EntreLeadership - #98: Ali Brown—Secrets of a Multimillionaire

Episode Date: May 26, 2015

One of the most successful female entrepreneurs of her generation, Ali Brown joins this week's podcast to share her story of success. Plus, EntreLeadership Coach John Felkins stops by the studio to answer your business questions. Another great episode sponsored by our friends at Infusionsoft. http://www.entreleadership.com/podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Charismatic, passionate, as integrity, humble, servant, faithful, inspiring, persevering, positive, flexible, driven. This is who we are that call ourselves leaders. Helping business leaders grow themselves, their team, and their profits. This is the Entree Leadership podcast. Now, here is your host, Ken Coleman. We are coming to you from the Music City. This is the podcast of leaders, by leaders, and for leaders. Thank you leaders for joining in this conversation that matters.

Here's what's coming up on this episode. Our feature conversation is with Ali Brown, former star of ABC's Secret Millionaire and an amazing entrepreneur and mentor of female entrepreneurs all around the country. Also, Christy Johnson, special feature on one of our listeners who is killing it in her business. You're going to love what she's doing with Purpose Boutique. and we launch a new segment today. Ask the Coach with our resident head coach of Entree Leadership, John Falcons, answering your questions via email right here on the podcast. And of course, Clayt Mask stops by from InfusionSoft with yet another valuable business tip.

Very excited about what we're doing on this podcast. It's very, very intentional because we want to continue to showcase women who are killing it. Because this is the fastest growing sector of entrepreneurs. in America. I know that because Ali Brown told me that. Allie Brown is a force of nature. She's become a friend and I first found out about her several years ago. I believe it's four or five years ago now. ABC did a fun reality show called Secret Millionaire, where they take a millionaire, somebody's been very successful and who is a giver and they involve them in a story of someone, a nonprofit.

And then at the very end of the show, after volunteering and helping out, the millionaire would reveal that they are cutting a very large check to this nonprofit. It was wonderful. Tear jerking stuff. So anyway, I became aware of who she is and what she's doing and recently hung out with her for a bit. She came to one of our entree leadership one-day events in Phoenix, where she resides. And I asked her to hang out, and she enjoyed it.

And we also got on the phone prior to that event, because I wanted you to hear. from her, and specifically you women out there. I think this is really going to encourage you, but you men, this is not a checkout episode because what we talk about really matters to you as well. So here we go, Ali Brown on the Entry Leadership Podcast. Here it is. Well, Ali, I want to start by having you share your opinion, and what I like about this opinion is, is you have observed as well. This isn't just what you think. This is what you see. And I want you to just maybe give us a snapshot of what you see happening in the marketplace as relates to women in business. What's the current scene like? What's incredible about this time for women? I mean, if you look back at even

just recorded history, this is the first time ever that we are able to combine our ambition with our values around family and freedom. And, you know, this goes for the guys, too. I don't want to discount you. Sometimes I'll get letters like, you know, you discounted me as a man. But we're talking about women today, right? That's right. When you look at everything that's happened, just over the last few decades, it's incredible. And the turning point for this really was technology, because now women can work at home, and we can blend our business with family.

And it's such a simple concept, but it has just shifted everything. Before technology, before you look maybe the 90s when the Internet hit, and then the early 2000s when everyone was getting online, before that time, we had to make. a very hard choice. And that was that do you want to go whole hog business and ambition and career, or do you want to be, you know, a family woman and a mom? And it is an incredible time because now we can combine all this together. And this is huge. This is a massive shift. Just some data here, folks, for what Ali's talking about. Women are starting businesses at nearly twice the national

average of men. That is unbelievable. And would you say we're still, on the first, second, third phase of that wave? How early are we into this wave? It really is the beginning stages, which I think is the exciting thing, because it's, I mean, also by the next generation, women will be more than half the breadwinners in this country because of the changes we've been able to make and how we're entering the workforce.

