Heather Falls: Empowering Women Entrepreneurs at Grow and Flourish Community

Can you imagine transforming your business in a way that aligns perfectly with your personal values and long-term life goals? Join us as we uncover this reality with Heather Falls, the remarkable founder of Grow and Flourish Community in Tuscaloosa. Heather opens up about the significant hurdles women entrepreneurs face, including the scarcity of support systems and mentorship. Dive into our conversation as Heather shares practical strategies for networking, relationship building, and setting clear business goals. She stresses the importance of creating a supportive business environment where women can flourish as leaders and how aligning business aspirations with personal values plays a crucial role in sustainable success.

Balancing business and personal life can feel like an impossible challenge, but Heather has some valuable insights to share. Learn how she maintains her entrepreneurial responsibilities while setting boundaries to ensure a well-rounded life. Heather talks about dedicating specific days for client work and family time, offering a glimpse into her structured approach to time management and well-being. Plus, discover the unique aspects of Grow and Flourish Community that provide women entrepreneurs with the support they need to thrive. Don't miss Heather's invitation to connect with this empowering community and unlock practical strategies for achieving business success and personal balance. #GNPNorthport #HeatherFalls #HeatherFallsConsulting #GrowandFlourish #WomenInBusiness #WomenOwned #WomenOwnedBusiness #WomenEntrepreneurs #WorkLifeBalance #GrowingYourBusiness

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Patricia Blondheim.

Speaker 2: 0:15

Welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast. I'm your host, Patricia Blondheim, and today we have good neighbor Heather Falls, and Heather is the founder of Grow and Flourish Community here in Tuscaloosa. Heather, how are you today?

Speaker 3: 0:30

Hi Patricia, I'm doing. Great Thanks for having me on the show.

Speaker 2: 0:34

Oh, I'm really excited. I've met you many times and I'm excited about what you do because it's very unique. So tell us a little bit about the Grow and Flourish Community.

Speaker 3: 0:44

Yeah, absolutely so. The Grow and Flourish community. We are ambitious women entrepreneurs and business owners who are looking to elevate our business with the support of a community. Women who want to empower and uplift one another support each other. It's all about community over competition and women who also want to be more involved in our local community. So all of our in-person events support women and children in need in West Alabama.

Speaker 2: 1:15

Let's talk about the unique challenges that women entrepreneurs face and how you help them overcome those challenges.

Speaker 3: 1:24

Yeah, so I think that one of the major challenges of being a woman in business is not having a huge support system, not knowing where to turn to for feedback or guidance or even if it's just for mentorship right, if we need to ask a question about, you know, a way to save time in our business or a way to grow online or whatever that need is that we're looking for? We don't really know where to turn, and I say that because I struggled with that when I was a new business owner and even with the networks that I had and with the skills that I had, I still struggled with productivity, time management, growth, getting visible A lot of the common things that I see women are having issues with today and it's it comes down to not having a supportive community to turn to for that kind of feedback and empowerment.

Speaker 2: 2:32

I'm pausing for just a moment. So, Heather, we know it's really important that women embrace mentorship and networking, but what strategies do you recommend for women to employ there?

Speaker 3: 2:55

So for networking and just getting more involved. It has to do with building relationships. It has to do with taking your story and finding the people who resonate with it. I think a lot of times we are so. We're just not really sure how to share about our business. We're not sure what language resonates, we're not sure who our ideal clients are, we're not sure what the best avenues are for growing our business. We're not sure what the best avenues are for growing our business, and so I think the best thing we can do is come together in an all-inclusive environment where we can learn those strategies for growth, but we can also network with each other and share what's worked for one another or what struggles we've had through growing our business, and making sure that we're just providing a safe space for those questions to be asked and for that feedback to be given, without feeling like we're competing with one another constantly.

Speaker 2: 3:56

This approach, I'm sure, is still evolving, but what have been some of the most rewarding experiences in your career as a consultant for for female entrepreneurs?

Speaker 3: 4:09

Oh, wow. I think that that list is growing every day. I would have to say that I have just been able to mentor a lot of strong, passionate women and really help them see what, what the future for their life and their business could look like. I think a lot of times, being able to envision what our dreams are and then figuring out how to make that a tangible action plan is really hard to do, and so sometimes you just need somebody's outside opinion to kind of look in and see what you're doing and to learn more about what your passions and skills are and what makes you happy, so that you can turn that business into something that's thriving and makes you happy throughout that journey.

Speaker 3: 5:00

A lot of times I see women struggle with starting a business because they want more time and freedom, but then they get so caught up behind the scenes they don't have the right people in place, they don't have the right structure, the right foundations, and so then it's just me coming in to see what's working and what's not working and be able to give them that feedback in different ways and strategies to implement into their business to solve those pain points specific to them.

