Becoming Your Warrior
Hosted by Emma Ritchie, ex-TV producer turned Mindset Coach, hypnotherapist and Founder of The Mindset Redesign, Becoming Your Warrior is a deep, soulful, and empowering podcast designed to help you step into the next chapter of your life with confidence, clarity, and self-love.
Through powerful mindset shifts, guided reflections, and honest conversations, Emma helps you break free from self-doubt, reconnect with your inner strength, and create a life that feels truly aligned. Whether navigating change, healing old wounds, or stepping into your fullest potential, this podcast is your safe space to explore, grow, and rise.
Each episode is filled with insightful wisdom, practical tools, and heart-led guidance to help you become the warrior of your own life—one who stands tall in self-worth, embraces change fearlessly and leads with love.
This is your invitation to step into your power. Your journey starts now. 💫
You can find out more about Emma at www.Emma-ritchie.com
Becoming Your Warrior
Entrepreneurial Evolution with Fee Turner
In today’s episode, I sit down with the incredible Fiona Turner—multi-passionate entrepreneur, branding whiz, and founder of The Soul Hive. Fi opens up about her powerful pivot from the world of corporate marketing into building soulful businesses that truly light her up.
She shares the real behind-the-scenes: the messy moments, the money lessons, what she’s learned about choosing the right business partners, and how to stay sane (and inspired) while doing it all. We also dive into the rise of AI—how it’s not here to replace creativity, but to amplify it when used with intention.
This one’s for every woman dreaming of a business that feels aligned, abundant, and totally her own.
Top Takeaways:
✨ Trust your gut—your past experiences are teaching tools, not mistakes.
✨ E-commerce is a wild ride, but it teaches you a lot about what works (and what doesn’t).
✨ Partnerships can be magic—or mayhem. Choose wisely.
✨ Cash flow isn’t just business talk—it’s your business’s lifeline.
✨ AI isn’t the enemy. It can free up your genius, not steal it.
✨ Don’t just build a brand that looks good—build one that feels good.
✨ A mentor = your fast-track to clarity, support, and accountability.
✨ Embrace the human in your branding—imperfection is part of the magic.
✨ Know your risk tolerance—it’ll save you from burnout.
✨ Balance, baby. The hustle isn’t worth it if your nervous system is fried.
Fee Turner is the founder of The Soul Hive — where soulful vision meets smart strategy. With 20+ years in marketing and five businesses under her belt, she helps ambitious founders turn bold ideas into thriving brands and websites.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/fionaturner/
https://www.instagram.com/the.soul.hive/
https://thesoulhive.com/
You can follow Emma at:
https://www.instagram.com/emmaritchiewellness/
https://www.facebook.com/emmaritchiewellness/
https://www.youtube.com/@emmaritchiebecomingyourwarrior
Welcome to the Becoming your Warrior podcast. This is the place where you get to feel inspired and empowered to step into your very best life. In today's episode, I talk to my good friend and fellow entrepreneur, fi Turner, and Fi has an amazing background in marketing, working for major major advertising agencies in London and also in Sydney, and then moving into working in marketing and futures and AI departments for major banks and financial institutions here in Australia. And on top of all of that, she is a serial entrepreneur and the founder of an amazing company called the Soul Hive. So in today's episode, we talk about the hurdles that Fi came up across in her entrepreneurial journey, the failures and the successes that she's had, and also the things that she sees, the mistakes that she sees new business owners, new entrepreneurs, making. So if you want to level up and avoid making those mistakes, just tune into this episode and let's get into it. Welcome to the Becoming your Warrior podcast, fi.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Em. It's a pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1:It's really good to have you here and I'm super excited about today because I know you have so much to offer everybody, especially when it comes to business and your journey creating the Soul Hive and all the beautiful work that you're doing. So I want to start and it's a biggie, I just want to start by asking, in business and in life, what has it taken for you to be where you are right now?
Speaker 2:Starting small. I see what has it taken to get here. It's taken a lot of years doing things that I didn't want to do, decades in the wrong industry, just working for the dollar, doing what everybody else did, until circumstances forced me out again and I learned to trust myself.
Speaker 1:You got that into a nice little paragraph. That was. That was great. So tell me a little bit about your background. So, before you started with the soul hive and you set up your business, talk to me about these industries that you were in. What, what were they?
