Laura Kåmark
Hey everyone. Welcome to the Be bold make waves podcast, a show bringing you inspiring stories of women who are growing and scaling their business. I’m your host, Laura Kåmark, a website and tech integration specialist who works with online business owners who love their work and not their website. Join me as we have incredible conversations about business mindset, productivity, and of course, the website and tech behind the business. Let’s go ahead and dive in to this week’s episode.

Welcome to this week’s show. I am so excited to introduce you to today’s guests. Bevin Farrand, back in 2019, after unexpectedly losing her husband, five days after they returned from a whirlwind trip to France, Bevin founded the take the damn chance movement, her damn framework has inspired hundreds to connect with the people they love, do the crazy thing that makes all the difference, and when given a choice to take the damn chance. Additionally, she’s an executive business strategist and coach and my coach who support small businesses and entrepreneurs in developing and executing strategies to take the revenue to six and seven figures. Bevin, thank you so much for being here today. I’m so excited to have you on the show. Can you tell our audience just a little bit more about you and how you got started in your business?

Bevin Farrand
Yes. So Laura, I feel like you’re already going to start crying. And I feel like we also need to give your audience a warning that this could last hours. It could last hours. It’s so interesting, because you and I met just two months after Mark passed away.

Laura Kåmark
Yes, we met in real right. Which was really awesome. I remember, we had both joined a program. And as part of the bonus for joining we were put into a smaller group coaching group to work through the program. And I remember when you first came on, you were like, Oh, I do project management. I was like, Oh, I bet she’s like, listen, spreadsheets? Sounds like my kind of gal.

Bevin Farrand
Yeah. Which is true. I was all about the spreadsheets for a long time. I was like, oh, I

Laura Kåmark
want I want to know her more. She was you just you had an energy about you that I really was attracted to. And I remember also like something you’ve always said is like you have resting happy face, which just makes me smile. I do.

Bevin Farrand
Yes, I do. It’s good that this is on video. So people can say that that is actually true. Yes. So let me tell you a little bit about when you and I met, I had just started a business called collaborate dot work. And I started that business because in May of 2019, I got laid off for the third time. So this was not actually my first foray into entrepreneurship. But it was my most recent. So I got laid off. We I just had gotten back from maternity leave, I had two young children. So Guivier was two, and Jonathan was four months old. And so to say that it rocked our world was like an understatement. And I remember walking with Mark, my husband, and we were out on our country roads. And I looked at him and I said, you know, I’m not going to look for a job again. And I mean, he was so supportive, and I but I still think he like lost some, like some oxygen cells there. How do I do this? So I told him, I said, Look, this is the third time I’ve been laid off. And every time I’ve gotten laid off, I lose my entire income in an instant. Yeah. And I don’t want to do that anymore. I don’t want to put the health, the financial health of my family into the hands of any one person. And so I said, Let me what I want to do is I want to take what I’ve been doing for over 10 years. So I’ve been in the digital marketing world, as a senior launch manager, a brand director, a producer for over 10 years for some really big companies that are doing great things and in the digital marketing space as like, let me take that and use it with smaller businesses, entrepreneurs who want to grow their business to the high five, six, and even seven figures, but don’t need a full time CFO don’t need a full time brand strategist. And so that’s what I did. And I said, let’s do this as a proof of concept. Let’s see if I can make $5,000 By the end of August. And if I can, and we’ll keep going. I’ll still look for jobs, but we’ll keep going. And so I did that I made $0 In June, I made $1,000. In July, I made my first $5,000 in August. And then I quickly I want to say maybe October was my first $10,000 month. And so I was then starting to consistently hit $10,000 $10,000 months. And that was my goal, right? My goal was to replace the salary I had made before. Now in all of that is when I met you start to collaborate at work. Well then as you kind of believe Did to in the intro. The My husband had surprised, right, two weeks before I got laid off. My husband told me he was gonna take me to France for my 40th birthday. So of course, I get laid off. And our first thing is, should we cancel this trip, get our money back. But we decided to hold off and see how things have gone. And so we went on this trip, which was totally crazy, because we were going to be in airplanes the same amount of time we were on the ground. And we left our two small children at home. So whatever it was two and a half, Jonathan was 10 months old at the time, had an amazing time, like, reconnected to who we were as a couple, like before, we had kids before we got married. And we were only for like 39 hours. But it was amazing. And we came back and we planned it was Thanksgiving week. So we did all the stuff around the house. And Mark had taken the week off work. So we took one of your to her first movie theater show. And like prepped the house, which is my favorite holidays, Thanksgiving. And then the day after Thanksgiving, I went upstairs to wake up mark and he had passed away in middle of the night. And we had no idea that he had undiagnosed heart disease. This trip was not like a last hurrah type situation, it was just a crazy trip. And so all of a sudden now I was the solo parent of two children under the age of three, I was now the sole financial provider with a very fledgling business that had not yet been tested truly. And I’m doing it all without, you know, truly the love of my life and my biggest cheerleader next to me and so I you know, there were some people that immediately were like, well, you kind of go get a job. And he’s like, No, that that, to me has not felt any more secure. And so I made a post about a month later talking about that trip and about losing mark and saying, you know, I’m so glad that we were on that adventure together. And anytime you’re faced with a choice, just take the damn trip. And that really resonated with people and I got so many people reaching out. And I realized it’s not about a trip, it’s not a vacation. It’s really about taking the chance on yourself so that you take the damn chance, take the lead. I mean, your audience gets that if they’re entrepreneurs, like take the leap. And so I knew that was going to be something, but I didn’t know what and so I continued to grow, collaborate that work. I grew it to eight to $300,000 in that first 18 months. And then I scrapped it.

