55. Risk & Reinvention: From Online Success To Bookshop Owner
Success isn’t always about scaling; sometimes it’s about choosing joy, community and building a business that actually fits your life.
Kate Toon is an award-winning entrepreneur, author and digital marketing expert. But in 2024, after building a thriving online business, she did something unexpected; she bought a struggling bookshop in her beachside town of Umina Beach.
In this honest and entertaining conversation, Kate shares how burnout, curiosity, and a craving for real-world connection led her to make a bold pivot from online courses and passive income to running a bricks-and-mortar bookshop.
We talk about the risks, the realities, and the rewards of stepping into something completely different.
Kate also opens up about the early days of motherhood and business, how much pressure we put on ourselves to "do it all", and why her book Six Figures in School Hours is really about letting go of guilt and embracing what’s realistic.
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Kate's journey from the UK to Australia as a backpacker
- Starting her first business when she was 5 months pregnant
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Why her book ‘Six Figures in School Hours’ is really a book about working parents having forgiveness, not hustle
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The bold (and slightly mad) decision to buy a struggling bookshop
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The real numbers behind digital business vs bricks-and-mortar retail
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How motherhood reshaped Kate’s relationship with work, identity, and ambition
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The importance of doing things that bring joy, even if they don’t “scale”
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Why reinvention doesn’t need a 5-year plan; just a willingness to take the next step
Whether you’re a business owner craving a change, a parent trying to balance it all, or just someone who loves a good reinvention story; this episode is full of wisdom, warmth, and plenty of laughs along the way.
For more information on Kate Toon:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/katetoon/
The Umina Beach Book Nook: https://uminabeachbooknook.com.au/
Episode Transcript:
Amy
Welcome to the Really Good Conversations podcast. Today, I am joined by Kate Toon, award-winning entrepreneur, author, mentor, speaker, and digital marketing expert. In 2024, she added bookshop owner to her portfolio after purchasing a struggling bookshop in her hometown, the Umina Beach Book Nook.
Welcome to the podcast, Kate.
Kate
I am very excited to be here. I'm just going to warn the audience that both of us are Northern. As this podcast goes on, we will get more Northern. Subtitles can be provided.
Ha!
Amy
Well, actually, I've got to say that when I do put any audio into the likes of chat GPT, it picks me up as Welsh. It can't understand me.
Kate
Yeah, well, that just shows AI has a long way to go.
Amy
Definitely. Well, you touched on that. You are a fellow Brit and we are chatting here in Australia. So first up, tell us a little bit about how you have ended up in Australia.
Kate
I was a backpacker, so I came out,I was supposed to be in Thailand, but my travel partner after a week fell in love with a Thai boy called Bang, great name, and off they went to Bang.
And I came to Australia and I ran out of money after about two weeks and I got a job at Ogilvy as the head of digital production, which sounded very fancy, I wasn't qualified for it. And they eventually sponsored me, I went back to the UK and then came back here just as the Olympic Games were happening, 1999, with a partner that I put in a box and brought with me, and then we had our son, and I've been here ever since.
Amy
Wow, fantastic. I love that and it's impressive to get a role like that wandering in as a backpacker.
Kate
They soon regretted it.
It's the only job where I've been demoted as the word rather than promoted. So people came in above and above me because I was like 25. You know, I started the job and all I had was one Portman's skirt and a pair of flip flops, which I had to, you know, wash each day and bring back in.
I didn't know what I was doing, you know, but the thing is, when you come from England and you at that era, we were so far ahead in terms of digital marketing that I seemed dead clever and they quickly realised I wasn't.
Amy
That's brilliant. You actually developed and started your first business in 2008 before the arrival of your son. So take us back to those early years and how you started that business journey.
Kate
Well, yeah, I was kind of contracting for different ad agencies at that point, sort of as a senior producer, general manager, hating it, absolutely hating it. And I had wanted to get pregnant for a while and we were told that we couldn't get pregnant. So I'd kind of given up on that. And I thought, my God, I'm going to have to be a career woman and I hate my career. So this is brilliant. And then fantastically, I got pregnant. And that enabled me to leave my job because I didn't want to do the long hours, the advertising demands and have a human, especially since I wanted that human.
So I gave up my job when I was about five months pregnant and I had no idea how to run a business. I'd been in the corporate world all my life.
