031. How to Build a Business that Lasts with Ciara Stockeland

Welcome. I am marketing expert and business coach Melissa Kellogg Lueck. And this is the Doing Business Like a Woman podcast where we are exploring and teaching you how women are reinventing the way business is done and money is made to help you create greater impact and financial freedom one business at a time. Okay. Thank you so much for being with me today and welcome to the podcast. And I have a really special guest with me that I get to the pleasure to speak to. We were just having a little conversation before we started recording and I had to cut us off so that we don't say all the good stuff before we're even recording. But I have my guest with me today is Sierra Stockland, and I'm going to ask her to introduce herself and then we're going to dive right in.

Welcome, Sierra.

Hey.

Yes, We've been chatting already. You're so fun to visit with, but my name is Sierra. Like you mentioned, I'm a third generation entrepreneur, so I've been around small business forever. I live in Franklin, Tennessee now, but I'm a native of North Dakota, so we just moved here. Other than that, I have lived in North Dakota my entire life, which has in and of itself taught me resiliency with the strong winters. So all good stuff and I'm really excited just to visit today. Oh, how fun.

I didn't know you were in Tennessee.

I love Tennessee.

I love Nashville, that whole area.

Yes, it's beautiful.

I just got back not too long ago from Savannah, Georgia, so.

Oh, that's beautiful there too. Yeah.

I think I like Georgia now too, so. But yeah, I'm sure that Tennessee is much, much more mild winters than north.

Absolutely. Yes, it is. Yes.

Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being with me today and I want to just have you introduce your kind of tell us your story, like your journey as an entrepreneur. I know in your bio it talks about how you've been an entrepreneur since age 5. And so I want to hear all about that. But Sierra and I got connected through, I think just through a publicist that reached out to me that you'd be a good fit for the podcast. So we've never met before, so this is so fun to get to make a new friend and meet a new entrepreneur.

Yeah, I love just meeting other women in business. It's always exciting to hear everyone's stories and see where you're at in your journey. Yeah. So I have been doing the small business thing ever since I was little. I think just being around a small business family and having those conversations every Easter, every Thanksgiving, every Christmas, they're talking about business problems and solutions and issues and people. And so it was just really normal for me to hear that and be part of that. I've always been someone who loves looking for opportunity to figure things out or to change things or to add value to something. So I was the crazy kid with a lemonade stand all the time. Garage sales. I would put on these little concerts and rope all my neighborhood friends into them and sell tickets to the neighbors. Like I was always doing something to make money. And then I started my first formal business when I was 13. Didn't really set out to do that in particular, but I was a homeschool kid and was looking for opportunity to be in a theater production and there wasn't anything. So I was complaining about it to my mom and she said, well, why don't you just start something on your own? And so I started this little acting company and it grew and grew and grew around that for about a decade. We had. I had my own studio, private, public, homeschool kids all through college age. And that was my first formal business. And then got out of that once I had kids, married and kids of my own. And my second big business was my retail store, which I started in 2006. So I've been always doing something, never satisfied just to sit, but it's been really good. I learned a lot over the last 40 plus years.

Yeah. Yeah. So tell us about your journey through retail. Because I love that most of my clients, a lot of the work that I do is with service based entrepreneurs. So I love hearing about the retail side as well, the product based business. And so. Yeah, tell me about that.

Yeah. So I started my first store in 2006 and then a second concept just a few months later was presented to me to run for someone. And so I did that with a designer outlet. We had a couple truckloads of overstock to sell, so we opened up right next door. So I was running two stores at once.

Wow.

