Mahara Wayman [00:00:05]:
Welcome to the art of badassery where I explore what it takes to live life on your own terms. Break free from the status quo and unleash your inner badass. Whether you're a rebel at heart or simply seeking inspiration to step outside your comfort zone, this podcast is for you. I'm your host, Mahara Wayman and each week I dive into the stories, insights and strategies of those who have mastered the art of badassery and are living life to the fullest. They smile when no one is looking. Welcome to the art of badassery podcast. On today's episode, we are joined by Naomi Rose, a business strategist known as the digital GP. With over 20 years experience, Naomi has led award winning digital transformations with high performing teams in both corporate and nonprofit sectors.
Mahara Wayman [00:01:01]:
But listen to this. In 2018, she left her 9 to 5 to follow her passion for baking, quickly turning a start up bakery into a 6 figure success. Can you say badass? No wonder she's on the show. Now she's on a mission to help entrepreneurs achieve the freedom and flexibility that we crave. Notice I included myself in that. I can't wait to hear her story. Let's jump in. Naomi, welcome to the show.
Naomi Rose [00:01:26]:
Oh, thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here.
Mahara Wayman [00:01:29]:
Oh, we are going to have fun. So first off, I often open the show by asking my guests why they think they're badass. So let's get it from your point of view. Take us back as far as you need to go. But what made you think, oh, I need to be on her show?
Naomi Rose [00:01:45]:
Yeah. I just love the title. I think that's what attracted me. Do you know the way I look at life is I don't want to be sitting at the age of 90 thinking, I wish I'd lived that life. I wish I'd done that. I wish I'd done something. Because we're only here once. We don't know we don't know what's beyond.
Naomi Rose [00:02:04]:
Let's be honest. We don't know what's coming next. Some people might have a belief that I don't know what's coming next. And I don't wanna be sitting there thinking, I might I shoulda coulda with this. Do you know what I mean? I wanted to know that I've done everything I could. Whether I fall flat on my face doing it, at least I've tried and I lived the life that I really wanted to live. So that's why I wanted to cover on your show to say that if I can do it, so could everybody else.
Mahara Wayman [00:02:28]:
Okay. Wait a second. Let's go back. When was the first time that you thought, no. No. I don't care if I fall flat on my face.
Naomi Rose [00:02:36]:
I'm a classically trained musician. So I actually started in in the world of classical musicians. You tend to start at a really young age. So I probably started my career about 70 years old. That's when I first started. I had a piano in my house my entire life. I've always had a piano. I don't know when I started learning music.
Naomi Rose [00:02:55]:
I'm actually a cellist now and it's a it's quite a long winded story as to how I got there, but I remember in a school assembly, I saw my one of my teachers playing flute and performing on stage and I thought I want to be able to do that because that that is badass. That is something I want to do. I want to be able to stand on stage and play and just captivate an audience the way I felt that day when I was sitting in that assembly. So that's what I did. And I went on to do that. And it turned out I ended up playing cello really because I had a really crappy teacher who told me because my teeth stuck out, I would never be professional. I was about 9, and my my flute teacher told me that that I would never be a professional flute, player because I had teeth that stuck out. So my family being the practical people that they are thinking about my career in music at the grand old age of 9 said, okay.
Naomi Rose [00:03:48]:
Well, we're gonna get rid of that flute teacher because clearly she doesn't know how to talk to children and encourage them. And I have seen musicians with far bigger disabilities than sticky out teeth be phenomenal musicians, may I just add? But they also went, Well, if you want to be a classical musician and perform on stage, why don't you do a stringed instrument? Because once orchestra need a lot more stringed instruments than they do woodwind. And secondly, it literally gives you another string to your bow. You have 2 bites of the apple if you can play 2 instruments. And I also play piano because everyone play piano. If you're getting into that world, it's just something you learn. So I ended up playing cello, and that's how I still still, just for clarity, I got to grade 8 on the flute. It wasn't like I just dropped up just because one teacher told me no.
Naomi Rose [00:04:34]:
I didn't go on to continue playing flute, but I continued playing cello, and that's where I trained. And that's what I did. So that's how it was more of a case of well, yet the arts are always known as being an industry that are underpaid, and people do it because they they love it rather than they make the money from it. It shouldn't be like that. It really shouldn't. We shouldn't look at things of you have to choose between your passion and your profit. And I know that now. At the time, I just wanted to do something that made me happy, and performing was that for me.
Mahara Wayman [00:05:06]:
Well, I think, you know, you highlight a really challenging problem for many people, which is succumbing to the need to make a certain amount of money. And so I I do wanna call out that. I think that's definitely badass to stick with what you are passionate about. But let's talk about some of the things that you learned about yourself as you navigated the reality of passion versus profit, for example? What were some of the things that you learned about yourself as you as you experienced that?
