Episode #221: Growing Your Business As a Team with Brittany and Vannessa, Founders of Simple Blessings Boutique

Hey, guys, get ready for episode number 221 with simple blessings Boutique. Let's talk about your business strategy and the juicy details of what actually works from mainstream fashion to fashion on Main street and the entire ecosystem behind it. How do we scale your company and do it with the balance and the happiness that we all seek? Let's hear from those insiders, experts, and strategists that actually make it happen. I'm your host, Ashley Alderson from the Boutique Hub, and I can't wait to chat. Hey, you guys, have you ever wondered what it's like to work with a.

Partner in your business?

I know that's one of the questions that we get asked a lot of times inside of the Boutique Hub. And today, Brittany and Vanessa are going to take you behind the scenes of exactly that for their boutique, Simple Blessings Boutique in Illinois. You know, these ladies are going to uncover today not only the latest strategies they're using to grow their Facebook group, but also how they work together and keep their relationship with each other and the their staff front and center, how they run reports every week, how they manage inventory between multiple locations, and just what it means to them to hear a new strategy and put it into practice in their business. I'm really excited for you to get to hear from these ladies because they have so much to offer. So get ready. Let's dive into episode 221.

Hey, guys.

Welcome back to the show. This week, I'm so excited. I've got not one guest, but two guests. Brittany and Vanessa, the co owners of Simple Blessings Boutique. You guys, I'm so excited to have you on the show because what people don't know is sometimes technology is a real bag and it takes a couple of tries to get a show recorded. So we're finally here doing the thing.

Yeah. We're so excited that finally technology has decided to work for us. We're super excited about it.

Thank you for staying patient with us.

Oh, man, this is going to be good. I'm so excited it worked out. So a little bit of backstory to get started with most shows. I want everyone listening to get to know how you came into owning the boutique. I think it's rare that you guys are partners and you flourish as partners, which I think is so cool. I want to talk about that today. So I think to get started, let's give everyone a little bit of context about who you are, where you're from, where the stores are, how you operate. Right. And how you came into this crazy boutique world.

Sure. Okay. So I'm Vanessa and my business partner Brittany. We are co owners of Simple Blessings. Just like you had said, we. We do have two locations. We have one location that is brick and mortar in a small town, 5,000 people in Illinois, Shelbyville, Illinois, that we opened in May of 2017. And then our second location, which is in Effingham, Illinois, slightly bigger. It's a 12,000 population little town that we opened in December of 2017. So like you said, we are business partners and it works so well for us to have someone to lean on and depend on and just to help through this craziness that is, we kind of have a very unique situation, I think, and how everything started for us and just, you know, how we got started with. I was actually in the car business for about 15 years and my title was sales manager. Brittany and her husband were looking for a vehicle and I was kind of helping out with that process with, you know, the numbers and everything, and kind of just got to know Brittany a little bit through that. And that was in actually about February of 2017. So, oddly enough, we kind of got to know each other and decided to have coffee one day and talk about how our lives and our current situations sucked, for lack of a better word. That is what it was. And we just wanted a way to kind of fix that. So didn't really know each other, sat down and had coffee and Brit kind of had a little bit of an avenue kind of already going, and she was kind of looking for someone to help give her that boost. As you know, I think I just came from a real strong background of management and a little bit of marketing and stuff like that too. So she felt comfortable talking to me about it over a cup of coffee. We exchanged monies and never looked back.

I left medical field and she left the car field. And it's been great.

Yes.

That's awesome. I love it. The last time, actually, not the last time. We've run into each other several times this year so far and we've had a chance just to talk about your business as it's evolved throughout, even just this year and even in talking about you guys coming on the podcast and what was the message we wanted to portray. I want you guys to talk me through kind of your thoughts behind it. I know you listened to the show, but talk to me about being on the show and sharing your story about your size of boutique.

