From Entrepreneurship to Authorship: Jan Cavelle’s Story

Unknown: 00:00:02

Welcome to the Freedom Nation podcast with Jeff Kikel. On this show, Jeff shares his expertise in financial and retirement planning from a different perspective. Planning for Your Freedom Day, which is the first day that you wake up and have enough income or assets and do not have to go to work that day. Learn how to calculate what you need, how to generate income sources, and listen to interviews from others who have done it themselves. Get ready to experience your own Freedom Day.

Jeff Kikel: 00:00:36

Hey, everybody, it's Jeff here, once again with the freedom nation podcast. And today we have a friend from across the pond. Jan Cavell. Jan is a is an entrepreneur, she started off as an entrepreneur, built a business up, ended up leaving that business and kind of creating freedom and what she calls her happy place, which I'll let her explain that to you. So Jan, welcome to the show today.

Jan Cavelle: 00:01:03

Just wanted to thank you very much for inviting me on.

Jeff Kikel: 00:01:06

I appreciate it so much. Looking forward to having you on today. Why don't we start off with you telling us a little bit about your story?

Jan Cavelle: 00:01:14

Sure. Well, I started as some of your audience will identify with, with a very brief tank or with the horrid time of being in a job you loathe or several jobs in my case, because I loved them. I didn't very partly and usually got pushed out. So it didn't take me long to go for self employed route. I mean, I was still under 21, I decided that at working for myself was absolutely the only way to go. So I was very happy doing that to lots and lots of different things. But I ended up as a single mother through a divorce and extremely broke. And so I had to take things a bit more seriously. So I built a business up from kitchen table startup to a fair size with 15 people.

Jeff Kikel: 00:02:07

Or whatever type of business was this?

Jan Cavelle: 00:02:10

That was a manufacturing business. Okay, wow. Tough, tough, tough gig. Not one I'd encourage people to go into and that's really a very, very good reasons mine was more accidental. You know, I started off just selling. And I was buying and selling, but I couldn't get the supply chain. Right. So hence, hence going into manufacturing myself. So that's I mean, it was great when it was small, loved it to pieces, you know, what sort of under 12 people. So what was fantastic, you know, we could all work out a great life. But after that I think has changed a lot. You go

Jeff Kikel: 00:02:51

from parts of it that you love to be in the den mother that it's

Jan Cavelle: 00:02:56

Yeah, I don't know if that's exactly what anybody would have called me. I've been called was called monitorings. dead mother would have been. But yeah, that's right. You do and it's a complete change. And it's very, very, very tough. And it's not for everybody. And I worked at it for 10 years, I guess at that size. But it just it just absolutely burnt me out. It wasn't for me. I should never stayed there. 10 years, but But yeah, you're right, I am back to my happy place. I work for myself, albeit not not as driven as I don't have to be as driven given my age. So I do what I'd love to do, which is a combination of two things from my past, one of which is writing because I'd started writing articles, I'd always dreamed of being a writer anyway, from childhood. So you know, happy times. And I'd also become involved in a lot of entrepreneurial campaigns or others, you had to manage your entrepreneurial campaigns. That's right wage budget campaigns, encouraging others to consider entrepreneurship for the UK Government and various other people. And so I love that I loved opening people's minds to possibility even if it wasn't for them, that's fine. But you know, a lot of people think I can't do it, I shouldn't do it. And I'm not aware enough that it could be for them. So I love that work. Putting that together, which is what I do now with my writing, of sort of opening our gateway and I into entrepreneurship, for anybody to read. It's very much my happy place.

Jeff Kikel: 00:04:44

Now when you write is it more about trying to convince people to get into entrepreneurship or is it really just more talking about, you know, you came from the field of, of being an entrepreneur kind of sharing those experiences or a combination

Jan Cavelle: 00:05:01

It's combination actually my first book, which I never thought I'd pull off, because, you know, it was sort of grown up dream your name. But that one was really exploring that that sort of stage you go through, but we were talking about, why is that bigger leap so tough. So Bob was that was as much initially for me as a bit of a thesis exploration. Whereas this latest book, I have Arge is very much back to the roots of entrepreneurial campaign making people aware that they could do it. Because it's, it's called start for success. And it's is I've tried very hard to make it authentic. I think there are a lot of books written about entrepreneurship, which may be very good, very sound textbook wise. But I wanted people to know what it was really like, you know, warts and all.

