In this episode, Emily Frisella, an entrepreneur, author, and business coach, recounts her journey of starting a business at 20, facing a financial crisis, and learning key lessons in financial management and leadership, culminating in her success through resilience and dedication. Listen in as Marcus and Emily discuss guerrilla marketing, financial comebacks, and determination in turning dire situations into successful ventures.
Episode Highlights:
01:49 Family Influence and Entrepreneurial Spirit: Emily’s Backstory
02:41 The Realities of Entrepreneurship: Hard Work Beyond the Glamour
15:43 The Power of Direct Communication and Shared Goals
26:30 Creating a Culture of Success and Empowerment
32:37 The Misconceptions of Entrepreneurship
33:55 Taking Action: The Key to Success
35:08 Leadership Insights: Breaking Gender Stereotypes
38:03 Emotional Intelligence in Leadership
Emily Frisella is a mission-driven entrepreneur who started building businesses at 20. She’s the founder of the Women in Business Workshop, CEO of The Paper & Plan Co., and COO of 44Seven Media and Arete Syndicate. Emily has authored two best-selling cookbooks and a business book, “Relationships First: People, Passion, & Profits.” Starting work at 14, she saved to buy her first home at 19 and opened a luxury boutique at 20. After selling her business, she relocated to St. Louis, founding The Paper & Plan Co. Emily’s mission is to empower women to reach their potential through practical business skills and personal development.
You can learn about Emily here: emilyfrisella.com
Episode Transcript:
00:30
Acta Non Verba is a Latin phrase that means actions, not words. If you wanna know what somebody truly believed, don’t listen to their words, instead observe their actions. I’m Marcus Aurelius Anderson, and my guest today truly embodies that phrase. Emily Frazella.
00:59
is a mission-driven entrepreneur that started her first brick and mortar business at the tender age of 20. She’s the founder of the paper and plan company Potty Mouth Papers. She’s also a three-time published best-selling author of Relationships First, Passions and Profits, The Fresh Farmhouse Kitchen, and The Saints Plate and The Center’s Dinner Cookbooks. She’s also the founder of Women’s and Business Workshops, which are incredible. I highly recommend any female to go to those.
01:27
And then when she has time, she’s also the COO of 447 Media Company, also the COO of RTA Syndicate, co-founder of Freedom Reads Book Clubs, business coach and speaker. Emily, thank you so much for being here today. It’s an honor to have you on the show. Thank you so much. I’m really excited. Sorry for that intro, that bio. No, I want that because that gives everybody an idea of that. And for those that don’t know, you have been an entrepreneur since you were 20, but you sort of grew up in that sort of environment.
01:57
And I think that a lot of entrepreneurs say that you almost have to come from that sort of background to give you the gumption to understand because my daughter’s like, I’ve seen what you and mom do. I did not want to be an entrepreneur. You guys work so hard. You’re always busting your ass. So can you tell us a little bit about that? You even bought your first home at 20, right? 19. Right. Yeah. And I think that it is something that you see either one side of the spectrum or the other as, you know, growing up in an entrepreneurship household.
02:24
My dad, he owned trucking companies and brokerage firms my entire life. My mom was a stay at home mom and took care and raised my sisters and I while my dad was working. And so I saw that and I feel like it’s when you see an entrepreneur, like you just mentioned you and your wife seeing how you guys are and your child’s like, no, I don’t want any part of that. So I feel like it’s either going to be that because they see how much work it is because that is, I feel like the biggest lie that’s out there and you know, as well as I do on social media.
02:52
of like all the, you know, the highlight reels of like, Oh, I’m an entrepreneur. I just travel. I get to go to the bakery and have an espresso at 11 o’clock in the morning. And then I do this. Like that’s not reality. That is like, truly it is not, I cannot stress this enough. That’s not, if you’re actually building and growing and scaling and trying to create a great community, a great culture, you’re very mission driven. You don’t have that. If you’re someone that just, you’re an online coach or something, and you’re in between clients, you could do that then, but like.
03:20
true nitty-gritty entrepreneurship, like in the trenches, it is not like that. You work so, so much. My sister and I actually just had this conversation, and I’ll get back to your question, but we had this conversation the other day because I was talking about work ethic and just in general, like, and she reminded me because I am very much so a workaholic. Like, I love to work. It’s not just that I need to work. I truly enjoy everything that I do.
03:47
So when I have some free time, I wanna do something else with my work. Like, oh, I wanna advance into this. I wanna discover this platform to possibly put our products on that platform and things. There’s always something to do. And I was sharing this with her and she said, you have to remember Emily because she’s a mom of three, she’s married. And she goes, you have to remember her though. You are a workaholic to like an abnormal amount. So what you’re saying is like how normal people, I don’t mean normal in any sort of like bad way. I’m just saying like,
04:17
If you work like a nine to five job, she’s like, that’s not expected of it. And that’s not, that’s why people work a nine to five is because they don’t wanna work the way that you do. And I was like, yeah, you’re right. Like I need to like chill out. Cause it was like, I saw a reel and it said like, my toxic trait is telling people a job to do and expecting them to do it. And when they don’t, I get mad. And that’s what I was telling her. I was like, oh my gosh, this is me. And then we were just talking about, you know, yeah, you gotta do your job. You need to do that obviously, cause people are relying on you.
04:41
But I’m like, why can’t people just do it? Blah, blah, like they should just work later. She’s like, Emily, you better remember people have families. They do this, you know, and she’s trying to like, give me a little pep talk. She’s my CEO, two of my companies actually. So anyway, but growing up in an entrepreneurship family, you see it like how your child sees it, or you see it how like I saw it with my dad is like, his office was an hour and 20 minutes one way, because a group on a farm, he had to drive into downtown St. Louis, hour and 20 minutes, work all day, hour and 20 minutes back home. Mom would have dinner on the table at seven o’clock, he’d eat.
05:11
He’d go down to the farm, check the cattle, because I grew up on a row crop and cattle farm. He had to check the cows, feed them, make sure everybody was taken care of, come home, go to bed, get up and do it again. Every single day, for years and years, that’s all I saw. But what I saw in it, not only just the work ethic and the dedication it took, but I saw what that type of life could afford you. Now we were not by any means spoiled brats or crazy wealthy. We were just upper middle-class family. My dad was successful,
05:40
We were able to play on the special like traveling sports leagues and things like that. Or they were able to get us a car when we turned 16. It wasn’t brand new, but it was just a nice car, you know, and they were able to like help us with college, you know, take care of that. So it’s like I saw that and we were all very grateful for that. But I also saw the dynamic that he and my mom had. They’ve been married 49 years and I saw how she always was so great at communicating. My dad worked a lot and it was never you see it a lot. And, you know, I’ve talked about on our day calls before a little bit here and there.
06:10
You’ll see this a lot of where in society, it’s like a trend for women to dog on their husbands or disrespect them publicly on social media, which I am so against that. But they will be like, oh, you know, my husband’s working late again, so me and the kids got to go blah, blah, blah. It’s like it’s always like it’s a bad thing that he’s working. It’s like he’s working to a life that you are part of and he’s contributing to that life. So like have a little bit of respect there. And so I always saw how my mom and dad did that. You know, my mom would take care of us girls.
