Episode 226: Chelsey Halbert: Building a Business Around Baskets and Bonds

Hey, everyone. Welcome to the do the Thing podcast. This is your host, Stacy Lauren. I am so excited to welcome Chelsea to the show. Hey, Chelsea.

Hi, Stacy. Thank you so much for having me.

Yeah, thanks for coming on.

I just.

I love getting introduced to people and then really getting to dive into your story and how you're doing the thing.

Yes, I know. And. And I love the name of your podcast because I'm like, yes. Every day, I'm like, yes, we're doing the thing. We're doing this right.

Hours. But otherwise I'm like, yes, we're doing it. Okay.

Yeah, we were just kind of talking about it before we hit record. And it's so easy to get stuck in the growth discomfort of when you are doing the thing, and how easy it is to just get stuck in that hardness of it, not to push through. And I. I just. I think that it's really cool to get a chance to talk to you because I think there's so many people that when they're going through a new growth phase or they're doing something new, they might think, oh, this is me, and I don't think this is meant for me. But no, it's really. This is just a growth phase that you have to get through.

Yeah. And, I mean, we're. We're going to celebrate our fourth year in August. And it's crazy to me because one of the things that I have to say to myself is, okay, where were we with year one? And now I'm sitting here going, I'll have those hard days and those days where I'm just so overwhelmed, and I'm like, all right, let's be done. I quit. Right? I'm. I'm telling my. My husband is my business partner, like, yeah, we're good. I quit. But then I'm like, wait a minute, look how far we've come. Okay. It might not be growing as fast as you want, or it might not be growing as fast as this other brand, or the comparison is the thief. Right. So it's one of those things that you always have to go back in your personal journey and be like, where did you come from and where are you now? So that. That's where you measure your growth. And so that's where I kind of gather when I have those bad days where I'm stuck in the growth. I'm like, okay, where did I start? Look at what I've done. Me, three years ago, had been like, wait, you did what? So it works out really well.

Yeah, it's so true. And Comparison is the thief. I haven't heard that term before. I actually really love that.

It'S easy to get caught up. And I specialize. I would say the first two years was very easy for us to compare. And it probably because we were a little bit unconventional on how we started our brand. I don't know if you want me to go into that right now, but we started with very much being a wholesale retailer. So we bought wholesale and then we sold it for retail. Right. These were already made products. Typically we were in the toy industry, so we had a lot of wood toys. We would source things from Europe, but it would be wholesale costs. We didn't design anything. And then we brought it in. So we did that for about 18 months and it was fine. But it was constantly buying to sell, buying to sell, and there wasn't any growth. It was just very flatline and we was sold and it was great. But it wasn't until we started actually designing and coming up with our own products that it kind of exploded. And we found this whole network around us with Ryan moran and the 1%. And we were like, oh, we can do this this way. We should have been doing it this way from day one. But I wouldn't trade those first two years because that's where we found our people, that's where we found our niche. That's where we found what problems they were having that we could help them fix. So that's kind of how it was a little bit unconventional doing it that way. But now we're just so thankful because now we 100% sell only products that we design and have manufactured.

So amazing. And I'd love to hear just how you guys even got the idea to start.

Yeah. So back in 20, 20, 18, 2019, my husband and I were like, we were just paycheck to paycheck, living in Colorado, doing all the things right and we would just. We knew that we wanted to start our own e commerce store. We knew that we both had entrepreneurial hearts and we wanted to do something for ourselves. So we took a giant leap and we moved to Texas. We sold our home and we took some of a little nest egg of that from the sale of our house and we started Maple and Lark. It started with we have four kids. I was very into non toxic toys. Not a lot of plastic for them, things like that that they're around. And they were little at this point, so they were a driving factor. We wanted this to be a family thing that we were excited about together. And of course they were Excited because they had toys mom and dad were breathing in, Right? So we started that way. We started very slow. Like I said, we did the whole buy wholesale, sell retail. But I started documenting our journey on Instagram from day one. It was like we had the idea, we thought about it, and then I was like, cool, I'm gonna make a social media handle. And we made social media and I just started talking and posting about our everyday life and we had people following us. So when we opened our virtual doors in August, we had about 1200 people that were following us and we sold products. And it was crazy to me. I was just like, wow, okay, this is working. And so that kind of just kept growing and growing and growing. And like I said, once we got into around 18 months, I had a couple of kind of friends, Instagram friends at this point that were buying our products and they were like, hey, it would be great if we could start Sort or called Color Sort. So sorting toys in rainbow colors or sorting toys and baskets or they literally gave us the idea of what they wanted to see. And so I had some experience with sourcing products and manufacturing. We read a lot, we googled a lot. And we knew that we wanted to support other families and manufacturers that are ethical, that are fair trade, that are, are smaller and not so just big corporate overseas. So our whole driving force was to find manufacturers for wood toys and then for to find them for baskets. So we started with a manufacturer in Ukraine, actually, for our wooden toys that made all beautiful wood toys for us. And that relationship is great. We literally had this mutual like, hey, we're helping your family, you're helping us. And that was fantastic. Then we found our manufacturer. His name is Steven, and it was rope baskets. And they made rope baskets. We started with the colors of the rainbow and we bought 500 units and we just put our own personal money. But 500 units and we sold out in 10 minutes when we lost.