Bevin Farrand
I guess we’re done. But no, I really I, I shifted my focus now to the take the damn chance movement. And, and there’s a lot of different iterations, a lot of different focus areas under that take the damn chance movement. But I’m so passionate about helping people bring their big, bold dreams to life, because we truly never know what’s going to happen. And so I always say we never know what’s going to happen. And that’s not a reason to live scared. But it is a reason to live fully. And that is my passion, if that means helping people bring their businesses up to six figures and beyond so that they can have their big, bold, wonderful life. And that is what I throw myself into. If that is, you know, somebody being a solo parent, and you know, expanding their family, like I just want people to, really, I don’t want anybody looking back on their life and looking at it with regret.

Laura Kåmark
And I resonate with that so much. I mean, there was a time in my life where I looked around me at my corporate life and my mortgage and was like, Is this all there is? Yeah. And I went, I don’t want to wake up one day and say what if, and that’s when I went and turned to notice walked away from my mortgage was back in 2008, where my condo wasn’t worth anything anyway, and bought a one way ticket to the Caribbean to just go see what happens. And that was I remember so many people are like, but what hell are you going for? I said, I don’t know till the day it’s not fun anymore. And what if it doesn’t work out? Well, then I’ll come back. Yeah, there’s nothing stopping me from not coming back. I mean, I’ve known people who, you know, sell up, off everything and move into the RV and go travel around and they’re like, we’re gonna do that forever. And then six months later, they stop and set, put down some roots and are like, we were done. And it was fine. And we had a great adventure.

Bevin Farrand
Yeah, the best advice I have. First of all, I love the phrase, it seemed like a good idea at the time. It really does help, like, take some of that pressure off of making the change. Why did you do that? Well, it seemed like a really good idea at the time. But the very best advice I’ve ever gotten. I was 13 years old. And my I had been offered a full ride scholarship to a boarding school. And my dad and I sat down for like three hours talking about whether to go whether or not you know, all the things that I would miss either way. And at the end of that conversation, he said to me, Bevan you’re going to make the best decision you can with the information that you have at hand. And if in six months or Six years or six weeks, you make a different decision. It’s not because this one is wrong, it’s because you have more information. And you are making the best decision you can with the information you have at hand. And especially in my entrepreneurial journey that has been really powerful. Absolutely. I don’t look at things like saying, Oh, I made a mistake, I failed. I’m like, Well, I was, it seemed like a good idea at the time. I had the information at hand. Now I have more information, let me make a different decision.