06:40
cook and clean and do all the stuff. And my dad would work and take care of my mom and us and everything. But my mom always equated it to, your dad can’t come to your volleyball game tonight because he’s working so you guys can play on the traveling league or he’s working for this. There was always something tied to his dedication and it was not dedication to the work. It was dedication to his family, which is why he was working because he wanted all of us to live a good life. So I think that’s a really important way to frame it with entrepreneurs, with your…
07:09
spouse or significant other for your children to have that positive feeling about that. You know, and I think that’s why I got into entrepreneurship. I’m like, well, I want to do that. I want to contribute like that. So at 14, I got my first job and I started working two jobs from the age of 14. Honestly, like through, gosh, I was probably 27 or 28. I think before I actually stopped working a couple of jobs because I want to save a lot of money. And I knew that at 14, I wanted to own my own business. I want to own my own house because my parents were always like,
07:38
buy, do not rent, you’re gonna waste your money. And so I saved all of my money. Now this goes back to my dad being a good provider for us, is that I didn’t have the expenses of a car or college, because I did have scholarships for college, but then they also would help, you know, whatever else, extra expenses. So I was able to save all of my money. And then when I turned 19, I bought a house. It was two or three months after I turned 19, I bought my first house, renovated it, gutted it, did all that jazz. And then at 20, I bought my first,
08:08
brick and mortar building and had my first brick and mortar business. I had a building, the property and some land behind it. And I opened a luxury flower shop, gift boutique. It became like wedding rentals, tuxedo rentals, like you name it. I had it in there. And that was all attributed to me seeing the example that I saw, you know, having good financial literacy instilled in me from my parents on how to save, what percentage you can spend, what percentage you should save, what percentage you should invest.
08:35
And then I did that. I followed those steps. And that’s how I was able to purchase a home at 19 and purchase a building at 20 and grow my business. And the good part about this was like developing like a very, I don’t want to like work hustle mentality, but like a hustle work ethic as a younger child, because in business I had some failures. And because of those lessons of like, you know, you just work your butt off till you make it happen and you can always like bounce back from it. That’s what saved me and saved my business.
09:04
down the road when I made some mess ups along the way when I was in my twenties. So I’m really grateful for that. I think that entrepreneurship isn’t for everybody, but it did definitely help me. And I also think it’s funny, I tell Andy this too, is because he said I was an entrepreneur. And I think when both you and your spouse come from an entrepreneurship family and you’re both entrepreneurs, I just feel like it just makes sense because you both know exactly what it takes. Not just because you saw your parents see it, but you’re both in the thick of it together. So, you know, when he comes home, I make dinner.
09:33
And he’s got to take calls till 10 or 11 o’clock at night with people or like touch and base with the executives here and things like that. So I think it’s one way or the other, but I just really am grateful for the way my parents always framed entrepreneurship for me. And it’s so important, as you say, when you explain the why it’s not a sacrifice. It’s now an investment literally. Yes. And just like you said, that informs who you’re attracted to in a relationship. Correct. It is because I think that is just so, so important as far as the framing aspect of it, because
10:02
Amy and I will say this, you know, we know someone that they would always gripe at their husband for the job that he had and didn’t make enough money. He worked an eight to five job, like literally get it at eight. You leave at five, you get your hour lunch break. You’re done for the day. But she griped that he wasn’t make money. Well, then he gets a new job. He’s making good amount of money. You know, he’s in the six figures then. And then she’s griping because he has to work more and he wasn’t home as much. Well, which one do you want? Do you want to set schedule?
10:31
with not as much pain, you’re going to gripe about it that he’s not making money. Or do you want him to work a few more hours a week and make more money? Like either way you’re going to gripe. So it’s like, you may as well go all in for what’s going to be best for you and your family and then start that up. Because some people just can’t be pleased. You know, that’s kind of that’s what it boils down to as well. But it’s just the framing is so, so important. It’s everything. And even in Arte, in that Arte syndicate, for those of you that don’t know, Andy Rossella at my lead created that five years ago.
11:00
in my opinion, the best entrepreneurial group in the world, very exclusive. There’s still less than 2000 people in there and people are always vying to get in. And Emily is the CEO of that. And to give you some context, I’ve never been to an RTA event and I’ve been to many that has not been perfectly on time. We nailed everything. All the logistics were smooth. You never waited for anything. It was tremendous. So this is a testament to what you and your team are doing with that. Thank you.
11:29
They’re great. We have such a great team and everybody just, they know the mission. They know what we’re there to deliver. And we are 89 and are just so grateful for them. And that’s the thing about it. So can you explain to us this guy that you’re married to, this guy named Andy, tell us a little bit, because I remember on the RTA calls, you’ve talked about it before, how you, your communication is so powerful and it’s so transparent. And we’re able to, you’re able to communicate in a way where there’s no ego. You can be direct, you can be succinct.
11:58
You don’t have to be indirect because we’ve seen again in the syndicate, people will say things like exactly what you’re saying. My spouse or my significant other is complaining that I’m traveling tomorrow. I’ll be gone all weekend speaking and coaching. So my wife’s not upset about that. She understands that’s part of it. Before I leave, she kisses me and says, go crush it. Like that’s what we want with that support. So tell us a little bit about that succinctness and the ability to communicate.
12:24
Yeah, and that’s really what it’s because like we both know working hard to contribute to a life that we are both a part of and to mutually reach our goals. His goal that he has individually, mine individually, then ours together. And, you know, that takes sacrifice. That takes not being able to hang out every weekend or he’s got to travel and do something while I stay back and take care of the dogs or, you know, take care of other business. Because like you said, you know, I’m the CEO of his brands.
12:48
and that’s a full-time job in itself. So it’s like, there’s things that I need to do for that. So it’s kind of just manning the house, if you will say, like whatever, that house could be the office, that house could be our actual physical house. So what we do is, you know, we’ve always been very open and transparent with each other. Like, hey, I gotta do this, this, and this. Well, do you want me to come? No, I don’t want you there. I don’t need you there. Oh yes, come in like, because I’ll tell him, he’s like, oh, do you want me to come? Can I come and watch? I’m like, no, I don’t need you, I’m cool. Like, whatever. It’s not anything bad, but it’s like, he wants there to
13:18
And it’s just us communicating of like, kind of like how you have to do in business really is what it is. I mean, there’s a lot of parallels with business and marriage because marriage is a partnership and business is a partnership with maybe not a business partner, but it could be with your employees and things like that where you have to have the open communication because when you’re actually able to openly communicate, you can absolutely just like be a freight train together because you don’t have these little like.
13:44
quarrels and battles and your like nitpickiness and fights and stuff like that. And that’s what you describe with your and your wife. That’s how it is with Andy and I. I’ll tell him, oh, you’re going to crush it, you’re going to kill it. And then he texts me and he gets off stage and tells him how he felt about it. And then it’s, oh, we talk about it for a bit. Then we’ll catch up at night after he gets back from a guest to go to like a dinner with it. And you know, it’s just, it’s understanding that there’s boundaries there, you know, with us, our situation is kind of unique. I don’t know how many of your listeners, they work together, husband and wife, but
14:12
We are very, very good at separating business from our marriage. And it was never necessarily like a conversation we had to have. We just knew like, okay, we want, we never wanted to be roommates that work together. We didn’t want to be like coworkers in the same house. And that was also the thing that we talked about whenever I came onto his brand about eight years ago, I guess now, is he’s like, can you do what you’re doing? Cause I was like writing my cookbooks then and stuff. He’s like, can you do what you’re doing and managing my stuff? I’m like, absolutely.
14:39
because I had told him some ideas and stuff. And he’s like, why don’t you just handle my shit for me? I’m like, I can do it. He’s like, can you? And I was like, yeah, we were at a bar and that’s how this happened. We were drinking. I was like, yeah, absolutely. Like I can do it. He’s like, cool. That’s actually how I am in the role that I am now because we’re just sharing ideas and throwing around things that we could do for brand growth and things like that. And we just know that like when he gets home at night we don’t talk about work. If there’s something that absolutely is pressing and urgent, we will. But other than that, like we are Andy and Emily married couple and that’s what, you know we don’t post our relationship online.
