Meet Angela Vithoulkas, Nikki Hills and Trudy Johnston, three smart, driven, incredibly passionate business women who have created their companies from the ground up. Here, they walk us through the journey and give the most valuable kind of advice – the kind gleaned from personal experience.
Angela Vithoulkas
Founder and director of VIVO Café Group, Sydney.
I was born in Liverpool Sydney, the daughter of Greek migrant parents.
I am a warrior waitress who caught her first shoplifter at the amazing age of 3 years old – there were 3 of them, one for each year! I’m very proud that we have achieved six awards for the business, including City of Sydney Business Awards for Outstanding Café of the Year and Outstanding Business of the Year. I was also the winner of the Telstra New South Wales 2007 Women’s Business Owner Award. Over the last three years I have added the role of MC and keynote speaker to my list of business activities, something which I really enjoy, especially when I get to meet other inspiring business women and experience the incredible feedback they give me.
I have always been involved in hospitality, literally being born into it – my mother went into labour with me while serving a customer in her café!
I have been a business owner for the past 25 years. I have always been based in the city, where it’s buzzing, having established and sold several cafés over that period before establishing my current brand, VIVO Café Group 5 years ago.
I actually still enjoy being hands on as much today as I did 25 years ago when I first started. But, as well as being involved in the business, I’m now helping my team to treat the business as if it were their own. This is a very rewarding aspect of my job.
How I Do It
I never finished high school as I was in a huge hurry to start my entrepreneurial journey, naively thinking that it was just a process and a decision that then automatically led to wealth and success. Even though my family had been in business, I had no idea what lay ahead. I also had no idea how hungry and ambitious I would be. My inspiration has always been my mother, who came to this country as a young woman of 15 -no education, no family, no money. She left her home because her family could not afford to feed her and was determined to never experience that again. There are always setbacks in business, and they easily become disasters. As a woman, I have always had plan B, so setbacks become part of the plan. Its all about perspective. By having the mindset that everything won’t always go to plan, it allows you continue to move the business forward rather than focusing on negatives.
What’s Next For Me
My new goal is to build a “supercafe” model and replicate it around the world. We are currently working on this at our flagship store – 388 George St Sydney. It’s about the people, from the inside out and establishing the core values within your teams and your brand.
Top 3 tips for Women Wanting to Start Their own Business:
- Make friends with your fears. Fears can provide answers, results and truth
- Really truly and totally believe in yourself and how great you are
- Your timeline and expectations are not necessarily those of your business, be real about this to avoid undue stress and heartache. It very rarely happens overnight, hardly ever easily and almost never without tears. Its all good
Nikki Hills
Founder of Eletta Advertising Agency
I could pretend I’m some Supermum who has it all and still manages to have perfectly manicured nails and sex 6 times a week – but I’d be LYING!
I’m crazy, I take on too much and then regret it and I don’t know how to relax. I spend too much time tired and not enough time taking stock and being still. Rationally I know I need to slow down and “be present” when I’m with my kids. But I’m trying to create a space where I have the flexibility to be around for my family as they continue to grow – and right now, that requires a lot of work.
My husband and I have been blessed with four beautiful children – 2 boys and 2 girls. Toby is 9, Emma nearly 6 and Abby is nearly 4. Nearly 6 years ago, on the night we brought Emma home from hospital, our second son Noah died during the night at 17 months. He was perfectly healthy and they have never found a reason for his death. He was the most beautiful child and should be 7 this year. I continue to be involved with Sids’n’KidsNSW – especially when we have a new family that has lost a child.
I spend my life thinking about losing the 12 kilos the BMI would have me believe I need to lose. At the moment it’s another thing on my list that tends to rank quite low (given my lack of enthusiasm when it comes to exercise!) I’m an open book and I love a good discussion. I believe the way to a great friendship is honesty and a willingness to share yourself. I don’t drink enough water and I don’t wash off my makeup nearly as much as I should – I’m a million miles from perfect but I’ll continue to try!
What I Do
When my two boys were very young, I decided I would create a company that truly worked for families.
