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448: Scaling an Ecom Brand From Scratch to $700K in Year One: The Sales Engine Playbook with Catherine Smith Licari of The Small Business Planner
01:17:10
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- [00:13]
A
Katherine, welcome to the Boss Bay podcast.
- [00:15]
B
Thank you so much for having me. I'm beyond excited to be here.
- [00:18]
A
I would love to dive in and start at the beginning of your entrepreneurial career. Can you talk me through that?
- [00:24]
B
Absolutely. We're going back a little while, and it started in 2014. My background originally was actually in magazines and publishing, and I was working in the Conde Nast building. And I remember my job offer letter and the salary on it, which was nowhere near enough to be able to exist in New York City. And so while that job and the jobs I had were very valuable in those first couple of years after undergrad, I knew I needed a bigger plan, and I found myself in the New York fashion and media landscape. And I said, gosh, there's a lot of really special people doing a lot of really great things. And I just had this sense that I was going to need to do something exceptional to be able to afford to stay working in the industry. That was what I was hearing in my mind. And I was a baby magazine editor, so I had access to baby baby fashion designers and, like, emerging designers and accessories brands. And at the time I started to see this was very early, Instagram had just come onto the radar. Instagram had become a thing so quickly, and these brands were able to start telling their stories, but they weren't. This was 2013 or so. There was no commerce. You couldn't shop it. So I quickly noticed this access challenge where young brands were coming online, but women couldn't actually easily shop them. And so I came up with the idea for this website that was just dedicated to emerging luxury fashion designers. And this was 2014. And I worked on the idea and I. I applied to get my first master's degree as sort of at Parsons, as sort of a backup for this entrepreneurial leap, because I knew I needed health insurance. I. I wanted to have a goal that I knew I could reasonably rely on accomplishing while also starting a business. And so in my first semester at Parsons, I launched this site, and it was really successful. We didn't have very much competition in that space. My focus was, we're going to have the new and the next coming out of design schools, not the major brands that really you can get anywhere. And so I ran that business for several years before realizing, oh, man, the economics of fashion are totally broken. And I also learned that all my competitors were really not profitable and that my competitors, who were larger were able to stay afloat because they had access to capital, not because the math worked. Something really interesting happened Very early on in that business, we carried about 50 different brands at one point in time. And these are all businesses that in their first year or two, and they were all creative people. My phone started to ring with questions from these designers. They would ask me, hey, Katherine, I just got my first order with Neiman Marcus, but I have no idea how to finance it. What do I do? Or, hey, Catherine, I think I might need a warehouse, but I don't even know where to begin. What do you think? And so these operational and financial questions started coming to me. And I was 26 years old. I didn't know the answers, but I was completely fascinated by these problems and these thematic things I kept hearing, and I really wanted to figure out how to solve those. And that was just the next organic thread. The first was, I need to create something exceptional to be able to stay in this industry. And then the next one was, gosh, there's a really big problem here. People are finding themselves running these businesses and brands without the roadmap. And so then the next thing that happened was I went to Columbia Business School to get some of these financial skills that I didn't have. I just learned on the fly, like most business owners do. You start your first company, you learn invaluable lessons, but they are expensive and challenging. And so what I knew I was missing was the financial piece. And so there was one day, I think it was in 2016, when I looked up at my desk and I had an office on 7th Avenue. I had five women working for me full time, including an intern from Harvard Business School. And this is well before I knew even how to use Excel properly. I looked up from my desk and said, I do not know how to take us beyond where we are now. I don't have the skills and I have payroll, and I need to. It wasn't about making payroll so much as it was about I don't have the skills to responsibly lead a team beyond this threshold. And so that's when it became clear I needed a new skill set. And so that took me to Columbia and I continued working on my business the entire time. And by then, we had really focused on pivoted a bit to advising these brands, more of a brand incubator, which was very much behind the scenes of the industry and very much just word of mouth. So I've been behind the scenes of brands launching on Net, a Porter, launching at Neiman Marcus, launching at Nordstrom, all over the world, and trying to help the creative business owner do it well. So that they can get to the next milestone.
- [05:25]
A
Well, just on that. So before we get into kind of where that led you, what got you into the magazine world in the first place and took you to New York?
- [05:33]
B
Oh, my gosh. You really asked the best questions. What got me into the magazine space? Actually, my. My mom's cousin Michael and his partner, also named Michael, have always been very close to me. I know. So Michael Larkin and Michael Picone. Michael Picone was working at a magazine and he was actually working at Marie Claire and he was doing a story. They used to do these stories. It was like 101 XYZ, 101 dresses and things like that. And they were casting people of all different ages. And so he put me in this magazine story. And that was one of the first times I saw what a shoot looked like at like a Hearst tower in New York. But what really brought me to New York, actually in high school, I was on a teen issues talk show. I was the co host of this TV show, which is also very much under the radar in my life. But I loved it and I never expected to be made the co host. And I really enjoyed it. And I learned how to use a teleprompter and how to be responsible for a whole crew. Because if I didn't do my job well, we filmed two episodes a day, people would eat their lunch cold. If I didn't do a good job, people were waiting to eat lunch. And so that very quickly taught me how to, I think even saying this out loud to you now, how to be responsible for a team of people who rely on you as a teenager. And so that introduced me to, oh, wow, you could get a job speaking on camera. And so I was actually taking on camera speaking classes just outside of New York City. Ended up meeting different agents and things like that. And then that spiraled into different opportunities inside the fashion industry in New York.
- [07:09]
A
That makes sense. What was it about your childhood that inspired this entrepreneurial spark in you?
- [07:15]
B
Oh, my gosh. I think I've always had it. If you read a lot of different female entrepreneurs, their personal story, very often they talk about, like, selling things on the playground. So I was doing manicures on the school playground.
- [07:29]
A
I love this.
- [07:30]
B
I was not very good at charging for them. So I've done a lot of work on my sales skills since then. But I was literally doing like the high end manicure on the playground because I had competition. This girl Megan also did manicures, but hers were like, quick and dirty. You were in and out in no time. But they'd be a little all over the place. I was like the pristine high end manicure that you could get at St. Anne School in Lawrenceville, New Jersey. And then I remember, like, you know, the commerce of the gel pen on the school bus. Like, I was kind of always a hustler, and my parents, you know, they sort of had their own lives going on, and I really liked the idea of being autonomous. They then did also have a very difficult divorce, which showed me, oh, wow, this money topic. Like, I was 13 years old. I was like, oh, my. Okay. Money is loaded. It's loaded and coded for people. And from that point on, I was really fixated on being in New York. I grew up a little over an hour outside of New York City. And so for me, New York was like, Oz. I knew once I got to New York, once I got to Oz, I would be safe, and I would be able to be in an environment where my natural skills could translate into a life of some stability and financial opportunity.
- [08:45]
A
And so seeing a divorce like that did it. It made you feel like making my own money is safe?
- [08:50]
B
Yes. It made me feel like, oh, wow, I can't rely on any of these structures. My grandfather also passed away when I was 10, and he was like my favorite person on earth. And I'm the first grandchild. And that was an early example of you can't count on anything. There's gonna be a lot of surprises. There's gonna be things that come up that catch you off guard. And I certainly wasn't aware of that as a motivator then, but I am now. It definitely contributed to wanting to have as much a sense of control as I could, because I was aware at a very young age that the rug could kind of be pulled out from under you.
- [09:26]
A
I really love this. And now it makes so much sense why you're so passionate about finance for small business owners, which, I'm assuming, majority of your customer base are women, too.