But, you know, I'm a big fan of entrepreneurship, so whether you want to go into, you know, traditional employment or work for yourself as your choice, but I'm all about the doing it my way. And for those of you listening, you probably know if it's got to be your way. I mean, that's how I got into all this. I was basically unemployable. I had like eight jobs after college, and finally was looking around me going at everybody going, like, you know, is this it?

Like, is this what I'm supposed to do? Just come in and punch in and punch out and then have a life after work. And it just never worked for me. And what I find particularly exciting is that the number of women with six-figure incomes is growing actually at a faster pace than the pace of men right now. I mean, so we're really just starting to see all this take off. Wow, this is so fun. Now, I want to talk about this entrepreneurial spirit because we have men and women listening in here.

And yes, there's a bit of a focus on women here because this is very exciting. As a father of a young daughter, I'm very excited about this trend and what this will mean to her one day. But this idea that entrepreneurs, Allie, you know this, we see something. that could be, and then we process it, and then when it enters into that stage where it becomes this should be. The could be's the head. The should be's the heart. And that's when entrepreneurs really begin to take hold, and we go out because we believe there is a problem that needs to be solved. At the end of the day, that's what it's about. How do you advise women, and this is good for men as well, to understand and then be able to identify the right opportunity, the right solution? Because

entrepreneurs can sometimes chase the wrong thing because we don't see it clearly. What do you say about that? Yeah, you know, there's this one camp of people that says, do what you love and the money will follow. Well, I say do what you love and follow the money. You have to find something that combines both. And this is where women, admittedly, sometimes miss the mark because we are so impassioned typically about an idea or making a difference, making a change.

We go out and try to create a business around that. But the purpose of business is to make a profit. So making sure that you are going to make a profit will empower you to take that idea further. So make sure that your idea has the chance to make money. This sounds so simple, but we need to do it because make sure that this happens. And typically we're looking for the three things as women and business owners, fulfillment, flexibility, and that financial independence. Really, the number one reason you see a lot of women going to work for themselves now is that flexibility.

Being able to do what I did this morning, I don't know if you know this, I can, but I have 21-month-old twins. Yes, congratulations, by the way. When they came along, man, everything changed. And a lot of things that I wanted changed. I had the flexibility being a small business owner to say, you know what, we've been doing things this way, let's do it this way. I'm going to put some team over here managing this, and I'm going to do only this.

And this morning, I spent time with the kids, came into the office now for a few hours in the afternoon because I cannot work at home anymore. That's right. That's right. It doesn't happen. But this is what it's about now that our lives are becoming so holistic in such a beautiful way and a profitable way that we are able to make more money and take care of our families. Now, I know you're a straight shooter, and you say it very kindly. I'm a straight shooter, so I really want to focus on something.

You said two things that I want our listeners to lock into. Number one, this idea that if you do what you love, the money follows. And I think that's a nice notion, but I don't think it's completely true. And it leads into the second thing you just said. My thought is that if you do what you love and you happen to be good at it, well, then the money will show up. But there's this misnomer out there that if we just love something and we go after it, well, everything's going to be great. And we see that happen on American Idol all the time.

You can love music, but if you can't carry a note, you're not going to win. And then you said this, that women get into things for fulfillment. I think we all want fulfillment. That's that significance when we are doing what we love with the skills that we have. I mean, that is a huge differentiator. Absolutely. And you know what's great? The men are loving this, too.

And, I mean, this is an incredible time for men as well as women, because the men are able to work and change their business and design their income around the life that they want. I have three clients in the last year whose husbands actually quit their jobs to come work in their wives' businesses. And can you imagine the freedom that gives you as a family to all be working together? And these guys are so thrilled. One of them was a top, top attorney at a company, and he just said, you know, those people owned me. I was working my butt off. And now I'm able to take the kids to their sports stuff.

