Let's start with some fun facts

(Not the fun facts type? Keep scrolling if you just want to get to the biz bit)

• Born in Rosebud (not A Rosebud, The Rosebud - small town in regional Victoria, Australia); grew up on the sunny Gold Coast. Not your typical GC girl - my brothers teased me for my “library tan” rather than my sun tan - I don’t surf, and I’m scared of fish
• Always the gold star student, quite the little teacher pleaser (when it suited me). 
• Got a law degree. Some vague idea about it being “useful”. Never practised as a lawyer
• Met my (English) husband while I was performing in a pantomime in London’s West End. Neither of us are actors - he just used to come to post rehearsal drinks
• I took up ballet in my 40s. At my first concert, my mum said I was “brave.” The next year, she said I’d “really improved.” Progress. Definitely not perfection
• I discovered I was allergic to dairy a month before we moved to France for a year. France is many things. Dairy free is not one of them.
• I’ve blown tyres in multiple countries: Sweden (fixed by a toothless Welshman), Spain (six police officers), and New Zealand (a passing Aussie). I can actually change a tyre
• I read around 150 books a year. Yes, cover to cover. (Not so smug now, are you Bill Gates?)
• My cat is obsessed with me. Alarmingly so. He stares at me while I’m on the loo. My other cat is indifferent. I wish I could get another dog (jokes, cats, just jokes!)
• I have two boys. Both taller than me now. Handy for things on the high shelves. Not so handy when they put the good stuff on the high shelves. What can I say? Kids are shits (jokes, kids, just jokes!)
• Coffee or tea? Don’t be daft - both. Plus a smoothie and a glass of water.

The serious business-y type stuff

Hotseat interview style!

Tell me, Vanessa, were you born organised?

When I was a kid, I used to line up all my teddies in order before I went to sleep. But that was really just so I’d have space to somersault from one end of the bed to the other.

So, no.

What I am is a chronic over-committer, and an over-committer of people around me, too. Which is how my husband and I always seem to end up volunteering for stuff. (On the plus side, I met one of my best mates at a fundraiser sausage sizzle.) Throw in kids, (also over-committed, naturally) and a business, wanting to have some semblance of a social life and a pathological hatred of being late and I had to learn how to get my shit together.

Why do you bang on about business systems so much?

Ready to blow your "nerd alert" klaxon? Because systems (literally) changed my life. When I figured out how to build systems in my business, I no longer needed the regular ugly crying meltdowns because shit actually did run smoothly, and without my fingers in every pie. After years of moaning to my husband that I was "so over" the business and that I was going to just burn it down and walk away from it all, I systemised and sold it. Then walked away from it all, with cash in my pocket. 

Then we lived in France for 12 months last year, Spain for 4 months this year, and now we're in England. After more than 10 years of wanting to do this, it feels amazing.  

And what's with all the virtual assistants? 

Many moons (20 + years of moons) ago, my husband and I started outsourcing some of his accountancy work to Malaysia. It's a long (and mostly forgotten) story, but it opened our eyes to the possibilities of working with a team half a world away. 

So when I needed some admin help in my business, back in 2011, I hired my first virtual assistant in the Philippines to help support me and my local team. It was not, shall we say, smooth sailing to begin with. But after some (okay, a lot) of trial and error and building my own skills, I built an amazing team, and some of them are still working with me today - 10+ years later.  

How did you get into teaching this business systems stuff?

People (especially other mums) used to ask me how I “managed to do it all”? It didn’t always feel like that from the inside, but these days I'm pretty awesome at building systems to get stuff done.

“Oh, Ness can help organise that” is a phrase I hear a lot. And because I graduated the 12 Step Control Freaks and Perfectionists Anonymous programme* a number of years back, I’m super good at getting lots of shit done without feeling like I have to do it all myself. Or barking orders at people like some kind of mini field marshal.

And just like a reformed smoker, I loooove to show people what it’s like from the other side, and get paid for it, too.

*I made that up, btw.

How come 50,000 people are obsessed with you?

Not gonna lie. I stole that line from someone’s “join my newsletter” spiel. I do have a few people who kinda like me. I mean, they open my emails every week. My clients love me. And my cat. He is definitely obsessed with me.

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You've reached the bottom of the page - yay, you! Which I guess means that you're now obsessed with me, too (or at least mildly interested).  

Anyway, I've got questions for you, too. Like what board game do you move on to after bananagrams? I'm on the hunt for the perfect crisp now that I'm living in England, and need help - what's good? And are you as obsessed with systems and delegation as I am? (Stick around - you will be!) 

Help me answer these and more - by dropping into my emails at [email protected] (I'm old school enough that I still love an email and I reply to them all). 

Or slide into my DMs (do the kids still say that?) and say g'day. Can't wait to meet you!

Vanessa xx