Brutally Honest Business Advice for Women

In this episode, I’m sharing my best advice for women in business. We’ll dive into overcoming imposter syndrome, tackling bias, and finding that elusive work-life balance. I’ll also talk about building unshakable confidence and navigating the tricky line between being assertive and being unfairly labeled “a bitch.” This is my personal take on what it takes to thrive, own your power, and take control of your career. If you’re ready to level up and embrace your full potential, put on your headphones, it's time to lock in.

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Episode Transcript

S1 (00:00):
Welcome to Building Billions, the podcast for business owners who
are getting things done and scaling fast. I've helped business
owners create billions of dollars in value over the past decade,
and now I'm here to share the strategies that actually work.
This show is for the doers, the ones solving problems,
making tough calls, and building real value. If you're ready

(00:20):
for straight talk on what it takes to grow a
massive business, you're in the right place. Let's get to work.
Welcome back to the podcast. I'm assuming that you're a
woman because this episode is literally titled Brutally Honest Business
Advice for women. But if you are a man, you're
welcome here. I guess I'm gonna talk to my ladies, though.
Let's talk about business advice for women. It's a little

(00:42):
weird for me to make content like this, because I've
always adopted this mindset that men and women are the same,
and we just have to treat ourselves like we're the same.
But we are different. And I do believe that because
I am a woman, I look at myself differently in business,
and I've had to overcome things in business that no
man has ever had to think about or consider, and
I really was thoughtful in the way that I put

(01:02):
together this particular YouTube video because it started as an
original YouTube video. And if you don't already know, the
YouTube video drops four days before the podcast. So if
you're not subscribed to my YouTube channel, go on over
to YouTube, hit the subscribe while you're listening to this,
you can have it stack because you're getting two things
done at the same time. And let's just dive in

(01:24):
to my brutally honest business advice for women, I'm going
to share with you my brutally honest advice that took
me from feeling not confident and like I didn't belong
in business or in leadership as a woman, to feeling
completely confident in being a high performing entrepreneur. I have
been overlooked and underestimated for years. But today I'm the

(01:44):
co-founder and president of a $100 million company, and I've
done this all by the age of 30. So here
are my six truths that I genuinely believe will help
you succeed as a badass woman in business or any
professional setting. The first essential piece of advice is learning
how to negotiate. Negotiation is not about who is yelling
the loudest. It is about knowing your angle and then

(02:06):
owning your power. When I was first starting in my career,
I was so nervous. Whenever there would be a conference
room meeting and we would have to introduce ourselves, it's like,
I don't have the credentials to be in here. I'm uncomfortable.
It's going to come to me. I'm going to say
something silly and stupid. And so one particular day we
were going around the table and I realized that there
was a bunch of people who were older than me

(02:27):
who were more experienced than me, and they were all men.
And when it was getting to me, I realized instead
of fretting about this and worrying about this, this is
actually my angle. What makes me different and unique in
this room is the fact that I'm a female. I'm
in a younger demographic, and I can actually use this
as a reason for why my opinion and why my

(02:48):
perspective in this room is important. So instead of just
being some small little woman in this room, I was
able to come to the table to say, this is
what I'm great at, this is who I am. It
doesn't matter that I'm younger. It's actually a great thing
that I'm younger because I have a perspective with the customer,
with the audience that we're trying to go after. That
is invaluable because all of you are dudes, and as

(03:09):
a woman with natural empathy, you can understand your customer's
problems better and connect with the customer in a completely
different way. It's a great thing, especially when you understand
what you and your organization brings to the table in
a negotiation. It is your angle, but don't use this
angle to think of, oh, I have to be soft
and that means I can't close and press into what

(03:30):
I want in a sales process. The reason that somebody
should do business with you is because you are a woman.
It is a fantastic thing, and you can use it
instead of thinking that it's something that actually holds you back.
The second essential piece of advice is all about who
you surround yourself with. You see, we've all heard the
saying your network is your net worth. However, who are
you networking with? If you are not networking with the