I'm able to pick them up in the afternoon. We all have dinner together. We're actually designing the business and in our lives around the values that we've always had, but we've been denying them. And this gives us the key to unlocking all of this and bringing it together. I want to ask you the female opinion here, especially for our female listeners, on this issue of seasons. And what I mean by this is that you mentioned at the very top of our conversation,

I agree with you that because of technology, women can run a business and maintain their responsibilities or the things that they want to do at home. However, there's just a reality that sometimes, if you're a mom of young ones, you may or may not be able to do what you do. And so I would be curious to know how you would encourage women where the season isn't right maybe for them to totally launch in, but that doesn't mean that that part of them has died. Yeah, I love that concept you just mentioned about the seasons because it gives you the insight into what we're talking about here, which is the freedom. And freedom for women right now means choices. And there are many women in my programs who, you know, they had the kids early

on. And now they're, you know, in their 40s and they're like, all right, bring it on. I'm ready. Like, I'm going to take this idea and really blow this out. And then I have some people who, you know, suddenly realize that they are going to have a family now and they pair back. And it really is about the choices we want to make at that time. And, you know, I just made that big shift myself when I had my twins. And what I wanted five years ago is different from what I was. I want now. And I want to remind all you listening, you know, focus on something called net that we forget. We forget, you know, we get all caught up about the revenues and the big numbers and how big our team is. And I did something really good last year, and that is that I

stuck my nose in the numbers and really got detailed. After having a kid, I kind of let that go full bit. And I was really set on making sure that I was focusing on my net income and not the revenues. Because we all hear about the revenues. You know, you hear these stories about these companies blowing up big and, you know, getting on these lists of, you know, fastest-growing companies in the country, and I was one of them. But it all comes down to, it all comes down to you and what you are providing yourself and your family. So don't lose sight of that. So that's good. Our grandmother told us that, right? It's not what you make. It's what you keep. And that's essentially what you're... You're excited about the making, though it's more fun.

Of course. Well, you know what it is. At the cocktail party, it's very impressive when you can throw out those gross revenues. Oh, yeah, I would think 500, man. Come on, you know. You know, right. Now I'm like, all right, and saving up for private school and, you know. Oh, I can't even wait. I can't even wait until you get into the sports programs.

We have three, nine and two, six-year-olds, and I'm going to tell you something. It's a full-time job to have your children in sports. We're already panicking. We see what these parents are doing. And I'm like, I think, how could you do this and not work for yourself? Yeah. How could you even manage, you know, raising these kids with all the stuff that they do these days and not have the freedom to be there.

I want to ask you a question. Now I'm putting you on the spot because you can handle it, but I want to get your opinion on this because for our men that are listening in here, I'm just dying to know what you're going to say. Here's the scenario. If a man is choosing between a female candidate and a male candidate, and all things are equal, meaning that character, skills, they're on equal playing ground.

What would you say if you were hired as a consultant in the hiring process, What would you say the benefits of hiring a woman for that role would be? My answer would be it depends on the company. If this is a company that has leaned more toward completely male teams, a woman will bring an amazing amount of balance and change to that demographic. And studies have proven that boards, when they are made up of mixed men and women, have better results than male-only teams. if you flip it and if it was an all-women company, I would stick a guy in there.

Because what we're finding is that business, as well as our government, as well as the world, needs a mommy and a daddy. And we all work together. That is good. I love that. And let's just be honest. I love what you just went with there because environment and objective has a lot to do with it. Because there are just certain things that women do better than us.

And it's just a fact. And we've got to be okay realizing that. That's what I find fascinating about that answer. That was really great. People get very upset when you ask these kind of questions, which I find it interesting because we have to admit we are different. Yes. We're equal and different, and we bring different things to the table.