And learned some of my first lessons in retail, which is you can sell anything to anyone for the right price. And just how do you find your customer and who is your core customer? Because my maternity baby store, which was my first concept, was my beautiful child. Like, you know, it was in this beautiful location that we had renovated all the beautiful product, really high end. And then I had what I call my ugly child next door, the designer outlet. But that's what everyone wanted. They wanted deals and that appealed to the masses. And so I came to this big decision of Do I, you know, keep them both open? Should I just close one? And which one would I close? And I remember speaking with my banker and he said, well, do you want to make money? And I was like, that's not a fair question, of course. So what I ended up doing is saying, why can't I have and both and combine them and brought the designer outlet product into the beautiful boutique environment. So second lesson learned, you know, how do you really pivot and change, listen while listening to your customer? Because I think entrepreneurs, we get very focused on what we want and what we assume our customers want, and we keep shoving and pushing to get them to purchase or to buy into something that's not what they really need or care about, instead of listening to what is selling or what's needed and then moving and changing with that. And entrepreneurs who can do that survive, entrepreneurs who get stubborn and like, this is my concept and this and you're going to buy it, you're going to like it. Those are the ones that don't. They don't survive. So that was a really interesting lesson to learn. So I built that and then that's the brand that we built and grew over the next decade.

So I love this talking about listening to the customer because I think, and especially, I don't know if it's just us as women, we overthink and second.

Guess ourselves a lot, but there's like.

A difference between, like, listening to the customer and like following every shiny object, right?

Yes, there is a difference.

Yes. So how do you see that distinction? Because you talked about, you know, being able to listen and pivot according to what your customer needs will help you succeed and stay in business. But we also know that following every shiny object can get us off track and, you know, lead us to not being profitable and so forth.

Yeah, that's so good that you asked that, because there is a difference. And what I find helps to distinguish that difference is knowing your numbers, which is what I teach all the time. It's knowing your numbers. So an example in retail, when I had my high end maternity baby store and then, you know, turned it into the boutique, we'd have people that would come in and say, you know, oh, if you only sold extended sizing or if you just had men's, I would shop here all the time. Or oh my goodness, when I had the baby story, like, you should carry up to 6T, right. So they're always coming up with their. And it's easy to say, like, maybe I am missing out on sales. This person Comes in. If I carried men's, I could sell this, and maybe they. And then they don't show up. And then you buy all this product and where did all the people go that said they wanted this? But when you look at the numbers, the numbers can tell you. So let's say you're figuring out store hours. You should be open every night. If you were open in the evenings, I would always shop here. Okay, let's be open one or two nights a week. And let's start tracking the data. How many people come in? What is our average ticket value in the evening? Oh, yes, this is a legitimate thing. I'm going to pursue. Pursue it and I'm going to change. Or no, I'm not going to chase that shiny object because I stayed open, you know, two months in a row. I track the data, and nobody comes in in the evening, just like I thought. Right. So once we learn to understand our numbers and let the numbers tell us what we should do with our business, then we can pivot in the correct direction and change if we need to.

That's so good. So. So it is almost like a little process. Right? Like it's not. You have five customers come in and tell you something and you change everything. It's like, all right, let's, you know, we listen to the customer. We listen to ourselves, too, and what we want, like what our intuition is telling us. And then try things. And then watch the actual numbers.

Yes, watch the numbers. And, you know, track. I love to say track and measure.

Right.

So come up with those key performance indicators that are going to give you black and white, yes or no, and then track them and measure them and then make a decision. So if you want to bring in extended sizing or you want to add a men's category, do it in a small way and start to track and measure the results with that. And if it's not what you're expecting, then pull it out, you know, so that you're not spreading yourself self so thin with a product, you know, as an example, or store hours or the direction or social media. You should be on TikTok. You should be on reels, you should be doing all these things. But then is that where our customer actually is? Let me look at the data and see if that's where our customer even cares about. And if they're not, it's okay to say no to things.

And to really stay in your lane or keep your, you know, and be content with that on your own paper. Yeah. And be okay with that. Right.

Yeah, yep, definitely.

