Small But Mighty Episode 16: Anna Sinclair on building a village that connects moms and businesses

Anna Sinclair brings moms together through The Total Mom Network. It’s a place to connect, help one another and experience unique events. Anna also runs Sinclair Creative Agency, a full-service agency that connects brands and communities through storytelling. She joins me on the show today to discuss what inspired her to start Total Mom Inc., and how her experiences as a singer and actress have helped her create a creative agency built on connection.

You can learn more and connect with Anna and The Total Mom Show (happening April 19th!) by visiting the Total Mom Show website, Sinclair Creative Agency, and follow on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, Youtube, and LinkedIn.

Full episode transcript:

Hello there! Karen here just to add a quick note about this episode before we dive in. You'll hear Anna and I talk about a date that is most definitely in the past for The Total Mom Show and Canada's Total Mom Pitch. But don't worry - you haven't missed out on it.

As we've learned over and over living through this pandemic, sometimes you just have to be flexible and shift things to work better for the people you want to help. And that's exactly what Anna did with this event, which is now happening on April 19th, 2021. All the sessions will be pre-recorded and available for attendees to access when they can, so you don't have to miss a single thing.

Be sure to visit Anna's website, thetotalmomshow.ca to learn more! And I hope you enjoy this episode. Anna's a fascinating lady and it was a pleasure getting to speak with her.

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Karen Wilson: Hi, everyone. Welcome to Small But Might Biz Stories. I am here today with Anna Sinclair, founder, and CEO of Total Mom Inc., a digital community and event series that provides support to moms navigating the personal and professional realities of parenting. Anna, thank you for joining me today. Tell everyone a little bit about yourself and Total Mom Inc.

Anna Sinclair: Yes. Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. This is really great. I love doing podcasts in between all of the busy sessions that are going on in my life right now. I am the founder and CEO of Total Mom Inc. I created this company back in 2017 when I had my first son, Oliver. Prior to getting into entrepreneurship, I was a pop singer on Disney and Family Channel, so I was signed to Universal. I was very much into the singing, the dancing, the acting, that whole self-expression thing. I was just obsessed with Disney when I was growing up.

I always wanted to literally be that pop singer, icon kind of person. Of course, that all came to a very quick halt when I had Oliver. My husband and I, we were looking at my life and what I was doing. I had a little baby. I was trying to figure out what is this motherhood thing. I went to a baby show and I quickly realized that there just wasn't anything out there that spoke to me. The mentality and the mindset that I was in, I think I grew up really fast in the entertainment business. I was craving this entrepreneur lifestyle, but I could not do anything anymore.

I looked at all the stuff I dumped on my floor from the baby show and it was just tough. I said, "Oh, my gosh. I need to do something that I can use my event planning skills. I need to still create productions and stages. I need to still do blogging and work with brands. I need my creativity back. I need to be able to use my marketing brain and my sales brain. I can't just sit here and just watch my son." I felt so trapped. Not negatively, but I just was like, "What is going to be of my life?"

I told Brandon. I'm like, "Oh, my gosh. What if I created this massive festival for moms that focused on helping them personally, professionally, beauty lounges and this and that. I want something better than just going to a baby show and putting pacifiers and creams in a bag. Let's level it up here." He's like, "You should do it. Go and do it." I'm like, "Okay. Let's--" I called my previous executive assistant at the time and I said, "I need your help. You're going to need to do a lot of research and a lot of administrative work, but we're going to roll out a big festival."

She was like, "Okay. I'm in." That's how it started. Fast-forward four years later, it's not only expanded beyond festivals, it's gone to digital programs and partnerships with international brands. Now, leading up to our big annual signature pitch competition with Scotia Bank Women Initiative and Visa.

Karen: Talk about the pitch competition. I know you have that coming up in just a few weeks now, so you're busy doing all the preparation work for that.

Anna: The countdown is on. Canada's Total Mom Pitch is such an incredible event. Not only is it a business pitch competition which allows women-led businesses and visions and innovations be highlighted and heard, but it creates the space for these moms who love their companies, their businesses, and their ideas, to get introduced to some big, big successful women and also get funding. One of the big things that we really bring to the table is that we're bringing you every single person that you need to know that can help you access funding, understand what it truly means to get investment, and what you have to know to get investment.

