The British Blacktrepreneur Podcast
Welcome to 'The British Blacktrepreneur' My name is Jason Lazarus
This podcast aims to promote black businesses, in the UK, educate entrepreneurs on all things business, and inspire you on your entrepreneurial journey. Growing up, business was just foreign to me, I knew nothing about it, I was taught that being a consumer and working a job was the only way to really succeed in life. My West African would preach ‘Education, Education, Education’ which I hated at the time but have grown to appreciate how invaluable knowledge is. My goal is to curate conversations with Black Entrepreneurs in the UK to find what their ‘WHY’ is. Furthermore, I’m on a mission to get black entrepreneurs podcasting! I’ll be dropping in my expertise about podcasting whilst bringing on inspiring guests to keep you going on your entrepreneurial journey.
The British Blacktrepreneur Podcast
Chanel Morales: Resilience, Motherhood and Entrepreneurship
Ever wished you could be the master of your own life, carving out a unique path that doesn't fit into societal norms? Chanel Morales, an international multi-six figure online business coach, did just that and is now empowering other women to do the same. Journey with Chanel as she shares candidly about being a single mother at 19, her venture into university, and the realization that she wasn't cut out for the traditional nine to five grind. As she navigates through freelance social media management, she takes us through her road to success, unabashedly revealing the highs and lows of her entrepreneurial journey.
Are you overwhelmed by the thought of mastering every aspect of running a business? Chanel conquers this feat with courage, overcoming fears of visibility and pricing while learning how to take customers on a buying journey. Listen closely as she unravels how she roped in her first few clients through her network and her brilliant five-year plan to travel the world. Get ready to be inspired by the ingenious tricks and hacks she used to make her dream a reality.
As the conversation deepens, Chanel sheds light on the evolution of marketing and the unique challenges she faced as a mother running a business. Even with the constant changes in business and marketing, Chanel has managed to stay ahead by learning and adapting. She shares her tried and tested process for researching a business idea, creating an offer and pricing it, emphasizing the importance of learning digital marketing in our present age. Hear about her experiences in handling the challenges of modern motherhood and running a business. Her story is a testament to determination, resilience, and the power of believing in one's ability to create a life of their dreams.
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Welcome to the British Black Entrepreneur. This podcast exists to promote black businesses in the UK, to educate black entrepreneurs on all things business and to inspire you on your entrepreneurial journey. Here is your host, Jason Lazarus. All the women I work with are currently normally working and about to make that transition, so I know the emotions that I see every day from them. I think for myself it was just there was so much information. There was so much that I felt like I needed to learn. It was kind of overwhelming. Every night after work I'd be sat on the computer like researching, like how do you do marketing? Like how do you do sales, how do you do a funnel, how do you do TikTok, how do you do Instagram, how do you do YouTube. It's just overwhelming amount of information that you feel you need to learn. And so I feel like I graduated from uni and then I was like going back to uni and actually learning even more than I did at uni. That's kind of how it felt. I would say definitely in the beginning.
Speaker 1:That was the voice of online business coach Chanel Morales. She's a leading multi-six figure international online business coach. Chanel is an authority in the online business space. Known as the freedom lifestyle creator. She has helped hundreds of women step out of their conventional life and into the life of their dreams. Chanel is known for her no BS approach to business. With clear and powerful strategy, she's able to take business novices to entrepreneurial successes at lightning speed.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the British Black Trip and her podcast. This podcast exists to promote, educate and inspire you on your entrepreneurial journey. My name is Jason Lazarus. Just a few notices. Firstly, if you're enjoying the show, please subscribe on Apple, spotify and wherever else you get your podcasts, and it would be great if you could leave a review. Just to say I've had some issues with my microphone today, so it's been very difficult to. It might be very difficult, sorry to hear me, or? I hope it doesn't take away from all the value that you're going to get today. Without further ado, here she is. It's Chanel Morales. Chanel Morales, welcome to the British Black Trip and her Halloween today.