(03:52):
right people, and you are networking with people who are
in the exact same position that you are in, sure,
they might be great acquaintances, but they're not actually going
to help you move things forward because they're struggling with
the exact same things that you are. So is it
bullshit when someone says your network is your net worth?
It is if you're networking with the wrong people. I
find that when women lose their confidence, it's because they

(04:13):
are around other people who have a lack of confidence.
When you are around people who are confident in themselves
and who believe in themselves, you actually start to understand
that you can believe in yourself. And one of the
biggest mistakes I see women make is they join these
networking events. They go, they try to meet other people. Well,
here's the challenge. You are likely networking with other people

(04:34):
who might be at the same place that you are.
Those are not the people you want to network with
in order to gain confidence. You want to network with
people who are doing bigger things. You need to learn
how to ask really great questions. One of the best
questions that you can ask, especially in business, is how
big is your business? When somebody tells you that they're
an entrepreneur, that's super awesome. You should acknowledge them. But
it's very different to be talking to an entrepreneur who's

(04:56):
doing a quarter of $1 million in annual revenue versus
an entrepreneur who's doing a quarter of $1 billion of
annual revenue. So if you're not qualifying who your network is,
you could end up creating a network of people who
are just going to keep you stuck in the same
level of confidence that you have today. I think about
this in terms of relationship advice as well. I will
never forget when I had somebody give me their full

(05:17):
opinion on how to plan the wedding, how to make
it perfect, how to just have the best day in
planning process ever. And then I realized 45 minutes in
that this person is now divorced. I was like, mm,
wait a second. Is the point the marriage or is
the point the wedding? So I literally took everything this
person said to do. And I did the opposite of

(05:38):
that because the goal was to plan the marriage, not
to plan the wedding. How you create relationships with people
who can positively impact your life. You have to really
look at their results. And if the results that they've
achieved are not the results that you want for your life,
do not take their advice and go find people who
do have those results and spend time listening to them. Next,
you have to master your routine, which starts with being productive.

(06:01):
As women, we try to get the value out of
all the things and we try to honestly do all
the things. But productivity is not about doing more, it's
about truly accomplishing what matters. Fastest way for you to
become more productive is to identify what you need to
stop doing. What you say no to is just as
important as what you say yes to. And I find
that as a woman, it is so difficult sometimes telling

(06:23):
people no. And I used to really struggle with this.
If a friend wanted to go out for dinner, I'd
say yes. If a family member wanted to do some
family activity, I'd be like, sure. But instead today I
define what do I need to produce? What is actually
driving my career forward. And that is truly what makes
me productive today. Just last weekend, I was supposed to
go to a football game. We have field side tickets

(06:46):
to all of the games at the Cardinals Stadium, and
I realized that I have annual planning to get done.
I have strategy plans that I need to get done.
I had approvals that I needed to do, I had
content that I needed to review, and so I just said, no,
I'm not going to go to this game. I get
that we have clients there, I get that I even
had a couple family members there. It would have been
a great thing for me to be there, to be seen,

(07:08):
to meet people. But that was not the most important thing.
My husband was completely understanding because he understands that my
ability to feel good about myself and to achieve my
goals is directly tied to my ability to produce the
things that are important to me. I went to bed
that night at 930, feeling so productive because I did
what needed to be done. So by saying no, you're
able to do more and feel better about yourself. I

(07:31):
would not have felt good about myself if I went
to that game. It's just a matter of you deciding
over and over and over again to prioritize the most
important things which actually create your productivity. The fourth piece
of advice, and this is controversial, is to ignore this
idea of work life balance. Work life balance is great
to have if your goal is balance, but not if

(07:52):
your goal is to be rich and successful. Honestly, work
life balance is just another way to tell women that
we can't have it all. And I refuse to accept
this idea that women can't have it all. You can
have the job you want. You can have the family
that you want, you can have the career. You can
have any of these things. However, if you want certain things,
there are trade offs. And if you want to have
financial success, you're going to have to work your ass off.

