Episode 55: How to Do Less and Grow More - with Emma Hine

00:03 You're listening to The Business of Stories with Susan Peyton, showing you how to share stories that do the selling in your business so you don't have to. Most of us start our own business because we want more freedom and flexibility. But somehow along the way, it can become the exact opposite. We find ourselves adding more offers, more platforms, more strategies and more things we think we should be doing until the business we created to give us more freedom starts taking over our life. My guest today Emma Hine knows exactly what that feels like

00:43 Emma built a seven-figure business that looked incredibly successful from the outside. But behind the scenes, she was working 80 to 90 hours a week 364 and half days a year and had created what she calls a monster! In this episode, we talk about what finally made Emma realise something had to change. How she completely rethought the way she approached business and why she now believes that doing less can actually help you grow more We also talk about how to strip out the noise, simplify your business and make sure what you're building is supporting the life you actually want rather than consuming it

01:30 But before we dive into the conversation, I just want to let you know that Emma shares some very personal and difficult parts of her story including experiencing suicidal thoughts and the loss of a daughter to cancer. If either of those subjects would be difficult for you to hear right now, you might want to give this episode a miss! Here's my conversation with Emma So, Emma welcome to The Business of Stories the podcast. We've been trying to get this organised for a little while now so I'm thrilled that we could make it work and it's lovely to have you here. I am delighted that we finally made it work thank you so much for having me! Oh you're welcome. So we've been in a couple of groups together at various times and got to know each other a little bit that way and I know that you have an incredibly powerful story about

02:24 Building a seven-figure business that became, as you call it, a monster and all consuming and working all hours and having no life which I'm sure lots of people can relate to. And how you went on to kind of redefine success and what that means and what that looks like for now which i'd love to hear more about but do you want to start by just telling us what did that seven figure business look like? And why did you hate it Why did I hate it? It's a great word isn't it, but it actually was the right word. So what did it look like and basically meant me working 364 and half days every single year for four years and years and years so the business was in e-commerce business we sell greeting cards and gifts and all of that type of stuff which you think would be nice easy business when your pretty fluffy stuff but

03:15 I had built that business with one thing in mind, unintentionally and that was just continuous growth to keep the business growing. So what i did as i was building it is constantly throwing more stuff so doing extra bits that are going to put more revenue into the top which makes the business look bigger So I was taking my laptop on holidays, I wasn't doing things that i should be doing with the children. My girls who are grown up now were all young back when we started this so you know I wasn't doing the things that I should have been with the children like going to the plays and their assemblies and taking them to school saying yes to being able to sit there and just play noughts and crosses with them. I was missing things with family,

03:56 I've just basically my entire life from the minute i woke up until the minute i went to bed was purely about the business constantly trying to grow the business, constantly having to do something within the business. Now there's a couple of things i did wrong one is i took too much control so i did too much of the doing myself rather than letting myself step back and leave other people to do that I did that partly because i thought i had to, you know. I know what i'm doing and if wanted this to happen quickly then i need to just keep doing it so one was that which was happening and there's this other underpinning bit that came from me after i walked away from the business where actually i had something to prove to a teacher who told me never make anything of myself So underneath all of this i was constantly trying

04:45 The Business of Stories podcast is a series that focuses on the business of stories. So the business looked great from the outside. Anybody that sat and looked at us saw us as these people who've got, you know an amazing seven figure business that was supporting this amazing life because that's what I made it look like yet I was completely lost. Completely! Yeah and i wonder how many people can relate to that story? They might not have a seven-figure business

05:25 But they just recognise that somehow in their head, they've created this idea and this story that that's what success is. It's having the money it's being able to buy whatever I want to buy maybe its even being able to say I've got seven figure business and I think we just get wrapped up in that story and we don't actually stop and think about what is that going to look like? What does it mean? And Is it really what I want Exactly, I think that's the key thing isn't it? You know when we started that business and i say we because I started with my husband but when we started that business It was because I wanted more freedom from the corporate career that I'd got so I loved my job But I didn't like the fact that I was so tied to it you know. I had to ask somebody for a holiday And you know all of that stuff that comes with working for somebody else So my intention went when we started our own business

06:17 We would have much more flexibility in terms of how we spend our time, you know me being able to go to the school plays and all that sort of thing. Yet it just over time it just became busier and busier and busier. The opposite! Exactly when you first start a business you have to work hard there's no I'm not going to sit here and say oh its all amazing from day one isn't? You have to work hard so at first it was just this but this is what you need to do get your business to a point where The Business of Stories

07:03 Yeah, so true. It's so interesting we talk about freedom and flexibility and autonomy and then we work 90 hours a week So, what did that 10 years look like then? Already knowing that you weren't happy and it wasn't really the business that

07:45 I hate the business, what the business gave me. Which i gave myself so that 10 years in the best way to describe it is very very messy from the inside from the outside It looked fine you know it looked great people only saw what they saw but from the inside it gradually consumed me as a person So slowly over time the person that started that business became sort of a shell of themselves The Business of Stories is a podcast that focuses on the life and work of women in the business.