Speaker 2:Hello, I'm really good, thank you. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thanks for coming on, really appreciate your time. I'm so stoked to get into our conversation today and learn about your business, about what you do. So first off, just for our audience, could you just give me some background, your origin story, kind of before you go into business, and what life would like prior to you becoming an online coach?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. So I became a single mum at 19, which I guess is where the sort of important bit of my story begins. I guess a lot of people have assumptions about single mums and what they can achieve in their life and what their life will look like, and I always had a very different picture in my mind of what my life would be and I knew that I wouldn't be you know, just another statistic kind of thing. So I kind of did what people tell you should do or you think you should do. After I have my daughter, I was home with her for the first couple of years and then I went back to university to get my degree, got my degree, got a first, and then started, you know, moving into the working world really. And that was the moment I realized it wasn't for me, I think, because I didn't graduate till I was 25.
Speaker 2:I had obviously been quite, I guess, with uni you're quite free in the UK. I don't know about other parts of the world, but uni you kind of you don't want to go in, just don't go in, you know, go in and you're onesy, you know, no cares, right. And then I had this job where they wanted me to be there like every day and I was like really every day and then. So my daughter as well didn't really adjust well to that, because in uni, I think, I was in like two days a week or three days a week, so I was home with her a lot of the time where I could at least pick her up and drop her off. So then, yeah, it got quite difficult with her. She was missing me a lot, and so I realized like I needed some other option, like I knew I wasn't going to just be, you know, a stay at home mom and just not work at all. That was never an option for me. I was always ambitious. So what was the other, what were the other options? And honestly, even though I did a business degree like my degree was in events management, which is in the business school Starting my own business wasn't something I was always that was always at the front of my mind.
Speaker 2:I kind of always just assumed that I would have a career and a normal job. So when I realized I wanted to become a, I wanted to have my own business, I started looking at all kinds of different things online like how do you work from home? And of course you come up with all the usual scams and network marketing and pyramid schemes and all that kind of stuff and it was kind of like, well, where are the real businesses, like, what are the real things you can do? And so after some time I realized that I could do what I was doing in my nine to five. I was working in marketing and I realized actually I could just do that I could be a freelance social media manager, and so that was my first, my first business.
Speaker 1:I feel great. I want to just go back a bit to when you were a single woman team. What challenge is this presenting?
Speaker 2:Um, I don't know if I just had a really easy baby or what, but I didn't find it specifically hard Not being able to go out and party every time I wanted to. Maybe that was one of the things that I found difficult. But she slept so much Like I don't know anyone else who's got a baby who sleeps slept as much as my daughter did. So, more than anything, I was just bored in the evenings because she slept from seven and she would sleep until like nine o'clock in the morning. So I'd just be sat there every evening like can't go anywhere. But uh, so, yeah, I think.
Speaker 2:Obviously the financial stuff. You know, obviously, being a single mom, the money is always a bit tight, and so that was always a struggle. And then when I got into business, that was definitely something that I had to work on was my money mindset, because I'd been a single mom, a student, so I'd never had money. So even when I started making money, I didn't know how to manage it, I didn't know how to invest it, I didn't know what I was doing with money. And then things like pricing your services, things like, you know, putting yourself out there and asking people for money, like selling, all of that feels very, very difficult when you come from a low income background because it doesn't feel natural, it doesn't feel right and it almost feels like you're taking other people's money rather than what it is, which is, you know, an exchange of energy. You know where people are getting something they need, they're getting a solution to their problems and that's why they're paying you.
Speaker 2:So I definitely feel like my whole life, my childhood, growing up with a single mom, you know, mother of immigrant parents, kind of thing that all led to me needing to do a lot of work on money mindset, because I came from a family of like don't waste any food, you know, turn all the lights off, Like it was kind of like we're still living in Peru and we need to like make sure that nothing gets wasted. You know that mindset is still there. So I think when you go into business and you've had a life where you've not had much money, saying to somebody, yeah, my program's $3,000, feels like oh my God, how can I ask them for $3,000? That's like probably all the money they have, not recognizing that there are many people out there who have savings, who are wanting to invest in help for their problems. So I think the biggest thing that I had to learn from you know, my younger years was shifting out of that lack financial money mindset into a mindset of understanding that there's people out there who want to invest in you.
