Jennifer Yeh: The Journey to Entrepreneurship (Founder of Fempreneur Babe)

welcome to another episode of our podcast today I'm joined with Jennifer yay who is a trailblazing entrepreneur who has developed several of her own successful businesses and today she's here with us to share her experiences and insights as an inspiring and successful entrepreneur so Jennifer could you please introduce yourself and talk about maybe your career and educational journey and what kind of LED you into pursuing entrepreneurship of course my name is Jennifer I was in the corporate 905 job about 3 years ago and with that I really realized that where my potential was and what

I really wanted to do with my life and what I wanted to create and that's where I started my entrepreneurial journey I have scaled one business and have been building another business ever since so the industries that I'm in I'm in Beauty and I'm in the coaching business so ever since then in the past 3 years I have been just writing the ABS and flow of building a business learning how to be a business owner learning how to be an entrepreneur what it takes to be on this journey the business marketing strategies personal power leadership

and mindset that's required and it's been fun but it's definitely very eye openening it definitely is a whole different B game from the traditional corporate route that I took just a little background about me I graduated from University of watero in mathematics and I did a co-op program over there so that took me into understanding the corporate world probably worked full-time 9 to5 about four five years and that gave me my R of experience in different Industries and then I had a job at deoe where I was a Management Consultant and I was able to

also understand different Industries over there my background was very much in finance and Tech I really enjoyed it and yeah then I dropped out of corporate and started doing my thing and here I am that's amazing so when you were deciding to make that change from corporate to entrepreneurship was there ever this feeling of I'm scared of this uncertainty I'm going to lose the stable income I'm not sure if my business is going to work out how did you kind of process those thoughts yeah that's a very good question so the biggest thing was having

a vision to what I really wanted to do obviously those thoughts were very real they're very scary and I didn't know what it looked like to not have a stable income coming in to not have a stable job to not have a structure where I know that my career is progressing and I'm going somewhere to not have directionality so it just felt like the wild wild west where you're just out there on your own but what really helped me was understanding what I wanted to build really honing in on a vision and doing my research

and my part on learning the different industries that I want to be in and also learning from the best so once I got a good solid idea of who are the people who are top in the industry that I want to play in in the industry that I want to build business in and hiring them getting in close proximity with them gave me a lot of solidity and certainty around okay I can do this so having that platform the next platform for me to jump on to was very helpful to yes I may not see

results right away I may not have the income right away but knowing that I have directionality there's somebody who is is doing it before me and has got gotten the results it really helps soothe the mindset and that inner emotional roller coaster or Panic that you may get into when you just think about all these things I think for me went in with no expectations as in all I went in was with the mindset that okay Jennifer I'm just going to go in and try out entrepreneurship for maybe a year and I remember very vividly

that I prayed to God was like oh my gosh God only if I can survive entrepreneurship for one year I would be the happiest person alive because I just wanted that one year of Freedom one year of doing whatever I wanted to do one year of creating something that I love and having that creative flow and freedom and not having to worry about a 9 to-5 job or income I think that was a big step and being able to do that and now I'm three years in and I'm still very very grateful for this journey

but yeah that's amazing I really resonate what you said about being able to have that mindset to go in and take that risk because if you don't take that risk at all you never know what can come out of it so it's inspiring that you were able to do something like that if you don't mind could you talk a little bit about the vision or the story behind each of your businesses what led to you having the idea to even create a business for particular service or products mhm yeah of course so I'm in the

beauty business so I provide service in uh my salon and what I really loved about this first of all I loved about this because there was an element of instant gratification where somebody walks into my store and the moment they walk out they're a change person they look different they have an era of confidence and they love themselves so it was like an instant gratification and I picked that up actually from my finance trading floor job the reason I was on the trading floor is because I love the instant gratification of having the sales go

up having hit my numbers right away on the same day so I brought that I'm like what is something that I that excites me and activates me so having a beauty business like that was an element that brought in that element and I was like okay I can get behind that and the other thing that I truly truly loved was that I wanted to create something that brought in an experience to clients who walk in because a lot of these things do come from personal preferences personal way of liking things and living right so I