And I just started out as kind of a do-anything person. So I was building people's websites. I was making logos, but I didn't know how to use Photoshop. So I did them in PowerPoint. Built some very bad WordPress websites and slowly just moved more and more into copywriting.
And then from copywriting into SEO copywriting and Google writing, which was really innovative back then, 100 years ago. And that was it, I started just as a freelancer.
So when then my son was born and those first two or three years were absolutely miserable and then carried on from there.
Amy
fantastic. You've developed multiple revenue streams since then and you've got a number of books, some of them titled Six Figures in School Hours and Six Figures Whilst You Sleep. Tell us how have you managed it all with being a mother and developing these businesses?
Kate
To be honest, not very well.
The Six Figures in School Hours is the book I wish I had had when I was trying to do it. And it's not necessarily about becoming a super being and finding all these efficiencies to do things faster and better and writing social media posts while you're breastfeeding. It's about forgiveness. It's about mom guilt.
It's about making the most of the time that you have and being realistic about the time you have.but also realising the mantra from the book is the world will wait. You know, I felt such a sense of urgency when I had my son when he was two or three that I needed to keep going. I was going to lose my place before going to get ahead of me. And really nothing effective happened until he went to school. And now he's 16 and I'm still here doing stuff and I've got many years left. And if I'd have done everything five years ago, I'd have nothing left to do. So it's like the world will wait, be patient.
You will get there but it's going to take you a bit longer than somebody who can work 40 hours a week. And that's okay, right? So it's really, that book is a book about forgiveness, which I slowly learned, but I wish I'd learned it a lot earlier, you know.
Amy
Yeah, and it feels so relatable to where I am right now, because my little one's three and a half. Yeah. And I did actually, as I said to you before, when we chatted, have listened to the audio book of that, that book, because it is in those early years, you're looking for the nuggets, the golds, the how am going to do all of this, because you're trying to do and be everything.
Kate
But also it's an identity thing. When you become a mum, it can be all consuming and you're like, yeah, but I still want to be me and I still want to do my things. And therefore I need to push harder because I've lost something by becoming a mum. It's a weird way that we're judged as being mothers. It's the best thing in the world, but also it's the worst thing in the world. So you're pushing yourself even harder rather than saying, I chose to make a human. I can take a little break. It's all going to be OK. It feels like it's all going to slip away.
But it isn't. It isn't at all. If people wanted you before you had a baby, people will want you again and probably more because you'll have more experience, more empathy, more understanding. You're a better person often, you know, because you've had more trials and tribulations and so you'll be more desirable post-child, you know.
Amy
Yeah, I absolutely love what you've got on your current website, like the timeline of your journey and your businesses. And it is just a great little snapshot. I think actually you've probably covered a bit of advice points then, but what key pieces of advice would you give to others, whether it's mums trying to juggle life and business?
Kate
I think the main thing is to stop kidding yourself.
You know, like you think, well, I'm dropping him off at daycare at eight and I'm picking him up at two or whatever it may be, or I'm dropping them off at school and I'm picking him up. And you're like, wait, great. I've got six hours. You haven't got six hours. By the time you've driven home, gone to Coles, put the stuff in the fridge, set the washing machine, go and add a wee, scrolls, do scrolls for half an hour, done a little bit of work. It's time to pick them up again. know, realistically, I worked out and it was all worked out in the book that most
Kate
Mums or parents I should say because it's not just mums. You have a kid or kids in preschool or school have about 15 productive hours a week. Productive billable money making hours. So if you want to make six grand a month from your business you're charging $100 an hour. It's simple maths but the problem is we think we've got 20 and we don't then hit 20 and we're not making enough. We're like we must be doing something wrong. We're doing something. Why aren't I making as much money as I should? Because you're never going to.
You were never going to, you didn't have the time in the first place. And also that something's got to give, that time has to come from somewhere and it's either going to come from your relationship, from your child, from your health and wellbeing. So the better thing to do is accept you've got 15 hours a week and just accept that, you know, someone else might have 30. Great. What they achieve in one week, you achieve in two. Still all right, isn't it? Still fine.