Jeff Kikel: 00:05:52

Yeah, well, let's talk about that a little bit. I mean, you know, you, you've been successful growing, you know, starting a business growing your business, I mean, that that alone is, you know, fantastic. But then you also had that growth phase. So let's talk a little bit about that. I mean, what do you attribute your original success, too, you know, getting past that kitchen table.

Jan Cavelle: 00:06:17

I think it was a combination of things, I think on a skill set wise, and trust me, my skills were limited. I had done quite a lot of sales, orientated, selling. Okay. I do think that sales is a massively useful skill, you know, in life, even if you're a founder that never ever wants to do sales for fat, but you couldn't have that ability to put forward a vision and to communicate with people and all those things. I do think it's a really good asset. So my only skill was useful, particularly considering the lack of the others. But yeah, that huge determination, because I was really up against it. And the children were very young. So you know, I totally will have to.

Jeff Kikel: 00:07:06

Yeah, yeah. You have to make it happen. Yeah.

Jan Cavelle: 00:07:09

Oh, you need to get your going. You know, it's not all all dreams. Sometimes it's just reality.

Jeff Kikel: 00:07:15

Now, was that that move beyond the kitchen table, a conscious decision? Or did it just kind of evolve as you were going? Or it was

Jan Cavelle: 00:07:23

pretty full thing. It was a niggling me for a long while. I mean, we started very early. As I said, we were manufacturing and part of part is sort of half of the processes. We started very early, because we just couldn't buy a gym. But that was still very much a cottage industry. And when we grew, it began to nickel me, I was thinking this is ridiculous. Why am I not doing it myself? And then thinking I wouldn't have a clue har. And it came accidentally, believe it or not, because the main person who was making all the furniture we had literally decided to retire overnight. He wrapped up on Friday afternoon and said, I'm sorry, I've had enough there won't be any furniture next week. And I went Wow. So a little bit of hysteria and a lot of negotiation. And I had a small furniture business as well as my existing one. Okay. And then it just was way beyond my expectation and it had to grow it had to be practically had to be one roof and the roof had to be paid for and yeah, so it was sort of organic and forced

Jeff Kikel: 00:08:34

to your your sourcing from UK not not overseas, okay.

Jan Cavelle: 00:08:40

I was I was buying a few things. And from Italy. Of course, it's a big hot button and you couldn't buy sub starts from Italy. Because they encourage furniture manufacturing over there in a way perhaps we don't in the UK. Okay. Which makes it hard to be competitive. Yeah, exactly. Without getting too political or on my side.

Jeff Kikel: 00:09:03

And in today's world with a Brexit and everything else, it's a whole nother animal.

Jan Cavelle: 00:09:07

I shouldn't get the chance anymore. I mean, yeah, honestly.

Jeff Kikel: 00:09:12

Yeah. Besides driving over and throwing them on your Yeah, it's just it's so much more complex now. And, you know, you would think that everything got easier, but it really hasn't. I mean, it's just as more more politics to get involved in the whole mess. So you you went, you know, you kind of built the business up and you had that 10 year stint, what was the what was kind of the impetus for Okay, I'm done. I'm out of here and I mean, did you sell the manufacturing business or how did you exit first day

Jan Cavelle: 00:09:44

of instead of read it was almost 20 years altogether? 10 Happy years and can't growingly unhappy lives by had lots of offers for the business time and I see sawed back and forth. You know, yes, I'm really Interested, let's have talks. I don't know should I? Which, which was stupid because some of the officers were really good. But in the end, it just got to the pitch. And I just was so far gone competitor wants to do it. But he didn't want all of it. He wants to brand and he wanted to people. And so we sort of did a bit of a fast outbreak of salt, some Buster us, which was a really bad deal financially. And I put it solely not to do that I just reached that pitch where I could,

Jeff Kikel: 00:10:30

where you just reach a point where it's just it's more than it starts affecting your health at that point.