Where you can loan money, where you can dilutive and non-dilutive funding, where you can government grants, and why other women are getting grants and you're not. We're covering a huge panel on that. Then we have another panel that's going to be covering "growing your team." One of the many, many, many issues when women are starting up their businesses is they're doing it all. They're using freelancers and they're using all of these different people from Upwork or Fiverr. Just contracting people, but those people are not necessarily reliable, to be honest with you.

What ends up happening is you end up doing double the work. You don't have people that are completed vetted and interested in long-term with you. You're constantly turning the wheels. One of the things that we're going to be talking about on that panel is what does it really take to maybe even get that one employee that's going turn key and drive success to the business. Then there's another panel that's called "what it truly takes to put a product to market." We have a senior contributor of Forbes speaking. We have Pinterest, Google coming.

There's so many amazing speakers and workshops and panels during the daytime. Then in the evening, we're all coming together to celebrate these top five finalists that are going up on stage and pretty much pitching to the celebrity judges. We had over 700 applicants across Canada apply for this and 5,400 people voted for the top 100. Out of nowhere, my husband and I were looking at my computer and we're like, "Oh, my God, Brandon." He's like, "What?" Like, "There's 5,400 people that voted for these top 100 women. Where are they coming from?"

Essentially, all of Canada rallied up together, and so we were really, really excited to get the attention. We got Scotia Bank Women Initiative. It's powered by Visa. We've got Export Development Canada, WEKH (Women's Entrepreneurship Knowledge Hub). We've got so many crazy partners like Futurpreneur. We've really done a great job to enroll and register these, I guess ecosystem members, but also these large brands and organizations to say, "Can you guys jump on board with this and help these women and these moms who are struggling and need these connections?

They need these resources. They need credible stuff. They need something fast. We don't have the time and space. Our kids are being sent home left, right, and center. Pandemic's been a nightmare with childcare. We all know this stuff isn't new news. Realistically, I was envisioning how can a mom sit there and scour the internet of oversaturated information and find something credible enough to actually apply for it and get it. Every single person that applied is getting a business bundle. They're getting resources. They're getting a free ticket to the show.

We don't want them to pay for it. We don't want that to be an additional barrier. We're bringing these headlining speakers and stuff. Can you tell I'm a little high on the conversation? It's been eight months of planning.

Karen: It's intense. I used to run a conference and I remember those last few weeks were quite…You don't even remember them after they're over. It's gone by so fast.

Anna: It's special times right now.

Karen: What got you interested in doing this pitch fest? I know that women entrepreneurs are only funded at roughly 2%. If you start breaking down by race, it's significantly less. What inspired you to do this?

Anna: Honestly, I really wanted to celebrate the spirit of entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is what gives me the means to feel self-expressed, free. I get to do what I want to do in different ways. I think being an entrepreneur, you can really drive impact. Whereas if I was working with somebody, there's a ceiling to how far I can get and what my impact can do.

Sometimes, especially in corporate environments, you have your title, you have your superiors, and it is what it is. As an entrepreneur, you have the whole world in front of you. You can essentially drive impact, measure impact, you can collaborate with others.

It's exciting and it's fun and it can really make a huge difference in the world. For me, I know that moms create incredible businesses. What seems to be, what I've noticed for me, personally, is that moms create businesses to solve a problem in a way that comes from their heart. Obviously, people create products and services to solve a problem because that's business, but when moms do it, there's just something authentic and real about why they're creating that product. It's always so insane.

Like, "My son had severe allergies, so now we have snacks that everybody can eat and they're allergy-free." It's like, "Whoa." All of those kinds of things are so needed. Moms have big hearts. That's why we wanted to do it. I think it's also really important that A, motherhood is a lonely journey. Business and entrepreneurship is a lonely journey. You put two lonely journeys together, you got a big lonely journey.

We need to be around these other women that get us, and I can say, "You know what? I know Sally, she knows a good copywriter. Let's hook you up."

You need to be around the support system, this whole notion of it takes a village to raise kids and grow business is not just another catchphrase. It's the reality, for many, many of us moms.

Karen: You're basically taking that village and expanding it into the business world because we talk about how your business is your baby so often in entrepreneurship circle.