Laura Kåmark
Oh, I just love that so much. And you’ve posted about that before on Facebook. And that’s something that I’ve, I’ve quoted you and your father on, because it’s just so good. And it’s so true. I mean, we we also as business owners reserve the right to change paths to pivot, like you said, you had collaborate dot work was going and you built it up, and then you made a pivot. Yeah, you can do that. You can do

Bevin Farrand
that. I mean, I so one of the things that I teach in my do the damn thing method is creating your damn manifesto. And that is finding your yes and your six dimensional why. And when you do that, I then put it through what I call the trip filter. And you ask yourself, Is this my top priority? Like, am I willing to make it my top priority? Am I willing to resource it? Is it inspiring? Is it personal. So as I built out the most recent training around the do the damn thing method, I created for people what I call the parking lot. So because entrepreneurs, we have shiny object syndrome, right, I mean, all these ideas were like, I’m gonna have an Amazon store and be a web designer, and you know, open a coffee shop all of these things. And it’s not to say that you can’t have all of those things that you just can’t have them all at once. Because when you try to do that, it’s like driving 17 cars to the same place. It’s like, okay, I’m going to drive this Toyota Corolla, like half a mile, but I’m going to run back, and I’m gonna get my Maserati, I’m gonna drive that two miles, and I’m gonna run back, and I’m gonna get my Honda Odyssey, and I’m gonna drive, you know, but nothing’s getting there. Because you’re trying to bring all of these cars along at the same time. So I encourage people to put it in the parking lot. And so you have these ideas, you don’t forget them, you don’t try to ignore them, you actually create a parking lot, either in a journal or Trello, or wherever you want to do it. And you give each idea, its own little parking spot. And when you come up with more ideas for it, you can write it in there, right? And if one night, so I always say like, some cars are gonna rest, like some ideas are just gonna rest, and you’re never gonna drive them again. But some are going to keep getting your attention. And so if you think, Hmm, maybe I do want to make that change, then you go through the damn manifesto process. And you say, okay, so if I want to make this big old switch, what’s my Yes? What’s my six dimensional? Why put it through the trip filter? And if you’re not willing to even do that, Are you really willing to bring it to life. So like when we start talking about a pivot, like there’s some things where it’s just a tweak. But if it’s a true pivot, think through because the six dimensional y piece looks at how bringing this to life is going to impact the six most important areas of your life, and it’s going to positively or negatively. So knowing that, then you make the decision, then you’re not driving these cars, three quarters of a mile each way, and then go, Oh, crap, I should have gone back and pick that other one up.

Laura Kåmark
I love how you talk about the difference between a pivot and tweak

Bevin Farrand
before so

Laura Kåmark
that just stuck with me. Because I feel like I say that I’ve done a lot of pivots. But really, it’s not necessarily I’m pivoting I’m just tweaking it a little bit because I’m not going from web designer to yoga instructor.

Bevin Farrand
Right. Right. So what like my Yes, is that I want to share the damn framework with as many people as possible in as many ways as possible.

Laura Kåmark
Initially, can you tell the audience with damn premium? Oh, the date? Yeah. You ready for that? I know that one.

Bevin Farrand
So yes. Okay, so after Mark passed away, and as I started to build this out, I looked back at the hardest things that I have ever been through, so I didn’t just lose mark when I was 40. I lost my dad to cancer at 24. I lost my home and a house fire in 2010. I’ve been through years of fertility treatments and a miscarriage and IVF to have my kiddos and then I looked at the most amazing things that I’ve done, like growing the business to $300,000 building our dream home having these kiddos and I had to think about what it is that I do differently, not better but differently than people that allows me to navigate these things with grace and creativity. And so that is where the dam framework came up. So I say that a lot like I say the word dam a lot but it does mean something. It is decided declare. Attend your own party moment. It’s not minutes, and now is the time. And so everything I do is based around those mindset shifts. So as I like talks about my Yes, right, my yes is sharing the damn framework. When I initially started out, it was like, I’m going to do this through courses, because I have a background in courses. So am I going to do this through courses? Well, then I realized I actually much prefer working with people in a more intense way, I prefer a mastermind. So now I have the grow the damn Business Mastermind, which is where it is to where you’re a part of, right? It’s what where I help female entrepreneurs grow their businesses to six figures and beyond. We still use those mindset shifts, but it’s focused on the business. So I realized when I say as many ways as possible, I love speaking, I love being up on stage being on podcasts. I’m working on my book, you know, I have this mastermind I do some one on one work, but very little right now. So that to me is the that was the Tweak. I didn’t give up the damn framework. I tweaked how I was going to share it.

