the bossbabe podcast - 245. How To Grow + Develop A Top-Performing Team with Susan Sarich of SusieCakes

Episode Date: August 30, 2022

Susan Sarich is baking something exciting at SusieCakes, a quickly growing dessert brand that celebrates the women who inspired the recipes + operate the business. She’s built a company culture that honors the individual experience of its staff – and she’s here to tell us exactly how she did it. Highlights: The key to building a team + cultivating a strong company culture. How to honor motherhood in your business. Why you should always follow your gut + what you risk when you don’t. Links: SusieCakes — The most festive way to celebrate! Now featuring nationwide delivery  Follow: bossbabe: @bossbabe.inc Danielle Canty: @daniellecanty

I realized that this desire to create this business was greater than my fear of failure. And I knew that I would rather launch the business and fail than not launch the business and have regrets. And that's another really important thing is that most people let fear determine their future versus taking control of their future, right? So that was a mindset and I was good with that. A boss babe is unapologetically ambitious and paves the way for herself and other women to rise, keep going and fighting on. She is on a mission to be her best self in all areas.

It's just believing in yourself. Confidently stepping outside her comfort zone to create her own vision of success. Vision of success. Welcome, Susan, to the Boss Babe podcast. As a fan of Susie Cakes, I'm very excited to have you on here today. Thank you so much. I'm excited to talk to you. Yeah, and I think this is going to be a really powerful conversation because you've been an entrepreneur for 16 years, is it now? That's correct. And so I'm really excited to really dive into some of the roller coaster rides that you've been on. But I always kind of like to start the podcast by taking it back to the beginning because I'm so interested in how people come up with their businesses in the first

place, what inspires them to start? What inspires them, the gaps in the market, whatever they're seeing? So what really inspired you 16 years ago to decide, you know what, I'm going to start a business called Suzy Cakes? Okay. Well, there are really multiple facets to why I decided to start the business. The first was I had grown up in Chicago and spent a lot of time with my Midwest grandmothers. And they lived across the alley from each other. Their names were Mildred and Madeline. And every time I went over to their house, there was always a great baked good on the kitchen table, right? So I grew up with a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and apple pies and oatmeal cookies and everything

we all know and love from our childhood. And when I was living in California, had relocated to California, I was noticing that there weren't a lot of homestyle bakeries where things were made from scratch on site. So something with butter, flour, sugar, and eggs. And around this time, this was the early 2000s, the FDA started requiring nutritional labels on food in the grocery stores. So I think that consumers got much more informed about what they were eating in the chocolate chip cookie at the grocery store that they were buying that was in the clamshell. And the font was so small on the ingredients, there were 85 things in it. And I think most people know a chocolate chip cookie should have a handful of ingredients, and that's all it should have.

So I think there was this epiphany of sorts that there really isn't the desserts that I grew up with in this marketplace in California. It seemed to be what I called a dessert deficit at the time. Not only was there not homemade products, but also desserts were getting super overcomplicated. So when you go into restaurants, and even today, you see something that's like a deconstructed pineapple upside down cake is my famous example, where the cake was on one part of the plate, the caramel sauce on one, and then the pineapple on the other, which is not how a pineapple upside down cake should be. And I think most people don't want that type of dessert that's in some spun sugar cage and wrapped in marzipan. People

want desserts that actually taste good. And I had these great recipes from my two grandmothers. I had inherited their three by five handwritten recipe cards. And I thought, you know what? I think it's time that the world experiences these great homemade Midwest desserts. Yeah. I love that. And I think that when you notice these things though, there's a real big difference between seeing a gap and then actually implementing it and going for it. So I'm really curious as to what were the things that were like, oh, I'm going to actually do this. What supported the idea or of me saying, I'm going to move forward and do this and that I should do this was not only that opportunity that I saw in California in the market. But the fact that I had come out of

working in hotels and restaurants and nightclubs, country clubs for 13 years at the time and realized that a lot of women were not in higher level positions at organizations because it was very difficult to climb the corporate ladder per se, because you were required to work hours, days, weekends, holidays when everybody else was off. So throughout my twenties, every New Year's Eve, I was working in a ballroom somewhere dealing with a New Year's Eve party and not at home with friends and family. And I think a lot of women thought, I don't know if this is the life I want for myself. I want to at some point have a family or even have a date on a Friday night. It was hard to do that. I saw that continuously through my career and I had great male mentors, but I really didn't see a lot of women in the C-suite or even in the VP suite