Speaker 2:so I started out in advertising in a London agency called TMP and that's how I came to Sydney. So I moved over here as an account director and then spent maybe 15 years in various marketing and advertising agencies before then kind of consulting a bit into financial services. Went through all the banks and a big four consultancy. So background's very kind of very mainstream. I was always client facing. So that's kind of a key thing that I was never creative creative. Looking back, I think I really wanted to do a graphic design degree but I didn't. I did social anthropology. Uh, didn't use any of that and went straight into marketing. Um, and so this is where now I am a creative. So this is a huge change.
Speaker 1:And can we talk about some of your other businesses that you had along the way as well? You were obviously in these mainstream corporations and then tell me a little bit about that entrepreneur's journey so I was working, uh, with pfizer in pharmaceutical marketing and, yes, taught me a lot.
Speaker 2:You've got to get into the belly of the beast to really understand it. And, yes, it taught me a lot. You've got to get into the belly of the beast to really understand it.
Speaker 2:What a journey you've been on, my goodness, and there I met someone who became a really good friend of mine. We all heard about this person who'd been at GSK and then she'd gone through this course and set up a business on Amazon FBA Fulfillment by Amazon and gone from zero to a million dollars revenue in a year. So we're all sitting in these you know pharmaceutical, healthcare jobs that we're like paying bills going wow, if can do it, we can do it. So we all went on this course and it was one of these things, that sort of ripple effect, you know. Someone would tell their friend, they tell their friend, and so on the very last day I bought this course and I'm like you know, now or never, change your life, you've got to invest. You've got to invest in yourself to do it. So I went on this course and from that my results showed hammocks would be really good. So I set up a business called hero hammocks. I um followed the process and found um manufacturers in China got samples committed to one factory. Um got my hammocks made. It was an expensive process but it was. Uh. E-commerce is a huge um training ground and I think of it. You really want to understand business, e-commerce is one of the best ones to learn from.
Speaker 2:So that's where I started and that journey as well made me realize I couldn't work full time and do this Hero Hammocks, amazon business and sustain a life in Sydney. So I went full time into Hero Hammocks and then, of course, I got a cash flow problem because I'm spending $10,000, $15,000 every time I'm producing my hammocks and money's running out. So I made the decision to move back to UK and money's running out. So I made the decision to move back to UK and, at the age of 40, moved in with my sister, which I thought was the most shameful thing ever. I thought I was the biggest, really did. I remember being on the plane going. You know what? What a loser. You've got nothing. You're having to move back with your very successful sister in her mansion at 40.
Speaker 1:I mean, some people might say you're lucky, but yeah and through that I was deciding to let it go.
Speaker 2:I was back in my home village in Goring-on-Thames in the UK and I went to the local pub and there was one of my school friends who'd come back from three years in Brazil with her family and she said to me Fi, I know, you know how to set up a business. I've just found the world's perfect leggings and I want to start selling them. And I'm like ooh, perfect leggings. Like who doesn't want perfect leggings? And these were Brazilian leggings, where you know, if you know Brazilians, there's no black and dark. These are flamboyant, they're floral, there's patterns and all sorts. So we started. I pivoted, I closed down Hero Hammocks and set up Meemaw. And this again was I really felt right. Everything felt right about this. The products were amazing.
Speaker 2:Within one month I'd built an entire Shopify website with about 100 SKUs. I had a mannequin, I was getting clothes in, I was doing a lot of photography, all of the marketing. And then a month later, we had retailers. We'd gone around all the gyms, all the younger mummies around clamoring to get into them, and it was just going off. And it was fun days until it wasn't. And it was fun days until it wasn't.
Speaker 1:Obviously, it's going off. It's flying off the shelves, kind of thing. What happened in that?
Speaker 2:business. We had a production issue with the factory and it's something I never got to the bottom of because my business partner spoke Portuguese and dealt solely with the business, the factory side of things and the quality, and I had no part of that because I don't speak the lingo and I'm doing everything else. Something went wrong and we couldn't get it back, but it just yeah, it wasn't meant to be, so it died a death and it was very, very painful, of death, uh, and it was very, very painful. It was a very difficult, um business dissolution, as in we don't talk, it was. It was very difficult. So that was another big lesson. If you go into business with a partner, um, with a business partner, there are a lot of things we missed on that legal things, um compatibility, um things right at the start. So the lesson there is if you work for yourself, it's one thing, if you go in as a business partnership, it's a whole different ball game what?
Speaker 1:what advice would you give to somebody who is maybe thinking about going into business with someone or partnering with someone like, based on your experience?
