Clare Muscutt talks with Lara Felix talking about becoming entrepreneurial independent women.
Learn more about Lara and her advice on the benefits of being yourself at work, on the WiCX blog.
Episode #202 Show Notes.
Clare Muscutt – host:
Hey, Lara!
Lara Felix:
Hi, Clare!
Clare Muscutt – host:
How are you doing?
Lara Felix:
I’m well. How are you?
Clare Muscutt – host:
Good. It’s pretty hot today, though, right?
Lara Felix:
It is baking, boiling. I could not even wear any makeup today or anything. I’ve got my fan in front of me, and I’m just hoping I don’t melt before the end of this.
Clare Muscutt – host:
Me too. Me too. So, welcome to all the listeners, as well. It’s great to have you with us today. Just to begin, I thought it was probably worth setting the scene a little bit because you and I have spoken before, haven’t we?
Lara Felix:
Yes. Yes, we have.
Clare Muscutt – host:
Just for the listeners, Lara is one of the women who actually inspired me to make the podcast because before all of this started, I did an IGTV series interviewing entrepreneurs on IGTV, and Lara was my second person in the studio, and actually, the first person I ever had a live real talk with that went on broadcast. So, I’d just like to say thanks so much for that moment that spurred me on, Lara.
Lara Felix:
Thank you for having me. Honestly, it was a pleasure that you reached out at the time that you did. It was very timely, and it was needed. Yeah, it was honestly a pleasure to liaise with you and to have that chat. I feel like when we were talking – maybe you’re just a very personable person – but it felt as though we had known each other, and even now, we just get on and we’re able to have honest, challenging, meaningful, and necessary conversations. So, thank you, also, for having me.
Clare Muscutt – host:
Oh, you’re welcome. If anyone’s interested in watching the talk, it was actually about not only entrepreneurship but Black Lives Matter (around the time that George Floyd was murdered), and that’s available on our YouTube channel, too.
Onto today, I want to go back to that entrepreneurship conversation and have a slightly different one today because things have moved on slightly, haven’t they, from where you were in your business journey? Today, I’m going to call this episode ‘Lara Felix talking about becoming an independent woman.’ What do you think of that title?
Lara Felix:
I think it sounds good because ‘becoming’ is a verb. I like that you used becoming because it’s a journey. I find that with everything that we’re doing, you can never really say, ‘You have arrived.’ It’s progressive. I like the title. It’s very much so me.
Clare Muscutt – host:
Awesome. I will definitely write that one down now, then. Officially, that is our title. That means I’m ahead of schedule for this week. Well done, me!
I know I asked you this question last time, and I’m going to ask it again, but actually this time, I’m back on the side hustle, too. So, Lara, is the side hustle struggle real?
Lara Felix:
Deep breath! That should already give you a bit of an inkling into how big of a ‘yes’ that is. The side hustle is real. It is very real. It’s alive. It’s active. And I know that I’m not the only one on the journey of the side hustle, and I know that you’re not the only one either. There’s a lot of us that fit into this category, and especially in the world we live in today, where we know that one stream of income, one means of earning a ‘living’ (quote, unquote), it’s not enough. It can’t sustain you. In a world where we have diverse passions, and we’re allowed to explore those passions, and explore those different creative things that are built-up inside us, we don’t want to be limited. We don’t want to boxed. So, it’s us basically finding a way to work together, and put everything together, and be the fullness of us, which then results in side hustles…
Clare Muscutt – host:
Mm.
Lara Felix:
… with an S. So, the side hustle might not be one; it could be more than one. And that’s my reality. That is what I’m living.
Clare Muscutt – host:
How many side hustles have you got on, now?
Lara Felix:
Actively, two.
Clare Muscutt – host:
Two side hustles? And a full-time job.
Lara Felix:
And a full-time job. That’s amongst every other thing that I’m doing. So, I could think of two other things in addition to the two side hustles that I’m doing that may not necessarily generate income or work on a more consistent basis, but the side hustle is real. I don’t see them dwindling down anytime soon.
Clare Muscutt – host:
What are the other two things you’ve got on the go, then, that I didn’t know about?
Lara Felix:
I am kind of a jack of all trades, right? So, I also MC.
Clare Muscutt – host:
No way!
Lara Felix:
Yes.