- [09:35]
B
Yes, we actually have more men than I ever expected because I'm just so used to selling to women. But, yes, my mother was completely caught off guard by so many lessons that she had to learn. She didn't work when we were growing up, so she had to get a job and figure that out. So it was also, you know, we think, like you and I, our jobs are a part of our identity. My mom, her identity didn't have much to do with work, and it hadn't for 15, you know, however many or 15 years or so. And so she had to just meet the necessity of, okay, legally I need to contribute to the economics of my divorced family. How am I going to do that? I've been out of the workforce. She wasn't really aware of what her interests were either. So she just figured it out. But she very quickly found her way to teaching and she's been a teacher ever since. So it's always kind of an example of, yeah, she didn't get to. She must not have had the guidance about, hey, Ann, what are your core values? What do you really care about? What do you like to do every day? Because if you're aware of those things, she might have said, well, I actually really like being a mom and kids and reading. I take my girls to the library. If someone had said that to her earlier in her life, she may have said to my father, hey, I really want to be a teacher and I'm going to integrate this into our lives. But that's not what happened. Yeah, I don't really, I don't do personal finance. But the idea of small business came up so organically because it meant like ownership over your life. And yeah, watching her was extremely formative for me.
- [11:10]
A
You know, going back to your story, fast forwarding to having this company where you have five full time employees you're advising. How did your career then progress from there?
- [11:21]
B
Yeah, I mean, I was sort of falling out of love with the idea of selling fashion product online primarily because we, you know, we made a big splash because we actually had products to ship. So I was trying to compete with Net A Porter right out of the gate live in New York City. We did same day delivery, also in a beautiful bag. But that required capital to actually order from these brands. And most of the time the brands were not financially able to get the products to us on time. They all really hustled because they really appreciated the opportunity. And I had a great relationship with all of them. But the economics of the industry are tough. They're dealing with factories when their orders are really small. It's just difficult to make it all happen. And so I started to realize my order of 15 dresses isn't actually helping that business. It's actually making it harder because she has to go and order 25 dresses, which is a small number, all things considered. But she has to order 25 or 50 units to meet her factory's minimum. And so when I realized some of that, I was like, I'm not actually making an impact, I'm just making it harder. And yeah, the business school piece also showed me such A larger world. You know, of course I was aware that there are other industries, there's more than the fashion industry, but it's hard to see that sometimes when you are so in it. And I had been in it for a long time and then personal life stuff was going on. I was ending a relationship after I graduated from business school and I was just in a headspace where I didn't really want to have to show up online every day to continue to drive the sales for my business. And so I ended up actually going in house for one of my clients and taking a little bit of a break from being so public. But ironically, it was not much of a break at all because it was luxury tracksuits during the pandemic, which just crystallized so many of the lessons about how important it is for business owners to really be aware of what matters and how much education is just missing for so many people in the global supply chain around products.
- [13:28]
A
And that that business that you had joined, that was crazy fast growth, right?
- [13:32]
B
Extremely, extremely. It was an example of the right product at the right time, but also incredibly intentionally designed. So we had a really high repeat customer rate. People absolutely loved it. But the, the pace of sustaining, going from a few hundred thousand dollars in sales to we ended up selling over $10 million of product in two and a half years. It takes an enormous amount of energy, just raw gas in the engine, to make that happen. So I became a very good negotiator.
- [14:02]
A
And what took you from that? You were COO there, right? What took you from that to now? Small business planner.
- [14:08]
B
Yeah, I think, you know, I always wanted to just work for myself and that was a little bit of a detour where because I was tired and worn out in my life, the idea of working in house at a company when the company was like three people, but the idea of going and working on someone else's idea was really appealing. But at the end I realized I am a born and bred business owner. I don't really belong operating someone else's business because I have one speed which is how can I build this business as quickly and as profitably as possible while always doing what my customer really needs and desires. And so that if, if a partner doesn't share that exact outlook, I'm always going to make different decisions than them. So I think for, for people who really can actually run product based businesses and any type of business, they probably should be doing their own. Throughout the pandemic, I started to see also so many more people starting businesses in 2021, I think 4.1 million new businesses were started in the U.S. it's crazy.
- [15:13]
A
Covid just expanded, exploded the entrepreneurial landscape. Once people got it. Yeah, a taste of working from home. I think that also really inspired people.
- [15:21]
B
So many women too. I mean you've just got women who for whatever reason maybe didn't even work at all, but all of a sudden they really could. And the sort of like pressure cooker environment of the fashion industry is one thing, but these lessons are needed by the entire business owner community. And so the idea of, and very much this was informed by what I had learned at Columbia and what was very complex concepts. But one of my skills has always been taking very complicated things and distilling them to like the crux of what actually matters. And I also just saw, you know, for so many years and for so many reasons, the financial services industry has had a vested interest in keeping this really complicated, really complicated. And I just don't think that's right. So they can do their thing. But I'm here to make this more approachable because the outcome of people having access to the right information at the right time is life changing for them and their families and their communities. And most of the time what people are making and selling, it really needs to be here. And so I don't want to see businesses failing because of a lack of awareness.
- [16:30]
A
What I really love also is how you took your fast passion expertise and put that into the small business planner. I mean the look of it, the feel of it, it is not your bog standard planner. It is so high end, so luxury. I mean for someone listening, where do you even begin to manufacture a product like this? Because I mean, I feel like we have so many ideas for products, but the idea of turning it into a reality is so freaking confusing.
- [16:58]
B
I get that. And before I answer that question, I feel like it's important for me to explain why it looks so good.
- [17:04]
A
Yes, tell me.
- [17:05]
B
The first two years of cash flow for creatives, we just lost money left, right and center. I was trying to like we are a financial literacy company at the heart for small business owners. And I was creating courses and budget trainings and things like that. And people were interested because they knew, oh yeah, that's, I got a problem with that. I don't know how to do that. But it just brought up stress and anxiety and fear.
- [17:28]
A
Right.
- [17:29]
B
I just was upsetting people. But I was so passionate about this because I knew what's on the other side of this learning. But I was just stressing out my Entire ideal client base. And so I had this real hard talk with myself, pushed by some other coaches and things like that, asking me, why are you the person to do this business? Why you? Why are you capable of helping these people? And I kept coming back to, well, I really know product based businesses and those are the really hard ones to run. Only about 30% of businesses in the US are product based businesses for a reason. It's tough. And so I said, I'm actually missing from the product. I'm not a software girly. Like I am a physical products person. And so I said I have to add desire. I have to take my experience in the retail and luxury goods space and infuse that into what this is, which is quite a big leap. Like, I'm actually selling Excel based small business finance trainings with I need to make this a beautiful object. And another piece of this also is even if you do learn the financial piece, there's still so much you need to know. And so in any business I've ever run, I always had an operational binder. And I found it such a grounding thing for me to have that it dawned on me that people really need this companion that's physical that they can sit on their desk and it's there for when they have a problem, it's there when they have a question. They can go to this easy to identify section and get, you know, thoughtfully put together information that feels like it's your ally as opposed to another scary thing or you don't want to call your accountant. But to begin developing a product, I mean, I'll say it, it is just challenging because the best products come out of people who are so diligent about quality. There is no, like silver bullet to this. You cannot just go out in the market and find the cheapest thing that's like, okay, right. You really, at least from where I sit and I'm coming from, you know, I've been inside five of the different haute couture houses in Paris. Like, why do you think they're able to charge €50,000 for a day? Look, because the quality is literally embedded in the seams of the clothing. And people know that. Yeah. I would say if you're going to go down this path, you have to think about quality constantly. Because if you believe in what you're selling, you're not actually selling it at all. You're just talking about your beautiful product that you know is the best. And so one of my core values really is respectful. And this is like a love letter to the entire small business owner community. And I made sure it was beautiful in the beginning. And, like, you ordered one very early on and you got like, yeah, how.