Speaker 2:and so what they do in startup world there's a lot of founders and co-founders is, um, there's sort of like a form. It's a bit like a kind of questionnaire, almost like a kind of dating thing, where you're looking for compatibility. And I did it with my business partner right at the end and the answers were so extreme like how, if I'd done that at the beginning, we probably wouldn't have gone into business together. There might have been another way to get the business working, but not as partners. So I would. I would get advice on somebody. So definitely the startup world.
Speaker 2:Anyone who's worked with um co-founders would know all about this and do these kind of compatibility to everything from your, your intentions, your values, your, um, your goals for the next you know, two, five, ten years, because I think value driven is also really important. So, yeah, I get advice from people that know what they're doing and it's emotional, it's financial, it's even more than a marriage. A lot of the times you're probably spending more time with this person. But the other side of that is everybody has an idea and most people don't act on it. So the other side is you know, why not give it a go? Sometimes there are ways you can do it better than I did, then set it up better, but if you don't try, you'll never succeed.
Speaker 1:Kind of, at this stage you've had this mainstream, amazing, you know career. You've kind of moved into these two other businesses In your mindset. How do you put yourself back together when this business you've kind of moved into these two other businesses In your mindset? How do you put yourself back together when this business that you've put so much into has essentially just dissolved in front of you? Like, where do you go in your mind to move forward?
Speaker 2:Well, it's a good question, because what I know now was I was actually really mourning it. So, I think, properly closing down and reflecting, and that's when the next chapter started, really, because then I was, you know, I wasn't working, I'd had, I'd never seemed to run out of money, which is interesting back then but I seemed to be just bottering about doing the odd kind of websites and stuff. And then my friend Annie, again, I remember she phoned me up and said she was going traveling in September and would I consider coming to Balmain in Sydney and dog sitting. It was Fred and I remember thinking, yeah, actually I miss Australia, I'm going to go back and do some dog sitting. So then I moved back to Australia in September 2019.
Speaker 2:And then I moved to Manly and then, of course, covid happened, so I come back with a backpack. So I had this idea and I'm like I can build websites. I know I can do that, I've done it before. So I went on to Facebook and there's a group there that is very popular called like-minded bitches drinking wine, and I'm looking for like six clients and I got six people straight away. I mean, it was very cheap back then because I just needed to pay to buy some food and pay rent, and I did. How long did I do that?
Speaker 1:for Maybe six, eight months, I think, until I got another contract and then I started working for a uh, a marketing agency, and so let's talk a little bit about that, about that bouncing back and forth between corporate, because at this stage, obviously, you've had a couple of businesses, um, well, like three now, um, but I think this is something that a lot of people go through, where it's kind of like you go for it, and then there's this like I need to go back and you know, go back to safety Now, from where you are, the perspective that you are now, what do you, what advice do you have about?
Speaker 2:that when I first started I had quite substantial savings when I started the Amazon project. So that's how I was able to do that completely on my own bootstrapping. But it's a drain. If you are single, live alone, for example, and you don't have anybody else to help cover your rent and your food and your bills, have anybody else to help cover your rent and your food and your bills, then you're not only trying to build a business working by yourself doing a hundred jobs, you're also trying to find the money to eat and do all that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it is particularly draining and I think I would think very hard about that again if I was starting out on how to cover those basic needs. People take, you know, waitressing jobs, bar jobs, anything that might just take that pressure off, or consulting in something you don't really love, but at least you know it's paying the bills, so there's a really, really survival is becomes an issue yeah, it's about being really careful who you take advice from, because there's obviously lots and lots of people out there and let's say, you know we'll talk about courses and our slight obsession with with studying and learning from people.
Speaker 1:But it's like obviously people out there the main players on like youtube or whatever are like you know, if you're going to go in, just go all in and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:But they're also sitting from a place of you know absolutely smashing it and no doubt they put in loads and loads of hard work, but they might have been single and living at home when they did that and had some financial flow of money, like mum or dad could have been there. Where I think your situation you know you might be a single mum or you know, have a huge mortgage on your house and then you listen to somebody just go, just go for it, and I think there is an element of that but I also think you have to look at your own situation and who are you taking advice from? You know, is it someone in their private jet whose mum and dad were entrepreneurs and they've always been around this business knowledge, where you might not have had that and you might have to study a bit more to get those basic skills. Do you know what I'm saying?
