What money blocks are holding you back? With special Guest Clare Wood.

"Ever feel like your finances are stuck in quicksand, no matter how hard you hustle? In this empowering episode, we're diving deep into the world of money blocks with the phenomenal Clare Wood! Discover why your money mindset isn't just a buzzword—it's the secret sauce to breaking free from those invisible financial chains. We'll uncover the most common blocks that might be holding you back and share actionable tips on how you can start to work through them. Clare brings her signature insights and transformative strategies to help us all navigate our path to financial freedom. So, if you're ready to shift your relationship with money and unlock your true earning potential, this episode is your golden ticke

Want to start transforming your money mindset today? Leave us a comment or send a direct message and leap into your journey of financial empowerment!"

Find Clare at @clare_wood_coach   And at Clare Wood website. 

Transcript

Melissa (00:02.308)
and welcome. My name is Melissa Robbins. Thank you for joining me today on the podcast. I have a special guest today Claire Wood who is our money mentor. She's a CPA but not your average bean counter and she uses her money making mentoring powers for good. Claire empowers business owners to create their most profitable businesses and a lifestyle that lights them up. Thank you so much for being here today Claire.

Clare Wood (00:26.451)
Thanks so much for having me, it's so great to be here.

Melissa (00:30.2)
I have met you a number of times in person and we've had a great connection and I just love as you know we've already spent half an hour talking before we even started recording. So there's a lot to get through today and I just you've got so much to share so can you get started by just giving me a little bit of an intro about what sort of things you do with your clients and what you work

Clare Wood (00:53.753)
Yeah, absolutely. So look, the main thing I help my clients with is money.

And like you said in the intro, I'm a CPA. So I'm actually a qualified accountant and I help my clients to firstly look at their business finances and to really understand about profit, about cashflow, all of those things. And people say to me, one of my superpowers is that I explain it in a very easy to understand way. And I think that came because when I was at uni, the uni lecturers were

They spoke gobbledygook all the time. And I simplified it and I would say, do you mean this? And I've realized that a lot of times accountants use really big, overwhelming terms. So I've tried to really use plain English to explain things. And the other component of the way that I help people to grow their profit is through money mindset. And money mindset is things like how you think about money, your subconscious money beliefs, things like pricing.

all of those fears and how they play out into the way that you show up in business, confidence, really helping people to navigate through those things so that they can grow their businesses.

Melissa (02:06.188)
Absolutely, this is such an important area and I think you know that obviously I work with lots of, I work with mainly product based businesses, those who have retail stores or their own brands and they're creating their own products. And one of the biggest issues that they start off with is pricing. And one of the biggest things I see is, you know, they price, people price for affordability. I want it to be affordable. I wanted to bring this out because I think it should be this price in the market.

you know that's one of the first things that I work on with clients because clearly as we both know you can't have a business if you don't have profit and so understanding your pricing and how to structure it is crucial. Can you just touch on a little bit about you know the what you see whether it's for products or service -based businesses what you see about people the way that they're you know set their price in or how they how they start off with

Clare Wood (02:59.536)
Yeah, for sure. Look, one of the biggest things that I see when it comes to pricing, to your point, is people bringing their own stories or fears into it. And something that I say, doesn't matter what you would pay for something. It matters what your dream client will pay for something. And I think that that is really helpful to have in the back of your mind. And let me share an example of this. Boost Juice is a $10 juice.

The other day I was at the shops with a friend of mine and she said to my kids, do you want to have a boost juice? And they said, she goes, what's your favorite? And they said, we've never had a boost juice before. And she looked at me like I was the worst mom in the world. I said, to me, juice is just, it's a lot of calories. It's a lot of sugar. And you know, there's four people in my family to buy four boost juices is $40. I

Melissa (03:51.936)
Yes, sugar, yeah.