So for us, you know, and one of the reasons that, like, I kind of mentioned this to you, Ashley, of, you know, hey, like, listen, we felt like the very first time that we came to Summit, that we were just like these tiny little fish in this gigantic ocean and there were these huge boutiques that we were like, kind of obsessed over. Like, oh, my gosh, they're so cute. They're so how do they do this? Look at this huge amount of, you know, customers they have. Look at the million followers they have. And then like, in our gut, we were like, I would love to, you know, sit and talk to them and maybe ask them a few questions. But it became more of like, but we're just these tiny fish and like.

What do we have to offer them that they.

Right. For sure. So it was more of like a scared thing. So my thought was, ash, let's talk. Because we're a smaller boutique, I think we are doing very well. We're very proud of, you know, our first year in business, we did half a million in sales, but still, yet, like, I feel like we're approachable. And I think it's so important to understand that there's the bigger boutiques that you will learn so much from, but it's also okay to be small and learning and there's still a lot of success to be had no matter what your size is.

I love that. And absolutely not everybody's journey is to be a mega sized boutique or to have a huge E commerce business.

Right.

Everybody's journey is different. So I love this part of the story because I think everyone listening needs to know, they need to just own where they're at and be okay with it and love it. Like, whatever you started your boutique for that reason, freedom, flexibility, being with your family, whatever it is, like, go for that. Be you. You don't have to be everybody that you hear on the show.

Absolutely, yes.

So talk me through since we first ran into each other in April, talk me through some of the changes that you guys have have been through in the year. I know you've come to Summit. You said you've made a lot of changes since then. I just would love to hear kind of the evolution of what's happening.

So I guess I had kind of mentioned to you. So we started in February 2017 in a Facebook group, and then when we launched in May, we started with Square, and we did not track any of our inventory, didn't track profit margins, what items were selling, nothing. And after first boutique summit, we realized that was a huge problem and a huge no, no. Especially if we wanted to grow or make this a long term thing. So in January, we finally took the big step we switched over to Shopify. We implemented all of our inventory from both locations into that, and we got on board at the end of February with comments sold and send text and just finally being able to, since the beginning of the year, track what items are actually selling. Like, I mean, it's not.

It's not just the tracking of what items are selling. Like, we've learned so much. We've learned who our customer is. We've learned, you know, what our. What our age demographic truly is. We've learned, you know, how much each customer is spending when they come with us or when they come shop with us. You know, it's just all the different little steps that we've taken. Also, you know, things that have changed for us has been, you know, our Instagram. Oh, my gosh, I had no idea. What is the gram. Okay, like, what is this that people keep posting on? And, you know, we're like, okay, let's just. That photo's cute. Let's just go ahead and upload that onto Instagram. Like, it's just the style and the quality has changed drastically for us just with the different. Like, that was breakaway sessions, actually, from this past summit that we kind of learned and key takeaways there. So, you know, that's changed. Just making sure that our brand is staying consistent, making sure that our posting is staying consistent, that we in our lives are staying consistent with the life that we need to have for ourselves to be able to be successful both at home and in the stores. So consistency is key. Oh, man. Consistency is key.

It is across so many different areas of your business. Right. Not just branding and how you're marketing. But I want to go back to what you said about the numbers, because I think especially newer boutique owners, I think, are so intimidated by understanding what to track. Like, numbers can be intimidating. But the fact that you guys went and just dug in. Talk to me a little bit more about that process and getting lot more comfortable with sales by category, what things are selling through all of those numbers. Talk to me about what you're tracking.