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a lot of factors in there. One is what is your risk tolerance? I have a very high risk tolerance, like I for some reason seem to like coasting very close to the edge. Not everybody likes doing that. I am much more. I'll just give it a go. But in terms of the courses and the people you're following, you're exactly right. So you're following like the Brendan Bouchard's or the Hermosi's or people like that. They have got 10, 15 years in business. They've made hundreds of millions. They are so far up here that a lot of the time they might have forgotten what it's like to begin. And there's a statistic. It's something like you only need to know 5% more than the people you're teaching. And sometimes it's easier to learn from someone who's just slightly above you because they are so familiar with that kind of, you know, getting started.
Speaker 2:And if you look at someone like Alex Hormozy, who I really admire, I think he's done incredibly well and he's also provided so much free information, but he's somebody who's like forget about your morning routine. You roll out of bed at 5.30 and you start work and then you're deep in work till 10am. There are very few people that can just get up and just work. You know, people might have kids or pets or something else in their life. That means they can't just focus on that. Most people, particularly women I know, are not anywhere like that.
Speaker 2:And we need to go out for a walk, we need to see our friends, and we need to go out for a walk I mean to see your friends and we need to. You know, take it a little bit more casually. So I'm not going to. You know, that's not the way I'm going to work. I can take bits of it, but my life, particularly now I've got a dog, I can't just roll up and sit and and work. So I think, looking at the courses I mean both you and I have spent probably thousands.
Speaker 2:I'm on a complete course ban right now I'm like no more courses good, um, and I've actually just bought one, but it's a program. I'm in another one, I'm in a two month. It's an accelerator. Tell you about that. You don't know about this one yet. Um, and the other key thing about courses once you've picked the person you're going to learn from, do it, do what they say and if it works, do it.
Speaker 2:because, um, a lot of the time, you know, I think there's something like 95% courses are never finished, so this is why people don't do it. So you know, money and cash flow is so important when you're a startup and you're a solepreneur that spending you know a couple of grand on courses and not doing it is not a great investment. Courses and not doing it is not a great investment about how the soul hive came to be well, it's a story and a half the soul hive.
Speaker 2:But so in 2023, in March 2023, I was working as comms lead at KPMG Futures, the future technology division, which I absolutely loved. I was, you know, working with the quantum director and the AI experts and the metaverse, and it was just all about kind of, yeah, the future technology that's coming. There was a weekend at the end of February 23, and I'd been to a sacred meditation that was quite profound and at the end of the ceremony, on the day we were just leaving, I was having a chat with the facilitator. He's on this beautiful land and I remember saying to him he was saying you know, cash flow, money, I might need to go back and get a job. And I said but you are living the dream. You're on this off grid, you know.
Speaker 2:And I started like spewing all this kind of business advice without even realizing it. And he was like wait, let me write that down and say you should really help small businesses. And I was thinking, yeah, I would actually really love this and I've got so much knowledge I don't realize. That was Saturday, Monday morning, I'm at my logging on to work and at 9.30, I get an email logging on to work and at 9 30 I get an email saying uh really sorry but unfortunately your job has been made redundant and I was like whoa in an email.
Speaker 2:They send you an email, an email. So I was like, oh my god, I didn't see that coming. But also I've just had this massive revelation, like two days before, of what I really want to do. So it was a shock and I was really upset. But they gave me an incredible package, especially if I've only been there two years. So I left there actually being really positive and I allowed myself the time and the space to really think about what this business was. And that's when the name the Soul Hive came from, because I wanted it to be a community which is the hive of a supportive community for soulful entrepreneurs. They're just kind of it's really just no wankers, no hustle bros, it's you know, it's. It's really people doing it with a good intention and wanting to help.
Speaker 2:And I had this real resistance to renting out my spare room or getting any other kind of hospitality job. I was convinced I'm like I can get another contract, I get more money doing that and I really value my own space. So so that's probably lesson number one when you're in that situation and you're trying to build something is you need to focus on cash. Flow is king. Without cash, you kind of can't do anything.
Speaker 2:And that resistance was all pride, and I had so much pride as in, like, I'm too old to be house sharing. I need my office, whereas, looking back, if I had rented out that room faster, it would have made everything so much easier for me. So I struggled on for months and months and I've rented out the spare room ever since. So that's kind of where the soul hive started. Through all that, I'm also trying to get clients and build websites, so the focus was all over the place and in between that I had absolute crackers like beautiful ones. Um, yours is still one of the most beautiful ones I've done, and that was early on.