Amy
Yeah, gosh, well, that is refreshing to hear, you know, you are actually taking the weight off me. Because I think, you know, I started agency world as well, many moons ago, and I think we are sort of slightly trained to it's sort of, you know, it's deadlines, it's timelines, it's being reactive constantly, never leaving a client waiting, you know, just sort of you're on the go, go, go. Yeah. And certainly work was not, you know, nine to five. And then I feel like I mean, the era of you always trying to re-untrain all of that to be now what is actually realistic.
Kate
I mean, it's an excellent training ground. You know, I think one of my key reasons for success was that brutal agency training land where every hour had to be accounted for, do your time sheets, go, go, go. It was a hideous environment to work with and I'm very glad that I'm out of it, but it was excellent skills to bring into the arena. But it is a different arena with different combatants and different weapons and we can't treat it the same. One of the things people say to me a lot is,
I really want to make the income I made when I had a real job. That's my goal, right? To match that income. And I'm like, why? Why is that your goal? You don't have to commute. You don't have to wear a bra. You don't have to put your tuna casserole in the microwave and talk to Gavin. You don't have to have a boss. You don't have to have board meetings. Surely that takes at least 20 grand, 30 grand off your income goals because you are at home. You're your own boss. You can do what you want. That is worth some money. So again, setting these unrealistic goals.
No one cares as well. No one's judging me. Everyone thinks what you're doing now is impressive. Most people can't even run their own business. They give up and they do something else. I think we're trying to, we had a laugh at the beginning when he said, how shall I introduce you? And he had written this about all my things. And I said, yes, Kate, who's an overachiever and desperately wants to impress everybody. And no one cares. And you get to my age, I'm 51, even I don't care now. I did when I was younger, but I don't even care now.
Yeah, I think we just put an awful lot of pressure on ourselves.
Amy
Do you think that thinking, that confidence, you know, comes with age and time?
Kate
Comes with age.
I was an absolute idiot in my early 30s and definitely in my 20s, know, emotionally unstable, making daft decisions, you know, worrying a lot, a lot of pressure. And I still am all those things, but I'm slightly, slightly better, slightly more measured. I'm able to sort of take a breath. You know, I always think that you can, some people react after they've done something daft, two weeks later, like, oh, that was dumb. Some people react like two days later. Some people catch themselves in the middle of the storm.
Some people catch themselves just before the storm starts and some people see the storm coming. And I'm at the point now where I see the storm coming. I'm like, Aye, aye, you're about to make a big mistake because you're getting all het up and your chest is all pumping and you haven't slept well enough. This is not a day to be making big decisions, you know? So it takes a while. But I used to be the person who two months later would go, that was daft. So it's taken me a long time to pull myself all the way back.
Amy
Yeah, that's a brilliant insight. And what have been some of the biggest turning points on your business journey?
Kate
Well, I think one was when I went to a conference. I'm not a big conference person. And it was my first conference I went to and it's called Pro Blogger and a guy called Darren Rouse ran it. And it was really big back in the day. And they said, we are looking for people to be speakers on stage, just a 10 minute slot. And I was not happy with myself at that point.
I was overweight, didn't like the way I looked. I hadn't really done any public speaking, but I put myself forward and I got picked. So I got to stand on stage in front of 500 people.
And I just started to put together this kind of rough SEO course. I'd done it in person a couple of times. And the reaction to me on stage was so positive that I went home and that week made a little mini challenge. And within a week of putting that out there, I had 600 people on that challenge. And that was the start of my whole passive income. So that was like 2014, 2015. So that one little moment of bravery and thank you Darren Rouse, led to so much for me.
Amy
Wow. And sometimes it isn't until you just jump in the deep end. And like even when we, you know, we're launching the cards, we did a trade show in January 23 in London, with a week's notice. And I said to Alex, this is a fail fast situation. If we go to that trade show, and we could get to speak to people, we get some feedback, then we know if really good conversations has legs or not.
Kate
I think this is it. And I think this is why some entrepreneurs and I'm doing air fingers succeed because the meaning of entrepreneur is business owner who takes a risk. And I think a lot of people are scared. They don't want to look a fool. They don't want to be a failure. They don't want to be laughed at. You've got to be willing to look a fool. Because in the end, you will have the last laugh, you know, while everyone else is sitting there going, it's never going to work. It's never going to work. You're at the trade show doing the thing. Whether you sell a million packs of the cards or 10, it's still an amazing experience because you did it. know, so you've got to not be on the sidelines. You've got to be in the arena, like we just said, fighting the tigers.