Anna: That's so cool. I've never heard anyone say that. It's true. I don't think some of the times I realize what I'm doing. I'm one of those people where I have many skillsets and I just follow my heart and my gut and my impulse. I think it's that impulse of wanting to do good things and help people that gets me to these situations. Then I'm like, "Oh, I need to sleep."

Karen: I love that.

Anna: I'm like, I don't know why I don't catch up on this stuff, but it really fuels me. I think most people if they actually got a glimpse into my life and saw the hours and saw the reality, they would definitely think that this is not normal, but it's my normal. It fills my cup, and being around other powerful women reminds me that I'm a powerful woman.

Karen: Oh yes, definitely. There is something about that, having that kind of community around you. It's very motivating and you feel like you have a whole team of people at your back.

Anna: Yes, so key, because you can isolate yourself, especially if you're so focused on the end goal and you have your kids and this and that, there's not much going on. I found personally, for me, when I became a mom and now I'm a mom of two, two boys under four, I don't have as much time to go out and see people. Being so busy with work, I don't get a lot of that time off. It's really important to try to enjoy that work-life experience. People talk about balance, but it's not about balance. If you work and that's your lifestyle, if you have a work-life lifestyle, you can still make it great. It just looks a little bit different. Everybody's so different.

Karen: Oh yes. I've never really bought into the idea of balance because it's so different for everybody.

Anna: I know it's a word that doesn’t describe anything?

Karen: How do you even figure out this magical formula of what is balance?

Anna: Well, I strongly believe that there's the polarity of the good and the bad, and the good and the bad experiences are what make you human, and they are what gives you the growth. Most people will say this, "Oh, when it rains, that's when you grow." All those weird quotes, but it's true.

You need to go through the crap before you really appreciate those successes because I've also been in many positions in my life where I've had some huge successes and many, many wins. I performed on stage for 30,000 people on We Day next to huge celebrity artists that I grew up listening to. That was a huge win for me, but I realized really quickly that even after that, it's like the next morning, you're like, "Okay, now what?" That could be personal to me because I have high expectations and I'm really hard on myself. I think we have to have those downtimes.

That's life, that's being human. It's this third-dimensional experience of the up and the down, we got to feel that. Why would we want to balance that? The what, it'd be perfect? I don't get it.

Karen: Yes, and we know perfection – it’s not possible.

Anna: It's not good, a lot of women struggle from that because of just growing up and creating these stories around what was good enough, what wasn't, and we're all on this journey of self-worth and letting go of perfectionism and standing in our truth, but it's tough stuff, especially when you're doing branding and you own companies and they have a presence and you have a presence. It's a lot.

Karen: Something you said earlier, I thought was so interesting is the idea that when women are creating a business there's a certain heart behind it that doesn't appear-- Not when women but when moms, in particular, are creating a business. Do you think that that is coming from the different side of nurturing that comes out after becoming a mother?

Anna: Yes, definitely. I think that when-- I don't know about you, but just personally, that experience of becoming a mother to me was just transformative. Everybody has a huge, different variety of ways that becoming a mom is an experience to them, but to me, I instantly felt I was ready to forgive everyone. I was walking around I'm like, "I forgive you. I need to change. I'm a good person." So many things happen to me. I grew up so quickly and in such a snap of a finger. It was like, I saw the baby, I saw my son. I saw what it was like to nurture the child.

Instantly, I was like, "Okay, you know what? I want to focus on helping people," and I think becoming a mom for some people really just becomes this thing where they're like, "I need to reevaluate what's important to me because this innocent little child is so precious and life is precious." You just go down this rabbit hole of like, "Where am I? Who am I? What am I doing?" I guarantee you that's definitely where my mindset is at with that. I think that moms just-- they want to nurture. They contribute to that possibility.

Karen: There's this idea of holding the next generation in your arms. You want the world to be a better place for them. Doing something that in an economic sense and a personal income sense, that can contribute to that is very fulfilling.

Anna: I agree so much with you. Yes, it is.

Karen: This past year has been quite an adjustment for so many of us in business. With a lot of the focus with Total Mom being events-driven, how have you been shifting the focus and maintaining that community as we're all keeping our distance?