Okay, sure. So, like, we were just discussing, you know, with boutiques of all sizes. So listen, when we first started, we were literally taking these little tags and handwriting on them, like $32, you know, these little tags that you loop through the stitching, and that's how you, you know, would. Would price things going off of the invoice. You know what? This looks like a $32 shirt. Let's. Yeah, $32. That sounds great. And then as you grow, because you you do grow and you make changes. You know, we went from, okay in square, so we'd have like this little column, it said top and then we put top and then enter the price of $32. But here's the thing that we were not tracking. Hey, what, what did we pay for that top? What did, how many of that top did we sell? What was that item? Where did it come from? Like, all of that is so important to be tracking, you know, just like what company you got it from. Was it a Laura top? Was it a Shein Sky? Whatever it was so that we can now go back and do that. So it's, it's kind of hard to compare past numbers with current numbers, but we are definitely doing that. So now, you know, the difference that we, the different things that we're tracking is just like I said, you know, like, everything has a, everything has a cost now and everything is, has the proper markup. You know, and that took a ton of research and that took a lot of, you know, information off of the hub and going, oh my gosh, these people are right. Like, they're so on point with where their pricing is. So everything for us has changed. All of those numbers have changed. We are, we are tracking. Everything is.

Yes, because like, basically what we've learned is just because you're small doesn't mean your price has to be small. You are right off the get go. Something that we've learned and been asked to talk about. Like, we just looked at the invoice when we priced it. We didn't watch that profit margin. So like, for us to have to increase that margin just a little bit was a little bit of a struggle, I think, for our customers. But we finally, we've been doing it now for almost a solid year. Since Summit last year, we have increased our profit margin. And that is something that I think if I can speak to any boutique that is smaller, start now and start branding yourself because it's harder to go up than it is to come down. So since we don't have numbers to and profit margins to compare to last year, what I've been doing is every day in our boutique hub calendar, I have what we did in sales last year and what we did in sales that last like this year, last week or this week last year. And I'm actually looking at, okay, what items were we selling? So I look back and like, for instance, this week last year we did a live sale. So that's why it was so good. But we did a $15 live sale blowout where we lost some money on that. But that's just something for us to keep in mind to be smarter about this year so we don't lose money. Yeah.

I love what you said about just because you're small. Right. Doesn't mean your numbers have to be small. And I don't even know where the saying came from, but you guys have probably heard it only attract number grows. And unfortunately, most people only are tracking gross sales as a number. But just like you demonstrated, you can have great gross sales, especially over the holidays. This is where people really fall down, having great gross sales, but then zero margin behind it, and they end up working and they bring in all this extra staff and they lose money at the end of the fourth quarter because of it. So that is so smart what you guys are working on.

Right? Right.

Yes. Huge learning curves.

Huge learning curves. But sales by vendor, sales by category. A top isn't a top. Right. A graphic tee is going to yield you a different sales strategy and a different margin than a popcorn sweater, right?

Absolutely.

Absolutely. And I guess it's something that we've learned also through the hub, and everything is learning to ask our vendors, like, do you have any specials going on? Do you have any free shipping? Anything? Just because we don't order massive amounts. Some of those vendors, you grow that relationship with them and they want to see you succeed, so they're going to offer you free shipping or 10% off, or we even were able to get $5 and 25% off items at some markets. So it's very important to grow that relationship with your vendor, even as a small boutique, to be able to get those kind of deals.

Which is. Which is one thing that just to add to what Brit just said, we did not know this the first time we went to market. Like, hold on, wait. You can ask them for free shipping, girl, Ask them for free shipping. Ask them for 10% off. Ask them for free shirts. I don't care. But ask them for anything because the answer is no if you do not ask for for it.

Absolutely. And it kind of goes back to the value of actually attending a market, which I know you guys are big on, you've been to the Summit, but you. You go to markets in between, too, because there's some things you just can't accomplish online. Right. Without building that relationship and seeing some of those products in person.

No, you can't. And honestly, like, we have noticed, when we had went through a season last year where we were short an employee and we weren't able to get to a couple of markets. And so we were literally ordering from the online sites and when you can't touch, see, and feel. And we were so in a hurry and whatnot, we were just ordering. And we weren't ordering what we loved, let alone being able to touch and feel the material. So I can't stress enough. I know it costs a little bit more, but driving to Chicago, Atlanta, or one of your closer markets that you can get to and seeing it and feeling it and being like, okay, I absolutely love this. My customer is going to love it too. That is going to change the ball game because you can bring your VIP members. If you are in a Facebook VIP group like we have, or your Instagram stories, whatever, bring your customers along with you. Get them excited to buy those items with you.