08:29 So it looked internally very, very messy. Me right at rock bottom working even harder pushing even harder because I was telling myself that you push that little bit harder and something magic will happen. You know something magical will happen that will give you back what you want So yeah, it was just lots of long hours continued. My mental health took a real downward spiral my weight I wasn't eating so my weight literally completely dropped off me so it became a tiny little thing in the process as well how people didn't notice maybe people did notice but just say anything I don't know but it just became very messy I started to do

09:09 Things that weren't strategic, they were things that we're just masking. That we're just putting a plaster on that were covering up, that was solving the problem because I physically hadn't got the headspace to think of what I needed to do at the end of the day. I thought that the world would be better without me and considered ending my life because I just didn't think there was another way for me Have a different life. I think that's the fairest way to say it Wow, so it got to that point and got that bad? Yeah yeah That was somewhere between 2010 which is when I first had that realization that there was something not right and 2020 stroke 2021 when I actually started to make some changes So he was different It was somewhere in the middle

09:58 But the next day, get up, lipstick on go back to work as though nothing has happened and just keep on doing it more and more and more because I didn't know anything different. Yeah yeah! And it's so interesting you said that you're not sure how people didn't notice But I also think there is this thing, I remember somebody actually inside Storytelling Mastery saying to me one day. She actually commented on a post that I'd written and she said oh you work harder than anyone else i know and I thought...I think she meant that as a compliment but it doesn't feel like one! Like I don't want to work harder than everybody else

10:39 Like if I'm working harder than everybody else, maybe i'm doing something wrong. You know? It becomes a bit of a badge of honour doesn't it? Yeah! I think people see as a badge of honour they're working really hard they're really successful yeah exactly So what did change then? Because obviously there did come a point around 2020, did you say 2021. Yeah it was the end of 2020 so during this 10 years when things were going on that I added new businesses to the business because I thought hey why not we opened a retail store and all sorts of things. 2020 brought an unexpected spike into the business because obviously the world shut down but e-commerce didn't have to shut down suddenly the only place you can buy anything is online

11:19 So we sort of had a real, sort of an extra spike throughout the whole of 2020 which normally only happens at Christmas. And it sort of got to the end of that year and just thought I just can't do this for another day! It was straight after Christmas when we'd done our normal Christmas crazy spike and I just can't keep doing this. How I went from wanting to end my life to that point I don't know exactly is the honest answer. I obviously found the strength somewhere to actually be able to say it and at that point we decided to give ourselves a period of time where we would literally shut the business down for awhile whilst we made a decision about how we could do things differently so in three weeks, we developed a new plan something we'd never really sat and done it was very you know

12:09 The Business of Stories is a podcast that The Business of Stories is a podcast that The Business of Stories podcast is brought to you by the Business of Stories, a production of the British Public Television Association.

12:55 So it felt great. So that's what we did in 2021 and it was March 2021 when we fulfilled our own, the last order we ever fulfilled ourselves but we continued with a very small product range through Amazon FBA for little while longer but it was 2023 when... It wasn't a decision I'm going to say that quite clearly. It wasn't a decision to actually close the business down not a conscious decision anyway In 2023, with Mr Chunk my story out there it was the end of March 2023. My eldest daughter got diagnosed with secondary liver cancer

13:34 And she was very poorly. She was very, very poorly and she only survived six weeks from diagnosis to when we lost her but from the day she got that diagnosis We didn't fulfill a single anything for that business It just naturally closed down because we didn't order any more stock in if you don't want anymore stock We can't ship any off to Amazon So the businesses final close down of the business wasn't until 2023 Right. Oh gosh, that is... Yeah deep breath! Probably saw my big inhale there. Yeah yeah yeah. I can't even begin to imagine – I've got two daughters myself so I can't even imagine to begin what you went through and completely understandable that the business was the last thing on your mind as you went through that, you and your family but i would imagine

14:32 Maybe a different perspective. Yeah, completely! Completely What do you think changed for you during that time? Because that's two huge things happening in your life right one is your business of 15 years closing but way bigger and way more devastating is losing your daughter so how do even begin to then reassess it sounds like it will happen very quickly What do you think, looking back now because I'm sure at the time it was just a case of getting through it and being there for your daughter. But what do you think now looking back? What do you think changed inside you? Where did you go from there how did you move forwards from there? Yeah well the honest answer is that if I hadn't have made the decision in early 2021 or end

