Emily Merrell  0:04  

I’m your host Emily Merrell. And today I’m thrilled to have my new friend Eleanor Beaton, who is the founder of savvy media. She’s the host of power presence and physician podcast. And she is our guest on today’s podcast. Welcome to the show.

Eleonor Beaton 0:34  

I’m so honored to be here.

 

Emily Merrell  0:37  

I’m so excited. I love I love these kind of meetings because they give me life and then be there’s so many Canadians who are entrepreneurial. What the heck, what do you guys do?

 

Unknown Speaker  0:50  

What’s the sauce that you’re so damn cold?

 

Emily Merrell  0:54  

Do you think that’s what it is? Do you think is because it’s sodium gold that people are just entrepreneurs?

 

Eleonor Beaton  1:01  

That’s such a great question. I definitely think that there’s a culture of entrepreneurship in this country. We were talking about patriotism, you know, in the green room, I don’t know that our culture of entrepreneurship is perhaps quite as dynamic as it is stateside. But we do have a culture of independence, of creativity, and of trying to trying to create, I think trying to create meaningful companies and meaningful organizations and really seeing, you know, businesses as a vessel into which you can pour your creativity and independence. So that’s certainly something that’s been increasing. lately.

 

Emily Merrell  1:46  

I mean, I have to say, I’ve probably interviewed five plus people in the last four months from Canada, who have really dynamic, creative, extraordinary businesses. My theory on it, and I’d be curious to get your take on it, is that you guys also have a social security, are you gonna you have a social safety net? Or in America, like when I decided to become an entrepreneur, I had to get on an insurance that was so cost prohibitive, I was paying like $500 a month for insurance for catastrophe insurance. And so there was,

 

Eleonor Beaton  2:22  

as a healthy young woman healthy, which is crazy woman.

 

Emily Merrell  2:26  

Exactly. It was, it went from like, 150 to 500, when I turned 30. So that was fun. Got married very quickly, right afterwards to get to lock in that insurance. Do you guys know the truth behind my marriage? Just kidding. But know that being said, I do you think there is something about like, if you fail in America, it’s you feel hard, you feel really hard, and there’s a lot of risk and failing. And on the health side of things, that’s my experiments are my theory that there’s a little bit more give for experimentation, because when you do fail, or fall, or if you’re without a paycheck for a month, you still have health insurance, you can still go outside and not have to look both ways, if you feel risky.

 

Eleonor Beaton  3:13  

That is such a interesting take. And I have never considered that. But it’s so true. I mean, health insurance is really not something that we as Canadians think about that much. So you know, you can get insurance to pay for things like drugs, or the dentist or you know, that type of thing. But in general, it’s a, that by and large, our health insurance is covered by the government, we do have a social safety net. But the interesting thing that I’ve noticed is how much more competitive American entrepreneurs are. Yes, there’s right big time spirit of competition, that you really see that that? We don’t it’s not that Canadian entrepreneurs aren’t competitive. But we it’s there’s just a different sense of urgency. I think we bring a different sense of urgency to the game. And I think it’s possibly because we have the security system, the security, so we don’t actually it’s not actually a matter of, you know, yeah, I need to hustle to make sure that I can pay for my insurance. In addition to my mortgage, and childcare. You know, it’s a different take. But that is fascinating. Emily, I haven’t going to be thinking about that.

 

Emily Merrell  4:26  

Think about it. I mean that that same thing. You’re a mom, I’m a mom, I got I’m self employed, so I had to pay into paid family leave and I took about three months off of maternity leave. My sister in law, just finished her 18 months and had another baby like the moment after her 18 months is over. I was like, I can’t even fathom but you’re so right about the competitiveness. And I do think there is this. I mean, it’s in our culture. As I was saying to her, I was saying to you before we even started to just talk It’s like USA number one. We, we love to win. And so maybe there is something in our DNA about thriving are there there’s that like American Grit where you must pick yourself up from the bootstraps, no one’s gonna help you. Whereas I don’t think that’s right. Is it? I’m not saying that it’s better. I think it’s something that needs to be re examined. Yeah. Which is a great segue into what you do, and into what you’re building. So tell us about your incredible company, and your inspiration for what you do. Because what I understand about it first and foremost, it’s that it’s an education company. And it’s a business coaching company, for women entrepreneurs. So I want to hear your origin story. Why? Why women entrepreneurs, why coaching? Why do you care? Yeah.

