like relationships. We all start with having sex on the kitchen floor and we all end up arguing about who’s taking out the recycling. It’s the same with ideas. It will get boring, but that’s where the magic happens. that’s where the good stuff happens. If you can plow through the boredom and then he gets the other side and it’s good again and then you put it out to market and no one cares. And it’s tumbleweeds. And you’re like, but I made this thing. And then you talk about it for like three or four years and finally someone buys it. It’s brilliant.

Chris Hudson: 16:33
Yeah. I mean, in a big organisation that, that maybe happens differently. I feel like ideas are discussed and they’re sort of moved around, a bit like the deck chairs or whatever the analogies is you want to use, but the ideas come in, some are discarded, some are taken forward, everyone agrees it’s a good idea. You move on, some people do it, and because it’s a shared problem, it feels like they’re a bit more disposable. But actually, when it comes to your own, you’re wanting it to work, you want it to be a success. If you turn up at a brainstorm one day over your lunchtime And you put forward your best idea and it gets shot down, then you’re not going to feel motivated by that. So what would have been the strategies for keeping yourself motivated do you think when it comes to having the idea and really kind of staying true to its core and just making it flourish in some sort of way?

Kate Toon: 17:19
I mean, I gosh, that’s the thing I would find so difficult because, you know, why was the idea shot down? Is it genuinely because it’s not a good idea or because of the politics or because that person in the group doesn’t like you or because you’re treading on someone’s toes? So sitting back and really being clear about why the decision was shot down. Because often it’s not that it wasn’t a good idea, right? And then also going back and going, No, I really believe in this idea, so I’m going to do some more work to justify it, and I’m going to present it again. I don’t give up on the first shot, I think that’s really important. as I said, I worked in advertising. We came up with some pretty wacky experiential ad ideas, and they would get all the way through the business, even the client would sign them off, and then legal. Legal was always the final barrier. Legal would say, no, we can’t do that. And it’s just the, ah, the lawyers. So, you know, it’s hard because your best ideas are being trodden on again and again. The other thing is, is like ideas aren’t singular, you know, that idea that you’ve come up with can be taken apart, broken apart for, you know, It’s broken into its parts again and reconstructed into a slightly different idea, if that makes sense, the covenants of it still work, maybe you suggested that someone should get paint themselves blue with the Duracell logo on their bottom and run down Pitt Street. Okay. And then it gets rejected by legal. Okay. Well, let’s try again. Can they paint themselves green? I don’t know. Let’s maybe not do Pitt Street. Maybe they put the Duracell logo on their ears. You don’t have to just throw away the idea and go, Oh, well, when I was in advertising, there’s a lot of divrism and someone would get their concept knocked back and they’d be like, well, flounce out of the ring. The good intrapreneur, I think we’ll go, okay. What are your reasons for not that not working? Okay, I’ll take that feedback. I’ll manipulate my idea and I’ll come back to you. And I’ll overcome those objections that you have. And then if you’ve got more objections, I’ll overcome those objections until my idea gets through. and of course, the sad thing is then it kind of loses some purity and some sparkle. Because it’s not the first thing, but often your first idea isn’t the best idea anyway. It just felt good because it came to you. Like we talk about inspiration, right? The breath of the gods, but sometimes the gods have bad breaths, right? And that idea needs to be ripped apart and messed around with because it wasn’t brilliant. It was flawed and better to have it knocked about in a brainstorm than have it knocked about in real life in front of a live paying audience. And that’s why. For me, my communities have been so important because they’re a petri dish. I get that brain, because it’s very lonely being an entrepreneur, as you mentioned, the socialisation, and like we have, me and you are having ideas at the moment and sharing them and it’s good to have someone come along and go, that’s a really awful name or I don’t think that will work or you’re charging too much or that’s stupid now. And then you can argue your case or you can take the feedback on board, but you’re doing it before you put it out there, so yeah. Bad breath. First idea is always not great. Yada, yada, yada.

Chris Hudson: 20:15
So you gotta live with the bad breath to get, you gotta push back that.

Kate Toon: 20:18
Yeah the bad inspiration. Yeah.

Chris Hudson: 20:21
And a lot of it, I think it comes down to how you hold yourself, how confident you are in yourself. you’ve done some work around personal brand. what do you think is behind, not only just a good idea, but a person in a way as the person that can carry that idea through to it being, becoming a success in some sort of way.