Naomi Rose [00:05:36]:
It was it's an interesting journey being a classical musician, really. And I it's a very competitive world, particularly at that top end. And particularly if you wanna go down a a particular path, it can be really hard work. And I was told many times I would have to work a lot harder to be able to stand if that was required. And I'm I'm never quite sure where that myth came from because I went to quite a progressive music college. It wasn't one way you had to learn technique and you had to be it wasn't like you had to be, like, doing everything in a certain rigid way. I don't believe in that. I believe you can make the music you want to in the way you want to.
Naomi Rose [00:06:15]:
And that's a college I went to that allowed you to push those boundaries, really challenge really the stapler's quo, ask the whys, the whys, the what if, Why music? Is this music? All of those questions that we don't really know the answer to because there isn't one answer. It's whatever you believe, and that is what's true. And, actually, throughout that entire journey, I was actually in school. I was really badly bullied, really heavily, both physically and emotionally bullied. It was a really challenging time. And it caused me a lot of anxiety and nerves, and it stopped me from playing on stage with confidence so much. It was a really challenging time to have that passion that I loved and be so terrified of it in equal measures because what people might say at the end of whatever I did. And I struggled with that for years.
Naomi Rose [00:07:04]:
And it wasn't until I was much older and going on that journey that I began to care less. I decided that I've got something to share, and there is not really anyone that can stop me from sharing what I love to do. But as I was coming to the end of going through college, and, obviously, I was getting the messages of I would need to practice a lot harder if I was gonna get into the music industry, I do this and that. I thought, again, practically minded of where's my career going. I ended up going into arts management. So I ended up doing a master's in arts management because I still really believe that arts and it is a terribly underfunded industry. But it's so vital for people. People don't realize they need the arts because it does so much good for the world.
Naomi Rose [00:07:54]:
And I wanted to be able to go in and learn about how to manage business in the art sense because the 2 are and I have a brain that can work in both ways. I have a creative brain but I also have a very practical strategic brain. And a lot of the time they're in war with each other, but not many people can necessarily come from being creative and also be able to look at a spreadsheet and love it in equal measures like I do. I can see both sides of it. So, I wanted to be able to take my knowledge and understanding of how to perform and be on stage and help the behind the scenes, which isn't many creative zone of genius, and help become a business for the arts industry and help people make profit from that because I believe that is a way forward. It's about thinking smartly about how you can actually make something sustainable. Not necessarily about talking about being multimillionaires, that's not what every artist wants and what their version of success is different, but I wanted to be able to take that skill set. So, in a way, that experience has got me to where I am now because I now know a huge amount more about business from learning, from having to do things on basically not much profit and turning them into something that gets bums on my feet.
Naomi Rose [00:09:10]:
But I can use that, my knowledge of the creative to use that to the best of my advantage.
Mahara Wayman [00:09:15]:
Oh, so good. I wanna go back to something you said though because I have I I believe in it and I I'd love the audience to get a clearer picture. You said earlier how important the arts are to society. Can we talk about that for a minute? Because I have an artistic background and I I have friends that are that are professional actors and actresses, and they struggle just to sort of, you know, get a living wage almost. So what's your take on why the arts are so important to our culture?
Naomi Rose [00:09:50]:
Just I I look at a bit of where would we be without them? What does our lives look like if we can't listen to spoken word, if we can't hear music, if we can't use paintings or creativity or see or feel and touch, they're all those little things that we don't necessarily notice but actually enhance our lives. You think about just take music, for example, because this is where I'm really connected. How powerful music can be. Think about a piece of music that has got you through that really tough time. Where would you be without that? Where would you be without that one artist? Where would you be without that person that you are just the biggest fan of, that gives you a purpose to go to their concerts? And that feeling, that energy you get from being there, it lifts you up. That's why the arts are so important because they give you support in ways that you don't necessarily realise. They help you at times when you don't realise you need them. And not only that, it just provides you that happiness, that joy that you can't necessarily express from having just a conversation with people.
Naomi Rose [00:10:56]:
But, you know, you if you've ever been you walk down the street and you hear a busker, it just lightens your day. Businesses, if you go into a shop, the ones have music on, they have strategically chosen that music because it'll make you buy more. It's not there just for fun, It's there for strategic purposes. So there are so many things that the arts are so impart important for that we forget to necessarily they get the least funding, which is such a shame because, no, they don't necessarily collect your bins, which are obviously very vital to society. But equally, they do so much good, so many things that can really help us in our daily lives.
Mahara Wayman [00:11:41]:
I'm grinning because I am a huge music fan. I fell in love my first group that I fell in love with were the Bee Gees when I was about 7 or 8, and Elton John. And, you know, our our kids, right now, I'm a huge Dave Matthew band fan. My husband and I travel not as much recently since COVID, but we used to travel fairly regularly to see them in concert and we drag our kids along. And, you know, now I laugh that my kids know all the words to all of Queen and Dave Matthews Band. And they're like, look what you've done to us. And I'm like, yeah. Look what I've done to you.