at that time. And most of my college roommates who graduated with degrees in hotel and restaurant management weren't even in the industry anymore because it was just simply too hard to try to manage having a life outside of work. That was really my inspiration to say, can I have a business model that brings these great Midwest desserts for my grandmothers, build a business model that allows women to not have to work 24-7. An example of that is we don't need to be open on Thanksgiving Day to sell pies for Thanksgiving that people could pick up on Wednesday. And also the extra benefit of all of this is paying homage to women of the greatest generation who came to this country so that we could have better lives

and opportunities. And that was something that both of my grandmothers instilled with me is that we came to this country, our families came to this country so that you can do whatever you want to do, whatever you put your mind to. And so I thought, what a beautiful way to honor them, honor the women of that generation, bring in a career opportunity for career advancement for today's contemporary women and have great baked desserts. And so I think the combination of all of that really gave me the courage to say, I think this has legs. I think that this is more than just great baked goods. It has a broader purpose. And that's so true. And I think it's a really important thing to remember, just like you're highlighting that a lot of people,

you know, moved here with the great American dream in mind. And I think as entrepreneurs, what I've learned in my journey is we're the people that actually get to create that for the next generation. It's very hard for corporate, not hard. They just don't seem to do it. Corporate don't necessarily evolve at the pace that entrepreneur businesses can evolve. I always think it's kind of an entrepreneur businesses get to turn their boat, whereas corporate trying to turn a ship, it takes a lot longer to do the same degrees of movement. And what's so empowering, I always find this entrepreneurial journey is that I can make changes very, very instantly. And that's really

within my hands. So I'm hearing that very similar, you know, values in the sense of, okay, I want to make a difference. And the best way to make a difference is via creating a business. I think that sometimes an opportunity that is lost on a lot of people, or they miss it. You can start a business for your own financial freedom, your own freedom, whatever it is that you are wanting to create, but the impact that you can have on that is really, truly incredible. So we'll come back to this in a second, but let's just stay on the point of, okay, I have a business idea. I want to be doing this. Like, I think it has legs. Lots of women listening to this podcast in the very similar position. They have this idea. They think it has legs, but what did you do next? What was the things that you had to work on most? Was it the strategy

points or was it actually your mindset to make that leap? Because to me, there's two huge things that you have to overcome at that point. I think I had the DNA for risk-taking. I have the DNA for risk-taking. When people asked me, what does it take to be an entrepreneur? I said, first of all, you cannot be risk adverse. Inherently, starting something new comes with risk. You have to have a comfort level around that. And I did. I absolutely had a comfort level. And I realized that this desire to create this business was greater than my fear of

failure. And I knew that I would rather launch the business and fail than not launch the business and have regrets. And that's another really important thing is that most people let fear determine their future versus taking control of their future, right? So that was a mindset, and I was good with that, comfortable with that. The piece about the strategy and what I need to open this business, is it a viable financial model? It might be the best idea in the world, but if it's not viable financially and doesn't make money, then it's not a business. So I started researching because I had

not worked in a bakery per se. I had worked in food service as part of larger hotels and restaurants, but hadn't worked in a bakery. So I started doing a lot of research on bakeries. And I did that by traveling, going to bakeries, taking notes, counting cars and parking lots to see how many people were coming in on a Saturday. What were they buying? How much money did I need to make every day to cover rent? All of those things led me to a very robust and detailed business model that said, yes, actually this can work. If you sell this many, it was so basic though, Danielle, was if you sell 35 cupcakes on a Tuesday, you can pay your rent at the end of the week. And so that piece I had nailed down very well. But what happened then after I had a business plan, and I took about a year to do that.

I spent a lot of time doing that. So you're juggling your corporate position whilst doing this research on the weekends and mapping out that plan. Doing that, mapping that out. And then as we got closer, I cut off my corporate job and put myself fully into doing this full-time to launching Susie Cakes. And the business model, I thought, well, you just take your business model and your plan and you present it to a bank and they give you a loan. And what I quickly realized was that very difficult at that time to get money as a female entrepreneur. 20-something banks told me it was a bad idea. They were all male bankers. I don't know whether they realized it or not. They were very dismissive of the idea. And even the SBA, which is Small Business

Administration, which is literally in business to help small business owners launch their business. They said, Susie, baking is a hobby, not a career. You should go back to hotels because you have such a great future in hotels. And that only made me want to do this more. Some people, that would have taken them down. These experts are telling me not to do this. I really shouldn't do it. So I'm so curious of why that actually spurred you on. Cause I'm trying to put myself in my shoes and wondering how I would feel. And like, what do you think it was about your personality or what do you think about the idea that you were like, no, I'll show them. There's going to be two types

of people listening to this podcast. Some people are like, Oh, if an expert is telling me not to do it, I really shouldn't do it. And then they'll start this like, I'll show them. Yeah. And that's why I love having the opportunity to tell this story. More people than not will shut down somebody's idea and find all the reasons why they shouldn't do it instead of looking at the reasons why they should do it. Certainly it gave me pause. There were times when I thought, am I the crazy one that I think this can work? But this is the point where I think everybody needs at least one person in their corner to say, you can do this and you need to do this. And I will be here if you fall or to pick you up. And for me, that was my partner in life. And he is still my partner in life today.