15:07
We don’t post each other because we each have our own things going on and we want to be standalone. I never want to look like I’m in my husband’s, like, riding his coattails or something. I never want my success to be, oh, because she’s married to XYZ. It’s like I want to earn everything that I do. I want it to be earned on my merit and my talents and my skills. And so that’s just something that he and I consciously do because we’re just not that couple. We don’t really like that. We think it’s just kind of a little bit like nobody’s…
15:37
got it all figured out and people will portray that they do. And it’s just a little bit like, it just weirds me out a little bit. It’s just having that open line of communication and knowing that like, hey, I’m not saying this to offend you. I’m saying this because this is just like the easiest way to get it done. Or you said, there’s no gray matter there. It’s like, do you wanna do this? No, okay, what else do you wanna do? Let’s do this, okay, cool. And then it’s done. But he and I are both very direct personalities though, as well. So I think that kind of is an underlying thing that does help, of course.
16:04
It does and it helps you not take anything personally. I remember you made a comment one time you were saying that I have five questions in their yes or no. That’s a beautiful example of directness and there’s no emotion there. There’s no like anything. It’s just like, what about this? This or this? Yes, this or this? Yes. Yeah, it was just yesterday we had a, we had a, I call them approval meetings. I have a whole list of things that I need and I get it down to the wire where all I need from him is a yes or no.
16:29
And I’m like, hey, I need an approval meeting. And those meetings are 15 minutes long. I can get weeks worth of stuff done in 15 minutes. All I need to do is say this to this. Yes. Hey, do you want to do this? No. Do you want to do this? Yes. And I just have it all set up because one, he doesn’t have to make any more decisions than he needs to because he makes a million decisions a day. So it just, it takes that. My job is not just to run his brands, but as his wife, I want to make his life as easy and as stress-free as possible because he manages so much and so many people.
16:58
The last thing I want to do is be a stressor for him. So I try to take away as much stress and alleviate that as possible. So when he’s home, he feels like he is just, he can relax and unwind and just chill. You protect him, you insulate him. It’s absolutely, yeah. That’s what Alana Stott and I always say that like, we’re the protectors. We try to feel things from people that want things, we’re like, wait, what do you want? What’s the deal with this? Cause like, we don’t want things to get to the guys cause they’ve got so much other stuff to do. So we try to like,
17:26
be the front line, if you will, to try to help out as much as we can. And this is the first relationship I’ve had with my wife, where it’s the same way where because for a long time I would do anything for anybody else. I would bend over backwards, give him the shirt off my back. But if you try to do something for me, no, I can’t do that because that was my ego. Or maybe I was portrayed in the past, whatever it is. But being with her now, there is that love, there is that respect. And I know if I take her anywhere, she’s going to be a great representation of this.
17:57
She can have a conversation, she’s intelligent, she’s beautiful. She can hold her own. And at the same time, she’s always going to have my back. She’s always looking out for me. Even in the development of the apparel, any of these kind of things, she’s going through and saying, hey, this is what I see. Hey, have you thought about this? Have you saw that? So it’s very much what you’re saying where we can have that honest conversation and she can tell me point blank, I don’t know if that’s a good look or I don’t know if that’s what you’re trying to go for.
18:23
And that gives me that perspective that I may not get somewhere else. And again, let’s be honest, that could be a hundred thousand dollar mistake. If I’m going this direction towards something that I could have gotten from a person that I actually know, love and trust already on the inside. Cause she’s your ally, you know, she has your best intentions at heart and she wants you to succeed as much as you do. And so she’s going to have your back. And like you said, it could avoid mistakes or, you know, it’s also helpful. It’s just kind of like seeing things from out of a different lens.
18:49
you with your brand and me with my company. I think it’s very important to have that person in your life because you become so entrenched in what you do that you become numb and oblivious to other things because you’re too far in it. So you need someone with a little bit more outside perspective to be like, wait a second, but what about this? Well, what can somebody can misconstrue that to think this? And you’re like, oh shoot, I never even thought about it like that. So it is very helpful. I think that’s so powerful to have that person in your life. Even if you’re not married and you’re listening to this, it’s like,
19:18
having that really close friend that you know you can trust or that parent or whomever it might be. And knowing that the feedback they’re giving you is feedback from a positive loving place where they wanna have your back. They’re not doing it to make you fail or try to get you to fail. It’s, hey, I don’t want you to make a mistake. Here’s what I’m seeing from this. And that’s the key because as you say, we will get lots of input from people that aren’t entrepreneurs. We always do. And you had something on your story.
19:47
It was a while back, but I loved it. You were saying the same people that say must be nice are the ones that say, Oh, you’re working too hard. And it’s that dump out of both sides of their mouth. And they’re like, why are you doing this? When is this going to be done? Was this worth the investment? It’s like, well, there’s all these other facets to it that they don’t get. And frankly, like you said, when you don’t have a lot of bandwidth, you don’t have a lot of energy and you’re fatigued and you’re trying to just get this damn thing done, you don’t have the luxury of explaining to them.
20:14
or writing it in crayons so that they can understand why you’re doing these things. That’s something that I’ve learned through my years of entrepreneurship, almost 42. And it’s something where I realized, I feel like maybe because I was a young entrepreneur, self-admittedly, I was young and dumb. I made a lot of mistakes, trying to fix my mistakes that I made when I had my first business and stuff. And so I wouldn’t lose it. I made the mistakes. I learned a lot and it was the best lessons, I think, ever. And it’s made me a more successful entrepreneur to date.
20:42
It’s just understanding that now I don’t owe anyone an explanation for any of the choices or decisions that I make in my business when you yourself have never even stepped a toe in my shoe to understand what entrepreneurship takes. People will say, well, I own a business. I do this. That’s fine. But the thing is they don’t understand like between Andy and I, we have several companies like I’m like literally like a ping pong ball every day. I’m like,
21:06
come to here, go to this office, go to this. I have three separate offices. I’m like, I gotta be at all. So it’s like, I’m all over the place. People are like, oh, why don’t you just take a day off? I’m chilling, like, are you kidding me? There’s no way I could ever, I can’t do that. There’s at least 10 things I have to do every single day in business, no matter what, vacation, weekend, sick, anything, to keep my stuff rolling down the tracks or Andy’s stuff rolling down the tracks. They’re non-negotiable. So I think it is, it’s just.
21:31
People don’t have to have an explanation for it because they’re going to chastise you and crucify you for whatever you choose to do. So why waste our bandwidth on them? I absolutely agree. And it’s so interesting because being in that place and trying to attack this with this sort of urgency, again, to the person outside, if you look at Michael Jordan, that guy had no work life balance, but he didn’t give a shit about work life balance. He wanted to be the best. You look at Goggins, you look at Andy, you look at everything you guys are doing in this ecosystem that you have.
22:00
That’s absolutely what this is all about. This is about understanding, okay, we’re succeeding now, but we still have to continue to push to maintain this momentum because whenever something does happen or something goes sideways, that momentum is what’s gonna keep us going. And that’s why we have to keep pushing and keep, I think the term that Andy uses is keeps his foot on people’s necks to keep them pushing because whenever there’s that little dip.
22:26
We don’t want that to be the thing that, like you said, just like as an early entrepreneur, how many do we know? They do well, and then all of a sudden there’s a lag or there’s a slinky effect, cash flow problems all of a sudden, they’re gone. And they don’t know how to recover from that because they didn’t do the right things or they didn’t have the work ethic to keep pushing in the process. Yeah. And that’s it because Andy says, you know, every day is day one. And that’s what that’s meaning. It’s like, you always have to go in as hungry as you were the first day you opened.