Mahara Wayman [00:12:12]:
Lucky, you know, poor, poor you. But thank you for sharing that. It's just a gentle reminder that part of being a badass is acknowledging what makes us happy. And music, the art, being creative is a is a beautiful component to sharing our badassery with the world, whether it is just the simple joy of dancing to your favorite tune. So thanks for for indulging me with that. I really just wanted to hear hear your your point of view on that. Okay. So you got into the music business, and where did where did that take you?
Naomi Rose [00:12:43]:
I went into working in the theater, into a theater, and I also worked on national festivals. So I and my job role there was basically anything and everything. And if you've ever worked behind the scenes in the arts in a venue or working at a festival, your job role is basically the show must go on in whatever format. So you get involved in everything. There is no there is no you get obviously, you get given a job role. I actually ended up being in the marketing department, but some days I would be helping out with box office if they were short on someone to answer the phones. The next day I would be backstage doing dressing for Scooby Doo. It was such a varied role and it was so much fun, but you learn so much because you've got to see all the sides of it.
Naomi Rose [00:13:31]:
And, you know, I was I met some incredible people, I met incredible artists. I used to program tents for, one of the biggest folk festivals here in the UK, so that was my role was to help program artists into tents that did all the signings afterwards. And can you imagine getting a chance to meet the artist that you have been following and just get them to sign something? It's just such a privilege to be able to do that and not only that, I have the privilege of also meeting them and getting to know them, which is really fantastic. So I ended up getting into the marketing department, and I was naturally the most techie person, for want of a better word, in the department. And I was given anything to do additional, basically. That was when social media started to become Facebook was more than just becoming about friends. Businesses were starting to see the opportunities. Marketing was then changing from being broadcast and paid for to this two way conversation.
Naomi Rose [00:14:32]:
You could see that the landscape of how marketing was going to work was gonna change, and it was opening up opportunities. And I was then pushing company, the company that I was working with to go, we need to be here. We need to be in these conversations because we get to hear on the ground of what people are saying and have a voice. Because when you're before, you didn't have that. I used to stuff envelopes with direct mail letters for hours on end. That was my job. And then suddenly, this little world started to change the way we had to think about things, how that opened up the conversation, and how you had to be there to be part of it. But it also gave you that insight into really understanding who the people were that were buying what you were selling.
Naomi Rose [00:15:16]:
It gave you that opportunity, which we, as mark me as a marketer, it's like we can actually really understand what's making them tick. What are the barriers that are stopping them to come into a classical orchestra concert? Is it the fact that they never know where to clap? It will be those sorts of things that I could then use to help actually make it better for people and make it easier. So, that was what I was doing at the time. So, anything to do with digital marketing and it kind of led me on to then working in the non profit industry. So, I went from actually being a music to working in the charity sector in actually wildlife conservation, which is a very different leap. But I've never stopped doing music just while I was still an orchestral player, now I'm playing 4 orchestras. So, the music was never something that was ever gonna leave, it's partly. And I know when I'm not playing, I am very grumpy.
Naomi Rose [00:16:09]:
They stopped for the summer over here. I am absolutely ready to go back playing now because I've had my time off, and I'm ready to go.
Mahara Wayman [00:16:17]:
I wanna jump in here because you you've said a lot of things that are that are so juicy and and so important. You're on the cusp of a whole new way of life when it comes to connecting with your audience. What did that transition teach you?
Naomi Rose [00:16:33]:
It you couldn't just broadcast your message anymore. I think that was a really key thing. Marketing was very much a one way paid for system then. You could do free stuff, but you had to have a budget for every show. Every show had a budget. Any show that came through, unless it was gonna sell out straight away, which some of them did because they were that high profile artists. You didn't you didn't need to market those because that was all they did it themselves. But some shows you had to be really smart about.
Naomi Rose [00:17:02]:
So you couldn't just rely on the painful stuff and social media was free. This was what was genius. It was a free marketing tool, but you had to be in the arena, and people were still learning. I started it when groups existed. Pages weren't a thing. Pages didn't exist then. So I started in groups and then had to change it over to being pages, and I did that for that particular there was 2 or 3 different events that I work for, so they were split into different accounts, if you like. But it was that opportunity where we're gonna have to think differently about how we market here.
Naomi Rose [00:17:40]:
This was not just about what we've been doing, the broadcast. This was about communication in a very different way.
Mahara Wayman [00:17:46]:
Okay.
Naomi Rose [00:17:47]:
And that was what was really interesting.
Mahara Wayman [00:17:49]:
Yeah. No. Absolutely. I'm curious, though. Did that understanding that now you had to learn to communicate differently and perhaps even initiate actual communication, which as you said earlier is a two way street. I am curious if that if you applied that to yourself in any realm of your world.
Naomi Rose [00:18:10]:
Yes. I do. I'm much better at it than I used to be, I think. And as a musician, you get used to being you get used to being critiques, and I'm not gonna use criticism as a negative here. The feedback you expect is not necessarily positive. You don't necessarily get the hugs and the well done. You are gonna be when you're in the classical world particularly, they are pushing you to do better and you get used to hearing those harsh things that you don't want to hear. And some days you do take your pussy.