Speaker 1:So if you could go back to when you were first employed and maybe just describe what it was like going from employee into being an entrepreneur, what was that? What was that transition like? I mean, you did mention there that you had to think about money, mindset and your background. So what was it like going from employee to entrepreneur?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a great question actually and something I probably don't think about often enough, considering all the women I work with are currently normally working and about to make that transition, so I know the emotions that I see every day from them. I think for myself it was just there was so much information, there was so much that I felt like I needed to learn. It was kind of overwhelming. Like every night after work I'd be sat on the computer like researching, like how you know, how do you do marketing, like how do you do sales, how do you go to funnel, how do you do TikTok, how do you do Instagram, how do you do YouTube, like it's just overwhelming amount of information that you feel you need to learn. And so I feel like I graduated from uni and then I was like going back to uni and actually learning even more than I did at uni. That's kind of how it felt, I would say, definitely in the beginning.
Speaker 2:And I also think there was some element of excitement for me personally in the freedom that I had the ability to choose everything about what I was gonna do, what I was gonna sell, what I was gonna offer, and then a lot of fear around the sales and the visibility. You know I do podcasts all the time. Now I do lives all the time, but when I first started out five years ago, I was terrified to go live like I could not speak on camera, anything like that. It was so scary. So, you know, recognizing that you need to be visible to have a business, and moving past the fears involved in literally putting yourself out there on social media for anyone to comment, for anyone to say what they want, I think that was definitely a fear.
Speaker 2:So yeah there was just a lot. It was a lot of overwhelm of what to do and then actually implementing that stuff as well, and I think at the beginning I didn't know anything about like building a personal brand and creating good packages. And again it goes back to the money stuff. But I was massively undercharging. I was charging like 200 pounds a month for full social media management, which is just insane. And, yeah, like I didn't know about pricing, I didn't know what you should package things as I didn't know how to position those things.
Speaker 2:So there's a difference between content marketing which is what I did, which is social media content writing and like actually finding clients. You can write content all day but still never find clients. So it was like I knew the content side but I didn't have a lead generation or a sales strategy. So I actually got my first few clients just through my network. Luckily, I knew some people who had agencies and they needed people to do white label social media and that's how I got my first few clients.
Speaker 2:And it wasn't until I really got into the business world that I started to understand there's a process that you have to take people through, or a journey that people have to go through to understand what you do and then to choose to buy from you. So it was kind of like, yeah, at the beginning I was pretty clueless, to be honest. I didn't really know what I was doing, and it was just all a lot of information, and that's how it kind of felt and that's one of the things that inspired me to create the coaching program I have, because I don't want everyone else to have to read as many millions of blogs and watch as many YouTube videos as I did to get apps that you know where. So, yeah, that's really what inspired me to create my programs.
Speaker 1:Excellent. Yeah, we're gonna get into your programs shortly. I just wanna talk about I know that our report, seeing from discussing with you previously and looking at your profile, that you had an extra travel at one point in your life and what prompted this.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So after I started the social media management business I actually got made redundant and then me and my boyfriend split up. We've been together about three years at a time. We split up after three years, and so it was kind of like a bit of an emotional month. And then the summer I was just kind of like roping around and then I went to a networking event and was introduced to the concept of like dreamboards, vision boards, and got asked the question like what do you want?
Speaker 2:in life and I was like, oh my God, I don't even remember the last time I asked like if anyone's ever asked me that like other than, what job do you wanna get when you're older? What subjects are you gonna study at university? Like people don't usually ask you what is your dream life, what does it look like and how are you gonna make it happen? So I got asked like what's your? You know, what would you in your dream life, what would you see your life as being? And I said to be traveling the world, be in hot countries, I'd be on the beach. You know I'll be making great money in my business, all these things.