Oh, my God.

Yeah. I have a video of the first day that we did it. And I was crying, laughing, because I was like, I don't know. My husband was at his part time job that he was doing and I was just like, oh my gosh, freaking out. My kids were around us like, okay, what is this? We have to figure, where do we go from here? I wasn't expecting to sell out. So it's really grown for us and not without the lows. This is kind of the highlight reel, right? But the biggest part that grew for us was our community. And we call them so our name is Maple and Lark. But we call our community the Larkies. They're really the just the soul of Maple and Lark. And they're there for us through the highs and lows. I didn't change anything. I still show behind the scenes of our family and our life as we grew on social media. And they show up every release, everything. Even if they don't buy that they're sharing. That is just amazing to me to have that support system. So even if I go on there and be like, you know, this is. We have a delay. We had, we had the worst delay in shipping history this last April. Our cargo ship broke down halfway. It had to turn around. It was supposed to be a 15 day buy seat. It turned into 60 days. It was just the delay after delay. And I was honest with them and I was like, hey, you pre ordered these items but we're delayed. And they were like, oh, we're so sorry. And they were saying sorry to me that they're having to wait on their product. But they're saying sorry to us like, hey, we're so sorry. I'm so sorry you have to go through this. And that was just. I'm like, wait a minute, I'm supposed to be like, it's already. You like.

Your product.

So yeah, it's almost like they saw your heart through you guys sharing everything that you've been sharing. So then they are able to be a part of that journey with you. And so it makes it where they feel just a part of everything that you're going through.

Yeah, it's very true. They feel like they're one of us through it all. And that's just really special. And even at. We grew pretty quickly and we have about 45,000 followers now. But it's just so organic how we grew. We didn't, we didn't do the big giveaways. We didn't do the big. Where you pay in a ton to get followers. It was a very organic growth. Telling everybody or friends. Telling friends, I guess I should say about us. So that was nice.

Where are you mostly at with your community? Is it mostly on Instagram or are you also on Facebook or.

Yeah, so we have a Facebook group, but mostly Instagram. We have a TikTok. I just can't seem to get that avenue. Like we, we have some people that followed us on there, but I'm like, I'm having a hard time with that. But primarily I feel like our niche, our base is on Instagram, so that's. That's primarily where we are and then of course, email lists and things like in text messages. Yeah.

So how are you guys keeping yourself going through all these hard things? So when you have the shipping issue, and I'm sure there's been other things coming along the way, what's been kind of your strategy to be able to get through that stuff?

Oh, man. So it's my husband and I, we are the support. Right. So it's, I would say, I said at the beginning, there's definitely times where you focus on how far you've come, how far your growth. Right. Always going back to that. But honestly, just some days are rough, some days just suck. They just are what they are. And you have to just kind of sit in that a little bit. But it's one of those things I tell my husband, like, okay, I'm quitting, I'm done, we're done. Let's close the shore, we're done. And then he always just goes, okay, whatever you want, it's okay. Because he knows the next day we're going to pick ourselves up and we're going to trudge on. It's kind of letting yourself stay in those days where you are in an entrepreneurial grind, and then just knowing that the next day you're going to pick yourself up because ultimately you love it. That's one of my things. Where would we go if we weren't here? I need a creative outlet. I need to be designing. I need that community. If I close, I'd be opening something else.

