We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Coco Dee. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Coco below.
Hi Coco, thanks for joining us today. Let’s start with education – we’d love to hear your thoughts about how we can better prepare students for a more fulfilling life and career
There is so much to say about this and I am not sure I will have enough time or space!
Firstly the current educational system was created during the industrial revolution, approximately 100 years ago.
So much has changed since then, in so many facets of how we live our lives, how we think and what we’ve come to expect as a collective.
More precisely, for the last decade, the technology revolution has been upon us and we have witnessed a huge surge of change. Even more recently, with AI being more (remove this word) present in the way we show up and do business.
Yet, there has not been any ripples or waves of transformation in the way our children are educated.
This makes me sad and wary of how children can be prepared for living and creating in today’s world.
What can we do outside of the educational system to arm the new generation with what they need in today’s world? How can we give them the skillsets to thrive in our current economies when the basics are not taught in schools.
My particular focus is around financial literacy.
This has not been present in any school curriculum and we wonder why so many adults are struggling financially to have the basics (shelter, food, water), even in the western world. We then sit back and see millions of women being financial abused and wonder who the statistics can be so high (99% of women worldwide experience financial abuse).
Whether a child becomes an employee or a business owner, having basic financial literacy is about understanding how money is created and managed, how the tax system works, what they can do to increase their income / cashflow and how to maximise their dollar in any economic climate.
Whilst the system teaches children about home economics, there are no classes about basic money management…
Unfortunately (or fortunately), it is up to parents to take matters into their own hands.
What can you do as a parent to move the needle? Find a movement or community you can become a part of and immerse yourself to gain the basics skills to increase your literacy of money and wealth building. Give yourself space and time to learn, 1% a day is all that’s needed. The stacking of your learnings is what makes all the difference.
There is no need to become an expert overnight; great things take time to build and are well worth the effort.
It also showcases to your children that with time, patience and dedication; anything is possible
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
I am a Tahitian-born, French-speaking, straight-talking Aussie, self-made multi-millionaire, and Women’s Wealth Advocate / Educator.
From corporate career and self-made property multi-millionaire in my twenties, to taking over my failing family business and learning how to come back from losing all said millions (because of ego and guilt!) in my thirties. After 18 years in business, I have learned a thing or two about creating wealth from nothing. My lethal making wealth tool is my intuition, hence why I coin myself an Intuitive Wealth Creator.
Business is my bread and butter. But my lifeblood? Is seeing incredible women take hold of their financial literacy to grow their businesses and wealth. If you’re looking for a place to bring the work to the woo and make the inner work the everyday, grab yourself a carton of chocolate coconut water and take a seat next to me. Let’s get to know one another!
I am now not only a mother, living my dream life in Bali, but the owner and shareholder of multiple businesses. My mission is for women and young girls all over the world to gain basic financial literacy and create wealth beyond their wildest dreams.
I am the creator of the Female Financial Literacy Library which enables learning about money accessible to women around the world. I am the founder of The Daughter Economy; an organisation hell bent on getting young girls to understand money so they can thrive, rather than depend on the system, when they come of age. Tune in to “Keep the Change” podcast to hear more about women becoming financially independent.
Let’s move on to buying businesses – can you talk to us about your experience with business acquisitions?
I have purchased a few businesses in my time. Let’s chat about a purchase I made as part of a growth strategy for one of my current businesses. As a leadership team, we agreed that this would be one way to immediately accelerate our growth. Whilst this is not the only way to initiate growth, we had very bold plans on our companies expansion.
The particular industry I am speaking to is in the Commercial Cleaning space. It is an industry with low barriers to entry with extremely high competition, This means that gaining new business requires innovative sales strategy and a business development team who are highly skilled for its execution.
The acquisition of a new business meant that we increased our sales and bottom line immediately, whilst also gaining new clients who were aligned with our company values and ethos.
The key to the success of this purchase was all about the transition plan in place. The objective was for the staff and the clients to not feel any differences between the changeover. I recommend a team be allocated to carry this out as this ensures retention of new clients and staff and for minimal changes to occur within the first 12-18 weeks.
Change management is an art form and needs to be a huge consideration when adding a new business to your existing entity and structure. When this is done properly the return on your investment is realised and, more often than not, sky rockets.
What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?
I started my career in corporate as a Human Resources professional. During this time, I had a property business as my side hustle (a real estate portfolio as well as real estate development projects).
My job took up quite a lot of my time as I was in middle management and I worked on my side hustle in the early mornings and on the weekends.
I had plans to leave my corporate career to dive into my business full time. The plan I had created ensured I had sufficient capital to maintain my portfolio for two years and could sustain my personal living expenses for one year (it was a big goal and a lot of capital to save for).
There came a point where doing both became too much and my life revolved around working all the time. I was quite scared to take the jump into my business but was given a little push when my role was no longer required with the company. I took it as a sign to dive into my business full time; the rest is history
Contact Info:
- Website: www.iamcocodee.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamcocodee/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/iamcocodee
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/coraline-dufroux-90b67315b/
- Twitter: @cocodufroux
- Youtube: youtube.com/@femalefinancialliteracylibrary
- Other: Keep the Change Podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/keep-the-change/id1505131813
Image Credits
Stepha Doyle