22:51
anybody that’s listening is it’s an entrepreneur. Think about it. When you first open, you were so excited. You couldn’t wait to send out your newsletters and update your website and add new products and do, you know, work with customers to like, you know, build relationships with them. You couldn’t wait to do that. But then people like you said, you know, they get a little success, they get a little money, they start getting stagnant, and then that starts to go away and they forget what got them there. So it’s like treating every single day like day one is what’s going to help to build that momentum and keep their train on the tracks of success. That way you’re never able to like.
23:19
get so far away from where you started, you’re like, wait, how did I get here where I can’t pay my bills and this is failing? I’m almost gonna lose this. But if you would have just like kept every single day with these habits that you were doing, it’s hard to lose when you operate that way every day. It is and even when I interviewed Eddie, he made a similar comment where he said that in his mind, he leverages fear. He likes to kind of put himself up against the wall. He paints himself in the corner intentionally, so he has to win. And again, it’s obviously work for him, it’s work for Andy, it’s work for you.
23:49
The other thing is, again, this is coming from this passion, this purpose. It’s not just this metric on the wall that you’re chasing, or it’s not just this vanity ideal on social media. It’s who you are. It’s to your core, to your bones. And so we’ve heard people say, oh, if you had $100 million in the bank, what would you do? I guarantee you would probably still be doing exactly what you’re doing right now in some capacity to a varying degree. No, absolutely. That’s why we do what we do is because we’ve talked about that and you shared it on this
24:19
We could just leave tomorrow and not do anything, and we’re fine. But it’s now we have a lot of employees. There are 600 employees here. He’s got thousands around the country. I’ve got my employees. There’s a lot right on it. So with my book, Relationships First, it’s people, passion, profit, because it’s about the people and people being your customers, people being the people that work for you and represent your brand and your company. So now it’s we work for the people. We work to give them their lives and help fulfill their dreams, what they want. We want them to have
24:49
their house, their dream house that they want or their dream car and be able to provide their family well and live a good life. That’s what our our passion and our motivation is now is to build that for others. You know, it’s like I said, my sister’s my CEO of two of my companies and I just love seeing her progress and succeed because she earns every single thing that she gets. I want the life that she wants for her and her family. You know what I mean? So it’s like I want that for her and like so I want to continue to build and grow and
25:18
build these companies so she can actually like, be like, this is so cool. I had the life that I wanted because of this. Cause she took a big chance on me. She worked in the law community for 16 years. She worked with family law and I’ve been trying to, I was trying to pry her away from the law and for like four or five years. And finally when I opened the paper and plan code, she was like, I go, come on, like, I’ll match this. I’ll do this. She was like, okay. So then she came over and it’s just been great. So it’s like, I want her. And I think that’s also one that like lights my fire because I’m like.
25:45
I want to prove to her that she made the absolute right decision with leaving her job to come with me. I think there’s also something special when people see you winning, but also they want to be a part of something that’s growing. Part of something where they’re one of the first sort of ground level, whereas like you can say, wow, I remember two years ago when we were doing this. Now look at where we are. Now look at what we’re doing. Now look at this plan that we have, this vision that we have for the next three to five years. It gets them excited. It does because they know they’re a part of that winning team.
26:13
it’s crazy buy-in and now you can have somebody that can try to come poach them and they’re like Give me more money. Give me more pennies. It doesn’t matter. I want this And that’s you can’t put a price on that. So that’s incredible And that’s that’s from the culture that you all build from what you build the way that you lead leading by example is all of it And I think that people I mean our taste big on culture first form is big on culture 75 hard Creates culture in many ways, right? So there’s people that say well
26:41
What if I spent all this time and money on my employees and pull into them and they leave? And the real question is, well, what if you don’t and they stay? What does that do to your company? What does that do to your culture? That excellence gets pulled down. So you want that to continue to give people that desire. It’s like, not only do I want to be like Emily or Andy or Ed, but I want to be like these other people that I see in the business that have built their way up, that moved to St. Louis to have a $15 an hour job. And now they’re in this position where now all of a sudden they’re destroying it.
27:10
Yeah. And I think that is, you know, it’s such a, what you just said, like, you know, that it is key is because it’s about like, what if you don’t do it and they stay, and then you have these cancers working within your company and now you’re like, well, shoot, I can’t get rid of them because they know everything. It’s going to take me so long to train these people and yada yada. But then, you know, people are fearful to pour into their people that they will leave. And the way that I’ve always viewed that is I actually told one of my assistants, my goal for you is for you to not work for me for the rest of your life. I told her, I was like, I want you to be here to learn.
27:39
to want to grow so much more and to do more where you can go out and do your own thing and be wildly successful and so happy and fulfill your dreams. And she’s like, what? She was like throwing off, I said, I go, if you stay here for life, I feel like I kind of failed you, you know, cause she has a very successful photography business. She has this crazy popular YouTube channel for kids that’s been wild. She’s on a streaming network now for her TV stuff that she does. She’s just flourished so much and she’s starting when she was 18 and she’s 26 now and
28:08
We still work together every once in a while. It makes me so happy to see that because she left me about two years ago when she had her first child with her husband. And now she’s just crushing it. And it’s like, I feel good about that, you know? Because it just makes me feel good that she learned things about business and branding and things like that to move forward with it. There’s two KPIs that I talk about that I think are important that people overlook, which is the relationship with your spouse. How is that? And then the success of your people. Everything else we can figure out.
28:37
we can figure out P&L and metrics and quarterlies outside of that. But if all those things are in line, man, the rest of that stuff kind of just falls in the line on its own because all these things have to be in alignment to get you where those two KPIs are really that important. And your relationships with those people, with your spouse, with your team, that’s the foundation to anything. And you can’t build a solid house on a rocky foundation. So as long as you’re pouring into these people, giving them your best, they’re giving you your best, you’re reciprocating, that is so powerful because, like you said, you know,
29:05
the P&Ls and your balance sheets, all that stuff can be fixed and tweaked with different efforts from those people. But if the relationships with those people are bad, not only is it a rocky foundation, it also makes your life a lot harder where you’re not gonna be the leader that you need to be because of that. Yeah, and you’re repeating the same mistakes. It’s like, if we create SOPs around things, then why are we still tripping over the same thing? Why are we still not having the right people? Why are we not cultivating the culture? It’s also interesting that
29:32
these relationships that we have, the relationships that I’ve had in RTA from five years ago, literally still serve me. And I don’t mean just from a business standpoint. I mean, being able to have dinner with that person, fly to this part, fly to another country and see this person that you’ve known for a long time. It literally builds trust in you with them. I don’t want to say it’s a slimy, like glad handing where people are trying to slide you their card and stuff. You just get to know these people and we come to an RTA event and we get inspired and we learn. And now you get to know who this person is.
30:01
And then naturally, if you happen to need that person for whatever it is, taxes, buying a vehicle, property, whatever it is, you know somebody that you already know, love and trust. You’ve already vetted them by having them in this environment. And that relationship is, is what the foundation of all of that. And you want to have that, you know, I think that’s part of the key, like a building a positive relationship is about being genuine with it. So many people look at relationships as a transaction as what can this do for me? And entrepreneurs are very guilty of that.