15:32 I don't know what the outcome would have been for me as a person. Between 2021 and 2023, whilst i had no longer got the 80 to 90 hours a week and all of the stresses that came with business, I'd spent a lot of time working on myself so really doing something that I've never done which was getting to know who is Emma? What does Emma want to do you know what does the dream Life The Business of Stories is a podcast that

16:36 The Business of Stories I'm not going to say come out the other side because i'm still not out of the other side in terms of you know what happened but once had got stronger again yeah, I realized that actually the previous business had taught me a lesson. It taught me how precious time is and now how much that we have to focus on what it is we want from life because life is so so precious

17:23 But actually losing Becky was the thing that made me actually realise that lesson. So I thought that i'd learnt all of this stuff and at that point, it was all about your purpose, knowing what you wanted to get out of it and what success looked like but when I came out later in 2023-2024-2025 Actually, that's not just words that have come out of my mouth in terms of you know we really need to be doing things that we enjoy and not spending our life being unhappy and all of that type of stuff because it's a... You know your time is is not guaranteed. Is it? And then that might sound really morbid really awful but it made me really reinforce my values which have always been there but I wasn't letting them come out It has really made me realise

18:19 These aren't just words, these aren't just things that we can say we need to do. These are things that absolutely needs to be priorities for us and we need to be focusing on what it is we want to get out of the life that we have got because we're lucky enough to have it What I wanna do is make people see you don't want to go through something like that And I'm the lucky one, I'm here. Becky's not! You know you don't want to have to be the one that goes... have to go through something like that to actually appreciate how important life is we spend a lot of time in our business so that needs to be something that is funding the life that we want not consuming it. That feels like it was a bit of a preach sorry? No not at all and I think

18:59 You're absolutely right. I think that sometimes it does take something happening, you know for us to think about what really matters and what's important and it does sound like a bit of a cliche but it's actually so so important and I think what you said there is a really good point is knowing this stuff is one thing all right because we've all done it we've all read the self-development books and we've all listened to the things and we all know that we should be doing things that make us happy I'm actually stopping and thinking, but am i doing it? Am I actually creating the life that I want or am I just building this thing for the sake of building it because I think... Who are we building it for you know that's you know that's that's the thing isn't it. We're quite often building something because we think this is what success looks like

19:49 It doesn't matter what success looks like, what does success feel like? Because if you feel unhappy if you're spending all of your time working and then you're not getting to do anything with that. What did seven figures a year mean in excess of seven figures a year do for me it brought me cars that I never went in because I was too busy working holidays that I spent most of my time in a hotel room whilst everybody else was out having fun houses that you know I didn't get to enjoy or invite people to come and do it Meals that I could go to but couldn't because i was too busy. So, I'm not saying that you don't want to build a big business, a big seven-figure business That is not the problem here The problem is how you are building it and what it is supporting And it needs to support what you wanted to support and that's why we need to be clear with ourselves What is...I call your dream life But what is success to us? You know, what does your dream life look like Because the business you build

20:44 The Business of Stories Waiting for the right time, waiting until they've just earned a bit more money. Waiting until something happens... Why do we wait? So true! So knowing all of that now and I know that's what you help clients to do now and we can talk about how you do that but how can we avoid building businesses that take over our lives? It has to start with

21:27 The strategy isn't the first part of building a business. The strategy is actually, I think it's the easy part of building a business which is funny considering that's what I help people with but actually its the bit you do at the beginning and the bit that you do as at the end are two things that matter so the bit you need to do in the beginning is you need to actually work out what your dream life looks like The Business of Stories is a podcast that I

22:05 What would a normal week look like? What do you want to be doing, what are your non-negotiables. I'm not saying that you can have that from day one if you're just starting a fresh business because you can't! You've got to work harder but there's always got to be what it is you were trying to create so it has to start with clarity on what that is before you start to move onto the strategy Most people skip that or they just create a vision board that's got a car, house holidays and all of these things on. I love all of those things too you know we're human we love things and stuff don't we as human beings but my question is always going to be to anybody that is in that position when they're starting to do that why? And what are you prepared to sacrifice to get there because there always is something you've got to sacrifice together so if you want

22:53 And I do think that some people struggle with knowing what that is. Like we think we know what our dream life is, And I know that if you ask a group of people, especially a group of business owners What's Your Dream Life? They're probably going to say oh travel and holidays and lots of time with my family. But I don't know how clear people really are on what that looks like and how they could make that work. Absolutely! The honest answer is most aren't