What you're seeing right now, not only in business, but the world, is this shift back toward this balance of having, you know, male and female leadership, and it is making a difference. Oh, I love it. All right, so I want to switch gears here because one of the many accolades that you have achieved is you were named by Entrepreneurbanes. entrepreneur magazine as a top 10 Twitter account that every entrepreneur should be following. Now, I'm not saying this to promote her Twitter account, folks, but this is an interesting honor. And the reason I bring it up is because I'm curious to know why it is that you think you've been successful to the level of they'd say, hey, entrepreneurs need to follow Allie. What are you doing and what's working?

I have good business advice, but I'll tell you I also bring a lot of the personal side into it. This is a very personal journey for all of us. This may be for many of us the first time we really, really have to believe in ourselves, and we really have to bank on ourselves. You know, the years past, if you look at what happened in the Great Recession and all this, we were banking on everything outside of ourselves. And when you step into your purpose, when you step into growing a business, when you step into knowing what you're going to do what you really have always supposed to do,

this brings up so much fear and all your... insecurities and all these things that happen. And, I mean, these are the times for me that I really have to step into my spiritual place and know that, you know, I am supported, that we have this power and faith to carry us through. And I mix that in with the business advice, which people at first find curious, and they're even a little shocked at it. And then they're like, they get it. They get, oh, my God, this is so personal. It's such a personal journey for all of us. So, you know, with one tweet or post, I'll be giving a great marketing tip, and with the next, I'll be reminding you how you can do this. You absolutely can.

That's perfect. And I want to have you weigh in on something that happened to you, and it happens to all of our listeners, and that's just failure. And you talk about it's a big part of your story. No. But, you know, I love that because I want you to... Thanks for bringing that up, Ken. Well, yeah. You know what I mean, of course.

But, you know, we've all failed. And failure is an opportunity to pick ourselves back up and move forward as just a part of going after anything. I'm curious how you encourage entrepreneurs to look forward when they face failure because they're going to fail on some level. How do you encourage folks? I don't like the word failure because it has to do with our past. And when you're an entrepreneur now, everything is a test. Everything is an adventure. Everything is an experiment.

You know, when we're back in school and growing up, if you didn't get the right answers all the time, you failed. But that's not really life, is it? So I encourage people to have a completely different view on failure when they're not only in business, but just life in general. You know, we make all this stuff up. It's all in our heads. We need to just go for what we want. And then course correct along the way. It's hard as to get off the ground.

But once you're going, once you're chugging along, just make adjustments as you go. And not everything I've done is hit it out of the way. park, but everything leads to the next thing and better and better things. I like that. I want to ask you about personal growth. What is your personal growth process like? What are the things that you do that continually keep yourself learning, curious, and growing? That's a great question.

If you don't work on your personal growth, you will always default back to your old self. You will default back to the negative. You will default back to sometimes, unfortunately, friends and family around. you who are naysayers, people you love very much, but who don't see your vision the way you will. So a few things. One is I absolutely need to spend quiet time every day. I'm not much of a meditator. You know, I can't sit still that long.

I like to be in motion. So that's kind of my meditation. And then I'm always reading and always learning and listening to positive voices and great teachers and wisdom. And turn off the TV news, you know, unless Dave Ramsey's on. But, you know, you want to make sure. There's so much fear and negativity that is being pushed at us right now. And when you step back, you need to remember we're actually at one of the most incredible, positive, and prosperous times.

I absolutely agree with you. I think that's absolutely spot on. I know you're still a young mom and you're still early into this whole process. They're toddlers. But I'm curious to know how you would encourage parents that are listening in, including myself, on instilling entrepreneurial values and, entrepreneurial skills in our kids? I think about that often, and Maddie and Jordy are only 21 months now, almost 22. And I started to think that, you know, I want them to see the world differently than I thought growing up.

And I want them feeling adventurous. I want them having ideas, and I want them understanding that, you know, money is a tool. And it works however you want it to work, and you can use it to do amazing things and and help people and give away a lot of money. And I have a feeling at least one of them will be an entrepreneur, but I don't want to say it because one day they'll listen to it. And then they will tell me that I was pre-programming them. Yeah, self-fulfilling prophecies. That's good stuff.