Talk to me about how your marketing has changed over the years, right? Because you talked about just getting more consistent as a whole. And I know the photo shoots you guys have done lately are so cute. And your VIP group is doing well. Talk to me about how you finally got comfortable enough to just let your customer in 100% on who you are and what your mission is all about.

Okay, well, for us, from literally day one of starting our Facebook group, for instance, which our Facebook group has right at 12,000 people. So it's not astronomical, but we track it a lot. We track that our active members, literally, we track that daily. And out of our 12,000 members, 11.2 thousand are active members. So actively seeing the posts, actively participating, actively doing all of that, here's one thing that Britt and I have never wavered on. And I think it is what has done so well for us. We are real. We are raw. We are as real as it is possibly going to get. We let our people know the good times, they know the bad times. You know, if I'm having a bad day or Brittany's having a bad day, or one of our kids is sick, I mean, it's like they start a prayer chain. If that happens, you know, like, immediately we are just. We're very in love with our people and they love us back. So. But as far as, like, marketing changing, so we don't have the money to invest in spending hundreds of dollars a day on Facebook ads or Instagram ads or, you know, whatever that marketing, you know, dollar needs to be spent on. There is a lot of growth that has to happen, I think, before that money can be spent for a lot of people. You know, neither one of us came from this big family financial background where we can just Throw money out the window. We can't.

So but we also, neither one of us had the technology experience to do it either. So we didn't want to just shoot it in the dark and lose money. Right.

So definitely for us, you know, we do dabble in ads. We do dabble, but like by dabble I mean we'll run an ad for a week and put like a hundred dollar maximum on it or $5 a day maybe. And we do not do that very often because what we're finding is that Instagram, our people do a better job than what we can spend the money on. I'll give you a for instance. Currently, right now, we're always. So everyone hates that word algorithm. And I think we kind of did like a, like a mind switch a little bit to where it's like, what's the algorithm? What are we gonna do? How are we gonna beat it? Let's play. They want to play. Let's play playback. So like we just kind of side of the box watching other boutiques a little bit as far as what they're doing. And you know, you don't ever want to copy anyone ever, but you want to kind of try to take that and make it maybe your own and change it a little bit. And maybe if that's working for them, let's try it. But let's not go in too deep. You know, I think it was Diana at Summit who had mentioned, you know, how they were like copying this other boutique and then come to find out that boutique was failing. So you never really want to do that. But one thing that we started with our group most recently was a participation point system and they are eating it up. So Facebook just tracks for you like what your, who your top participators are. And we basically put out there that top participators every Monday are going to get money put into their comments sold account. It could be $2. They don't even know how much money is going into their account and they do not care. They're like, heck yeah, I'll play free money. Yeah. So it is like, I mean you have to post yourself in things that you have bought from Simple Blessings. You have to comment on, you know, all the posts that you can see for the month of July. Anything in July, please don't go back to June and May and all those other months on that. But you know, like all of the July, do all of these posts and comment on it. And here's the greatest thing we have heard where people are like, oh, don't do that, because then, you know, whatever. Don't do that because then people won't see your post.

Or you're getting all these comments and you're not getting any sales, which is.

The opposite of what's going on for us right now. So because basically these girls are doing our job, we'll post something, and all of a sudden all these comments are coming in. They're like, oh, that would be so cute paired with the blazer. You could totally wear that to work some heels on with that top. It would be fabulous. Boom. Sales are coming in. All these people are seeing, like, these comments, and they're like, oh, my God, everyone loves that. I need to love it too. Okay, I gotta go buy it right now.