love the way I feel when I walk into a place that I'm taken care of and the entire endtoend exper customer experience right so I want to make my clients feel the exact same way and Cate an experience that's high-end luxury and for them to feel like they're so taken care of and I wanted to do that my own way the other piece that motivated me to do this was because I just wanted to create something from scratch as in I remember when I made my first $20 from scratch just learning everything I called my

mom and I was like Mom this is my first ever $20 yes in corporate like finance jobs I was making way more of course but it was just more like okay this was built for me this was a path that I was told that I need to walk on in order for me to create that kind of money right but here this is a path that I chose and a card myself and I see results so that was something that was very special and I think I still remember that moment and I will still keep

that as a reminder for this entire Journey that I'm on SO I think creating an experience for my clients wanting to create tangible and trailblazing my own path that led me to the beauty industry and then what really led me into the coaching industry was because I see a lot of female entrepreneurs trying to start their business but they're lost they don't feel like they have the confidence and the mindset behind starting a business and the the Trust In themselves in their creativ in what they desire to create so not a lot of female entrepreneurs

when they come out to create a business it's because they have a vision it's because they want to make an impact to the world in one way or another but what's missing is they're not sure whether they are going to create that into reality so that's where I come in that's where I bridge the gap for them that's that sounds amazing and a business that I definitely would want to you know know visit I think that especially as females we can often be told by others that we're still like limited by certain stereotypes in the

workplace or maybe unconscious biases so you taking that step in showing that you're also just as capable as your male colleagues I do believe that we were're not built the same and that we're just compatible in so many other ways there are things that women can do better that men can do and there are things that men do better that women can do the thing is that Society has just put us on the same level and not created a dynamic and an environment where we are Sy synergetic and the expectations are synergetic as opposed to

having the same expectations from both genders it's like a team right playing to your strengths and playing to what what you're really good at and I think for a lot of female entrepreneurs we think that we need to box ourselves or be a certain way or do the things that probably we're not very good at that men are good at doing and because we feel like we're not good at that we feel not good enough and we feel like we're falling short um a lot of women wherever we go we feel like we're falling short

because we're constantly being compared to with men so I do think that we are moving towards a different Dynamic now and also with a lot of female entrepreneurs coming out and doing their own thing and I think business era that we're walking into is going to look a little bit different from the traditional way yeah and I'm glad things are moving in that direction as well so on another note I imagine that marketing is something that's really important for when you start your own business so I was wondering if you could share any insights into

how you developed or refined your brand over the years so the biggest thing about branding and marketing is creativity and where does creativity come from creativity comes from you really anchoring into your vision and know what you want to create what is the feel and the customer and brand experience that you want another person to feel when they walk into your business walk onto your platform that overall is the full brand and marketing experience you'll look at any brands that are successful in the world they give you a Vibe it's a feel it's what they

associate with they're talking to a very specific personality type or they create a personality type and people resonate with that the biggest thing I would say for someone who is Desiring to create a brand and Desiring to stand out with with their marketing is to really look within what what is it that you want to create and that what I also walk my clients through is unleashing that creative genius that's within you and it's curating an experience for your clients and I think the easiest question that you can ask is how would you personally like

to feel when you walk into a store when you walk into a brand what would excite you and elevate you because the chances are you're going to attract a type of people that are very similar to your creativity and who resonates with your creativity but it has to be personal it has to come from something that means something to you otherwise it was just not land because creativity does not work when we're trying to be like Nike when we're trying to be like product creativity is not copying it's original and it's just genuine and authentic

yeah I re I really agree with what you said there would you say creativity also has to do with storytelling did you use any storytelling when creating your brand image or story or Vision yes absolutely with creating a brand I do think storytelling is something again going back to how it's personal and if if you think about it a lot of the artists they create the best Masterpiece when there is a story behind it we all know Taylor Swift his her songs because she speaks and writes from her own personal story so same with creating

a business it's what story is linked to this Artistry and what inspired you to create something that's beautiful so I do believe that for me a lot of my personal stories is this like the 9 to5 doing my own thing my own way and just leading the way and trusting myself that's a big story in and of itself and that's a big selling point and I do think that people who resonate and want to go on similar path look up to that and when they look up to that they're instantly attracted to the brand instantly