Naomi Rose [00:18:42]:
It can be tough, it can be upsetting, but actually you learn that that's going to better you to help you later on down the line. So, that's what was scary for some businesses really, and actually being able to know that people can put their opinions in plain sight for others to read. Gosh, they could do that behind closed doors before, now it's going to be on a public platform. I mean, this was the before TripAdvisor existed, so the world was going to change. I mean, it was going to be a different challenge, I had to really embrace it, to acknowledge it and be able to take those and manage those negative potential messages and learn new techniques of how to manage them without being able to do it behind posters of what was then email and, occasionally, letters. We've got a lot of letters.
Mahara Wayman [00:19:33]:
So good. Alright. So what, where did you go next with your career?
Naomi Rose [00:19:37]:
So I went into wildlife conservation, which was fascinating and much diff oh, it was different in many ways because I wasn't just looking at one particular audience necessarily. There were several because a lot of what I was doing was campaigning in government, and it was campaigning and lobbying to change laws. So sometimes the audiences that I would be working with and managing campaigns for wouldn't necessarily be people that are just gonna go and enjoy nature. They were probably people of decision making level that needed to be influenced. And this was before social media roles really existed in companies. So social media was part of those companies, but they weren't necessarily at the forefront. And I was obviously very savvy in social. So I became one of these first social media people in those companies, and I deal with the large scale campaigns.
Naomi Rose [00:20:37]:
So I would deal when you're dealing with social media anything and everything goes through you because you were the voice of the organization. So, in my tiny little window that seemed very small, I had the biggest voice because some of the channels which you say were massive and then you would get stuff trending on a regular basis and things would go viral. These were all the buzzwords that seemed to be coming out at the time and there were various different challenges that were going around here in the UK that we wanted to be part of. So I went into that. But what was really interesting about working there was I worked with a lot of very intelligent scientific people that knew huge amounts about conservation. They, They, I mean, they were fascinating, but it wasn't necessarily what you could put on what was then called Twitter. You couldn't necessarily put what they're telling you on Twitter because it wouldn't mean anything to most people. I didn't understand sometimes what they were saying.
Naomi Rose [00:21:33]:
And some people would say, well, you really need to learn this. And, like, no. I don't because I know social media. And I am the buffer between getting the message out there and translating what you're telling me to get it out there. So So if I don't understand it, they aren't gonna understand it. And you can be the most technical intelligent person in the world, which is absolutely necessary. But unless I get the support from the people that I'm that we're trying to talk to in the right way, they aren't gonna engage with this. So that is what I'm here to do.
Naomi Rose [00:22:05]:
I am the translator of what you're doing to make sure that people support it. So that's that's where I kind of learned a lot about a lot about how to communicate to the audience in the right way.
Mahara Wayman [00:22:17]:
What were some of the biggest things that you learned? Again, I'm gonna bring it back to you. You've gone through some big changes already in your career. But what are some what's something that you learned maybe through tough experience in that role that you think contributed to your being badass or feeling badass?
Naomi Rose [00:22:35]:
There were some really challenging campaigns, and there were at the time, we were doing big stuff. There was big rebrand work going on. There was huge campaigns. There was elections going on here in the UK, which is, in a charity point of view, quite tricky sometimes because you can't be politically biased. And when you're trying to lobby government, it's very hard not to do that sometimes. So some of my challenges and some of the things was how do I get the right message in the time into a 140 characters that isn't gonna get this organization into trouble? And that was often the challenges that I met because it wasn't just about who was watching outside, it was who was watching internally. So I I didn't need a I never got any of the approved. What I was writing never got approved because they trusted me to do my job.
Naomi Rose [00:23:27]:
So I was actually in a very privileged position to be able to do that. I'm pretty sure most organizations won't do that in the same way now. They would probably want a lot more higher ups doing the sign off, but then it was that simple in operation. I created a plan. I created the messages that resonated within the brand goals, and I would put it out there. And some days, I would be terrified because these channels are big. And I know full well that, like, sometimes I would be on the phone at 10:30 at night to direct us sorting out blog posts that needed to go out at 5 AM in the morning. Sometimes it it was that kind of a job where in the world of digital, it was 24 hours.
Naomi Rose [00:24:07]:
Most of my most frustratingly for me, press articles would come out in a Sunday paper that I would have to drop whatever I was doing that weekend and sort out because that was the nature of my job, and that's what I signed up to. And I was happy to do it because I knew how to manage it the best way because that was my role and what I've been trained for. But sometimes that would be hard balancing that work and life balance when you've got a role that effectively is 247. And then it wasn't really like there was a process in place because it was still new. Well, well, we need someone on call over a weekend, so let's get a rotator in place where you know you're gonna be on call, like, if you're a vet or a doctor, you have on call rotors. But social media, they didn't exist then. You had a social media person. Unfortunately, unlike the business which was 9 to 5, social media isn't.