Speaker 1:That was one of the first you know, I think I was the first.
Speaker 2:I think I was the first yeah, the first show it, one that I did. I did a couple of e-commerce ones before then and again. It's like people like you you're putting your trust in me and taking a chance for me to you know, to bring your dream to life. That's what really got me through it.
Speaker 2:I think, having the network that I have and I'm so lucky that pretty much all of my friends are my target market, so I was able to, you know, to kind of get through it. But so I think again, maybe I needed to go through it. I feel like it's kind of like cathartic rite of passage of just kind of being freaking nuts for a year and burnout and everything proper web design process. You know, they're all like a website in a day and I'm like I'll do this in a day.
Speaker 1:I mean in terms of because we've talked a little bit about Paul Moseley and I'm I'm a big fan of his as well like I think he's awesome, but obviously you know that getting up at 5am whether it's in your own business or whether it's for a job or whatever okay, I feel my personal experience of that is it is a very masculine energy of getting up, getting to work and slamming out like 16 hour days, and I think this is my personal experiences. Like I was doing that for years. Right, I was doing that in the TV industry and I think I was very much in my masculine energy which led to burnout. What? Like you obviously work with a lot of entrepreneurs. Like, what's your take now on that kind of like I guess that masculine and feminine approach to business and how you approach your business today.
Speaker 2:There's. I think you can take the best bits of all of it and figure out what works for you. And again, if you've got a family and kids, that's really going to direct how all this happens. And I think there's, you know it's become a I don't know if you've seen there's a viral. This guy in the States, his morning routine, which is just off the charts, where he gets up, gets up at like 350 and has this bottled water and does this ice face bath and then he does all these things and swimming it's not that brian guy, is it?
Speaker 2:he's trying to stay alive but everybody's just recreating it and um, it's. You know, that's what he does, and I think, like, didn't marky mark get up at like 2.30 in the morning and does his workouts? And I think the masculine energy or maybe they're able to wake up in the middle of the night and work out, but it certainly isn't something that I have any desire to do and it doesn't work for me, and I think the female cycle is very different. But one of my teachers in the web design is she doesn't start any work until 10 am, you know, and that's how she wants to live, and I'm like some people want to wake up at 8 am. If that's what you want to do, then you've got to figure it out, because I think what you don't want to do is do something that your body hates and your mind starts to resent, and then you're just going to fall off it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and also I think, just even waking up in the morning and even using that language of like I've got to do these 10 things before I even start my day, Like I've got to work out, I've got to. You know, it's so much pressure where it's just like I'm not saying you just flow through your day and kind of have no direction, but it's like even saying I've got to do these things first thing in the morning, it's like can you just have a bit of time just to get back into your body?
Speaker 2:You've just woken up, you know, and that's a really good point, because, um, I forget that instead of saying I've got to change it to I get to.
Speaker 1:I get to yeah, and that changes everything. Who are the people that you follow and really resonate with and that you've learned the most from?
Speaker 2:that changes a lot, lot over time. I have been a big fan of Brendan Bouchard for a long time because he, again, like a lot of them, gives away a lot of really good, valuable, free content. And that's where I learned the content rhythm from which I used in KPMG, which I use in my own business, and it's all about getting the most value for the least amount of effort. So I find him um, he's a really great leader. Um Jenna Kutcher is another one that I've kind of followed for about five years.
Speaker 1:She's just seems very natural and, again, um gives away a lot of um, a lot for free looking over everything that's happened in your entrepreneurial journey, is there any advice you would give to your younger self, like from a from a mindset point of view, from overcoming big?
Speaker 2:challenges. So much advice, so much advice. If I went back in time, I would be a billionaire within the first. The first thing I do is save all your money and then invest it wisely. Then I would be like set up an e-commerce business, digital products, and get onto YouTube. But really the advice is to, I think, pick one and stick one and stick with it. Um, and get mentors, really good mentors, in your life, because that's another thing I've never had, I guess, proper mentors that I've paid for and invested in, because again, you get into a cycle of that's extra money. I haven't got, um, certainly recently, when I left KPMG in March. With hindsight, then would have been a really good time to find a good business mentor, invest in them properly and get some really good advice and methodologies and structure. Yeah, so you know there's a lot. Going back 20 years, I would have done things differently, but certainly the start of the soul hive that would be the first thing I would do.
