Becoming money confident as a creative with Angie Rogers

* Transcript created by AI – may contain errors or omissions from original podcast audio

CLARE: A big warm welcome to the podcast, Angie Rogers. It’s wonderful to have you here. Thank you for having me, Clare.

ANGIE: Absolute pleasure.

CLARE: Well, before we dive on in, I thought I might give you the opportunity to intro yourself to the listeners.

ANGIE: Hi, I’m Angie Rogers and my business is Angie Rogers interiors.

I’m a residential interior designer. I have been working in the industry for about 11 years now and about six years out on my own. I love working with families and just creating beautiful homes, beautiful spaces that they can come home from the hustle bustle of daily life and relax and be in a beautiful space.

CLARE: Oh, I love that. We’ve known each other through Instagram and obviously through my program for a while now. Just a question, I’m really curious to know how, why did you get into interior design?

ANGIE: I think I have always loved, you know, always done renovating projects of my own. I think my husband and I have done about seven or eight houses over the years from, you know, in New South Wales where we grew up and then we did a flat in London when we lived there, and then a couple of houses here in Brisbane. So I’ve always loved it and always been super creative. I came from a events management, wedding planning kind of background. So like working with clients on that really personal level, I enjoyed, but you know, the reality of working in events with small children was really tough on your sleep. And so yeah, just decided to kind of go back to study part time and, and find a job in interior design and then sort of work my way up from there.

CLARE: Oh, I love that. And I’m so jealous. I’ve just never had that visually creative brain anyway.

ANGIE: You have it in spades in this financial forum.

CLARE: Give me a spreadsheet any day of the week. I was at school, I was getting straight A’s except in art. And I couldn’t deal with the fact that I wasn’t getting an A and my art teacher, I’m like, tell me what I need to do. And she’s just like, you just, you just not good at art. And that’s why I pay to work with people like yourself to, you know, the beautiful space that you see behind me was done by an interior designer. Even I shop with a stylist because I don’t know what looks good together. And yeah, when it comes to branding or anything like that, and I think it’s really beautiful that we’ve got all these different people with different skill sets and we can all help each other in the ways that we need both, you know, in our business and our personal lives.

ANGIE: I agree wholeheartedly. I think if we were all good at everything, it’d be very boring.

CLARE: So it would be a very boring world. Well, on the topic of perhaps areas that we needed a bit of help with, I’m really curious to backtrack and understand, I guess what, where you were at when you started sort of eyeing off my, my course, which we’re talking about today, which is called the Profit Academy Foundations. And this course is all about business finances, about budgeting, cashflow.

What sort of piqued your interest about the program when you first heard of it?

ANGIE: I think that I’ve done a lot of sort of business coaching with specific interior design business coaches. So on that side of thing, it’s been awesome, and we’ve touched on the sort of the financial side of things and forecasting your business. But I just, I felt like I wanted to dive into it a little bit more and just really not feel scared about, you know, knowing what my numbers are and just being able to, to plan more effectively and just have a really good grasp of what I’m making and am I profitable and all of those things.

I think that the actual reason for joining was a bit woo woo. I was kind of, you know, reading a book and it was all about being open to the universe. And I think that day I won a job, and then your email came through about the profit academy. So it’s a sign from the universe I’m going to jump on this. And that’s probably why I jumped in and went for it.

CLARE: I love that for someone like me, who’s an accountant by trade, I’m quite a logical person. I, a hundred percent in the same. I, I look for signs. I’m quite, I’ve become quite woo woo over the years, and I definitely do that if there’s something that’s coming up and I might, am I meant to be in this? Am I not? I will obviously use my logical part of the brain. Like, is this something, but also, Okay. If something like that happens, I’m like, yes, this is definitely a sign that I’m meant to be there.

ANGIE: Definitely. I think that’s something I’ve only grasped in the last couple of years. I think I’ve always been very analytical about everything, but yeah, I think, you know, you’ve got to open yourself up to opportunity and put it out there and see what happens.

CLARE: Yeah. Well, following the intuition, but also having that logical, logical overlay as well, I guess you’d say. So you had said that, you know, you did, you did understand a little bit about numbers, about forecasting, but what specifically, so was it around the space of profit? Was it around business growth? Like what were the key things that you were wanting to get out of?

ANGIE: For me, it was like really understanding you know, how my business was tracking in order to be able to make future decisions on what to do. Can I afford to pay myself more? Can I afford to have my staff member work an extra day of the week?

