Katie Godfrey, left school at the age of 13 without any qualifications due to being severely bullied. So much so, she tried to end her life. Today she is the owner of multiple successful business, a franchise and the recipient of over 18 awards in her business category. She is here to tell us her story and how she found strength in the most unlikeliest of ways.
[DISCLAIMER: This may not be for sensitive listeners and there may be trigger points for certain listeners dealing. Please listen responsibly.]
Katie Godfrey, left school at the age of 13 without any qualifications due to being severely bullied. So much so, she tried to end her life. Today she is the owner of multiple successful business, a franchise and the recipient of over 18 awards in her business category. She is here to tell us her story and how she found strength in the most unlikeliest of ways.
Episode Key Moments:
00:00 Introduction
03:30 Why Katie left school at 13 and the background to her history with severe bullying.
06:24 Katie's relationship with education.
09:12 Katie's attempts on her life and how she rose from the ashes.
11:41 How did modelling serve to build up Katie's confidence and put her on the path to building her career?
14:35 How did Katie get started with her first business at the age of 15?
16:56 Anxieties Katie had to deal with in opening her first business and navigating the business team environment.
18:00 How did Katie teach herself to be more comfortable amongst a group of women despite her bullying history?
19:39 The smartest business decision Katie ever made.
20:41 How did Katie finance her businesses? What financial start-up advice does she have for other prospective business owners?
26:03 Where to find Katie.
27:00 Conclusion
Episode Links
Jeanne Retief: Blog | Podcast | Instagram | FIGGI Beauty Shop
Katie Godfrey: Instagram | Podcast | Website | Katie Goal Planner
[00:00:00.000] - Jeanne
We'd kindly like to ask for your help, goddess. Thank you for this wonderful community that you support. We would like to keep the My FIGGI Life podcast free to all our listeners, accessible and without ads. The podcast is not funded, and we would love for you to share this podcast with your community or friends that you think may benefit. It really, really helps us. If you leave us a five-star review on Apple podcasts or other platforms where you listen to your podcasts. Thank you so much for your continued support. All my love from my heart to yours.
[00:00:36.800] - Jeanne
Good morning, FIGGI Goddess, and welcome to the My FIGGI Life podcast. Today, we're going to be talking to an incredible woman who has made such a success of her life after leaving school at the age of 13 because she was severely bullied. We're going to learn how she built this brand, won over 18 awards, and she's going to share some of her life's journey and purpose with us. Stay tuned.
[00:01:05.580] - Intro
Welcome, goddess, to your sacred space. This is My FIGGI Life podcast where we openly discuss life's wins and losses on our journeys to self-discovery. This is your best life. This is your FIGGI Life. And now here is your host, Jeanne.
[00:01:24.680] - Jeanne
Welcome back, FIGGI goddess. I am so happy to introduce Katie, but what's really happening to you today. She left school at the age of 13 without any qualifications due to being severely bullied. So much so, she tried to end her life a few times. The determination set in to make something of herself. Katie got scouted by a modeling agency, and from a young age, she was working and traveling the world. Modeling boosted her confidence and taught her how to use the internet to develop her marketing skills and build a personal brand. At the age of 18, she decided she wanted to open her own modeling agency and started KG Model Management. She set up the business in her parents' office and had models on her books from all over the world. Soon outgrowing the home office, Katie decided that she needed a base. The first few years were tough, she admits, and she had to learn how to build a salon from scratch, get client through the door, learn to build a team, and see how much time and energy goes into working and growing a successful business.
[00:02:34.250] - Jeanne
She has won over 18 awards. She is such an incredible human being, and there is so much she's done and achieved. I cannot wait to talk to you. Thank you for being on the MyFiggyLife podcast.
[00:02:47.100] - Katie
Thank you so much for having me.