Clare Wood (03:58.809)
you know, I could take my family up for dinner for that price. So my kids, she shouted them, my kids had their first boost juice. And it just goes to show her, her kid has drank boost juice so many times that, you know, he, he couldn't believe that my kids didn't have a favorite because he's obviously tried most of the menu. And the point that I'm trying to make from this is it's all about what we value. Can I afford a boost juice? Absolutely. I can afford a boost juice. Is it something that I value?

No, it's not. And I think that this is the thing is at the end of the day, you are selling a value exchange. There are some things that I pay epically overpriced for. The first one that springs to mind is my shampoo and conditioner. use Kerastase, Kerastase, I don't know how to pronounce it. It's $60 and $50. It's $110 for me to buy my shampoo and conditioner.

I have tried over the years to move to a different brand numerous times and I love, love, love this brand. My hair doesn't like it. I don't like it. And so I am happy to pay. What I know is way more than I need to pay for shampoo and conditioner because it is something that I value. Other examples, you know, my skin products. Again, I'm sure I can wash my skin with products that are much cheaper.

Melissa (05:04.53)
Your hair doesn't like

Clare Wood (05:25.957)
But since I've changed to this particular brand of skin products, ultra -psychicals, people compliment me on my skin all the time. And so therefore it's something that I value. And this is the biggest thing that I always say to people with pricing is it's not about what you think it's worth. It's not about what's going on in the market. It's about your dream client. Do they value it at the price that you are pricing them? And

Again, when we think about, know, I'm a coach, I'm a high ticket coach. My to work with me is, you know, a really significant investment. And for some people, they're like, there's no way that I would pay that for that many hours of your time. For other people who, you know, I've had clients of mine who've grown from sort of, you know, 20, 30 K months to 100 K months. My fee pales in comparison to the, to the fee that they pay me for coaching. And I'm not saying that it's all me. Of course, it's actually them,

the fact that they had that transformation, they can totally see the value in the investment. And this is, guess, ultimately what pricing comes down to. It's what's the amount that feels good, feels aligned for you, and then what's the amount that your clients are gonna be willing to pay. And so much of this is wrapped up in your marketing and your messaging. And of course, ultimately, exactly, and ultimately as well, like the thing that I say,

Melissa (06:47.232)
and your branding products.

Clare Wood (06:52.987)
There's the icing on the cake, is, you know, how your products packaged and all of that. And then there's the actual cake. I used to work at Sheridan, the Sheets and Towels company was my last corporate role that I worked in. So I know product well. And yes, it's important how the product arrives in the packaging. But at the end of the day, if we had terrible sheets and terrible towels, the company would not be sustainable. But we have an amazing product like Sheridan is

Melissa (07:15.116)
Yeah.

Clare Wood (07:21.473)
really high quality amazing product and the other stuff is bells and whistles of course and that is ultimately what i would say is that you have to have the quality product or if you are going for do you know what it's cheap crap there's also a place in the market for that so you know you've just got to figure out your place in the market

Melissa (07:41.148)
Absolutely. Yeah. And I think for product businesses, there's just that bare minimum, I would say, in terms of you've got, because you have a physical product, you've got costs of goods. And so you have to have that bare minimum margin, which I always say, you know, between 60 and 80 depends on what, you're selling and what you're doing. But, you know, that's a starting point for where it can be from there. As long as you've got that bare minimum, it can be higher than

and you can make more margin, but you have to have that bare minimum because you have a cost of goods for a physical

Clare Wood (08:16.175)
Absolutely.

Melissa (08:17.898)
And you would know from your accountant on stage, like a lot of people put the bells and whistles, the marketing things into their cogs. And it's like, no, that needs, that should be your marketing expense. It shouldn't be in your cost of goods. So just making sure they put the things in the right place too is a super important, you know, and I guess that's where I always say, speak to your account about which one is a cost of goods, which one is an expense, because not everything should be, you know, in that first area.

Clare Wood (08:43.089)
Absolutely.