And because more people are coming commenting on it, more people are seeing it as to where. Like, okay, so for instance, I think it was last Wednesday when we were actually. The retail bootcamp. We were supposed to do, like, a video or whatever. Like, remember when a Facebook went down and Instagram went down last week? Everybody's freaking out. Well, because our engagement had been up so high, we didn't even send out a text that day. And our sales were like, three times what they were on that day last year because everybody had been seeing all the new stuff that was still coming in from markets and whatnot. So they were coming in and shopping that day because they were off for the 4th of July week. So it was just. And we're noticing that we, on the days that Instagram or Instagram and Facebook are being silly because we've got the momentum going, it's. We're not being as affected as much, and therefore we're not putting all of our eggs in one basket because we do have the texting. We've just launched an email, which we.

Have our website that we launched in January, which is going good. So lots of different things. We're just finding little ways outside of the box to, you know what? The. The first week we started this, we were. We dropped $20 in our top five comments, sold, like, our top five participators accounts. And, you know, I mean, like. And it's just going. It's just crazy. It's insane. It is crazy. The views, the active participators, the everything. Everything is crazy.

We definitely realized that we have. Sarah, I think, from the Hub had mentioned it's better to have 100 superfans than a thousand followers. We've definitely realized through this process that we do have super fans, which is amazing.

I love it. And, you know, the Old saying is, money follows eyeballs, right? So that idea of just getting the engagement, like, just have a conversation, just get them to participate is brilliant because that's how people want to be treated today. Nobody ever wants to be sold to. Right? Sales gets an icky name because of that. People just want to have a relationship with you. So you guys have done an awesome job of that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, talk to me about customer service strategy, because I know that's something when we talked before, that was so important to you, and it kind of goes back to how you're running your group and just your philosophies on business. But I know you guys have this plan to always go above and beyond with customer service, both online and in person. Talk to me about how that came about.

So we had started our Facebook group, like we had talked about a while back. And when we had started it, that was something that we had always told ourselves, is that we wanted to get to know our customers. We wanted to know their size, like when they had ordered something. We want to know their family friend, their dog, their cat. And so when we started the Shelbyville location first, we took that time to not just simply, hey, how can I help you today? They would be like, I'm looking for something for family pictures. Well, while you're helping them pick out those outfits, we got to know our customers. We got to, how are you doing today? And got to build that friendship, that relationship. And when you build that friendship, that relationship, they have then told their family friends, which have told their family friends. And that's kind of something that we've grown ourselves on, is, hey, these girls actually care what I'm gonna wear to this wedding, or they care what I'm gonna wear to my graduation. And when you care about that customer, they're going to remember that, and they're going to talk about that.

Yeah, we've definitely built our brand based on relationships. I mean, we get invitations to kids football games, to people's houses for tea or coffee. They know we're coffee addicts and pie and donuts and, you know, I mean, it's just you got to do as much of that as you can possibly fit into your schedule that you're invited to. And we love doing it. Like, we love spending that time. And we might, you know, show up and say, brenda, we only have 15 minutes, but let's just chat for a few. You know, we're just passing through or whatever it might be and sending those personal messages that you can send. And, you know, Your voice, text or whatnot. So we're just always thinking. And our lives. We do lives twice a week. Our lives are extremely. They're very involved. You know, when people hop on, I mean, we're literally asking, like, hey, how did your kids surgery go? You know, like, all of that stuff. Because they know we care. They know that we're involved. And then, you know, Britt and I have these meetings too. Like, gosh, Britt, did you see where so and so is going through? We just had this yesterday. So and so is going through a divorce. And, you know, we need to send her a card or something, you know, and just knowing your customers, that's another thing that we definitely do is we invite everyone in our group to add us as friends. We want them to be our Facebook friends so that we can dive into their lives so that they can dive into ours. They know us like, they know us. They know what size we are.

They know they're not buying our clothing. They're buying us. They're buying our brand. They're investing into us.

Yes.

I absolutely adore that. Tell me about you guys together as partners. Because you could just hear the energy in your voice when you both speak and how passionate you both are about your customer, about your business, but about one another and your friendship. So I know we get this question all the time in the hub. Should I have a business partner? And most people are like, no, run. Don't have a business partner. But you guys are different than that. Talk to me about what it's like to work together.

