Invest in Yourself
I recently went one on one with Cathryn Lavery, co-founder and CEO of BestSelf Co., seller of the Self Planner, SELF Journal, and more.
Adam: Thanks again for taking the time to share your advice. First things first, though, I am sure readers would love to learn more about you. How did you get here? What experiences, failures, setbacks or challenges have been most instrumental to your growth?
Cathryn: I grew up in Northern Ireland and went to university in England and Scotland, where I trained to become an architect. After graduating in 2011, I secured my dream job as an architect in New York City. I was super excited to emigrate to the US and start a new life. But things didn’t work out as planned! I’d already interned for the company I was moving to New York City for. They knew my work and I’d accepted a salary of $40,000. A couple of months before moving over, I got an email to say my pay was being cut by 25% to $30,000 because there wasn’t enough work. It was a blow, but I was reassured by their promise to increase my salary once the workload increased. But that wasn’t the only goal post to move… I arrived in the US with just a few hundred dollars to my name and two weeks to find my feet before starting my job. But one week in, my new employer rang with the news that they still didn’t have enough work for me. They were pushing my start date back a further six weeks. It was at that point I realized that I couldn’t trust a job to look out for me. So to help me get through those first six weeks with no income, I started to hustle and do things on the side. I launched my first Shopify store and continued working on it alongside my architecture job after I started. About two years in, I realized architecture wasn’t for me. Besides, my Shopify store was generating more income than my paid job - and I was only putting a couple of hours into it each week. At that point, I quit my job to become a full-time entrepreneur and I’ve not looked back.
Adam: How did you come up with your business idea? What advice do you have for others on how to come up with great ideas?
Cathryn: Our flagship product is the Self Journal - a 13-week planning & productivity tool that we launched in 2015 on Kickstarter. It was the first 13-week journal [there is a whole collection now] and the 13-week timeframe was chosen intentionally because it promotes success. One reason people don’t achieve their goals is because the timescale is too far off. 13 weeks is enough time to achieve something significant, but short enough to prevent procrastination.
This product arose as a solution to a personal problem that I faced. [It’s the same with all BestSelf products]. I wanted to make a success of my business, but with limited time I often found myself going to bed without really moving the needle. After studying success and modeling top-performers, I created a framework that helped me win the day… one day at a time.
I’ve found that the best products are those that are purposeful and meaningful. Products that solve real problems in a proven, effective way. When someone solves a problem with your product and then tells their friends, that’s the best marketing you can get!
In terms of coming up with great ideas, curiosity is key. Get curious about what problems you could solve. Look to connect the dots and see what ideas emerged as a result.
Adam: How did you know your business idea was worth pursuing? What advice do you have on how to best test a business idea?
Cathryn: With the Self Journal, I knew I had something when people started asking me if I’d print one for them too. This feedback gave me the confidence to launch the idea on Kickstarter. If you have no list and no audience, Kickstarter can be a great place to test a business idea.
Once you’re up and running and you have a list and an audience you can test a business idea by testing the water with your audience. For example, with our Discovery Decks, we started with cards to solve one core problem. A lot of our customers journal, but they get stuck with writer’s block. The WordSmith Deck provided journaling prompts designed to spark ideas.
This product was a shift away from our productivity tools, and thanks to its success, we decided to explore other deck products. We now have a range of card decks designed to help people boost creativity, connections, and conversations.
Adam: What are the key steps you have taken to grow your business? What advice do you have for others on how to take their businesses to the next level?
Cathryn: Building a team has been huge. In the beginning, it’s natural to want to do everything yourself. Eventually, you reach a point where you’re overstretched and unable to spend sufficient time in your zone of genius. My zone is product design and development. The business grows each time I create something new and that means I need the time and bandwidth to get creative.
Taking on the head of product development created a step-change in the business. With this role filled, I was able to hand over the ordering, and nitty-gritty aspects of the design process and stay focused on big-picture creativity. This hire was a catalyst for lots of new products. It can feel like a big step to grow your team but get the right people in place and your business can grow all the faster.
Another factor is product diversification. If you only sell one item you don’t have a business, you have a product. We looked to diversify our product range early on because we recognized the need to not have all your eggs in one basket.
