Founder, Sole Connections
This is a summary of an interview with Julie Mbathi, the founder of Sole Connections.
Julie went to university to study accounts but didn’t fit in this course. She changed her major to Information Technology which added one more year to her studies. She was employed for 3 years before quitting her job for business.
In this interview, Julie shares her business story which spans over 10 years. She’s candid about her struggles and failures trying to identify her one thing in business. Luckily, she finally found it and Sole Connections was born.
This article is very long and has a wealth of information for any entrepreneur and those aspiring to get into business. So grab a cup of tea or coffee and settle in.
From school to employment to family
Julie has a bachelors degree in IT (Networks and Telecommunications). She worked for 3 years after graduation and then left employment to raising a family.
IT was not her first choice. She went to college to do accounts under the advice of her parents and relatives. They were of the opinion that her good grades in math and business prepared her for a career in accounting.
Julie was very bored in her first year of college. She didn’t enjoy the course and struggled to wake up and go to class. After one year, she changed her major to IT. This added an extra year to her studies so she spent 5 years in college instead of 4.
IT was a new field at that time and she was the only lady (and the first one) in her class. Class was fun and exciting. However, she got confused, bored and unmotivated after graduation. In her words, “I used to think I was the most confused person in the whole world.”
Julie had always wanted to be a mum and she wanted to give it her all. That’s why she left employment to be a parent. She was also needed at home because her son was asthmatic from 6 months to 2 years, which meant spending a lot of time in and out of hospital.
Thirst for business, but not sure which one
Having a family came with financial responsibilities, hospital bills notwithstanding. She also felt that she was best suited for business and not employment. However, she didn’t know which business was the best fit for her.
Julie has done about 10 businesses over a period of 10-11 years. These include:
- Farming in Mwea: This was her first business immediately after she left employment. She put everything she got from her employer into this business and got burnt. Losing this business and money led to depression towards the end of 2017, and she even became suicidal. She was in a financial mess while trying to unwind a marriage.
- Making and selling hand-crafted hair bands: Unfortunately, she was selling a high-end product in a low-end market. So she couldn’t compete with the fancy ones from China price-wise.
- Making brown paper bags when Kenya did away with plastic paper bags.
- Running a hotel.
- Cleaning.
- Hawking.
- Running a grocery.
- Coaching.
- …and others.
None of them worked.
While she didn’t seem to find something to quench her thirst for business, she knew that she’ll know what she was looking for when she gets there.
Despite this deep conviction, Julie felt that there was something wrong with her. It seemed as if everybody else knows what they want to do with their life but she, Julie, didn’t know. The only thing she knew was that she was going to be a mum.
The beginning of Julie’s personal growth journey
Unfortunately, Julie couldn’t talk to her parents about her confusion because they had sacrificed a lot to get her through school. Also, she was expected to get a job because she has a degree. Being a firstborn didn’t make things easier. Neither did the fact that she’d walked away from a failed marriage.
Still, Julie was determined to make something out of her life despite all the challenges she was dealing with.
She kept telling herself, “Things are not right. I have all these things I’m dealing with, but I’m determined to make something out of my life! I don’t know what it is, but I’m determined.”
These experiences and introspective questions are what started her personal development journey 5 years ago.
Her first step was learning and researching about the issues she wanted to deal with. Her plan was to master herself first even as she tried different businesses to make ends meet. On the business front, this time, she was trying businesses consciously.
The turning point
2018 was a turning point. Biologically Julie is 35, but feels as if she was born on 10th February 2018. That was the day when she understood:
- Her mission.
- What freedom is.
Julie says that “Our parents try to hold us up although their methods may not work for us. We’re in a controlling society and not one where people will ask, “How can I help you?” Our default is to tell someone “Can you do this?” or “Have you tried this?” We also don’t check what the other person is able to do or what they want.”
Her parents tried to reconcile her and her husband while Julie was trying to break away. Her parents didn’t understand what the big deal was on Julie’s part because the challenges she was going through are common. They’d give her examples of people who stuck it through and are OK as couples in their later years.
On this particular day, her father got very angry with her and thought she was being kichwa ngumu (hard-headed) as her ex-husband had reported to the parents. Julie’s sticking to her conviction that she’ll figure things out eventually convinced her father that Julia was the problem.