 

Eleonor Beaton  5:51  

So, um, we emigrated to Canada when I was a kid. And when my mum and dad got married, they got married in the Fiji Islands. My mom is from the Fiji Islands. When they met, she was a teacher, my dad, he graduated with an economics degree. He was he was from the UK, and goes over to Fiji and like a voluntary service overseas, essentially. Right? So it’s neat. So he’s there, he’s making $9 a week. Oh, my God. So he’s like fishing to supplement his groceries. And he’s playing rugby, which is like Fiji’s national sport. It’s like, it’s like, football to Americans is like rugby to fugiens. So he’s playing with my mom’s brother, they meet, they get married, they, we were moved first to the UK where I was born. And then we ultimately moved to Canada. And so we’re here, I’m a kid, I don’t have my brother and sister yet. But my mom is thrown into this completely different culture, she doesn’t really know anybody. And so she they decide as a unit that my dad is going to bring home the bacon, so he has the quote, unquote, greedy job, the job where he’s got to be there, he you know, he’s the one who has to make sure that he’s bringing in the money. And my mom takes the flexible job, which is being a stay at home mom. So that’s how they did it. And so many families, even today continue to, to sort of struggle with this, you know, the, you know, what, Claudia Goldin, who’s this renowned economist studying the gender wage gap, she calls greedy jobs and flexible jobs and at the unit of a family, often, you’ve got to make these decisions, right. So that’s the decision my parents made, and I can remember being in junior high school, and my mom is driving me to basketball practice. And she and my dad have just had this disagreement about how to spend money. And the problem is that she doesn’t generate the money. And so she feels in that moment that you really doesn’t have a voice. And she was like, Eleanor money is power, always make sure that you make it. So that really stuck with me. And then I, you know, go to school, I start working. And I’m working really, really hard. And I can remember having another conversation with my mom, I’d met a guy who’s now my husband, we decided that we wanted to have kids. And I was thinking about my career. And she was like, you know, I would urge you to think about your career and how the two of you organize your working lives such that you can really have a good one, you know, so that you can have, and I think that so many so when I first started my first business, it wasn’t because I wanted to be the next Sara Blakely. It was because I wasn’t like this, you know, genetic entrepreneur. I didn’t want to be a queen of industry. I wanted to be able to have flexibility, and have a meaningful career and make lots of money. And I really saw entrepreneurship as the main place that would allow me to do this. And so many, I think women want this. But how do you structure a business where you’re actually able to do that? And I think it looks a lot different from what traditional business looks like most entrepreneurship education, and the way that we do business has been, this isn’t critical, right? It’s just what happened, has been built to support people like my dad, who could have a family, they had a partner holding it down so they could kind of have the best of both worlds. And a lot of how we do businesses is set up for that. But most of us women entrepreneurs who are running businesses, we don’t necessarily have support that looks like that. So we’re trying to create a new way of doing business, that fundamentally restructures what it means to have flexibility, meaningful work and great money. And that’s what we’re trying to figure out at our company and every time as we uncover and learn, we do a ton of research. We, we talked to a ton of experts, and then we basically co create with our clients, hey, what can this look like? We figure it out, we start publishing our research and our, you know, our findings, and we build our programs around that. So that’s a long story about the origins of zappy, where it comes from,

 

Eleonor Beaton  10:26  

and as the name Saffi have a special meaning to you.

 

Eleonor Beaton  10:30  

It does so Saffy means self actualized female innovator, ooh, and it was this. I know, it was this category of women, you know, who I feel are really uniquely poised to create this. So to create this kind of change. So we are educated, we are ambitious, we want flexibility, we have a social conscience, we’re entrepreneurial. And we want to, you know, shift how business is done. And so I, I call them selfies. And that’s really what our business is dedicated around. Because I think, you know, those are the women who are ultimately shifting how business is done and uncovering how that happens. But it also means purity in Sanskrit, which is really interesting. So I’m gonna say it has

 