Clare Muscutt – host:
I didn’t know that.
Lara Felix:
Yes. So, I MC but it’s a lowkey kind of thing. Because people know that I’m good at coordinating, and planning, and doing that sort of stuff, they’ll be like, ‘You know what? I’ve got an event, and I would really like for you to host it. I would really like for you to MC.’ So, yeah, I MC, as well, as crazy as that may seem and out of pocket. So, you’ve got this corporate, very business, very professional lady here, and then on the other hand, you can catch me on a Saturday MCing and getting people on the dance floor, or coordinating an event, or doing something very fun and outlandish. So, that’s one.
The other thing is I’m very active in my local community church. I coordinate services, I do bit of planning, I do some strategic work in terms of getting our programmes ready for Sunday Service or if we have an event, and that sort of stuff. So, very, very much so active in other things apart from the two main side hustles, which you know about already.
Clare Muscutt – host:
Yeah, but let’s tell the listeners at home because they don’t know. What are your main side hustles?
Lara Felix:
So, I don’t know, I think Client Service Coach is my baby. I don’t want to classify it as a side hustle. I’m inclined to say that my nine-to-five is my side hustle, and Client Service Coach is my main child, but they’re interchangeable. Then, I am launching my own brand of upholstery covers and silk bedding, specifically geared towards children, but we have got a few things in the adult range, as well. It’s called Mimo Silk, M-I-M-O Silk.
Clare Muscutt – host:
Nice plug there, Lara.
Lara Felix:
Just putting it out there! You asked. So, I do silk bedding, silk accessories, and silk upholstery covers for children, as well.
Clare Muscutt – host:
So, this is the truest entrepreneurial journey, right?
Lara Felix:
Absolutely.
Clare Muscutt – host:
You came up with an idea, hadn’t seen it anywhere, checked out the marketplace, found there wasn’t anybody doing it, found your suppliers, sourced your supply chain, designed your website. As the Client Service Coach, has your skills in being able to design your own customer journey and target experience come in useful?
Lara Felix:
Absolutely. I think this has been the truest test of being behind the principles table, essentially. I typically go in and say, ‘Well, show me how you’ve embedded the customer’s persona into developing your product. Tell me where and what you thought about when you were creating this particular stage or this particular interaction for the customer.’
So, I found myself, through creating this product and going through this entire process, I found myself constantly thinking at every stage, ‘Is this going to be beneficial to the people who are going to be using it? How are parents going to feel? What emotion is this evoking?’ Even up to the placing of the logo, even up to the choosing of the colours, and just being super, super mindful and intentional about everything I was doing because I’m like, ‘I can’t afford to fail. I can’t afford to not get it right from the onset.’ And there’s no reason why I shouldn’t get it right from the onset, really, because I’ve got all the tools that I need at my disposal; I have it up here. So, now it’s time to apply it into my processes and how I’m actually engaging with my customer base. I think I am using myself as a case study of what a good example of ensuring that your customer experience is right, and the truest form of that is with a product.
With a product, it’s something that’s tangible. People who do things that are more service-oriented, it can be very subjective in measuring customer experience and customer feedback, but when you’ve got a product, I find that the responses and the feedback is objective because you’ve got a tangible thing in front of you, and it’s more about the practicalities. It’s not necessarily about the knowhow, or the style, or the communication, or the way you’ve spoken, or whatever the case may be. When you’ve got a product – when you’ve got something that’s tangible – the customer experience is different because the product itself is speaking without you having to explain yourself, or to discuss, or to kind of get a buy-in. The product does the talking.
Clare Muscutt – host:
It’s got to, hasn’t it? You made me think of a few different things there. First off, having started my own consulting business a couple of years ago that during the pandemic pretty much disappeared because in real life, stuff couldn’t happen; I couldn’t do the keynote speaking. Having a side hustle or working on something else as an alternative stream of income is so important. But when I set up that business, I didn’t have to really think so much about the customer experience itself in terms of what I applied because it’s relatively simple: it was me providing a service and as long as I communicate…
Lara Felix:
Show up.
Clare Muscutt – host:
Yeah, communicated well, was lovely to my clients, delivered a great service that was quite inclusive. But in the last couple of months working on my two new side hustles, building this membership community for women in CX, and building this coaching business proposition that I’m launching tomorrow – albeit by the time this airs, it will have been live for a couple of months – really having to go back to the stuff that I preach in terms of what I do for my clients.