Speaker 1:I think that's really good advice, like what impact do you feel now having a business mentor or having mentors in your life? How is that impacting your business now?
Speaker 2:So it helps to have somebody else invested in you and your business. Even that investment is just for you personally, well, it's not a financial investment and it's accountability well, not, it's not a financial investment and it's accountability. And having accountability partners means that I do the things that I say I'm going to do now?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, that without that kind of that's that structure around it, that container, I think it allows the business to grow and to bit by bit yeah, and I think that this is it's really kind of interesting like just this masculine feminine approach, because, as the feminine, it's like that's our pure creative energy, right, that's where we get to create, but it also, you know it kind of needs that container of structure and discipline of the masculine um. So it it really is like you know, I think I think, just listening to you, it's like you're embodying perfectly, it's like this feminine creative, you know energy where you get to help people and work with people.
Speaker 2:But obviously we, as women, we still need this structure, we need to draw on this discipline, consistency and um commitment, especially when it's in the in the business world and not only that, but I'm a double Pisces, which makes me like you know I am, oh, idea, oh, another thing I need that, that kind of probably more masculine, I'd say container presence around it to go pull me back down and be like you know, sit down, finish.
Speaker 2:This thing in this is looking at the bigger picture, having a plan on the calendar year. That's like every single month I have a target, every quarter I have a target, and in order to hit that target I have to do these things. So the calendar now it's like, okay, I don't have to do everything at once. I'm going to launch a shop here, I'm going to launch a course here, and I'm giving myself the time to do it, the lead up, and it's like one thing at a time and that takes all that kind of chaos out and it's structured but it's still achievable and you can see where things are going to land and from there, kind of work out the finances and what you need to invest in it and what you, you know. So it's just um, it's things that we do in business, but there's a you know, 50 people doing all of that instead of just one well, this is it right.
Speaker 1:You've got, yeah, so and so in accounts, someone on design, someone in marketing, 20 people in sales, where it's like that's the thing when you're in a business or creating a business it's you, your services, but then you've got all these departments that you need to be in as well. So it's pretty crazy. What um like in terms of website design correct me if this is wrong, but the soul hives main product is design of incredible websites and templates. What are some of the biggest mistakes you see entrepreneurs and business owners making that lead them ultimately coming to you for help?
Speaker 2:Well, you are a prime example.
Speaker 1:I didn't intend for that to come back to me, but I'm happy it's all right, we can go there.
Speaker 2:Oh God, one of the things I love and I'm really good at is taking some shocking, shonky WordPress site and changing it into this beautiful, feminine, custom, totally branded show it website that works. So the number one thing people do wrong that I see is they go cheap, which generally means going on Upwork or Fiverr, and there are a lot of great freelancers on those sites. But and I did this, I have done this many times Back in the day, 10 years ago also find someone to you know in India, nepal, 500 bucks, 1000 bucks, build me a website and you don't.
Speaker 2:You're just getting this thing yeah the second thing everybody does is the very first thing when they decide they're going to start a business they might have their name is they then spend anywhere from two days to two weeks building creating a logo, and I've seen people you know do it in Canva. So you end up with a Canva logo that everybody knows is a Canva logo, or you go and hire a designer and you get a logo. So then you've got a business name and a logo and nothing else, and then when you come to me, it's a lot, it's it's not impossible, but it's harder to then fit a brand around a logo rather than the other way around. So the process that I have that works really well is we just start from scratch. We start completely fresh and we go through this methodology, which starts with a brand strategy document, which is quite meaty. Then we go to pinterest for visuals, then from all of that we take all of the elements and put it into like a brand mood board with a couple of options, and from that we, we, we go deeper and deeper into who you are and what your brand is, and then I put it on as a website and it's really only after that that I would put a logo together.
Speaker 2:And a logo generally for me is a word mark. It might have a little design element. I don't think anyone needs a logo to start. I think you know, certainly not spending hundreds, if not thousands, on a fancy logo. It's got nothing to do with your business and you're in the first year of business. Your business is going to change hugely, as you're feeling your way through it and, um, I know mine has, I'm sure yours has, and you pivot and you change and so if you've paid for this logo, it's, it's not going to be the best investment.
Speaker 2:So I would say forget all of that, really start to, however that looks. But you know, go through this brand strategy and I'm also just finishing. I've got some freebies that I'll be putting on my site, which are some digital downloads on how to self-guide yourself through the process, like a mini version of my brand strategy document to go through, figure out who you are and your offers, do that first, then go through the website build whether that's a DIY or whatever and only after about six months at least, I would then start to look at a logo.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, but but I mean, obviously, if someone like in my position, I had a shocking, like everything you just described.