Yeah, because we're definitely different in the aspect. We aren't family members. We did not know each other. Actually, we joke because I was at Vanessa's wedding in August of 2016 because my husband had known her and I had no idea who she was, and I gave her a hug at her wedding, and then four or five months later, we become business partners. But it's definitely, like, I'm 25 and Vanessa's 41, but it makes us work, like, totally different personalities, which I'm kind of the one. I hate confrontation. I hate when you have, like, a customer that may be upset or whatever. It might not even be that bad, but I struggle with that. Whereas Vanessa is super strong in that area. Or Vanessa loves diving into, like, the Shopify website stuff where I prefer the numbers. So it's something that we definitely. We really balance each other out, even if we're having, like, one of us is having a rough day and we're, like, struggling, and the other one Kind of brings us up. It's.

Yeah, it definitely is. It's kind of like, you know, what that saying where it's like, you know, do what you do best and hire out the rest. And, you know, kind of for both of us, we have hired each other. Like, I'm real strong at things, and she's real strong at other things, and it just works. And do I think business partnership is right for everyone? Absolutely not. I can tell you for 100% certainty that my best friend in the world, I would never go into business with her. I love her, and I will take her children if anything ever happens to her, but I would not go into business with her. You know, and the great thing is, like, for Brittany and I, you know, because we weren't super close, we could right from the get go be like, girl, I don't like that. You know?

And, like, what are you thinking?

Yeah, we need to readjust that. We need to think about that. And sometimes you hold back when it's a partnership with someone that you're super close with or a family member, and that's not that way for everyone. I know a lot of really successful family members, but I definitely am thankful. We definitely balance each other out in the aspect of our family life as well. You know, my husband travels for work. He's gone almost all through the week, and then home on the weekends. So it's like, through the week, I'm able to take care of, you know, all of this stuff, and I can stay late and I can do this, you know, And Britt has children that are younger, and they're in, you know, softball and baseball. And so, you know, it's. It's like, get out of here. And if your children are sick, stay home. I got this. So that partnership is absolutely awesome. Awesome.

But I guess something that we didn't mention that we should have mentioned, you kind of touched on it a little bit, but that was something. When you have a business partner and something that Vanessa and I, like, really talked about at the beginning is we are 100% honest with one another. And so when it does come to ordering and big decisions and stuff like that, if we aren't both a hundred percent like, yes, let's do this, then we don't do it.

Yeah.

Because we both have to fully agree on that aspect.

Right.

So you set some ground rules for your relationship.

Absolutely.

Where do you go if you have a disagreement and you're like, ah, she's just not getting me. Right. Who's the tiebreaker? Is there Someone like one of your spouses or someone that you're close with that can come in and like be your mediator if you ever need it.

No, listen, to be completely honest, when Brit just said like, you know, 100% honesty. This is how this always has to be. Always has to be. And there was actually a moment last week where Brittany had gotten frustrated because she thought that I was frustrated. Okay, so you know how women can be. So like we were probably hangry, honestly.

But always our first question, have you eaten today?

That is literally our first question to each other. You need to go get food. Please go get food. Because we just know, like, we just know. But you know, to where she thought that I was upset because she wasn't going to be working late or something like that is actually what it was about. And I said to her, I said, we don't work this way, Britt, Let me just remind you, 100% honesty. Come to me and ask me am I upset with you? Because I'm darn sure gonna tell you that. No, I'm not upset with you. I'm disappointed in this decision. But that's always been something. We've never had to have a mediator. And you know what, we do have an attorney. So I guess that would be our mediator if it ever came.

What do you think?

Right. But no, we just, we worked so well together for two and a half.

Years that smaller decisions, like, we do try to always include our, like our employees. We do have three employees and one as needed or three other full time employees besides ourselves and one as needed. And we do try to include them though, if there's something like, hey, because when we talked about our customer relationships and whatnot, our employees are also, they're our family. We talk about being a family. That's something that we really like. We want our employees to feel invested in the business as well. So we try to include them when we can.