Laura Kåmark
Love that. I would love to know a little bit more about when you’re talking about the mastermind and how you decided to do like a mastermind small group coaching instead of doing the one on one because I know for me, I love that it’s a small group. I love that we all get like one on one attention. But there’s also other people to bounce ideas off of I love the connections I’ve made through that. And I see so much more value in that small group coaching than in just doing one on one. Yeah,

Bevin Farrand
I do too. I mean, look, I have, I’ve worked as a one on one coach, I have had coaches, I have been part of masterminds, I have run the gamut of them. I personally love the energy of the right fit of a small group with a mastermind. Because like you said, you’re in a group setting for my math, everybody’s different, right. But for my mastermind. I drive very everybody gets one on one attention in the group setting, right. And so what is great about that is you are hearing you’re learning from other people. And you’re learning from mistakes you didn’t even know you might make at some time. We don’t know what we don’t know. So if I don’t know about how to write a contract, or if I don’t know about how I don’t even know that, like challenges exist, right? Like I love to run challenges. But if I didn’t even know that existed, how would I know to go to my coach and say, Tell me about this. So instead, if you’re in a small group, and somebody says, Oh, I’m thinking about running a challenge, and you’re like, Oh, let me hear about that. And then you get to see what they’ve done and where there’s been pitfalls and stumbles. And then you can avoid those are like one of the masterminds. I’m in like somebody had an issue with a contract, and everybody else was like, Oh, my gosh, I never even thought about putting that clause in a contract. Or, hey, some people were like, I don’t even have contracts. So it’s just the energy of a small group. Now it has to be in my opinion has to be run well, because I have also been part of groups where one of two things has happened. One, it just hasn’t had the right kind of structure or container created by the the coach who’s leading it. Or I knew, I always know when it’s my turn to leave a mastermind. If I find myself coaching more than I’m getting coached. Because I think that everyone listening could probably benefit from some kind of group or support or coaching or what have you. And you never want to be the smartest one in the room. Right? Like you want to make sure that you’re getting benefit from the group that you’re part of, and not just giving of your energy and time and attention. That’s a really generous place for you to be. But if you’re paying to be a part of a group, you also want to be challenged and you want to be stretched.

Laura Kåmark
Yep, absolutely. I mean, one of my one someone I quote often Denise Duffield, Thomas, she talks about this all the time where you need to be surrounding yourself with people who are a couple steps ahead of you. Yep. Because that’s how you’re going to learn. And if your

Bevin Farrand
people a couple steps behind you so that you can teach what you know, but just not all of them.

Laura Kåmark
Yeah, exactly. And I know that’s where like I resonate with you so much because you have small children. I have small

Bevin Farrand
children can probably hear them in the background. Actually, I actually can walk here.

Laura Kåmark
But I mean, for me, one of the struggles I’ve had is just comparing myself to others who are much further along than I am and I have to remind myself that I’m building a business while I’m also raising a family. And not everyone in the online space is doing those two things simultaneous It’s like. And so, for me, it’s very helpful to have coaches that I work with, and people I look up to who are steps ahead of me, but also our house share some of those same juggling acts.

Bevin Farrand
Yeah, that’s one of the pieces of the attend your own party is staying at your own party staying on your own mat. And so comparing ourselves to where we’ve been and where we want to go, and this was something I really dug into this year, because we have this tendency, so you can always make yourself feel better or worse, depending on which way you want to look. Right? If I were to make myself to, though, that sounds so bad, like if I want to make myself feel better, I look at people who are not as far along as me who, you know, have something going on that, like I have already overcome. But I want to make myself feel worse. I look at people who are so much further along. And like, Oh, why am I not there. So I do think it’s important to have role models and to have people that we do look up to, but what I have started to try to do is detach the qualities of that person from the person. Right. So it’s like, you know, one of my mentors is Amy Porterfield. And I look at her and I adore her, right. Like, I’ve loved every conversation I’ve ever had with her. Like you said, she has a stepmom she does, she does not have small children, her son is in college. She has been in this business for X number of years. So if I just want to be like, Oh my gosh, how is she running this multimillion dollar company if I want to make myself feel bad? But if instead I think, well, what do I love about Amy, I love her authenticity. I love her kindness. I love her consistency and how she shows up. I love how when when when I was on her podcast, I love how inquisitive she is and how present like those are the things I love about her and her business. So I try to find those and myself. And you can do anyone you’re like looking at saying, you know, Jenna Kutcher, Marie Forleo, all these names, right? Any of them. You can say, well, what is it that I like about them? Because there are going to be parts of their business you don’t like? So it’s really I think, when we can detach that, then it’s more, I think it’s easier to not make ourselves feel bad.