- [20:20]
A
How early was I. How did I find out in the.
- [20:22]
B
First six weeks from one of our ads? No way. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I'll say I didn't know that. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And I actually am amazed that I didn't see your name.
- [20:32]
A
Wow. Because I'm on it.
- [20:34]
B
I am, like, so proud to say that you slid into my DMs.
- [20:38]
A
I did. I got it. And I was like, this is one of the best business tools I have ever seen.
- [20:44]
B
Thank you. But you were one of the very first customers.
- [20:47]
A
My algorithm was dialed in.
- [20:49]
B
You are truly my ideal customer. Yes. It knew. So we started pre order. Yeah. So basically, I got up every day for two years with a business that was going nowhere.
- [20:57]
A
Right.
- [20:58]
B
But I knew there was a huge problem to solve. I was not giving up. Yeah, I don't give up. And, you know, I wrote it in the summer of 2023 and then sorted out the supply chain, which, honestly, a good tip for people is you just have to ask. You have to ask people. You have to find anybody who does one component of what you want to develop.
- [21:18]
A
Okay.
- [21:18]
B
You have to go ask them. Because most people who have had any success in doing this are very eager to share. They're not going to share their vendors. And that is okay. Because it takes months and a lot of money to develop a product and a relationship with a factory. So I wouldn't. I wouldn't want people to think that you can ask somebody, hey, where are you manufacturing this super similar thing? They're going to be like, actually, that factory that's doing this for me is already at maximum capacity. Like, it's just. It's not even an option for you necessarily. But I would say guidance is. Is available if you ask the right people.
- [21:51]
A
So did you just have in your mind, here's what I want it to look like. And then start sourcing vendors. How did you even start doing that?
- [21:58]
B
Yeah. And another thing that's kind of broadly true about products is that there are not that many people and companies that make the same things. So there's a few suppliers for everything, broadly speaking. And so I tried developing with different binder manufacturers. Some were, like, really just not getting it. And the pages are a whole other thing. Developing the tabs. It's. So we work with a handful of suppliers, but I ended up finding the initial one because they specialize More so in like hand done process, which is not what you would think when you're like, oh, a binder. It'll be easy to find a linen covered binder. And it was not. And it required a lot of upfront investment on our part. But people saw the quality, they understood, oh wow, this is different, this is different. And from my perspective, I don't really like to do anything half ass. I just don't. It needs to be beautiful and it's worth every penny and then some.
- [22:57]
A
You may have heard that I recently co founded a brand new company, Glossy, which is a skin routine you can drink. And I wanted to tell you a little bit more about it. It is incredible. It's this powdered supplement that you drink at least once a day. I'm personally a morning and afternoon kind of person and it is so good for your skin and your gut. One of the ingredients that I want to call out is probiotic D100. Helps maintain a healthy gut microbiome. It supports digestion and skin barrier function. It's also really good for helping to reduce any discomfort in your stomach and bloating. I swear by Glossy, that's just one of the key ingredients. We also have vitamin C, magnesium, hyaluronic acid, coconut water powder, sea salt, zinc. It really comes from all angles to support you inside out. I love it. In a morning I drop in and hydrogen tablet just to really boost things. And then in the afternoon I normally add some B VI vitamins. It makes me feel absolutely amazing and I really feel the difference in my gut. Specifically, I'm more regular, I'm less bloated. I just really feel a difference. So if you're interested, go to get glossy.com, that's G L O C I.com and use the code boss babe and you'll get a huge discount off your order. And so just side tangent, let's say someone's listening and they want to get started in the fashion industry. You know, let's say they have an idea for a line of clothing. How would someone even, you know, take this idea from here's how I want to look to going and sourcing a vendor?
- [24:32]
B
I think you have to ask yourself a big question which is are you incredibly passionate about whatever you're visualizing? Because if you are not, just don't bother.
- [24:44]
A
Because it's a lot of work.
- [24:45]
B
It's an unbelievable amount of work and you have to. But this is, this is true about any business. You have to love either the problem that you solve, what your business does for you personally, you have to have a real motivating, driving reason to do any of this. But in fashion, you gotta have like an irrational love for the industry, for being accepted by the industry for the fabric. Like, I can sit down with someone and understand in two seconds if they are there for the right reason.
- [25:17]
A
Right.
- [25:17]
B
And it needs to be because they are, they can tell the difference between yarns. For them, it's all about craft. And so I would just say ask yourself the question. Would you be delighted to go and look at yarns for like hours to make the right decision about the yarn to put in the sweater that you're designing? Because then you're gonna have to go and convince a factory to take a chance on you, and then you're gonna have to come up with $40,000 to begin the process. And absolutely, it can be fruitful. But fashion is one of the most difficult industries to be successful in with one of the worst economic conditions around it.
- [25:56]
A
What about if someone just wants to do merch then versus like totally different? How. How would someone do that kind of thing?
- [26:02]
B
So some of the factories that produce for brands that we know and love and wear, they have what we would call excess capacity. Okay, so let's say 20 or 30% of their week or month is dedicated to a handful of their clients they may have. And in the case with, there's a lot of American fashion manufacturing in Los Angeles, which, you know, my heart is just broken for all of them right now. But LA's big. There's big factories that get a lot of cutting space and they can be doing their own in house label, that is, then you can purchase blanks, meaning like a, just a simple sweatshirt that doesn't have anything on it. And then they're, you know, you send them out to be customized and that's just, you're tapping into a momentum that's already there. You're tapping into an industry where people have capacity in their factory. They can quickly begin making merch, begin making products that are easy to turn into merchant products for your own business without you needing to go in and say, I am going to convince you to accept me as a client from scratch and make my specific things. Because factories have no idea if you're going to be successful.
- [27:11]
A
Right?
- [27:11]
B
So it takes a lot of time and resources for them to make your first set of samples. You also need to come prepared. Unless your factory can help you with technical design and fit, you need to come prepared with all of those resources. Done.
- [27:26]
A
Gotcha.
- [27:26]
B
And that's expensive.
- [27:27]
A
Got It. Okay. So for anyone listening, that is like, okay, you know what, maybe I'll go the merch route. I'll get. I'll get a brand out there. Is it literally, let's get some time on the calendar with these factories. Let's fly in, let's interview them. Like, is this kind of industry something you do in person?
- [27:43]
B
Well, I would. Okay, you don't need to do it in person. You could. You know, there are different companies that have their. Their products on websites and you can access them as different vendors and then you just send them to you and you compare them and you decide, okay, this one, I really like the detail on the sleeve. This is the right design. Let's go with this. And then you send out your art and it's done. I think if you want to be successful in business, especially when you're dealing with, like, it's just such an endeavor to make things.
- [28:11]
A
Yeah.
- [28:11]
B
So when you're dealing with warehouses and factories, I am all about you. Show up the warehouse that ships. The Small Business Planner. I've been working with them since 2016.
- [28:21]
A
Wow.
- [28:22]
B
I've been working with them since I started my first shopping site. So when they agreed to start shipping this, which is not something they normally do, they ship for some of the best fashion brands. I drove out and did a whole packaging training and explained to them what this is, why this matters. Because I do. I kind of. I ask a lot from them. I mean, now the packaging is designed so that it stays safe in the box and it's a few different steps and. But they do an amazing job and they've always prioritized whatever drama I brought them which comes up.