Jan Cavelle: 00:10:36

All right, well, it's party. Yeah. I mean, I've spent more time at the doctor than I did at the office, and I

Jeff Kikel: 00:10:42

get it. So you decided to retire and go back to what you love? How did you get? Because there's a lot of people in our audience I know that one have said, I want to write a book, you know, and, and they always have an excuse not to do it. I mean, I was one of those. You know, I spent 25 years I trained as a writer spent 25 years working in finance. And it wasn't until a friend of mine, you know, called me on my BS that that I you know, finally wrote the first book that I wrote, but what was that? You know, okay, I've retired now I want to get into writing. How did you make that transition?

Jan Cavelle: 00:11:23

Well, I've been dabbling by writing articles as a stress reliever, you know, so that gave me some working with a professional editor because it was for a business magazine quite a good nice. Was was very good lesson in writing day was turned behind me so probably should have taught me a lot more. But, but yeah, I did that for about the last six years. I was in business. Okay. So you know, valid, I put in some grunt work and then like you I went on some courses because I thought, oh, you know, I've always been interested in labs inside that's journal courses and copywriting courses. come on board has said about for a while I was writing articles still not with really any great intent. And then I looked at this business, it was still niggling me I'm still thinking, you know, why was that next lollipop so hard. And started looking at my friends. I thought goodness of there's lots of them finding that leap up, you know, this is a thing. It wasn't just me. So I started, I started talking to people I was because I was interviewing entrepreneurs as well. And I started almost, you know, writing about that. But how I became a book was really because I got in my investigations and talking. So I contacted a very high powered entrepreneur I knew vaguely from my days, days when I had the business. And he said, come down to London, I'll talk to you about him. I said, okay, and he invited me to a very swanky place in London, which was lovely. And I chatted through with him and rather than sort of, sort of gray. And then I got it. And I thought, oh, you know, what if I don't necessarily as I'm starting to take up all sorts of very important people's time and bet to try and do it. And I was very, very lucky, Jeff. You know, I put in three submissions. One of the crash was to Bloomsbury publishing. Getting a contract. So wonderful. My book career got started.

Jeff Kikel: 00:13:27

Wonderful. So let's talk a little bit about that. Because I mean, I've self published most of the stuff I've done. So talk about that process of getting a book published, what, what were the steps you kind of went through to get to the publisher?

Jan Cavelle: 00:13:42

Well, it was I mean, I was, I was ridiculously lucky. I mean, in essence, you should put in your idea. That's true. I'll tell you why in a second. But you should put in your idea early on and discuss the actual idea with them, as submissions for a publisher tend to be very complex, and they look at lots of things, particularly for nonfiction, and they will look at your ability to sell it and all sorts of things, you know, as importantly as a book, which is fair enough. So it's very much you know, are you going to make a business out of a book. But now I was in fairness, because I put in my three submissions and the Bloomsbury one bounced, email came back at me. For goodness sakes, I was tired and close. And so I sent them a tweak your emails on what I can't blame him? Seriously, I got a really nice DM but I'm a junior business editor here. Can I help you? Sorry, he gave me his direct email, which of course is unheard of, you know, so yeah,

Jeff Kikel: 00:14:45

that is awesome. Hey, sometimes you gotta be lucky better than good. So yeah. But you still have to have a great, great have a great idea. Yeah.

Jan Cavelle: 00:14:58

Yeah, no, it's an interesting one. And it's interesting comparing the two. So I've done self publishing a second time. So I can really understand the pros and cons of both. You know, and I think it very much depends on lots of factors. What do you want out of it? I'm glad I've done both. It's you know, that there are pluses on both sides.

Jeff Kikel: 00:15:21

Sure. Well, Anna, it was funny. I interviewed a gentleman a couple days ago. And we were talking about that. And, you know, he said, He's published, I think he's published three books, you know, one self published, one published through, you know, a publishing company. And what he was explaining is he's like, you know, that book, he goes, I published it to the publishing company, but the new version of it is actually self published. Yeah, he kind of leveraged that. Okay, they're gonna get me out there from a distribution standpoint, and then, you know, okay, now I can now I can actually go out there with the revised version and yeah, and sell it.