That is hard. I think that I've heard so many different entrepreneurs, you know, I can't quote anyone. One that comes to mind is Warren Buffett who's like, I say no to almost everything. You know, he has a quote, something like that. So. But it, but it does, you know, so you can test out these new ideas but do it in a small way before you take a big leap.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yes. Yeah. And I think it's just really important to remember that even though you can do something doesn't mean that you should or have to do something. So as an example, because I know you work with a lot of service based businesses and I'm service based now in the coaching consulting space. I kept getting told like, you should really work with brand new boutiques that are just starting. There's so many of them and they're asking you so many questions, you know, and so people are saying, oh my goodness, if you offered this for brand new, I would totally sign up. So it didn't really interest me and I didn't really want to do it, but I thought, oh, everybody's asking, okay, let me put out a class, let me try it. I did it. It didn't work. It didn't fill my passion bucket. Like, just because I can and I have the information doesn't mean I have to say yes. I'm just going to stay in my lane and I'm going to work with the avatar that I know I love and I enjoy working with and I'm going to let someone else take that other avatar and run with that.

Yeah, that's such a great point. I've been thinking about this a lot around authority and like just owning up to our own authority and what we know because it's so easy to get those inputs from outside of us. But being able to check in and know really where our authority and our passion is is such a, I think such a powerful, a powerful practice that for us as women I think is difficult. We like to get all those inputs from everyone around us. Our teachers, mentors, you know, husband, spouse, whatever. We want them to tell us what to do.

Yes, ye. We don't have our confidence. We have nothing to ground us. And that's why I like looking at numbers and data because it can help ground you and it can take away this feeling of like, I don't know, did I do the right thing? I don't know if I did the right thing. Well, let's just look at the facts because the facts don't lie. The black and white facts of things. And sometimes we have to take risks, you know, and we have to jump into things. But if we can have something that can ground our decision. So we can say, I made this decision based on what I observed as fact, looking at my numbers, looking at the stats, and I'm going to be confident in that, like you said, I'm just going to be confident in that decision, and I'm going to move forward with that decision.

So talk to me a little bit about, so the transition for you from retail to now coaching. Right. And how that all happened. Are you still in retail or are you just coaching now? Teaching? Tell me what bring us up to date.

Yeah. Yes. So I sold my brand to one of our franchisees several years ago and built a new company, a subscription box for boutique owners, so it would connect wholesalers and retailers together in a subscription box. And I built that and sold that in about 18 months. The goal was to build it and just sell it. I just wanted to solve a problem. But through that, started meeting retailers all around the country who were asking similar questions. How much inventory should I have? How do you know your margins? How much profit should I be making? I never take a paycheck. I don't know what to do. And so through that, I started building out just this coaching program that I have now, seeing a need again and then figuring out a way to solve it and bring this information to women. So I've been doing that through the boutique workshop for a little over two years now. And we have a core program which is our boutique workshop membership. And we just teach one concept, numbers related. Most of the time we just break it down super simple and. And give you actionable steps every single month. I absolutely love working with retailers and just helping them bring profitability and peace of mind to their business by knowing and understanding their numbers.

Wow, that's powerful. So powerful because there's so much emotion that's tied around money. I mean, obviously the household budget. There's a lot of emotion of what's happening there. But then we bring all of that, I think, into our businesses. Right. And the way we think about our business, finances. And I love the way you talk about using numbers to really ground you and anchor you. So how do you work with your clients around the emotion and kind of shifting that mindset about numbers and about money?

Yeah, I think it's all about building confidence into women entrepreneurs. And the confidence comes when we understand what's going on in our business, when we feel like we aren't in control of what's going on. And we're always overwhelmed and we're always stressed out and we can't sleep and we feel like we're failures or we're imposters. It's really hard to grow and scale and build anything. And so if we can build that confidence up, we can then build that growth that we're really looking for. And the confidence comes by just understanding the nuts and bolts of why our business is doing what it's doing. So I remember one of the times I went into a bank meeting for my retail store. I can't remember what the meeting was for. It was probably expanding or something. But when I left, I was like, this is awesome. I knew more about my business than he even knew to ask me. I knew of questions that he should have asked me that I would have had the answers for. And it was the first time that I felt so confident that you could lay out a financial in front of me. You could ask me any bit number question about my business and I knew the answer or I knew where to find the answer. And so I just work with entrepreneurs, helping them understand the basic numbers of their business and then how all of those pieces come together to form a beautiful. A beautiful puzzle that they can look at and they can build.