Emily Merrell  11:19  

multiple meanings. So it feels like such a powerful word world word morning. Wow, first and foremost, I cannot believe that your mom decided to follow I’m so happy. I mean, it sounds like an incredible Union. But deciding to give up big for the UK, Nova Scotia, I’d be like, hold the phone here. I think we have a good thing going on right now. It’s like temperate, you can fish we can live on $9 A week like, Bada bing, bada boom. So it’s always so fascinating how, in those stories that I feel like, whenever you read those stories, it’s always like the woman leaving her culture versus the man integrating into their culture. And I wonder what that what that tipping point is when, when that happens. Like was your dad seemed very happy that he feel like he needed to start his life. And it had to? I mean,

 

Eleonor Beaton  12:14  

it’s so interesting, I, their plan was always that they would come back to Fiji you know, so he was going to go back and do a master’s. And I think that had kind of been his plan all along, that his visa was running out. And so he you know, he was gonna go back and do his masters, and then they figured that they’d go back to Fiji, then he did his PhD. Then he gets this opportunity to move to Nova Scotia, which is this, it’s like Maine. Yeah, for so you know, it’s like Maine, there’s a lot of forests and lakes and ocean. And so for, you know, a championship fisherman like my dad was, it was like, perfect. And life just starts to shift, you know, and so they thought that they would move back to Fiji, but they never did. And it’s so interesting. Your point, though, because, again, like so much of the work that we do at Saffy, and it’s really working with women entrepreneurs, yes, to help them grow their businesses, yes, to help them, you know, create sustainable growth strategies, etc, etc. But what we’re really interested in is how do you actually make a business that actually provides an example of closing the gender wage gap? You know, because right, like so many, like I have clients, right, who are lawyers, and they law is one of the hardest occupations when it comes to the gender wage gap because there’s so little flexibility right? And so, they are in these firms working like dogs, you know, you gotta love lawyers like man they put in this this is not a criticism to any lawyer, but it’s a tough industry. So, you know, I have clients are like, you know, what, screw this, we’re going to start our own place. But as they start their own law firm quickly realize how hard it is to reshape how business is done. So you know, that’s what we’re that’s what we’re all about. But what’s so interesting is that so much of the gender wage gap is influenced at the level of the family especially heterosexual couples because same sex couples you can have couple inequality in terms of one has the what Claudia Goldin recalled the greedy job one has the flexible job, but if it is same sex couple that inequality doesn’t impact the gender wage gap. But in heterosexual couples and families it does. So really, you know, we’re like, Look, if we’re going to make changes here, we have to provide examples of what it can look like to have a big job and have a ton of flexibility and we really feel like these selfies are the ones who have the incentive, like they have skin in the game. You know, women like you and I and it’s like, we Want to be able to have both of these things? So to our partners? Like, I mean, I can’t speak first about my partner, right? He’s like, I’m not, I don’t want to never, I don’t want to be answering emails at 10 a night and not seeing my kids like, this is not what I signed up for. So, yeah, so much of what we’re talking to comes down to, who’s going to look after the kids? Right, who’s going to be there for the game? Right? This is what it comes down to.

 

Emily Merrell  15:26  

And I do think the pandemic was a big eye opening situation for a lot of people who are chained to their desk, and they felt like they, that was their reality, they had to stay at work till their boss left, and they’d stay at work till 7pm Urgent fashion in New York, like, I don’t remember leaving the office until 730. There was no happy hours, I was going to like an 8:30pm dinner. And my son’s daycare ends at 530. Now, and I’m like, how, how do people do it? How does corporate life even happen there exist. And I do think like, again, the permission was granted a little bit more for that flex flexibility the last three years. But what you’re doing is so powerful, because I mean, I coach individuals, and a lot of business people are like, I don’t feel like a CEO. I feel like I busy all day. But I also went to the grocery store and had to pick my kid up from school. And I had meetings, and I don’t feel like a CEO. And so how I love that you’re, you’re essentially making these women feel like an operate like a CEO, because they are. But a lot of times women as we know play small. And I love this stat that you all talk about that 90 98% of all women owned companies generally generate under $1 million in annual revenue. And then further reports indicate that only 19% of all women owned companies generate more than 100k in annual revenue. However, these small woman owned companies make up 36% of all companies employ over 18 million people and contribute 3 trillion to the GDP. White. Let’s go. Oh, do it? How do we do this? So tell us let’s can we have like a taste of we have all these ambitious individuals listening in right now. They might be straddling the six figure. It might be like high fives wanting to get to six or high six wanting to get to seven. How do we scale?