So, when I first started CMX, I started by helping start-ups to start their company, but I wasn’t just helping them with customer experience, which brings me to my next point, which is I think we forget a lot of the time just how much the product or the service itself – the proposition – has to do with the success of a business. For me, there’s too much attention put on CX as some kind of panacea that will cure everything. If you’ve not got a great product – a great proposition, a great service – no amount of great CX is ever going to cure that.
Lara Felix:
Absolutely.
Clare Muscutt – host:
I think it’s really great for women like ourselves who get to see it from so many different angles.
Lara Felix:
Yeah, absolutely.
Clare Muscutt – host:
Nothing quite compares to starting a business yourself – having to be the CEO, the marketing director, the customer experience director, the finance director, the whole piece – because when you work in a business, you don’t get to see all of that because you’re responsible for this part. But for big businesses, I think kind of getting out of that silo mentality is so important when it comes to CX because CX should be influencing the proposition as much as how it is delivered. And if those two things aren’t interfacing, hey, you’re wasting your time, right?
Lara Felix:
Absolutely. One of the first things I do when I have a new client – and I’m happy that you mentioned it – is I understand their business model, I understand what service it is that they’re providing, or what product it is they’re providing, and I try and understand, ‘Okay, what was the vision behind it? What was the purpose? What was the intention? And has that intention and that purpose been fulfilled holistically?’ Because what happens is that, as you rightly said, people treat CX as a silo to the product and the service. No, no, no, no, no! People are smarter than what you think they are. You’re not going to just say, ‘I’m really sorry, here’s a voucher,’ because that’s like a band-aid. Getting to the root cause of why the experience was not holistically satisfactory is just as important. If you haven’t got a product that meets certain standards, that’s the first thing we need to address. That impacts confidence in terms of how you’re selling it; that impacts credibility, integrity; it impacts a whole load of stuff. So, it’s about finding the balance between having a great product and a great service, and how those two things meet and marry with one another to support one another, essentially.
Clare Muscutt – host:
I’d maybe say it’s three: that what; the how; and the who.
Anyway, I’ve taken us a bit off track here, going into that debate. So, the next question I think I’m going to ask you is going against what I said initially because I think we’ve talked about so much more awesome stuff there. I think I want to talk about how in the last conversation you told me how proudly Nigerian you are. Of late, I’ve been meeting so many Nigerian women…
Lara Felix:
Have you?
Clare Muscutt – host:
… from Nigeria because I went and spoke – well, I didn’t physically go – I did my first keynote in Lagos for West Africa at a summit. And on Instagram, met loads of women who live in Nigeria but also in the UK too. I’ve noticed something about you ladies: you are seriously strong and very determined; you stand out from the crowd in terms of your confidence to put yourselves out there. I just wondered, is this something about Nigerian culture that makes women so strong and confident?
Lara Felix:
Absolutely. I think Nigerians, in general, they’re very resilient people. We are a group of very resilient, very hardworking people, and the environment we live in has made it so that people need to put their best foot forward and their strongest foot forward at all times. We are a developing country, so you can imagine the cons that are placed in front of us. But I think one thing that is unique about Nigerians is that they’ve taken that con, and they’ve been able to make it a positive thing; they’ve been able to make lemonade out of lemons. They’ve been able to actually – we’ve been able to actually – transform the status quo. We don’t let things around us define us. I would definitely say it has to do with the culture, as well. The culture is very strong, very independent. It’s very loud, it’s very boisterous. Everything that a Nigerian does is a little bit over-the-top. I would tell you to go and look at our Nigerian weddings…
Clare Muscutt – host:
I’ve never been to one.
Lara Felix:
… if you see a Nigerian wedding, you will know what over-the-top is. Even if you go to less affluent areas, there’s a form of joy that naturally comes out from those environments. So, I think it’s more so about the mindset and the community that’s around us.