Naomi Rose [00:24:57]:
So, that was probably one of the biggest learnings, biggest challenges, but also biggest education, I think, for organizations to realize that, actually, I made a lot of problems because I didn't necessarily speak up about that. I just did it. I probably did 3 people's jobs in that one role, probably more. And I should have said because, actually, I could have actually helped make that better for the organization and myself. And that was probably my biggest mistake then to not actually say this isn't actually really manageable for the average person, but I just do it because I'm passionate about the job.
Mahara Wayman [00:25:35]:
I think, you've highlighted something that many of us struggle with with, which is when we are enjoying ourselves and and love something and passionate about it, it can be easy to put our our boundaries disappear because we just don't wanna say no. We we just love it so much. We don't think of it as being an issue. Like, who cares? I don't have any kids. Like, I got time. I can do what I want. This is amazing. But to your point, it's not set in a good example.
Mahara Wayman [00:26:01]:
And, you you know, when you recognize the need for change, part of being a badass is is not only recognizing it, but acting on it. So when did you when did you start to act on your understanding that you could not do it all all the time anymore?
Naomi Rose [00:26:19]:
I think it was probably not long before I left that organization, and I had raised it. At that point, I decided that that I I need to raise this. But it didn't really change. And, actually, the biggest thing for me was I it was I loved the job. It was one of my favorite places, but I had no career progression. I had reached the top of where I could get to, and I could see there wasn't gonna be any progression for a while. And in my mind, this is and this is not how everybody does it. But this is the way I can do it.
Naomi Rose [00:26:56]:
I kind of look and think, am I enjoying what I'm doing? If the answer's no, then likelihood is I'm now wrong for this role, and I'm not gonna be able to take the organization or the company I'm working for to the place that they want to go. So I need to leave. Whether that's and some of my best friends have come from that organization. So I have got some great friends that was a result of that organization and still are great friends of mine because that's the way we work. Again, a bit similar to my previous job. The show had to go on. There were some crazy campaigning stuff that we had to do, which meant we just had to come up with the wildest ideas and make it happen. And we did.
Naomi Rose [00:27:34]:
That's what our jobs were. We did that was where we did, and we got it was great results from it, but there was a downside, which it was the time, it was the energy, and, actually, it was such an all consuming job. And in the end, I had to think with my head rather than my emotions and go, am I actually really gonna get to where I want to be by staying here? And the answer was no. So I handed in my notice at that point, and I went, I can't do this anymore. I didn't have anything else to go to at that point, but, like, I've I've done my time now. That's it. I've got to go. Otherwise, if I don't do it now, I'm just gonna just hate this job, and that's the worst thing I can do for myself, for the business, and everyone around me, so I did.
Naomi Rose [00:28:18]:
So I left. But I didn't find something else. I went on to my next role. So, you know, I'm I'm a big
Mahara Wayman [00:28:25]:
Sorry. Before you jump into sharing your next role, I would just wanna call out that, again, sometimes being badass means putting the emotions to the side and going, look at let's be really honest and clear about about what what's happening here. Emotions to the side. If I ain't happy, I'm not going anywhere. This is it. And it's not good for them either. So I just wanted to highlight that that does take a level of badassery for sure. So okay.
Mahara Wayman [00:28:50]:
You jumped into another role. Mhmm. Tell us about that real quick because I wanna I wanna hear more about what made you decide to open a bakery.
Naomi Rose [00:28:59]:
Yeah. Well, I jumped into a role, and I knew it was gonna be very different for where I've been. And I ended up for the long and short of it, I ended up managing a social media team, but then I actually went on to heading out their digital team. So I actually managed their whole digital team, which was such an insightful job. But also, I was, like, the gatekeeper of anything digitally in the entire organization. There was, I think, 2,000 people in it, so it's big. And the channels were big, and the websites were big. And we're I'm talking, like, 80,000 pages big.
Naomi Rose [00:29:34]:
It was big. Everything was huge. And, like, I had 50 social media channels that I was responsible for. It was, that was the scale of how it was managed, but everything came through my team because in the world of digital, everything goes through the digital team. Anything that the organization does, digital is the shop front wherever you are. So, we knew everything and we worked with everybody, everybody knew who I was. And often I was the gatekeeper because I had to protect my team from the sheer volume of work that I had to come through and work out which ones were the most important things to do because there's always more work to do. So, it was a really interesting role to work there and do that, but I was beginning to think I don't want to work for someone else anymore.
Naomi Rose [00:30:20]:
I want the freedom of doing what I want and not working in a 9 to 5. And I was also travelling quite a lot because I did get to work from home quite a bit then, but my office was 45 minutes away. But I was also working nationally, so some days I would some some weeks I would be in one end of the country, the next day I'll be in the other end because, see, being a digital, I had to get out and meet teams and help them with their digital stuff. So, I just, like, I wanna do something for myself. And this is where the love of baking came because I'd I'd always loved to bake. And I actually handed in my notice a year before I actually left the company. That was I was like, I'm gonna leave. I know I'm not gonna stay here, but I don't know what I'm gonna do.