 

Eleonor Beaton  17:20  

Yeah, what do I need? I know this that you are right now do we need? True? Yeah. So I’m going to be a little bit geeky, you know, if that’s okay. Yeah. And I have a feeling your listeners won’t mind at all. So essentially, and I love this question. And when you think about these businesses, what businesses want isn’t necessarily, it’s not like, I have to make tons more revenue. Because if you make a million dollars, but your costs are $950,000. And you didn’t even pay yourself yet, you know, whenever talk about I just

 

Emily Merrell  18:01  

want to like, which was you can make a million dollars in revenue. But if you’re paying yourself like a grand a month, are you making a million dollars in revenue? Or

 

Eleonor Beaton 18:11  

is it worth it? Well and right, and you might somebody might be listening, be like, Whoa, that’s me? No, no shade. I know. Hi, that’s me. And so listen, it’s not easy. But what I think most entrepreneurs want is more productivity, which means that for every unit of input, you increase the amount of output, you know, so for every hour of time you put in, you know, where you may be before you were making $60. What happens if you can generate $600? So that’s called productivity and productivity is really important to businesses, it’s really important to the economy, what economists watch national productivity, and when that starts to go down, they start to get concerned, right? Because it means that growth is probably going to slow. So how do the fundamental question really is how does a business increase its productivity? So how does a woman owned company or just any company, quite frankly, generate more output like more revenue, more impact, more profit for every unit that they put into the company? And the core way you do that is through something called intangible assets. So tangible like in the 1970s, businesses, like 80% of the value of a business would come from tangible assets, the machinery, the real estate, you know, the equipment, the vehicles. Now, it’s the reverse, like the majority of the value of a company comes from intangible assets, your intellectual property, your patents, your know how your brand You know, for the s&p 500, that’s about 1800, or $18 trillion worth of intangible assets, right? creation comes from. So it’s huge amount. So let’s think about the small business owner, let’s say maybe you’re listening and you have a coaching company, and you are generating $100,000 a year, and you are selling one on one coaching. And so maybe you so how do you start to invest in intangible assets, so that you can put in about the same amount of time, but potentially even double your revenue. So one obvious way to do that would be to start to systematize, your methodology or your approach. And so maybe you systematize and this, I’m not talking about online courses, it could literally be that you’re like, Wow, this is really interesting. I coach, working moms on career development. And what I’ve noticed is that I do the same thing over and over what would happen if I started, every other coaching session, I developed some programming where I could put three women together in a pod, for facilitated discussion. Now you’ve increased the, they’re all paying the same. So now you have basically tripled your functional hourly rate. It’s a very simple example. But to do that, you have to you have to develop a less like a plan, you have to develop an approach, you have to kind of package it and offer it. So somebody has, you know, so there’s like a marketing asset, there’s the offering itself, there’s the process, maybe there’s like, emails that are set up to inform people about what it’s going to be like, you know, that’s a very simplified example of intangibles. So as we’re growing, these women owned companies, to really help them scale up revenues, it’s always comes down to intangible assets, selling systems, marketing systems, product development, back end systems, you know, and it sounds intimidating, but you just start with one asset at a time. And you really start to increase productivity. And that’s what ultimately allows you to scale in a way that is sustainable, it allows you to have the kind of flexibility that you that you started your business to have, quite frankly.

 

Emily Merrell  22:22  

And, and I also want to expand on that too. I mean, at one point, you could train other people to train your to do your methodology, or your framework and hire people underneath you. Yeah.

