IAM2080 – Coach Helps Female Entrepreneurs Start and Scale Successful Purpose Driven Businesses

In this episode, we have Ruth Kudzi, an author, coach, mentor, and teacher who works with female entrepreneurs to help them start and scale successful purpose-driven businesses.

She believes that success is down to a combination of mindset + strategy + action and works with her clients to help them in all of those areas.

Ruth has worked with thousands of women worldwide and has been featured in national magazines and in the press.

The conversation highlights the significance of resilience, delegation, and self-care for entrepreneurs, offering tiered services to cater to different needs.

Website: Ruth Kudzi
LinkedIn: Ruth Kudzi
Instagram: Ruth Kudzi
Facebook: Ruth Kudzi

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Transcription:

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Ruth Kudzi Teaser 00:00

Giving them resources like, really simple things like, hey, what's the difference between a Facebook page and a Facebook group? How do you set up your first webinar? What's a landing page? How do you how do you get on podcast? Like, all of those kind of fundamental things. And even before that, like, what are your goals, and what does success look like?

Intro 00:21

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, start ups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview?

If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 00:47

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO Podcast, and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Ruth Kudzi of Ruth Kudzi Coaching. Ruth, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Ruth Kudzi 00:57

Yeah. It's great to be here. Thank you. And you got the name right as well. I know it's quite difficult.

Gresham Harkless 01:01

Yes. I was trying for that one. But what I wanted to do is read a little bit more about Ruth so you can learn a little bit more about her. And Ruth is an author, coach, mentor, and teacher who works with female entrepreneurs to help them start and scale successful purpose driven businesses. She believes that success is down to a combination of mindset + strategy + action and works with her clients to help them in all of those areas. Ruth has worked with thousands of women worldwide and has been featured in national magazines and in the press. Ruth, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO Community?

Ruth Kudzi 01:35

I'm ready. Yes. I'm ready.

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Gresham Harkless 01:37

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, what I want to do is just pass you the mic and hear a little bit more about your CEO story and what led you to start your business.

Ruth Kudzi 01:44

Okay. So I'm 40 years old now. So I first started business when I was 15. I used to do events, and I always used to have what people would call in a side hustle. So when I was studying at university or college, as you call it in the states, I used to still I used to put on events. I used to do various other things for myself as as a business. But then I definitely had this mindset that I needed to get a proper job because these would never be, like, sustainable businesses.

So I went into and got a proper job and continued to do things on the side for a long, long time. And it was about three years ago that I was like, I'm actually a qualified business teacher. I've had businesses for all this time. And my students used to say to me, why don't you have your own business? Why are you doing this? And I remember I had a particularly bad day, and they'd said that to me. And at the time, I'd just gone back after maternity. I had a one year old daughter. And I was like, why am I doing this? Like, I don't enjoy it. I enjoy aspects, but I don't enjoy all of it. Is there something else I can do?

And so I went back and I looked at all of the things I'd done and I did all that, how you're meant to do it, looked at everything I did, looked at everything I enjoyed, and it was always coaching. It's something that I've been doing throughout my whole career. So then I was like, okay. I'm gonna do this. So it took me about six months to get my first client, during the time I became pregnant for a second time. So, I was really, like, battling, like, okay. I'm just keep having babies. I've only got two. And, yeah, I just I was like, I don't want to be working for somebody else who's gonna keep telling me what to do.

And I don't actually want to be doing these things that I don't enjoy. Because when you're in a job, you have to do everything. You can't say, well, I'm not very good at admin, so can somebody else do that? Or I'm not very good at this. And so I really crave that kind of freedom where I made my own decisions, but also where I was able to get somebody to help me with the things that I don't like.

Gresham Harkless 03:41

Yeah. That makes perfect sense, and that's, obviously, an awesome story. And especially you having the courage to be able to take that step because a lot of people may not like where they're at, whether it be their jobs or whatever positions or whatever they're in, and they might just kind of stick with it, so to speak, and not decide to make a change.

So that's awesome that your students, but also you took it upon yourself to make that change. So, what I wanted to do was drill a little bit deeper and ask you, like, how exactly do you help serve and work with the clients that you work with?

Ruth Kudzi 04:08

So I do lots of different things. So I'm definitely what people would call multi passionate.

Gresham Harkless 04:13

Mhmm.

