Vivienne Joy, Business Mindset Reset Expert of She-Enjoys Ltd
Vivienne Joy is NLP Trainer & MasterCoach of She-Enjoys Ltd
What's your industry?
Coach Training, Certification and business mentoring
How did you end up sitting where you are today?
Born an only child to compulsive gambling parents, I spent my life in feast or famine. Aged 19, debt became a problem for my hard working older Dad and I offered to get a mortgage and buy the family home to save us losing it. I also lived the learned life of my parents, often ploughing my hard earned cash into slot machines at the local bingo hall. Going there was our normal, until both my parents passed within 8 months of each other when I was 30. How did I get through this trauma? Of course, I used the coping tool I'd been taught and carried on doing what we'd always done, knowing it was wrecking my life and self-worth. The following year, I was invited on a free NLP Course by a friend. I'd experienced NLP at my job as Advertising Agency Executive and knew it was about changing the mind and behaviours. I kidded myself I was going to help my friend! Little did I know it would start a lifelong love of NLP, me training as a Master and Trainer and the intensive internal mindset change work that took me from then £250k in debt to today, a Money Mindset Reset Expert helping thousands of people reprogramme their thoughts, beliefs, feelings, behaviours to change self worth, earning potential and create fulfilling businesses of their own. I called my business She-Enjoys because most people aren't, I certainly wasn't. Joy is in my name and is my life!
What kind of work does your daily role involve?
My days are beautifully varied, this is important to me as I'm someone who likes excitement in my life! I could be speaking on a stage to help hundreds understand how their thoughts create their world, running a retreat, writing articles for press; or I could be entirely focused on one client determined to reset their limiting beliefs and gain a success strategy. Every week I run several powerful group training, mentoring and coaching programmes including the CORE 4 business; mindset, sales, marketing and strategy, helping women start and scale their world changing coaching business to make impact, income and bring them true joy.
What gets you excited about your industry?
I'm in the business of changing lives, empowerment, transformation and joy. Personal development, deep structure inner change work that can't be gained by motivational talks - this is the deep rooted unconscious stuff that keeps people returning to old safety based patterns. My mission is to help everyone know that THEY can change their thoughts, beliefs, self-talk and outcomes in life. They are not broken, stuck or hopeless (as they often say before working with me). They are simply using old strategies in their life to stay SAFE. All the brain truly serves is safety and certainty to keep everything the same as possible - hence why most people dislike change so much.
What's the best advice anyone ever gave you on your journey in business?
As you can imagine, I've read all the personal improvement books and some of them are truly great. However, there are two mantras I live by, one I saw on social media and it stuck 'Fortune favours the brave'. To become who you want to be and achieve what you want in life, you have to be brave! I guess my gambling background finally came in handy for this one as I am not afraid to lose everything and start again - in fact I have, several times!
My second mantra came from a sentence an old girlfriend said to me one day 'If something doesn't feel quite right, it's definitely wrong'. I have proved this theory many times over and now make sure I listen to my inner guidance and wisdom.
What's been the hardest part about the path you've taken and how would you advise someone facing a similar situation to overcome it?
I seem to often take the hardest path; in fact working on my own belief system about success being easy, is probably my biggest challenge (as well as weight management). The belief system is everything. What I previously believed about my value to people shaped everything. Who I accepted as friends, how I was treated by partners, jobs and paygrades I accepted and of course this low self-worth followed me to my first business in 2002. I under-priced my products and over delivered on service, often giving things away to make sure they came back. My first £250k business barely made any profit because of this fear of rejection, abandonment and not being worthy. Once I sorted my money mindset, everything changed - it really is the most important piece of change work a person can invest time, money and trust into - the rewards are truly priceless! Each business I have created over the last 20 years has been profitable, but it wasn't until 2015 that I found the missing piece - a business that is rewarding in every way as well as financially. My Coach Training business means I am part of the shift to others feeling valuable and worthy to deliver their talent and brilliance to the world. I relive my own journey daily as they start to realise who they truly are.
In the current climate especially, many CEOs are looking for ways to cut costs, with marketing budgets usually one of the budgets to be cut. Is that wise?
An interesting question that I get asked often... My first business heavily relied on online pay per click advertising. In 2002 the internet was very new and nobody really knew much, including me. There wasn't the raft of coaches, mentors and strategists that fill our social feeds today! I learnt the hard way!
From week one, I was getting lots of online sales orders from Google Pay Per Click Advertising; but the cost was so high to capture that sale that I wasn'r able to pay myself. I decided to invest that money into my own learning, working out about Search Engine Optimisation, keywords, links, tags and things that are still every bit as important 20 years on. Within 18 months of starting out and stopping paid advertising, all of my sales were from organic reach, repeat business upsell methods and word of mouth strategies. My marketing budget become virtually zero. But, that was in the day before social media and the fight for visibility and reach wasn't so hard. My She-Enjoys and She-Coaches business acquisition is still to this day predominantly organic and that profit lesson imprinted in me deeply the value of 'profit sanity' over 'sales vanity'. Many companies are spending money they have always spent and probably not getting the rate of return they could get with other methods.
For people thinking of starting businesses in 2023, would you say it's still possible to build a big business with little or no marketing budget?
Starting a business and building it big are very different. Firstly, define big? To some this would mean being able to replace their salary, to others making millions and floating on the stock exchange.
This vital consideration is often missed at strategy stage by Coaches and Consultants. It is essential to start with the end in mind! This gives total clarity for direction, ideal clients, messaging, pricing, offers and marketing methods needed. Knowing this speeds everything up and reduces wasted money on changing design, branding, copywriting and website redesigns. I help women start and scale their business every day to multi six figures without spending out on paid marketing, so it is definitely possible to build to that level!
Can you share one or two of your favorite free marketing strategies that a business owner in your industry can use.
I have used so many and help people daily to create theirs that really works for them, their ideal client and feel aligned to their mission.
Offering my award winning book 'The Mindset For Business' for £5 and attracting ideal clients to try free online learning resources are powerful and 'cost free' methods of enticing people to try before they buy. This has proven the best qualifier of leads so far in my business. No budget required, but plenty of time to make sure the message organically reaches the right people. My biggest advice - write a book! Great for positioning, for marketing, to educate and start that relationship with your ideal client, without you having to do the hard work and heavy lifting more than once!