Melissa (08:45.14)
Now when I saw you talk about the other day about and you mentioned it briefly there before as well about you know your your underlying beliefs about money, your background about money, your childhood stories about money, how does that shape our money mindset? Because I think some people know that this is the case and other people like what what are you talking about? Like you know this is all new to me that they haven't really explored you know much about money mindset yet and and know what how this can impact

Clare Wood (09:12.837)
Yeah so basically your money mindset is how you think about money and most of our thoughts whether we know it or not actually happen unconsciously without us even thinking about our thoughts and let me share an example. We have deep rooted belief systems that have come from either our childhood or our experiences in our life which impact the things that we

So an example of this, a couple of years ago I was in a major car accident. I've done a whole bunch of work, a whole bunch of healing around that. yesterday, actually it was this morning, a car slammed on its brakes and I heard this eeeek and instantly I grabbed the wheel. I'm like, my God, my God, my God. And I went back to that place of trauma that was in my brain thinking that that thing was going to happen again. And this is what happens with traumas. Even, I mean, that's an example of a big trauma.

A little trauma can be, you know, a comment that once a client went, that's expensive. And you, your subconscious mind says, whoa, I put my prices up and someone commented that's expensive. They then didn't buy. And then our subconscious mind goes and creates a whole story around it, which is they didn't buy. No one's going to buy it. My new prices, my business is going to go under. I'm going to have to sell my house. I'm going to live on the street. Everyone's going to laugh at me. I'm going

Melissa (10:40.726)
Catastrophizing, really there. Just taking it, yeah.

Clare Wood (10:42.57)
Exactly and that that's how primitive when you understand a little bit about our brain our brain is a primitive brain, you know, we were designed to live in caves and our brain is just trying to keep us safe. So anytime it sees a threat it says no avoid avoid and tries really hard to keep us

Melissa (11:04.46)
Yeah, let's go back to what it was and let's keep it all simple and safe and don't change too much, And so is the first part of that starting to recognize some of those beliefs that you may have or start to explore, I guess, what thoughts you've brought with you from childhood and what's the stories you've been told?

Clare Wood (11:09.913)
Mm -hmm. Absolutely.

Clare Wood (11:30.305)
Yeah so that's a really really great starting point is to understand what do I actually believe because like I said a lot of this isn't conscious. I never consciously thought I had a rough childhood and therefore I've got a ton of issues around money. The only reason I learned that is because I went and did this work to uncover why does this scare me? What did what's this based on? Where's this belief come from?

So the first step is really understanding what do I believe about money? And not just on the surface, on the surface people is going, I've got a great relationship with money, Claire. I don't have any issues with money. go great. And then I dig a little bit deeper and I'm like, there it is. So really doing that work, digging deeper, understanding why do I feel the way that I feel about money or pricing

Melissa (12:16.268)
Actually.

Clare Wood (12:28.993)
What are my fears about growth or investing in my business? And then where's that come from? And then once we sort of start to understand our beliefs, then we can start to reprogram

Melissa (12:42.038)
Yeah. And so I guess there's, you know, where do we, where do we even start with that? Like what is something that you, is there, is there a tool? Is there a sort of some readings people can do? Like what is there that people can get going on that?

Clare Wood (12:56.577)
Yeah look I wish that it was as simple as one straightforward thing but like any trauma you know if you've ever had to work through something big in your life you'll know I remember the first time I went to see a therapist and I came out and my husband said are you fixed yet?

Melissa (13:01.199)
You

Clare Wood (13:18.573)
And then, you my next session, are you fixed yet? You'd always say that, you know, three, four years on now, I'm still going to regular therapy. And I kind of say a bit the same with money. I mean, a great starting point is, is starting to really understand like, what are my money stories? And I think journaling is a great way to do that. So a great starting point is to grab a journal and a piece of paper and write down, what are my beliefs about money? How do I feel about money?

and then see what comes up and then go a bit deeper. Why do I feel like that? There's never enough money. Why do I feel like that? Because when we were little, we, you know, couldn't go on a holiday because we didn't have enough money and blah, blah, blah, okay. And again, it's like an onion. We start to peel back the layers. There'll be some that's sitting quite close to the surface, but you know, I've been doing this work for gosh, six, seven, six years now.