 

Eleonor Beaton  22:35  

You know, like, the opportunities are endless. But it’s so interesting, because I did this experiment recently, with a group of women entrepreneurs. And so we were talking about, hey, how could you increase working capital. So working capital is just the amount of money that you have in your business to pay your bills and fuel growth. So it’s quite important, you know, to have working capital, we call that working capital. So I was like, let’s say that you there’s something you want to invest in, you need to generate the money to be able to invest in it to help you fuel your growth, how would you generate that working capital. So I gave them 15 minutes. And they came up with like, almost two dozen ideas, really good ideas, you could sell a VIP day, you could create a new offering, you could do this, you could do this, like the vast majority of the ideas were all about all involved them selling their labor. And it was really interesting. A couple of them thought about using money to generate more money. And it’s when you pose this, I have anecdotally posed the same questions to groups of male entrepreneurs. And they’ll often be like, well, you know, I probably see if I could raise some money from some investors, maybe I could get a loan from so they’re the wire, right? Like our wiring is women sometimes is there’s a big connection between revenue like money and labor, which is the opposite of intangible of an intangible asset, right. So we’re this wiring. So again, in the work that we’re doing, a lot of times it’s like, hey, let’s just first like, let’s just, like talk about that, start to have the conversation start to point out, Hey, did you see how that just happened there? What I mean, just see how that just happened. And that opens us up to because they’re all smart. So they very quickly come up with all Oh, alternative ideas of how they could use money or other ways to boost working capital that didn’t involve their labor. That’s productivity. Yeah,

 

Emily Merrell  24:36  

you’re absolutely right. I feel like yeah, business is supported for men right now. And I know probably 10 Min off the top of my mouth, my head, like who have raised money and they don’t even have an idea. They don’t even have a product built and they’re like, so frickin confident about what they want to be building, that they’re going to raise money and they’re not raising like $200,000 So raising 100 million dollars dollars and have the confidence where my husband, we used to live in San Francisco and he’s like, You should think about potentially like fundraising, you know, it might be beneficial. Like, why would I want to fundraise like, I can do it myself, I don’t want to ask for help. Oh, you know, I fundraise I’m a failure. If I’m in debt, I’m a failure. If I take a loan, I’m a failure. And there is an maybe men are taught a whole different course secretly in high school that I completely didn’t know about, but the debt component to about like, taking going to a bank and asking for a loan or having that capital, well, there is the struggle bus that women love, or, and I’m sure men will be like, I love the struggle, too. But yeah, we love struggling. We love the like, I had $1,500 in my bank account. And, you know, I did it all by myself and my roommate, read my my logo, and I was scared to ask for help. But she volunteered as tribute to make it for me, you know, where I just see these like, very, very confident men. I don’t dare I say cocky men, but confident men who just are able to navigate, asking for things in a way that most women are scared of, I have a client even who lives with our partner. And she’s like, Oh, it’s my fourth month of business, but I’m nervous about paying rent, and she’s engaged. I was like, Why don’t you ask him? Why don’t you ask him just like, like a failure? If I asked you, like, it’s also your life partner. So hopefully, understand and know that you’ll pick up the pieces and you’re not like taking advantage of him or whatnot. But yeah, do you have any advice for women as they navigate this mind? hurdle of as seeking out help, or, or something bigger beyond themselves?

 

Eleonor Beaton  26:53  

Yeah. Oh, totally. I think this is, I mean, a part of it is like listening to a conversation like this. Yeah. Where, you know, I think we’re, you’re listening, you’re in places, and you’re listening to people like you, Emily, who are having these conversations, you know, I used to coach just women leaders, generally, I since focused niche down really on working primarily with women entrepreneurs, but I used to focus on on women leaders generally. And, and it was interesting at that time, I would do a lot of work with women who were trying to elevate in corporate settings. And one of the biggest issues that they would have, especially at senior levels were politics because there was so much that was in office politics, like there was so much that was unseen. And what my lived experience as a woman and working with women is we don’t like unwritten rules. We much prefer when things are clear and equitable. I mean, this is one of our great gifts to the world. We’d like things to be clear, equitable. Does everybody understand? Okay, do you understand you understand? Great, you guys have the information. Awesome. Whereas so much of the business world is about these unwritten rules. You know, and so I think a big part of is like hearing other women talk about talk to have these conversations. So that’s like the first thing to know. One other thing, like when I started my very first business, what was your very first business?