Well, Allie Brown, you are fantastic. You're a force of nature. You have encouraged us today, and we're grateful for your time. We really are better for it. Thank you so much. Thanks, Ken. She is Ali Brown, and you need to connect with what she's doing. She's a fun radio show as well.

and you women specifically. You need to dial in. She will encourage you. She understands where you're walking, where you're heading, and wants to help out. Alliebrown.com. Alibrown.com. Well, folks, we are loving our series

with Clayton Mask of InfusionSoft. Great insight on practical questions that you face every day, every week, every month. Clay, always good to have you, buddy. Thanks for being with us. How's it going out there in Arizona? It's going great. It's beautiful and glad to be here with you, Ken. All right. So today's question, why does most follow-up break down?

Two reasons. Lack of time, which is obviously very common and lack of the proper system to do this, which kind of goes back to the multi-system chaos problem I've talked about, where your information is not all in one place. But when entrepreneurs, business owners, when they're strapped for time and they don't have the right system, They don't follow up properly. They lose opportunities, lead slip through the cracks. They lose repeat sale opportunities with customers. And really, it stunts the growth of a business. Now, Clay, this is example A of why Infusion Soft exists.

How do you help folks solve this problem and others? You bet. Well, what we do is we give them the system so that they can get organized, grow sales, and save time so they can have a successful business and a successful life. All right, folks, I'm telling you they're doing this all. the time. They can help you. Make sure you go to infusionsoft.com slash entree. That's infusionsoft.com slash entree to get the help you need now so that you don't have to deal with these

types of problems. Clay, good stuff as always, man. We'll be checking in with you next podcast. Thanks so much, Ken. Take care. Well, folks, I'm very excited to have John Falcons. I call him Coach Falcons around here because you really are leading our coaching efforts and so much more in Entree leadership, but specifically talk about all access and some of the coaching things that we do and people get online and then you talk to them one-on-one. It's really fun. And so we thought, let's bring this to the podcast because we are overwhelmed with emails. Is that right, John? People saying, hey, I need to know this. I want to know that. And you answer these. But so we're

going to take a couple. Okay. Put you on the spot. Uh-oh. Are you ready, Coach? Are they easy? They're easy. Okay. All right. Everything's easy for you because you know the playbook. So here it is, the first installment of Ask the Coach. Bring it on. All right, first question is from Marcus, and Marcus emails a lot. I'm going to shorten the question for time. His question is, what are the three most important things you would advise I do in order to make the climb to $5 million in revenue as quickly, painlessly, and profitably as possible? Is he asking for Nirvana, John?

What do you say to Marcus? Well, maybe a little bit. First of all, Marcus, congratulations on being in business. Yeah, well done. If I read this right, you've gotten to the million mark, so you're statistically beating the odds already. That's right. But if we're looking at going to the next level, something like a $5 million business, I'm betting there's going to be a little pain. There's going to be some times where it's more about investing than it is about profitability. And it might not be so quick. But if we're just thinking in terms of advice for Marcus and what we see people do, how we see people be successful. successful is this. Go slow. Don't try and be quick about it. You'll hear Dave say this all the time. I know you're going. Right? Taurus. He wants people to be on the cover of slow company.

Slow company magazine. You were going with tortoise hair. I was going to say tortoise. That's a good one. A tortoise beats the hair every time. It's true. And really the key here is don't do things to increase your risk just to grow faster. Grow as fast as you can organically. if you can cash flow this thing, if you can cash flow this rocket ride, do it. But don't go get a line of credit to cover payroll or inventory or anything else like that just to speed up the growth of your business. It's too risky. Take your time.