And I'm just constantly finding more and more stories, subconscious beliefs, and we just have to keep processing them and working through

Melissa (14:28.266)
Yeah, no, love that. think the journaling is such a great thing to get going and get started and really start to understand. As you say, like you've really got to ask deeper questions or push yourself to sort of, you know, write more or let it free flow more and do it regularly because it's not going to happen as you say, one session fixed, you know, sorted it out.

Clare Wood (14:50.798)
Absolutely.

Melissa (14:53.108)
And so what do you see as some common money blocks that come up again and again for people?

Clare Wood (14:58.124)
Yeah okay so I described there's three different kinds of money blocks. The first one is a block in receiving. So this is when you feel comfortable actually receiving money and people think why would I feel uncomfortable receiving money? But yeah I bet this has happened to most business owners. So an example of this might be you have your beautiful product and you are telling your cousin about it and your cousin says

I grab one how much is it?" and you say, don't be silly you can have it or you might say, it's normally a hundred dollars but you know I'll give you a mate's rates it's fifty dollars and your cousin says, no I'm happy to pay full price I want to support you and you're like, no no no it's fine. Does that make sense? we...

Melissa (15:43.882)
Yeah, you're trying to like, a number of times that you've gone, no, no, no.

Clare Wood (15:49.813)
Exactly. It might be that you feel uncomfortable increasing your prices as we mentioned earlier. You feel uncomfortable saying, can I ask for more? And that is definitely one of the big blocks is a block in receiving feeling uncomfortable. And we can even see it play out in other ways in our lives as well. Like someone might say, Mel you look amazing today and you got all this old thing you

struggle to even receive a compliment you feel uncomfortable receiving the compliment so that's the first one the next one is a block in holding and a block in holding is when you feel uncomfortable actually hanging on to money and this is one that definitely hit me hard in my mid -20s I'd spent most of my life with no money and then by the time I was 25 I was on a hundred thousand dollars a year working as an accountant in the UK and

Melissa (16:19.958)
Yeah,

Clare Wood (16:47.928)
All of a sudden, all this money, it felt like I was burning a hole in my pocket. I did not put any money aside. I am so not used to having money. I need to spend it all because I'm probably not going to keep earning this much money. So I've just got to have fun and make hay while the sun shines. And I literally kept getting back down to zero. So that's a block in holding is that we feel uncomfortable. Anytime there's like a bit of a buffer, it's like we've got to spunk it or get rid of it because we just

Melissa (16:53.248)
You're like, I've got to, I've got, I'm not used to having this.

Clare Wood (17:17.357)
We're so not used to having money. So that's block number two.

Did you want to ask a question about that or?

Melissa (17:26.804)
no, no.

Melissa (17:31.498)
No, no, all good. Keep going. so block number that I love that.

Clare Wood (17:34.595)
Sorry, for the listeners, Mel kind of paused for a second there and I thought, I wonder if she's got a question about that.

Melissa (17:41.657)
My Wi -Fi was just going funny. Well, I do have a question in terms of what do you do to sort of try and, you know, like understand that I guess or to work through it. But maybe we need to go to number three first and then we'll talk about how let's go into

Clare Wood (17:57.156)
Sounds great. So number three is a block in investing or a block in spending. And so this is the opposite to block number two. And this is where we, and I see this equally with clients. I say, Hey, why don't we hire an assistant to go and do that thing? Or why don't we hire an assistant to edit your podcast or whatever it might be? No, no, no, no. You know, I'll just keep doing it myself. I'll just work till 1am.

again another day and they're so scared to spend a single cent on their business and then one day it might come up and I say how much money have you got? they'll go I've got a hundred in my business savings and I'm like you've got a hundred thousand dollars sitting in your savings account and you won't pay an assistant to do a big chunky piece of work for you and so that's the third block is when our fear around money is that

Melissa (18:45.26)
Mm. Yeah.