Amy
I think you are no stranger to change and being adaptable. We've touched on that from your personal professional life. But a recent change for you has been the purchase of this bookshop. So tell us how this has come about, because as we said, you've been very much in a digital space for a while. So how have you ended up buying a bookshop?
Kate
Again, not a considered experience, not even people like, oh, that's a dream. And I'm like, it wasn't my dream. I love books. I love that. But running and I've always liked the idea of having a little shop at a market or a little store, but it's not like I've been burning to buy a bookshop and Googling bookshops in any way. literally had closed down a part of my business because I was stressed out and bored and a bit burned out with it. And it was two days after I completely finished. It took me months because I had to, you know,
People had memberships, I had to refund people. was a big, know, extricating yourself from an ongoing concern is hard, right? It was two days after and I was having a walk down the beach with my coffee. It was like 10 o'clock and I was on the beach. And I got an email from the bookshop saying, we're closing in a week unless anyone can save us. And so I first went in and offered to invest. So glad I didn't do that. And then she was like, no, no, I'm done. And I said, okay, how much is it? And it was, it wasn't cheap, but it wasn't ridiculous. You know, it was doable.
Kate
And so I thought, I'll regret, you only regret what you don't do. I'll give it a pop. If it fails, it fails. And believe me, it's been pretty hard. But I'm a year and a half in now and it's starting to turn around, but it's been really hard, you know? And I'm old and I'm tired and I'm not very used to dealing with humans day to day in person. So it's been super challenging.
Amy
Yeah, I mean, it does sound like a bit of a serendipitous moment that you said you were closing the other part of the business.
Kate
One door closes and another opens.
Amy
Literally. But you did say people thought you were a bit mad. What did give you the confidence to persevere and think, no, I'm going to do.
Kate
Yeah
Well, I rang my accountant and I tried to take the rational steps, you know, I looked at the accounts but the accounts were awful and basically showed that it was not making any money, hence the woman had had to sell it, you know. I looked at the Google reviews, they were terrible. The shop, to me, looked kind of in a state of sort of disrepair, like it had been beautiful but it started to get that little shabbiness to it. And so it was like, this is a terrible, terrible idea. I rang my accountant and he said, it's a terrible idea, you will never make any money, you should absolutely do it.
And at that point, I also had a financial advisor and I said, look, I feel like it's my midlife crisis. This is going to cost me about as much as two Harley Davidson motorbikes. And if I was a 52 year old man, 51 year old man, that's what I would do. But instead I'm going to do this. And I guess I do, it's not arrogance, but I do have an innate confidence that everything will kind of be okay. Like even if it fails and I lose money and I shut it in a year.
It was still, that's still okay. Still did it. Still had a go. I enjoyed it. I do enjoy it an awful lot, you know, so that's important.
Amy
I think it is just another chapter. always say like the
Kate
Chapter, like, Another chapter. Look at you.
Amy
It's part of the tapestry of life, all these interesting and different things. if you didn't do it, you'd probably forever walk... Well, you'd either see it knocked down.
Kate
Yeah, you'd wonder and I think I was, you know, it was serendipitous. I was a little bit over the online space. I did feel like I wanted a community. My son is 15 - 16. He's getting to that age where he doesn't want to spend time with me. You know, I'm not his best mate anymore. Oh, don't say that. Don't talk to me about it. I will actually cry. Don't be nice. He's lovely. He's a wonderful son. But of course he wants his independence. And I needed a little something something. Whether it was in a global economic crisis in the middle of nowhere, besides the toilet, with financial issues. I'm not sure that was the right somethings something, but it was the something I chose.
I could have had an affair, that would have been a slightly more economical approach but I couldn't bother.
Amy
But how has that transition been from digital space, where you can measure ROI, see spend out, see spend, see everything quite clearly, I guess, in digital worlds. You know, how has it been to transition that into bricks and mortar and also the reality of this physical costs before you've even opened the door?
Kate
Well, it's just a completely different business. So my, you know, my whole second book is about passive income and how to turn your skills into courses and memberships. And in there, I actually give all my financials, how much I earn in every launch, how much I spent on my profit margin. And the thing about digital is my profit margin was ridiculous. So on average business, 5 % is 10 % is good, 20 % is amazing. Mine was 55 % profit margins. That's after everything is done. That's ridiculous money.