Speaker 2:And I created a vision board and I put on vision board. This was like a five year plan, because I was in debt, I didn't have any savings, and so I thought, yeah, logically, it will take me about five years to make this happen. After I created the vision board, it took me around about six months to book the first flight. So that is the power of putting it out there to the universe. And obviously it wasn't the vision board itself that magically made it happen, but having it there by my desk every single day was a constant reminder to my subconscious and to my particular activating system to look for ways to make it happen.
Speaker 2:So the sort of little tricks and tips I learned in those few months about how to travel with no money, how to do work away where you work in other people's homes and travel and how to house it for people all around the world, and sky scan a flight hacks and all these other things that I learned all made it possible. So I ended up booking a flight to Boston, which was like I did the sky scan a flight hack that I teach and it was like the furthest I could get for the least amount of money. So it was like 150 pounds to get to Boston each for me and my daughter one way. And then we traveled across the US all the way through, you know, florida, texas, everywhere. Then from LA we flew to Hawaii, hawaii to Australia, did a bit of up and down Australia, new Zealand, thailand, mexico, europe yeah, over about two and a half, three years.
Speaker 1:I know you've got a marketing background. How that has helped you in your business today.
Speaker 2:I honestly I don't know, because, yes, my my degree's in business and I used to run events. I used to run events before I went to uni, when I was, you know, and when I was still a student and, yeah, my degree's in a business, business degree and then I worked in marketing. But, honestly, the majority of what I do now I learn after I finished working, after I finished uni. Like the majority of stuff they teach you in uni about business is probably useless. And like the majority of stuff they teach you in uni about marketing is pretty useless too. Like it's it's such high level stuff. It's like the strategic, the theory, it's not the practical implementation. And the other factor is that it can't move far. Like the university degrees can't move fast enough with the, with the speed of online marketing. So digital marketing is changing constantly.
Speaker 2:Five years ago you didn't even need to have TikTok Like. Tiktok and Reels were not a thing. Now you really need to be doing TikTok and Reels Like if you want to grow on those specific platforms. Like I still use primarily Facebook, but Facebook groups and nowhere near as powerful as it used to be. Facebook Live is nowhere near as powerful as it used to be.
Speaker 2:So it's like when I started to wear them now, nothing I really learned before. That time would even really feel relevant. I guess, like overarching things, like you know building a brand, you know your content strategy and the themes and the core themes that you want to project as a business, but any of the actual practical things day to day that you'd be doing as a small business owner, I don't think you would learn them any other way than through a coach who's got quite up to date strategies, because they just change so often. So even books. It's even hard to learn this stuff from a book because, again, books take years to get published and then within a few years what they're saying is out of date anyway.
Speaker 1:So I'd say that.
Speaker 2:you know I've learned from some great coaches over the years. I've worked with great consultants, branding people. You know I've learned so much from trial and error, practicing things myself, watching other people, and that's really the best way to learn marketing in the 21st century, because there's just no way of learning it from some sort of educational institution. In my opinion, it's too difficult to keep up with the times.
Speaker 1:How did you become a business coach?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So when I was traveling, I had a blog and I was writing, sharing that I was traveling with my daughter. I was posting in the travel groups and women just started to ask me like how are you doing that? How have you managed to do that? Because I was sharing like I still had 10k in debt. I didn't have any savings. I was literally traveling the world with no money in the bank, like literally no money. So people were just like how? And I said like I can't really just explain that in a DM.
Speaker 2:So I just sat down and I wrote out if I was starting from scratch, knowing what I know now, what would I do? And I just sat and wrote down these steps and it started with mindset because, as I said, absolutely crucial to understand, if not combat all your money blocks, to at least be aware of where they're going to show up in your business and where these mindset things are going to crop up because they will. Then, looking at the different business models, that are the best sort of business models to just get in. You don't need qualifications, you don't need certifications. There's low barriers to entry to these business models, but they can also be scaled uncapped. So it's a multi millions, if you want you know. So the six business models that I coached are the top six highest paying online businesses with low barriers to entry, with unlimited scaling ability. And then I taught, like how to research your business idea, how to see if the market, you know, wants this idea, to go and talk to people, to choose your niche, to create your offer, to price it, and then how to do your like business plan, branding, content, lead generation, sales and all that sort of stuff later on in the process.