I would love to hear more about what having this business has done for you and your family.

So my husband worked a very conventional job. We, he would leave at 7, he would get home at 7, he'd see the kids for 30 minutes and then they would go to bed. And so it was, it was rough, it was hard. So having this now has brought so much flexibility to our family that it's just if we need to take an afternoon off, we can take an afternoon off. If there's an emergency, a kid is sick. We have so much flexibility because we are the owners, we are the boss. I think one of those things is we went from living there and now we're in Texas and now we are on a five acre farm. We've got a 1500 square foot warehouse that we built. So, so literally my work is right outside my door, so I'm able to still be a homeschool mom, still work from home and set my own hours. So that is key for me. Otherwise I'd be working outside of the home and that's fine too. But for my personal heart, I feel like I want to be here with my kids. I want to be able to homeschool them. So being able to just walk to the warehouse is great. It's also raising the next generation of entrepreneurial kids. My son is 13 and he loves to go work out in the warehouse and he gets to make money and he gets to break down boxes or help move boxes and be the muscle. And he's just. He keeps coming to me every day with different business ideas. So I think it's just realizing that there's. You don't have to just be stuck in a mold of life. You can go different directions. And if it's starting your own e commerce store or designing something or taking up a trade, it's just the world is literally their oyster. So I think it's really important for our family for them to see the hard work, because it is hard work for them to value the life they have because they see how much work it takes, but to also just give us so much flexibility in life. So that's really special to us.

And what would you say your dreams are for you, the company, and kind of where you guys want to go?

So, I mean, I have probably about 15 more ideas that I would love to see come to fruition as far as products go for our company. I've got lots of dreams there. So honestly, I'm looking at. It would be great to get to the point where it possibly is more sustainable, more ran by itself, less involvement for me, things like that. So hiring on more people than we have right now, growth that way. We're right at this pivotal point where it's like we need that, but yet we do just a little bit more. It's still that the owners still have that grind, right? We're still trying to grind and we're still putting into our company too, as much as we're taking out. So it's kind of that next step. It just feels like one more step and then it's like, okay, we can be a little bit more hands off. We can hire in more help. We can do things like that. So I feel like year five is really going to be pivotal for us. My dreams for this would just to still have that community feel, no matter how big or little or if we stay the same, that's just so important that we're helping other families with their organizational needs, not the Container Store, but we're relating and finding things that can help your home as well as our home. And Having that connection. So as long as that connection is still there with our customers and our community base, then wherever this business takes us is good.

Yeah.

And I love that you found your niche with. When you didn't really have. You didn't have a huge idea in terms of where it was going to go in the beginning. It sort of evolved along the way as you started listening to your community.

Yeah. And I think that's one of those things. I knew we wanted to be in the toy world and the wooden toy world and kind of how we started that. I could have seen us doing that forever or designing stuff, but it was just this 90 degree turn of wait a minute, let. Here's this opportunity that you could fulfill for these people. And honestly, it was up until about a year and a half ago we still had wooden toys and we still was bringing them in. But then when everything happened with the war in Ukraine and our manufacturer, he was having issues still producing things. So that put a strain on getting our wooden toys made. And here we supported him, we raised money for him because he's literally like a part of our family. And what's one of the special things that we went to our community and we raised $5,000 for him and they were able to get a generator and they were able to still work for the last year, but then they've had to scale back their stuff. And so naturally that scaled back us. And we were talking, we're like, well, do we want to still pursue that avenue? And we decided to just kind of close that chapter of our company with wooden toys and fully focus on the baskets and the organizational bins and things like that. So that was a big kind of grieving, letting go of what we originally started to do, but yet so excited about how it's naturally flowed. It's just ebbed and flowed and now it's just flowing towards this one direction of organization and baskets that we did not see coming at all. So I think it's so cool that.

You'Re speaking to this because I talk about this a lot on the podcast with doing the thing, it's not just doing the thing, but it's also releasing the thing that is no longer serving you. So then you can save the energy and create the energy for the thing that you really want to do. I'd love to hear more about how you decided to let that go. Was it really did. Do you have a process when you're able to shed that?