Another thing about Nigeria is that we’re very community-oriented, very much so; big families, loads of friends, loads of aunties, loads of uncles. So, when you’re in that sort of environment, you have to have your voice heard some sort of way right? So, of course, you’re going to be loud; of course, you’re going to put your best foot forward. And you’ve got people who are rooting for you on the left, on the right. I think that’s a common thing with Nigerians, in general. In terms of Nigerian women… In terms of Nigerian women, I am happy, I am proud to be a Nigerian woman. Nigerian women are strong. We are tough. We are even more resilient than the average Nigerian, than the average Nigerian man. That’s because I think we’ve dealt a hard card in the past, and we know that there’s some things that have to be taken, that are not going to be given to you just that easily. So, Nigerian women are very, very academically inclined, you know, hard workers.
A lot of times, I know that Nigerian women have had to be the breadwinner in their families due to one thing or the other. Nigeria is not a welfare state; it’s not a welfare society. It’s either you go out there and make something happen, or you don’t survive. So, when you kind of don’t have a choice, you find a way to make things happen. I know my grandma, she owned a farm, which was across about two acres of land. She used to farm, she managed it herself, and she had no husband to help her. That sort of hardworking nature then went into my – so, that was my great-grandmother – it went into my grandma, who then came to this country, studied to be a nurse, was a nurse, went back, used her degree to do nursing and to help people in the community. And then, that entrepreneurial, hardworking thing transpired down to my mum, who also owns several businesses, is a hardworking woman. So, it’s almost like I’ve seen this thing come down from generation to generation; how can I be any different? All you do is top it, isn’t it? So, it’s just about us topping what has happened before us because we have a legacy to uphold, essentially.
We know that the world is not necessarily fair to women, as we’ve discussed before. The world is not necessarily fair to black people. And the world isn’t necessarily fair to black women. So, you’re a woman and you’re black; you have something more to prove. You have something more to fight for. There is a grit, there is a resilience in the Nigerian women, and we’ve just learnt to be that way, and I think we love it. I think we – even the way we dress, the way we talk, the way we express ourselves, it’s just full of confidence, it’s full of life.
Clare Muscutt – host:
That’s awesome. Just picking up on something you said there. You said, ‘Nigerian people, especially Nigerian women, had some specific hardships or were dealt difficult cards.’ What did you mean by that?
Lara Felix:
So, specific hardships to do with the way the culture is set up. The culture of different tribes can be set up in a very oppressive manner, in a very patriarchal manner, where women are limited and constrained to certain roles, such as still being the person who has to stay at home, take care of the kids, and that’s it, doesn’t have a voice when it comes to family matters.
And I think a generation of women arose who challenged that status quo and said, ‘Do you know what? I was born for more than this. I also deserve an education,’ because there’s still some parts of Nigeria where education for women is limited. We know that women are so resourceful; it’s like seeing a star and putting a blanket over it because of an archaic mindset, right?
Clare Muscutt – host:
The patriarchy.
Lara Felix:
It’s patriarchy at its finest. Our culture is entwined in that. I know there’s specific cultures where even if a woman is widowed, for example, she is not entitled to anything, so she and her children are left on their own.
There’ve been instances where a woman, unfortunately, has been widowed at a young age and because she was never allowed to work, she was never allowed to fend for herself or do anything, she was never allowed to get an education or make something of herself, she’s been left in such a rut. For children that come out of that environment, for example if that woman was to have daughters, the daughters would, obviously, see that and say, ‘I am making up my mind that this will never be me. I will always have a source of income for myself. I will always make sure that I’m able to fend for myself and my children to come.’ And I’m sure the mother in that instance will also imbibe that in her children, that, ‘Listen, you need to be independent because you’re not always going to have people to rely on.’
So, I think it’s this force of independence that has come through and has happened through unfortunate circumstances but necessary circumstances to push us into the light, essentially. So, that is what has happened, and I think we can never, ever negate the place of seeing what the generation before us have done because that’s how we learn. We’re constantly reading memoirs and books about people’s lives and that sort of thing. So, what we’re doing is we’re looking at their mistakes, we’re looking at their cons, we’re looking at their pros – the things that they succeeded at – and we’re taking the things that they’ve succeeded at, we’re learning from the mistakes that they’ve made, and that’s what Nigerian women have had to do. This is the way we shine. This is the way we flourish.
Clare Muscutt – host:
You also said, ‘We’ve got gender as one challenge, but then being a woman of colour is the next challenge.’ What do you mean by that?
Lara Felix:
I think being a woman of colour is even harder because – the classic example would be the view that women of colour are given, and that is that they are strong; they can handle it. But because a certain group of people are strong and can handle something doesn’t mean they need to, right?