Julie, on the other hand, felt OK wherever she was even though she was not doing well financially – she was going to figure it out.
That night was her AHA moment and the turning point.
It still doesn’t get easier business-wise
Her first business now, which is also her mission and purpose in life, is to help people to gain clarity in times of crisis. When everything is messed up it’s like you’re on a sand dune. When the wind blows and you start moving, you’re going to sink inside faster than you would have if you had stayed still.
Julie’s work is to help you gain clarity inside that crisis instead of you wishing for the crisis to go away. Because if you wish for it to go away, it’s still going to come back. These cycles will continue until you learn the lesson that life needs you to learn. The lesson gets more painful with each new cycle…until you learn the lesson.
Life gave Julie the same lesson for a long time until she got it…until she learnt the lesson.
The path life has put you on, life has also put the resources you require along that path. In Julie’s case, people used to come to her for help all the time. Those who needed her help always found her. They came from nowhere and would talk to her even in the matatu or when she’s shopping.
Julie got excited. She registered the business, got an office, settled in, called herself a coach, and started coaching. She was very busy, but these were non-paying clients.
Today, she realizes that those clients were versions of the old Julie. This is why she’d understand and believe them when they said they had no money to pay her.
She forgot that this was a business not just using her gift and that she needed to make money to pay bills and feed her family.
As a result of this, Julie ran out of money. When she was unable to pay rent for her business, a neighbour offered her space. She moved there to reduce bills, but she still didn’t make enough money for her personal bills.
After 1 year, she picked an idea she had tried in 2017 and this led to her current business.
Lessons learnt from this personal and business journey
1. Your life is a universe of its own
Your life as a totality – relationships, personal life, finances, etc – is a small universe of its own. But you also have to understand and learn what that small universe requires. You have to know the principles of that small universe in order to improve the quality of your life.
At this point, Julie knew her mission and purpose, and also understood her gifts and talents. She also knew that she will make use of her mission and also use her gifts and talents.
Julie loved the idea of shoes and working with leather – handcrafting it and making it into something unique. She found out where to get leather, who makes shoes where and how they do it. That’s how she started her second business towards the end of 2019.
2. Learn what you need to know
Julie is always on YouTube learning DIY and has crafted many things. Eventually, she settled on making shoes. Her initial plan was baby shoes because they’re pretty but dumped that idea.
Sole Connections started with a lot of learning.
- She walked into a shop, told a lady what she wanted to do, asked her for help or to be directed to someone who could help her. The lady told her that shoes don’t have money, and offered to teach her to make the kinds of flowers the lady was making and selling which to her was more lucrative.
- She continued walking around, asked another man the same question and he offered to be making shoes for her.
- Julie was clear that she wanted to make shoes herself and not outsource. So she visited that market daily, observed this man at work and went home to practise what she had learnt.
- She also researched what other people were doing and tried it herself.
- She kept visiting the market to:
- Observe and learn how they made shoes.
- Observe how they handled customers.
- Learn how to read customer body language.
- The next thing was to learn how to get the best shoe in the market.
This time she was determined that the business was going to succeed. It was not a ‘me-too’ kind of a business. So she implemented what she was learning and sold her shoes online. Things changed and the shoe business started feeding her family.
Her purpose (coaching) became like a service to humanity. It stopped operating as a business even though it’s a registered business. The shoe business became the main business and she now helps people as a service.
When someone tells Julie something, she researches and learns everything about it so that she learns how to do things better and get better results. That’s where her focus is nowadays.
When she has a problem, she identifies the problem, looks for a solution, and then takes action. Her advice is that you’ve got to focus your mind on where you want to go.
She’s also taught this lesson to her children, even though they’re still very young. This is the person Julie has become.
3. Business will show you dust
Over a period of time, her business has shown her dust because she was determined to do it differently! It’s given her headaches and been a tough journey. Then came COVID in 2020 and people stopped buying shoes.
One day she listened to someone who said that the economy may be down, but money hasn’t gone anywhere out of this world. It’s still here. So we need to stop thinking there’s no money because it doesn’t move from earth to heaven.