Yeah. So I guess I should say as far as the wood toys, a couple of things that it comes down to is how obviously a business is business. You have to look at facts. So you look at the hard numbers, you look at what's selling, what's not selling, and you look at to how much does it cost to get those products in? What's your profit margin? All of those things. Right, right. And so that's kind of what you look at for us at the base. But then we're like, okay, we're still profiting, we're still making money. But if we took that and invested it more onto this product or this idea, that's doing even better. It's putting all your energy into something else and letting that go away. Even though that's still profiting, you're still getting stuff, but there's only so much of you, there's only so many resources that you have. So us dropping the wooden toys and focusing that all onto baskets and organizational bins really just blew up. We were able to expand, we were able to do so much more. But then on a smaller sense, we have how we do our baskets is we have a lot of colors, but we do a lot of limited editions. We do a lot of. We retire colors, we bring in new colors. It's never. We have our core colors, but we can't. I don't want to keep 37 colors in stock in 20 different basket styles. For us, that's just a lot of in house to keep track of. So we focus on just, hey, limited edition, get this Sema sage basket before it's gone. And that really is a fomo. We have people who collect our baskets who are making sure they have every single color we release. And so it's just kind of doing it that way. But even so, I still get messages from people like, why did you retire terracotta? And I'm like, I'm sorry, but I can't keep it. So I can bring in new stuff to you, letting go of it and bringing in new. So I mean, besides facts, it's just. It's kind of just keeping it exciting for your customers too. I feel like having something new, not necessarily new, but a different variation, a different color just keeps them excited. And what's so interesting is when we do a new color, the colors that maybe haven't been selling as fast, all of a sudden, they're ordering it with those and then they sell. So it's just, it's an interesting dynamic of doing kind of the limited edition and retiring colors and keeping that up. So, yeah, and just for the listeners.

So we're talking about baskets right now. But think about this with anything in your life, because as Chelsea's saying, it's opportunity costs that you're losing out on. When you hold on to something for too long. And now you're seeing all these things come for you because you're able to let go of the thing that is no longer serving you.

Yeah, for sure. And that's kind of one of those things. I mean, honestly, that's. Anything in life, too. I mean, personal life, family life, if something is. It's doing good, but it's just not great. It's okay to let go of the good for the great. And so I think that's one of those. It's a hard lesson, and it's a hard. I even had a conversation with another friend, and she was watching this other brand, and they were closing their doors and letting go of it. And they're like, it's not because we weren't making, but we just. It wasn't great anymore. It was just okay for them. And even making that decision, I feel like sometimes as business owners, we hold on to something for so long to the point where it's either bringing us down, putting us in debt, or you should have shed that three months ago. And so it's kind of knowing when to be like, yeah, okay, before this starts declining. And it could be anything. It could be products, it could be relationships in the business world. It can be whatever it is. I mean, it's a hard thing. Even when you have to let go of shipping, where you have your warehouse help, like moving from one company to another. If you're. They're shipping in their warehouse, things like that, it's. You just have to let it go. So.

Yeah. And then you're making so much more time for the things that are going to be able to serve you better. On that note, I'd love to have you share how you're managing it all, because, I mean, you're homeschooling. That's doing the thing. You've got this business going. How do you kind of prioritize? How are you able to keep up with everything?

Yeah, so I. I would say that. I mean, I could lie to you and say, I have a super strict schedule and it's laid out from nine to five. No, it's not. I will say what consistently helps, actually, as homeschooling. We homeschool year round, so we don't do a traditional fall, so, you know, may we do it all year round. So my kids get their summer Break, quote unquote. And November, when it's our busy season, and so we really are flexible that way. But the majority of our schooling happens in the morning. So it's morning to about 12:30 or 1:00 o', clock, and then they want to go play or they go do their stuff. And then I go out to the warehouse because it's right there. Sometimes we have babysitters come in, but now I have a teenager and they're older, so it's a little bit easier now. So I work in the afternoons. My husband is flexible and so he comes in in the afternoons. He also, he works, but his schedule is very flexible, too. We have warehouse employees that come in to help us. But honestly, the kind of the grind of the computer work, the all of that is happening at night. So we leave very full days. But the flexibility of that is great because like I said before, if we need to take off for an afternoon, we have that availability. But the managing it is definitely, and I will say manage it, but don't burn out. Don't get so caught up in your schedule that you're going to burn out. Because I did that two years ago and it was bad. So always checking in, being like, you know what, I can put my computer down. I don't need to respond to the manufacturers that are on the other side of the world. They can wait till tomorrow. And having those personal limits of. So one of those things, especially if you have a partner that you're working with, we don't talk about business in our bedroom because it's just we can't. Because otherwise we would. But we would talk till midnight and it would just be stress and figuring things out. So we definitely put a hard rule like, okay, this is our downtime. We're just breaking up whatever we need to do. If we're watching a show or we're reading a book, this is where we stop. So having boundaries like that help for sure.