Eletta, a full service advertising agency that specialises in marketing to mothers, is based in Sydney and is staffed by an amazing collection of parents who wanted a workplace that understood the ins and outs of sick kids, school carnivals, tuckshop, school holidays and being tired from night upon night of control crying or tummy bugs. We even have a shared nanny so that staff of Eletta can access excellent quality, relatively inexpensive childcare within a flexible arrangement to fit in with changing work pressures.
We embrace flexibility and celebrate the fact that all the very best talent eventually drops out of big corporates and big agencies to look for something better.
Given eletta’s speciality, we then launched www.mouthsofmums.com.au, in October 2009. Mouths of Mums is a website built by Mums for Mums. We’re all about creating a space where Mums can share their motherhood experiences and connect with other mothers for support, fun, friendship, maybe a little advice or just a virtual pat on the back.
It’s also a space where we can put you in touch with some of the newest products, services and ideas relevant to you and then have you tell us what you think. At Mouths of Mums, it’s all about you and it’s where your say really counts.
How I Do It
Eletta has certainly existed as a concept since my oldest son was born. I pretty knew that once we started our family, I didn’t want to head back to a corporate job in the city leaving my children with nannies all day long. I had my children for a reason and they remain the most important project my husband and I will ever undertake.
The business was slow to take off – basically it was myself and a designer for the first couple of years. Some months, I’d be mentally busy and then everything would be really quiet for a while. There was a patch where I didn’t have much work at all and I believe this was the universe looking after me. I was pregnant with my third child and the time Noah had left with us was ever dwindling. The two boys and I lapped up the lack of clients and spent the summer walking to the beach. Weeks later, Emma was born and Noah had died.
Everyone rallied and my clients, bless them, gave me the time I needed. It took my weeks to get back to meetings and months to be able to think, write and conceptualise again.
Life rolled on and Abby came along. She was the catalyst for massive growth. I told her, my kids, myself and everyone that would listen that now was the time to get a move on and to really get the business pumping.
I did and today Eletta has quadrupled in size, we employ a wonderful network of staff and have clients I never want to lose. We’re busy, it’s crazy times but work works for our whole family – my husband has even just left his full-time corporate general management role to join us.
What’s Next For Me
The Manly Daily ran a full-page article on our business model and we had over 60 brilliant people contact us. They all wanted to come and work with us as the concept of how we work fitted their life-stage (i.e. most were parents and were considering going back into advertising but didn’t want the hours, the travel or the stress).
My next mission is to grow the business by developing ongoing relationships with new clients – and in doing this, I’ll be able to give other parents choice in the way they work.
Top 3 tips for Women Wanting to Start Their own Business:
Oh so hard to condense to just three things! Starting your own business has so many parallels with the most special relationships in your life (think life partner or children). There are days when you will seriously question why you ever set out to do anything beyond the norm. You want to shout ‘stop the World and let me off’ because really it’s just too, too much sometimes.
Other days, the tide will come in and your business will be tracking perfectly – to plan, to budget and everyone within your circle will be happily aligned. These are the days when it’s important to be still and appreciate that all of this came about because you decided to create something special.
Sorry, you wanted 3 tips …
- Create a roadmap for your life – importantly your business plans need to be considered as part of your overall situation. It’s unrealistic to assume that you’ll be able to spend a 60 hour week committed to your business if there’s anyone other than you in your world. Add babies or children to this and it just gets trickier. Everything crosses over at one time or another and while acknowledging this won’t solve anything, it allows you to have more realistic expectations about how quickly you can grow the business.
- Find a mentor – life as a woman in business is quite lonely. Sure, you’re busy and you’re probably talking to clients and staff all day but when you’re the boss, there’s not really anyone who gives you ongoing praise or constructive feedback and there’s not really anyone you can have a completely no-holes barred vent to (without being judged). At so many levels, a mentor will fill your cup. Set expectations up front as to the role you’d like them to fill and show them you value everything they add to your situation. An objective mentor is great for feedback, advice, praise or just to listen with empathy.
- Appreciate the journey – we all know we need to ‘keep our eye on the prize’ however take the time to celebrate along the way. Review yourself at the end of each year and acknowledge just how far you’ve come. You have no doubt learnt a thousand new things, perfected skills you never thought you would and have brought a completely new circle of people into your life you otherwise would never have met.