Clare Wood (18:53.871)
Don't want to spend any money. So we hang on to it won't invest and we actually hamstringing or crippling our growth in the process of being scared to hire the coach join the program Hire the team member, whatever it might be. So that's the third

Melissa (19:12.504)
And so yeah, what are some things that we can do to, guess, I mean, you know, clearly this is all the stuff you work on for a long time with clients. It's not something you can tell us in one minute reply, but are there sort of certain things that people can focus on to sort of help them? Well, first of all, probably figure out which one they've got or if they've got all three of them or yeah, what would, what do they, where do they go from here?

Clare Wood (19:38.028)
Yeah, for sure. Look, I think that that's a really important point that you made there, Melissa, is that you don't just have one block. You might have a couple of blocks. You might. I find for me that I have gone from that block to that block. You know, I've gone from being scared to invest to spending all my money and being scared to hold. And I kind of find that I'm constantly noticing, Whoa, okay. We're spending a lot at the moment. What's coming up that we're scared to hang on to any of

I'm scared to put my prices up. What's going on there? So it's really uncovering the belief as a starting point is a great place to start and then the next thing is really in clearing that trauma and working through it and a big part of any sort of work in this space is is facing that fear. So this is one of the things that I do is that I'm kind of I don't like the word pushing but

encouraging people to kind of do the uncomfortable thing and maybe you don't feel like you know doubling your prices overnight but I'm like hey what would happen if we put them up five percent do you feel comfortable with that yeah okay great let's do that and allowing people it's almost this thing in therapy it's called exposure therapy where it's like you you do a little bit of something and you go

Melissa (20:46.472)
Mmm.

Clare Wood (21:02.065)
I survived that that was actually okay. Yeah. And then you try a little bit more. So I think that just doing the thing that makes you feel uncomfortable is also a really, really great way. in the space of holding when I was really, really struggling to hold onto money, I started a direct debit. I think it was like either five or $10 a week. Like it was not a big amount of money, but it was like that money is savings money. The direct debit transfer is set

Melissa (21:03.372)
It wasn't too bad, yeah.

Melissa (21:29.814)
Yeah, it's going somewhere else. It's moving away.

Clare Wood (21:32.461)
It's I don't I don't touch it and just learning to get comfortable with the concept of do know what you don't have to spend every single cent that you ever earn. So yeah exactly so you're kind of just starting to go okay and what are the steps and I think that this is important your beliefs is the that's the foundation like that's where a lot of the work sits but the next step is absolutely action you can't sit on a mountain being like I'm okay to receive money.

Melissa (21:40.544)
Yeah, you don't have to get down to zero and you don't want to.

Clare Wood (22:01.784)
and then not put your prices up or not advertise your product because you're embarrassed to put your thing out there which is another part of the receiving block. People just don't tell anyone about it. I've got this amazing widget over here. Have you told anyone about it? You can have the best product in the world. That's not gonna sell if you're not getting out there. And that ultimately comes back to a block in receiving as well. You're scared to actually earn.

Melissa (22:03.053)
Yeah.

Melissa (22:13.44)
Yeah, that's, yeah.

Yeah, they just don't care.

if no one knows about

Melissa (22:26.901)
scared to, you know, what other people would think or if other people would judge the pricing and stuff like that too. I mean, I've had a, this is something I work on a lot with my clients in terms of the basis of lots of my programs. I always start with pricing and really getting through that because clearly that's a big part of having a profitable business. And you know, lots of people who have put up their pricing, if that was required, they've said, you know, no one noticed. I thought it was going to be this huge thing and.