Speaker 1:I had a, yeah, pretty shocking website, um, that was built by somebody in Nepal, um, during COVID, and I had no idea where it was hosted, I had no idea of my passwords I had no idea of. I had not, I had no idea where it was hosted, I had no idea of my passwords, I had no idea of, I had no idea. And, unfortunately, the person that I was dealing with in Nepal, as much as he was a lovely man, he seemed all over the place as well. So it was like, yeah, so I remember, like I really want to change my website for such a long time, but I was almost mortified and embarrassed about going to see anybody about it because I was like I don't know where anything is. It was a complete shambles and I remember coming to you and you were so helpful and I know this isn't your area of what you do, but you definitely gave me some great guidance on getting all that information. So thank you.
Speaker 2:Well, that's another good point. Right is um, your, particularly your domain, where that's hosted, your url, is. Whoever owns that really owns your business. So if you're giving developers and random people access to your go daddy or wherever it's hosted, then and any back access to your GoDaddy or wherever it's hosted, then any back end to your website, you're kind of reliant, you're leaving yourself open.
Speaker 2:So I think, and certainly if someone's building it, there are two ways. You either give them your passwords or they go in through a kind of developer access, but your domain should always be yours and I would keep that. That, um, you know, hold that like you hold your crypto, because you you start suddenly getting famous or getting bigger and someone comes along and snatches your domain. You're screwed. So there are basic housekeeping rules, um, to keep that tidy. And I mean the other thing, that with all the clients because I do see people's passwords for access into some of their tools, as I'm setting it up, every single one bar, maybe two, use the exact same password over and over again, maybe with different numbers, and I'm like, oh no, no, because the hacking is going to get worse and worse. So use a password tool like proton pass or one password at one of those. Yeah, yeah, I think that would help yeah, it's so important.
Speaker 1:It's so important, I think, is there more entrepreneurs and more business. You know, more websites are going to start popping up, um, even more than ever. I think that's a big part of the entrepreneur's journey, as well as your security, right? Everything's online digital products, like you said, um, e-commerce. It's like you've got to protect. You know, you've got to protect yourself as well. What about design? Like what do you think? Obviously, I know it's. It would be based on, you know, whatever your client comes to about, but what are, like, the design no-nos? What's trending, what's big in websites at the moment? What you know? What should people be looking for? Design wise?
Speaker 2:Well, again, that depends on what your business is and what you want to achieve on your website, because not everybody has the same goals. Generally, for my clients, their goals are credibility, awareness and bookings, so they are, as a rule, funneling visitors from social media to their website to get more information and then book a discovery call or pay for an appointment, something like that, so that you've got a structure there which is, you know, it has to be clear, it needs to be relevant and it needs to be easy to navigate and the price. It's all about that process. Not everybody, you know, not all websites that some are literally just kind of glorified brochures which can give you more um time to have fun, play around with and because you're not necessarily got a kind of end point, if you like um. But in terms of trends, I mean there's a lot of exciting stuff happening in 2025.
Speaker 2:One of the big ones is there's a backlash against AI. So I design on ShowIt, which is loved by creators because it's almost like a freehand website design, which makes it a lot harder for me, because lining things up is just I have to do it manually, whereas as opposed to using something like maybe a webflow or squarespace or wix, where it's kind of like, does it automatically? I mean framework. There's also been an explosion on um website platforms, cms's, recently, so there, so there's thousands to choose from. But so the AI backlash is there's a kind of a tendency towards perfect imperfection, which is great because that's kind of how I see my work. It's sort of or imperfect perfect, where there might be just slightly little things out of alignment, because it's done by hand, it's done by a human as opposed to AI just goes, you know, and it's done in seconds and everything's like this and there's no kind of emotion to it. So the personalization is really big this year and I think it will be going forward where you can see that somebody, a human, has done it, and this also manifests in slightly crazy images, things that an AI probably wouldn't put together. So you might see a bit more kind of mashups and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:Another interesting one is text heavy is coming back, which I wasn't expecting. So we've kind of gone from back at the beginning of the worldwide web it was all kind of text, to hugely visual and images, and now we're coming back to more text. Text heavy. Um and micro animations is big. So micro animations are, rather than things like whizzing around the pages. You'll get little details. So, um, not just your kind of classic button hover change, but you might get some little, um little unexpected things appearing. So I think, yeah, websites are fun and it's forever changing and um, the joy of doing the custom sites I do is that if you come to me and say I really like this element here, then chances are we can figure it out and kind of add it in yeah, so cool, and I mean just talking on AI as well.