Naomi Rose [00:31:06]:
But I'm gonna leave because I need the fear. I don't wanna I don't wanna have to come back. So I'll get a basically, I'm gonna do this job. I'm going to give myself no opportunity to return to a role, so I have to go and do this. And I was gonna do social media consulting. That was what I was going to do. I was gonna be a consultant in digital and social media. And then I found this incredible building in my local town, which was disused and derelict, and they started renovating it.
Naomi Rose [00:31:36]:
And we're walking my dog one morning, and the lady who was renovating it said, would you like a look inside? I'm like, yeah, sure, why not? I mean, it's been, like, run down with pictures of circuses in the windows for months and it just looks so miserable. It'd been there for about 12 years not being used, it was a really really tense place. And you walked in and it I mean, it it was exactly as you'd imagine. It looked awful. But underneath all of the brine, because it'd been a nightclub and then an amusement arcade for about a year, was this beautiful 1920s parkade flooring. There were these beautiful 1920s features that were just hidden under blacked out windows and all sorts, but they were still there. I was like, this this building would make an incredible cafe and bar. And that's at that moment, that was where I first saw the business I then had.
Naomi Rose [00:32:33]:
And it kind of snowballed from there. It wasn't what I was gonna do at all. I have no experience in running a cafe. Have no experience in being a professional baker other than I love to do it, I'm like, oh, I've got an idea. And I had a conversation with my dad and he was like, well, why don't we just do it? Like, well, okay, sure. That's kind of how it happened really. So we did. That long and short bit.
Mahara Wayman [00:33:00]:
Oh my god. You just one day walked in, had an epiphany,
Naomi Rose [00:33:05]:
and went for it. Yeah. Yeah. And so, yeah, that's what we did.
Mahara Wayman [00:33:12]:
Fast forward a little bit. How much did social media play in the growing of your business?
Naomi Rose [00:33:18]:
Massive. It was huge. It it wasn't because I knew how to fake what's why I started it. It's because I knew how to build a brand, how to build a business strategy, how to project plan, and how to market. That was what I knew I had. Those were the skill sets I I knew I needed as a business owner to grow a business lineup. It was the visibility. Without customers, it didn't matter what I sold.
Naomi Rose [00:33:42]:
I could make worse cakes in the world, but if I didn't get them in, they would never know about it. So that was where my skill set was.
Mahara Wayman [00:33:49]:
Alright. I gotta jump in. Who did the baking?
Naomi Rose [00:33:52]:
I I did some of the baking. I also then had a team of people. So I had a head I had a head baker. I had a head cook as well. Well, they were kind of like a duo. They came together, but they were both the the people in the kitchen that were the beating hole, getting the food out. I learned a lot from them, but we worked together, it was collaborative. I might have earned the business, but they had knowledge and skills that I didn't have.
Naomi Rose [00:34:17]:
So I learned a lot from them, and they were a big influence in what went on their menus. And, oh, I thought menus would be fun. I didn't realize the operation behind right a menu because it came down to stuff like, right, okay, how much stock do we need in the fridge? Do we have the space for it? Do we have the space to serve in the kitchen? How quickly can we get it out to customers? That is the actual what influenced what went on the menu. But will people buy that? Are we able to get it out on time? How slowly can we go? How quickly can we go? So that was where their experience really helped me. So I learned a lot from them. But, again, we learned what we were gonna do together so we could be consistent. Consistency was gonna be key. And it's the same with my front of house stuff.
Naomi Rose [00:35:02]:
I had I wasn't I didn't know how to make barista copy. I'd never done it before. So I had a machine that helped take a lot of the leg work out. And I was very much about being ethical and using local community businesses, local businesses. So the coffee that we had was hand delivered by my roaster who lived 10 miles away. So he came in and he would bring the coffee beans every week, But he trained myself and Star. And then my front of house team, I had a front of house leader there, they were the ones that trained me and trained the team. So we could get that consistency because it's no good going into a coffee shop and getting a different coffee every time.
Naomi Rose [00:35:43]:
That's not what you go for. I've ordered the same coffee for years, years years years. I get grumpy if it's not the same every time. I want that familiarity. So that's where I think working in a collaborative way and thinking outside the box. But the one thing I had that people couldn't do was get the business in front of the right customers. So that was what I knew was key.
Mahara Wayman [00:36:05]:
And how long did you have the business for?
Naomi Rose [00:36:07]:
5 years. So yes.
Mahara Wayman [00:36:10]:
What made you sell it?