Speaker 2:So for me, it was about helping people who were working in their night by or wanting to travel to literally have the ability to go through my program with no idea what they were going to do and find an idea through that process and then launch it and put it out there to the world. So it was really from being asked. That was like the main thing. And, as I said, for me I knew how many hours at time I spent wasting China do all these like read like 10 million different blogs and then try and hash it all together to make it make sense, and it never does. So I wanted to give people a process that was tried and tested, that I knew that I'd been through myself so that they didn't have to do all that hard work. Really and honestly, I didn't really know what a coach was. When I first started out, I was just like I'm just going to help people.
Speaker 2:I'm going to show them what to do.
Speaker 1:And I didn't really even know.
Speaker 2:You know what coaching was. I wasn't in the coaching industry. The marketing I was doing was mainly for local businesses, so I wasn't really in the online world at the time. And then, once you get into the online world, you see like, all the different types of people out there doing amazing things and I think this is something else that's important is most of the women who come to me and not in the online world and they don't know what the potential is. So I introduce them to, like, go out there and research, join the different groups, learn and see what other coaches are doing, follow people like as well as going through my program. It's getting yourself into that online world will automatically help you to see what potential you can you have, because you can see what everyone else is doing and everyone else is doing crazy and saying things and making tons of money. Like you realize what's possible.
Speaker 2:So for me, becoming a coach was very much an accident. It wasn't intentional, I just kind of fell into it and, yeah, I started working with clients and realized it was really fun and a lot less stressful than doing done for you services and running a marketing agency. A lot less clients you know to deal with. And the clients. You know it's their responsibility to go out and do the work. So they're a lot more, you know they enjoy the process more. I would say so yeah, from that point I just grew the coaching business and then gradually I let go of the let go of marketing agency and it kind of went from there.
Speaker 1:What made you help women specifically? I know that you mentioned some of the things that you mentioned. Sorry about women that come to you and ask you some questions. Was it a case of them finding you or did you just target women?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so in the beginning the reason I worked with women was because they came to me. It was women that were coming to me. I have had men in my programs at different times with mixed results. I find some men don't necessarily want to be told what to do and they also won't ask for help. So it's really hard to coach them. So if they don't understand something, they won't get on the Zoom call and be like right, I'm really stuck on this this week. Can you offer me some advice? They just won't come on the call and they won't ask for anything. So then they just disappear and you're like what happened? And then you realize they just got stuck on something but refused to ask for help. So after a few experiences of working with men I was like maybe they don't like asking a woman for help, so maybe it's best if they work with a male coach.
Speaker 1:So I kind of just let that, let that go.
Speaker 2:But occasionally someone will join my program and say, oh, my husband wants to do it too. And I'm like that's fine, he can jump on the calls. Or I had a lady who wasn't ready to start her business but her husband was starting a business. She was like I've watched your masterclass and I really want my husband to do your course. Can you let him in? I'm like, yeah, that's fine. So I have worked with men, but generally I find that women are more open to coaching. I don't know if it's just from me, or maybe it's because they're in a Zoom call with 20 women and me and then they don't want to say like I'm confused about something. But I found it more difficult to coach men in my experience.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I have no issue with coaching men at all, it's just I'm not sure if they always respond well to it. You know, my passion at the beginning was really helping single moms like me, so that I could help other women who were in a similar situation to myself To have freedom.
Speaker 2:Because I don't think we're taught all the options in school. We're not taught like okay, you can work or you can stay at home, or you can have a business and stay at home while you're working. We're just told go and get a job and it doesn't matter if you have kids. You should be working, Like.