 

Emily Merrell  28:22  

I want to hear about it

 

Eleonor Beaton  28:23  

to like, gosh, listen, I just have to tell you the name. I’m going to tell you the name. Don’t tell a soul. listeners don’t tell us or tell anyone. Wise words, writing and editing. That was my business. There was no word of life, wise words, writing and editing. Like, oh my gosh, like

 

Emily Merrell  28:40  

your business right out of college. Were you like one of those people that

 

Eleonor Beaton  28:44  

skipped the corporate world? No, I, I, I worked as a journalist for and I worked as a journalist and PR, but only quite honestly for like three years. And then I started my business. And then I started my business. Yeah, so it was a communications consultancy. That’s what it was called. But the smart thing that I did do, I knew nothing about business. That one smart thing. I can’t even remember how I got this in my head, but I’d read somewhere about getting credit. I’d read somewhere that the worst time to ask for money is when you need it. So I and then and that also it was important, you know, you would have personal credit, but your business needed to have credit history also. So thank you to whoever shared that piece of news with me because I opened my business and immediately applied for a $3,000 business loan. And I made up some reason because I had to get so I’m older than I look and so I was to get a family seven or something.

 

Eleonor Beaton  29:45  

I mean, you were a child who started your

 

Eleonor Beaton  29:48  

child entrepreneur. Sivan so I applied to get a loan. It was a $3,000 loan which felt like a huge amount of money to me to borrow and I Got my cards that said, President wise words, wise words writing and editing, right? So I got my business cards, I got a fax machine. Okay, a fax machine and business cards said wise words, right? That was what I could think of. And then I basically use the loan to pay off the loan. But why don’t

 

Emily Merrell  30:22  

I want to listen to that, guys. So she built a credit, she took out a loan, so anyone that’s like, oh, I don’t want that. She used that money. She didn’t spend it on anything beyond her fax machine, but she used it to move herself forward with her credit and also pay for. So when I love it, you got

 

Eleonor Beaton  30:39  

to spend anyway, it was totally win win. Right. But it was a it was an experience of using debt to finance growth, you know, and, and so I think that was kind of key. And I have done that, you know, I’ve always had a line of credit for my business, that, you know, because that, to me feels like really good insurance, it just always have it, it’s there. You know, and I’ve always had access. So I think these things like having the conversations, normalizing it, having that like taking, you know, betting on yourself in that way and getting yourself you used to little ways to do that. I have never raised money from investors. I haven’t done that. I don’t really have the desire to or need to, but I certainly I, I kind of feel like doing it before I die. Just say I did you know what I mean? Just to say I did,

 

Emily Merrell  31:36  

yeah, so you’re like, Okay, I’ve done this, I you know, I’ve gotten to 3000 low and I’ve got this I’ve got this, the way that I did fundraising, the way that I fundraised was like a way that worked really well, for me, I did a company called I found women. And it was it was a crowdfunding. And I think they’ve changed their model since I did it. And I was very disorganized. And how I was like, let me just experiment, let me like, Put something and see if it works. And I got like 4500, which was 4500. I didn’t have that. So you know, and client acquisition. So sometimes there’s an advantage of putting yourself out there in a discomfort, uncomfortable way that might bring more eyeballs to your business, even if it doesn’t, if it’s not something you really, really necessarily need.

 

Eleonor Beaton  32:23  

And I want to recommend a book. It’s called patriarchy Stress Disorder by a woman named Dr. Valerie rain. Our ai n Yeah. And it’s really it was, you know, to me, it’s a really important book, because it actually advances the discussion around gender inequity. It gives some really good sort of grounding. But I think one of the reasons that sometimes we as women, like the site, psychosocial drive around not getting people to invest in our dreams, is when you are like a patriarchy, essentially, it’s not hating men. It’s not that at all, it’s just simply in our culture, still, women are kind of worth less. So, you know, and for people who are like, Oh, that’s so you know, 10, you know, 50 years ago, March, they do. Watch the news, they’re still, you know, there’s still a gender wage gap. women athletes are still paid. Like, there’s, there’s still, there’s lots of places where women are still paid less for the same amount of work, you know, it’s everywhere. But when you grow up in that culture, for a woman to say, here’s my dream. And this dream, not only am I deserving of your money, for my services, my knowledge, but my dream is worthy of your investment of cash. You know, like, there’s a big cultural component to this that I think we are all still reckoning with and coming to terms with. And I don’t feel like we have to be like the guys and raise tons of money for dubious plans. But I do, I do think, you know, the principles of business are that capital can be like fuel to really drive growth. And if when we do it strategically, it can be a huge benefit to everybody.