Ruth Kudzi 04:13

Or, like, I've just got lots of ideas. So from on a basic level, I start working with people in my membership. So that's kind of like a low price commitment, and they get it's a lighter touch from me. So they get resources, they get some support from me, and they get support from an associate coach who works with me. And that's really to help people stay accountable for their goals and to give them kind of they have events every quarter.

So that's kind of like a a really startup. Giving them resources like sit yeah. Really simple things like, hey. What's the difference between a Facebook page and a Facebook group? How do you set up your first webinar? What's a landing page? How do you get on podcasts? Like, all of those kind of fundamental things. And even before that, like, what are your goals, and what does success look like? So that's my membership. And then I have a group program, which is kind of an extension for that, which is when people have got one client, they really want to start going into that consistent.

And again, they kind of have teaching modules and then coaching. So they have it combined. So they learn, and then they're coached through any problems that they've got. And I have one to one coaching, and I have a mastermind, which is kind of a combination of the lot of it. And I do events. So a lot of it is kind of teaching, teaching new concepts, teaching things that are I've done, teaching theory. And then on top of it, the coaching, which is about really drilling down for them about what's going on and what's stopping them. Because I always say you can have all the strategy in the world, but if your mindset's wrong, you're not gonna do anything. And they hate the word mindset in the UK, by the way.

Gresham Harkless 05:45

Oh, do they? Why so?

Ruth Kudzi 05:45

They don't get

Gresham Harkless 05:46

I didn't know that.

Ruth Kudzi 05:47

I don't know. They don't really get it. I know in the States, like, everyone gets mindset. In the UK, you have to explain it in different terminology. So you'll be like, so you make sense about what's the obstacles that are stopping you and you talk about it in a different way because they don't buy mindset.

Gresham Harkless 06:04

Interesting. Interesting. Well, I was about to say mindset is huge. I feel like it's huge. Maybe it's because I'm in the states, but I feel like that lays that foundation. But it's good that you have all those different tiers depending on how people might wanna interact with you whether is joining as a member or actually having the minds, the mastermind groups that you have Yeah. Or if it's the one on one coaching, but you have all those tiers where anybody can kind of help you can kind of help anybody to reach their goals.

Ruth Kudzi 06:32

Yeah. And I think it's people will work through them and some people you know, we talk about money mindset a lot and I know that it's a big thing in the UK and the States and wherever you are. But I think that the buying mentality is slightly different in this country, and people generally want to get to know you. So if you've got lower priced offers, it works really well because people get to know you and form a relationship with you, and then they'll move up where it's appropriate. So it works with different personalities as well because some people just they don't feel like they can spend straight away.

Gresham Harkless 07:04

Mhmm. Yeah. It makes perfect sense. So they wanna like, dip their toes in to see how it probably how the relationship works for one, but also to how it impacts what it what they're doing on a on a smaller level, and then they can always scale up and have a deeper conversation.

Ruth Kudzi 07:18

Exactly. Exactly.

Gresham Harkless 07:19

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, now I wanted to ask you for what I call you like your secret sauce or kind of like, what do you feel makes you unique or kind of distinguishes you as an entrepreneur and business owner?

Ruth Kudzi 07:28

I think that for me, having the mindset so I've got a Master's in Psychology, and I was adapt to your head teacher of a school. So I used to do a lot of work in mindset and how people learn and how people develop. And I think that's really helped me with working out, helping people with their mindset. So I think that's quite unique because lots of people don't have that mindset background.

And I think also being able to break things down in a way that works for people because I used to teach, like, fourteen year olds how to run businesses. So lots of business coaches have never run a business and got no idea about the strategy. So I can help people actually know why this works and the theory as well as the practical because there's no point having a theory if it doesn't work. But often with the practical, people don't get why they're doing things. So I think bringing that combination really helps.

Gresham Harkless 08:23

Yeah, absolutely. And I think too, like, you touched on the fact that you saw it like the fourteen year olds. A lot of times, like you mentioned, we're all kind of fourteen year olds in some way, shape, or form. If we're just starting a business, never thought about running a business, but we're really good at our craft. We're very advanced in our craft, but we may not be advanced in the the business and the understanding, like, avatar and like you said, landing pages.

All these things that you have are resources. We might be fourteen or younger. So you being able to have the opportunity for people to learn and develop and be able to teach people those things helps them to grow and expand and of course, help them be more successful.

Ruth Kudzi 08:58

Yeah. Definitely.