Whereas in the past, it’s sort of been like, Oh, well that looks about right. There’s enough money in the account kind of thing, but not actually really taking full responsibility for knowing that that it’s okay. I’ve sort of loosely followed the kind of profit first kind of thinking and, you know, set up different bank accounts and being very strict with that sort of things, but it’s still not enough in terms of that forward planning of where your money is coming from and what your cashflow is.

So for me, it was just really getting down to grips with that. And, and it was really interesting, I think also learning, in the profit Academy course and doing it with other people with different businesses and seeing how it sort of applied to their businesses as well.

CLARE: Yeah, I love that. And so, were you looking at other courses in the space? What sort of drew you really into Foundations particularly?

ANGIE: I think that, no, I wasn’t looking at anything else specifically. I followed along with your story, you know, on Instagram, I’ve signed up to your emails. I think that you also did a section on one of the business coaching, six month business coaching I did with Andrew Mitchell. And also you’ve done some things on Sasala’s The design society as well. So I’ve, you know, constantly met you across different things. So I think that, you know, you always have that, like, trusted sort of feeling. Okay, well, this person, you know, understands and has a good energy about them. So, yeah, I’m very much a kind of gut instinct kind of person. If it feels right, then I’ll kind of go for it. I don’t shop around for 100 different options on things.

CLARE: I’m really, really glad that you chose my program to be part of. Thank you. So let’s talk a little bit about inside, inside the course. You obviously joined a live round, which means that we also had the live calls and, I’m really curious to hear what your thoughts were, both of the content and also the live calls.

ANGIE: I think I like the live element because I think it gives you that real accountability to show up and I made a real point of putting it in my diary and saying to my team member, right? When you get here, I’ll be on a call for an hour. And you know, she would listen along and she learned stuff from it as well. So I really think that because it’s so easy to sign up to courses and never finish them. And, you know, I think we’re all probably a little bit guilty of that. It’s easy to do. So I, I didn’t want to fall into that trap. I really wanted to make sure I was committed to coming along. Like you said, I think on the calls, there’s that energy you get from everybody else in the group that just, you know, sparks ideas within yourself as to how to do things.

CLARE: Yeah, I love that. And I love our live calls because we end up forming a little bit of a, a community inside and get to know each other’s businesses. And I’ve had programs before as well, where people end up working with each other, you know, someone might be need someone’s help, and then they go follow them over on, on social media as well.

So let’s talk a little bit about the actual course content. What were some of the biggest ahas that you had from the actual modules and the course content itself.

ANGIE: I think I really love your spreadsheets that you provide. So to work out, I can’t remember what you call them or like your profit

CLARE: forecast, cashflow forecast.

ANGIE: That’s it. Yes. So I think having those actual templates and like a rule. Yeah. Step by step talk through as to how to plug the information in and what to take from that. I think you had some bonus ideas in there, like 50 bonus ideas for generating more revenue, I think they were great. I think you can get very stuck in your own kind of lane, but you know, they’re so applicable across so many different industries. So that was really really good. I love the ease of working through the formats, you know, and the videos were videos, I sound really old when I say videos, I think, what are they called these days?

CLARE: What do they call them these days?

ANGIE: I don’t know. And yeah, I think they were really easy to follow and really break it down into chunks and then you could sort of go back and I love having access to go back and rework over things that don’t. And initially kind of click with you the first time I found that really, really helpful and really easy to navigate.

CLARE: Yeah. Wonderful. Yeah. One of the things that I tried to do inside the course, I have shared this in my social media before, but I actually failed introduction to accounting when I first went to uni and for someone who’d been a straight A student who’d got, you know, I was excellent at maths to fail a subject was just, whoa, I didn’t even fail art. So I was mortified. And I went and saw a careers counselor because I felt like my world was falling apart that, you know, how did I fail this subject? That’s meant to be my whole uni degree and the careers counselor gave me the worst advice I’ve ever received, which was you’re not good at accounting. You should go do something else. And I’m so glad I listened to my intuition. I was like, no, I don’t think that’s what’s going on. I obviously then went on to complete my degree. I got multiple distinctions, high distinctions and went on and did my postgraduate, certified practicing accountant.

Now, the reason I’m sharing all of this is because I obviously am not bad at accounting. I wasn’t bad at accounting, but my uni lecturer was using all these big gobbledygook terms. And I think that’s a thing that I see a lot in the accounting world is that, people using all this confusing, overwhelming technology terminology. And for me, I didn’t understand it because it wasn’t being spelt out in plain black and white.

So when I created my course and when I teach about numbers, I try and just make it really simple in plain English rather than make it. really overwhelming. And that’s one of the things that I really tried to do inside inside the course as well, because I know what it’s like to have that experience of being like, what the hell is someone talking about?