attracted to the business and they want to work with you yeah I feel like when I look for a brand when I'm choosing between different competitors I feel like which one does resonate with me the most not cly which one I've seen the most on like ads or on billboards or whatever it is the brands that stand out to speak to a very intimate personal element of their client yeah yeah and you said you are running your own Salon in the beauty industry so when you're trying to attract your first VI client what strategies do

you use to get your first customers or clients honest honestly word of mouth was big marketing strategy for me and how does Word of Mouth work through doing just a phenomenal job providing a phenomenal service and putting client experience on the Forefront and I believe in the power of one and this applies to both my businesses where if I am delivering a worldclass service to you and I'm coaching you in a worldclass way and you are transformed you are changed by my beauty service or by my coaching then you're going to be my best customer

you're going to be my best billboard you're going to be my walking talking billboard that's how I say my clients and honestly that's the best strategy and that works I'm not saying that that works for all businesses but service-based businesses 100% word of mouth is great because you would rather buy from a friend who whose life has been changing Changed by it by from a friend whose life has been changed by it and she recommends you and you're like okay we know her and let's do this yeah that's great so word of mouth in the

beginning and did you spend a lot of money on like advertising or would you say that's not that effective in this kind of like service oriented business I have tried advertising and advertising does work there is an Alex Heros four quadrant chart where he does explain how do you do an Outreach to clients getting it to people who know you people who don't know you and I think like you can pull up that chart so ads definitely has its place in the marketplace if you want to reach out show people who don't know you that

what you provide but for me personally word of mouth was key as a strategy and I did try advertising in but I I didn't love it as much and advertising did work for me for a little bit but then I I had a lot of momentum with my current business already that I didn't feel the need to have advertising so I I I do think back to the point of delivering a great experience will help advertising though can speed up the work but you will have to know and build the capacity to deal with a

lot of the other different types of people that you will attract in your business because advertising just goes out to everybody it's like you're a net catching a a big group of fish but if you want a specific type of fish then you may have to weed through it right whereas if it's Word of Mouth then you actually just get a specific type of client that you love and for me what's important for my business is I need to love my clients and resonate with my clients and Vibes with my clients as much as the

vibe with me yeah for sure I think that it also has to be very targeted you have to understand your Target demographic I imagine so that's really important thank you so much for sharing that so you mentioned that you have uh several businesses so I was wondering what are some strategies you use to be able to allocate your time effectively while also maintaining this work life balance and how do you separate your work life from your personal life so the first thing I want to get out of the way is there is no work life

balance it's not a thing I created this business not so I can escape from my work I created my businesses and I live this life entrepreneurial life because it's a lifestyle honestly it's like you go to the gym and it's a part of your life it's just a lifestyle you're not thinking about oh my gosh I need to go like three times I'm hitting three times and I'm good it's it's more like who you are so being an entrepreneur is also very much who you are so it's integrated in your life I could be going

out dinner with my girlfriends and having a drink and I could be making sales booking a client so it's very integrated I think this one thing that I heard that resonated very much with me was that don't worry about work life balance think about work life Harmony what's the Harmony in your work life and how do you introduce that harmonious way of living and working where they're both synergetic so you're not compromising your health for example in order to push for a sale right or push for a client and you're able to just navigate around

it and I think that that in itself is a skill and it comes with experience the more time that you are in this business and build your business you start to realize okay what am I prioritizing because obviously you do need to prioritize your health right and the other question that you asked around how do you allocate the time I do have boundaries around my business business hours for two different businesses maybe I'm taking clients for three days of the week for business number one and then the rest of the days I'm either resting or