[00:02:50.070] - Jeanne
As the FIGGI community knows, I'm all about business and growing and personal growth, but how we connect that with mental wellness and health. My background story, of course, is that of an anxiety disorder or a panic disorder, and combining that with a successful business. Your story just rang so true because I think that you've been through so much and you are such a shining example of not only coming out the other side, but completely embracing and achieving and winning the other side.
[00:03:24.540] - Katie
Thank you. I honestly don't stop. I won't let anything stop me whatsoever. I might have my down movements, but I'll get back up.
[00:03:31.620] - Jeanne
That's incredible. Such an incredible quality to have and a really difficult one to also keep nurturing and managing. Let's go back to the beginning, right? You left school at 13. When I read that, I thought, Wow, you often hear about people who left school at 16 or 17. Thirteen is so young to make that decision. I can only imagine how emotionally traumatized you must have been to make this decision. Can you talk us a little bit through that phase and stage in your life and what was the breaking point for you?
[00:04:05.530] - Katie
Yeah, definitely. Obviously, I was getting bullied. That was a daily thing that was happening. As a kid, teenager back then, you believe everything that people tell you. I believe that they were going to stab me at the school gates when I was coming out of school. I believe they were going to petrol bomb my house. I believed all the things that I got told that was going to happen to me. My mom was my biggest supporter. She always, she still is to this day. She's the one that I would say kept me alive during that time because I tried to end my life a couple of times and she was always the one that was there to support me. She tried to pull me out of school and the school got her to go and just give one more chance, let's try and make it work. We don't because she can't leave school, etc, But it didn't work. In the end, she literally just come to pick me up. I walked out of school and I never went back. That was the end of that chapter. I never went back and I hated education because of that point. I managed to still do what I'm doing today. I just see it as part of my story, gave me a lot of motivation. If I did finish school and I didn't get bullied, I might not be where I am. In a funny way, I'm still grateful for that happening. Not that there is.
[00:05:14.540] - Jeanne
Obviously there is no reason for it to be okay ever. What do you think led to that? Because a lot of times people, they don't celebrate or we don't celebrate people who are different than us, that look different, act different, have different interests than we do. Why were you targeted like this?
[00:05:31.570] - Katie
I don't know. They weren't my age. They were the older girls. They were 2-3 years older than I was. If you think in the beginning of school, you're like the baby of the school. I was the older ones that were causing the problems. Now when I look back, it was jealousy. I used to be quite popular in my year group. I was always the taller one. I started modeling in school, not so much as I did, but there was the odd photoshoot here and there. I just think that it must have come down to jealousy, but back then I wouldn't afford that. Back then I thought it was because I'm ugly, because I stand out, because they just don't like me. I would have believed everything else, but yeah. Who knows?
[00:06:10.650] - Jeanne
Honestly, in my heart, I'm rooting for you, and I'm hoping... I hope you still know some of these girls because, gosh, you have made such an incredible success despite all of that. It should really be celebrated.
[00:06:24.940] - Jeanne
I'm very interested in your relationship with education. Obviously, this has tainted it for you. But prior to this, did you enjoy school? Did you enjoy the whole idea of being in a classroom, learning with a group of friends? Or was that never your vibe? Were you more creative and artistic and free-minded?
[00:06:43.840] - Katie
I was definitely always more creative, but I didn't mind going to school. I didn't kick up a fuss. My parents always wanted me to try. I remember my mom always doing the whole spellings and extra learning after school. She really wanted me to be good when it comes to education. But I would say it was when the bullying started, was when I turned and obviously hated school, it affected my grades, etc. But now my relationship with education is a funny one because now I have my children and I'm like, Oh, don't really need school. But I just believe if they want to go on and do things where they need school, then great, it's important. Make sure you study and all of that stuff. But if they're wanting to be an entrepreneur, I have mixed opinions. Do you really need it? You need the basics to build relationships, maybe work as a team, and obviously the values that you get in school. But other than that, I won't put any pressure on my children when it comes to school. I've obviously gone on myself to learn. I actually love education in a different format. I love self-education.