no one second -guessed it, I sold more at the next market and it was no big deal and they're like, I can't believe it, Mel, this is what's happened and you know, like it's just such a, there's a lot to work through and a lot of people have to work through it and again, I start with mindset in pricing when I, my first program, my first part of my program too. And I guess that's a thing, it's like knowing what it should be but is it you that the reason it's not going up or is it the market or all sorts of things. And just on that as well, I think,

figuring out which one it is, I think part of that as well is also not being afraid to look at your numbers and know your numbers and really figure out what's happening inside your business because otherwise you don't know which one of those blocks you've got or you don't really even as you say like look at, occasionally you'll go and look in and go, you know, think why am I spending that much on those things? Or I know that's one of the things that you work on with clients like.

or I've learnt from you, go in and just review all your expenses, go in and check all the things that are going on and it's not because you want to stop people spending money but you want to be consciously or intentionally spending as

Clare Wood (24:02.192)
Absolutely, yeah.

Melissa (24:04.748)
And that's one thing leading into that as well as your book. So obviously it's called intentional profit because you're not trying to show people or tell people that they shouldn't spend money and that they should be tight and hold on to everything. It's about how can you intentionally build your business so that it is profitable, profitable, but doing it in a way that you enjoy it and you're not set up to 1 a .m. or whatever it might be inside.

Clare Wood (24:31.937)
Yeah and I think that a big part of that is sometimes you've got to spend money to make money and empowering people to connect the investments back to their sales growth because I think that a lot of people hamstring their growth because they're scared to take that next step and I talk again in the book about

what should you be investing in and when because there's always so many things competing for our dollars that we can be spending money on at any point in time. So trying to figure out what's right for you at any one point in time you know should you hire an assistant should you hire you know get the work warehouse should you get a new website do you need to spend money on facebook ads you've got to figure out what's right for you and your business and your audience because ultimately you should know

better than anyone else knows your business.

Melissa (25:26.026)
Yeah, and yeah, just really starting to, and I guess that's where you sort of coming back to, as you say, like what's giving you a return or what's giving you more time to then allow you to work on more money -making activities or what's giving you an easier, more enjoyable work balance or life so that you, you know, you're not, not everything's tied up in the business and that you have to do everything inside it.

Clare Wood (25:54.061)
Yeah and using the numbers to support that because I did have a client of mine once and she was actually paying her assistant more than she was paying herself in profit. She felt all this freedom she said I don't know how I'd survive without this person I'm like but she's making more money than you you've it's all right to do that for a short period of time but if you're paying your admin person more money than you're paying yourself over a long period of time that

Melissa (26:14.068)
You

Clare Wood (26:22.661)
You know, that is a bit of a worry, so yeah.

Melissa (26:25.332)
Yes, yeah, yeah, and I guess that's where really not being afraid to understand what's going on inside the business, not being afraid to do those reports or check what's happening and you're going to go through, especially as a product business, ups and downs in terms of seasonality of sales. You're going to have to buy your product and reinvest back into stock all the time. So they're going to be, it's not always going to be your perfect situation,

knowing that over a long term as well is really important to track, you know, track trends and stuff too.

Clare Wood (27:00.78)
Absolutely yeah know your numbers to grow your numbers.

Melissa (27:04.734)
Yeah, I love it. And that's the thing someone said to me the other day, you know, I knew that I know now that June and July is going to be quiet and I had a retail store like and I still would, you know, get to those points where it was much quieter in the month. So I'll be like, I don't know. Like, no, this is normal. This is expected. This is what it's normally like. It's not me. It's not I'm not freaking out, which clearly retail can be very up and down. But

Being able to, once you've been in it for a little while, being able to put money aside or understand what your break even is so that you can allocate money in the peak months as opposed to struggling, doing the same thing every month.

Clare Wood (27:46.051)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, love that.

Melissa (27:48.48)
Yeah. And what are some of the big lessons that you've learned in your time as a business owner or entrepreneur?

Clare Wood (27:56.05)
my gosh how long have you got? This might turn into a therapy session.