Naomi Rose [00:36:13]:
We opened the business in 2018. So it's about 15 months before COVID. So we had gone through I like it. The 1st year was I planned for the worst case scenario. What I didn't plan for was the best case scenario, which was a big mistake because I had to treble my star very, very quickly. I didn't expect to be that busy because I planned for what we're gonna do, what is the absolute minimum we need to make to survive. That was the wrong tactic because I had to change my strategy. What I realized when we went into COVID and I had to actually restrategize completely because the world had changed.
Naomi Rose [00:36:49]:
And what the strategy I had when I opened wasn't the right one anymore. And, actually, it gave us an opportunity to get rid of all the crap that we don't wanna do and actually focus on the stuff that really, really worked, was that I needed to think differently about the staff I had. I maybe threw more people out of the business because that was what I thought I needed to do. When you actually sat down and looked at how it was working and how the operations could be more efficient, and I did this with my teams, they were fully involved in all of this. It was like, okay, this is what's gonna work and make us smoother, make us better, make us more agile, which is what we needed at the time. So, we went through all of that process, and during COVID, I crowdfunded a bakery as well. So, we then added the bakery arm onto the business, which won Britain's Best Life Awards in just 3 months after opening in 2021, which were completely blown away from. But then what happened was sorry, in 2022.
Naomi Rose [00:37:44]:
But then the cost of living crisis hit. And that was a real challenging time for hospitality in the UK. We'd also got the war in Ukraine and Russia, which meant that getting stock and things like flour literally went from 3 day delivery times to 14 day overnight. And you've got to bear in mind I was what we called a micro bakery, so really we're a small entity. So, for the big we used really good flour, but we were small prying in their eyes and they obviously their priority is a bigger company. So, I'd be running around trying to find 20 to 25 kilos of flour every night about 10 o'clock so my bakers had time to come in and do the baking in the night. But, of course, the world was changing. Stock costs were going through the roof.
Naomi Rose [00:38:30]:
Energy costs were going through the roof. And the one thing that was really the cash cow in the business, the stuff that made the money, was the bar. Because people used to come into the bar. People could live without cocktails, and lockdown had shut us down for probably the best part of a year to 15 months. And the bakery helped kind of manage all of that free until everything went up in price. And I was like, I can't pass that on to the customer. There's no way I can start charging £10 or $10 for a loaf of bread. It's just not gonna happen.
Naomi Rose [00:39:04]:
I can't do that. And I can't see another way out of this that doesn't involve cash flow investment. And this is not a problem. It's necessarily gonna solve itself in the next 6 months. So I had to make a difficult decision to close, and that was because it was the right decision. And I know since then that in my town, particularly, there have been other businesses that have also closed subsequent to that because it's just the nature of the beast. But what at the time, obviously, it was heartbreaking. It was a really, really difficult time.
Naomi Rose [00:39:38]:
But I didn't want to let everything I'd learned from that experience and I there were many days where I was flying by the seat of my pants. I had no idea what I was doing. I really, really didn't. I didn't have mentors because I couldn't find anyone that really understood the hospitality industry or was willing to share their experience because it's all such secret society. So I wanted to take all of that and do what I do now to help other business owners, be able to do something they're passionate about. Because what's the point of me of having done all of that amazing stuff and learning so much to then just leave it locked in my brain and going back and working for someone else? I don't want to do that. I still want to work for myself, I want to meet new business owners, existing business owners, and help them create the right strategies because so much of what we were doing at the cafe was correct. It was just, unfortunately, we can't beat a global crisis like that.
Naomi Rose [00:40:32]:
And I was arrogant to think I would never survive that.
Mahara Wayman [00:40:35]:
So I think you're you've you've you've touched on another component of being badass that I think is worth highlighting, which is it's badass to know when to say no enough. It's badass to know when to walk away. Right? It takes guts to walk away. And I the way you've described it, I wanna thank you for for painting such a good picture was, it's not easy, but sometimes the best thing that you can do for yourself or your company is to shut it down and to see the right and to recognize what's going on. And I think your point about it's not a problem that just that money will solve. Sometimes throwing more money at something isn't gonna solve the problem because the problem is bigger than that. So I think it's very badass that you could reach that that conclusion. So then you went in and created your own business.
Mahara Wayman [00:41:29]:
Is that the is that the birth of strategy and marketing expert?
Naomi Rose [00:41:35]:
It it was, but it actually started as a bit of a different guise because I was gonna I've actually gone in specifically to help hospitality businesses, and I set up the company called Baking Boss. And I launched a podcast called Baking Boss Kitchen Secrets. And this is going to be a book one day, so this is a sneak preview, but I actually wrote a lot of the anecdotes down from behind the counter. So, I wanted people to understand what it's like from the other side, not just all of the smiles and service with a smile and everything's okay. I didn't I did not go out like that. I went out, I talked a lot about the PR messages, and I've worked in PR, so I understand what how to do a PR message. And I just went, I am gonna tell the truth because I want people to understand really what's going on in the hospitality industry right now because you people customers that are coming in aren't necessarily seeing how much it takes to get your food, your coffee, whatever it is on the table. People need to understand that.