[00:07:51.330] - Katie
I love going on training courses. I love studying. I love reading books. It's not like I haven't done anything, I just haven't done grades. I even have my own training academy. I give out for qualifications, but they're quick one-day, two-day courses that I can then issue them. It's for people that don't want to do the whole year, two years in college. I have a love-hate relationship with education.
[00:08:15.450] - Jeanne
I love how you described how you also see this in terms of your children and now being a mom because I find many of the same reference points. I went all the way to the other extreme again, like I made studying a career, which was, if I look back on it, it actually caused me so much frustration and stress and anxiety and sadness. I'm looking at my little girl and I'm thinking to myself, what a wonderful world she's living in where we don't have to define education in that parameters anymore. There are so many different ways of learning. At the end of the day, what's going to serve you best is having access to and a support system who can support you in and encourage you on going on that journey in a way that will enrich you as a human being the most. I mean, that's really what we're looking towards achieving, in my opinion. I want to go back a little bit again to your early story because it's so incredible that you built this business and that you went on to do all of these things. But prior to that and prior to you making the final decision and you leaving school, you had made a few attempts on your life.
[00:09:30.110] - Jeanne
I understand honestly what it feels like to go through that. I was in the same position. I hadn't properly dealt with my childhood traumas and abuse. I just literally came to a point one day where I just... All I remember is it felt like an out-of-body experience, like I was standing outside of my body looking at myself. The only thing that was going through my mind was not, Is this wrong? Is this right? Should I? Should not? It was just like, I'm just so tired. I just want peace. It was such a difficult thing to describe to other people because everybody wanted to know why and why did you do this and why didn't you talk to somebody? Why didn't you try different? But that's the only thing that I could think of and that's the only way I could explain it is I just wanted quiet. I just wanted peace. What went through your mind in those really difficult situations?
[00:10:22.440] - Katie
I would say similar. I just wanted to be away from everything. I think when I first died, it was a cry for help. I wanted my parents to know what was going on. I wanted them to see that I was cutting myself. I'd hide it, but also wanted them to know. Then when it started to get a little bit more serious, I did just not want to be here. At first, I'm getting told from people that I don't want to be here, that you shouldn't be here and what type of human being you are. Then you start to believe those things and then you're so down that you just think, What is the point of being here? I was so young, like 12, 13 years old doing that. So, so young.
[00:10:57.940] - Jeanne
I was just going to say. Then and you're 13 years old and it's like you say it, you believe everything everybody tells. It's so, especially if it's repeated to you so constantly and especially by people a little older than you. I'm so, so glad that you're here and I can have this conversation with you. I honestly celebrate you for that because I really feel like you're a survivor. Thank you so much for the contribution you make to this world.
[00:11:23.720] - Katie
Thank you. I'm glad it didn't work as well, because I'm so glad I'm here now and I get to spread the awareness and help other people.
[00:11:37.920] - Jeanne
Something that really interests me about your story is when you've now left school, you decide to start a modeling agency. Well, first you were recruited as a model. You lived and worked in various places. You note that this gave you confidence, and this helped you get out of your shell and see the world from a different perspective. I had to ask you about that because I had more or less the same experience, but for me, it had a really negative impact on my self-worth and self-confidence and self-esteem. I'm curious to know how that was such a positive impact for you. Can you take us a little bit through your experience in this and how you got into this?
[00:12:20.640] - Katie
Yeah, of course. I got into it because the cliché story of being spotted on Oxford Street, that's exactly what happened to me. I got... Oh, wow. I know. I got spotted, Oxford Street in London, and went for this shoot. Bear in mind, I was young, I had zero confidence, and I never in a million years thought that I would be modeling. But when I was in front of the camera and the photographers tell you how well you are and how good you look and all the things that photographers do, it made me feel confident. I found my confidence in modeling and I wanted to do more and more and more. But more importantly, it got me out the house because I didn't want to leave the house. I honestly stayed in there all the time because I was so scared that bullies were going to find me or they were going to do something or people would judge me. I ended up being a recluse. The only way I'd leave the house is if I had a job. I would leave and go on photoshoots. I'd be on castings all the time. I'd be up and down the country.