Yeah, absolutely.

I love it. Alright guys, you want to do some lightning round questions?

Okay. Yeah, let's do it.

I sense the excitement. All right. What is your favorite trend at the moment?

Oh, for me that one's easy. It's okay. It's graphics and kimonos and distressed jeans. Like that whole thing is give me all of them and I'm gonna take them and please keep them coming.

I've got one real simple jumpsuits. Because you don't have to figure out pants.

Yes. I was just.

It's awkward.

It is. You have to get naked to go to the bathroom. But I still am a fan of jumpsuits. I love it. How about a trend you wish would die?

Floral.

I would agree with that. Floral, 100%, please. Floral. And you know what? Oddly enough, I know this is lightning round, but oddly enough, floral has died in a lot of areas. Except the Midwest. Except right here. Like, can we still please have all the floral here?

I am a product of the Midwest and I went to a concert last night. I will 100% agree with you on that. I go to concerts mainly to people watch. I love to see what people are watching wearing. And that's the truth about the Midwest. Growing up, it was always at least five years later than everywhere else. But thank God social media is changing.

That slowly but surely, right?

All right, favorite book.

When God doesn't fix it.

Mine is probably a child called it by David Peltzer.

Oh, that's a classic. Favorite podcast.

Yours.

Yeah, you win all the $20. Woohoo.

All right, you win. What scares you the most? Snakes, Payroll or Internet trolls?

Snakes.

Snakes.

Nice. Agreed. Okay, favorite app.

I really am in loving the Lightroom. Yeah, I know that's something different than our last one, but that's something with the last summit Vanessa had went to and like doing the editing of the photos and making sure they all match for your Instagram. And that's all that's been our favorite app.

I love Lightroom, but if you had to go non business app. My hellofresh app is like a freaking lifesaver, so amen to that.

All right, how many hours of sleep on average do you get a night?

I have to have seven to eight.

Probably five.

Vanessa runs on no sleep.

Yeah. And coffee.

Coffee. Amen. All right, so on that topic, you guys have probably heard me say this. I hate that word balance, because I feel like, I don't know, just. It's like, not realistic maybe, but I know you guys are both working moms. You've got busy families. How do you make sure that you're present and you're fulfilled while you're present in both your personal life and your business life?

Well, it came back to what is like, I have younger children. Vanessa's children are a little bit older. Her youngest is 10. And then 18, 19, and 21. Did I get that right?

19, 20, and 21.

I was close. Okay. And so mine are 10, 8, 4, and 2. So it's really important for me to be home of an evening for them and get them tucked into bed and whatnot. So Vanessa is really awesome about making sure that I get that Family life during the week, we leave at 5 o' clock and I go home to them and she'll catch messages or questions or anybody, anything that anybody may have of an evening. And then on the weekends, I try to do the majority of that. Unless, of course, I've got something going on. Then we've got to communicate that. But then we work 8:30 to 5, 8:30, 9:00 clock to 5:00 clock during the day together. And we're usually always working together at one location unless we need to go do a delivery because we found out that's how we're the most productive. But with just starting the retail bootcamp, something that we've discovered is we aren't time blocking or giving ourselves time for ourselves to be able to invest back into our families and our business and be the best us that we can be. So that's something going forward. We're going to start coming in, I think, at 9 o'.

Clock.

So that way we can have a solid hour of us time to be.