And also you're selling to a lot of people, you know? So much easier, much better, but there's only so much, I've launched my SEO course 31 times. I'm done. Do you know what mean? I just literally can't do it anymore. The shop is different. the retail is not much money in it. I will never make much beyond 10 % profit. Like, and that's okay. I'll pay my team, I'll pay my staff, might even pay myself. But I knew that going into it. But the difference is, yes, with online, you can view the cold data.
But what you can't view is the warm faces. Now that sounds like a cheesy line that I wrote before I came on. But there is nothing like getting some new stock in and seeing someone come in and appreciate it to know that that stock's gonna go. Or someone come in and go, why have you bought that? And with digital, you're trying to have that. You're trying to A-B test and do you want it? I'm teasing you. Do you want this small version of it before I sell you a big version? And if you're trying to have that experience, but I get Maureen coming in saying, what the hell are they?
And that's more powerful and easier to manage in a way. So the pros and cons. We all want that, don't we? A little bit. I'm not a massive people person. I am quite introverted. So I can't work in the shop every day. I really, really can't. It's quite a performance. I do get to wear outfits, which I'm quite excited about. After 10 years of sitting there with no bra on in my pyjamas, it's nice to go out. But there's only so much I can do.
Yeah, it is nice and I do feel really part of the community in a way that I never have.
Amy
Yeah, I was going to ask what have you seen the bookshop do for the community?
Kate
Well, I've really made that the conscious thing because I was actually before when I dropped that bit of the business, I was actually going to volunteer to work in an old people's home, which deals with people with dementia for two days a week. So II want to start giving something back. And then I bought the bookshop. And so the attitude with the bookshop is I'm giving something back. So we have free story time. We give books to the old people's home. We do three different book clubs. We have events at the shop, you know, like
Friendships have been forged at the shop that have then gone further. I'm also trying to get the whole community going. So we tried to do Christmas in your minor last year. We had bands outside the shop and we tried to get people to do late night shopping. And it's hard because a lot of the other retail stores have been there for a while and they're slightly jaded. Here's me coming in all like a little happy Labrador and they're like, that won't work. And for the large part they were right, but I'm still going to be a happy Labrador. So yeah, just that's the point. Like I wanted to feel like really safe space, which I know sounds a bit wonky, but you know, down to like having our LGBTQI symbol, dogs are allowed in, the whole shop has a layout so you can get a wheelchair around it and a pram around it. Just trying to consider things like that. It makes it less than just trying to flog a book.
Amy
Yeah, and it becomes a real hub and a destination. We touched on, we’re from the north of England and, that's where you had like the butchers, the fishmongers,
Kate
That's what we know, isn't The proper high street. When I say high street here, people don't know what I'm talking about. It's called West Street, not high street. I'm like, no, no, no. It's the street in your town where there's the butchers, the newsagents, the sweetie shop, you know, and you go home after school and you, you know, like we remember that. And that's why I'm trying to recreate absolutely that kind of Northern English, honey town sort of thing. And that's why I hope I have created. People come in and say, so cozy, it's so cute.
Amy
Yeah, that's brilliant. Because what do you think, you know, the modern day shopper is actually missing online? Like the reality is we are now in this space where everyone's buying everything online. They want it instantly. No one's prepared to wait for anything. And obviously, see even more so in the UK, like the M1 is just like huge warehouses. Like, unfortunately, that's now the British High Street is going to just become more of these warehouses. But for those listening, what would you say to encourage them of what they're missing when it comes to physical shops?
Kate
Well, I think, you know, it's the same way that people still buy vinyl, even though there's no justification for it.
Literally, there is no reason to buy a book from us. You can get it for half the price it came at. You can get it for the same price on Amazon, but tomorrow. And sometimes with us, you have to wait a week. So literally, we have no competitive advantage at all. All we have is someone comes to the shop, and this happens a lot. They're kind of wandering, because we've got kind of a good street appeal. They're wandering, like, God, I've not read a book in years.
And we have like, we all go over and say, oh, you might like this and you might like this. And then we give them entryway books and easy books and we have a conversation and then they like that book and they're like, wow, if they pick that one for me, maybe this next one. But also just coming in and having a laugh. You know, sometimes people come in and just talk about their day and especially older people as well. But mums with small children, you know what it's like when you've got like a two, three year old, you're literally with an inanimate annoying blob that's putting their fingers in everything all day. And then the next day you have to do it all day again.