Gresham Harkless 09:00

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome.

Ruth Kudzi 09:01

It's all about learning and developing as well, isn't it?

Gresham Harkless 09:03

Yeah. You could definitely lose sight of that. So what I want us to do was switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack. And this might be an app or book or habit that you have, but it's something that makes you more effective and efficient as a business owner.

Ruth Kudzi 09:16

Oh my gosh. Okay. So every person, but every CEO should read the book, The Big Leap. I don't know if you've read it. But when you read about it, it talks about your zone of genius, which is area that you operate in and you operate in really, really well. Now your zone of genius, you stop yourself. You have these things called upper limit problems that when things are going really, really well, you self sabotage. Now I read this book about two years ago for the first time, and it was like I was coming home. I was like, oh my gosh, that's why I've been doing it.

So I would highly recommend anyone to read that because not only does it, even if you're not a CEO, but if you're a CEO, it makes you, it makes you refocus and think, okay, why am I wasting time? Doing something that I'm really not very good at? And we all do it. We might spend hours researching how to do something in the house and then try and do it ourselves, and we can't put up a shelf. Now we've wasted, like, two days, and we could have paid someone to come in and do it for us, and it would have been, like, a hundred dollars, a hundred pounds. Yeah. And so it's we're not valuing our time.

So there are two things there. It's like the upper limit problem when you stop yourself. And it's also that, like, operate at the things that you're really good at. The other things, get someone else to do them. Because if you're thinking about your time and money, you're basically wasting time of doing those things with money.

Gresham Harkless 10:44

And you being able to delegate and find other people that have that zone of genius maybe where you don't have it and they're able to hire them or delegate to them or do whatever you can do can help you be more effective and efficient and make you be more successful because you are focusing on your own zone of genius. So I think that's a a phenomenal CEO hack. And, now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget, and this might be a word of wisdom or a piece of advice that you might have for entrepreneurs and business owners.

Ruth Kudzi 11:08

Do not give up. When it gets really bad, take some time out. And I mean, like the rest of the day, but do not give up. If you're passionate, resilience really is one of the number one indicators of success because there are probably many people who are better than you, probably many people who are more talented, but they gave up. So don't give up. Keep going even when it gets tough.

Gresham Harkless 11:33

I love it. I love it. And like you said, a lot of times you have people that are more talented, maybe have more money, maybe have more backing, but sometimes people will quit. And usually the people that continue on and reach that level of success are people that just kept going with it with whether it was ups or downs or highs and lows. They just push through.

Ruth Kudzi 11:50

A 100%. Yeah.

Gresham Harkless 11:51

Absolutely. Awesome. So now I wanted to ask you for what is my favorite question, which is like the definition of being a CEO. And we're hoping to have on and invite different types of CEOs on this podcast. So I wanted to ask you specifically, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Ruth Kudzi 12:05

I think being a CEO means being in control of my destiny. It means being able to make choices to move my business forward and to move my life forward. And it means, like, having the freedom to do whatever I want today.

Gresham Harkless 12:16

Absolutely. I love that. I love that definition, and it hits home. So, Ruth, I truly appreciate you for taking some time out of your schedule. What I wanted to do was pass you the mic, so to speak, to see if there's anything additional you want to let our readers and our listeners know and how best people can get a hold of you.

Ruth Kudzi 12:31

Okay. I would say, I mean, I've touched on it a bit. Mindset is so important. Resilience is so important. So do things that make you feel good every day, like work out. I'm in my workout game at the moment, but work out, eat properly, sleep, all of those things will make you be a better entrepreneur. So take care of yourself first. They always say put your own life jacket on first.

Now my name is Ruth Kudzi, K-U-D-Z-I. I think I'm the only person called it in the whole world. So I'm ruthkudzi.com. I'm and then I'm ruthkudzi on all social media, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or Twitter. So it's quite easy to find me.

Gresham Harkless 13:08

Awesome. Awesome. And just in case, we'll have links in the show notes so anybody can click through and follow-up with you, Ruth. I truly appreciate you for all you're doing and all the awesome things you're helping people out with, and I just hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Ruth Kudzi 13:21

Thank you. You too. I really appreciate being on here. Thank you very much.

Outro 13:24

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by CBNation and Blue16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co. I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Check out the latest and greatest apps, books, and habits to level up your business at CEOhacks.co.

This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless, Jr. Thank you for listening.

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