30:31
because they feel like they’re going to get something from someone, meaning, you know, a deal, a hookup, or they’re going to give me a better price because I’m their boy or whatever it is. But that’s not how a proper relationship works. That’s actually, you know, reciprocated because like an RTA, it’s like that’s, that’s the power of it is like the relationships that you build, because I do business with members of RTA now that I’ve met through the syndicate. And I have people now that like, I give them my business now because
31:00
I’ve seen them around, I know what they do, I know they’re trustworthy, I know they’re good people. So I pull my business from other people that hadn’t put the time to build a relationship and now I give it to the people that I’m building relationships with. And those people are good because they’re taking care of me as well, meaning they make sure they hit their deadlines. Basically they keep their promises. And when you don’t have those relationships with other, maybe another vendor, they’re not really cared much because there’s not that relationship there. But the people that I found in RIT that I work with are always like,
31:29
people of integrity and they do the right thing and they live by the core values. It’s everything. A brand I’m getting ready to launch is through industry threadworks through Ryan Williams company. Oh cool, that’s awesome. Yeah, he’s a great guy. And he’s incredible, right? And he went out of his way as we support American products. So I was telling him, I was like, it has to be American made, it has to be American sourced and it has to be at scale. And so he went out of his way. He had his team just scouring to make sure.
31:55
Is this what you like? Here’s a sample of this. What do you think about this? What do you think of this, Polly? What do you think of this? What do you think this hat? And then of course, Ari is the one that’s doing the Shopify stores. And again, she’s like meticulous. She’s like, here’s this, here’s my deadline. Here’s this, what do you think? Give this back to me in this amount of time. And again, it makes it so much easier because we know that these people are doing it. We know these people have done it. They have a track record of excellence. So why would I spend a bunch of time and energy wasting, looking for something else that may or may not be
32:24
actual fit for what I want. Plus, these people already know me, so I don’t have to explain to them my story or what I think or the way I look at stuff. It’s like they already have a really good lens of what I’m doing. And they hold the standard though as well. They understand what the standard is. And that I think is a really key component to that, is they understand what is acceptable and what is not. And anything less than excellent is not acceptable. And never have I felt in any capacity that there was like a transactional component to that. The young entrepreneurs
32:54
In some ways I blame them, but in other ways I blame the internet, the interwebs, because they make it look like entrepreneurship is easy. And we learned so much in our day, but I want people to understand. I had to execute on what I learned over the last five years to get to this point. Ed and Andy and you did not just wake up one day and say, I’m going to go for a walk every day, or I’m going to do these things. It takes that compounding interest of doing it every single time, every single day, every single interaction.
33:23
to be able to get to that point. And lots of times you’re doing it, you’re walking by faith and not by sight because you literally cannot actually see where you’re trying to get to yet, but you continue taking those steps. And that’s where most people give up. Or again, that transactional component comes from the younger ones that I feel, and it doesn’t have to be young people, but young in entrepreneurship, where they had this illusion that they can blow it up and then sell it and turn it. And it’s like, that’s probably not gonna happen. And if it does, it’s really not a very…
33:52
not a good foundation to try to build something on. Yeah. And like you said, it’s all about taking action. There’s a saying that in the age of information, ignorance is a choice. And we choose to be ignorant. You can be given all the information. If I gave you a ton of information, a whole booklet, and I gave it to someone else, the results can be drastically different. It’s about the person that if you go out and take action and build and grow, well, the person had the same information, didn’t apply it, did not take action, had no sense of urgency.
34:21
and they don’t succeed and they’re staying where they’re at 10 years from now, they’re in the same position. Then they’re looking at you like, what does he have that I don’t? You know, it’s that discipline to take action every day. And that’s what it’s about. And it is, it’s just young entrepreneurs in the game. It, I think it is a lot of the internet. And I think what is important is for people out there that are young in the entrepreneur game is do your due diligence. And I always say, and he says a lot of his podcasts, it’s like, what are the people built? What do they do? Are they reputable? What’s their deal? You know, cause there’s too many.
34:50
fakes and frauds out there that are selling you a dream that they themselves don’t live. Yeah. And they can’t live and they’re trying to basically live off of your money in the process to get to that point. That’s all it is. Their business is selling you the idea of business. No bueno. And so as a female leader, have you run into, because they see you, you’re a female, you’re easy on the eyes, they may be like, okay, trying to take leadership advice from her.
35:19
Is leadership different for a female than it is for a male? Because the principles are the same. I mean, if we’re being very candid, but yet are there any things that you sort of stumbled across in the process of doing that to lead? You know, I really haven’t. And that’s something that I speak about when I speak on stages and things in regards to that. I spoke at a private high school, and it’s a Catholic high school. And they wanted me to speak on for International Women’s Day and the speaker before me.
35:44
was talking all about how hard it is for women and how oppressed they are and the wage gaps and the this and the that. And I’m like, that’s not, cause the whole wage gap, I’m like, no, you gotta look at their professions, their experience and things. And if you look at that, there’s really not a wage gap. And that’s the thing is like, people just look at it like, they always use the NBA. Well, LeBron James makes this and whoever’s in the WNBA, they make this. Well, no, they’re bringing more fans to the stand. They’re selling more merch. It’s just a business. You can’t have a woman and man, the same business and one business is failing.
36:14
And you expect that person to make the same amount of money as a successful business. So I got up to speak and I was like trying to respectfully get a brush over that. Cause they don’t want those girls, these young teenage girls to hear that and think, well shoot this, this world’s set up to just hate me. So it’s, it’s a very strong feeling that I have about that. And opinion with this is that I’ve never had a problem with it. I actually feel that in some cases it has been easier to be a woman in leadership because I found it like Andy spoke at women in business a couple of years ago and he goes,
36:42
They come to me because I don’t take care of it. They got to go to her. There’s two guys that they’re like, like they don’t want to deal with me because it’s not that I have to be like harsh or like just a nag or anything like that. It’s just like a non-negotiable, like, hey, let’s do this. Because then you can sell these. Like a lot of times women do have an advantage because men don’t want to speak down to them or disrespect them. But the thing is, it’s important for me as a leader. I don’t talk down to them or disrespect them either. And, you know, that’s a key thing is like you can’t be on a power trip if you’re a leader, man or woman.
37:11
and your ego cannot lead. It has to be you and your heart and your mind and the best intentions of what the outcome is for the company and for that employee. So I haven’t found that to be a challenge in all my years. And every, so I’ve owned my businesses and I sold them and I worked in two complete male dominated industries. One place I worked, I had 50 employees there and there was only two women. One was the owner and one was my, one was one of the owners and one was myself. And then I worked in another industry and I was the second girl that worked there as well at this company.
37:39
And at both ones, I had one of the highest positions I had there. I did very well at it and I really enjoyed it. I never had any problems and they didn’t have problems with me. So I think a lot of this is just this disillusion of things that we see on social media that is fed to us and therefore we believe it. But I have truly found that if you go out there and you are respectful to people, you are very forward. Here’s the problem. I think where women say that they have a problem is I think a lot of women can get.
38:07
too emotional, they bring their emotions into everything instead of being logical. And that is one thing I think that women do need to strengthen is to not bring your emotions into everything. We need to think logically, rationally. If you are finding yourself in a heightened emotion state, that is not the time for you to ever make a decision in your business or for your employees, because you are making it purely from a place of, I don’t wanna say darkness, but just like not a good place where you can’t run a business based on emotions.
38:34
Yeah, emotions assassinate the truth. It’s impossible to know what’s really going on. So if you ever feel yourself approaching that area, what do you do to give yourself the capacity to become more logical? I’ll cancel a meeting, I’ll postpone it. I’m not a bitch, but I’m confrontational. So like I have no problem with confrontation with men or women, but I’m not, like I said, I’m not like looking for it, but I won’t back down from it. So therefore, if I feel like I’m in a state, because if something happens, someone tells me something,
39:04
I’m gonna talk to them right now. I’ll get up and I’ll go talk to them and I’ll find them to figure it out right then and there. But then it gets to a point where I feel like, okay, you’re getting a little bit too mad about this or a little bit too ready to like pounce on somebody. That’s when I take a step back. I’ll go back in my office. I’ll chill out. I’ll do some emails and stuff. Then I think about it logically. Like, okay, what was the like component for them to do this? Or what was the reaction for this? They’re like, let me figure this out. And I’ll figure some things out. Then I can go at it with a better equipped. I have more steam, more facts, more, let’s say data points if I need them.