 

Emily Merrell  34:18  

And you look at the millionaires and billionaires out there, what are they doing? They’re taking their capital, they’re reinvesting it into something else that will make them more, more money, more revenue. So okay, takeaways from today’s episode. First and foremost, find some think of your productivity. Focus on your productivity. How can you make what you’re doing more productive? So is that you’re doing one on one coaching currently, is there a way for you to take back more time and make more money by creating a group offering? Second, capital’s not a bad thing? Third, put yourself in rooms where you are having these uncomfortable conversations, podcasts like this, surrounding yourself with expander are people who are maybe a few steps ahead of you, that could be hiring a coach or investing in a program where you know, you’re gonna be growing. And third, check out this incredible company. I feel like how can we learn more about your company, Eleanor and what? How do we get more involved?

 

Eleonor Beaton  35:18  

Oh, I love it. So I think the best place is to go to our site, Saffy. media.co, Saffy, media.co. And that you’re going to see a ton of resources like blogs, link to podcast, episodes, free courses, you know, there’s a bunch of information there. And also just a different philosophy around growth. You know, if you go and check out the section on our thesis is going to really outline our thesis for how we help women entrepreneurs grow. So I would probably focus on that, and I’m on social, you can find me Eleanor Beaton, on Instagram and LinkedIn, you know, if you got any stuff,

 

Emily Merrell  35:53  

follow her and the good places, actually, there’s one more takeaway that I want to mention that we glazed over, that it’s okay to close your business or your original idea not be your forever idea.

 

Eleonor Beaton  36:05  

Oh, listen,

 

Eleonor Beaton  36:07  

fax machine is probably forever though.

 

Eleonor Beaton  36:10  

The fax machine. Why is words writing and editing, it’s a fan of the past. I love I love it. But that had to go.

 

Emily Merrell  36:17  

And you evolved and you grew from it. And there’s so much of an ego that is married to the name of your company, to creating a company to the position at the company. But sometimes it’s okay to bless and release it or to pivot or to evolve. And not just because you filed an LLC, or you have an S corp or whatnot, doesn’t mean you have to do it forever. And that’s just the permission slip that someone might I might need to hear or if they want to rebrand and they’re going to be something else. They’re going to be wiser words in the future. They can do that. Well, Elena, it

 

Eleonor Beaton  36:53  

was a branding opportunity that I missed there. Clearly. That was was her words. Come on. I know.

 

Emily Merrell  36:59  

And then you could have like every decade, wisest words charge more or you

 

Eleonor Beaton  37:05  

have almost was most wise of words. Listen. Wow.

 

Emily Merrell  37:10  

Well, before we end, I have six best questions for you, Eleanor. Are you ready? Yes. Okay, first one is tell us an unknown fun fact about you.

 

Eleonor Beaton  37:22  

I’m a really excellent juggler. Oh,

 

Emily Merrell  37:26  

God, this isn’t a podcast episode that we put on YouTube. I would definitely make you do that. I’d show you. Yeah,

 

Emily Merrell  37:32  

I might. Bonus edition. We’ll see that on social. Who would be a dream person to be connected with

 

Eleonor Beaton  37:38  

Melinda Gates? Oh, for sure. Yeah,

 

Emily Merrell  37:43  

I think you’re the first person to say Melinda Gates. We get a lot of Michelle Obama’s and Oprah. And I’m like, Stretch. Stretch your brain stretch.

 

Eleonor Beaton  37:54  

Well, it’s like the money. The the capital. Yeah. And the shared mission. Just like Melinda, Melinda, what we could do together with that capital. The impact that we could make call me.

 

Emily Merrell  38:07  

Gonna be amazing. And then What show are you watching?

 

Eleonor Beaton  38:12  

I am watching The Last of Us. Oh my gosh, me too. So headrow Elmo Vidar. I guess that’s a star, right? He has never been on a show that had less than a 990 5% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

 

Emily Merrell  38:27  

He’s amazing. We watched it last night. I was very reluctant to watch it. I’m like, Oh my God, a zombie show. I’m not ready. I don’t know. Oh, it’s about a pandemic zombies. No. But yeah, he’s amazing. And the Mandalorian he was amazing. And he was in Narcos, right. Yes. Which I forgot. Listen,

 

Eleonor Beaton  38:46  

he’s he has either It’s either him or his agent. I don’t know who the hell it is. But somebody is managing his career extremely effectively.