- [28:53]
A
Yeah. Well, I mean, I think one thing that I've just loved about your brand from the get go, even if I was one of the early customers, you know, I. I know I got a different box, but it's meticulous. Every detail is thought about. This is not just a planner thrown in a random box. You know, it's perfectly sized. Everything arrives the same way that you pack it. And I think that attention to detail is what sets businesses and business owners apart. Anyone can just throw something in a mailer and get it out there. This is different.
- [29:22]
B
Thank you. I think it's just a reflection of how I approach doing anything, which is. But this is a good lesson for everyone else as well, because you can have a really well executed product and business at any budget.
- [29:35]
A
Right.
- [29:35]
B
But you have to be intentional. So from. I actually, it's. It's so nice and Heartwarming. I was using the same box type that I used to use for my shopping site.
- [29:45]
A
Got it.
- [29:46]
B
Because it's a white glossy box that I know arrives looking pretty good. Actually, I can't remember if you got a matte one or a glossy one.
- [29:54]
A
I got a glossy one.
- [29:55]
B
Great. Because the matte ones get mangled in transit and they show up with, like, black marks all over. But the glossy ones, they stay in pretty good shape. And this is a slightly not standard size. So the box you actually got was. Was definitely too big for this. But you experienced it as being appropriately sized. Because I, like, put beautiful tissue paper to stabilize the thing. So you can make anything look intentional. If you think. If you really step into your customer's mind and say, how can I create a beautiful experience when this arrives? I always with my shopping site in the beginning, pretty much the entire time, actually, I wrote handwritten notes and put them in all of the packages. Not when we switched to a warehouse, but when we had our showroom. That was what it was all about. It was the idea of when someone opens it. And I never paid for branded packaging. I just used a beautiful white glossy thing with black grosgrain handles. And it was affordable. But people experienced it as really intentional. So the intentionality and respect for how is this going to be received on the other end? If you think about that, in everything, you will result in having, you know, we sold to almost 4,000 business owners in 2024. And I like to think that 4,000 people who might have been having a stressful day had a little bit of a moment of thinking, wow, I actually can create change in my business so that I can pay myself a consistent salary. I can show up in a better mindset, because finally I have the resources to help me.
- [31:27]
A
And another thing I want to talk about before we get into the nitty gritty of the Small Business Planner, is when you mentioned not having a business that your face is tied to. Yes, let's talk a little bit about that. Because definitely in my industry, it's kind of a given. You have a personal brand. That's the way that you do it. Seeing the way that you do it is it expands my mind so much to what's possible. So did you just go in without that limiting belief? And you were like, well, that's how people do it. Like, what was that intention behind not having it tied to your face?
- [32:00]
B
Oh, my gosh. I think it was. It was sort of related to creating something that appealed to others.
- [32:07]
A
Okay.
- [32:08]
B
And so what I Tried in the first two years was it was never a personal brand, but I was talking about here's how to navigate taxes or whatever. So I was talking about things that were scary. After reflecting on why me, how can I create something compelling based on my own experience? And landed on it needed to be a physical product. I, I think it was just actually, if I'm thinking back, I started reading a lot of personal development things at that time. And I can't remember who said it, but I think it's universally true. So I'm sure multiple people have said it, but the idea of leading, you say it leading with as much value as you can. And so I had to think like, well, how much of the planner should I be showing? Should I hold back what's inside? Should I be cagey about this until they buy it? But the reality is, and this is also so true for everybody who's listening, who wants to have a business or has a business, ideas are plentiful. You know, the execution is what's so difficult.
- [33:04]
A
Right.
- [33:04]
B
So I was like, I'm just going to do chapter tour videos of this. I'm going to film reels of just going through every single page in the Small Business planner. Because a. That was a content strategy that it's got 15 chapters and I've got 15 real ideas.
- [33:22]
A
Right.
- [33:22]
B
But that's also what just very quickly resonated. And it's not because it was not tied to me so much, but it was really piquing the curiosity of my target customer. Whereas before when it was me talking about these topics, they were just stressed out.
- [33:38]
A
I think that's what probably got me. One of the ads was seeing inside of it.
- [33:42]
B
Great. And I didn't know when I first started, I was like, I'm just gonna try this. But then all of a sudden, and mind you, when I started, when I released this, we released on a pre order basis. Cause I ordered 50.
- [33:53]
A
Yeah.
- [33:53]
B
And I was like, let's just see. And they had to get made and come. And the pre order went in like no time.
- [33:59]
A
Well, we'll get into it because I know we're talking about it kind of mystically. We'll get into it. If for anyone that's watching video, we do have a video on. But I mean I remember seeing those videos and I'll just list off some of the tabs. So people have a concept of like, what is this? This is not an annual planner. This is not for like your goals or not for like here's what I'm doing on A day to day basis. So when you open it, you've got formation documents. So listen, I went to business school. I consider myself a wealth of knowledge about business. Or I did. I moved to America and I realized everything I've learned, I might as well throw out the window because there are no parallels. Yeah. Minus the way that you run the finances. So I remember seeing this initially and in my head was, oh my goodness, if I had this 10 years ago, my life would have been so much easier. So initially, when you open it, you've got formation documents. And it's the important documents that make your business real. So all the terms that you need to know, you know, all the things that you need to have in place to actually file a business legally. Then you've got bank accounts. Okay, how do I set up my bank accounts? I didn't know that. What kind of structure should I have? Key contacts, who's really important. Insurance policies might sound boring to people, but having insurance in my business has saved me time and time again. You know, I went through a really challenging lawsuit situation with a company that have had one of. How do we say this? They have had one of the words of our business name in their name for a really long time and they tried to take, tried to have us stop doing what we were doing. But because I had insurance, my insurance company covered us being able to protect ourselves.
- [35:47]
B
Wow.
- [35:48]
A
And that could have sunk my business.
- [35:50]
B
Great example.
- [35:51]
A
So just one example of why having the right insurance matters. And you know, thank God we got our insurance and ticked all the boxes. But you never know. Taxes. Listen, I've had a fine or two because taxes are confusing values of your business, mission statement of the business, things that you have to get clear on in the beginning. Another thing that I love is board of advisors because you know, you're not necessarily going to have an actual board in the beginning, but who are you going to be learning from? And the way in which you prompt in here and teach about bringing on advisors blew my mind. So there's so many different elements of this planner. You know, you go into all of the sales, the cash flow, the funding. You've even got a pack that teaches people how to get grants for that business. I mean, it is mind blowing. There's a place on like all of the financial definitions and terms you need to know. It goes into every. I. I bought it. Yes, because I love it and I want to use it. But mainly I bought it because, you know, I'm 12 years into entrepreneurship, but I work with small business owners Every single day. And I bought it because I'm always like, listen, if I'm going to recommend something, I want to test it out myself and see is this something I would use. So I initially seen your tabbed system. I was like, wait, this is phenomenal. I ordered it and I tell every single business owner I know about this because this solves a problem that nobody else is solving in, like you say, a beautiful, non overwhelming way. So I'm like, the biggest fan. So that's kind of for anyone listening, like, what's. What is the planner? That's what it is. Before we go into the little nitty gritty details of this, though, I want to talk a little bit about you personally, because you built this business, you know, last year. To say it exploded would be putting it lightly.
- [37:38]
B
It was nuclear.
- [37:39]
A
But so was your personal life.
- [37:41]
B
Yes.
- [37:42]
A
And the. The way that you were able to do both is so inspiring because you essentially have had a sales engine in your business that's allowed your business to run while you're. You've said it yourself, your personal life. It was one of the most challenging years that you've navigated to whatever extent you feel comfortable. But can you talk a little bit about it and just the power of having a business that has a sales engine and what that looked like for you?
