Meet the Bs behind BLL – Ange!
Welcome to our new series (two blog posts makes a series, right?) where we pull back the curtain and show you who we are!
In a nutshell, we are Ange and Ruby – the co-founders of Biz Launch Lab. We wanted to share a bit about us (personal and work stuff) so you can get to know us better. So we’ve interviewed each other and here’s part 1.
Introducing Ange
Ange Smith is an experienced marketing and business strategist who loves helping budding biz owners and solopreneurs cut through the crap, beat off the confusion and find blissful clarity.
She’s worked in senior marketing roles across different sectors and launched several of her own businesses. She also has a Master of Marketing from Melbourne Business School.
All very impressive, sure, but what’s she really like?
Hey Ange. Describe yourself in 10 words.
Can I ask Ruby to answer this one for me? That’s 10 words 😉
Okay, I would say: loyal, driven, obsessed aunty, red nailpolish wearer, direct, boundary-pusher.
[Note from Ruby: Technically ‘nailpolish’ is two words, but I’ll give it to you…]
If you had to live in a country other than Australia, where would you live?
This is a hard one, because Australia is a pretty amazing place to live! I love Singapore, but the lack of beaches is a big problem! I would probably live in a tropical place, somewhere like Bali or Thailand. But it would have to be off the beaten track, not in a touristy/party area. Or one of those huts over the water in a Bora Bora wouldn’t be too difficult to get used to!
I’d live there because the ocean is my happy place – it’s where I go to find peace, it restores my soul. So living in a place where the weather meant I could swim year round would be perfect.
What does your perfect Sunday look like?
It includes any or all of the following: sleeping in, croissants, coffee, a walk along the bay, drinks or a meal with friends, reading a good book or watching a good film, checking out the Esplanade markets in St Kilda, a relaxing massage or mani/pedi, FaceTiming with my nieces and nephew.
[From Ruby: Ange is leaving out her Sunday ritual of practising her accents and then recording videos for her fake YouTube channel, Cooking with Ange.]
[From Ange: Oui, Oui! Zis week ve vill make ze rat-a-too-lee! Zat is how you pronounce ratatouille, no?]
How did you end up in marketing?
I was running a business with my father and studying a Master of Community Development at University of Melbourne. A traumatic event in 2011 led me to reassess what I wanted for my life. I realised I was deeply unhappy with the direction I was heading, and eventually realised community development wasn’t for me.
One of the things I most enjoyed in my job was the planning and execution of the marketing, which led me to Melbourne Business School’s Master of Marketing. Marketing principles are the same whether you’re selling life coaching services, handbags, commercial buildings or chickens. It’s highly transferrable, so my options for careers and business opened up significantly. So … marketing it is!
What do you love about what you do?
Seeing the confusion clear and clarity about next steps come. Like anything, marketing is so much easier when you have the right info and tools. Helping a small business owner learn what they need to know and be able to apply it and see the returns makes me very happy.
The psychology of it is also extremely interesting to me. I love the process of figuring out how to bring a prospect on the journey from not knowing who I am, to making a purchase. What makes them take the next step, what makes them unsubscribe? What’s going to be the thing that makes them click ‘buy now’? What will stop them from clicking? Figuring that out for myself and for clients can be hard work, but it’s very satisfying!
What makes you roll your eyes?
I use the eye roll with the frequency of a crazy cat lady. From people who don’t clean up after their dogs in public, to election campaign ads on TV, to procrastinating on my ironing until 10.47pm on a Sunday night, to not having wine in the fridge when I thought I did… Life can be just one big eye roll sometimes!
At work, what makes me roll my eyes is people (especially marketers) who use the term ‘millennials’. The ONLY thing millennials have in common is the period in which they were born. Stop using it as a segment!
I also want to tear my hair out when someone tells me they’re trying to ‘build brand awareness’. Take all that time and money you’re spending and pour it into becoming the go-to authority on solving your target clients’ specific problems instead. I promise you it will make you more money than ‘brand awareness’ ever will. Unless you’re Apple. Or Google. Or Coca Cola. But you’re not.
And since I’m on a ranty roll, I’ll add this: small businesses who refuse to spend money on anything. I get it, you’re on a tight budget and don’t necessarily have many clients. That’s totally OK. But the cliché ‘you have to spend money to make money’ is really true. There are some things you have to spend money on, if you genuinely want results.
OK. Rant over. I roll my eyes at a lot more things than I thought I did. I think this is probably no surprise to anyone who knows me!
[From Ruby: It’s not.]
What do you find most exciting and most challenging about running Biz Launch Lab?
The thing I find most exciting is putting something out there that genuinely helps people get unstuck and get their business off the ground. It's not just a tagline, it's what LaunchKit really does.
[From Ruby: Smooth. Are you in marketing?]
Small businesses make up about 96% of businesses in Australia. Knowing I'm helping some of them get started is really exciting to me! I can't wait to hear all the launch stories. Having a business partner [AKA Ruby] to be going on this adventure with is super exciting too – sharing the highs and the lows with someone has made the journey special.
The most challenging thing is probably getting everything done while in the early stages of the business, while also keeping up with other work and commitments. Also, being in a different state from Ruby makes communication and co-working just that little more difficult. And we both tend to perfectionism, so working to the mantra 'progress over perfection' is always a challenge!
[From Ruby: I don’t know what you’re talking about… *stays up till 11pm re-reading everything in case there’s a typo lingering*]
If you’ve read this far – congratulations! You now know more about Ange than you ever realised you wanted to know.
Pop back in a couple of weeks when Ange interviews Ruby.
Join us in the comments
Who are YOU? Say hi! Tell us what your idea or business is. Tell us what you love to do on Sundays or roll your eyes about. Or what country you’d love to live in. Or what you want to know more about that will help you launch and build your biz. Go on, we dare you.
Are you starting a new business (or recently launched one)?
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