23:41 But we also have to remember that that dream doesn't have to be the forever dream. You know, as we start to grow, as we start to change as human beings and we do, we're constantly becoming you know stepping into a different version of ourselves aren't we? That dream might change and tweak and that's why I said that the other bit that matters is the bit you do at the end – that's that constant check-in with are we still building what we wanted to build has it changed has the vision changed you know doing that constant sense check piece It's really, really important. But I think for me from the people that I've had these conversations with a lot of the time the reason that people don't know what that looks like is because one they're not giving themselves time to really think about it two they're afraid to actually say what it is because they don't think it necessarily conforms with what the expectation of it is

24:33 Or three, they just don't think it's important. And I think... Or they don't think it's possible maybe? Yeah absolutely! Absolutely and that this is where we do this you know there's a reverse engineering of that dream because you're not going to jump from you know where you are today into this big long-term dream the steps you've got to take in between to get you there But you need to make sure that those steps you are taking, are taking you there. You know if we don't know where were going, we're never gonna end up in the right place are we? No no absolutely and I know that you talk about doing less to grow more so what does that look like like how does that actually work in practice

25:17 Yeah, so I think the easiest way – simplest way to put it into a simple form is what people do over time when they grow a business is they add lots of things and stuff. By the way you've probably realised two of my favourite words ever! They have lots of things and stuff into their business. Things that they do because somebody tells them that's it's a good thing for them to do. Things that they've done because they've always done them. So you know what it is? When you've always done something keep doing it don't you?! Things that were a temporary fix 25 years ago, that you've had to then add on another temporary fix and other temporary fix. You've got really messy untidy something going on in with your business for me all of that stuff is noise it's all stuff that is just things you are doing that are not actually moving your business forwards they're things that you were doing to just keep yourself busy

26:08 So, for me the first thing we do in any business is we need to strip all of that stuff out. Now people will sit there and say to me oh no I've got a really well-oiled machine, and that is not the case when we start to have those conversations. Think about content you're putting out there and where you're putting it out there, emails you send in, offers that nobody buys but you keep for 50 years – it's all taking up some sort of space in your business that doesn't need to be. So we go and find what those things are and get rid of them. We then do work around data, everybody goes to sleep at that point but actually there's so much data in your business that people are not using they're not looking at things so they're not fully understanding if things work well or if they don't work well. They're not focusing on the things that if they applied a little bit more something to it

27:07 The Business of Stories podcast is brought to you by the Business of Stories, And it makes a massive difference. And it sounds so simple, but I guarantee every business we go into will have some. I'll have some in my business right now because it builds up without you even realising it and this is why this isn't a... You do it once and then that's it! We're all sorted. You have to keep doing this work on your business what has come in because one of my favourite sayings just because you can it doesn't mean you should

27:49 And I think we do, don't we? Somebody says, oh you know, let's use an example. LinkedIn! Everybody does brilliantly on LinkedIn so everybody goes onto LinkedIn and somebody says, Oh you need to be on TikToks everybody goes onto TikTok The Business of Stories No, very true. And I think also it's easy to do the things that you think you should do and everybody else is doing

28:50 Even if you don't really enjoy it, people end up doing things that they're not really enjoying just because they think this is what I've got to do. If I've got a business this is what I've gotta do and the other thing...I loved what you said there just because you can doesn't mean you should. I think the other thing to think about is just because you're good at something doesn't mean that you necessarily have to do it right? Absolutely absolutely and that was one of the big lessons for me in my e-commerce business The Business of Stories podcast is brought to you by the Business of Stories podcast.

29:46 Who tells us that? Who is it that's telling us that we need to do all of these things to build a business because I strongly believe if you enjoy something, you're going to be much more consistent at it. And one thing we all know in business what consistency drives is growth isn't it so if you don't enjoy something you're gonna be inconsistent not straight away but eventually you are going to be inconsistent You are gonna start thinking oh I'll do it tomorrow It's gonna start becoming And I'll see you in the next one.

30:34 I've always had a bit of a motto all my life is that as long as i'm enjoying it, I'll keep doing it. When I stop enjoying it, I'm going to stop doing it whether its friendships relationships work you know whatever it is hobby whatever it is and I think sometimes we carry on doing things were not enjoying anymore because we didn't acknowledge that were not enjoying them anymore or we think But I've put all this work into it. I've got this far, and at this stage...I can't stop now! I can't get off this treadmill now because of all the work that I have already put in.