Anna: I think one of the main things that I have noticed that I'm really just only focusing on right now is building an empowered ecosystem of women supporting women. This being an actual thing, like walking the walk, not just another hashtag like women supporting women, like actually supporting women and seeing and asking them and reaching out to them and saying, "How can I help you? How can I serve you?" Or, "Do you need this introduction?" When I hear a woman on the phone saying, "Oh, well, I'm struggling with this," actually stepping up to the plate and giving them that introduction.

It's just one of those things where we need to find a way to rise up out of this, and women have always had that amazing innate ability to connect and just get into that circle and vibe when we're all together, the power is endless. I've just been working on empowering others around me and hoping that that energy of empowering others passes on and passes on and everybody just follows suit. Also, I've been very, very vulnerable in my leadership style. A lot of the people that have reached out to me for media interviews, or even just women that are in-

For example, the CEO of Tangerine, the first time I got on the call with her, I literally sweared on the phone. I think I cried and I told her about what was going on that week. I think that vulnerability is so key, and it is a really, really important thing for us all to share. We really do need to just share that successful women are still normal women, and we need to start sharing what is so for us. Whether it's our mental state of being, or what's really happening.

I know that's taboo, it's like, "Oh, it's so unprofessional, keep the personal stuff out," but that is what I'm doing personally, that I think is connecting me to not only the most successful women, but the largest organizations who are there to support me too. I think just doing that is working for me, and I highly recommend it for anybody. Just humanize yourself, humanize business, and humanize the fact that it's not okay. This is not normal. Nobody wants to hear the same old record playing, like, "Oh, the pandemic. It's not normal." I get it, but being real is what's bringing us all together. Just be real.

Karen: Yes. I actually first encountered this idea about five years ago through a corporate workshop. They basically were telling everyone that it's like an iceberg at work. You see the top 10%, but there's a lot going on under the surface. You don't leave that at home, all of the personal, whatever that's happening in your life. Maybe you're worried about a sick family member. Maybe you're worried about your child struggling in school. There could be relationship issues. There's all sorts of things that go on in your life outside of work. I don't like to say personal life because work is part of your life.

That idea is so powerful to me because it changes the way we look at our interactions. Looking at how someone, maybe they're short with you when they respond, and you're a little taken aback at first, but then you say, "Okay, well, maybe they're having a bad day. Something's happening there." I love that idea of not being quite so separated from your personal dealings from your work because it does dehumanize it.

Anna: It does. What it does is it creates tons of miscommunication. It causes a disconnection, and it also causes this weird vibration, and people can pick it up and feel it. There's a lot of people who don't work on their emotional intelligence. If a boss or a colleague at work is being short and rude, or whatever, and they might think that it's a personal attack. We just need to find ways where we can connect and share. What comes up in my mind is, you ever see those movies where they'll do the high school anti-bullying thing, and the whole school comes out and has to sit on the bleachers, and then they talk about it?

Corporations, companies, and businesses need to constantly continue doing connection and group things like that. Even soft skills, soft skills are so key. Just being able to work together so we can communicate properly, but also be there for each other is key right now. Who knows if we're ever going to go back to what we had? You don't know.

Karen: We don't. It's going to be interesting to see. In some ways, maybe what we take from this is some of the good things that come from it because there's been a lot of good that has come out of it that I think will be beneficial to maintain.

Anna: Agreed.

Karen: Go ahead.

Anna: I said, "Agreed." Yes, I do.

Yes, there's been so much good. I think it's all perspective. What do you get out of it? Everybody gets thrown something that's going to be a little stop in the road, but it's up to you what you make out of it. I'm not saying that some people don't have the end of the world feeling of horrible things that may have happened to them, but there's always that lesson.

There's always the silver lining. There's always growth. I don't mean to sound like I'm passing off things. There's lots of things that are difficult for people, but there's always that something to learn.

Fortunately, it's what I've taught myself to know and be. Not everybody's strong and not everybody has experienced some of the things I've experienced. I think I've got a little bit of tougher skin. This pandemic has been not too bad for me.

Karen: That's good.

Anna: It's been tough but not the end of days yet.

Karen: I want to talk a little bit about the Total Mom community that you've built. What are some of the unique needs that you're addressing with the community?