That is such good advice. That is really good.

It's easier said than done.

I'd love to just go back to you from a moment. Well, let's actually talk about first how you, because you got into Ryan Moran's group and you mentioned that's kind of where things pivoted for you, and I'm in that group too. So I was just kind of curious, what changed for you? How did that help you?

So Bradley was. Bradley's my husband and he was the one who got Ryan's book first. Ten months to a million, a year to a million. Now I'm going to say it wrong. Sorry. Right. That was bad. But he got his book and he started reading that prior to ever joining the 1%. He was reading it. I was kind of very. I'm gonna be honest, I was very like, yeah, whatever. Okay. We're just trying to keep the business running, selling these toys and wholesale and retail. And I was like, sure, we could do a product. Yeah, okay. So I kind of wrote him off for a little while until he was like, forcing the book in my hand, like, please read this. I was like, oh, okay. So I started reading it. I was like, okay, that makes sense. And this was right around the time that our followers were saying, hey, we need something to contain all these wooden toys and these pieces. And I was like, huh, okay. And so it just. It kind of evolved from that moment of realizing, oh, we could do this ourselves. We don't have to rely on other brands to make our brand work. Right. And so that's kind of how it started. We found out about the 1% group, so we decided to jump in and join that. And really just the. The community. And we met Greg Johnson from there, and he literally was like, I'm here for you. Let's Zoom call every other week. And so he's literally just been a great mentor for us throughout this whole process, and I credit him with a lot of stuff, because when you are running a company with your spouse, you are bound to get into some disagreements of, oh, we should. Even if it's something simple, like how much you should make a product, right? Oh, it should be $50. No, it needs to be like 45.99. We've literally gone on Zoom calls with Greg and be like, okay, you. You're the tiebreaker. Figure this out. Because we are head to head on whatever issue it is. So finding somebody or finding a group that you're not alone in this whole journey is so important. I can't imagine just being alone and floating and not having an outside opinion, an outside mentor, just different things like that. So finding a support system in that way for your brand is pivotal. That's where it changed is finding that.

I think that's so important for people to hear because it's so easy to get stuck in the vacuum of what you're doing. But when you can be expansive and be able to not feel isolated anymore and you're actually a part of something, I think that just really helps you see things clearer.

It's super isolating being. Especially if you're just online sales. There's some weeks Where I don't leave our farm because my house is here, my work is here, or I'll have groceries delivered. And. And at times I'm like that human connection of other people going through the same thing where, hey, yeah, we're building our brand day in and day out. And having that connection really makes a difference for sure. Otherwise, you do get, like you said, I like that. The vacuum, you just get focused in. And sometimes you need somebody to come in and unplug the vacuum and be like, yeah, look at what you're doing. Stop for a second. So for sure.

And I'd love to hear about the moment that you guys paid the money for the 500. Was it 500 baskets? Was that what you got first?

500 baskets? And so, yeah, that was. We had been selling toys consistently for about 18 months. But like I said, everything that profited would immediately bag into purchasing the same wholesale retails. 50% profit. 50% you're paying wholesale. So from when we sold the house, we had a little bit of a nest egg left. So it was one of those moments like, okay, we're reinvesting our personal money into our brand. And that's scary because, you know, you can. Brands do this all the time, right? They get investors, they get people to give them money to invest for either percentage or whatever. But to say, okay, I'm really investing in myself, I'm taking my personal money and investing it into a brand and hoping that it works, that's a big deal. Because if it fails, there's no you. It's just, well, you're personally out and your brand is out. So that was kind of hard. I mean, it was something like, I want to say $4,000, it wasn't. @ the time, it felt like a lot, but it's. It really now it was. So it was minimal. But $4,000 we took. And I remember doing a wire transfer and sending it, because at the same time we've gotten samples from the manufacturer. You kind of established a relationship. But that's scary to be like, here's our hard earned money. Please send me products. And so when it showed up, that was a huge relief. And then it was like, okay. We literally sat down and we were like, if it doesn't sell, we can mark it so far down and put it so far on sale. We'll recoup our money so we can at least recoup the cost. Right. I think that's kind of. It's silly to think about now in that sense, but that was our backup plan. If it.