- [38:08]
B
I'll say. 2022 and 2023 were the years where cash flow for creatives was not generating any revenue. And I was dedicated to planting the seeds to solve this problem. I didn't know what it was gonna look like, but I was planting the seeds thanklessly, but planting them, because when you know that your business is of value and can help others and create a real impact, you have to keep going. And thank God I did, because it did end up fully turning into a true sales engine, which I very much needed in 2024. So, timeline wise, we launched this pre order baby, little baby steps in October of 2023. In January of 2024, I started IVF. And I haven't talked about this even on my personal Instagram, because it was just so. There were so many unknowns, and I didn't know if this was going to be six weeks of my life, six months of my life, and just processing it as you go is so tough. So I think we sold $4,000 of copies in October of 2023. By the time I started the IVF process in January, we were selling $20,000 a month, which I was like, this is wild. And so I began with my husband this extremely Difficult year. And the planner just kept growing and I really didn't need to do very much because I had already applied all the principles that I knew about how to build a very well run product based business to this. And most importantly, this was reverse engineered based on what my people really needed. And so that's where you get sales momentum. And yeah, it was extremely difficult. We started with one doctor and she wasn't really listening to me and we switched clinics and the people that have supported me really saved my life this year. And this just continued to grow and without the small business planner during this time, I think I just would have fallen apart even more than I already did.
- [40:14]
A
How long did the IVF process then end up going on for?
- [40:17]
B
It went door to door. 12 months.
- [40:20]
A
Wow.
- [40:20]
B
And yep. And so the people closest to me know, but I maybe vaguely mentioned a couple of times on my personal Instagram that like I was going through some health stuff because it's a process kind of navigating the emotions of this, especially when, you know, you are a woman who's trying to advocate for sexual symptoms in your body and you're just getting dismissed. And it wasn't until I met an acupuncturist, Dr. Clara Brown, who really heard me for the first time. And then after that a doctor, his name is Dr. Brian Levine, who also really hurt me for the first time. And I said, I think this is the start of getting some agency and being able to be really supported. And they helped me navigate the last six months of this year. But, you know, it turns out I have this protein deficiency issue and it makes it really hard to have a baby. And so we've decided, you know what, I didn't lose. I got beat. I got beat. My dad, actually, when I was growing up figure skating, my dad would always ask me, did you lose or did you get beat? Like, did you leave everything on the field? And it just wasn't enough. And if I said I got beat, then that was okay, but if I didn't really give him my all, he'd be like, you can do better. So I got beat. I got beat. And we are proceeding very happily and very gratefully to surrogacy because that's what's safe for me and for us.
- [41:43]
A
Well, thank you for sharing that. And I also really admire your ability to talk about it while being in it, because for so many women listening, I know that they're going through it and I know that they might not be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. And it Is, I think fertility and having children is one of the most sensitive things to talk about because issues like that affect so many women. But there are not a lot of open conversations about it.
- [42:09]
B
No. And I can really only talk about it now because we made this surrogacy decision around a month, like two weeks ago, and I was talking to one on one, but I've always had a little bit of an audience, and I couldn't even communicate at all. Like, I started podcasting about the business, and I that haven't released an episode in a year because my voice was kind of gone. But once I started to see, okay, I've done every single thing I could to get the right answers and to protect our family. I now can hold my head so high and go, guys, this is really, really difficult. The navigating of it, the not knowing about your body, the just gaslighting that happens because oftentimes doctors are in these dynamics where their clinic works. This way, they're not really prepared for a rare case. Turns out I'm a super rare case. And so when you're presenting with these concerns, most, like, statistically, your concerns are unlikely to be significant. Mine were very real. So, you know, I appreciate you saying that. I honestly don't feel like I've been able to talk about it until right now. And it's only because I can see light at the end of the tunnel. And there were frictions at every step. We were blessed to be able to make embryos. A lot of couples can't even pass that step. But there were just so many frictions. And when we decided, okay, the surrogacy option, it's not giving up. It's an amazing and appropriate medical decision for us. And we matched with someone in, like, 10 days. It's normally six to 12 months to match with someone. And part of that is our doctor, Dr. Brian Levine, has a startup that focuses on facilitating this. It's called Nodal. And there you go. We've already met with her. She has the same name as my best friend. She was the first match we met. And I just was like, wow, how is the universe? Now that we've made this decision, which actually wasn't a hard decision to make, we had all the data to back up that this was a decision that made sense for us. We made the decision, and then, like, the sky has just cleared, and we're now, for the first time, really excited. And I feel like I've gotten a lot more of my life back because this feels safe and fruitful and Exciting. And everything else felt like an uphill battle that I just. I wasn't sure was ever gonna be safe. And at a certain point, you gotta call time on that.
- [44:39]
A
Yeah. And I mean, listen, I can't even imagine just how you felt every month. Being on hormones.
- [44:45]
B
Yeah. Being on hormones and having your whole life on hold. I mean, I missed. I couldn't commit to plans with our immediate family. And that's not. That's not me. And I've always had these one on one advisory relationships with fashion designers and retail, you know, business owners. And my capacity was so reduced. I couldn't. I'm talking about myself like a factory. Like, my capacity was reduced. I just couldn't show up. Like, I couldn't. I couldn't show up. I would have to. I hate canceling things. I hate ever feeling like I might be a flake. And, you know, I had these standing calls with people to talk about their financial lives and their businesses, and I was like, I don't even remember if I brush my teeth.
- [45:23]
A
Yeah.
- [45:23]
B
Like, this is actually dangerous. And so that really pushed me in the beginning of the year. It was a very hard landing, starting this process. It showed me I'm also. I don't let things linger. Like, I will pivot fast. I let IVF go on for 12 months, but that was a different story. But I quickly realized, like, January, February of last year, I can't do this in the same way. I can't work like this in the same way. And all the while, the small business planner, I was just getting the dings on my Shopify app. I would walk into a doctor's appointment and walk out with bad news nine times out of ten. And I'd walk out, and in my handbag, it'd be like, ding, ding, ding, ding. And I'd look and it would be somebody with a restaurant in Chicago, somebody with a boutique in Miami, somebody with a podcast studio in Texas. I just started to see that this problem I was so excited to solve for people was being solved. People were like, that's for me. I'm gonna pay $180 and I'm gonna get the solution that I need in my business. And that was so powerful. But we ended up. I think, I'm pretty sure we lost money last year. We sold about $20,000 of planners at the very end of 2023. So maybe we broke even. I'm pretty sure we lost, like, at least 10 grand, though. So we lost money in 21, lost money in 2022, lost money in 2023. And in 2024, we sold over $700,000 of the small Business Planner.
- [46:51]
A
I mean, that is mind blowing.
- [46:53]
B
All while I was going through ivf.
- [46:55]
A
And I mean, you can't have even been able to work that many hours each week.
- [46:59]
B
That's why you need a sales engine.
- [47:00]
A
Talk to me about this. How the heck did you build a sales engine?
- [47:03]
B
Well, I am blessed to have had a lot of diverse supply chain experience. So for me, this was kind of like riding a bike. I know how to time inventory planning. I know how to work with a warehouse. I know how to call up my FedEx rep and ask for a pre negotiated volume discount when I don't have any sales yet. So part of it was just using this muscle that I've already got to build something that is profitable, that ships quickly. We've run into a couple of hiccups, growing as fast as we have, but that's it. And this, to use your framework, you've got ideal client qualifier. These things that bring people into your world. And so for me, that's some of the free content that we talk about. And then things like compact offers, which are your small things, some of our mini courses, and then this is the core offer. This is the meat and potatoes of our business. And when you nail the execution of that and you drive traffic to it, in my case, I drive paid traffic to this. We would be nowhere without paid ads because I'm not. Yes, I have a little momentum organic social media. But that was mainly based on like me wearing my outfits during Columbia Business School and like blazer styling tips. I never approached being a content creator as a business.