Anna: Yes, for sure. Essentially, I wanted to create a community that can tap into these resources, that can tap into bite-sized videos, that can connect with experts, and just have these people around that they can learn from, lean on, speak to, connect with. The pain points that we're really hitting are moms are busy. They want to work on their life and their wellness and their health. Total Mom has always been an organization and a business to support moms and women to access health and wellness.

We work with a lot of brands that offer better for your products. We work with a lot of wellness practitioners, doctors, educators, and even in the productivity and lifestyle for just, in general, to get your stuff together because it's tough. When you become a mom, your schedule is intense. I remember my husband and I, first, we were like, "Wait, do we need a calendar? Do we need a calendar for this because there's this, there's that." It's just navigating all these things. You can always learn. You can always learn a new way, a new tip, or a trick.

We're really all about showing some how-tos, connecting you with people who can jump in and do it. One of the cool things that we really focus on are six different zones with our wellness festivals. Some of the areas in the festival cover mom life hacks. For example, if you don't have time to meal prep or cook, we bring in partners that can essentially come and cook in your house and meal prep for you or deliver food or organize your house or your basement, or some of us, garage.

That's one of the things that I think is important, is support. Support for moms on the mind, body, and soul connection. That's what we've always been about. That has always strongly come from that-- just that idea of I was looking to my left and my right, and I didn't see anything like that. I saw baby shows. I saw mommy community groups. I saw a lot of things that brought moms together, but then it was, they came with their baby or they came with their toddler. They're like, "What formula are you using or are you breastfeeding?"

It was just garbage. I thought, "How can I take this to the next level and bring empowerment and education and entertainment, and allow these diverse women from all kinds of backgrounds and cultures to see themselves in this community?" I was born in Ukraine, I lived in Israel, and then I moved to Canada. I had a really rough childhood. I was an immigrant, and I had to learn English, and English was my third language. For a while in my life, I lived in underprivileged areas. I knew what it was like. I was always around tons of multicultural people.

To me, it's always been normal to just be like, "This person, that person, everybody." That wasn't the case when I looked around and I saw-- When you look up 'mom' on Google, you're going to see a blonde blue-eyed lady all the time. It's just there's always this woman that is the mom. I was like, "Well, what about women from India, or what about Jamaican women, and what about Latin women? Where are they going to find themselves and see themselves?" It starts here. It starts with us in North America, and then we'll expand globally.

I'm hoping that we can really just have a Total Mom experience for moms across the world because they're all going to need to identify and connect with and celebrate their unique background and their differences and the way that they mother and the way that they run their business. I know that women in Jamaica do things completely different than women in Europe. Somebody's got to represent everybody, or else we're just going to keep staying in the same direction, which is, buy a stroller, buy a pacifier, like, "Thanks. You became a mom. Congrats, here's your baby shower." You know what I mean?

Karen: Well, one of the things I love about this is that you're taking that baby-centric focus away and putting the mirror back on the mom, allowing the mom to be a bigger focus, where in the past, you basically gave up your identity and became a mom. It became all about your child but what you're doing with this is empowering women to be more than a mom.

Anna: Yes. There's so much sensitivity to that statement. I don't know what there is in the world more than a mom because it's pretty much a mom is someone who wears five million hats and then walks around and then just does it. There's nothing more than a mom. My mom is like-- I don't even know how to describe that. However, even moms that are busy and that want something back. They want their identity back or their job back or their life back or their freedom back or their body back or their health back, whatever it is, their mental state, all of the above, they want to all these things back but they still love their children.

They still adore and just cherish them, but if they're the adult and they're the ones who have to be the center of the home. If they're the ones who have to nourish their bodies to then feed their children or nourish their body so that they can humanly get up in the morning and do all of multitasking that we're expected to do, that's a whole other topic how much we're expected to do as women and as moms. I don't know where our culture went sideways to go from villages and people helping each other out to this mom that does it all. The 2021 mom is the speaker, the coach, the entrepreneur.

What is this crap? This is not normal to watch and raise humans that need emotional, physical, psychological support. You're raising a human, they're your responsibility, then you still have to make money. Then you still have to be a wife or a partner, then you're still a sister or a brother or a friend. This is baloney. This is unrealistic and so, for me, I wanted to create an event and then a community and then a network that not only helped lighten things up and allow these moms to just feel, "I can step away," and just remember that there's still that hope.