Doesn'T. Yeah. A lot of times people won't make the step because they're too scared of what will happen. But you guys already future paced with what would happen if it didn't sell. And so since you had that idea in your head, it made you feel comfortable to be able to do.

It. Exactly. That was our fallback. I mean, otherwise, how am I going to decorate my house with 500 baskets? I don't.

Know. You'd have a lot of Christmas gifts for.

Sure. Yeah. Well, that's amazing. And then to have proof of concept, to have it just sell out within 10 minutes is.

Insane. It was insane for sure. We talked to Ryan on a call, it was a community call. And they had us on video chat about two weeks after that. And we were like, we don't know what we're doing. We sold out in 10 minutes. He was like, have you ordered more? And we're like, we're trying to figure. He was like, keep going. I was like, okay, we need to keep going. We're doing.

This. That's so awesome. And I think that speaks a lot to what doing the thing is, too. It's like everyone thinks when they see someone like you. Right. Four years in and you kind of have things more figured out now. And I'm sure you're figuring things out as you get to scale and you're learning things with team members and all that stuff. But in terms of where you are right now, it's easy for someone to look at you and say, oh, Chelsea's got it all figured out. Not knowing that when you started, it was literally, each step was like a new thing that you're having to navigate.

Through. For sure. It's definitely one of those things that you're constantly picking yourself up by your bootstrap and doing the next thing. And so you have to, like I said, beginning every morning, you're doing the thing because you literally have to. And so if you're not putting any effort into it, you're not going to yield any harvest. So you've got to just pick up the next step and do the thing. I mean, that's. I mean, it's literally all I can say because there's excuses, but it's not going to get you where you want to be. Is it hard? Yes. It's not easy. And yes, I'm still facing challenges today. I mean, clearly we just had a shipment derailed and we have constant. It's just different problems now, if that makes sense. It's different steps that I have to take now than I did four years ago. So it, yeah, it's just interesting.

When you're facing a challenge now, what do you do when you approach it? Are you breathing? How do you handle.

It? Yeah. So I think one of the biggest things that I have to do is for example, if it's a problem and I'm trying to figure it out, I can't spiral. So I would before I would spiral into all the negatives, all the what could go even more wrong. Right. And so I've learned with kind of habits and trying to talk myself out of it and support and people who know you, I just, I have to step away. I'm not going to figure out the solution in that moment. And if I'm in the heat of the moment with a problem, if I'm not stepping away, I'm going to make that problem worse. So I literally have to just be like, okay, I'm stepping away. I'm going to walk away for a minute or a day or two days from that particular issue. I mean obviously that's a luxury. If it's that kind of issue, if it's an issue I need to figure out right then and there, then I am going to, I'm going to work through it with my husband because typically one of us is always saying one of us is spiraling. So we kind of play off of each.

Other.

So. Or I'm calling up a friend, mentor or I'm figuring out, talking it through. But I think one of those things is it's okay if you don't have a solution right in that minute. Just let yourself simmer with it and then you will get a solution. It will be.

Okay. When you're spiraling or your husband's spiraling, how are you guys able to help each other get through.

It?

So typically my husband takes my phone away and let's go outside on the port. Like let's just. He'll literally remove because I'm typically more the one who will glass half empty. He's more half full. So he will, he'll be like, you're not going to solve it tonight. It's 9:30 at night. This problem cannot be fixed. Let's set it down and let's go to bed. Or let's change the subject. And so he really has to step out now. When he is doing it, he's the half full guy. And so sometimes I'm have to be like, no, this is a big deal. Pay attention. So we balance each other out really good and give and Take. But we've had a lot of experience with that. We were high school sweethearts, 14 and 16 year olds. So it's like we've been together for a long time to kind of know our strengths and weaknesses. So we play against that. But yeah, for sure, taking away my phone is a good one to just get me out of that spiral or my computer or.