(08:15):
For me, I'm not targeting balance at the end of
my life. I don't think that when I'm 85 years old,
in a hospital bed somewhere, I'm going to think, man,
I'm really glad that I lived a balanced life. No,
what I'm going to think is I'm really glad that
I became the person that I was capable of becoming
in pursuit of what is possible for Natalie, the impact
that Natalie can create, the people that she can meet

(08:36):
and inspire and create belief in and help be successful.
Those are the things I'm going to be really freaking
proud of when I'm 85. The world needs people who
are capable of doing great things. So this idea of
wanting balance and wanting to have something that is just
this elusive target, but that really isn't the goal of
our lives seems silly. And one of the things that

(08:58):
I struggle with. I love the holidays. I am just
the biggest fan of sitting at home with my little
Santa Cup, watching a Christmas movie by the fire with
my Christmas tree. But as soon as I start to
feel the temptation to spend time doing that, I refocus
and I as quickly as possible get out of the house. Now,
this might not be your jam because you want to

(09:21):
be able to enjoy all of those holiday feels, but
what I recognize is I'm useless to everybody when I
just indulge in that way. I'm not making an impact
on my future. I'm not making an impact on the
people that depend on me. I have to go produce
something because nothing comes of me just being happy and
excited to drink hot cocoa, as nice as it sounds.
So yes, you do have to make trade offs. What
is important to you? Is success important to you? If

(09:43):
it is, and I believe it should be, and you
wouldn't be watching this video if it wasn't, then you
have to actually say, I'm not going to do these
things because it's okay that I don't need to have
this balance in my life. And one of my biggest
gripes is that the girlboss era has been demonized because
hard work gets you what you want. On the other
side of hard work is every single goal that you

(10:03):
could possibly imagine. That doesn't happen through you just phoning
it in and enjoying yourself and having a balanced life.
Especially not in your 20s, especially not in your 30s.
Put the fricking work in now to reap those rewards,
to have respect from other people. There is nothing wrong
with wanting more, with wanting it all, with wanting financial security.

(10:24):
In fact, I think it is horrendous how in this country,
in this world today, we actually demonize people who want
to be able to have financial stability for their families.
The fact that people choose to live paycheck to paycheck,
or to not get the skills that are required to
make more money is just selfish. And so I don't
want to be selfish. I want to actually produce and

(10:45):
contribute and be a positive influence on society. Ultimately, the
choice is yours and you just have to ask yourself,
what do I really want? Number five is to replace
imposter syndrome with expertise. You can easily overcome imposter syndrome
by learning more. When I was 22 years old, I
had the most exciting idea. I was driving across the

(11:07):
bridge from Vancouver, Washington to Portland, Oregon, and I thought,
what would it be like to have a podcast and
a blog where I helped women understand how to be
confident and how to create leaders. And I was going
to call this blog Today's Work Woman. At the time,
my last name was Workman, so I thought, oh, that's
kind of like a catchy little thing. Today's work woman.

(11:29):
And I got so excited just visualizing and dreaming about
this blog and this podcast I was going to create
until it slapped me in the face that nobody would
listen to me. Well, at 22, I hadn't created financial success.
I didn't have confidence at that point. I just shut
the door on it and instantly felt imposter syndrome. But
instead of completely shutting the door, I just started chipping

(11:51):
away at the things that I needed to do in
order to actually create a podcast one day. That's called
Today's Work Woman. What's ridiculous is I actually started a
podcast called Work Woman and then changed the podcast because
I was like, this is too generic. It actually needs
to be called Building Billions because that is what I
am doing, and this is the impact that I want

(12:12):
to create. I want to help people generate billions of
dollars in the economy, to be able to stimulate job growth,
to be able to stimulate economic spend. Gross domestic product
like I want to impact the world, not just women,
but that required me adding skills to myself. And at
first I did feel like an imposter because I was
an imposter. But that's okay. It's not a bad thing.