Jan Cavelle: 00:15:59

I think it's difficult. I mean, the first one, you know, it's an interesting book, if you're exploring that particular point, and I think it still stands up for that. But it was just pre pandemic. And one of the reasons I took the second one is, you know, we've just seen so many changes in business, it's almost recognized, wasn't it? Yeah, the past two or three years.

Jeff Kikel: 00:16:21

So let's talk about that book now. So there, is that one out yet? Or is it on the way start?

Jan Cavelle: 00:16:25

Yeah, it's been out about five weeks, I think.

Jeff Kikel: 00:16:28

Okay, fantastic. Success, start for success. So let's walk through that a little bit. What are some of the principles that you talk about in there?

Jan Cavelle: 00:16:36

Well, I mean, I wanted overambitious there to cover virtually all the main things in business. So you know, we go from what I do it to mindset to motivation, and values and all the pay six, they're fishing, whatnot. We talked about different ways of raising, raising money versus bootstrapping, we talk about all the marketing aspects, business risks, you know, virtually everything is in there. But the way I wanted to do it, it was it was a writing experiment, really, I mean, it's one of the reasons it's nice to self publish this, you can indulge your own fear, you know, sort of things you want to try. And I want to write something that use stories to show because, you know, that, of course, is what we're taught to do writing wise. So I wanted to write a book, which, for example, if you've got a chapter on values, then it sort of explained the whole principles, but then gave a couple of entrepreneurs stories to make that come to life. Which sounded lovely idea. But of course, if you're talking about this jigsaw puzzle of nearly all the main bits and I hope or main business things in it, a couple of stories, it's meant to try and find matching stories that were interesting, entertaining. You know, I ended up speaking what speaking to considerably more, but I ended up working with 70 entrepreneurs, alone. Research you can imagine

Jeff Kikel: 00:18:13

my mind I recommend a prod podcast, it's way easier.

Jan Cavelle: 00:18:19

said to my sense, why didn't you do a podcast? Why don't you do a podcast for the people in the book and share that mental?

Jeff Kikel: 00:18:27

Yeah, well, that was I mean, that's basically what I did with my book. I mean, I yeah, I've been doing interviews for with people for over a year and I just kind of you know, I had such a good selection of people that as I was putting the chapters together, I would you know, it'd be oh yeah, this would be great Jan story be great. Hear me drop it in there. And then have have it linked to the interview on the electronic version, at least or go up to on the printed version go up to a main website. But you know, I I think it's fun. That's why I record all these.

Jan Cavelle: 00:19:00

It's fun to fascinate me and the different entrepreneurial stories that just you know, once once once I got going and the word got out with the our contacts and everything. The stories that came back, some of them were just extraordinary, as well as as well. That's a really useful one was footwork. But some of them were just like wow

Jeff Kikel: 00:19:23

I just fascinates me how people start businesses, and how they come about, you know, starting a business and, you know, people that are wildly successful and you would never think that would be a successful business, but somebody has to do it.

Jan Cavelle: 00:19:39

Yeah, absolutely. Riveting stuff, isn't it? I'm totally addicted.

Jeff Kikel: 00:19:45

Yeah, I have a real good friend that had a very successful dog training, business and boarding business. And it came all out of her just having a love for dogs. That

Jan Cavelle: 00:19:58

business hasn't been told Send a pandemic has become big business.

Jeff Kikel: 00:20:02

Unbelievable. Yeah. Because and that was for her, you know, that was kind of the end of her. Her career was, you know, right, during the pandemic, you know, she said, Everybody's getting a dog and then the dogs are not. I said, you know, the big challenge was people are getting the dogs and then the dogs are in the house. And they're not. They're not socialized, right the way they should be. And so then they're almost neurotic like their parents are. Yeah. So what's, what's on the on the docket for you here in the future? What what are the things you doing?