I'm working on my other business has there been time where I have crossed some of these boundaries yes if I wanted to let's say hit a goal for a certain month and that's a beautiful thing about having the freedom it's like I could yeah take extra clients here book extra calls here and there just so I can make it work so it's also having the adaptability and flexibility knowing what to prioritize and at the same time on a regular standard there has to be some soft boundaries that are in place to keep your sanity in

check I do feel like sometimes there can be a bottleneck because I'm working on both my businesses and obviously I want both my businesses to be successful so a big part of what I'm learning is to learn to hold them both and increase my energetic capacity and when I say energetic capacity it's very much the mental capacity as well and I think that that's very cool that I'm being curious about learning but at the same time it's really fun like oh what if I can stretch myself a little bit more and then just a little

bit more it's very much like working your muscle at the gym you know okay 10 pounds for the next four six weeks and then let's try adding a little bit more just a little bit more and then before you know it you're lifting heavy and it feels light so it's very much a training ground for myself as well yeah that's amazing I also think that that's one of the benefits of Entrepreneurship you're very hands on you take more ownership of your work and I feel like the learning almost is faster than what you would maybe

get at a corporate job would you agree on that aspect yes 100% I think that is really a real life experience because you're not in a corporate bubble you're not taken care of like there's no safety net sometimes you just build a plane on the way down so then at that time what do you do what is the skill that you cultivate the skill that you cultivate is massive personal power and trusting in your own ability to do it I think in a corporate let's take an example of deoe right you only get to sell

to a client and learn the sell s selling skills when you're at a partner level or when you're at a senior manager level whereas I'm doing this Hands-On every single day with my clients how do I sell my product sell my service to my clients and in a way that feels really good to me personally that aligns with my personal values because I don't want to be somebody who is salesy and pushes for the sale I want the other person to want this product and Service as much as I want to sell it to them

it has to be equal right and not me wanting to sell more than that person wanting to buy and so learning the sales strategies learning how to communicate with clients learning how to be an expert in the field learning how to retain clients learning how to at the same time have anchor into the bigger vision and business development of your business it's a lot that you have to handle so it's a great scale and I feel feel like now if I go back to a 95 it would feel very boring to me and I would

need something more stimulating uh because I'm constantly being challenged and stimulated and pushed outside of my comfort zone in order to do the thing that I want to do but it's good because I like it because I chose this and I think that's the beautiful part about this is that when you choose it you are more willing to learn as opposed to being forced by a manager you have to learn Oracle please go get a certification on another hand would you say there's any soft or hard skills that you kind of took from your corporate

experiences at theoy as a trading analyst to bring to your entrepreneurship Journey yes I would say my degree in mathematics my experience in the corporate world has definitely given me quite a bit of a head start in entrepreneurship because I came out and my communication is good I can pick up things really fast I can learn things really fast and because I have been under high stress fastpaced Dynamic environments I'm okay to thrive and work and make my business be a fast-paced dynamic business as well and that assisted Me growing my business obviously you have

to understand with business it's really different it's the ABS and flow of the business so you got to understand how do you write the ABS and flows of it but I feel like a lot of the soft skills that I've learned have definitely helped the hard skills though I would say creating visuals creating parts of brand experience I think deoy does a really beautiful job at that yeah I would say those would be the top soft and heart skills that you require as an entrepreneur yeah I definitely think in like that corporate setting there's those

very strict deadlines that you have to like learn how to meet and it just helps you learn how to work Under Pressure so it's that you able to take away some things from that experience and bring it to your current work absolutely would you say perhaps in the future another skill could be maybe understanding how to build a strong culture if you were to expand your team understanding like how to be a good manager as well because maybe you had an experience in your corporate workplace I definitely have a dream and a vision to build

a team and I know exactly how I'm going to cultivate a culture within my team it's a culture that has to resonate very much in with me again I always look at the point of view from my perspective if I were to walk in to a group of people in a culture how would I like to feel like I belong how would I like to feel inspired and motivated and fit in so that's how I look at it and I do think that a lot of the things that we oversee in the corporate environment being

a manager and being a leader is we've been taught in the very strategic way a leader just means oh you you give them directions you delegate but we've not really been taught for a leader to be the role model to be someone who people look up to and there were a lot of times when I was working in my corporate where I didn't have enough respect for the leaders there that made me feel like then why should I learn from you so I think that respect bringing that role model but leading from within is very

important the biggest piece that's missing I do feel with leaders is really really connecting with your team really understanding what the needs of your team is and having that more intimate connection with them understanding them but understanding them because they genuinely want to learn more about them and understanding them not understanding them to meet their target and specific goal right because that is a completely different energy and you can feel that when somebody tries to understand you so that they can play to your strength and weaknesses to serve their agenda versus somebody's trying to genuine