31:12 That's it, that's it. We put so much pressure on ourselves to keep doing things because we've always done them again these are all the things I say are noise within a business things that are not moving you towards where you want to go. Amazing! That absolutely all makes sense. I guess maybe what is hard sometimes to get clear on How do you grow without constantly adding another offer, adding another platform, adding another strategy? Like how do you simplify your business so that you can grow rather than add more on.

31:49 And I think the honest answer is we will always keep adding bits on and i think that's just who we are as human beings, it's human nature. But there's two things that I think can make a massive difference in terms of that one has been very clear on that vision so getting really clear on what it is you're wanting to build and how you're wanting to build it because then you can run through when something else gets put in front of you can ask yourself if it's moving you closer to that So I think there's always that one sense check bit But things will still sneak in and that's where I think you've got to have these regular reviews that are taking you back to the vision. So a review, a month-end review on your business for most people that looks like have i hit my sales target? Have my followers increased? You know how many interactions did I get on that Facebook post? How many people are looking at my emails and clicking through all my email so people are looking at the number data which is absolutely key it

32:40 It's But we also need to be asking ourselves at the beginning, why are we doing this? Are we doing this because somebody's told us to do it or are we doing this because we've sat there and thought about it and decided that actually yes that is something I want to give a try of. We never know if something right until we tried it so you know we have to try things, we absolutely do have to try things but for me its those two things. I don't think will ever get to point where people will say

33:27 I don't ever add stuff to my business unnecessarily. So I guess it's not necessarily not adding more things, but it's constantly looking at what you're doing. Streamlining simplifying and only doing the things that are actually working and adding value and helping you create the business that you want

34:05 Absolutely. Emma, I've loved this conversation it's been really really great and i think that we can all be guilty of making our businesses a lot more complicated than they need to be I normally finish every episode with an action step for people to go away and do, and that normally comes from me. But I thought as you were talking that it would be really interesting for you to set the action step for anybody listening this week if you're happy to do that? So for the person that's listening to this who is working far too hard

34:43 Right now, and knows that their business is taking up far more of their life than they ever intended it to. What's one thing that you would encourage them to do differently this week? Okay, so I've spoken a lot about doing things in your business that you don't need to be doing which i call noise. So what I'm going to share with you is the three questions that I use in my business and my clients use as well that help you work out if something is noise or whether it's something that should actually be sitting within your business And then the action is going to be to go away and actually do at least one, put at least one thing within your business through these three questions. And then whatever comes out of the back of it I want you to do something with it. So the three questions are Is what you're doing making you money? That's first question The second question is... Is the thing you are doing moving you towards a goal? so it might not be making any money today but its in there to do that in future or is it serving your clients

35:46 Now if you can't say yes to at least one of those questions, it doesn't have to be a yes to all three of them just one off there. What you are doing is literally just noise and you need to cut it. If there is a possibility then you need to have it on a list that says I need to keep reviewing this to make sure that it's ticking one of those things. If it ticks the box then that needs to stay in your business So there's your three questions. Is it making you money? Is it moving you towards your goal and is it serving your clients if not, its noise and needs to go on I want everybody that listens to this to find one piece of noise in their business and get rid of it this week. Lovely! I love that thank you. I'm going do that when we finish recording And so anybody who wants to find out a bit more about you Emma follow you on social media

36:33 Emma Hine, I am Emma Hine. Thank you so much for sharing so honestly and generously it's not an easy story for you to share but i have no doubt that it's a story that will help so many other people really look at what they're doing, why they're doing it and get a sense of what really matters. Absolutely and my pleasure being here thank you for having me

37:17 I think Emma's story is such a powerful example of why storytelling matters. Because when you hear what she has been through, you understand on a much deeper level why the work she does now matters so much to her. You understand the passion behind it – the purpose behind it and why she cares so deeply about helping other business owners build businesses that support the life they want rather than consume Her story gives her work meaning and depth in a way that simply telling you what she does never could. And that's the power of sharing your stories, they help people understand not just what you do but why it matters to you! So I normally finish every episode by giving you a simple action step to go away and do but this week Emma did it for me

38:12 So, your action step for today is to look for one thing that feels like noise in your business right now and ask yourself... Is it making me money? Is it moving me towards my goal? Is it serving my clients? If the answer to all three is no you may want to consider getting rid of it. That's your action step for today! Look for the noise in your business and see what you could cut out to make it simpler And I'll see you next time for more stories that do the selling for you, so you don't have to. Thank you so much for being here! I love that we get to do this together Would you do me a huge favour and please rate review and follow this podcast in Apple Spotify or wherever you listen to your podcasts? And i'll see you next time For more honest conversations meaningful connections and of course stories

39:13 The Business of Stories.