Laura Kåmark
I love that. I think that’s such a great tip. I don’t know that I’ve ever looked at it that way. I know what I’ve tried to do is look back on like my journey and be like, Look how far I have come. I had a friend I was talking with at the end of last year, and we were talking and have your numbers and she was kind of like down on herself. And like you had a family situation that came up. And so you took a big chunk off. I’m like, Look how much you made in six months that you worked last year. Like you were really actively in your business working on your business. Imagine, like the potential I’m like, No, how much were you making corporate? Yeah, make? And you did all that, all of that. And she was like, Wow, I’m like, we need to be kinder to ourselves. And I need to do it to myself as well. Yeah, but also really looking back and seeing like how far we have come even just from a few months back.

Bevin Farrand
Yeah, I took three months off in 2021 for maternity leave when I had my daughter Maristella. And so my 2020 revenue was much more than my 2021 revenue, right? So I had a dip in 2021 is what I’m trying to say. And but then I look at it. And I’m like, and I took three months off consciously. And partially because I want other entrepreneurs to see that you can take a maternity leave. You don’t have to be on your email in the hospital. Right? I mean, look, I nurse, I’m still nursing my daughter, and I will nurse on meetings as to meetings that you’ve been on. Like, you know, like that happens. Like that’s the reality of being a mom of young children and entrepreneur. I don’t personally try to hide that. Like you said, I mean, I’m very upfront about my kids, they are part of my why. And if I wanted to make myself feel bad about 2021, I would be like, Look, I didn’t make as much money as I did in 2022 or 2020. You know, like, wow, like I really took a dip, I think it was like maybe $60,000 less than 2021. And I’m like I could make myself feel really bad about that. Or I could be like, Hey, I still like I still surpassed my corporate salary. I took three months off to spend with my children to not miss out on my daughter’s brand new life that you never get that back. So I like to like, tell people like make a done list, like make a list of like, all the amazing things you’ve done because what you said when we talked about being kinder to ourselves. One of my principles is called 100% radically loving responsibility. And as that we take this responsibility for our role in the experience of our lives, and when we do that we take responsibility for our role and the things that go sideways. but we also take responsibility for our role in the kick ass things that we do. And I don’t think we do that enough. I think when we’re really well willing to take the blame, but when it’s like taking the credit, we’re like, oh, it was a team. And it was, but you were part of that team or part

Laura Kåmark
of that team. Yeah, no, I, I agree. 100%. Which actually leads me to one of the questions I had for you. Because you know, I’m a big fan of celebrating our wins. I love to celebrate my wins with cheese.

Bevin Farrand
I cannot wait to like and celebrate my wins with cheese again, because I am currently while I’m easing back into dairy, but I was dairy free for a year while nursing my daughter. So I like to celebrate with cheese’s.

Laura Kåmark
I would love to know, what what are you most proud of and celebrating you when it comes to your business?