understand you so that they can support you in your role and you can grow and be the version that you want to be and learn the skills that you want to learn that's a completely different vibe and energy for me the way that I would love foresee myself building a team is to cultivate an environment where people just belong and everybody gets to have a say in how the company gets to run everybody gets to have a voice and everybody matters yeah that inclusivity and like having that voice piece is so important because I would

never want to work at a company where I feel like I'm just efficieny old what to do without regard for like my opinions I was also wondering so the business landscape is always changing there's new trends coming in a new demand so how do you evolve and adapt to these changing customer needs or business needs the biggest thing there I would say is having the mindset of being adaptable and I think that's the word that you just said that's key and looking at it from a lens of being a creative genius which means that if

things changes and if let's say there is a trend that's out there right and let's say I'm a chef right and people nowadays I think on Tik Tok there is a merry me soup recipe that's going viral so if I was a chef the way I would adapt to this I would think about what would my take on this be what would be the version that I would love for the soup to create and I think that that would be just cool because you're giving your take when you're giving your own personal take to something

that's trendy something that's out there something that is changing the landscape of the industry that you're in a it establishes you as the expert and B because you know your stuff so well that no matter how you package it the thing inside that you're offering is still so solid and you're so solid about it that you don't mind changing the packaging to cater to Christmas to Valentine's Day right so you're adapting to these changes so it sets you up as an expert and secondly it really is actually a good thing because it inspires you to

think differently it inspires you to have your own take and really tap into that creative genius within you to do something different and maybe you'll innovate maybe that'll really take your business off to another level because you tapped into that creative idea and you became an innovator and a Trailblazer so I would say it it's the mindset behind it and I would say it's where you want to take your business creatively that's amazing because I think I was also always wondering how businesses were so adaptable but I really think what you said there help me

answer that question it can be hard though sometimes because were used to having the sales making the sales making the money and having the clients a certain way and then when things change it's just uncomfortable change is uncomfortable we have to be sometimes a little okay with I mean I think every day we're trying to tell ourselves that we're okay with the comfort and the discomfort yeah yeah I think that as human beings we just don't like change but be able to like embrace set because things are always changing nothing's going to stay stagnant okay

so overall I was wondering what are some tips you have for audience or future aspiring entrepreneurs the biggest tip for aspiring entrepreneurs is really to trust your vision and Trust what you want to create despite the world telling you that it may not happen it may not work out it's cultivating that deep personal power and Leadership within you and leading yourself through it believing in what you want to create because if it matters to you then it will matter for somebody else who resonates and who will be your clients and customers or users one day

and I think that's what a lot of the big companies have nailed Apple has nailed that Nike has nailed that because they've believed in a vision they believed in a brand they believed in a business and they they just had that laser focused vision and they trusted despite being shut down by so many people and they just kept going so maybe to sum it up it's trust your vision and keep going love that and for you what was the vision you had for your business and how do you see your business evolving in the future

so my businesses again comes from a very intrinsic personal part of me the way I Envision my life to be and my entrepreneurial journey to be is create products that I love and share it with people create things that I love and share it with people and innovate on the way there obviously we learn the business skills the marketing the sales but once you have a good momentum and you know the the play of the land then you just get to create and put things out there I know I make it sound so much easier

than it is and that's exactly what I thought when I started my business oh it's going to be easy I'm going to have these two businesses and then I'm going to have the third and fourth but right now I'm I'm juggling with these too and it's quite a lot but it's good so the vision that I have for myself in the future is having multiple businesses and the products and sharing my product and my vision and my love for the things that I want to share with with the people the way I Envision for these

businesses to evolve is I have plans on scaling bigger I have plans on creating a bigger Community especially within my coaching business to really create a community where entrepreneurs can Thrive have the support that they want and the community you to know that there are others out there who are also walking the same path as you so you don't feel alone yeah and putting my work out there building a community for female entrepreneurs and creating products that people love that's awesome well thank you so much Jennifer for sharing your entrepreneur Journey how you got started

in it your branding tips different challenges you face and how you plan to continue to make a mark in the beauty industry in the upcoming years I hope that everyone was able to learn from this and thank you again for joining us Jennifer thank you Emily thanks for having me