39:34
and then I can solve the problem more rationally, more logically, and to a way that it’s going to be, I feel better about it because no one wants to go off and have a confrontation and you leave and you’re like, I shouldn’t have done that. I said that, that was mean. I should have asked this first or whatever. And I don’t want to feel stupid. I don’t want to have to eat crow and go after somebody without knowing my data and my facts yet. And then I feel like stupid, like I’m getting on them and I don’t know what I’m talking about yet. So, you know, I just find that’s really been helpful. I just step back. I usually take a 20 minute.
40:02
reset and then I’ll address the issue after that. I think that’s key. And I think also because the culture that you’ve built, right, the culture of self-policing. So now, like you’re saying, you get an email or something, there’s a mistake made. In your mind, if we get like heated about it, it’s like, okay, honestly, the person that’s been here for seven years, that’s a part of our culture, I don’t think that they had ill intent. I don’t think this was like some sort of nefarious thing that they’re doing to try to sabotage us. I think that they either don’t understand.
40:30
maybe I wasn’t clear enough, whatever it is. And like you said, when you’re stepping back and taking that breath and you have 20 minutes and maybe my blood sugar is low or maybe I’m tired or maybe I had this ancillary emotion from something else that gives you the ability to step back and say, okay, this is where I could be wrong. And now when you approach them, you’re more armed with the facts as opposed to the emotion. And I think that through the years that’s helped me become a better leader because I try to then ask myself in that little moment I take to step back is,
40:59
Okay, I trained them to do this, but did I teach them to do it? Because training and teaching can be different in entrepreneurship where you can train, you could train someone like here, screw the caps on all these bottles of water and then put them over here. Okay. That’s, that’s training someone how to do something. What if we’re going to teach someone how to do something? I would tell them more of the why and the how, and this is it, like the end result, what happens, and I would teach them the importance of it, how it’s created, how it’s made, whatever it might be.
41:28
That way they understand it more. So I asked myself, did I actually, did I teach them this? Because one thing that I found years ago, I would get frustrated. I was like, and I’m sure you’ve been there too. And a lot of your listeners is like, how are they messing this up? This is obvious. This is common sense. Well, then my dad always said, common sense is not so common, but then it’s also, you know, maybe they just, they don’t actually know. Like they don’t think like I do because, you know, here I have 22 years experience as an entrepreneur. They’re an employee that’s been here a year or so.
41:56
I would automatically assume the knowledge based on the lessons I had received. They had not received the same lessons I have. They’re just going off of what I told them. So that’s like what you mentioned while they’re like SOPs, like was there an error in something I taught them? Did I forget to do this? Did I not teach them this? Did I not train them this? So in that little reprieve, that 20 minute little step back, I’m like, okay, did I tell them this? Have I showed them this? I’ll kind of almost like want to check my own boxes and find out where was my weakness as a leader because
42:23
The whole subtitle of my book, People, Passion, and Profits, it all starts with people that leads into the passion for your business and the love, and that’s gonna lead you to your profits. And so it’s asking yourself, where am I failing? It’s looking at yourself in the mirror, which can be hard, but it’s gonna help you. It has to be. And as you say, we may have given them something from a place of, maybe they may have mistaken before, and it costs us money. So that’s what they remember is that initial, the fact that we are direct with them or pissed off or whatever.
42:50
But then what else are we doing? As leaders, we’re trying to build other leaders. Everybody in these events that I’ve been around all had this entrepreneurial mindset, which means not only do I know my roles and responsibilities, and not only am I going to cover everything that I can to help other people, but I’m going to proactively look for solutions. I’m going to proactively look for things that we may trip over in the future. But if I say something to somebody and now they’re in a corner like, well, he yelled at me last time, so this is bullshit. So I’m just going to do the bare minimum. I want to check the boxes.
43:18
I’m going to get this thing done and I’m out of here. It’s like, what am I doing? I’m not encouraging them. I’m not building trust. I’m not building the relationship with the report. I’m literally discouraging them. And they could be onto something that, like you said, if my ego’s in the way, they may be pointing out something that I should be seeing, but yet I can’t. Yeah. And I think it’s also important to never pass on apologizing to someone. You know, I have a saying like, never keep a compliment to yourself and never pass on an apology because people often will react.
43:46
And instead they just try to like, I always call it the, are we cool? Like if somebody gets upset and they text you like, Hey, what’s the, Oh, dude, have you seen this on Netflix? It’s kind of like them trying to ask like, Hey, are we cool after all this? And instead of that, because that is kind of just a slimy thing. It’s just like, Hey, look, I know I went a little bit harder on you today over this, but like, here’s the reason why is because, and then I’ll also paint the picture of like, it’s important when else because of this deadline and because of this and da da da or whatever it might be. And if you could take a little bit of time to explain to them as well, if you didn’t do that already.
44:16
It’s really important because then they realize, okay, they’re not mad at me. They’re mad at what happened that I did. So therefore the person’s emotions and ego are still intact. You’re not attacking them as a person. You’re just attacking the actual like work, if you will say, you know what I mean? Like their actions that they took. That’s everything. And we have to address that specific situation, right? I can’t allow this stuff to build up and not address it. And now when I get an opportunity, I just crush them. It’s like, that doesn’t help them at all.
44:43
I need to be very succinct and direct with this specific situation. It’s not fair for me to let something fester. And now I can’t control my emotion in the process either. I’m like, it’s just like everything else. You can’t do anything right. And now you’re messing all these other things up. That’s not helping anybody. I look at that, like, you know, how people hold things in romantic relationships, you know, instead of people just saying how big of a deal was it? Like if you did something that your wife didn’t like, if she’s like, Hey, I would actually prefer you to do it this way. You’re like, oh, cool. Got it.
45:10
You guys are cool. It’s done. It’s over. She said her piece. That’s it. It’s no arguments or nothing. But if she holds that in and then you do something else again and you do that same thing again that she didn’t like the first time, it’s not being addressed. Then it’s going to be this blow up argument instead of just addressing the little things as you go. And I think that’s what’s important, I think, in business when you’re leading people is if you can address the little things along the way, there’s never these big things because otherwise the big things do fester and it can create a cancer in your company. The culture goes downhill because these people are like.
45:39
Gosh, I’m always getting yelled at or this or that. Well, no, you’re not always getting yelled at. It’s just this person held all their emotions in and the airs until they just blew up one day and made you feel like you were a worthless piece of crap instead of like, hey man, come my office. Like, hey, when you did this, that wasn’t cool. You can’t do that. Like, you know, we just gotta like blah, blah, blah, you know, move on and all this kind of jazz and get more pep talk. Then they’re out the door and you guys are cool. It’s just, it’s again, just being direct, taking an issue as they come and deal with it because with the romantic relationships, like I was saying is, you know,
46:07
these kind of things just fester and blow up. And it ends up ruining relationships. It ruins people within your company. And people respect you if you can just be upfront with them. And then they learn, it’s also like on the job training. You know what I mean? They’re learning it as they go, what’s acceptable and what is not. My wife and I, I call it cleaning the slate. I just get it all out. If I feel that there’s something that’s like, this feels forced or this feels, what’s going on? And we can actually just ask once and we’re not gonna be playing games. It’s like, oh, well.