Yeah. So how did you learn all of that and grow that confidence yourself?

Lots of mistakes. Yes, a lot of mistakes. So I am not a bookkeeper or an accountant by any means. Towards the end of my retail store business, I had an awesome contract cfo. I wish I had found him from day one. He was a problem solver. So he'd come in and he'd fix. He was a fixer. So he'd come into messed up businesses and fix them, turn them around. And so he was very good at strategy, which a lot of bookkeepers and accountants are. Rear view mirror. Like, they look at the past. It's really hard to find someone that can look at the past and then give you strategy for the future. And that's what he was. And I remember one time he said, you know, we're looking at my numbers. And I was like, I don't understand. Like, I'm buying it for five and I'm selling it for 10, but I don't have $5 left. Like, where's the $5 going? And he's like, okay, you're buying it for five and selling it for 10, but it actually costs you five, 50 to run your business. So you're behind by 50 cents or whatever illustration he gave Me. So just learning those things and how awesome that made me feel when it clicked. I want that for retailers. And it's just been really hard for them because most of the time they get into retailing or selling product or making products or being a wholesaler because they love beautiful things, then they love buying things, merchandising things, selling things, or creating things. And they have no idea that if you understand the number side of it, you have so much power to do what you really love. And I remember what it felt like when I started to get those keys, if you will. And so that's how I learned. Just by doing it wrong for so long and then learning what it felt like when I finally knew how to do things right. Yeah.

Yeah. And I see that so much with women that I work with is that profitability is a huge issue. They're like, I have all this money coming in, and then, you know, where's it all going? Why am I in debt? You know, those sorts of things. And so. And then obviously, with all the emotions, we pile all the shame on top of that.

Yes.

So how do you kind of get past that, some of those feelings and really get down to, okay, let's look at the numbers. Let's, you know, you don't have to feel bad about where you've been or what has happened or not happened. How do you deal with some of that?

I think we start by normalizing it. I normalize it right away to my clients. Like, there is no mess you can show me that I haven't seen. It's probably never even going to be messier than the messes I had. So the messes do not scare me. Let's look at everything, and I'll tell my clients, don't lie to me, whatever you do. I need to know everything, and I have to know the truth to help you. And so I always. I have a method that I go through with them and a spreadsheet that I use. And we start by just putting in everything they're spending, and I say everything. Do not hide it from me. Like, if you buy yourself a coffee every day, totally cool. I got to know about it, you know? So you write all these things down because again, as. Especially as women, like, so much is in our mind, and it goes over and over and over, and we play over this, and it's always uglier and more embarrassing when we don't share it and get it out there. There's something powerful about, like, just saying what we're thinking and saying where we're at and, like, laying it out. Great. Awesome. Now we have a place to start. So that's what I do, is just normalize it. Like, you are one of hundreds and hundreds facing the same thing with the same debt or similar to it or same mistakes. I've probably done them too. So now we know where we are at. So now let's make a plan. Super easy. We'll make a plan and just normalize it, simplify it down, and then build up from there.

Yeah. That's awesome. And that's really where the power is, right, Is in putting it all out on the table, Getting all of the monsters out of the closet.

Yeah.

Shedding light on all of it. And then having a plan.

Yes. And then creating a plan.

Yeah. Because I know a lot of entrepreneurs don't like to look at their numbers at all. Like, they just. They don't exist.

I know. Which is funny. So in my Mastermind program, one of the things that we do is every Monday, we enter particular numbers and we benchmark against our peers. And so everybody in my group is benchmarking against the peers in the group. And then we work through that. And I had one client, and she just would not put her numbers in. And she told the group, I can't do it because I don't want to put. Because I just don't know what. I don't want to look at what they look like. Like, it's not what I want them to be. And I said, okay. The thing is, whether you write them down or not, they're still the same. We just don't have a way to fix it if you don't write it down. So if you're losing money, whether you write down that you're losing money or not, you're still losing money. So it's better to just get it out there to write it down and then have a plan to fix it. Because if you ignore it, that's not going to change the story. Right. And so I think that's powerful. When you can find a healthy group of women entrepreneurs where you feel like you can tell your story and it's full, that's when you can start to heal and change and make steps to grow. Yeah.