So that's the number one thing I'd say, Ken. And then number two, Marcus, don't count on a pain-free ride. You're just setting yourself up for disappointment. That's true. I'm not saying go look for it, right? but you got to be willing to kind of have those school colors of black and blue to do that. And if you've got to a million bucks, you've already figured that out. But the thing that you can do to reduce your pain is keep yourself surrounded by a community

of people that are three or four steps down this road ahead of you. So you're getting advice, you're getting input from people that have been there, done that. That's the kind of stuff that we see happen all the time in the all-access community because people just talking back and forth about their challenges and their victims. And so just surrounding yourself with those kind of folks is really important. And then the last thing I would say to you, a lot of people get surprised by is you are in the people, business, pure and simple. I don't care if you're in construction products.

I don't care if you're in manufacturing. It's people. And so you've got to become an expert at inspiring people, leading people, helping people, supporting people. Marcus, you're the people, you know, person in your business. You've got to be the people expert at your company. So you're saying it's about people? It's about people.

I love it. All right, that's why we call him Coach Falcon. Second question today, and last question, is from Wendy Joe. By the way, I love the name. Love it. Wendy's great, but you throw Joe on the end of it? And it's really nice. Wendy Joe, this is the question here.

She is pursuing a degree in agribusiness and the arts. So Wendy Joe's very impressive already. And here's the heart of her question. She knows what we say a lot. This is a long-time Ontario leadership listener. You could tell by her question because she's talking about, you tell us all the time, John, that business classes, you know, they aren't all they're cracked up to be. And so here's the heart of her question.

Am I better off choosing experience like an Ontario leadership conference, reading other business books, podcasts, on and on and on the list could go? She says, do I do more of that? Are they a total waste of time? these business classes. It's a fair question. It is. Some tension there. What do you say? Absolutely. So I go option C, do both. I like it. There is value in taking the classes. So yeah, take those classes, go to school, but don't think you know it all. And here's another tip when it comes to taking those classes. Try and take classes from adjunct professors if there's good ones where

you're going to school, because these are people that are working in industry and teaching a class once in a while, as opposed to people that are doing research all day long and teaching a class once in a while, because you want somebody who's been there, done that. So look for good adjuncts to take classes from. And then at the same time, do everything you can to be working in the field, reading the books on leadership and everything else that you can, because that's going to add to what you learn. Look, you've got to learn the people skills, entrepreneurialism, all of those things that you won't learn in, let's say, an agribusiness or an MBA program. program, but there is a set of specific technical knowledge that you need to get, and a school

is a good place to get that. It shortens the learning curve. That's why I say, don't think you know it all, because you could go out in the industry and spend 10 years and learn this stuff, or you can sit down in a school for about four years, three or four years, and get this stuff crammed in your head and then apply it, but don't think you know it all. When you get out of school, go on a listening tour and be ready to learn a whole lot more. I love that.

So do what you have to do and do what you'll want to do. You got to do both. If you want the degree, you've got to take the classes. But you've got to dive in on other places. Can I say one last thing? All right. Yeah, don't pay a bunch of money for a name brand degree. Don't go out of state.

I like that. Go do what you can afford. Don't go in debt to get a degree. By the way, that's straight from Dave. That is absolutely right. Just get the paper and focus on the experience. Yep. All right, John, thanks for stopping by.

And we want to thank Marcus and Wendy Joe for their questions. Again, shoot your questions for Ask the Coach podcast at entreleadership.com. So we recently did an Entree Leadership One Day event in the great city of Seattle, Washington. And during one of the breaks, I was out shaking hands, hanging out at the all-access booth. And a young lady came up to me, and she introduced herself, and she said, I'm a big fan of the podcast, and this is what I do. And as she began to explain her business, I was believe. alone away. Then she sort of kind of

told me the whole picture, but she was very, very humble. And so I began to ask some follow-up questions, and long story short, I realized very quickly that Christy Johnson was a real go-getter. She was the absolute epitome of an entree leader.