Speaker 1:Obviously there's this whole messaging AI is coming for your job. You know you work in the design and creative space as well. I mean again, probably more from like a mindset point of view, because we know that AI is amazing, we know that it's um, it's got so much to offer, but how do you process that being in the creative world, being in this graphic, visual world that is being threatened by AI? How do you process?
Speaker 2:that I think I see it, how I see life. Right, you can see things as a positive or a negative. Right, you can see things as a positive or a negative, and the way you look at things, you'll get what you look at. If you think it's going to be, you know, ai is going to threaten your life and your work and be this terrible kind of uh terminator 2 kind of world, then that's what you're going to get.
Speaker 2:I choose to see ai as being helpful. It's a way to help us on the path to freedom. It can you know, once you've trained it properly, it becomes our staff and our workers and our team and my chat GPT, who I call G. He's super helpful and I've trained him really well over the last few months and he's got my brand voice completely nailed. He's got a memory that I don't have. So he helps with all those sorts of things and is super helpful. So I'll ask him to do one thing and then he'll suggest how about I do this, this, this and this to do one thing, and then it'll suggest how would? How about I do this? This isn't this?
Speaker 2:So train it, use it to your advantage and help on saving uh time, money and everything else, and certainly I mean you can go onto google and build yourself an ai website literally in 30 seconds. Will it do everything you need? No, it won't. Will it, you know, get you noticed? No, but it might be good enough for some people to start. You know, to take that pressure of starting procrastination, go and get yourself an AI site, stick it up there and you know you've crossed one thing off, because I know when stress and overwhelm comes along, everything's too hard. So, yeah, that could be the easy option, and then you upgrade after that. So see it as a tool that is here to support us and not take over and ultimately destroy us yeah, I mean we laugh now.
Speaker 1:Who knows in 10 years? But I think right now we've just got it. You just gotta, I mean, be grateful for this amazing technology right that it's incredible. And I just feel the more that you embrace it and the more that we jump on the train now and and and kind of use it and get to know it, like the better right. For what is it?
Speaker 2:forewarned is forearmed, you know yeah, and it's all about the prompts and training it. Um, I mean, of course, everything can be used, for good or evil. And look at the governments around the world and the choices that they're making on whether to make our lives easier or harder. And you know, I understand the fear with AI because we're giving it everything. You know, particularly those people that have Alexas and use Siri and it's always listening. It's got absolutely everything about us. So, of course, you know it could lock us out of our businesses, of our lives, of our banking systems. It can do all of that. It can impersonate us. And now we've got people, which is easy to do, creating avatars with your own voice, your own face. How soon before AI starts to become us and then we're no longer viable? But again, believing and trusting in the right people monitoring this and the good in the world, that's where I think it's we will ultimately stay in control.
Speaker 1:Or I mean, yeah, just not survive, but thrive, continue to thrive. That's what we want, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we want to be living lives where we can get up and do our four-hour morning routine if we want and then go to the beach and read books, because AI is churning away behind the scenes and pumping out our perfectly on-brand social media and running our automations and doing the customer service and cleaning our houses and doing all those shitty things that we don't want to do. That's where I'm seeing the future. I'm not seeing it as me being trapped and it's taking over and I've got no money coming in because it's doing it over, and I've got no money coming in because it's doing it. I'm controlling it and it's working for me and allowing me the freedom that I want. That's what we all want.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so where can people find your work, fi?
Speaker 2:Tell us about that and what you've got coming up so you can find me on instagram at the dot soul dot hive, or you can find me on my website, which is the soul hivecom and starting a youtube channel later this year. But instagram is the easy space to get hold of me um or info at soulheartcom yeah, beautiful.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you so much for coming. It's really good to see you and, um, yeah, thanks so much for coming on and sharing your journey, and also, I know there was so much information in there that I know is going to be really useful for a lot of people when it comes to their own entrepreneurial journey and their websites and all the design aspects. So, thank you so much for coming on today. You're so welcome. Thank you for having me, thanks for listening today, and if this episode helped or inspired you, just remember to share it to friends or family who could also use some inspiration. Today. We are all about sharing the love.