46:37
Nothing. It’s like, okay, I asked. And you talk about this, the relationship component. We take a walk in the mornings. So as entrepreneurs, what are we doing? We’re taking a walk or taking the dogs out. We’re getting sun, we’re exercising, but we’re also checking our day. Hey, what do you have today? Hey, I have a break here. Do you want to get lunch? Hey, are we going to have time for dinner? Am I cooking? Again, we get on the same place, same plane, and now we’re we clean that slate. Now we know exactly what’s going on. And of course, we have access to Twitter, there’s like calendars.
47:06
She could put something in and I’ll put something in and it’s like, Oh, I guess I’m having dinner tonight. But that’s, that’s what that’s about. Being able to be very transparent, very clear, making sure that there’s no conflicts and I’ve also found that all these things that fester, like you said, we can take care of them in three minutes if we’re honest, but if we don’t, they usually blow up at the most inopportune time, which is a family gathering or an event or when you have company over it’s like, really? What the hell’s going on? We couldn’t have an honest conversation for five minutes before this.
47:36
Yeah. Well, and I think what you said, like, you know, having like your calendars and syncing things and knowing what’s going on is that’s something, you know, like we do in the morning because we go to bed together and we get up together and we’ll be in the bath and getting ready. He’s like, oh, what you got going on today? And I’ll like, so, you know, whatever’s going on. And then I know what he’s going on because I manage his calendar and stuff. And I’ll just ask, like, hey, is this I saw this on the calendar. Is this person coming over in person or is that a call? And he’ll tell me like, oh, it’s like, okay, do I need to do anything? And when I say that, that means am I making like appetizers? Are they staying for dinner? Like what’s going on? It’s like, oh, no, no, you don’t need
48:06
It’s just knowing what your day holds also makes it easier because instead of how bad would it be to you’re at home and you’re making dinner for you and your spouse, then all of a sudden there’s this third person that you didn’t know was coming and it’s actually just a visit and now you’re looking like a mess from the day or post-workout and then like you got to entertain people. You know, it’s just little things like that. It doesn’t take a lot. It’s just making a diligent effort to make everybody’s life easier. Yeah. And again, that comes back to the relationship, clear communication. And if we communicate.
48:35
And for those of you that don’t have great communication, either in your business or with a partner, it’s gonna feel like initially it’s over communication or it’s gonna feel like you’re bitching a lot. But lots of times you have to get all that stuff out so that now you can have that clarity of communication. And now all of a sudden you start getting, you’re hearing whims, you start hearing good things, you start hearing, hey, love you, hey, you look good today. And now all of a sudden that is just primed and that kind of becomes what is perpetuated. But if we don’t get beyond that first part, whether it be with an employee or a relationship,
49:05
romantically, it’s going to be hard to keep moving forward, at least in a scalable, functional way. I think that people have a little bit of a stigma about being an over communicator, like you’re a chatty Cathy or you’re word vomiting on everybody. That’s not what it is. When it comes down to it, like you said, it’s like key. It’s like, hey, let’s clean a slave, take three minutes to talk about this, whatever it is. And I actually get more frustrated people that aren’t over communicators or aren’t good communicators at all because I always tell people, just because you know it doesn’t mean everybody else does.
49:34
And, you know, and that’s, that’s helped with teams in the past that I’ve had, like our team now they’re like, they’re so solid, but like in other companies and stuff that I worked with in is it’s somebody assumes like, Oh, well, I told this person, well, nobody else knows it and they’re also in on that. So it’s also like, Hey, I’m doing this. Then I need you to do this. And it’s just, it’s just mapping it out, you know, and the overcommunication thing, it’s, it does take a little bit of practice and it’s also something that I think people, if you do do it, you are so easy, easy into it and you would appreciate it.
50:03
but it can be very hard for people that aren’t over communicators. Like, why is this person telling me all these details? Well, they’re telling you details that will benefit you the further down you get with the project or your relationship or whatever it is. I think everybody needs to practice communication a little bit more because right now we’ve shortened that because you think about what the age of technology and information there is, we send emojis instead of words. We shorten words and text messages. Like, I’m still like, I write everywhere down on text. Like, I don’t know why. Like, I don’t text like,
50:33
maybe because I’m older, but you know, people send emails instead. And that’s why like, I’m so big on write a handwritten card or letter to people and call them on the phone, talk to them face to face. And don’t get me wrong, I use, I text and email all day long, but I just feel like a lot of younger people, I would say probably like 29 and under, they’ve always had cell phones around. They’ve always had that like, no, yeah, okay. And so it’s almost like we’ve been.
51:01
trained to not communicate as thoroughly as we were before. Because I think before, like people of my generation, when people left for work, you didn’t talk to them till that night or you left a message on their answering machine. So you would have to tell them all the details like, hey, let’s meet here for dinner. This time I got us a booth at this blah, blah, whatever it is. Nowadays kids don’t have that. They’re like, hey, I’ll meet you here. Okay, cool. And that’s it. They get there and then they figure it out. So I feel like it’s also like a generational thing with the communication.
51:28
I think it is and I think that there’s a difference between over communication and over sharing. That’s not what we’re talking about. Massive point, massive, massive point there. Yes, for sure. Yeah, because a lot of people think, oh, you want me to over communicate? It’s like, I don’t need to know all that. I’m talking about business. I’m talking about this project. Yeah, the oversharing is a thing. That’s definitely one thing. But yeah, over communicating is what you need. Do not overshare. Emily, I could talk to you forever. As we’re landing the plane here, I want to be respectful of your time. Could you tell us about…
51:56
you mentioned earlier in your entrepreneurial journey or anytime, every entrepreneur that I know has gone through some sort of adversity, some sort of hardship that at the time feels brutal. And it’s like, I’m not going to be able to get through this thing. But once we do, we look back when we go, man, if that hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t be the person that I am. Can you give us an example of something that you went through that was sort of your litmus test or trial by fire? Oh yeah. So I’ll relate back when I said my first business.
52:24
So I was young, I was 20 years old. And like I said, my dad was a successful entrepreneur and I was very wrong in thinking that it was just in my DNA. Like I was just gonna be automatically good at it and successful because my dad was. I thought it like, it was like genetics. You’re like, oh cool, I got this. I was always very diligent with my money and things like that. When I had a business, I was like, you know, this is back when you did not have online banking, no smartphones, nothing. You had to wait till you got your statements in the mail at the first of the month. And then you would, you know, go through your check
52:53
checkbooks and accounts and things to make sure that everything matched up. And so I had my business and business was going good and I had all these like amazing like giftware items and like luxury things. People that know where else had them around. I had like all these exclusive things. It was like it was a destination place to go to shop at my store. And I was so proud of that and I was just busy every day. I had about six full-time employees there and I remember getting these bank statements in the mail.
53:22
And I would just like, oh, I’ll do this next month. I’ll do this next week. I don’t have time to do it. So I went off for four months. Now, mind you, I was good with finances. That does not mean you are good at business. Okay. So I was going from manage my own little checking accounts, savings accounts and stuff like that versus running a business, you know, see if your taxes, your payroll, your vendors, your invoice, all that kind of stuff. So I was always on the up and up with.
53:47
taxes and payroll things because I was terrified of the IRS. And I did not, so I hired an accountant to do all that. Well, what I didn’t understand in business is I truly, and it sounds so stupid to say now, I didn’t understand all of the terms with vendors. I didn’t understand the payment schedules and things like that. And I was buying a high volume of items. Every single day I was getting shipments of fresh flowers, kind of giftware, whatever it was. So I mean, I would see all this business and I had money in the bank on my computer from what I was logging.
54:15
I was like, oh man, we’re just doing good. I’d buy more great inventory and all this kind of stuff. I was ignorant to my finances of what was going on. So then one day, one of my girls that worked for me, she came to me and she said, she pulled me in the corner and she whispered, she’s like, Emily, I’m like what? She’s holding her paycheck. She goes, the bank won’t cash my check. And I go, why? Because I had online accounting software, but again, it never, it was sinking to anything, it didn’t match it. I had to manually go through and balance my accounts out. Then I go, what are you talking about?