And she's doing work that matters. So I said to her, I said, well, would you be willing to be on the podcast sometime? And of course she said, yes, I came back. Eric, the producer, made it happen and you're going to love this story. This is a woman who gets it, who's making things happen, who is one of you, by the way. And that's why I'm so excited about this. She says a big celebrity or author. She's just like you men and women who listen to this

podcast every month. And so we got on the phone with her to talk about where she is, where she's going, and I think you're going to learn and grow. And most importantly, you're going to be encouraged. Here's Christy Johnson. Christy, I've got to ask you, at what point did you begin to listen to the Entry Leadership Podcast? Do you remember? In the summer of 2013, didn't have any business experience or even any retail experience. So I quickly read Dave's book, Entry Leadership. And I loved that book so much that I thought, I want more organization.

And if you go, this is what you're looking for. That's great. Well, you know, we don't want to make this a big praise session for our podcast, but because you're a successful entrepreneur and you have told us that this podcast has really helped you, maybe outline a couple of areas where it is really practically helping you on a weekly basis. So this podcast helps me in my business. With the collective wisdom of decades of interview, I'm able to take that information in this broken down time. and apply what has taken them tens of thousands of hours to learn and grow from. And I get to apply that information immediately into my organization. And I get to hear this while I'm driving in the car, going for a run, getting ready for work.

And for me, this is just so valuable because I don't have the business background as far as school goes or even experience. I'm in my 20s still. I have two small children, and so I need this information, and I need it quickly, because the business is growing faster than I can keep up with, and I want to make sure that as my business grows, I can continue to grow as a leader, and I can continue to meet my business where it is. All right, so this is perfect, because I want you to tell the story of purpose, your business, what you're doing. So let's start with what do you do?

So I started a business in 2013 actually out of my living room. The goal was just to use style and use loving women for a bigger purpose. And the idea behind starting it was that we would love women, and we would give 10% of net profits to organizations that heal the hearts and lives of people around the world. And then as the business got going in my living room, it began to take off. And the crazy part of this is that I was in a time of my life that was very unlikely to start a business. I had a three-year-old and a one-year-old. Wow.

If you have children, you know that's a crazy time just to keep up with them. And then my husband is a submarine officer in the Navy, and we live 3,000 miles away from family and friends. And so the idea of starting a business at this time in my life truly was crazy. but I genuinely felt that it was appalling. And as soon as I overcame that fear of just kind of breaking the mold or doing something a little different

or doing something scary, I just jumped. I jumped into the idea, and I started small. So I started by testing it in my home by calculating the risk that way. And then as the business started growing, it was easier to take that next step and open our first storefront.

We've grown and how you shop can change a life. That's so great. I want to go back because I want you to share your heart with our listeners, specifically those who are going, I'd love to start something like this, a business that does good, and it matters to me, but I don't know how I'm going to do it. It is possible. What would you say to those folks who are thinking,

I just can't do it? I don't have the time. It's not the right time. What would you say? Well, how did I disqual? feet. I knew that my gift was in style, and I knew that my, to use my gift for a greater good. And it just so happens that the idea of a business came from this. And what I would want to share with someone is there's this moment when you have an idea and fear wants to creep in and say,

don't do it. I really had to kind of overcome those limiting beliefs about what I could accomplish and really challenge myself to break the mold. And then I had to accept that God was really going to step into this. If he was calling me to do it, he was going to cover the gaps. And a part of what this podcast had time and learn how to still be a wife and a mother and also just from listening to Christy Wright or just from listening to. And so I didn't know that before. And I just so glad that I jumped.

I started small. I'm glad I can say because of that, in a year and a half from living room to now we have 22 team members. In our first year, we served over six. We did half a million in revenues. Wow. And now we're looking at our second year with two storefronts, the clothing line, and we're tripling all of those numbers in such a short amount of time.