Yeah. And what I found is so interesting with a lot of my clients because we'll do, like, quarterly reviews and monthly reviews, and a lot of the times they will not have even recognized what. How well they're doing, because we always just assume worse than we actually are.

Right? Oh, yes. So true.

Or we'll compare Our numbers to the previous 12 months and they'll be like, oh my gosh, I made like triple what I made. And how did that happen, you know?

Yes, yes. Because we get so bogged down by the present and by our own bubble that we sit in all day long. So that's so good. I love that you have them compare so they can really see how far they've come. That's so important.

Yeah. And something I learned from my coach is that always look at the numbers in a way that's going to make you feel great. Like not, you know, lying to yourself. But it's like, yeah, you know, comparing this quarter to last, you know, the first quarter of last year or whatever. And you know, because you're always, we're always seeing growth. As long as we don't stop or give up, we're going to grow.

Yeah.

And so just continually keeping that front of mind. So, yeah, maybe I haven't had a great month this month, but yet I'm this year I'm still, or you know, this year to date I'm still like double what I was year to date last year. So it's like looking at those to build that belief and fill myself up, fill up that confidence.

Like you were talking. Yes, absolutely. Yeah.

So I would love to talk to you about investing because. Investing in our businesses, in ourselves too. Because I think something I see a lot in compared to the retailer, like a brick and mortar type business versus a service based business. I feel like a lot of service based or trust based entrepreneurs, like coaches and consultants and you know, folks that are in the trust based services, we are kind of spoiled and that we don't have to, we don't have to do a lot of investing in our business. Right. Like we can have a laptop and a kitchen table and like start a business. Whereas like a lot of retailers, especially a brick and mortar retailer, they expect that there's going to be a lot of front end investing. Right. And so a lot of times, and we know this statistically to be true, that women invest slower and we're more cautious and we take out loans and get investor funds at a lower rate and we pay higher rates on our loans generally. So talk a little bit about your thoughts around what it takes to start a business and the investments. How you like to think about investing in yourself and in your business in order to grow.

Yeah, you know, I think starting with the end in mind is really important. As you start to build a business. What is your end game? Do you want to build it to sell it, do you want to build it to, you know, multiply it? Do you want to hand it down to someone? Do you want to bring in a partner? What is the end game? Because that will decide how you invest and what you invest in it as well. And then I think from investing in ourselves personally standpoint, it's important that we find things to do outside of our business and that especially for service based businesses or I find with retailers that have like a social, social presence so they sell socially, that you have store hours. So I always say like brick and mortar, you know, you're open 10 to 5 or 10 to 6 and if someone were to go downtown at 9 o' clock at night and pound on the door and ask to come in and shop like there's no one there, no, you can come back at 10 tomorrow morning. But we never do that with our virtual businesses. Someone pounds the door at midnight and we happen to have our phone with us or on a Sunday morning before church, we're answering DMs and we're finding them things and we're hustling to sell them things. And that's so unhealthy. And so setting those store hours, if you will, whether you are a service based business or a social seller and just being really confident in saying, I know I'm closing my door Saturday night, I'm totally not open on Sundays and those customers will be there and that business will be there on Monday morning. But I will come back, recharge because I've invested rest in myself. I think that's really important too.

And what about investing in coaching? Talk about that a little bit. And about development?