Kate Toon: 20:38
Yeah. I mean, I think you have that blind self confidence to a degree. Sometimes I’ll be on a call in my membership talking to people on about what should I do about this? And I spout forth. What I think I would do. And I sometimes think, why are you listening to me? Do you know what I mean? Like, who am I? but the other thing is a degree of humbleness because I will always caveat and say in my lived experience. this has worked. Or also, this is my opinion, but feel free not to take it. So there has to be a degree of humbleness. There’s a lot of coaches and mentors who are like, it’s this way, and if you don’t follow it, clearly there’s something wrong with you. Clearly you’re not able to follow a path. Clearly you lack focus. Clearly you’re not working hard enough. But it’s no, what worked for me might not work for someone else. So you have to have a degree of humbleness and flexibility. My friend calls it fluid intelligence. so the ability to put forth an idea and someone says, yeah, but, and you don’t stop, you go, okay, I was going to use the word pivot. I do apologise. I feel like that’s a swear word, these words, let’s swerve over here. Okay. And then we’ve got another, road bump. Okay. Let’s get over that. The ability to keep moving and keep changing your idea until it gets to its destination and not go away. Give up. So people talk a lot about passion in entrepreneurialism and intrapreneurialism. I don’t like passion. I like persistence. I like a dog with a bone. This idea will work whether you say it will or not. I also do a lot of things out of spite, Chris, which is really not something we should pass on to the listeners, but you know, there’s nothing better than someone saying to me, that’s not going to work. Because I will do it, even if I’ve lost interest in it, I will do it just to prove them wrong, which is really pathetic, but it’s worked for me for a long time, so you know, a bit of spite helps as well.

Chris Hudson: 22:20
Yeah, good, good tips, good tips. So that’s a lot, yeah, adaptation, obviously, I mean, having to kind of just throw, throw back in a way whatever’s thrown at you, and with more. Yeah. learning from setbacks, You’re an entrepreneur as well. What have you learned in your personal journey, setbacks that you’ve had to overcome, what can people learn from that? Is it a mindset thing? Now, what advice would you give to people that are really experiencing some of those setbacks?

Kate Toon: 22:44
I think it’s to realise that, you know, the ideas you have are like something, I don’t want to use a terrible analogy again, but they are a product of your brain. They’re not you, so, you know, just as you, I was going to talk about toenails or whatever, right? you cut your toenails off and you don’t feel sad that you’ve lost your toenails because they grow again, right? There’ll always be new ideas and your toenails are not you. So if someone doesn’t like your toenails. They’re not saying they don’t like you. Terrible analogy. That just came to me now. Awful. But what I’m saying is the ability, it took me a while to be able to separate me from my ideas, from the products I own, from the services I have. It took me a while to separate and go, just because someone doesn’t buy this thing, doesn’t mean they hate me. Right. They just don’t like that thing. It’s not the right price. It’s not the right time. so, you know, I talk, my better analogy than toenails is Madonna, right? I believe that you, you create your own brand, your you, your values, and that’s pretty solid, right? That shouldn’t be changing every five minutes, but your ideas and your business will be changing. every five minutes. But if you stay solid as you, people will follow you from your pointy bra phase to your disco phase to whatever phase Madonna’s in now, because you’re Madonna. you are not the albums you produce. You are the artist. And I think that’s the thing. And I think to do some Deep work, and you were talking about personality tests, and I talk about finding your values and your personality, that is the work that you need to do, good and bad, the horrible parts of your character as well, and really get comfortable with you, and then that will enable you to feel confident about you no matter what happens with your products and services and ideas along the way.

Chris Hudson: 24:19
On the flip side of that then, what have you seen when that hasn’t been worked out? So if people haven’t worked out. What they stand for as people or what they want to do and they’re trying to come up with ideas or take things to market or whatever it is. Have you found that that’s been harder?