Speaker 2:I also you know, I kind of feel like the whole system wasn't set up for mothers, especially not single mothers. So the system tells us now that everyone should work, men and women should both work full time and if you don't then you're like obviously lazy and you know you're a slacker or whatever in life. When reanistically, as like hunter gatherer humans, women are supposed to be with the babies for a long time, you know they are supposed to be like attached pretty much to their children, especially in those younger years. So I feel like the education system doesn't teach us that, society doesn't tell us that that's acceptable. We're sort of told you must be working all the time, otherwise you're not a good member of society and you're lazy.
Speaker 2:Where really biologically, women should be home with the babies, you know, as long as they that's what they want to do. If they don't want to do, that's fine. You know I went out and got a part time job and my daughter was, you know one, because I just wanted some like adult conversation. But I don't feel like every person should feel like they have to work, especially when they've got young children. So for me it's giving women that opportunity to have both and to have it all and to be able to be with their kids as long as they want to, as much as they want to, and also make the money and have the, have the business and, you know, have the freedom.
Speaker 1:What challenges is your business currently facing now? What are some of the difficult things that you have to deal with? What you do?
Speaker 2:So I think with coaching, it's like I guess it's the constant movement of the industry. I guess, like I said about you know the changes to social media, you're always having to change your strategies and adapt and make sure you're on the pulse of, like what's happening. Especially if you're teaching other people marketing, you know you need to be teaching the most up to date strategies and things like that. And then I think, growing as a business like you know finances, like keeping everything separate for tax and you know all that kind of stuff that's always a challenge when you first start out and you're like a solopreneur and it's all your money and then you become a limited company and it's like actually now I've got to pay myself a salary and then save tax and it all gets very complicated. And then sort of hiring a team I think that's been one of my biggest challenges is finding good people hired people over the years and they just don't do what they're supposed to do and then you paid them and they haven't done it and you know that's difficult finding good people to work on, you know, with you as you grow the business. So I'd say those are probably my major challenges.
Speaker 2:Really, I can't complain, I work from home. You know, two or three days a week I work on. I feel inspired, like I have my calls with my clients and with new potential clients on set days, but other than that, generally I work on, I feel inspired. So if I feel like I really feel like I'm being funneled this morning, then I'll do that. Or if I feel like I really want to create content today, I'll do that, and it's kind of like I feel like I've got a lot of freedom. It's just yeah. The growth side of things, I'd say, is the challenge when you're trying to bring other people into the mix and then you've got to sort of rely on other people's work ethic. That's sometimes a challenge.
Speaker 1:What could you leave about what it means to be in terms of, maybe, inspiration, something that they can use to inspire them to start their own business?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so. For me, it's just like everyone has something inside them that's beneficial to someone else Like you don't need to go out there and retrain and become like some kind of tech whiz to have a business online. There's literally something out there for everyone. It's just about figuring out what your passions, what your interests, what your skills and then turning that into an online business. And I've seen women go from like zero in the bank to making 10K, 20k months, and I know it's possible. It can be scary, but everything you want is on the other side of fear. So what you have to do is the scary thing and then, once you've done it, you realize it wasn't actually that scary. And now you've got the thing you wanted and you're going after your dreams. So, yeah, do it, even though it's scary. Everything you want is in the side of fear and you've all got something inside you that you can take out into the world and make money from right. Now. You don't need to go and retrain, so just go do it.
Speaker 1:Chanel, it's been a delight hosting you today. Thank you for coming on. The British Black Trip and Her Podcast.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:Well, folks, I really hope you enjoyed today's show. Chanel did a phenomenal job of explaining her story, her business, some of the things that she's learned along the way, and I think she's been a real asset for this podcast today. So please go and check her out If you're looking to show notes. You'll see lots of details about how you can get in contact with her. Or if you want to reach out to her and work with her, I'm sure she would really appreciate that. Fantastic guests, it was really good hosting her as well and I had a thoroughly good good time having that conversation. All right, folks. Well, hope you enjoyed today and I'll see you next time on the British Black Trip and Her Podcast. Take care and look after yourself.