(12:34):
I hadn't done what I needed to do. So when
you start to have that feeling of, oh, I'm just
doubting myself and I'm not certain and I'm not sure,
you just pivot that to, okay, what do I need
to do? What do I need to learn in order
to get to where I'm trying to go so that
you can have the blog or the Instagram channel, or
the TikTok channel or the YouTube channel that you want

(12:54):
to create because you actually have something valuable to share
with people. Try not to sit in this feeling of
being an imposter too long, because when you sit in it,
you could potentially get stuck in it. Let's say you
want to launch a YouTube channel. You should perfectly mock
up what your YouTube channel is going to look like.
What would potential thumbnail titles be? What would the photo
look like? What is the banner look like in this

(13:16):
mocked up YouTube channel of yours? And pay somebody to
create this for you so that it starts to become real.
And you move out of this feeling of being an
imposter and into the realm of I'm creating this. There's
just a gap between where I am today and where
I'm trying to go. When I had this idea to
create today's work woman, I hired a graphic designer. I

(13:36):
paid the graphic designer $500 to create this mock up.
What a beautiful mock up it is of the logo
and the colors. And now I think how cringey and
ridiculous this looks. But it was the starting point of
what you're seeing today. If I wouldn't have gone and
had her do all of this work, I wouldn't have
had this picture of what I was about to create.

(13:57):
This brings us to the sixth piece of advice, which
is to be successful as a woman in business. You
have to have the confidence today that you would have
in ten years from today. One of the fastest ways
to get this confidence is to walk that very fine
line between being a bitch. Being super decisive and also
being collaborative. What I find is women in leadership often

(14:20):
take way too much feedback, and they listen to what
everybody else wants in order to be collaborative and to
be honest with you. They take this too far. They
lose sight of the vision that they have, of the
direction that they want to go. Think back to me
wanting to launch today's work. Woman. If I was being
super collaborative, it could just get pulled in this different
direction when I didn't stay true to what I was
trying to create. My husband weighed in on what he

(14:43):
thought it should be. My mom weighed in on what
she thought it should be. My dad and my friends,
they all had these ideas. And so eventually I was
just like, nope, everybody out. This is what I want
to create. And I just started taking action to get there.
So yes, feedback can be valuable if you have something
specific to learn and you are trying to seek that
information out, but also make sure that you have a

(15:04):
confident position in what you are trying to do. I
would never get feedback ahead of time unless that person
is so supportive and like the you go Glen Coco
in Mean Girls. If that's the type of person you're
getting feedback from, fantastic. But if it's somebody who you
are actually looking for, potentially approval from, don't ask for
that feedback because you will get criticism. And when you

(15:25):
are actually creating something, you don't want criticism for people
who are just trying to nitpick you, it will decrease
your confidence. But if you already have something established, what
I would recommend that you do is not actually get
feedback outside of looking at specific stats inside your organization.
So if your stats are going up, meaning you're making
more money, you're making a greater impact. You can actually
measure the amount of clients and their success that they're

(15:47):
having through working with you. You are already creating something
that is successful. You should trust yourself. Now, if something
isn't going well and you've launched something and it's not
working and you're not going in the direction that you
want to be going. This is not when you're asking
for collaboration. You're not just having a group brainstorm. You're
looking to specific people who have specific experience, or you've
asked them to do very intentional research to solve a problem.

(16:11):
It is rare, if seldom, if never, that a great
idea comes from just group brainstorming on some random set
of problems. And to be honest with you, that's how
I make decisions about my own brand. I have team
members who come in and give me all sorts of
opinions about what I should do, what I shouldn't do,
and don't even get me started on all the people
inside my comments who give me all sorts of feedback

(16:34):
points about my long nails and my blonde hair and
the way that I look and what I do to
my face, and the amount of makeup. I think it's
fantastic that people have an opinion. That's awesome. You're entitled
to your opinion. Do I have to take your opinion
and do anything different or feel the weight of that?
Absolutely not. Now, I do bring my team in to
collaborate on things where I want their opinion. It might

(16:56):
be a new project. It might be a new area
that I'm wanting to build upon, that I'm wanting to
create on that. I'm going to ask for that level
of collaboration, but it's not for something where I already
have something specific that I'm driving to because I can't
get confused. The more clear you are of what you
are building and what you are creating, and the more
you stick to that, the more confident you are going
to become. So those are the six pieces of brutally

(17:18):
honest advice that I would give any woman who wants
to succeed in business. If you enjoyed this podcast, you
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(17:39):
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