There's still that chance and it's all about that decision of going, "You know what, I don't have to not take a bath right now. I'm going to take a bath and I'm telling everybody they're watching the kids." It's that empowerment of being, it's not over. You just choose, let's reproduce this. Let's redirect the schedule. Let's find you some support systems. I had never even thought about getting a nanny or a babysitter or anything until I did. When I did, I was like, "Hallelujah." I literally was like how did I not have this before? Now, I'm like, "Okay, you want to watch my children? Come watch my children." I'll call someone from the internet.

Nowadays, it's too much pressure on us. It's way too much pressure.

Karen: It's interesting because you were talking about how many women in business are doing everything on their own. The same is true of moms in general. It took me years to finally hire a house cleaner. Now I hold on to that dearly. When we went in lockdown recently, I was a little bit…I missed my cleaning service.

Anna: The little thing.

Karen: It is, but that whole idea of hiring help to take on the tasks, the ones you hate, the ones that are just a big mental energy suck, I love that. I think that women, in general, aren't great at committing to free up their time and mental space.

Anna: Yes, totally. I was going to say, can you give me one second? I'm going to grab my charger. I'm going to run really quickly. Okay, give me one second.

Karen: Let's talk about what you were doing before you started Total Mom Inc. because you've had a very interesting evolution into this business.

Anna: Yes. I don't even really think I ever was going to get into business. I never grew up wanting to be a business owner or a CEO or anything like that. I have been doing a lot of different things in the past, over a couple of decades now. I don't even know where to start. I've been consulting for well over a decade. I've got a lot of experience with strategic sales and program management and event planning and all that stuff, but really it all started back in high school when I really wanted to get out there and move to Toronto. I was in, I think it was Bradford, Ontario and I wanted to move to the big city and go after my dreams.

Growing up, I was dying to be a pop singer. My dad gave me one of those, what are they called, karaoke machines when I was four years old. I remember the tape that came with it. It was Achy Breaky Heart and all I sang was Achy Breaky Heart on repeat until we got into the '90s and Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera and Backstreet Boys and TLC and all of these singers and pop artists and boy bands and girl groups came out. I was like, "That's what I want to do." I got signed, I think it was back in, I don't even know now, in the beginning of-- I can't even remember.

Basically, what happened was I was in university and college, I did psychology. I met this guy, we were supposed to get married. He literally pretty much dumped me on text message. It never happened. I moved to my parents' house and it was a catastrophe. I literally hit rock bottom. I told my parents, "Just give me two months. I'll figure out my life." It was in that moment of just losing it all which I pretty much felt like I lost it all at that point. I was 23 and I didn't really know how I was going to figure the stuff out. I felt like I just need to focus on my passions.

I was like, "What if I just went after this whole music business thing that I've always dreamed of? What can go wrong? I've already lost everything. I'm just going to go for it." Relentlessly as I was, I messaged every single person on Facebook that was in the music business, and lo and behold, I ended up with a manager and one thing led to another and I ended up meeting some famous people. They introduced me to this person and that person and it really just escalated really quickly. My first single that I ever wrote was on the Family Channel and Disney Channel.

Then I ended up writing a whole album and started doing We Day and performing live on stages and selling out these venues in the city. Just taking over Canadian Music Week. That was really, really great. I got to inspire youth through pop music. I had a very impactful music career for about four, five years. I wrote an album. During that time, I worked a lot with publicists and marketing people and agencies and managers and brands. I got brand partnership deals and a lot of stuff like that. When I got pregnant, I asked my friend who posted a job post about she needed a casting assistant.

I said "Hey, I'm going to be pregnant for a while. Can I help you out because I am very familiar with the entertainment business? I'm an actress. I've been in a lot of productions, lots of movies and shows." I was like, "Can I help you?" She was like, "Sure, why not?" I worked my way up really quickly and her company was getting really successful at the time. Next thing you know, I'm blinking and I'm doing the casting directing for the weekend and Alessia Cara for the song Scars To Your Beautiful. Then we did casting for a movie and it was like the producer from La La Land and it was just moving really really quickly.