Clare Muscutt – host:
Mmhmm.
Lara Felix:
So, in the bid to think, ‘They are strong, they can handle it,’ there’s a lot of negating of emotion, of opportunity, of responsibility, of support, of love, of care that happens. We find that black women are looked at as, ‘Well, they can handle it. They’re tough. They’re loud. They’re confident. They don’t need to be handed certain things on a platter like other women are.’ Not to say that those women are handed it on a platter literally, but I’m just using that as a metaphor, an example, for opportunities. A black woman typically would have to do more than her white woman counterpart to be recognised, to be appreciated, and I’ve seen a lot of things in different industries that have highlighted that.
We know the things that people of colour face, in general, and we see it – if we want to use the case of police brutality, which is one of the things that we spoke about in our earlier conversation: if you see the way police officers treat black woman, it’s the same way, it’s the same aggression, as they would use to treat a black man. Does that make sense? Does it make sense? It doesn’t make sense.
Clare Muscutt – host:
I understand what you’re saying, but it doesn’t make sense…
Lara Felix:
No.
Clare Muscutt – host:
… does that come down to bias or racism or…?
Lara Felix:
There’s racism in there; there could be racism in there. There could be an unconscious bias because I’m not one of those people who accounts everything to racism, that, ‘Oh, well, she didn’t get the job because she was black,’ or ‘He didn’t get it because he was black.’ I don’t account anything disproportionately to racism. It’s an unconscious bias that just tends to happen.
If we look at years ago, years and years ago, black women have been doing hard labour jobs inadvertently, even while supporting the home, such as carrying firewood and just doing gritty hard sort of jobs. Even when it comes down to black women’s features, they’re stronger, right? They’re different, they’re unique, they’re bolder. We’ve got bigger hips, bigger bones, a bigger nose, a wider face. So, little things like that can create an unconscious bias in somebody.
I know specifically, a research came out about a new set of doctors – I think first-year doctors – and they said that in the labour wards, because one thing we see if that more black women die…
Clare Muscutt – host:
The mortality rate. Yeah, I saw that.
Lara Felix:
… the mortality rate for black women after having a child is x4 of that of a white woman. Why is that?
So, the research found that a group of doctors, unbeknownst to them, just believe that when black women complained of being in pain, that their pain threshold was actually higher than a white woman’s. They just thought that they probably were just exaggerating, and they were really in pain. You see those instances more times than not that a black woman will say, ‘Excuse me. I’m uncomfortable. I’m in pain.’ And they would be ignored, or pain medication would be withheld from them, or it’s until something is extremely critical and dire that something happens. Anybody that wants to challenge this should just go and look at the research: the mortality rate for black women is higher. It’s just the numbers; it’s not a negotiable thing. Why is that when they’re being treated by the exact same people?
I’m not saying that people are doing it intentionally. It’s just a perception. You’re thinking, ‘Ah, look at her, she’s rounder,’ or ‘Her skin is thicker,’ because if you were to push into my arm – like this – you’re not going to see a mark on the surface; if I was to push into your arm, Clare, like this, I’m going to see a mark there.
Clare Muscutt – host:
Yeah.
Lara Felix:
So, that’s me kind of justifying why I see reason as to why you would possibly think I’m not feeling the pain the same way you are because my skin colour is different, and the way things appear on my skin is different, from yours. It’s obvious when you are in pain, Clare, because we can see it on you. It’s not obvious when I’m pain because of my melanin. Yeah, it’s just a whole raft of things that seeps into every sphere of life. That’s just the medical side of things.
As for what I’ve seen in the workplace, women are underrepresented; black women are even more underrepresented. I think it’s something that’s changing because I love women, in general, because I see women rallying together; women are rallying together from all backgrounds, all ages. Women are rallying, coming together to truly and genuinely support one another. One of the pages I follow on LinkedIn, The Female Lead…
Clare Muscutt – host:
Yes. I love The Female Lead.
Lara Felix:
The best. The best. It just shows that there is a community of women out there, there are people who are mindful of these things. And that we’re trying to change, we’re trying to make a change, but it’s unfortunate that the change is not coming fast enough.