Able to invest, you know, and I'm gonna just add just a stitch to that. Ashley. The other thing too is our employees. I know we kind of touched on this a little bit ago. I cannot stress how important your employees are to you and your business and your family. Like our employees, they are our family. You know, we're very, very close to them. And I mean, maybe you're not supposed to be close to your employees, but we kind of squashed that right from the get go and said, you, we love them. We are gonna love them so hard because this is their dream too. You know, believe it or not, they might not have any ownership, but they act like they own it. You know, they act like this is going to succeed. And they are very, very much like, v, go home, I got this. Go do your thing, you know, or Brit, get out of here. Or hey, you guys, you know, I mean, they're just so there to help us also, you know, and when there's times too where, you know, I'll just be like, brit, I need a day off. I need to go be with my family today, you know, and she'll be like, okay, go, we're good. We got this. So we all, all of us inside of this company help each other there.

Well, that goes back to our. Okay, so our name of our boutique is Simple Blessings. And that's kind of where we got the name. Kind of going back is each purchase was simply going to be a blessing to us and to our families to eventually be able to be home with them. And that's kind of where we've got all of that from.

Yeah, I love that. You guys, I've got one last question I want to ask you before we wrap up today. And I know it's the deeper meaning of why you do what you do right, But I think I can echo this. For everybody who's listened to the show today, you guys brought so, so much knowledge and so many awesome takeaways. I just want to commend you for the blessing that you are to our community and the way that you are able to impact other boutique owners today.

Because this was awesome.

Thank you. We are so happy that we were able to do this with you.

I have loved it. So you guys both come from unique backgrounds, I will say, and you guys are living proof that no matter who you are, what you have been through, where you have come from, you can build something that is truly awesome and impacts so many people. So rather than the last question I usually ask, which is the old front porch question, I just want you guys to share with us a little bit more about your backstory and how that impacted the person that you are today.

So a little bit of backstory. I did say that I'm only 25 and I have an 8 year old. So I had my first child when I was 16 years old. So how I got started in the medical field, and it wasn't necessarily what I wanted to do, but I needed to make money and to be able to provide for this child at the age of 16. So as soon as I got out of high school, all I could think of was work, work, work. And that was something that I did not want to do because growing up, my father did drive a semi truck. So he was gone for, like, two weeks at a time. He'd be home for a couple of days. And that was. That was hard for me. That was something that always stuck with me, was no matter what, I wanted my children to see that a. That could work super hard, provide for her family and still have that balance. So that's something like when we were finally able to create simple blessings. That was my. Why that was like, my mission is I want to teach my children. No matter if you have a child young or not, you can still follow your dreams and you can still have a balanced family life with it.

Absolutely. You know, and as far as, like, I mean, my backstory, my background, you know, I also. I grew up in a pretty bad childhood, a pretty bad young adulthood. It just really wasn't good. Ashley and we've talked about this, the two of us, just a little bit. I don't know. I don't want to go get emotional here, but, you know, it's tough. Life is tough, but life is also what you make it. And I have said this so many times, but you are so much better than the worst thing that has ever happened to you in your life. So no matter how hard things get, no matter if you think you need to close your boutique because this has been a bad week or a bad month or a bad year, those can turn around with just changing, you know, the attitude and the way that you look at things. It can be done. It can be done, you guys. It can so be done. For me personally, you know, like, I had this Mother's Day card that my daughter sent or made for me, my 10 year old, and it was like the top 10 reasons why I love my mom. Like, literally number one, because she's hilarious, was she doesn't choke me. First of all, who says that? But then, like, the very next thing was, my mom follows her dreams. My mom is the happiest person I know. And, you know, little things like that. So that is what I want for my kids to be able to take away. I want my kids to know that no matter how bad things were at any given time in your life, you can do this. Anyone can.

So, oh, my goodness, you guys, I love it. Who you were then does not determine who you are now. Right? The outcome is what you make of it. That's beautiful, you guys. Thank you so much again for being on the show today. Thank you for being a part of our community and I cannot wait to see your journey continue to unfold. Hey, guys, thank you so much for listening to this episode. We hope that you loved it. Don't forget to hit subscribe and leave a rating and review down below for a chance to be one of our featured listeners each and every week. For more information on our spirit of community over competition and how to access complete show notes and bonus downloads from our guests, head on over to the boutiquehub.com and join the community. We'll see you next week.