[00:13:20.670] - Katie
I just loved meeting people. I actually realized that I was a real people person, even at such a young age. I started obviously earning money and I loved the fact I was earning money and again, being so young and being able to have that freedom and that income, I just loved it. I also learned how to build a business because I had to network. I mean, the industry has changed now, but I used to have to network online all the time, so I had to build up relationships with photographers and agents and learn how to compile email lists, etc, All those things I never knew would help me later on in business. There is the downside to modeling. It's all about what you look like, how skin you are. From that, I have a bad relationship with food even now in my adult life. But I will be forever thankful for it just saving me and giving me a purpose, and that's exactly what I've done.
[00:14:14.220] - Jeanne
It's so beautiful that you are in a space and place where you can acknowledge the beauty that it brought to you along with the challenges, but that it saved your life in so many ways. You went on to, at 18, you founded your own modeling agency and you started it from your parents' office. How did you start? And what made you think, Okay, I want to have my own agency?
[00:14:38.470] - Katie
It was more the fact of I was with several agencies and they would contact me and say, Do you know a girl for this job? Do you know a girl for that job? If it didn't fit my description. Because I'd been in the industry for a good while now, I did have many contacts of the other models. I was forever passing over models to these agencies and I thought, Do you know what? I can do this myself. That's honestly just how it was. It wasn't necessarily that I wanted to do anything different, even though the whole body shaming definitely wasn't for me. I didn't necessarily want to do anything different as such. I just wanted to... I was an entrepreneur without even realizing that I wanted something else for myself. I set up in my parents' office. I called it the name KG Model Management. I literally had models on my books from the second I started and I learned how to connect with suppliers that needed models and I've somehow figured that out quite easily. It's like I just knew how to do it and the agency just built from there and I absolutely loved it.
[00:15:41.610] - Katie
Then that's obviously what helped me get into the salon because being in my parents' office, I couldn't meet my models, so I was having to just do everything online, get them to send them the portfolio, etc. But I wanted to meet them, build a relationship with them, measure them, do their headshots, etc, so I needed a base for that. It was when I turned 19, I opened the doors to the agency/salon. I remember always being, Oh, when I'm older, I would love a tanning shop. That was my thing. It was just like, When I'm older, when I'm 30, I would love a tan and shop. I don't know why. I think it's just because of modeling. I always obviously had to have a nail done, my hair done, my tan done. It was always the thing to do. When I opened the agency, I was like, Okay, I can't just have the agency. I've got to have someone else to pull some extra money in. I opened the tan and shop at 19 instead of 30, and that's how it happened.
[00:16:34.840] - Jeanne
Going back to how scared you were to leave the house and realizing that you are actually a people's person. Going into this management of models, opening the salon, I don't have to tell you, business conversations can be tough sometimes, negotiations can be tough. I would imagine working with models can be tough sometimes. Did you have any anxieties that you had to overcome in communicating with people this way?
[00:16:58.040] - Katie
Yeah, definitely. I think more when I opened up the salon, I was always, and I still am, a people pleaser. I want people to like me. I'm scared what people will say behind my back. That still creeps in even now, all these years on. But I'd say my biggest challenges regarding that is obviously my team is a team of women and girls, and that's what I would not have wanted to be surrounded in years ago. So having to do things like disciplinaries and pull people up and be their boss and their leader, I found that really, really difficult in the beginning. Now I'm totally fine. Sometimes I do still have them challenges if people are unhappy and the whole, Oh, do they like me? Feeling comes in again. But then most of it, I've learned how to deal with, but it was definitely a learning curve. Sometimes I do think, how was I so how I was being bullied and shy and not really wanting to be around women to now be in a women-led industry? It's actually quite incredible.