- [48:26]
A
Right.
- [48:26]
B
So I didn't have that. Like you have this amazing organic ability with organic content. I was just like 25 women on the Upper east side care what flats I'm wearing. Like, that's not enough to build a business. And this, you know, we. I was already running ads to my courses, nobody wanted to buy, so I was already, I was already in the whole 20 grand on unprofitable ad spend. So all my ads were already built up and ready to go. My ad sets, whatever my audience is. And I worked with these girls, the paid ad academy, and they were amazing and just said, Katherine, like here's how we do this and let's go. And that was it. And we just. The paid traffic was the strategy. And just a tiny comment. Like people often one of the questions they come to me a lot with is how do I know how much to spend on ads? And I'm like, well, it doesn't really matter. Your ad budget is not a real number. It's the relationship to what do you put in to the engine and what comes out. Just like putting gas in a car. So if you've got a car and let's say you want to drive from. I'm going to try to use a Texas geographical metaphor, and I'm going to fail. I'm like, I don't know. You want to drive from Austin to Dallas? I don't even know if you can drive to Dallas.
- [49:37]
A
You can.
- [49:37]
B
Okay, amazing. So you need a certain amount of gas to get there. If you don't have enough gas or your tank can't hold what you need, you're gonna have to pull over and refuel. But the problem is most businesses try to drive all the way to Dallas with not enough gas. You're inevitably gonna run out of gas. You're either gonna run out because you got stuck in traffic and you run out of gas way far away from a gas station. That's an unexpected cash flow problem. She can't get to the refuel station. Or you're just going to have to stop and pay and pay and pay and keep going. So these numbers, it's about, how do you build a sales engine that's based on what does your product cost to sell? Hugely important is, what are your customers willing to pay? There's an actual concept called willingness to pay, which says that when people look at what you're selling, they have a number in their own mind. It's a number based on their experience, their budget, and what value they literally ascribe to what you're selling. And if you can figure out how to price in line as close as possible to that number, you'll create, like, a frictionless environment for this brand.
- [50:42]
A
How do you work that out?
- [50:44]
B
So you ask questions. It's really a research thing. And so I put this in front of a lot of people, and I said, what would you pay for that? And the numbers were kind of all over the place, but they were often higher than I would have thought.
- [50:56]
A
Right.
- [50:57]
B
And that was encouraging. But I also wanted to keep it under $200, like, fully loaded. So we don't charge for shipping because I built it into the price. And now I'm borrowing lessons from retail and, you know, luxury online shopping. Everybody bristles at shipping, and I just didn't want to deal with people's price objections to shipping. So we don't charge for it. I built it into the profit, the pricing model, and Then even when you add sales tax or if you do, we offer a $15 express shipping option, it's still under $200. So fully loaded in your cart, you're like, this isn't even 200 bucks. And this is going to save me from the problems in my business. And it's that sort of ingredient combination that creates momentum. So if you're fueling ads, but you're getting a predictable return, keep going and scale to a certain point that it makes sense and crucially, that you can keep up with inventory.
- [51:50]
A
Okay, I want to double down with you on this ad strategy, but because you mentioned the language, you also did Freedom Fast track.
- [51:57]
B
I did.
- [51:58]
A
I'm curious what your experience is there and if there was like a main takeaway that you think could really help optimize Your sales engine 100%, the main.
- [52:06]
B
Takeaway was that framework.
- [52:07]
A
Right.
- [52:08]
B
I think for so many of us. And this is, you know, the Small Business planner comes in to help you understand the roadmap.
- [52:14]
A
Yeah.
- [52:15]
B
You really gave a roadmap to, here's how you create like a value flow. Here's how you create a customer journey, here's how your people can come in. And in the retail and luxury goods space, we think of it as recruitment products. So there are brands that sell a $50 nail polish that also sell a $15,000 handbag.
- [52:38]
A
Right.
- [52:38]
B
The nail polish is accessible and it's presented just as beautifully as the fifteen thousand dollar bag. And so those are the principles that I've always applied to anything I did, which is, I'm going to present this just as beautifully as if I charged $18,000 for this.
- [52:52]
A
I love that. Okay, so coming back to your strategy, so you had this incredible product designed, ready to go, and it sounds like you were just testing a bunch of different ads. Were you just shooting them yourself on your iPhone and sending them to an ads manager and saying, like, test it?
- [53:11]
B
Yeah, I actually would look and see what succeeded organically.
- [53:14]
A
Okay.
- [53:14]
B
And I was so used to my organic stuff flopping that it was very easy to see, oh my gosh, this is going somewhere. So, like, when I first started to do the chapter tour videos, and granted, it was definitely around the beginning of 2024, so people were in that new year, new me planner mindset for sure. But I was posting organically and I'd see, oh my God, oh my God. I'd be like, kevin, my husband. Like, someone has people. 128 people have saved this. And he's like, I don't speak Internet. What Is that. And I'm like, that's a lot for me. I'm like, that's a lot for us. This is a big deal. And then the shares started and then certain chapters, like, honestly, the more anxiety inducing subjects, the saves would be off the charts and there would be. Sorry, this. Yeah, the saves. The saves would be off the charts and there would be no shares because people are not going to share some of these topics with others because they don't necessarily want to reveal. Like, hey, I was really relieved to see the taxes chapter because I've got backed up sales tax returns for my boutique. They'd save some of that for themselves, but then other sections they would share with others and save too. And so that was interesting from a consumer psychology perspective. When I was at Parsons for my first master's, I focused on the psychology of the luxury consumer, which I think is also. I'd be remiss, not to mention I spent two years thinking about what compels someone to purchase something and how can you make them feel like they're so seen in what it is? Because if you've brought the right motivations to the table, they are seen in what it is and you really want them to have it.
- [54:46]
A
I love all of this so much and I love that you've been able to build it in a way that it grows when you have the kind of year that you did. So what kind of issues do you see most business owners facing when it comes to these topics? Yeah, because I'm sure there's a lot.
- [55:03]
B
There's so much. I think the reality is when you're a business owner, you have so much to focus on in the day to day, the doing of the thing that you do and that takes up 100% of your available time. And then the world is kind of asking you like, hey, have you filed your annual registration with the state? You're like, my what? I don't know how to. Where's the state website? I'm just trying to make payroll next Friday. Like it's. If you think about Maslow's hierarchy of need, most people are just trying to survive because they've got mouths to feed and people's, you know, health insurance policies, they've got customers with major requests and standards. I work with a number of people in the bridal industry. Bridal is the number one highest customer needs category. I mean, this is, it's a dress that you're going to wear once for this ultimate moment in your life. And that's a lot to service. So it's really hard to ask them to also go and navigate very fragmented information. This is a very complex country. Yeah, you know, you can say that again. I can only imagine your experience coming here. You know, you've got the federal level, you've got states, all the states are different. The whole sales tax topic, like, I am such a nerd. That's a whole episode. But learning what do you need to know before it becomes a problem, that's crucial. And that's just unrealistic for most business owners. That's why this is here, because I wanted to take this fragmented information and put it in one empowering, friendly, reliable resource that's there when you're sitting at your desk and you've got some random. The next random issue on your desk that you never anticipated. There will be an answer in here for you.