Please feel free to call Nikki Hills for further information on:
Office | 02 8212 4446
Mobile | 0414 768 085
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Trudy Johnston
I am the Director of TJC ~ to join creatively ~ an arts publicity and marketing agency that works with festivals, writers, musicians, galleries, artists and publishing houses to promote them with heart and creativity.
Originally from Sydney, but now based in Byron Bay, I’m busy teaching and empowering others around Australia to get the word out there about their projects and life’s passions in a very nuts and bolts type of way.
I am very passionate about communications, the arts, health and wellbeing and I always seem to be writing, talking or listening to someone about their work! During my 16 year career as an arts publicist, lecturer and workshop facilitator, I’ve been so fortunate to have worked with top international musicians, visual and performing artists; from the Sydney2000 Olympic Games to the Biennale of Sydney to singer Toni Childs and a whole lot more in between.
I work intuitively and focus on identifying someone’s dream or vision for their life so that I can assist them to communicate that with passion and integrity through marketing channels. The media is a great vehicle to bring messages of inspiration and positivity, if you know how to use it effectively!
So I combine my intuitive guidance with business knowledge, marketing strategies and publicity processes to create a very personalised campaign for a client.
Practically, what this means that I initially get a ‘sense’ of where the client wants to go and infuse this goal with a highly strategic plan. For example, when a campaign for an organisation or individual requires the development of a brand essence or series of media messages, I’ll work with what I ‘see’ as well as implement the most appropriate marketing steps – devising campaign strategy and story angles, media interview training, writing media releases, branding, copy writing, website creation, online marketing strategies etc.
How I Do It
My sense of ‘can do’ fundamentally came from being a young single mum with a daughter, no money, very little support, no professional qualifications, no mentors but a high sense of daring adventure. When faced with the choice of living on benefits or making a success of my life (nothing like a good challenge to spur action!) I quickly identified my passion, got back to uni, and launched a successful arts career as an arts publicist and marketer.
Fast forward 8 years and I started my agency from a kitchen table in a rented Sydney terrace with an old computer, no business knowledge, but a big dream.
With hard work, many mistakes on the way and a crash course in business management (the hard way) I quickly built TJC into what became one of Australia’s largest agencies for the arts with a team of seven and approximately 25 campaigns running simultaneously. The UNSW and Australian Business Arts Foundation came knocking at my door and I started to teach others what I did.
Recently when facilitating my workshops, I found my own life being addressed with what I was teaching others, ‘What’s my vision for the next step of my life?’ the question came resounding back at me.
A big Sydney-based agency had meant long hours and high responsibility levels. My new creative impulses needed time, space and a beautiful environment. Now I’m in Bryon Bay, with a new team of four, sowing the seeds of the next steps of my journey and constantly on Skype mentoring my entrepreneurial daughter, who has a thriving fashion business coming out of Bali.
What’s Next for Me
I’ve got a combination of projects in gestation. I’m developing more programs to teach passionate creative people and those in the health and wellbeing industry how to do their own publicity and marketing: a small group ‘hands on’ workshop series as well as a one-to-one mentorship program. Both types of training are intuitively guided to identify the opportunities for people’s projects as well as reveal the energetic blocks to realising their dreams.
From working with artists for over 16 years, I’m now finally giving myself time and space to write and create my own projects.
After also intensively studying tantra for three years, I regularly write magazine articles about healing and sacred sexuality. I’m currently creating a number of online projects that get the message out there to put ‘the heart back into sex’, showing people how they can reconnect with themselves, their energy and thus enable them to have loving and fulfilling relationships with their partners.
Top 3 tips for Women Wanting to Start Their own Business
- Love what you do, know your vision and where you want to go, keep dreaming and put your focus in where you’re going rather than where you’re at now.
- Understand that success is for those who are bold. Intelligence, knowledge and skills are a vital part of your toolbox, but courage and faith are what will keep you going when faced with challenges.
- Be authentic and real. Having integrity and passion is infectious; these qualities will draw likeminded people and projects to you and ultimate fulfill you.