When I had Oliver, she's like, "Yes, you're fired." She's like, "Your baby brain is not working." I'm like, "I know. It's okay. Don't feel bad." I'm like, "I'm gone. I'm out. I can't." I had a lot of experience with that. I've been blogging and doing sales and marketing. It's been a whirlwind of things. I don't think I do one specific thing. If you asked me who I am or what I do, I would say I'm an entrepreneur, an investor, a consultant, a mother, a songwriter, an actress. It's just so many things. I struggled for so long to just stay on one path, but I can't. I can't just do the one thing.

I never could get myself to say, "Okay, I'm an investor." Or, "I'm a singer." I can't do the one thing.

Karen: Yes, there's probably some thread that goes through all of it.

Anna: I need a good writer. I need a good writer who's going to sit down and put that thread together because I've asked so many people and they're like, "You've got to pick one," I'm like, "I can't."

Karen: Wow. It's hard. I kind have been through that too. I know a lot of entrepreneur women that I know struggle with finding that one area to stay focused on. There's so much work to do in the world. How do really focus on just one thing?

Anna: Exactly. Exactly. I have these chapters and these big chunks where I'm doing something and then I get to a really big place and then I can let it go, then I work on a new thing and then get it to a really good place and then I let it go. I think that works for me. It keeps me interested and I like to see where I can pass it off and allow it to go on its own.

That's why I love creating new works and communities and impact type of events and organizations and things like that. It's bigger than me.

It allows me to set the foundation and create the fundamentals and the structure of what it would be and the languaging and everything. Then I want to step back and allow other people to run with it.

Karen: That's great. You're laying the foundation and then letting it grow on its own. Let's shift gears and talk a little bit about marketing. You obviously have a marketing background and an interest in marketing. What are some of the things that you've done? What surprised you about growing your business? It's a bit of a different approach than what you were doing before.

Anna: A lot has changed digitally and a lot continues to change. I think I was very oblivious to the social media platforms and what they were there for and what you can do with them. I still think that a lot of people misuse social media as a tool to grow and scale their business. I think the realities of it right now are not so pretty for me. I feel like now I see that after all of these years of building out my content and renting essentially the space of Facebook and Instagram, and just putting stuff out there, that the more that algorithms change the more of a full-time job this thing really is.

The more that this is a full-time job, the more that they're requiring for you to pay to even be seen. That part of marketing has been really shocking to me over the last little bit. I find that you can have really great content and you can have something so important to the world but then you just got to really pay a lot of money for it to do anything. I like to go into the ground level and I like to go in the traditional route of e-mail marketing, and connection, and picking up the phone, and dealing with people through strategic partnerships.

I've been really noticing that I've been achieving success with my heart-centered approach. This is something that I've been really excelling and becoming an expert in, driving sales, and sponsorships, and partnerships in entrepreneurship by ditching these sales templates and connecting with people. Nothing gets you more results than actually other people behind your mission. I could sit there and I could say, "Okay, I need to put thousands of dollars into this thing so that people buy my ticket, or come to this event, or be a part of this thing but I can also continue great relationships with these people and they will share that. People will share it, and other people will come and it'll just explode."

Marketing has been really, really shifting for me personally and especially with sales. I'm redefining this whole idea of the ROI, the return on investment. I'm really focusing on developing these long-term sponsor relationships through deeper communication and creativity. I find that for a long time I was in this space. This was working with Mosaic, working with Reef Marketing, Molson, working with a lot of different brands that were hot in the scene. During 2007 to 2014 was the hottest scene for brands doing activations, and festivals, and pop-ups, and booths, and everything.

I learned a lot. It was not creative. For a long time, people kept recycling the same old thing like the flower wall, the two promo girls with the poster. It was just getting really boring to me. Where I feel that I've been able to get inspired is to just completely put all of that crap behind and come up with something funky in the moment and think about who we can get involved around that. Influencer marketing has really been a big part of that for me. I love working with other women that can help drive sales and the message to things that they're passionate about too.

It's really like working with brands that they have their mission, they know what their product is. They know what their audience is but now how do they fit in this whole saturated market? What are they doing to give back? At this point, I don't even like working with brands or companies that don't have a giveback, or that don't have a purpose or ambition. If you're not a conscious company, if you're not thinking about the materials that you're using or your packaging or you're not giving back, then I'm not really interested. Marketing is really different. There's a lot that I've learned.