Julie realized that there was something new she needed to learn and that it was about money.
She did a few workshops with Hodan Mohammed. One workshop was about her relationship with money and how she sees money changed her life. She learnt that she was afraid of money and this is why she was always busy but always broke.
At this point, Julie stopped learning about relationships and emotional intelligence and focused on learning about money.
Business or an expensive hobby?
Following Hodan, she worked attended the Expertise to Income webinars that I facilitated with MarcyG Waithaka in 2020. Julie’s first attendance here completely changed her business. She realized that she had titles but was not making as much impact as the idea she had in her mind. Her businesses were essentially expensive hobbies.
It was time to change from a hobby to a business.
Additionally, Julie remembers that when she met me, I asked her, “Where do you want to be in 5 years?” She responded that she saw herself competing with Bata shoes.
It sounds good when you talk about your competitor being Bata. But what is the impact? We have to see the numbers, and this comes back to the work: a good strategy, a vision of where you’re going, and who your customer is.
It may sound easy, but when you come to do the work on the ground, they are kibarua (hard work).
4. Being a business person is not a badge of honour.
You’re out here for service not to wear the badge of honour. You need:
- To be resilient.
- Shift your mindset.
- Keep learning and recalibrating on a month by month basis.
She quotes Vusi Thembekwayo who teaches that if a worker leaves your business and comes back to visit after 3 months, they should not recognise your business. Things should have changed. Entrepreneurship means that you’re growing, you have somewhere you’re going.
5. Find people who ‘panel beat‘ you
Julie calls MaryG her poker brain. When she needs someone to tell her she needs to do better, she goes to MaryG and is not afraid to hear whatever MaryG tells her.
Growing up, we’re criticised and punished and we learn to protect ourselves. That’s the biggest misdoing as a grownup because you protect yourself. Learn how to get the right people to panel beat you, people who do it with love and understanding.
If you go to the wrong people they’ll ask questions like, “You think you can do it?”, “What are you thinking?”, “What about the kids?” They will not panel beat you the right way. You need to get the right team. Julia now knows who to go to if she has a problem in any area.
For example, a few days before this interview, she talked to me because I’m the person she goes to if she needs to lean on a shoulder. On this day, she was very confused. Nothing was wrong, but Julie was tired and exhausted.
She kept thinking to call me but couldn’t because she thought I was in a coaching session. Then I texted her out of nowhere which sparked off a conversation that led to this interview. I was responding to a WhatsApp status update with her logo.
New mindset, new ways of doing business
Julie categorizes business into 3:
- The self-employed.
- The me-too business person: These are the ones who say, “Me too, I’m also in business.”
- The entrepreneur: This is a totally different game because you’re building your business for scale and not looking just to pay bills. You’re looking at making an impact and solving a certain problem that may not always be visible. You’re running this as a business.
Julia completely turned around everything after this mindset shift. She took online courses on entrepreneurship and learnt about business processes. She also looked for people who knew what she didn’t know, learnt from them, and implemented the lessons.
One key lesson is that sales are the lifeline of any business. According to Julie, you don’t need to constantly worry about quality and customer service/satisfaction. You’ll get feedback from your customers if you’re making good enough sales. You cannot get feedback if you don’t have sales.
Initially, Julie wanted to open shops in Kericho, Kisumu, Kapsabet, and Mombasa, but she didn’t have money. MaryG and I pinned her down and asked why she wanted these places and why she wanted to set up physical shops yet she was selling online during COVID. This caused another mindset shift.
Moving from a home-based business to a physical workshop
Julie set a new year goal to set up her workshop and fix the things she needed to fix in her business. Immediately after the encounter at Expertise to Income, she committed hugely to something that was purely for her, not for anyone else or the business.
It’s different when you’re working hard to pay debts and when you’re working hard to pay for something like an investment. The mindset is different and the energy is not the same. Making this commitment meant that she was working towards something beneficial for herself.
This also made her realize that she can be able to set a specific amount and make a specific amount per month. She told herself, “If I can do this, then I can do anything else.”
In her opinion, we normally do good things for people we love and forget to do the same for ourselves. So if you want to test if you can do something, see if you do it for someone else. If you can do it for somebody else, then you demand the same for yourself.