Naomi Rose [00:42:36]:
But, also, I want people in hospitality industry to understand that there is someone there to support them, that there is someone there that understands what they're going through, that that understands that some days they are working 20 hour days just to make sure that they can keep their staff at a job because that was the reality, certainly at the time I was doing it in some of the instances. So it kind of started at that, but as I've kind of gone through the journey, I started talking to other business owners and I realized actually I can help more than just hospitality here. I know an awful lot. And I found that I'd be actually going, actually, you could you could do this or you could do that. So it's like, why don't you just broaden yourself out? And it might go against people's judgement because I hear it a lot where you say you've got to niche down or get find your niche, whatever it might be. I'm like, you know what, I've I've completely undone that because I actually just like working with people that want to grow their businesses, and I really like working with people that are just stuck. They don't know where they're going. Their business they've started isn't where it wants to be or the grand visions they had when they first started, the passion that they had for it.
Naomi Rose [00:43:46]:
The reality actually is that they're not necessarily enjoying what they're doing, but now they feel like they kind of have to do this business because they've put themselves out there. They've told their family that they're gonna do it and succeed, and now it's not where they wanna be. But I can help people with that because I have been there myself. I've done it, and I've had to restrategize, come up with something new, do something different because the one thing we know that is inevitable is change. And change is hard, but I can help people with that. And I love change, and I've done it many times. So that's why I do what I do now.
Mahara Wayman [00:44:20]:
Still so good. Tell us where we can reach you. Where just to how is it best to get a hold of you? Through your website?
Naomi Rose [00:44:28]:
Yeah. Good. Get I'm I'm on I'm on the socials, but come and find me on my website. It's got the social links on there. So it's naomicrose.co. So that's naomicrose, like the flower, roset dotco. I've got all my socials on there. I'm on Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook.
Naomi Rose [00:44:45]:
I also have some great free resources on there. And if you just want to have a 30 minute free business order or a marketing order, maybe things are working for you, just come and book it in. I'll give you some tips of what you can do next, and I've got some free things that you can get from there as well.
Mahara Wayman [00:45:02]:
Oh my god. You are so badass. What can you share with the audience? Just a couple of tips, whether you're in business or not, things that you know have helped you to navigate life as as a badass.
Naomi Rose [00:45:16]:
So the one one tip that I will share is actually from the person who I named my caffeine bar and bakery after, and that's Elsie May. She was my grandmother. She lived to the age of 95, but she looked after the elderly until the age of 87. And the only reason she stopped looking after the elderly, who were, by the way, always younger than her, was because she lost her sight. And the reason I named my business after us is because she always wanted to run Tebram, and she loved to bake. She taught me how to bake. But even when she lost her sight, she found a way to still bake. So she had scales called Jeeves that talked to her.
Naomi Rose [00:45:53]:
So she found solutions in her kitchen. She had things that she could feel to know where there were different things. She recognized the packets of the stuff that she used. But her attitude was see the solution, not find the problem. It was about seeing the solutions, and that is what I wanted to bring to my business. That is why LC Maes was called Why It Was. It was the story was obviously about my grandmother teaching me how to bake. But really the values in my business was what's the solution? There's always a choice.
Naomi Rose [00:46:24]:
You've always got a choice. Don't look for the problem, see the solution.
Mahara Wayman [00:46:29]:
I love that. And by the way, my grandmother's name was Elsie as well.
Naomi Rose [00:46:34]:
Beautiful name, isn't it?
Mahara Wayman [00:46:36]:
Yeah. She's long passed away. Naomi, this has been an absolute delight. Thank you for sharing your story. And quick question, are you still playing the cello?
Naomi Rose [00:46:45]:
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Mahara Wayman [00:46:46]:
That's right.
Naomi Rose [00:46:46]:
You're I am.
Mahara Wayman [00:46:47]:
Right now.
Naomi Rose [00:46:48]:
And you're Yes. I am. For orchestras. Yes. Yeah. I can't wait to go back. We start again in September, so it's gonna be great.
Mahara Wayman [00:46:56]:
Fantastic. Well, I wish you all the best. I wanna thank you again for sharing your story. And guys, check out the show notes because, of course, all of her links are gonna be there. My name is Mahara. This has been the art of badassery. Special thanks to my guest, Naomi Rose, and we'll see you next week on the art of badassery. Thanks for tuning in to another badass episode.
Mahara Wayman [00:47:18]:
Your support means the world to me. So if you enjoyed what you heard today, don't forget to like, share, and rate the episode on your favorite podcast platform. Your feedback keeps the badassery flowing. And, hey, if you're ready to unleash your inner badass and conquer whatever life throws your way, why not book a complimentary badass breakthrough session? Just click the link in the show notes to schedule your session, and let's kick some serious butt together. Until next time, stay fearless, stay fabulous, and of course, stay badass. This is Mahara signing off.