So if you can go in somewhere and we've got a kids play area with some toys you can put your kid down for a few minutes and have a little chat and look at some books. Sometimes that's enough.
Amy
Absolutely yes I definitely can resonate but how have you found being an author and an owner of a bookshop I mean are you separating yourself as well from what stock you're choosing you know how does that all work?
Kate
I'm not. I'm not separating myself. has to, you know, each bookshop is a representation of the person who owns it. It really is. It's a representation of the community. So,I know the guy who runs the Wallara Bookshop in Sydney and the types we went to a day where they show all the books coming out and the books that he was ticking, that he was going to order were not the books I was ticking, that I was going to order because my community is different. They don't want, you know, books on Bolivian architecture necessarily.
They want the latest cool Stephen King book or Patricia Woolf. So it is a reflection of me and it is a reflection of the community. In terms of what I've learned about the publishing industry, just that it's incredibly hard. They say in Australia to be a bestseller, need to 5,000 books, which is not that many. But then there's people like Trent Dalton who's sold 350,000 books. But not everyone's going to be Trent Dalton.
Kate
And what I think is the hardest thing to see is debut novelists and they have spent like three years writing this novel and sure we get it and we sell a few, but then after six months it's gone. And it'd be very hard for us to sell it again unless we've read it and loved it. And just the volume of books that come through the shop and maybe once in a while there's one that sticks and that does well. But the publishers try to create that, curate that experience, try to engineer that experience, but often it has nothing to do with the books that they say are going to be successful.
It's just weird books that come up on Book Talk or just get a ground spot of popularity. But it's interesting and fascinating, a bit depressing, but also quite inspiring as well. Because when one of these new books comes out and it does do well, it's like, wow, we love that book too. And look, we're part of its success. And it's cool.
Amy
Yeah, that's fascinating. What prompted you to actually write books in the first place? You've done five or six books now?
Kate
I just want to be a writer. Really all of this arsing about with advertising and digital is just me waiting until I have enough confidence, experience and money in the bank that I can stop and write novels. So that's all I've ever wanted to do. My first book was a book of poetry. My second book was a kid's book. And then I wrote business books, which obviously essentially are a lead magnet and the profile builder. I have made money out of my last two because I've got a professional publisher. You know, I've got a real publisher who had them at the airport, you know, which is the ultimate thing.
But, you know, I'm doing another book which is coming out in March, the end of the trilogy, the Six Figure Trilogy. And I really, really do hope to write my novel. And, you know, my vision of myself as an old lady in a cardigan, working in the bookshop a few days a week and then spending the other days writing books, that would be my dream.
Amy
Wow, but this bookshop purchase just feels like the real right time, was because you're now going to be immersed in all of these novels. You're going to be inspired more and more to build that confidence.
Kate
But also maybe have a few contacts and I think I'll be able to know a few publishers. Maybe the door will be... Because the door is very closed, you know, it's very hard to get in and you do find there's a degree of nepotism or someone knows somebody and I don't know anybody, do you know what mean? So maybe it'll be easier for me, maybe it won't. Maybe when I actually sit down to write my novel I won't be a very good writer of novels and then I'll have a real rude awakening.
I guess this is kind of the theme of this whole show, we started off talking about like, you know, decisions and how you decide to do things and turning points, kind of just stumbling along and someone goes, do you want to do this? And I'm like, all right. And being vaguely yes and being willing to take risks as you trade show, things happen to people who do things. Things don't happen to people who do nothing, you know?
Amy
Many people think about taking a risk or think about change, but then they never take the leap. So what advice would you give someone who is standing at a bit of a crossroads or got some ideas? How would you encourage them to make the change?
Kate
Look, I'm not going to be flipping here. It's easier at this stage of my life to make decisions when I have a little bit of financial wherewithal, money is important.
I'm in no way saying it isn't and security and we're Northern English, right? And I'm working class. So money and my attitude to money is very much don't be risky.
Don't get a credit card.
Don't be splashy with your cash. Right?
So it's mitigated risk..