Adam: What are your best tips on the topics of time management and optimizing productivity? Cathryn:
Take the thing that you want to achieve and figure out what action you need to take on a day-to-day basis to get there. If you turn your goal into a series of daily habits, your chances of achieving them increase massively because you end up taking action on autopilot.
Use a calendar and schedule your life, not just your meetings and appointments. What gets scheduled gets done so make space for all the things that matter to you - otherwise, you’ll always feel as though something is missing.
Plan your day and your tasks around your energy levels. For example, schedule an energizing task just after lunch to boost your energy, and take care of a draining task when you’re feeling highly motivated.
Treat time as a resource and protect it in the same way you would your money.
Adam: What are your best sales and marketing tips?
Cathryn: Everything we do is about our customers.
Build a community of fans. We created the BestSelf Alliance [our free Facebook group] a few years ago and it’s grown to over 38k members.
Add value. Sure, send out regular sales emails and run ads to promote and sell your products, but also work hard to build a relationship with your customers. For example, our weekly Motivational Monday newsletter is designed to share relevant tips and advice on how to be your best self. We also offer free resources including workshops, podcasts, downloads, and tools as well as a working from home summit.
Test to see what works. Discard what doesn’t and double-down on what does.
Adam: In your experience, what are the defining qualities of an effective leader? How can leaders and aspiring leaders take their leadership skills to the next level?Cathryn:
Continuously invest in yourself and have the intention that you always want to be better.
Make the time to build and nurture your network [even if you’re an introvert!]
Join other communities and masterminds so you can be around like-minded people.
Adam: What is your best advice on building, leading, and managing teams?
Cathryn: You need to build a great team.
It’s important to hire for cultural fit as well as talent. The BestSelf Co. team is incredible - we’re more like family. Everyone on the team is passionate about the work we do and the impact we make and this shines through everything from our products to our customer service to our marketing. Having the right people makes all the difference and while it can be painful to build a team, having the right people in the right positions makes all the difference.
You need to have good communication skills - especially when you’re remote working. When your team is all over the world, you don’t get to be in the same place at the same time. This means you don’t get to tap into the office gossip or have water cooler moments to keep a pulse on what’s happening. You don’t get to build a culture around a shared environment. Instead, you need a different approach.
There are so many tools you can use to create incredible teams who work in different time zones. Zoom and Slack are our favorites. Zoom is great for face-to-face conversations and Slack allows us to keep tabs of projects and stay on top of everything.
I use screen recordings when giving feedback so my team can hear my tone of voice. When you’re not face-to-face, there’s always the risk that details will be lost in translation. Intentional conversations and allow you to create strong team bonds.
Adam: What are your three best tips applicable to entrepreneurs, executives, and civic leaders?Cathryn:
Use a calendar to plan your day with purpose. If things aren’t planned, then they won’t get done.
Give yourself the space you need to be in your genius/creative zone. Your genius is what’s going to take your business to the next level. You owe it to yourself, your business, and your customers to be the best version of yourself possible.
Never stop learning. Learning shouldn't stop when you leave school. There’s always more to learn so stay curious. You never know what connections you’ll make and what you’ll create as a result.
Adam: What is the single best piece of advice you have ever received?
Cathryn: I love this Rudyard Kipling quote. “Not getting what you want either means you don’t want it enough, or you have been dealing too long with the price you have to pay.”
For me, this quote captures the idea that you can get anything you want if you’re willing to commit to it and work for it. This quote reminds me that I have control over my life and my results are down to me.
A lot of the time, people fall short of where they want to go because they stop too soon. They want something big but don’t take the right daily actions, which means they don’t see sufficient progress so get disillusioned and disinterested.
This quote is a reminder that you have to do the boring stuff too. It’s a reminder to stick to your habits instead of constantly switching up or trying something new. Taking the right actions over a long period of time is what gets results because that’s when the compounding effect kicks in.
Adam: Is there anything else you would like to share?
Cathryn: Come up with values that you live by for the team. Some of the ones we live by at BestSelf Co. are:
Always assume positive intent.
Absolute ownership
Default to action.