Whatnot. You mentioned routines and stuff earlier and I feel like I need to ask, what is your daily routine in terms of is there something that you're doing for yourself every day or how do you.

Replenish? Yeah. So I am a big reader. I love historical fiction. I love. So that is my one thing that allows me to turn off my brain. And so it's kind of just, especially with historical fiction, it puts you in a different time, a different place. And so one of my biggest things at night is how I said we don't bring in business into the bedroom. Because it's just sometimes it's great. Sometimes we're excited about things, A lot of times we're excited about things. But even when we're excited about things, it still can be draining on you. So one of those things is I get invited and I read on my Kindle and I just. It literally helps me turn off my brain about home stuff or housework or business or kids. And it just allows me to just kind of focus on that. So that's kind of my personal thing that I do. For me, it could be watching TV or something, but reading just really that's how I unwind. I guess I should.

Say. Yeah. What would be your biggest piece of advice for the listeners on doing the.

Thing?

I would say find your community. And I know that's cliche to say, but find your community, talk to them in messages, literally become friends with them. If you're day one starting out with something new, they literally just don't be afraid to just strike up conversation and build those friendships. I got to meet one of the very first people that started following us. I got to meet her last year and we are so close now. And now she works for me and does our email marketing. And so I think one of those things is have fun with it and build the community for fun. Pick up the pressure of trying to find your person, find your stuff and just have fun talking to them and being fun in your story. We're very big behind the scenes. We're very big sharing our story in our social medias. And I think you can do it a different way. You can just be a brand and not have a face to it. But I find that, me personally, I love when I can see the person behind the brand, and I love that community and that kind of that personal touch that happens in social media when you actually know who you're buying from. And that's one of those big things. We even talk about who our manufacturers are. We have behind the scenes showing them their extended family to us. So here is all of us. Here's what you get with Maple and Mark. So if you're just starting out, keep it simple. Take off the pressure of trying to sell to them and just try to be their.

Friend.

And what would you suggest to people that are working a job and they really do want to start a business, but they're just.

Scared? Yeah, keep working. I'm going to say that. Keep working, because if you can take the stress off of diving in, my husband kept working throughout the whole start of this. Right. And that really alleviates kind of that stress. But I will say that if you have time to sit down and watch a movie or if you have time to just scroll reels on Instagram, you have time to start your own brand. So it's really just giving yourself that motivation to, you can do this in the off hours. You might be tired and it might be hard, but if you can see yourself in two ears, you're going to know it's worth it versus if you.

Don'T. And I'd love to hear what's coming alive for you after our conversation.

Today.

Honestly, it's just encouraging to talk about where we were. And like I said at the beginning, looking back, and I haven't done that in a while. We've been caught up in the cargo ship drama of our delayed packages, and it's literally, we just got another delivery today that was the final delivery that we had to get for this whole order for it to just be done. And I kept telling my husband, I just want to be done with this. I just want to get it here so I can just breathe that sigh of relief. So I'm literally walking into this podcast with you finishing that delivery, checking that in and going, okay. So talking about that, I'm like, all right, it's worth it. I feel the buzz.

Again. Okay, I can keep.

Going. Go out there and go work my butt off for another three days to get these orders out. Because it's. Yeah, just look at where we.

Started.

That's. I mean, so that's my only thing that I will say. Just constantly look back at where you were and where you are now. So that's. Yeah, I feel very excited.

Now. Yeah. And please share with everyone how they can support you, your community and how they can buy something from Maple and Lark as.

Well. Yeah. So obviously we're Maple and Lark. So you can buy on our website, maplelark.com our Instagram is the same. Maple and Lark is our handle. I would love to see you guys here. You can drop me a DM that you say that you found us through do the thing. That would be awesome. I'd love to chat with you. Like I said, I'm very hands on in DMs. I love connecting. So please reach out to us and if you reach out, I will totally send you a little freebie. So DM us and I will give you guys a little free. It'll be.

Fun. Thank you so much for coming on. This has been so, so great having you.

Here. It's fun to chat about our business. That's just, it's just fun. I love what you do.

So. And for the listeners, thanks for joining and do the thing. Don't wait for opportunity, create.