Speaker 3: 5:29

I think that I know for sure that I've helped a lot of moms go from struggling to not having a business but having a dream of wanting to work from home. I've helped a lot of women who have just been overwhelmed. They're doing everything in their business and I've helped them take a step back and set boundaries and say, well, this is not where my time and energy needs to be spent. So how do I find the right person that can help me grow my business and work with me to do these tasks like admin or email management or scheduling calls or, you know, working with inventory? Like who do I need in my business to do these things so that I can actually up level and become the CEO that I want to be in my business?

Speaker 2: 6:15

I think that visualization is the key, and I'm just going to extend myself into the conversation by saying that I have trouble visualizing, as a woman, what I want my business to be. I feel like, because my life is very multidimensional, that I have trouble focusing on how I want my life to look, and it's crucial. It's crucial for us, as women, to be able to focus on what we want for our business, when what we're looking at usually is how do we spread ourselves, our limited selves, thinly over the surface that we need to cover in our lives?

Speaker 3: 7:01

Yeah, I definitely agree with that.

Speaker 3: 7:09

A lot of times I'm seeing women who kind of just lack that clarity of they haven't spent a lot of time on what their core values are and what their passion is and what those long term goals are for not just their business, but what do they want out of their life as well, and helping them understand that they really need to consider the impact that they want their business to have on their life.

Speaker 3: 7:26

And then a lot of times it comes down to just understanding conflicting priorities, not being able to balance your goals, that you need your short-term goals to help you implement those actions right and helping them. Being able to align those with your long-term vision tends to be pretty difficult for us. And then there's also the fear of change, the overwhelm that we face, the different issues that we have with being able to measure progress or maintain focus on specific things. So I think we have a lot of struggles, a lot of obstacles that we face and a lot of times we don't seek the help that we need to get past those obstacles seek the help that we need to get past those obstacles.

Speaker 2: 8:17

Heather, can you share your journey into consulting and what inspired you to focus on helping women entrepreneurs?

Speaker 3: 8:21

Yeah, absolutely. So I'm going to give you the long but short version of my story. I am a radiologic technologist by trade. I have worked in the healthcare industry for 15 years, working with hospitals, urgent care centers, chiropractic offices, you name it. I've probably worked with them and not just from a radiology standpoint but from a business strategy standpoint. I've been a leader in getting them more foot traffic in their doors. I've helped them market their business. I've helped them look at it from a people standpoint what kind of systems and processes need to be changed or improved, who are the right people for their businesses? And I've been doing that throughout the years.

Speaker 3: 9:03

But the consulting side of my business, the the expertise that I drew from that really came from when I was helping a startup company here in Tuscaloosa called Simplified Medical Management Great organization and I really learned how to work with those businesses to streamline their operations and streamline how they hire and find the right people, to be a part of the organization that has the same vision as the organization, that's willing to be as passionate about what they do about what they do as the CEOs and the leadership team themselves. So I think that my experience really evolved as I worked there. I helped them with marketing and sales and wore several different hats, but throughout that process I just grew a love and a passion for working with those businesses one-on-one and being involved in their leadership team meetings and helping them measure progress and see what could be improved or tweaked or changed. See what could be improved or tweaked or changed, how to reach those measurable milestones or those KPIs in their business, how to help them assess what they're working on and what those goals are and what the right short-term goals were to reach their long-term goals. Because a lot of times we have a hard time doing that.

Speaker 3: 10:31

And fast forward a little bit to when my son was born in 2021, we faced some child care issues. We had family watching over him that could no longer watch over our little boy and it was hard to put him in child care. Right then, all the child care options were full or the amount that those childcare options were were just not something that I thought was a reasonable trade-off for my time with my son or putting him in childcare. So I did what a lot of moms and women dream to do I started my own business and I faced a lot of struggles and hurdles and obstacles, even though I was able to replace my nine to five within one week with one client. I struggled with time management. I struggled with knowing what to focus on in my business. I struggled with being able to plan and figure out what my vision was and really understand what my long-term goals were.

Speaker 3: 11:30

I was so used to doing that for other businesses that it was a little bit harder for me to do it for myself, and then, when I tried to find community or support, there just wasn't a ton available here in our area and not just in our area, just in general, I work, I'm in a lot of groups online. I do a lot of online networking. I'm a part of a lot of organizations online that are specific for networking and business growth, and there wasn't a lot of help for women out there. That wasn't $20,000 or more, and, as a new business owner, I just wasn't able to invest in that, not knowing or trusting or understanding who I was going to be working with. So I thought that the affordable options out there for women was lacking. We didn't have specific events here in Tuscaloosa that were focused on women networking and women community and being able to empower and lift each other up, and so it was just something that I thought was really missing in our area, and I wanted to bring it to Tuscaloosa.