Clare Muscutt – host:
So, Lara, we’ve talked about entrepreneurship, we’ve talked about becoming independent women, we’ve talked about your journey, the journey of your ancestors, the theme that runs down history when there’s strong women, it courses through our veins, and it’s unstoppable. I just wondered what your top three messages or pieces of advice are to other women out there, perhaps on entrepreneurial journey, or discovering their way to independence. What would you want to say to them?
Lara Felix:
One thing I would say to start off with is knowing your ‘why’. What is your vision for your life? What fires you up? What is that thing that you connect with the most? Where is your passion? Understand yourself.
And when you understand yourself, that will lead onto point two, which is to maximise your place of influence. Maximise the resources around you. Maximise and enhance those things that you see that are your talents. So, when you understand your vision, you understand your ‘why’, you understand those foundational precepts, then you can start building on it and saying, ‘Actually, this is my why because my talent and my strength lies here, so I’m going to maximise this. I’m going to be bold. I’m going to be confident. I’m going to be brave. I’m not going to be limited by the things that I see around me or by anyone.’
I think one of the biggest lessons I’ve learnt on this journey is you need to be your own biggest cheerleader – that’s the reality – you need to be your biggest cheerleader, you need to be your biggest marketer, your own marketer, you need to be your biggest investor, you need to invest in yourself. So, understand that.
Then, the third thing would be: seize every opportunity that comes your way. Forget about how it’s going to work out; say ‘yes’. Say ‘yes’. When Clare first approached me, my first answer was, ‘Yes,’ and then I was like, ‘Wait a minute! What did I sign up to? Go back.’ And then you figure it out. But seize these opportunities because, as we’ve said, opportunities for women don’t come by half as often as they do for men, so seize every opportunity – every partnership opportunity, every interaction – seize it. Every opportunity to market yourself; seize it. Every opportunity to blow your own trumpet, to toot your own horn, and to just talk about why you are great at what you’re doing; seize it.
Clare Muscutt – host:
No one else is going to do it for you.
Lara Felix:
No one else is going to do it for you! And there is no other you out there. There is nobody like you. You might think, ‘Oh, the market I want to go into is saturated,’ but actually, if you were created for something, if you know that ‘This is why I am on earth. This is why God has created me to be this kind of woman that I am, and I’m full of these things, and when I do this, I find fulfilment,’ you have to. You have to. You have to pursue it. You have to pursue it.
I would say this: sometimes, what you’re called to – what your vision is, what your solution kind of is to a particular problem – is not what you find joyous. Let me just explain this a little bit. It could potentially be that this is something that upsets you, like whenever you see this, you just get upset with it, and you’re like, ‘You could have done this. You could have done that,’ or ‘This is the solution to that.’ That might be it. That might be your ‘why’.
That was what it was for me when I started Client Service Coach, it was that I was seeing bad customer service, and it would just annoy me. I would write reviews, and I would contact people, and I would speak to the manager, and I was like, ‘This is my why.’ It was necessarily something that I woke up in the morning thinking, ‘Oh, today, I just want to think about customer service, and how I’m going to do this, and how I’m going to do that.’ No, it was more like in my day-to-day, I was noticing that ‘Oh, that was a great interaction. I really appreciated that,’ or ‘I love the way that customer service agent spoke to me,’ or ‘I love the way I was greeted when I entered the store,’ or ‘That shouldn’t have happened in the store,’ or ‘They should fix their online chat box.’ So, just try and draw inferences, and the sky is not your limit.
Clare Muscutt – host:
I love that. Thank you so much for coming on the show, today. You are an absolute queen.
Lara Felix:
Thank you. You too, Clare.
Clare Muscutt – host:
I love chatting to you. You’re always guaranteed real talk with Lara Felix. 100. That’s great advice. Thank you so much for sharing that. It’s time to say goodbye, Lara…
Lara Felix:
Aw!
Clare Muscutt – host:
… and to thank you, and to thank the listeners at home. I can’t wait to hang out with you very soon. Thank you so much.
Lara Felix:
Yes. Thank you so much. Thank you, everyone. Thank you, Clare, for putting on this amazing, amazing show, this platform for women. It’s amazing. I can’t wait for the Women in CX Community to launch; that is something to definitely be on the lookout for.
Clare Muscutt – host:
Thank you! I’ll see you soon. Take care. Bye, Lara.
Lara Felix:
Bye!