Kate Toon: 24:36
Yeah. I mean, there’s a line in some song, which is, if you don’t stand for any, anything you’ll fall for everything. Right. So I think if you don’t get clear on who you are and what success looks like to you and what you want from all of this. This stupid thing we call life, then every time you see someone else succeeding, it will bite. You’ll be jealous. You’ll be, or you’ll be like, Oh, I should do that. Look at them doing that. I should do that. And you’ll be constantly looking left and right. Shiny object, shiny object, shiny object, and you’ll get a lot of imposter syndrome because you’d be like, why are they so this? Because you’re not happy with who you are, I’m still working on this. Like, you know, you know me, Chris, we worked together. I’m not the most, I’d say girly girl entrepreneur, you know, I, there’s a lot of female entrepreneurs who are very about outfits and rainbows and having retreats with flowers and stuff and that’s not me, right? I’m a bit of a blokey girl or whatever. I’m sure you’re not allowed to say that anymore, but it’s not me. And until I got really comfortable with that and realised that there’s glory in that. There’s wonder in that. It’s fabulous to be that kind of person. I was always jealous of the flowers and the rainbows. And it’s taken me a long time to go. I couldn’t even be like that if I wanted to. and also I like this version of me better, but that, you know, I’m 50 now. So I’m old and give less Fs, but that was the hardest thing. If you don’t get clear on who you are and if you don’t learn to like yourself and your face and your voice and all your stupid ideas, Everything will upset you all the time. Do you know what I mean?

Chris Hudson: 26:04
Yeah, absolutely. Right. And yeah, I think that that comparison is always going to be there, but at least it feels like there’s more of a spectrum in the rainbow. And, and points of comparison and different role modelling that’s going on now in the place of work, rather than probably when we were cutting our teeth. Yeah, exactly. You know, it was just like, we’ve only done this way. It was an alpha male type person and that was it. You gotta follow that. You’re either doing it, you’re not doing it, you know,

Kate Toon: 26:27
it’s just so ridiculous. Like in the advertising world that I worked in, you had your account managers and your producers, the account managers, 90% of them were female. Super attractive because they were client facing, vivacious, giggly, the producers were more like geeky and you know, what awful stereotypes, but that stuck with me for a long time. Oh, I’m not that I don’t fit that bowl where it’s, you know, I do think now is more flexible, there’s lots more crossover and you can be whoever you want. if you find the right environment for that. And I think that’s the hardest thing as an intrapreneur is finding an environment that appreciates your particular style of intrapreneurialism rather than you adapting to them trying to find a place that you don’t have to adapt too much. I mean, you’re always going to have to take your edges off. But if you’re completely changing who you are as a person, it’s not the right place to be. And the quicker you realise that, the better, but it’s so hard, you know, I’d be interested to ask you a question if that’s okay. Like if you are, if you are an entrepreneur and you’re, you know, you’re moving to a new position, what on earth do you ask in an interview to find out if this is going to be the right environment for you to thrive? You know, cause it’s a two way street. They got to want you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Hudson: 27:42
You got to test them. I know. Yeah, it’s a great question and thanks for asking. I think I’ve been asked a question about twice or three times since I’ve been running this podcast, which is, I don’t know, it’s maybe a low number, but, but yeah, I think the, you know, intrapreneurs, I think you’ve got to go in with an honest question. the one that you feel is maybe going to be a little bit uncomfortable for people to answer because even if they don’t answer that well, you’ll stand out for having asked the question. Yeah. so I feel like anything around the possibility, the parameters, the dangers, the risks, you want to get under the skin of what’s happening in that organisation and what people are facing. And if you can relate to that person that’s interviewing you in a way, because you feel that they’re an intrapreneur and you can learn from them, then you want to know what they’re facing so that you know what you’re looking into. But in truth, I don’t think you really know until you,

Kate Toon: 28:34
until you get in there. And often the person who’s interviewing you is not the person who’s going to manage you. And if that manager is a migrant manager, they want to have control of everything. I talk about this in my parenting book, because I think the kind of parent you are is often the kind of business human you are, whether in a business or not. And you’ve got responsiveness and kind of care factor and a boss doesn’t care at all. That’s completely free parenting. Oh, you go off and do your thing with no accountability because you kind of want to be able to check back in with someone, but equally you don’t want someone that’s a massive authoritarian who needs to check every single thing you do. A combination. And so finding that manager that is, that cares enough to care, but doesn’t care so much that they care too much. It’s that would be so.