Bevin Farrand
Oh, you know, I think that recently, so first of all, like, I’m really proud of sharing this message, right? I’m, I’m loving that I’m expanding into speaking this year, and I’m gonna get to share this message on different types of stages. You know, in a variety of audiences, I’ve always I’ve spoken a lot to entrepreneurs, but I’m speaking at a keynote where I’m gonna be speaking to HR professionals. Right. So that’s exciting to me to do that. And I think but I think what I’m most proud of, is growing this business in a way that is very authentic to me. You know, I think that, you know, you’ve seen part of the iterator like the evolution of the business over the past two years, year and a half. And where I’ve seen this buzzword of like $10,000 months, and six figure years, and the second time, I did a challenge around that I was like, I don’t like that buzzword. I want to change. Like it is true, that is a benchmark that is very easy for people to just monetize, right? Like it’s, it’s a target, we know whether we hit or not. But I want to do it in a way that people can be more of themselves, that they we can create authentic businesses that support and inspire. So what I love is having grown this business in a way that is very authentic to me, like, how I speak on podcasts is the same way I speak to my friends as we’re having wine, and committed to my family. Because I leave my desk every night during the summer. But everyday during the school year, I leave my desk at three and I go pick my daughter up from school, I do my best to either pickup or drop my son off from preschool, because he’s into Asia half day. So I am committed to that recently, my childcare situation is changing again. And I looked at it and I said, Is there a way for me to end my day at three, so that I can be with my kids after that. And I’ve shifted things so that yes, I can do that. Now, that doesn’t mean I will always do it. But I can’t I have now work from 10am to 3pm. Those are my work hours. And then after that I can be with my kids, I can do some things for myself. So being able to have a multi six figure business working from 10 to three every day, I’m really proud of because a lot of people are like, Well, I have to give I have to hustle and do all these things and work 80 hours a week. And there might be times of that. But I don’t think that’s sustainable. Why would anybody want to do that? No. Why did you go work for yourself? If you’re working? If you’re doing that you have a bad boss. So why would you go work for yourself? If that’s how you’re gonna treat yourself.

Laura Kåmark
I love the idea of simplifying our businesses. I love the idea of making it easier. I know this is something I’ve been trying to implement more in my business and in my clients businesses is just like ways to simplify. I would love to know on that topic. How do you find that you’re simplifying your business aside from like, getting clear on the boundaries of the hours that you are available? Like what are you how do you simplify things? Because there’s a lot going on, like you’re wearing a lot of hats, like you’re wearing a lot of hats?

Bevin Farrand
I do. So choosing is one that is one of the reasons that my primary offer is my mastermind, because I don’t want to have a million different offers. So it’s why right now I don’t take any more one on one clients. But I you know, and I know for myself, because I love the mastermind structure that I’ll probably expand that out. And I might have more people in it or I might have different cohorts of it. But I love that structure. So that is one way that I do it. I also have a lot of help. So people will often see what I do. And they’re like, oh my gosh, how are you doing this as a solo parent and like I have a lot of help. And but I’ve structured my business in a way that I can afford that help. So I used to think I needed to do everything myself. I delegate so much right now. That So if I don’t love it, if I don’t enjoy it, I usually don’t do it. So like, we have two acres of land, I have zero, I get zero joy out of gardening. So I outsource my lawn care. And you know like it because it’s like, Am I really gonna want to spend all day on a Saturday? pulling weeds? No, I am not. So I also have a full time nanny. And I have like a second sitter who helps like with meal planning and stuff. So. And I think sometimes we have this guilt over that. This is how I realized Mark and I, when we were on our way home from Bordeaux, we were making a list. I was like, Who should I bring on in my business? I feel like I’m overloaded, I need to bring somebody on. And we were making a list of all the things do dump delegate list, right? So all the things that I do, what could I delegate? What could What do I need to do? What did we dump and we realized that the things that really needed to get done were things around the house, yes, laundry, just like simple cleaning, your lawn care, all those things. And so I was like, well, we just need to hire somebody to come in five hours a week and just do the laundry and do the things. And he was very resistant to that at first. And I was like, but here’s the thing, why do we think it’s okay to hire a babysitter to come watch my kids for five hours. So I can catch up on the laundry, instead of hiring the person to do the laundry, so I can spend the time with my kids. And that shift really helps. So I delegate a lot there, I have an I have two actually amazing team members. That, you know, one of them handles is sort of my executive system, which is shifting more into like, where she pitches me on podcasts and pitches me on speaking events. And my other assistant does more of like the day to day tasks. And like, I have an idea about a new course website, and she then executes it. So I have kind of bought my time back so that I can stay more strategic and high level in my business and direct people, the best ways to execute those things.

Laura Kåmark
I love that any way as moms where we can find ways to have more get more of our time back. Yeah, I find because we’re doing so many things. You know, we’re running the household, we’re making sure there’s toilet papers stocked. And, you know, we’re like my best

Bevin Farrand
friend, I’m like, what do we need to be delivered to the porch?