[00:17:58.620] - Jeanne
I'm interested to know how did you do that? How did you teach yourself to be more comfortable with that? Is it just practicing having to do it every day and getting a little bit more confident as you do it? Or were there key lessons that you learned?
[00:18:17.230] - Katie
I would say I'm really, really focused. Once I put myself in a situation, I have to make it work. I just have to get on with it. We definitely learn on the job, I would say, every time I took on a staff member what issues I dealt with. Then when I've built a bigger team, obviously you come up with bigger issues. Bitchiness can be quite normal when it comes to dealing with lots of women. I just had to deal with things on the job and as I grow, I would say me staying focused was like, I lived in business books. I think I've gone through most business books there are, even when that comes down to leadership, etc, how I can make myself detach from the team as well. They are in the nicest way just my team. It doesn't matter if they dislike me, even though they wouldn't work for me if they did, but it's just making them attachment issues rather than some people when they start in business, they see the team as like their family or their sisters and stuff like that. You can't be doing that in leadership, and that's helped a lot.
[00:19:17.020] - Jeanne
What you've built from there, you have the tanning salons, you have franchise of salons, you also have The Lash, The Eye lash. Is it a group of company? Oh, okay, it's the product, but it's also a group of companies or franchises that you sell them in, right? You've won all of these incredible awards. What would you say for you was in building all of these businesses, the smartest decision you've ever made?
[00:19:42.330] - Katie
The smartest decision I've ever made was mostly just opening the doors to the salon in the first place, because if I didn't do that, if I put the fear first, if I put all the questions in my head that people told me, if I worried about the risk, I would never have done it. That's definitely my stepping stone onto everything else. I organically then set up my training academy and product range because people were asking for it. I then organically set up my business coaching because people were asking for it. I would say another one of the smartest moves was not opening another company unless the other one was fully running efficiently on its own first because you can't be all things to all people. You can't be in all places at once. You have to sell one business first and then set up the next business. I would say that's one of the smartest moves too. For a.
[00:20:35.270] - Jeanne
Lot of new business owners for women thinking to change their career or go into entrepreneurship, as you say, the smartest thing was just putting the fear aside a little bit and opening those salon doors. But a lot of that fear sometimes comes from the financial part. What would you say to that? How did you finance that? What if you are in a position where you don't have the savings for it lying around or you need to take a loan or you know how it is, you have a family and you have a house and you're scared to do it? How did you get around that?
[00:21:03.520] - Katie
Obviously, at the time I was 19, so when it comes to my personal life, I feel that I had no… I didn't have a family, children in my own house or anything. I was living at home with my mom and dad, so I was in a greater position there myself. I did get out business loans, so I was around £60,000 in debt just to open up the salon doors. That was a risk in itself. But I used the bank's money. There wasn't exactly loads of savings or anything behind me personally. I done that and I made sure that I paid back. My goal was to pay back from five years, so I'd be debt-free. I made sure that that happened, and it did. I would say that if there's any way that you have got savings, if you can take out a business loan or if you can loan it from a family member. I loan part of some of the loans from my mom and dad too, which I also pay back in full. If there's any way you can get hands on some capital to just get started and then give you that end goal of, okay, how long until you pay this back?
[00:22:04.960] - Katie
Otherwise you'll just find that unless it's an actual business loan, you mostly won't pay it back. So always set up that standing order, pay it back every single month and have a goal when you want to end that buy. Sometimes I feel that people don't start business because of the financials that come with that. But for me, and I think for actually a lot of people, is once there is that financial pressure, it naturally makes us work harder, it makes us not want to give up. Whereas sometimes if we don't have that pressure, it's like I don't really need to do this today, or I'll watch Netflix tonight. There's not really much of a push. For me, financials is definitely more of a push for me to just keep going in business.