- [56:51]
A
So is this the kind of thing. And I'm just asking so for people listening so they have clarity, that will tell you this is what you're required to do on a monthly, quarterly, annually, base, annual basis.
- [57:03]
B
It will. And I think that's where the like calling it a planner is helpful because it is about understanding the rhythms that you need to be aware of. I say that we're a financial literacy company dedicated to the small business owner community. But really our mission is about increasing awareness for business owners about the lessons they need to know and the roadmap they need to understand well before they learn it through experience. And so, you know, it's things like, what's the difference between a bookkeeper and an accountant? How do you manage those people? Because the dynamic is often you feel like you're managed by the pros that you work with. If you even work with anybody. If you're listening to this and you're still doing your own bookkeeping, please, please, we gotta get you some help. Because it's so tough. And unless you learn through an error. There was no map before this.
- [57:58]
A
There's nothing out there like this. That's what blows my mind.
- [58:02]
B
There was nobody incentivized to create this. Like, who's incentivized to create this? Not the states that are worried about their own stuff. Not big finance, that's worried about other things that actually benefits from people not really knowing how to read a balance sheet or a profit and loss statement or how to negotiate a line of credit with a bank. Nobody was incentivized to do this. And bear in mind, this came after two and a half years, minimum of thankless research into my target customer. And so much Trial and error. I thought what they needed was a finance course.
- [58:37]
A
Right.
- [58:37]
B
I started with teaching how to build a three year financial model.
- [58:42]
A
No one wanted it.
- [58:43]
B
Nobody wanted it. Shocker.
- [58:44]
A
Shocker.
- [58:45]
B
I was like, the answer to your troubles is on the other side of this four tab Excel thing. And yeah, no, turns out people were like, I am so good. I'm just gonna go back and sell more stuff so that I can hope to pay myself more. I'm good. Bye. Unsubscribe. I had like 500 people on my email list, and I think they were half, like friends from Columbia Business School and who are also some of my first and best customers for the friends they know in the small business owner community. But, yeah, nobody wanted that. And they didn't know they wanted this. And I didn't know they wanted this either. Yeah, but it literally took years of, you know, it's like that eating glass metaphor. I was like, this is completely new. But I've always been capable of getting up and, like, holding my head high, talking, teaching to empty zoom rooms. My friend Desiree, she said that to me. She's also got a community around meditation and things like that. And she was. I was asking her, like, how did you build what you've built? She's like, girl, I was teaching empty zoom rooms in the beginning. I was teaching one person. I just kept going and her saying that to me. I was like, oh, what a gift you've given me. Because if you believe in what you're doing and you know it has value, but your people don't know yet, that is okay. Just keep going. It's really hard to do that when you've got like, one of your best friends tuned in and like, maybe two other people. And you're like, I've got all these questions in the chat. It's like, no, it's me. And I just hope they can't see it. But now you know, we've helped 4,000 small business owners in 12 months. It is. It is beyond my wildest dreams. And then at the same time, it's also totally expected. I did forecast this business to look like it ended at the end of the year. I've always been able to forecast for the unknown.
- [60:32]
A
Yeah. At what point did you know it was time to pivot? So let's say there's a business owner listening who's like, katherine, you're speaking my language. I'm literally talk into a zoom room of zero. No one's joining my list. No one's signing up. No one wants what I'm doing, but I don't want to give up.
- [60:49]
B
Yeah, you can't give up if you are willing to teach to an empty zoom room. To my comment earlier about motivation and really believing in what you're doing. You have the passion to be successful, but you need to do a serious deep dive into what are the actual pain points that your customer feels. It's very rarely about what you're actually selling. It's really about reaching. For so many of us we're on screens, it's like you, whether it's your face or your product, you need to physically reach through the screen and like hold their hand and figure out what do they need to hear to know that you are the one for them. I was thinking from the perspective of I know the solution to building a business lies inside a three year financial forecast, right? That's true. But it's totally unrealistic to think about you or I in our busy lives as business owners sitting down and doing a three year sophisticated financial model, you're just not gonna do it. But the outcome, the payoffs of what that is are visibility into your business. Understanding who you can afford to hire and when, understanding how much money it's going to take to get to your next milestone. Understanding how much you can pay yourself and when, understanding how much taxes you're going to owe quarterly. So all those things resonate. But people just heard scary Excel tool that was expensive. They're like I'm good but, but the payoffs of that were real. And it's the same payoffs here. These, this is even better because there's, there's the other things like you mentioned insurance and all this other non financial stuff that you must know to be successful. But you really have to understand what does your customer need to hear to know that you are going to give them the payoff and the outcome that you're going to give them by your process or your product.
- [62:43]
A
And on this side of running your businesses that, that your business that wasn't making money, you were also doing one to one work.
- [62:50]
B
Yeah.
- [62:50]
A
Can you talk a little bit about that too? Because I, I think there's a big misconception that you have to be fully all in from the absolute get go. Oh yeah, I know for me when I was getting my business off the ground, I wasn't. I of course had to pay the bills and so that looked a certain kind of way. And then at some point you decide, all right, it makes sense for me to go all in with this thing. But there's nothing wrong with, with doing one to one or whatever it is that's going to bring you money on the side to fund the ability to pivot totally.
- [63:21]
B
And I think what I've also learned from like the personal development and coaching world is this one to one offer is often just the highest level offer that those people have. Whereas I saw it as. Actually I never saw it as anything beneath me or negative. I saw it as a separate type of business. Like that business is in a separate llc because I set up an LLC for Cash Flow for Creatives because it wasn't related to that underlying business activity. This was like downloadables courses, et cetera. So it's its own thing. But the, the one on one happened when I, when I left the brand that I was running at the. When the pandemic kind of started to wind down, I took a little bit of time. My husband and I got married and it was September and then kind of just I was able to take a little bit of time off at the end of that year, which I'm so grateful for. We're both big time workaholics and we took like a two week honeymoon with no phones. It was amazing. But then I came back in January and there was demand. People knew that I had helped grow this business really quickly in kind of a high visibility way because we had two stores in New York, one in New York City and one in the Hamptons. And so people were banging on my door to say, how did you do that? And I was doing no marketing. I was not really pitching myself. I was just kind of recovering from a really intense couple of years. But the inbound leads were there and it just felt like such a blessing because I adore everybody I've ever worked with and they were really coming to me again asking the same questions that people were asking me almost 10 years ago. Can I afford to hire this person? How can I fund my business? Does this make sense? Or like, hey, I'm in a major hole. What do I do to get out of this? And so that just became my focus. But I had already, I started Cash Flow for creatives in 2021. So I was already a year into developing what this is now when I started doing the one on one work again in a serious way.
- [65:12]
A
Yeah. And I love that you said none of this was beneath me. This is what I saw as the path. And I really want people to hear that because business isn't always going to be you press launch on the website and overnight never explodes.
- [65:24]
B
Never, never. And I Want to be crystal clear? We sold almost a million dollars last year after selling nothing. Because I stuck with it for multiple years of just failure from many people's perspective, and mine too, on the bad days. But I knew that there was a humongous problem to solve, that there are millions of people that need this information. Millions. We've only just begun to scratch the surface. This is about empowering people with a guide to. This is not about the glamorized entrepreneurship of the last 10, 15 years. This is not a guide to raise $25 million for your idea. Yeah, no, this is a guide.
- [66:03]
A
We're over that shit.