And even in module one, there’s that lingo guide. And I actually have that. So I said, you can always print it out, have it next to you so that if your accountants, you can look at your lingo guide and know what I mean. Yeah, so hopefully that was your experience as well. It’s pretty straightforward and not too…

ANGIE: Definitely not felt very warm and friendly and not and I think that’s probably another reason why, why I joined up is that, I don’t know, it can just feel very overwhelming and very sort of scary. And I feel like sometimes you’re put off by that because you think you talk yourself out of being able to understand the, well, I’ve never been good at numbers, but you know, it’s just the story that you tell yourself sort of thing. So I think for someone, and I think often it’s not, it’s not that you’re a bad student, it’s that there’s a bad teacher kind of thing. So you just need to learn it in a different way from someone else. And then you get it kind of thing. So I think you, you nail that in terms of it being very comfortable and approachable way of learning about financial.

CLARE: No, I’m glad that that was your experience too. Yeah. You know, there’s some things I think in business that you can get away without knowing. Like, for example, design, I you know, I can get away with hiring people to do those creative components. With your numbers, you just, you cannot not know what’s going on. Because at the end of the day, you have to pay your bills. You’ve got legal responsibilities to pay your tax. And I think that a lot of people think I’ve got an account and I don’t need to worry about it. But the truth is, firstly, accountants make mistakes. And secondly, if you got in trouble and you know, hadn’t paid your tax or whatever, you can’t just go, Oh, my accountant never told me. And the tax office doesn’t go, Oh, no problems then you don’t have to pay it back. Like too bad. You still owe the money. So it really is one of those essential skills.

ANGIE: Well, you’re liable, aren’t you personally for, you know, for what goes on financially in your business. And, and I think it’s something that you never get taught, you know, in any type of like design school or university, or they don’t really like so many things about running a business is you, you learn about how to do the design part, but you don’t really learn about how do you run the business. And reality is it’s probably 20 percent design and 80% actually running the business and staff and social media and all of those things that you know, nothing about, but somehow you have to be an expert on.

CLARE: I was just thinking that like all the different things, leading a team is another thing that’s a skill that it’s not something that they teach you when you’re, you’re going through and learning…

ANGIE: it’s so true. I think so much of that is just life experience you learn in different jobs that you bring and bring to what you’re doing and that really helps you along.

CLARE: So true. So having come through, you know, firstly, I’m, I’m really glad that you shared the power of coming to the live calls. It’s something that I’ve always been a big believer in, even if you haven’t done the, watch the module, you haven’t done the work. I used to use this at uni, you still show up to, if you show up, you will still learn more than you would by not showing up. And, you know, I know that a lot of our Q and A calls we ended up touching on or doing live examples as well in the calls.

So when you got to the end of the program, what were some of the big I guess, advantages or learnings for your business?

ANGIE: I think just having that real confidence around my numbers and feeling that I can confidently talk to the bookkeeper or talk to the accountant and not be sort of scared of what they sent me through. I think I’d, I’d get the, the monthly thing from the bookkeeper. God, I don’t know what, look at it. Cause I don’t really know what I’m looking. What do all these things mean sort of thing. So, but now I feel like I can go through them and and have a much better understanding of, of where they are and and just how to, you know, how to plan and how to, grow my business so that hopefully I can afford my house in the country one day and I don’t have to live in the city. That’s my ultimate goal. But yeah, no, just, just lots of confidence around that. And you know, nice just connecting with, with great other people and having, you know, additional resources that I can always go back to and refer to if I’m stuck on something. I think it’s been really beneficial for my business.

CLARE: Yeah, for sure. You touched on growth there, which is, I think this is the interesting part of my program. I couldn’t create this course without having a module around business growth because I didn’t want people to have the experience of, Oh, great. Now I know my numbers and now what?

Can you talk a little bit about what, you know, how you feel more empowered to grow your business through what you learned?

ANGIE: I think I guess it gives me, more understanding around, you know, what, what I can afford to take on in terms of like, in order to grow my business, I need to take on bigger bigger projects, not necessarily more projects, but then I need a team behind me to be able to help me complete the work because it’s, you know, too much for one person just to do.

So I think being able to have that understanding of what’s coming in the door money wise and what I can afford to pay someone and, and what I need to have in the bank moving forward, because it’s a big responsibility to pay people, they’re relying on you for their wages each week.