54:44
She goes, yeah, she’s like, they said there’s no money in the account. And I go, what? And I like, you know that feeling you get when you know something’s wrong and you get real hot and you’re trying to be cool. Like I was like hot immediately all over and like something is wrong. So I go, well, let me take it. I’m gonna go to the bank and find out. Because the bank knew that because I also had my business account at the bank that she happened to bank at. So the bank was like a mile away. So I drive there and I’m like, hey, they said there’s no money in the account. Like what’s going on? And the teller looked and she told me the amount I had in my account. And I was like, that can’t be right.
55:11
And she said, yeah. And I had $42.86 in my bank account. And I thought I had like a couple of tens of thousands of dollars. And so it was a total nightmare. And so then I was like in panic mode. And I was like so embarrassed because I immediately think like, oh my gosh, I’ve got all these vendors checks. I just paid for all this stuff. All those are going to bounce. I had made massive, massive mistakes in my accounting. And it added up very quick because, again, four months, I ignored my statements. Four months when you’re purchasing every single day.
55:41
can add up insanely quickly. And so I took her check, I ran to my house, which is only a mile the other direction, thankfully we’re very close, and I got my savings account with Drew Money that I thought, like I was trying to add up the checks that I had, but again, the internet really even wasn’t that like a big deal back then either. And so I couldn’t go back to the flower shop to look on my computer to see what amount I think I would need because then I was gonna like wave the flag that like I messed up. So I’m like,
56:10
Okay, I paid this person as I did this. So I pulled money out of my savings account, took it to the bank, deposited it, kept cash in hand to pay all my employees. I went back and I just, I bold faced lied to them, which nobody ever knew until my book came out because I actually tell this story in my book. I took it back to them and I was like, hey, I said the bank messed up. They’re gonna get it figured out. I don’t know what’s going on. So I went to pay you guys cash for the next two weeks because in my mind, two weeks would give me enough time to like get my ass in gear to figure this out or have to put more money in the business.
56:40
So I paid them all cash and then I’m like, okay, I gotta save this shit. Cause like I had a mortgage on the building. I had my payroll, you have taxes, all the other stuff. And I was like, well shit, what am I gonna do now? And so then I had hair about almost down to my butt by then. And I was like, well, and I knew that our local newspaper, it had, it was a small town and it delivered to the six surrounding cities around us that were also small towns, but I delivered to all of them.
57:05
and they would do like local businesses and stuff. You’d always get kind of like a feature in it for little things, this and that. And I was like, I’m gonna go cut my hair off and then to donate it to Oxalub and then I’ll get a spot in the paper because I could not afford advertising. So my resolve was to just get a little bit scrappy. So I cut off about 15 inches of my hair and then I called the newspaper and I said, what day is the highest circulated day? Cause they delivered it twice a week.
57:31
And they told me the day. So I submitted my photo and the little write-up about me cutting my hair off. And I would love to say it was all for charity, but that’d be a lie because I did it truly for free advertising. And I know I said, I’m going to hell, but I did it. I did it for advertising. Hey, you do what you got to do. So there it comes. It comes out in the paper and I’m like, hold my little braided ponytail that was cut off my new short hair. And so that went out to the six cities. So it was immediately. And I got.
57:57
That was on the front page of our small town paper was me cutting my hair off. So I immediately got good like coverage. And then I was like, what else can I do in a flower shop? You can only keep your flowers about two or three days before they start getting to a point where you cannot actually sell them because they won’t last for the purchaser. So I would take these older flowers and I would make all these little bouquets, just little little things to put on a desk. And I would take them to businesses around our town that had a front counter like.
58:23
the five and dime store or the banks or the chamber commerce or wherever the license office places where a lot of people are going in and out of the day. And I put my business or put a card on it from my flower shop. And I said like, Oh, thanks for being a great member of our community sign. And then my flower shop, meaning it for the business. So everybody that would go to their checkout counters at these businesses would see my name on this. And then I also would like get my dead flowers out of my trash. And I would.
58:49
I would take the sticks and dead flowers and stuff, and I’d stick it in foam. And flower shops have a big skillet of hot glue, and I would take two pieces of foam, hot glue paddles almost, and I would do this, and I would make it real stringy, like spider webs, and I’d wrap it around there. I started selling my dead flowers as dead bouquets for people’s gag gifts for birthdays. So I started selling my trash. And so in nine months, I went from $42.86 to over half a million dollars in the bank because I was so…
59:19
resourceful and just had to be resilient because I had no other option but to. That was the biggest lesson I ever learned is like, one, never ever ignore your finances because they’re never going to get better just because you’re not looking at them. It’s about paying attention to the details because my dad always told me, pay attention to your pennies and your dollars will take care of themselves. Meaning, not only just money, but the details that you do every single day, that equates to the big thing. So it’s about, that quote rang so true to me, whenever I was having this moment because I’m like, I didn’t pay attention to my pennies.
59:48
And also I didn’t pay attention to the details. So I failed. This is my failure. Those two things are the failure. So that was the biggest lesson that I’ve ever learned in business. It was a scary time because I was like, cause I didn’t take any money. I didn’t have any like investors, nothing. Like I just worked my ass off since I was 14 to have the funds. To do the things that I did. And then I kept my business for about another two or three years. And then I sold the business and the building, the land. And then I moved to St. Louis after that. So.
01:00:18
Yeah, that would be the biggest thing I’ve learned. I think that’s an incredible lesson. And again, I hear about in the syndicate all the time, what are we saying? When you get money, sometimes you just think that, oh, I’m gonna pay for a lot of this advertising, but it’s really hard to see where that comes. But doing what you were doing and saying, listen, when I have no other choice, the choice is simple. I figure something out. And if we can have that same kind of scrappiness, even now when you’re winning, it’s amazing what you can do. Yeah, cause that was the day, I mean, that was back when, you know, Facebook wasn’t.
01:00:47
Facebook was only for college kids back then. There was no Facebook ads, there was no social media ads, there was nothing. It was, you had the phone book or you had to put pound the pavement and do it yourself. And that’s one lesson that I did learn is like, I can rebuild a business and grow my financials. I don’t have to pay for advertising. I just had to get very creative. And like you said, you know, in our day, we talk about that. Like you could give somebody a million dollars and they want to blow it all on their advertising, but they don’t have anything to back that up. Like the…
01:01:14
product or the staff, whatever it might be, if that advertising does pan out. So it’s like, if you can learn to do it yourself without that, you become so resourceful because you learn, you don’t need to spend a ton on ads. You can do a lot through your relationships. You can get creative with things. People just need to have that like never give up mentality because I feel that people either resourceful or resilient, one or the other. So I feel like I was very resourceful. Therefore I was resilient. Some people are resilient and therefore they become resourceful. So I feel like a lot of us are either one or the other and therefore you.
01:01:43
automatically kind of become the other one by association. I agree. I think that’s a great place to put a bill on this, Emily. Emilyfrazella.com. We can follow you on Instagram as well. She puts out quality content. She’s got incredible stuff. So follow her, buy her books, go to Amazon. When is your next event coming up? My women’s business is July 14th through the 16th here in St. Louis. So if you haven’t been to one of those before, I highly recommend them. And then.
01:02:12
RSA will be opening membership up later on this year, correct? Yes, correct. Yeah, it’ll be, yeah, it’ll be, um, in a couple of months. Yes. Fantastic. Emily, thank you so much. Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. Thank you for listening to this episode of Acta Non Verba.