Laura Kåmark
That was actually exactly where I was going with this. I mean, discovering Instacart just completely changed my life I love every time I check out it tells me how many hours I’ve saved in shopping time. And I’m also helping support someone locally who is running around and doing my grocery shopping, which I so appreciate. Because it’s I mean just to go the grocery store, it takes 20 minutes at least to drive there an hour at the grocery store 20 minutes to drive home and then another 20 minutes to put it unload the car and put everything away.

Bevin Farrand
Yeah, somebody once said to me, I can’t believe you’re paying the fee to have your Costco delivered. I’m like, well, Costco is almost an hour away from me the fee, like with tip or whatever it was, like 30 bucks a day, maybe 40. I don’t know. But I was like, it’s an hour. They’re like you said an hour at the store, I always end up buying stuff I don’t need if I actually go right, and then an hour back. So let’s just let’s just look solely at the time, it is three hours of my life. Now look, if you’re like I want to go to Target and Costco because I can leave my kids at home. And I can actually have some downtime to myself. Great. That is time well invested. But if I’m trying to cram a three to four hour trip to Costco into my life, first of all, just breaking that down by dollars per hour, $10 per hour. Right? I make that much way more than that in an hour working with clients. So when we’re looking at how could I possibly afford to delegate to somebody to deliver my groceries or to an assistant or whatever it else you look at? So if you’re an entrepreneur, which I know many people are, and we’re looking at, okay, how do I bring on a VA, right? To do all these things? Well, if you paid a VA, even $20 an hour, so you had them for five hours, you spend $100 If you cannot make that $100 Back in the five hours that you have just bought back then you need to be shifting where you’re where you’re spending that five hours. Or for me sometimes I’m like, yeah, that five hours is where I get to go take my daughter to her dance recital, or I get to go to the like, Hey, I’m gonna have you work on this five hours and I’m going to take my kids to the waterpark today. And that is a good exchange for that money. So that’s where we have to start, especially women, we have to start valuing our time as much or more than we value our money. Yeah, absolutely.

Laura Kåmark
Absolutely. I feel like I have that discussion with my husband a lot, because I tell him, because he very much wants to do I can do that. I can do that. I can do that. And I’m like, But how much is it going to cost for you to take time away from the other things that are more important to like, build, this was like a little center console cover when I got my car. Nice. And I found a cover. So the dog’s nails don’t poke holes in it. Right. And I found this cover on Etsy for like, $30. And he’s like, I could have made that I’m like,

Bevin Farrand
Well, yeah, but

Laura Kåmark
the time it would take you, your time is more valuable than the $30. I spent and supported someone who had made this. Yeah.

Bevin Farrand
That was the I mean, that was a conversation I had with Mark when we first out like, hired somebody to mow our grass. Because Mark would start with first of all, again, two acres, and we had a push mower. Mark would spend literally the whole day Saturday, mowing just the around our house, which is like on the one acre. And I was like, okay, so mark, you are spending, let’s just say six hours. And I know that you make, I think we conservatively said 40 or $50. Now, right? Let’s just say 40. Like, okay, so if I was just paying you dollars for hours, it’s $240, that I just paid you, they will come mow our grass for $80, they will get it done in 90 minutes, and you have now bought back six hours of your life. So now, if you really feel bad about that, just go work two more hours at work this week, I don’t care. And that’s the $80 For now, again. So on the flip side, like we have this field, and I really I didn’t do it last year, but like I love to mow the fields, because it’s just straight back and forth. I get to like, put my headphones on and listen to an audiobook. Nobody’s crawling on me. I like that I’m not worried about that time. It is, like I said, if you want to go to Target for two hours and just be by yourself, that’s fine. But this feeling of we’ve got to do it all ourselves. One of my friends, Deanna Mason, who I think you know, as well, she would say just because we have the capability to do it doesn’t mean we have the capacity to do it.

Laura Kåmark
Yes. And the same. I mean, that goes in personal life and in our business. Yeah. I mean, I work with people all the time who they can do the tech, they can update their website, they don’t want to, it stresses them out, so they don’t do it. So it gets put on the to do list that never gets done. Because I don’t want to do it doesn’t bring me joy.