Before this, Julia always thought that she didn’t have money and capital for a workshop. She made shoes in her house and delivered them to her customers. This was a bid to lower costs and she had to force herself to outgrow that.
New year, new beginnings
She decided to get out of the house in January 2021 and she did. Setting up the workshop required more machines and other equipment to help smoothen the production process.
It wasn’t easy given that this was January and also after COVID. Having a vision helped keep her focused on the goal and in finding ways around emerging challenges.
Having her own workshop means that she’s now able to come up with different styles and fashions, and even go ahead of time.
It’s an exciting time and Julie still can’t believe that she’s been able to do this. She’s struggled as an adult while trying to figure things out and learn what she didn’t know without giving up.
Julie is very excited to be where she is and able to do the things they’re doing. It’s a big honour.
Apart from shoes, they’ve brought in a line of bags and hoping to give their customers something unique that resonates with the person and talks of the person’s resilience. This becomes a sign of what you can be able to do and where you can be able to get as a person.
“I stopped being a nice girl!”
In her personal development journey, she sought to know the difference between purpose, mission, career, gifts, and talents.
She learnt what hers were over a period of 10 years. She now has a process to help get to that very quickly. During this time, she realized she loves doing things with her hands. But she needed something that has good money and a good margin while still giving her satisfaction and allow her to do enrich other people’s lives.
Her shoe business is called Sole Connections because you have to be able to connect with yourself in whichever way.
Julia grew up with low self-esteem and then her marriage didn’t work. She decided to do something right. Parenting is very important to her and it’s also a deal-breaker.
Because of this, she sought to set up a business that revolves around her parenting values, skills, and principles. She works very near her home. If her children need her at home, she can pack a bag of the things and continue working from home if she doesn’t have to be at the workshop.
Her office is at home so she can do her marketing from home. So she’s able to be a hands-on parent and still run a business full-time.
Julie’s advice for aspiring businesswomen
1. Forget what you think you know
Look at the possibilities. Sometimes you need help to look at the possibilities. You can only know what you experience or read. She believes that “When God created me, He wanted the very best of me and for me.”
2. The world is not limited
I’m not limited like for zero grazing. If my heart tells me something is missing, then I have to agree that something is missing. I don’t have to know what it is. I just need to know that I need to find out what it is.
3. The journey is going to be long and difficult
Accept this as a fact. So stop wanting to make it easy. Life is not supposed to be easy.
4. You don’t have to jump out…you first need to learn
You have a salary when you’re employed. This means that you have resources and can afford to pay for coaching and training. A business person has money when they make money. So set aside some money for learning.
5. Fear is a result of you not knowing.
If you want to undo fear, know. Learn. Julia learnt this from watching an interview with an astronaut. When he was asked whether they were afraid that they wouldn’t land, he responded that they weren’t afraid.
If something goes wrong for them then it goes wrong completely and they all die. But they are almost 99.00% sure of what they’re doing because of the precision, calculation, research, and simulations done.
Many people want to jump into a business when they don’t know anything. There’s a lot one can do without knowledge. But you also need the consciousness that you don’t know and to keep learning.
Julia listens to podcasts all day. She has audiobooks. She learns every day. It’s rare to find her watching a movie. She’s always learning and is a graduate of the University of YouTube. That’s where she learns most of her things from.
Julie’s advice for women in business
1. Mindset is key
Julie follows a lady called Lydia on Facebook who shared the story of how she started her milk factory. It was hard. At one point the warehouse owner wanted it back yet Lydia had already paid. She had borrowed from everyone and was at her end. She shares what they did for things to turn around.
Julia also looks are what people like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg have gone through. The lesson is to stop expecting and thinking it’s going to be easy. Business is war. You need to learn and prepare.
Everything comes back to your mindset, learning and personal development. Most of our problems are not unique or out of this world. It’s because of our inside struggles with those problems that we’re unable to overcome challenges.
If you accept that problems will always be there, they won’t bother you. You’ll be looking for solutions when problems arise.
2. Having capital is good, but…
What’s most important is for you to learn the aspects of your business from A to Z. This will help you know when you’re being played around with once you have employees.