Chris Hudson: 29:18
Yeah. I think that you can tell a lot from the questions they ask you, because they’ll, they’ll be going way deep and very granular on certain things. If they’re the kind of manager that is going to micromanage.

Kate Toon: 29:29
Yeah. I’m a micromanager. I’m a terrible micromanager until I’m not. Right? So, you know, I’ve just bought this bookshop and with my staff, I’m doing a little to do list every day. And I did that for one of my staff members for at least two months. And now I don’t, because it worked. And now she understands how I need to work. I understand her. We communicate better. of course she has to adapt to my way of working because I’m the boss is my business, but there’s flexibility there, but I need the micromanagement to get the trust. And then when I get the trust, I can let go and I only come in and care when they actually ask for my opinion but I’m honest about that, and I think that the honesty part would be hard as well.

Chris Hudson: 30:07
Yeah. I mean, I think it raises an interesting question around, say you’re an intrapreneur going into an organisation. Do you want to work for another intrapreneur? Do you want to have kind of clear space? What do you want to work? If you’re working for another intrapreneur, you know, what are you going to have to get through for them to trust you

Kate Toon: 30:23
to be able to work for another intrapreneur? I don’t want to work for an intrapreneur. I would rather work for somebody. Who’s, you know, like quite sensible and serious, and does the sort of post-rationalisation, and I would say that a great boss for intrapreneurs would be somebody quite solid, very confident, who shoots down some ideas and lets others fly. But if you’re working for another intrapreneur, I may think that maybe there’ll be a degree of com competition in that. Well, oh, that’s a great idea. I might take credit for that. I don’t know. I couldn’t stand it. You know, the bosses that I worked best with were the ones who were solid, who did say, that’s a great idea, Kate, but we can’t do that now. Or that’s a terrible idea. We’re not doing it. Or that’s a good one. Go for it. I needed a gatekeeper. I did. both in terms of reassurance. Yeah, it’s reassuring. I want somebody who can reassure me and that you trust to say, honestly, that’s not great or that is good because when they say it’s good, then, then, you know, it’s really good, you know,

Chris Hudson: 31:18
the one that’s really hard to please, we’ll never give you a compliment.

Kate Toon: 31:24
But I think many of us, you might not be the same as me, but many of us are all little kids at school wanting to get an A on our report card. And one thing that I really miss as an entrepreneur is there’s no one to give me a report card. Yeah. There’s no one to check in with me at the end of the year and say, you know what Kate, you did a good job. you know, the end of Babe, where the farmer says to the pig, that’ll do pig. No one says to me, that’ll do pig. And I miss that more than anything, because where do I get my affirmation? I have to get it from within. And that’s exhausting.

Chris Hudson: 31:54
yeah, I think you’re right. you’ve got to get your energy from somewhere. You’ve got to get your spark and I think reassurance if there’s a psychological term around over intensification and you basically spending too much time in your own skin and without a comparison to others that you just. You’re just down in the hole and unless somebody pulls you out and shows you how you are relative to them or gives you some form of compliment or whatever it is, feedback in some sort of way, you’re just on your own and you don’t know and you start to self question, right?

Kate Toon: 32:22
Yeah, and you start to fester and like get up your own bum and think you’re, you know, it can go two ways. Either you go into a pit of self doubt or you get overly confident as well. as I said that recently I bought a bookshop and it’s been the most Gloriously humbling experience because I’ve got quite smug, you know, I sit in my little shed making lots of money doing very little. Now I’m working like a devil trying to understand an industry I don’t work in trying to build a retail shop in a global economic downturn. It’s been wonderfully humbling and it’s made me find strengths I didn’t realise I have and find new solutions to switch me back on again because with that complacence comes atrophy. and as you said, if you’re not taken out of your pit and someone says, actually, this is how you compare to everyone else, you can become quite complacent and I don’t think complacency is good either for entrepreneurs or intrapreneurs.

Chris Hudson: 33:14
Yeah. So you’re, I mean, you’re setting up that business in a way for people to be able to flourish within. I mean, you said you had some checklists and things going on. What are the right conditions for intrapreneurs? Do you think there’s something there that would give them the breathing space? Is there anything that springs to mind there?