Jan Cavelle: 00:20:38

I don't know, is the honest answer. I was it was a very, very much bigger project. I mean, to the point in my jigsaw puzzle, to the point, I actually hold it for about four months. And I thought, yeah, have I gone too far? Is this too big to do? So So yeah, I'm still in the recovery phase.

Jeff Kikel: 00:21:01

Well, you did retire and all you got to do a little bit of that part two.

Jan Cavelle: 00:21:09

Absolutely. Well, that

Jeff Kikel: 00:21:10

is fantastic. I am just so excited for you. I can't wait. Can't wait to read the book. So let's transition to the next phase. Which is the Fast Five questions. You ready? Alright, so phase one number question number one. You wake up in the morning business is gone. Yeah. Of your contacts still $500 laptop computer, place to live? What are you going to do first?

Jan Cavelle: 00:21:39

Trade? It's got a bit factory, same. Okay. I've got you know, doesn't matter what really, but it comes back to the selling

Jeff Kikel: 00:21:46

trades. Love it. Fall back to what you know, right? Yeah, definitely. fallback to what you know, that actually makes money. Yeah. Okay, second question. What's the biggest business mistake you ever made?

Jan Cavelle: 00:22:05

Starting in that business to long? Yeah, definitely. Sounds like I'm aware on that one. But it has to be.

Jeff Kikel: 00:22:12

Yeah, yeah. It's knowing when to when to cut and run and yeah, and take the advantage. What's a good book that you would recommend for our audience?

Jan Cavelle: 00:22:23

Well, I can't say mine, can I? So? Well, obviously, I mean, I think start for success is a good book to read. Because I think a lot of experienced entrepreneurs get a lot out of it. Start it's a really good inside look at entrepreneurship, if you're thinking about it, the old one I fall back on actually a lot I did in business particularly which is a little book not that well known, but called Its A Zoo Around Here a man called Nigel Risner. Okay. And that's about it's a very simple way of learning to commit understand communication. But it's great and extraordinarily useful. You know, we got into it, when I have to factories, certain, you know, we would incorporate it to nine shoes, and then stare at people and say, Oh, you're a dolphin. And they'd look at you and go, awesome. I don't know.

Jeff Kikel: 00:23:21

Don't want to be a dolphin. I don't like. Okay, what's a tool that you use every day that you might recommend for our audience.

Jan Cavelle: 00:23:33

Of course, I'm fairly weak on tech, because by the time tech hit, I had other people doing it all for me, so I didn't have to learn it. So I've come to come to it late. And as a writer, I use Grammarly a lot. It's as good as it used to be. I don't like it as much as it used to be. It's very constraining, you know, I get very bored of having my voice flattened out completely into just, you know, I've had to learn to skip it a lot. And I noticed that actually, because I did use a pro editor who works part time, or did work part time can't remember first one or just sort of knows that stuff. And I noticed he corrected for what money really quite interesting. So it's not just me.

Jeff Kikel: 00:24:18

Even. Yeah, I mean, I still use it too. And I, I find that it makes me a little bit better of a writer but yeah, I mean, it will make it kind of bland. I mean, that's for sure. It just kind of takes the zing out of it.

Jan Cavelle: 00:24:33

It does. Yeah. And I swore by it when it first started. But if you use any

Jeff Kikel: 00:24:39

of the artificial intelligence type stuff, the chat TPT Fraser,

Jan Cavelle: 00:24:44

my guy, my guy who does some of the social media design actually sent me a long complicated explanation of of it today. She'd be GPT and said, you know, you've got to opt to do this All right, Rod snapped me back. Well, when I got to church, I know I should have you.