- [66:04]
B
We're over that. We are so over that. And that moment, I was embedded in that moment too. I was a 25 year old girl with a fashion startup. Like I was in it. I know all those people, they were all very supportive to me as well at the time. But it just, the economics didn't work, you guys. It didn't work. Didn't work then, it won't work now. And people need basic fundamental awareness of how do you profitably price your products, how do you, how much inventory you're going to need realistically in a year? And that's what we're here to do.
- [66:36]
A
So one thing I will say, this is a big planner, right? I mean, it's hefty, it's hefty, it's heavy. It's a big planner. How do you recommend when someone gets it, that they work through it in a way that feels really doable? You know, I'm looking at all the different areas and it's all really important. And you know, a couple of things that I didn't call out last time was, you know, key numbers. A lot of people want to know like, what are the essential numbers that's going to make or break my business? You've got checklists in here. I mean, I wish I could do it justice over here. I really can't. Cash flow funding, you have this one monthly review, worksheets. I mean, you just have so many things to do. How do you recommend best working through this and using it as a tool?
- [67:21]
B
I would say it is in an order for a reason. Okay, so if you went from chapter one through chapter 15, you'd be right on the money.
- [67:29]
A
And like, how often am I doing a chapter?
- [67:31]
B
Great question. I think it's highly personal. The best way to actually navigate this is to log on to the digital course companion that comes with the planner.
- [67:38]
A
Oh wait, tell me more about that.
- [67:40]
B
So I was already really Focused on using my voice and ability to distill these complicated things in into navigable like metaphors and showing them on the screen. So the Small Business Planner has its own course that comes with every purchase. So there's a welcome video from me where I really explain how you can approach this. And then every single chapter has a companion video where I literally walk you through every single page. And there are often other resources like spreadsheets. The same spreadsheets I was trying to sell for years and nobody wanted. Now people are using them.
- [68:13]
A
I've got you now. No, I've got you now.
- [68:15]
B
I've got you now. It's like the joke is like when you're trying to feed like a little child, you hide the peas in something yummy. I'm like, I've hidden them all. I've hidden them all. By the time you trust me and you're feeling good, bam. I hit you with the key numbers chapter and you're like, oh my God, I'm gonna think about expenses. How did we get here? But you got here because I created a safe, empowering thing that's like a positive feedback loop.
- [68:34]
A
Yeah.
- [68:34]
B
So log onto the course. I've had like two people say to me, I bought this and I haven't touched it. I'm like, girl, log on to the course. Like, it does take action. It takes action. But I will literally walk you through it and hold your hand and help you understand what's there. So I would say if you've got a weekend, it's also on us as business owners to make this time.
- [68:55]
A
That's right.
- [68:55]
B
Constant trend is you are last. Like, if you're tired of coming last financially priority wise in your business, buy the Small Business Planner. Book yourself two days where you don't have meetings, you don't have anybody else that you need to deal with and go through this. Because if you do that, you will not make the same mistakes and you will proactively make the right decisions that can change the course of your life. Look what it did for me. I just had the hardest year of my life. And in this business itself, I used every principle that I put inside this to build this business. And it worked. At a time when, statistically speaking, with how I was feeling and the amount of hormones I've been on for 12 months straight, I shouldn't have been able to build what is now on track to be a million dollar business in those conditions. And yet I was. And that's the power of just having the awareness of how this all works.
- [69:47]
A
Yeah. And I mean making sales when you're not even showing up, that's the dream.
- [69:52]
B
Yeah.
- [69:53]
A
Making sales when you sleep, that's the dream. And it's not some far away, you know, vision that isn't achievable. It's solve a problem solving and put the machine behind it.
- [70:04]
B
Correct. The sales engine is key.
- [70:05]
A
So what we talked about then, which I'm really, really excited to offer, is for any listeners of Boss Babe that are purchasing the Small Business Planner. What we're actually going to do for you is we have put together an exclusive bonus pack, the sales engine pack that you can use alongside your planner. So you've got this planner, it's got everything you need and then we're going to give you the sales engine pack to go alongside of it, which is going to cover all of those high level things. You know, how do you structure the offers in your business? How do you think about traffic? How do you actually get this thing working? Because like you say, this is so fundamentally important. You want an engine in your business where you can line everything up and press that engine on and it goes. Doesn't mean it's going to happen overnight.
- [70:47]
B
It won't happen overnight.
- [70:48]
A
Yeah.
- [70:48]
B
But it also means it's really possible. It's really, really, really possible.
- [70:52]
A
Yeah. So use code Boss Babe when you check out. I mean we'll put all the links the small businessplanner.com we'll put all the links in the show notes and everything. But use the code Boss Babe and then you'll get that bonus pack alongside your planner and it'll have everything in you need. And I really love the idea of like you said, book two days.
- [71:10]
B
Yeah.
- [71:10]
A
Make it a solo business owner retreat. What the sales engine pack will do is help you get your business dialed in, help you get your sales on point. What I think the Small Business Planner does is it gives you peace of mind. There is a lot to be said for knowing your taxes are paid, your reports are filed, you know, you've crossed your T's and dotted your eyes. And I do think it's a little bit irresponsible as business owners to ignore that.
- [71:36]
B
I agree. That's exactly what you know, compelled me to go get an mba, which I pair with over a decade of actually running a small business and put that all in in here. It is a little irresponsible to not learn these things. And up until now it was really impossible to do. And yeah, that was my mission to make that very possible so that especially if you have more than one entity. I have customers that have bought one for every single LLC they have. Because you know your ein letter, which you need all the time, nobody can ever find it. You print it out and you put it in each one and then you feel prepared. It's like, you know, you've got the hub and everything and inside ClickUp and whatnot and you've got all your things saved there. It's like it's the same idea for this. It's in a physical thing, it's on your desk. And so when you find yourself, you know, go through it once, go through it twice, but then keep it near you. So that when an issue comes up like, oh, you need a new type of insurance or you're doing a new partnership and they're asking about insurance, go to your key contacts. Who's your insurance broker? If you've already done this, you already have a name to call. Yeah, it's that upfront work so that you're really ready to accept the opportunities that come to you and you don't find yourself standing on your heels.
- [72:43]
A
Yeah, I keep it on my desk and I really do think it's the ultimate organization tool. I think I bought it when I seen it because I think every single small business owner should have one. So I love that it's come full circle. So I bought it. Must have been exactly a year ago. We should find my order.
- [72:58]
B
I swear it was like, oh, I, I will, I'll let you know.
- [73:00]
A
Exactly a year ago to recording this. Well, thank you for creating what you have, cuz this really is such a big need. Where can everyone find you? Find out more, all the things.
- [73:10]
B
Well, thank you so much for having me. And you can find us@small businessplanner.com or on Instagram at Cashflow for creatives.
- [73:16]
A
Amazing. Thank you so much.
- [73:17]
B
Thank you. Natalie.
- [73:23]
A
Wait, wait, wait. Before you go, I would love to send you my 7 figure CEO operating system completely free as a gift. All you've got to do is leave us a review on this podcast because it really supports the growth of this show. This is my digital masterclass where I'll show you what my freedom based daily, weekly and monthly schedule looks like as an eight figure CEO, mama and high performer. And I'll walk you through step by step how to create this for yourself. It includes a full video training from me and a plug and play spreadsheet to literally create your own operating system. It's one of our best trainings and it's worth $1,997, but I will unlock access for you for free when you leave us a review. I know, wild right? All you have to do is leave your review on the podcast, take a screenshot of it, and then head over to bossbab.comreview to upload it and then you'll get instant access to the seven figure CEO operating system. Again, head over to BossBab.comreview to upload your screenshot and get access. We are so, so grateful for all of your support and can't wait to hear how the podcast has supported.