Bevin Farrand
Or they do it. But they don’t know what they don’t know. I mean, you and I had this conversation about somebody recently who didn’t hire you to move a site over. And then their email broke. And it was like because they don’t know things about the back end that you know that you would just, like obvious when I’d say so I used to plan weddings. In my many forays into entrepreneurship that were not super successful. One of the things I did was wedding planning. And I would tell the brides like the reason you hire me as your day of coordinator is because you don’t know you need a sparkler bucket. Right, you want a sparkler exit, you would have the sparklers and you would have the lighter. But what is carrying the sparklers. So you don’t know what you don’t know. I know those things. So even when people join my mastermind, and if they’re like, Well, why do I need to hire a coach? I’m like, you don’t need one. You don’t have to have one. But if you want to learn the things that you don’t know or to, or it’s like, you, this is how I look at investments. Is it going to get me further? Is it going to get me there faster? And then what has to happen for this to be a no brainer. So for your clients? Are they gonna get a website first of all at all, so they’re going to actually get a website, or they’re going to get it faster? And like for your for what they invest in your work. What has to happen for it to be a no brainer. You have this beautiful website that converts clients like yes, that’s a no brainer.

Laura Kåmark
Oh, I love that. So true. We are getting close to our time that just flew by. It was gonna go by real fast. Like how have we been talking this long already? You know, you know, I can talk to you all day long. I’ve spent many hours on the phone with you on the Zoom. I would love I have a few more questions. I definitely want to touch on that. I asked everyone who comes on the show. And one of them that I would love to know is what is one piece of advice that you would give someone who’s just first starting out in their business that would help them be bolder show up, make waves in their business and this could be advice that you’re you would be giving yourself when just starting out.

Bevin Farrand
Yeah So, when I first started out as an entrepreneur many, many years ago, I made $4,000, my first year, and then 11,000. My second, like, that’s not a raging success by any degree. And I did it because it was like, I had to do all the things, right. I was like, Yes, I’ll do that for $100. Yes, I’ll do that. Yes, I’ll do that. When I started collaborate at work, because I knew that my time was more limited, because I had these two children, I got really clear on my Yes, and I and that makes your nose so much easier. So I would say if you are starting out as an entrepreneur, spend the time like I say, it is your damn manifesto, right. But like spend the time getting super clear on what it is you want to do. For now, as we’ve said, you can tweak, you can pivot, but you can at least tweak and then hold on to that. Because and say no to the things that are not in support of your damn manifesto that are not in support of your yes. Because whether whether or not your your net is full of sharks or minnows, it is still full. So if you are spending all of this time and energy doing things that you know, don’t support what you really want to do, your your time is still full, then this really great opportunity is going to come along, and you don’t have the capacity to do it. Plus, you always get more of what you are focusing on. So if you’re taking all of these projects that you don’t really want to do, guess what your clients are talking about how great you are at the projects that you don’t really want to do. So and I get it that it’s scary. When you’re starting out, you’re like, but I haven’t made any money yet. Like but just when you are super clear on that damn manifesto. That’s the touchstone you’re like, This is the thing. This is the thing I want to create in my life.

Laura Kåmark
Oh, I love that. And I think that’s so important. Absolutely. So good. Bevan. Where can everyone find more about you find out more about the damn everything,

Bevin Farrand
all the damn things, all the damn thing. The best way is to go to do the damn thing.com. And there I have a free training. It’s bingeable you sign up, you can get all the videos right then. And it is. To me it is such a strategy. It will help you create such a strong foundation for whatever your big bold dream is how to bring it to life. So it’s at do the damn thing.com

Laura Kåmark
I love that. I will link that up in the show notes. And thank you so much for coming on the show today. This was such a great conversation.

Bevin Farrand
Thank you for having me. I love what you do for your clients. I love that you’re having this in the world and I really love that you’re supporting people and being bolder and making waves. It’s just such a great message.

Laura Kåmark
Thanks so much for listening to this week’s episode. Be sure to check out the show notes at LauraKåmark.com/podcast. And if you’re ready to grow and scale your business, and your current website is outdated and doesn’t reflect the magic you bring and the results you get for your clients. Go to Laurakamark.com to find out how I can help bring your vision to life. Thanks so much for listening. I’ll see you next week. Bye now.