Jeff Kikel: 00:25:07

I tell you I, you know, I come from the world you do. I'm a writer, I'm, you know, I can do this. I will tell you, I started writing blog articles using one of the tools, I use one called phrase, Fra S II, and I am a convert. I am an absolute convert it. What it does is, well, the thing I liked about phrase, unlike chat TPT, that one's kind of weird, and I don't like it. Phrase helps you to get your thought process, right. So what it really does is it goes out, and you kind of give it an idea of what you're looking for. And it'll basically go out and look at everything on the internet. And it kind of comes in and organizes it by topics. And then you can grab those topics and say, Okay, well, I'm doing an article about time management. So I want this heading this heading this heading. And here's a little bit of the information that was out there that it found on the internet. And then you just literally hit a button and it creates an article, it'll create about 1000 to 1500 word article that gets you about an 85% of the way there, you know, and then you kind of have to put your own spin on it, and then run it through like a Grammarly. Yeah.

Jan Cavelle: 00:26:26

Yeah. I don't know. I mean, it's interesting. You don't like the top one. He assures me it's very good for problem building. But

Jeff Kikel: 00:26:38

whatever I, the phrase, I actually had a conversation with the guy who developed it. And it's designed for SEO, it was primarily designed for SEO creation. So if you're doing you know, if you've got a blog, where, you know, SEO needs to be a major part of it. I don't want to consciously sit there and think of what words should I put in here? What are my key words? What should I put in there?

Jan Cavelle: 00:27:02

Yeah, that's right. Well, I don't want to stop words.

Jeff Kikel: 00:27:05

Absolutely. Well, that's what it does is it goes out and it says, Okay, here's, here's the keywords you should be. Let's get these in here. And then you can go back through and tweak everything. And like I said, it gets me about 85% of the way there which can save I mean, it might take me a half a day to write an article. Yeah. Now it takes 15 minutes to create it. And then you know, I could spend that hour to an hour and a half, tweaking it. And go from there. Yeah, phrase fra sae.io. Yeah, it's, it's worth it. It's worth time. Yeah, trying it out and see how it works. I would what I would encourage anybody to do if you do it, they do offer a free kind of walkthrough session, I would highly recommend it because I tend I typically don't like doing that. But I learned so much.

Jan Cavelle: 00:27:57

My patients goes, I

Jeff Kikel: 00:27:59

know I lose patients big time. So I'm right there with you. So last question, what is your definition of freedom?

Jan Cavelle: 00:28:12

Choice, you know, being able to make a choice of choice of what to do when to do it. You know, I'm not very money orientated, which probably didn't help when I was growing business. You know, I want to laugh. But enough to make the choices. You know, I'm going to work today I'm going to write today I'm going to go to the beach today. I love it. I don't have to hard work. But I want to be in control, isn't it? It's all free thing.

Jeff Kikel: 00:28:42

It's not control freak. That's just Yeah. I just want yeah, you want to be able to choose? I love that idea. It's a great. It was the simplest answer I've ever gotten. I love it. Well, John, if somebody wants to get a hold of you wants to get a hold of the book. What's the best ways?

Jan Cavelle: 00:29:00

Well, if they have the books name in their heads, they can go straight on Barnes and Noble or Amazon or anywhere like that. And it'll be right below us. Yep, simple as that. They can also come to my website, which is www.jancavelle.co.uk/. Very simple, just the name and co.uk. There are links on the book to various places to buy the book on website on various places to buy the book as well if you have forgotten in any way, shape, or form. But yeah, to get in touch. I'd love to hear from you or anybody who's listening. Anything I can do just short.

Jeff Kikel: 00:29:37

Wonderful. Thank you, Jan, I'm so appreciative of having you on today a wonderful conversation. I'm so excited for the book. I actually just ordered it while we were sitting here talking. So looking forward to looking forward to hearing it a little bit or listening to it and watching it so

Jan Cavelle: 00:29:56

wonderful. Well, thank you.

Jeff Kikel: 00:29:57

Well, Jan, thank you so much for Folks, make sure that you get in contact with Jan below has all the contact information she gave us, links to the to the book, recommend you take a look at it. And let's support Jan by getting out there and buying some of the books and learning what she has to share with us with lots of years of experience growing business. We do this every two days or twice a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays. So make sure that you subscribe to the channel wherever you're at. And if you can give us a five star review, and share this with someone else so that we can help out more people in the world. So thanks a lot. We love your support and thank you for being here. We will see you back here the very next time.