3. You have to be fluid like water
Keep changing and make yourself fluid like water so that you’re able to fit in when there’s no money and also when there’s money. Learn to shed your ego and also use it when it needs to be used.
4. Use your intuition
Intuition is a result of having worked on yourself. It will let you know when trouble is coming.
Can you have it all?
Julie believes you can have it all and live the kind of life you want, good quality of life. But you need to accept the process and the journey. Let go of trying to control because we try to control the things we feel we don’t have.
Having it all also means allowing other people to be who they are and not trying to control them. This is true in relationships so that you create a relationship together. Relationships and/or finances are at the core of most people’s happiness or pain.
True parenting also requires letting go of the need to control our children. Instil values so that they know what to choose in life and allow them to have a voice for themselves. Bring up children who have the right values, not those who are afraid of letting you down.
We are told we are the queens and prizes to be won. If you are a prize to be won, then if there’s a better prize then it will be won! We are human beings to be loved, supported and cared for.
Julie also believes that the energy you put into the business is not the energy you’re going to put into relationships. You can’t use feminism to run your business because in business you have to push, use your masculine energy, run things, make decisions, etc.
We choose our partners because of how emotionally secure and comfortable they make us feel. Having boxes to tick means you don’t trust yourself and haven’t worked yourself out yet.
If you work on yourself, you’ll attract someone on the same level…who has already worked on himself. So when others come, you can nicely tell them no without being rude. Rudeness and trying to protect something means that you don’t have it.
To have it all, you have to accept that you might never have it. Let go and surrender to the process. This means that “…they might come my way or not. But this is what I want and I’m not bargaining on it.” It’s not about cars and houses, it’s about the person and their character.
Parting shots
Allow yourself to accept
You don’t have to prove you’re worthy or equal to because you’re a woman. You have nothing to prove. You’re worthy of everything that the universe has for you.
Stop living less of God’s image of you. If God was to come here and give you His best, what would it be? He’s already brought the whole world here. We have gold, silver, love…there’s nothing else.
Accept totally without feeling as if you need to reciprocate because someone gave you something.
Allow yourself to be loved
Stop feeling as if a man has to earn anything. Allow somebody to love you to his best. We are not complete. We don’t know everything. So we need to stop expecting other people to know everything and to know how to do everything.
If you accept that the other person also doesn’t know, you look at them from the point of:
- What is their best?
- What do they know?
- Is there something they are refusing to do for you?
- What are they going out of their way to learn to do for you?
Stop limiting yourself because of motherhood, marriage or being a woman
We limit ourselves so much. Whereas, being a mother should be the reason you work so hard. So you only need to arrange your life around your motherhood if being a mother is the big thing that you cannot let go of.
Stop limiting yourself. Stop being afraid of success. We never know we’re afraid of success. If you’ve been leaning on the same platform for so long, then you’re afraid of success.
Stop bring selfish with yourself
You have so much to give to this world. Learn what you don’t know. You have many people around who can help you see and learn what you don’t know. In the time and age of the internet, you can learn anything you need to learn.
Women need to stop helping others all the time. Sometimes you have to let go of everything, go through the door first, then come back for everybody else. You cannot make any impact if you don’t have money.
We have the idea that as long as you have good health, a good family…that narrative is shoddy. It’s not enough. You cannot make an impact and your life is not just for your family.
You’re being selfish if you’re not doing enough for everybody else. It’s not just for your family. But you cannot make an impact if you don’t have the money.
Julie put coaching on hold to focus on building a business that will pay per bills. So she’s working on her money and finances first. Coaching is her lifelong mission and she’ll pick it up once the business settles.
Join positive forums and work with coaches
Sometimes life has to force you to be unreasonable and in business, you have to be unreasonable. Men are socialised to go out there and do things. For women, having such platforms as Elevate is very important and good for us.
My life has completely changed since I met Caroline and MaryG. If you don’t have Caroline and MaryG, please go to them. Book a session. Let them poke your mind. If you’re a me-too business or (you’re) self-employed, go to them. Don’t come to me because I won’t help you as much as they will. ~Julie Mbathi
Your way forward
1. Connect with Julie Mbathi
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(Images courtesy of Julie Mbathi)
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