Kate Toon: 33:29
Yeah. I mean, I think you need to feel safe. I don’t think anyone can be creative if they’re anxious. So you need to be consistent as a boss. and in my youth, I wasn’t, but now, no matter what’s going on behind the scenes, like my legs are flapping under the water, but all they see is the gliding swan, right? So, you know, if money’s going down the toilet, the bookshop’s floundering, for example, that’s not their problem. Never talk about that. So they need to feel safe. They need to have, I think it’s kind of a, you know, I love the 80, 20 analogy, you can use it for anything. I think like 80 percent of your time you need to do as you do as your child, get on with it, do your job. Crack on, do your list, whatever, but there’s 20 percent for you to be wacky and do what you want. I give you, it’s a funny example and it probably sounds silly to your audience who are much in bigger businesses, but we have an employee called Brooke who’s fabulous, right? And she loves smutty books. So I was like, well, what do you want to do with the smutty books? And in the end, between us, we came up with this idea that we’d have this little secret area with velvet curtains that you could pull back and look at the smutty books. And it’s silly, it’s performance, it’s ridiculous. But I let her do it, you know, got a little sign. And then she said she wanted to do a book talk session, section. So I gave her some shelving. She set that all up, ordered all the books. And she loves that. That’s great. That’s her bit now. I don’t even look at it. If she needs to order books for that, she does that and that she came up with that because she felt appreciated and safe and felt like she could come to me with ideas and I wouldn’t just shut them down. So I think it’s safety and consistency help entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs thrive.

Chris Hudson: 34:59
I love that. So everyone should be given their own little velvet area.

Kate Toon: 35:03
Yes. We all need a velvet area. it’s cute. And you know, even yesterday she said, Oh, I’d love to do a book club for teenagers. It might not work, but why not try, you know, give it a pop. That’s it. It’s the willingness also to let the people who work for you fail, and celebrate the failure, like good on you for giving it a pop. Cause we didn’t, we wouldn’t have known if we didn’t know. and so I think it’s that as well, but most important, I think is consistency and how you. Interacts with people. So you don’t bring all your emotion to people in your business. It’s terrible having a boss who’s one way one day and one way, and you never know who you’re going to get. Makes your tummy anxious. So I try to be consistent more than anything else.

Chris Hudson: 35:43
Yeah. Okay. Okay. No, that’s really helpful. I was also going to ask about people out there that are listening, they might not know whether they’re an intrapreneur or not. And sometimes I ask whether there’s something that would kind of trigger that thought. so from your point of view, you’re obviously entrepreneur, intrapreneur, you’ve done that in the past. Yeah. You know, what would be things that would spring to mind? If you think about intrapreneur and if you’re listening, what would you be looking out for as a characteristic or something?

Kate Toon: 36:06
Do you get really, mine would be, my finishing point, I guess, would be, do you get really annoyed by stuff all the time at work now, generally that makes you seem to sound like you’re irritable and difficult, but somebody who notices flaws in how the things are done. They’re the best people. And people come back and say, but we’ve always done it that way. And you go, but why? If you find yourself saying, but why a lot? I think you’re an intrapreneur.

Chris Hudson: 36:30
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So you’re the, the rules are there, but you’re there to break them. So you’re going to be some sort of rebel.

Kate Toon: 36:36
Yeah. Rebel. I absolutely think it’s about being a rebel and it may not be big things. It could be tiny little things. Often it’s the small things that lead to big changes. So yeah, being a rebel on a small scale, I think would be my life thing. Okay. Thanks.

Chris Hudson: 36:50
Brilliant. All right. Well, thanks so much, Kate. I know we’re, we’re almost out of time. Really appreciate you coming on to the show. How can people reach you? I know you’re out in the big wild world anyway, but how do we find you?

Kate Toon: 36:59
Well, hopefully I’m pretty good at SEO. So if you Google Kate Toon, you’ll find something to do with me and you can look through all my stuff, but it’s been great. What a great discussion. I’ve loved this. so much.

Chris Hudson: 37:09
Thanks so much, Kate. And that’ll do in the words of Babe or whether the farming, I remember the farming

Kate Toon: 37:14
That’ll do pig.

Chris Hudson: 37:15
I’ve got the accent, but

Kate Toon: 37:18
it’s still made me feel good.

Chris Hudson: 37:20
All right. Good stuff. Thanks so much, Kate. Thank you.

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