Yeah, for sure. So I think you mentioned at the beginning that I did an Ironman in October and I signed up for this in May of last year. And the first thing, two things I did immediately after signing up, I hired a coach because I knew I knew nothing about endurance racing. Like I have been a 5k girl recreationally. Like I didn't even do sports in school and I knew I needed a coach. Like I had to have someone who could put together a plan for me, who could hold me accountable, answer my questions. And then I cleared my schedule to make it work for me so I could commit to what my coach wanted me to do. So those were, I immediately did those two things and I finished my Ironman because I had someone there with me who had been there, done that. She's done multiple Ironman. She knew exactly how to put a plan together. She held me accountable and I had created a schedule for myself so I could follow the plan I was paying for. I think that's so important. I wish that I would have had a coach. I had really good mentors in my retail business, but I haven't hired coach till recent years. And there's something so amazing on just having that person on your team that can say, sierra, shape up or ship out, like, you need to, you know, change your attitude or can say like, hey, you done an amazing job with this. You need to congratulate yourself. Or have you thought about it this way? Or here's what other clients have done to, like, skip to the front of the line. Can we do that for you? You know, and so I think just having a coach, yes, it costs money, but I always tell my clients that you've invested so much money in your business already, why would you not go 100% of those? And what's really going to make it work? Yeah, totally.

Yeah. And I. I think maybe we were talking about your Ironman before. We.

Oh, we probably were in our offline chat.

On our offline chat. But I was asking Sarah, she's wearing an iron man hat, so I was asking her if she's an Ironman athlete. And she is. She's completed one last year and then you have another one on the books. Tell us about that.

Yeah. So I'll be going to Alaska in August. It's the first time they're hosting Ironman there, so I'm excited about going for the first one. And then I'll be doing a half in Arizona in October as well.

Oh, nice. So tell me about this transition from being a 5k girl, as you say, to an Ironman athlete or an iron woman.

Yeah. So. Well, I always said I'll never do it. Like, there's no way. We have some really good friends who have done several Ironman and they were always, you should sign up to my husband and I. And my husband's always wanted. It's been a bucket list for him. And I was like, you know what, guys? I am so happy just cheering you on. I'll be the. Like, there's no way I'm sitting on a bike for four hours or running for two hours. Like, no way. And then I went to my husband's Ironman last maybe and I saw him compete and just seeing all of the other competitors and seeing that amazing crowd that was cheering on people that they've never met. I mean, the environment was so awesome. And I was like, well, if he can do this, I can do this. And then I thought, you know what? This could be a really good teaching opportunity for my clients too, just to show them that you literally can do anything you set your mind to. If you have the right tools, the right systems, the right processes, and you commit to it, you can accomplish what you want to accomplish. Signed up and hired a coach right away. So I was working with someone that was doing my 5k coaching because I was working to PR, but I knew I needed an Ironman coach and I wanted a female as well. And so I signed up with her right away, committed to it, and then just walked through the journey with my coaching clients, just trying to bring the teaching and the lessons that I was learning into my coaching with them as well. Even though that is business coaching, there are so many things that cross over, especially in the mental space. And so it was a really good journey to share with them.

Yeah, so share with us some of those lessons that you learned in the process.

Yeah, I think, you know, first lesson was pay for the right gear, pay for the right coaching. Like that is just so huge. You know, we open businesses and then we shortchange ourselves on all the back end. Like we put all this money in and then we shortchange ourselves on paying ourselves or buying the right equipment or hiring the right team, including a coach. So that was a big lesson, I think, preparing understanding where you have weaknesses and compensating and preparing for those. So for me, one example was swimming open water. We have to swim 2.4 mile open water swim. And I'm not afraid of swimming. Like I've been in the pool my whole life, but swimming in an open water gross lake, like that's a whole nother story. And I knew it would be a challenge. And so I would make myself do open water swims in all different lakes. So this one's cold, this one's dirty, this one's choppy, this one's, you know, whatever, really deep. So that I knew whatever my open water swim was, I had those files in my mind. So when I was out in the middle of the water and my mind was going to throw a temper tantrum, I could say, yeah, but we've done this, Sierra, we've done it. And it was interesting showing up for Ironman and we were waiting to get into the swim and the announcer was like, just talking to the crowd and stuff and he's like, who's, who's Ironman Is this first one and people raise their hand and then who's doing this? This is their first Triathlon. And some people raised their hands. I was like, well, that's kind of crazy. I don't know if I do this as my first triathlon, but. And then he said, who? This is their first who here. This is their first open water swim. And people raised their hands, oh, no. And I. I thought, I don't know your story, so I'm not going to judge you, but that's a little foolish, right?