Melissa (28:00.972)
Well, I know you've had some big breakthroughs or you know, some things go wrong at times. So yeah, definitely anything you can share

Clare Wood (28:09.337)
absolutely. Look I think a couple of things. Firstly when I started my business I was a massive tight ass. I did not spend money on anything. I built my own website. You know I'm an accountant by trade and I think now I wish that I had invested more in the long -term you know focused on the long -term growth in the early stages and I get it like you know I was trying to survive I did what I could at

you know, with limited resources at the time. But I look at my peers who, you know, had the beautiful website, started the podcast, were showing up on social media all the time then. I wasn't, I was too scared. I did not have the confidence to do that. And yeah, I'm, I've really stepped into my own the last couple of years in this space of visibility, of marketing, of really owning my space. And I really wish that I'd done that earlier.

And I think a big part of that has been my own healing self -love journey. And that is something that I think any business owner cannot underestimate is look after the owner, look after yourself.

and learn to love yourself because you are going to have so many experiences where the haters come at you, people have negative things to say, you know there's a reddit thread about you or your product or a bad google review and you cannot crumble in a heap and shut down your business when these things happen and I think the first you know time the first couple of times I failed I remember my first failed launch I

Melissa (29:43.7)
Yeah.

Clare Wood (29:51.465)
sat on my couch sobbing for days. It was like someone had died. I was in such a bad, bad head space and now I've learned, you know what, tough times are part of business and...

you know when I have things that don't go to plan now I'm like well that sucks what's the lesson I've learned okay let's move on I am not spending my day sitting sobbing on the couch you know so I had a hater situation the other day and one of my friends is like my gosh I don't know how to tell you this and I kind of had a laugh and she's like how are you laughing at this and I'm like it just it doesn't bother me like they're obviously jealous or triggered or whatever it might be and it's water off a duck's back to me and

Melissa (30:26.38)
You're like...

Clare Wood (30:37.139)
think that that has been one of the best things I've done is like learn to love myself be confident in myself and I think that it's just made me a lot more resilient as a business owner understanding that you know with the the ups come the downs and I remember that

I heard, you know, you can't have, I think that James Wedmore actually says is you can't have the things without having the other things. You can't have a beautiful loving relationship without risking getting your heart broken. You can't have, you know, the joy that comes from having kids, having kids without all of the crap that comes with it. And it's kind of the same with a business. You know, you don't get to have a massive big visible brand without having

Melissa (31:19.572)
Yeah.

Clare Wood (31:27.812)
the backlash and the feedback, you know.

Melissa (31:28.266)
Yeah, well in his one of his roadmaps like breaks sort of milestones is getting a hater like yay you've you know you're putting yourself out there that means that people are seeing it so it's like celebrate that you've actually got someone that's you know you're visible enough that that's going to come so like that's okay just just roll with

Clare Wood (31:47.181)
Absolutely. You know, like I always try and think I'm like who's the most neutral person I know I think of Princess Kate and how can anyone hate her like she's very you know she's not she's not controversial she's just lovely you're nice I guarantee you there will be entire Facebook communities of people who freaking hate her like I guarantee it and you think if people can hate on Kate

Melissa (31:55.979)
You

Melissa (32:00.202)
Yes, she.

Melissa (32:03.658)
Yep. she's got plenty.

Melissa (32:11.901)
Mmm. Yeah.

Clare Wood (32:15.984)
They're gonna dislike you. You can have the best product. You know people hate the most recognizable lovable brands in the world. There are people that hate Apple. There are people that hate Tesla. There are people that hate Amazon and you know any huge big global brand people hate and I think that that's the thing when you just recognize this is part of growth it's gonna happen.

Equally economic upturns downturns. It is part of business It is going to happen and when it when it's happening instead of being like, Why was me the world's over? Yeah. Okay. This is what's going on. It's a normal part of business But importantly, what am I going to do to navigate through this time?

Melissa (32:51.244)
for me, yeah.