Karen: I love that you brought that up because it's something that I've been exploring a little bit as a marketer myself is just this idea of ethics in marketing because we are collecting data. We are using data. How are we doing that in a way that is not going to compromise our credibility as a business? How are we making our customers and even the prospects feel safe and protected and build that relationship on a very safe footing and not let it go into an area that…I know for me initially I always viewed sales as the used car salesman, which is not a great stereotype.

How do you not come across that way but come across as helpful and valuable, and solving a problem without doing all of these things that are somewhat manipulative?

Anna: Like I said, it goes back to connection. A lot of the times when I get on my sales calls I'm not following some format, or sales sheet, or whatever. I don't even reach out to people for sales unless it's a direct fit. I think my mindset as a CEO is a little bit untraditional. I think and that's why we're becoming so successful. I'm hoping that I can lead this company into more success over the next few years as we continue growing and scaling and bringing more employees on and stuff. I think the main thing is when I look at partnerships with people, I'm not just focused on money.

It's not a money mindset conversation only. I always start off with understanding and identifying where is this partner at? What do they need? What are their initiatives this year? I know that sounds really rudimentary but it's actually not. I have seen people pitch me this week. I'm sitting there being really kind because I'm like, "I can't believe they're not even connected with what they're saying to me." I really like to just connect with people and understand what is possible first before I even go into numbers. I don't get on the call and I'm like, "Okay, I need to get $100,000 off this person."

I think about, "Oh, this is is such a great alignment. Why don't I just get on the call and just share from my heart about what this initiative, or this program, or this company, or this brand, or this activation, or this thing is." I just start with that building and fostering, and nurturing relationships with people is the most important thing. At the end of the day, you can grab a 50k off somebody but then next year, then what? It doesn't go anywhere. People talk and people communicate and they're like, "Oh I worked with Total Mom and it was great," or "I love what they're doing. They're so passionate."

That's the thing we want. We don't want to just take people's money and just put money into the company. The company isn't there just to make money. I know that that's a big part of business but that's what makes me a little bit of a different CEO because I will allow my team to know where our targets are and everything and I trust that they will hit them. When I'm getting on the calls to really grow and scale this thing and make strategic partnerships, I'm just connecting. 9 times out of 10, it works. It just works because it's just a real one-on-one connection.

Karen: You're leading with your values, not with a sales pitch.

Anna: Exactly, yes. I guess that's what it is. I didn't really think of it like that. You're being strong in your values and in your mission and people can feel that. That's the other thing is like when you're calling these people or when you're having a conversation with them, they can feel if you're just trying to be salesy or whatever. Vibrationally, whether you're on a Zoom call or in person, people just feel it and they know. When you are in alignment with your mission and your visions and your values, that comes across. I think that that's really important is to just really step back.

If things aren't working out, if you're not hitting those sales and targets which there's more than enough to go around. There's always an endless amount of money to go around for sales and partnerships for people. If you're not hitting those targets, if you're not getting them, if you're looking to the left and the right and other women are and you're not, maybe you need to just go back and reevaluate. "What am I standing for? What is this?" because there's always a need for something. There's always somebody that needs something and somebody that has something.

It's just a matter of if it's the right fit or not. I would encourage people to not get discouraged because it's a great opportunity too, to take those quarters and be like, "Okay, what went right? What went wrong? What's working? What's not working? Where do we really want to go with this?"

Karen: Yes, so important. It's been such a pleasure having you on the show.

Anna: This has been so much fun. I could talk to you for hours.

Karen: How can everyone in the audience find you?

Anna: Yes, absolutely. I'm on LinkedIn, Anna Sinclair. You can find my company, Total Mom Inc. on www.thetotalmomshow.ca or sinclaircreativeagency.com. I'm on Instagram and all that stuff. I'm sure you're going to add some links, right?

Karen: Yes, we will add some links for you.

Anna: Okay, great. Just look up The Total Mom Show or Sinclair Creative Agency, yes. I also share my personal journey as a mom and as just a businesswoman on Instagram on @yourlegacylifestyle.

Karen: Fantastic. That's great.

Thank you again, Anna. This has been so fun talking with you.

Anna: Thank you. It's been a pleasure and call me back anytime even if we're not on a podcast. I'd love to chat and chat with you. You're really funny and we're on the same level.

Karen: Me too. That's great. I'd love that.