Yeah.

And there were swimmers who were pulled out because they panicked and they couldn't do it. And I had to think, again, I don't know their story, and maybe it's not the same people, but I had to think that if you don't prepare and you think you can just jump in and you'll figure it out without asking questions and getting those positive files in your mind and preparing, you're a lot less likely to succeed. And so that was another big lesson, like thinking about, where are my weak spots? That's what I need to focus on. And in our businesses, we need to do that, too. So if you're not a numbers person and they freak you out and you don't want to look at them, then that's exactly where you need to look. Like, hit it head on, find someone who can help you. Start preparing those mental files, start to learn and build that confidence so when the trouble comes, you can say, it's okay, Sierra. Like, I've gone over this. I know what this is supposed to look like. I know that this is going to be a slow season, but I'm prepared. I'm okay with it.

Right.

So that was another big lesson.

Yeah. That's so good. Yeah. It's a matter of that preparation and actually being honest with ourselves. Right. Like, this is where, you know, the fear is. Or this is where I, like, I'm good in the pool, but the open water I know, is going to freak me out, like, being able to be honest. I think we get tripped up so much by, you know, positivity, culture. Like, we're supposed to think positive all the time. And we don't really listen to those parts of ourselves, ourselves that are afraid or scared to look at because we want to remain positive. But those are all signals to us, things that we need to acknowledge and listen to. Not that we have to let them drive the bus, but we do have to acknowledge that and say, what do I need to learn from this? What is this fear or this apprehension trying to tell me?

Yeah. And then leaning into it and taking control of it because there's a Big difference in, like you said that positivity culture, like, just think good thoughts and your business will grow or you'll be able to muscle your way through it. To me, that's just foolish to think that we can do that instead of thinking, okay, I'm really nervous about this. Like, the open water swim is very scary. And so instead of just showing up that day and like, I'm just going to muscle my way through it when people are crawling over the top of you and the waters, who knows what, and instead saying, how about if I just practice this so that I have the confidence, I'm just going to hit that fear head on, I'm going to find people who have done it, I'm going to ask people's opinion, I'm going to practice, and then I'm going to show up and whatever happens that day, that happens. But I know I can say that I played my part and did my part in it. And I think same with business, you know, oh, I'm just going to make more sales this fall because I'm just going to try harder. Well, why instead don't you look at what didn't work last fall and talk to people who have been super successful and make a plan and put together a strategy and hit it head on? That's such a better mindset to have going into any issue that we might face.

Yeah, totally. And that brings to mind the subject of failure. And so that's something we're also all afraid of or have fear around. I don't want to fail or what if I fail or what happens. So talk to me a little bit about how you think about failure, especially in regards to business.

And yeah, you know, I think failure is just how what you define it as. So I like to say perceived failure, because most often failure, if you could see my air quotes, is what we think people are going to think of us, what we think people are expecting us to do. And we make up the story in our mind. And so then when we don't get that far, we say we failed. But we have to either learn or win in business and come to this mindset that we're going to be either learning or we're winning. So maybe we set a goal, we accomplish it, we win, we set a goal, we fall short, then we learn from it. Like, what could I have done differently? What part did I play in that? How would I change what I'm going to do going forward? Because failure is just an attitude and an emotion. It's just not a real Concrete thing. No failure in life unless you choose to whine and complain and not win, you know, or learn. That's. That would probably be the only way that I would just, you know, define failure. I've had lots of goals, right. So in my franchise, I wanted 100 store franchise system. Well, we ended up winding down when we had 13 stores. So it would have been easy for me to sit and say like, oh, this was such a failure. But instead I could say, well, here's what I accomplished, here's what I do differently, here's what my next chapter looks like. I'm going to learn and I'm going to change and I'm going to do something different. And that's such a better attitude to have than to just, you know, wither up and lay on the couch and, you know, hide.