[00:22:47.470] - Jeanne
Did you set a goal for yourself to say, okay, I'm going to take out this business loan. I'm going to do everything I can to make it work. But once A, B, or C happens, I'm going to call it quits, or I'm going to change direction or I'm going to pivot. Did you have a plan like that in place, or were you just, I am going to make this work. I have to make this work.
[00:23:07.100] - Katie
In my head was, I have to make this work five years ago. But obviously, it wasn't that easy. There was several times, especially in my industry, it's it fluctuates up and down during what time of year it is. When it gets to this time of year, so October, the salon naturally goes more quieter. When you've got no client base, you're a brand new business, you can imagine how quiet it was and all these bills and loans I had to repay back. There were so many times over, I'd say about three years were my toughest years where I was like, I just want to go bankrupt. It was easier for me to go bankrupt, go and get a normal job of what I could maybe find and just walk out the door and never go back. Or there was the fight to just do this because you don't know what might come of it. Obviously, I just kept on fighting. But I was so close to bankruptcy many times because it was just so hard.
[00:24:02.460] - Jeanne
Thank you so much for being so honest about that because I've been going through all of the same motions and spaces, and I feel like it's so difficult to speak to entrepreneurs who are actually honest about that. You always get the nice story and the quick skim over of, Oh, it was really hard in the beginning, but now I'm a success and I've made this and I've done that. But that little sentence, It was hard in the beginning, I feel is probably the actors of the story that we don't always hear. That can make you feel incredibly alone, especially when you're already under that amount of pressure and you are hard on yourself and you're trying to make it work and you're trying to keep focused. I'm so, so grateful that you were willing to be so honest about that.
[00:24:50.390] - Katie
Thank you so much. It definitely is not something that I hide. Actually, what people reach out to me a lot when it comes to online and my social media presence is keeping it real. I'll always keep it real. I'll tell people if I'm having a bad day, I'll tell people if business is struggling. It's definitely not the fairy tale that people think of all the time. You haven't gone from nothing to millions, and it'd be so easy. It just doesn't work like that.
[00:25:13.930] - Jeanne
Yeah, I always say my husband and I were talking the other day because he is also a business owner, and we were saying being an entrepreneur is like literally being a professional gambler because you never know. You can have the greatest of your life, and something small can change, and it can literally be the biggest pit you can fall into. It's such a roller coaster of ups and downs. Where can our audience find you? If they want to connect with you, if they want to look at all of your beautiful products on offer, they want to visit your salons, where do they go? What do they do. You also have a wonderful podcast, which I implore you to listen to FIGGI Goddess. Go to her podcast, rate it, follow it. You're going to love it. She talks so much also, as she says, about keeping it real and business, entrepreneurship, her life story. I really love it. Give us all the information we need.
[00:26:09.290] - Jeanne
Thank you. The podcast is called The Life of KG. You can find that on any podcast station. I hang out mostly on Instagram, which is kg_katiegodfrey. On the linktree there in the bio, you can see my salons, the professional products, the training, the business coaching, everything is there. If you like, I'll send you a link so people can download Goal Planner and then they can set all their business and financial goals up for all of your listeners.
[00:26:39.070] - Jeanne
That would be wonderful. Thank you so much. It's such a wonderful tool and I think our audience would love it. And don't worry if you were driving, I'm going to link everything for you in the show notes below so that you don't miss anything and that you don't miss to connect with Katie. Thank you so much for being on the My FIGGI Life podcast, and thank you so much for being so open and so vulnerable. I do so many of these podcasts, and my podcast is most of the times about very difficult conversations, and I understand what that mentally and emotionally takes out of you. For me personally, it just feels so good to know that we're putting the message out there and that others may feel they're not alone and we are part of a tribe and it's going to be okay.
[00:27:21.640] - Jeanne
Definitely. Thank you so much for having me.
[00:27:23.780] - Katie
Okay, FIGGI goddess, I hope you enjoyed this episode. I will see you again next time on the My FIGGI Life podcast. But until then, remember, everyone deserves to celebrate the goddess within.