So I think having a lot more confidence around that and, you know, where I can potentially take, take my business. I’m not someone that I don’t foresee having a massive team of staff. I want to keep it small and intimate and be working on all the projects myself with my team. I guess when you, you’re sort of stuck and you’re feeling overwhelmed by the amount of work, knowing that you can kind of sit down and look at your figures and go, okay, well, actually, no, I can afford to take on a contractor for a six week period to help me get through these things or I can build that into my pricing and go forward from there.

I think one of the things that you touched on was having the different tiers of service offerings, which I thought was really interesting. I think as a interior designer, you think that, you know, you’ve just got to offer one product for everyone. And, you know, I was worried that that would diminish, you know, that offering to clients. But I think, you know, you were saying you can have different offerings for different people at different price points. And I think that’s probably how I came about working with you in the profit academy was that I’ve signed up to lots of your free little mini courses that you’ve done over the years. And so that kind of builds that trust. And then when I do feel I’m at a point that I can work with you in the group coaching has been amazing and hopefully one day as a one to one type of thing as well. So I think that been really, really good and a, a big takeaway for me.

CLARE: Oh, I love that. Thank you for sharing.

Yeah, it is, it’s always a scary decision to, you know, even for me to make a decision to invest in a program or a next level and, and not knowing, you know, is this investment gonna work for me or not. So thank you for, for choosing to be part of it, and I’m glad that you had some, some upside of it. Anything else that you want to share with the listeners about, business finances, about if they are thinking about joining.

ANGIE: I think if you’re thinking about joining, just, just do it, just go for it because you get so much out of it. You know, you don’t know what you don’t know. And it’s amazing how much more empowered you feel when you have a lot more confidence around knowing about things. I think it’s a really easy course to do. It’s really not a huge commitment in terms of time. And, you know, if you do want to make those changes you can’t just keep doing the same thing over and over again. You’ve got to find different ways to go about it. And, you know, you learn and upskill. And, you know, I, I think of all the things I’ve done over the past sort of five or six years since starting my business and all the different coaching and, you know, like I’m doing things now that I would never dreamed of doing five years ago, you wouldn’t have the confidence to do if you didn’t have that knowledge to do it. You just learn so much from other people, because they’re much better at doing it than you and you can take so much away from that.

CLARE: Yeah, love, love. Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast sharing a little bit about your journey. Angie, if people want to work with you, do you work with people right across the world or who is your dream clients to work with?

ANGIE: My dream clients I guess I, I, I love people who are busy professionals who are too busy to, to to do the interior design themselves that they want someone to sort of take that lead for them. I’m based up in Brisbane. I generally like working with families you know, that have a forever home or have a space that’s really important to them that they want to create, just a really lovely feeling about them. I love working with nice people. I think that, you know, people that are sort of happy and joyful and, you know, get a lot out of and can appreciate what good design might bring to their home and, and, how that might improve their quality of living, in their space. And I think I, you know, with families, I’ve got a really good understanding, you know, with being a mom of like a 17 and 19 year old, I get what it’s been like to go through babies and toddlers and tweens and teens. So I feel that I, you know, can give you a lot of advice that’s practical. And I know what did work and didn’t work for me when my kids were at home.

CLARE: It’s been such an amazing investment for me to get our house styled. Like I think people underestimate the value of beautiful spaces and of how being in a space that makes you feel good. It just changes everything. It changes your emotions. It changes how you feel.

ANGIE: I guess it’s like an outfit, you know, you, if you put on a dress that you feel really good in or amazing pair of shoes or like it makes you feel good about yourself and you know, that’s a nice thing to do, it’s a great way to, you know, I’ve, I’ve got clients that have, you know, like, Oh, my home is horrible. And, and then we do the work and then they’re like, Oh, every time I walk in, I smile and, you know, just like really feel the energy in this space. And that’s really nice. That’s like why, why I love doing what I do.

CLARE: So beautiful. Yeah. Changing lives, changing lives. So if people do want to work with you or see what your work looks like, how can they do so?

ANGIE: They can jump on my website AngieRogersInteriors. com. au and from there, there’s a contact page where you can click on a Let’s Chat tab and you can book in a free 20 minute discovery call and have a chat about your project that you’re looking to do.

CLARE: Beautiful. I’m going to pop the link for that in the show notes for today’s episode. And also your Instagram as well, because I think that’s a really great way for people to come and see what your vibe is all about. A big thank you from the bottom of my heart for both being in the program, but also coming on the podcast. I really appreciate it. And it’s been so wonderful getting to know you as well.

ANGIE: Thank you, Clare. It’s lovely being here.

* Transcript created by AI – may contain errors or omissions from original podcast audio