Yeah, yeah. And you know, failure is, to me it's like the only failure is giving up. Because if you have a goal, as long as you don't quit and you keep learning and iterating, you're going to get there, right?

Yeah.

Maybe you don't get there in the 12 months or the one month or whatever the goal, my air quotes goal was, but if you don't give up, you will get there. And that.

Absolutely.

And that failure. Yeah. Is just about learning, like you said, and growing. And I like to think about setting goals and failure is like, where's my growth? Where's the growth that I want to experience? And so setting big goals because it encourages my growth. You know, it's kind of. I don't know if you've read the book, can't remember the name of it. The growth or the gap in the gain. I think it's, it's called something like the gap in the gain.

No, I haven't.

It's. They talk about that like, like what we focus on. Are we focused on, you know, how the gap of how far we are from the goal or are we focusing on the growth on our way there, the gain that we're getting the entire time. Yeah, yeah.

And actually I have a great Ironman story with that too that I think it wraps together so nicely. So I was on the run portion of my Ironman and my goal had been to run the whole marathon and I started getting really sick. It was 95 or 90 degrees, 90% humidity in tech. It was so hot. And so I think it was heat stroke, I don't really know. But anyway, I was starting to get really sick so I. So I was walking and I was so disappointed. In myself, you know, I trained, and this was my goal. And my bike had been amazing. My swim was awesome. Felt so good. And then here I was walking, and this gentleman walked up next to me and he's like, hey, does your knee hurting you? Because I had a knee brace on. Like, actually, it's not my knee. I just don't feel well. So he walked alongside me, which is a whole nother lesson. You know, come alongside those people and just cheer them on when they need it. This total stranger, he was in the competition, too. So we walked, and I knew he was just doing it to be kind, like, walking with me. And this other guy ran up next to me, and I'm assuming he was behind us for a while and had been listening. I don't know, because he overheard and he said, hey, you know, I couldn't help overhearing your conversation. And he's like, do you know what they call an ironman? I always, like, tear up when I say, say the story, but he's like, do you know what they call an ironman when they walk across the finish line? And I said, no, what? And he's like, an ironman. And he's like, it doesn't matter if you run or if you walk. If you finish, you get the title. And I think, you know, in business, we get so hung up on, like, the speed of things and what we've said verbally as a goal or what everyone else is doing. They're going so much faster or I trained for this. I should be here. Right. I planned for this. I should be here. Instead of thinking, like, if we finish, we're a finisher and it doesn't matter the speed. If we cross that line, we've accomplished it. And that was a huge lesson for me, just to think about that and how important that is, to bring that into our everyday life, too.

That's awesome. Yeah. Just really acknowledge that. That we're.

If we're still in it for sure.

Success. Just staying in the. In the race. Yeah.

Yeah. One step at a time. And it's just about moving forward and not stopping.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, Sierra, that's just the perfect way to wrap this up. Thank you so much. It's been so great to talk to you and to get to meet you and tell us a little bit about what you're working on now and how we can keep in touch with you and all that good stuff.

Yeah. So the best way would be just over at my website, the boutique workshop.com. i have a free masterclass coming up where we're going to walk through profit first and inventory management. You'll just find that right on the website. And then I have a free profit first for retail masterclass too. So if profit first or paying yourself has been something that you've been thinking about, that might be a great one to take too. But just follow me over there. Follow me on Instagram. You can follow all my crazy stories of business ownership and training and all of the things. I'd love to just connect with you there.

Awesome. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

If you like this podcast then you have got to sign up for my free on demand video training Grow youw Sales Doing what yout Love where I teach you in depth my simple process that you can implement right away to harness your mindset and your skills to grow your sales to whatever level you want. So go grab that now. The link is in the show notes and I'll see you next time.