You know, wouldn’t I go out and order 70 grand worth of stock of a product that I haven't even tried in a trade show. No, do you know what I mean? But you take small little leaps over time and give yourself time as well. And instead of thinking what's the worst that could happen, I think it's really important to think what is the best that could happen. My attitude has always been if the worst comes to the worst, because I was a secretary in a VA and an EA for a long time, if the worst comes to the worst, even though it wasn't the worst, I quite enjoyed it, I could always go back and be a secretary.
and I would have an okay income and I would be all right. I could go and get a job in Waitrose. sorry, we don't have Waitrose here.
I wouldn't get into Waitrose. I'm not posh enough.
I always thought well I could do that and I'd be okay, I'd be okay. And so knowing that you could got that to fall back on helped me in the early days. And now I have this sense of, I just look back and go you cope with that and you cope with that and you cope to that you're gonna be all right. Do you know what mean? It will all be all right. And that might sound like arrogance, but I think it's just lived experience.
Amy
Yeah. Oh, that's brilliant. Oh, well, thank you so much for everything you've shared so far.
I'm now going to put you on the spot and ask you a couple of questions from my Really Good Conversations pack
So question number one, what is one of your pet hates?
Kate
In business or just in life? Always. People being late. Really get some white tits. Yeah.
Amy
Any others? Because you said business or life.
Kate
No, it's really people being late, you know, and yet often I'm late. So that's really hypocritical and selfish.
Amy
Question number two, what is the most embarrassing thing you have ever done?
Kate
This is a long story, but I'll tell it quickly. I speak a lot and I had this week where I spoke at five or six different hotels and I was exhausted and delirious. And I went to bed and it was so hot. So rarely I took all my clothes off.
Like usually I keep my knickers on Amy, you know, just in case of spiders and stuff. Took all my clothes off, fell on the bed, fell asleep, woke up in the middle of the desperate for a wee, opened the door, went to the toilet and the door clunked behind me. And it wasn't the toilet door, it was the hotel door and I was in the corridor and it was 2am and had to eventually go down to reception completely naked and get them to let me back into my room.
The thing is, I'd love to say that was 10 years ago when I was an idiot. It was months ago.
Amy
Brilliant. Love it.
Kate
But you know what as well? That is literally the stuff of nightmares. Other than all your teeth falling out or having to do your history exam again and you haven't revised. That is the worst nightmare, being naked in public. And you know what? It happened. It wasn't that bad. Yeah. It was alright. You know, you survived it.
Amy
I'll have to compose myself for the next one.
Question number three. If you came with a warning label, what would it say?
Kate
I was gonna say something about biting because I do bite people sometimes.
She looks nicer than she is maybe.
People think I'm really nice to have big eyes and I kind of have an open face. But I can be quite a cow sometimes or probably just she's tired don't talk to her. That would be another good one.
Amy
Brilliant. Fantastic. The last question that I love to ask all of our guests is if you could ask any person dead or alive a question, who would it be and what would you ask them?
Kate
I don't want to get emotional now, but it would probably be my dad who passed away this year. And, you know, no matter how many conversations we had, I would give anything to have one more chat with him, to go to the pub, eat some crisps and have a beer. I don't know what I'd ask him. I'd want to ask him something like, have I been a good daughter?
And he'd probably say, shut up. But I don't know. I'd like, I just miss being able to ask my dad advice because he was very Northern, very to the point that he was always on the nail, you know? So I think it would be my dad.
Amy
I love that. That's beautiful. Thank you.
And to wrap up, know, what's next for you and how can people find you and connect with you? What's on the horizon?
Kate
On the Horizon is my next book and then, I'm kind of doing a complete rebrand.
So I'm going into my little cocoon over the next six months and I'm trying to shed basically what made me successful, SEO and copywriting. I'm trying to a degree, put them behind me because I'm kind of done with them now and I want to evolve into a new, more kind of generic, businessy, coachy, warm-y, I hate the word coach, but just not so literally, I'm going to teach you SEO, I'm going to teach you copy more.
I'm going to teach you how to win customers and enjoy your business without relying on ads and without being a git, basically. I need to work on my USP, clearly. So I'm going to do that. And then the book comes out in March. And that will be a lot of fun. And then hopefully, write my real book, my novel.
Amy
I'll include links in the show notes as well. But thank you so much for your time today. It's really been such a fun conversation and we could have chatted for hours longer, but I've been good at keeping us on time. Thanks so much. Bye bye.
Kate
Thanks Amy
Amy
Thanks for listening.
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