So I'm so glad that I jumped, and I would challenge other people to... I love this because you did start small, and now you're really starting to get some great momentum of accomplish so much. Here's a question. When did you know it was the right time to scale? That seems to be a really difficult decision to make for people when you start small and you get some early success. What did you learn about scaling? Well, I can be scaling because we have the business. So we said if you're going to move or if we are going to move, this needs to, so we can take these profits now and then reach risk. I think it's so much smarter to learn those lessons. In our company,

we set down and planned out our budget for the next year. We realized if we really want to say that our team and our customers and our empowerment partners are number one, let's figure out where we're actually spending our money. And then we were able to define important to us and then allocate the appropriate amount of money and resources to those areas because it was actually a little bit off. We were actually spending money on... This is so fun to talk with you, Christy. I know you, we met, by the way, folks, at the Entree Leadership one day in Seattle last fall.

And she came up. This lady is just a ball of inspiration. She's a go-getter, as you can tell. And I love these stories. It is men and women, like Christy, who are the future of the American economy. That is not a bombastic overstatement. And so I want to do something here. I love to do this, Christy, so I'm going to put you on the spot, all right?

Of course, this has to be approved by you. We're going to do it right here on the podcast. But I want to give a special offer, some kind of a discount to our audience at purposeboutique.com, knowing that this purchase is going to be a quality purchase. They're going to get something great, but more importantly, the purchase is going to matter. And we're going to help you tell your story more. That's what I want to do. So what can we do for our audience?

All right. Well, this question actually comes on the perfect day because we actually are launching our purpose dress line, which is made by hope and dignity by survivors of injustice here in the USA. Wow. And so we would love to offer 20% off to any of the listeners if they use the code, entree, on our website at purposeboutique.com. Purposeboutique.com, that's where you go, folks. And all you got to do is search the purpose dress line.

So for you guys out there, this is a big win for you guys. I mean, we struggle men in getting a great gift. Now you can go get a great gift online. You don't even have to drive your car anywhere. You get your wife a great dress, and it's got a story attached to it. This is what I like about it. I love this. Chrissy, thank you for letting me put you on the spot and doing that.

I think this will be great fun. So hopefully our audience will respond in force, and we can just do a little part in making the world a better place. And we really appreciate you being a part of our listening audience. That's why I wanted to do this, folks. Christy is not a big shot bestselling author. She is the actual reason we do this podcast. And she is making it happen in her team.

So I'm cheering you on from the Music City and keep it up, Christy, and we will stay in touch. And again, your time is so valuable. We're really excited to hang out with you today. So thanks. Thank you for having me. All right, again, Christy Johnson is one of you. She's somebody who's doing something that matters, and thus I want you to go Check her out.

Purposeboutique.com. Purposeboutique.com is where she is. And, you know, I would just love, let me just throw this out there. I would just love to get an email one day or Eric get an email and he and I are meeting and we hear that some of you out there connected with her and you did something together. I mean, I don't know that that's going to happen, but it would just be fun. Would it not, Eric, to see listeners hear somebody who's just, just like them, and they go, yeah, I'm going to go out there, and I'm going to partner with Christy, and we're going to do something that matters.

This is what I want to see happen in the Entree Leadership podcast listener community. So there you go. I'm going to throw it out there. I'll tell you what else I'm going to throw out there is some thanks. I want to thank John Falcons, our head coach of Entree Leadership. By the way, I just made up that title, Eric. I think that's kind of fun. I want to get him a whistle and a hat.

And maybe some of those obnoxiously short bike coaching shorts, you know, from the 80s that were just horrible. Be kind of funny for him. Eric is, what you can't see behind the glasses, Eric, he was grossed out by that mental image, but it would be funny to see Coach Falcons in the coach's garb from 1985. I want to thank Allie Brown and Christy Johnson for availing us of their time. It was really good stuff.

Of course, we love Clayton Mask from InfusionSoft, and you, the listener, as I always do, but I do mean on behalf of Eric the producer and the entire entree-leashir of team, Thank you so much for listening. We'll talk with you again very soon.