Speaker 2: 12:47

And thank you for that, because you're right, there are not a lot of resources for women, to help women, and I think that's so important. What are some common mistakes that you see women entrepreneurs making when they start their businesses, and how can they avoid them?

Speaker 3: 13:08

There's a lot of things that I'm seeing right now and I'm just going to cover some of the basic ones. A lot of things that I'm seeing right now and I'm just going to cover some of the basic ones. One is not having the right foundations in place in your business, not having a strategy or a brand vision or having clarity around who your ideal client is and what your offers are and how that helps your ideal client. I would say that one of the issues that I see is not really having an understanding of marketing and general marketing practices. You know, like, what platforms are better for your business. You don't need to be on every single social platform. Your ideal client is not on every single social platform.

Speaker 3: 13:52

I would say that another struggle that I see is time management, productivity or not spending our time and our energy and our resources on the right things that are really going to help our business grow. One of the things that I've seen help with all of these is having a business plan. Most women don't have a business plan, and I'm not talking about one of those huge 15 to 20 page legal business plan documents I'm talking about. They don't have a mission statement. They don't have a 10 year or five year vision for their business. They don't know, they don't have a clear understanding of who they want to work with and what they're bringing to the table that's unique for their business. So this is one of the things I really focus on helping women entrepreneurs and business owners with when they first start working with me, because I've seen the struggle both personally and I've seen it with many other women in business as well.

Speaker 2: 15:00

Heather, what do you? What do you do to fill your own cup? I mean, you're out there pouring into other women and it seems a little overwhelming. Honestly, from where I'm sitting, Do you ever have time to have fun? And what do you do?

Speaker 3: 15:10

Absolutely, patricia. So when I started my business I think I mentioned earlier, but I started my business, just like so many moms and women do, to have that financial time freedom I'm sorry, financial and time freedom for their business. So one of the things that I make sure I do is I set boundaries. I have typical work days that are Monday, wednesday, thursday, where I do client work, I have client meetings, I am working on workshops and trainings and building up my community on those days, and then I spend Tuesdays and Fridays, a majority of the time with my son. I make sure that I set those boundaries in place so that I can have that time with him. I can, you know, help him learn his ABCs and help him learn, you know, all those things. But then I also make sure that I save time for my family. So I cut my work days off at four or five o'clock, depending on the day. I make sure that my weekends are not filled with work.

Speaker 3: 16:18

I think that having those boundaries and having that schedule is really important for your business and it's going to look different for every single woman out there. And that's the most important thing, I think to remember that what works for me may not work for you, but let's find something that does work for you. Let's figure out what your schedule needs to look like with your family to give you that time freedom that you want. But then how do we make sure that we implement the things in your business that are going to give you that financial freedom as well? And so I fill my cup by setting boundaries and making sure that I manage my time to the best of my ability so that my energy and my focus is on the things where it needs to be at that time.

Speaker 2: 17:06

So that my energy and my focus is on the things where it needs to be at that time.

Speaker 3: 17:11

Heather what would you like our listeners to take away about the Grow and Flourish community? You know, I think it's such a unique experience. Our workshops and our events, and our community in general, is a strategic platform for any woman, entrepreneur and business owner to grow. They aren't your average workshops and networking events. We equip, inspire, empower females to focus on practical strategies for not just business success, but also helping them build strong support systems and networks. We help them support the community through local causes and we help teach strategies for balancing business responsibilities with their personal life. I don't think there's anything out there that's like this, and we have lots of different ways that you can get involved through being a part of our Grow Inner Circle, which is our monthly membership, or being a speaker or a vendor at an event, or partnering with us so that we can help you grow your business while you help us grow our community Wonderful.

Speaker 2: 18:17

How can our listeners connect with the Grow and Flourish community?

Speaker 3: 18:21

The best place to find us right now is on Instagram, and that's growflourishco. So G-R-O-W-F-L-O-U-R-I-S-H, co. That's on Instagram, patricia. I know you're going to link it in the show notes, so that would be great, but that's the best place to learn about upcoming events. Stay tuned on what our members are doing. Tuned on what our members are doing, have access to connecting with us and just staying involved through any way possible, and you don't have to be local in Tuscaloosa to get involved.

Speaker 2: 18:56

Great. Thank you so much, Heather, for doing what you're doing, but also for spending time with us here at the Good Neighbor podcast. I really loved learning all about the Grow and Flourish community.

Speaker 3: 19:08

Thank you, patricia, for having me. It's hard to get everything that I want to say into the podcast, but if anybody else wants to speak with me, then they can reach out to me and we can learn more about each other that way as well. Great, thank you. So much, heather. Thank you.

Speaker 1: 19:24

Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast Northport. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to GNPNorthportcom. That's GNPNorthportcom, or call 205-809-4910.