 

Eleonor Beaton  38:54  

Star Power. Did you like episode three? By the way?

 

Eleonor Beaton  38:58  

Episode Three was so touching.

 

Emily Merrell  38:59  

Was it at nightfall? It was we were like, where’s this going? I know.

 

Eleonor Beaton  39:06  

And there was the sense of impending doom. Yes. Did you not feel in the beginning? Like there’s a sense of impending doom and I’m extremely stressed. And prizes you with its beauty. It was a great episode.

 

Eleonor Beaton  39:18  

Yeah. I really liked it. I enjoyed it a lot. Yeah, I was like, Don’t go to his home. Right. Exactly. Yeah, I know. It was awesome. Okay, so guys, check out the last of us. It’s on HBO. We

 

Emily Merrell  39:30  

don’t work for HBO. But check it out. They do so well. After you finish the White Lotus then do the last of us. 100%

 

Eleonor Beaton  39:38  

obviously 2%.

 

Emily Merrell   39:39  

What book are you reading?

 

Eleonor Beaton  39:42  

Right now I am reading a book called clearer, closer, better by Dr. Emily about cheetahs. It’s all about like goal setting essentially.

 

Emily Merrell  39:52  

Do you read for fun ever, or is it mostly business books?

 

Eleonor Beaton  39:56  

Yeah, well, I just finished a book. Actually, before I started this one I read I had a book and it was it was by Ruth Ozeki. A Tale for the time being. Beautiful. Okay, beautiful, exceptional novel. Yeah,

 

Emily Merrell  40:08  

recommendations there. This is important question, but what is your favorite emoji?

 

Eleonor Beaton  40:13  

Well, apparently this is what really labels me as a very early gen XOR. But it’s the it was if you consistently post three emojis where they’re laughing, crying, like, but it’s got to be the three. You’re I’m sorry, you’re a Gen XOR. And so that’s what I do. I’m on the I’m on the bottom end of the Gen X. I’m almost a millennial, but not quite. I try but, uh, no. Category. Am I on that millennial line clearly. So yeah, and apparently when you do those three with the eyes crying, then they’re laughing together that clearly labels you as a Gen X or so there’s just no question.

 

Emily Merrell  40:50  

So a question my gosh, okay, Boomer.

 

Eleonor Beaton  40:54  

I know exactly like a ver, it’s just my latchkey nature. I love it. So

 

Emily Merrell  40:59  

my favorite And my last question for you is Who gave you permission or inspired you to do the thing you wanted to do with your life?

 

Eleonor Beaton  41:08  

Oh, okay. So my aunt, my aunt was the really, really successful like banker in in the US, it would be called Wall Street. But this sort of UK version of Wall Street is called the city. And she quit her job to become a novelist. And she wrote like financial Theranos thriller, so she really bet on herself at her dream. And I was like, and so she really inspired me like, girl, you can do whatever you want to girl. And so yeah, it was her Linda Davis. You could check her out. Yeah, she’s a she’s a fantastic writer, and huge financial

 

Emily Merrell  41:47  

thriller, thriller. thrillers. I’m surprised you didn’t say your mom. i Everything was pointing to mom and that conversation in the car about? Oh, yeah, borrowed money. I feel like that is something.

 

Eleonor Beaton  42:00  

That’s a good question. There’s probably some therapy in there. She inspired me. Well, it’s interesting. If it was like, where’s the origin story and who inspired you for your mission? 100% my mom, but who gave me the permission to take that leap? My aunt. I was lucky. You know, having those two women in my life. Yeah. Two very badass women

 

Emily Merrell  42:21  

who really moved the needle forward for you in some direction. Yeah. Well, Eleanor, I could talk to you for 1000 hours, but I won’t do that. I will. I will save your mouth and I’ll save your ears. But thank you so much for being our guest today. On the sixth degree. I have so much fun talking to you.

 

Eleonor Beaton  42:40  

Same, same, same.

 

Emily Merrell 42:41  

And listeners if you liked today’s episode, please give us five stars. Share with friends and we’ll see you the next time on the sixth degree with Emily Merrell. Take care