Melissa (32:58.89)
Yeah, and I think that's a big thing. What can you control? And you can control how much you show up, how much you deliver to people in terms of go above and beyond, how much you know your numbers, if you're profitable or not. You can control those things. So that's the sort of things to focus on as opposed to external environment that you can't do much about. slower times in business are a great time to really assess what is working, what's not.

refine things as well if you're not as busy, you know, doing other things in your business.

Clare Wood (33:33.111)
Exactly. Yeah. Love that.

Melissa (33:35.584)
Yeah. And one thing just there, just remembered I was going to say was, you know, the, the, think I've had it on my Instagram before, like you don't like everybody. So why, you know, don't expect everybody to like you. Like it's okay. That's okay. And your product's not for everybody either. So don't, you don't need every single person in the world to love your product. You only need a snippet little tiny slice of, you know, the huge abundance amount of customers out there. So you don't need the whole marketplace.

Clare Wood (33:46.253)
Yeah. Exactly.

Clare Wood (34:01.315)
Yeah, exactly. Love

Melissa (34:04.714)
Yeah, and you know, there's competitors in everything and that's okay. Like owning that and celebrating, you know, people doing their own thing because everyone is different. Everyone's bringing different things. Everyone is going to relate to the energy or the person behind the products or behind the business differently to other people. So you can't be anyone but you. So don't even try to be, I guess is the thing.

Clare Wood (34:28.719)
Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly.

Melissa (34:32.522)
Yeah, and so, so much to share Claire. think one of the ones things I wanted to ask you about was what is the, know, entry point for people to work with you? Like what is one of the first things that people start off working with you doing in your, in your world?

Clare Wood (34:47.897)
Look my book is the reason I wrote my book was to have because I remember at one point in time it actually started because I had a potential client reach out to me and at the time I think the cheapest way you could work with me was like...

couple of thousand dollars and they said don't you have any other way that I can work with you and so that's what that was the start of writing my book you know it's $29 .95 it's at a very accessible price point you can get a feel for me my vibe and even if you never do anything more with me you can learn the basics of business finance and and learn a bit about mindset learn a bit about my own journey and and things like that so that's a really great starting point and then from there you know I have a couple of courses

Melissa (35:05.771)
I'm

Clare Wood (35:29.916)
And then of course I've got my my high ticket offerings like my retreats and my VIP days and my one -on -one coaching So there's quite a few ways that you can work with me But I think the book is a really great place to start. It's called intentional profit and You know, can grab it on my website, which is just Clarewood .com clarewood .com or on Amazon or booktopia or all the big players have it

Melissa (35:55.564)
amazing and obviously you've got a podcast you were just saying to me as well that you're up to 279 or 95 episodes or something that is epic so there's so much to consume there I think I've listened to almost all of those as well and yeah there's the book as you say it's it's an easy read like it's such a it's so insightful all the thin little stories in there that you tell as well which makes it really great

Clare Wood (36:01.553)
75! Yes, exactly.

Clare Wood (36:11.137)
Aww, thank you.

Melissa (36:21.726)
And then, your podcast, you've got lots to share on there so people can find you. It's just Clarewood podcast, is it?

Clare Wood (36:27.407)
Yeah, the Clarewood podcast. I'm not very creative like that.

Melissa (36:31.36)
Neither am I don't worry so It makes it easy to find you so amazing thank you so much for sharing with There's a lot to take in and I know that you know it might bring up a few things for people of You know, okay. Maybe I do have that money block to maybe that's something I need to work on You know, I could explore my story a little bit more to by you know, hearing some of your insights. So thank you so

Clare Wood (36:37.709)
Exactly.

Clare Wood (36:56.434)
it's a pleasure, thanks so much for having me I really appreciate

Melissa (36:59.986)
and we'll speak to you soon.

Clare Wood (37:01.914)
Yeah, we sure will. Thank you. Bye.

Melissa (37:03.752)
Okay, thanks Claire, bye.