But he did say, I would rather see you try and fail than not do this because it is literally what gives you your energy in life. I've never seen you so excited about anything since we've been together. Having him in my corner certainly helped. And I think whether that's a girlfriend or whether it's your parents or whether whoever it is tells you, you've got this and I will be here for you. And so I think that's really important because a lot of times people say, oh, did you do this all on your own? And nobody does anything on their own, right? We all have cheerleaders back in our corner that we need when days get dark. And there were dark days. And I did have moments of doubt, but I always bounced back from it to say, no, I've got this. I can do this. And I'm going to.

I love that. Failures are learnings and failures and rejections are pointing you in a new direction, but there's nothing worse than regret at the end of the day. And if you don't follow through with these ideas and plans, what are you going to look back on? Like, you look back on a failure and I was like, well, at least I tried and I learned from it. And it took me this new direction versus when you don't try at all. Yeah. Like, where does that actually leave you? And what does that do for morale? And I think those of us who are entrepreneurs, that's one of the key things that drive us. I would rather try and learn something from it than not try at all.

You can't fail if you don't quit. Like if you're like, okay, well, I'm going to try this shop. And if it doesn't work, then maybe I'll end up delivering. Or like, there's always different ways to do stuff. And anyway, I just had a meeting actually, my co-founder Natalie just came back from maternity. We had this problem in front of us. And I was like, okay, let's come up with all the ways that we could solve this. We don't have to just come up with one way.

There's all these ways that we could be like, oh, maybe this could work and solve this problem. Maybe this could work and solve this problem. And I do think it's the same, but where there is a will, there is normally a way. And the other important piece is I had had a French bistro restaurant a few years prior that did not succeed. And that taught me more about how to enter into Susie Cakes. And I'll give you an example around that. We had opened our restaurant and it was June of 2001. And it was the hottest place and we had a great publicist and we were serving 200 plus dinners a night. Two months later, 9-11 hits and we go from being the hottest thing in town to nobody wanting to go out to eat. And so very quickly, we ran through our cash reserves.

We had to lay off most of our team. I started being the hostess. My partner started being the bartender. We had to make this work however we could. But despite all of our efforts, we were still struggling. We ended up, one of us taking a job in San Francisco Monday through Friday and then switching on the weekend. So one or the other of us was running the restaurant while the other one was taking a job in San Francisco. And I learned the most critical thing I learned out of that whole experience was that you can never take any of your guests for granted, right? So every single person who walks through the door and wants to support your business or purchase something from your business or your service, they are your lifeblood. They are why you are there. And so every single guest that walked through after 9-11 who wanted to dine in the restaurant, I treated them like they were the

only person there. And even if they just wanted to get a glass of wine, I was happy for that. When I opened Susie Cakes, had I not had that mindset of continuous high quality guest service and valuing your guests, and that's what we instill in our teams today, I think I would have opened the door and said, oh, this is pretty easy. People come in, they buy cakes, and you've got a business model. But because of that, I had this resilience when the first recession hit in 2008, which was pretty quickly after we had opened and certainly going through COVID. I think our guests are very loyal to Susie Cakes because of the manner in which we treat them. So, so powerful. And two things in there, it was like the fact that you didn't take that one failure to mean that you are bad at business

and you couldn't try again. And I was actually just sharing recently on a training that I did that it took me two years to really understand online business. I decided I wanted to start an online business from being a chiropractor in 2016, but it wasn't until 2018 that I found a boss babe. And in that were a ton of failures. Like I was trying like Amazon and multi-level marketing, all these places. And I think that the more people talk about this and talk about the fact that it is okay to fail along the way, but you actually learn that, learn what you do like, what you're good at, what you're not very good at, all of those things. And that actually goes to your next one. And really, if I think about top businesswomen and businessmen, most of them have been open about their failures along the way.

It's not the first businesses got them to the multiple millionaires. Some of them even have bankruptcy and bounced back from that. And I think talking about this side of business is actually even more powerful than successes, because like you said, there's often things that you learn, those failures that you then bring to your next business. So I think it's just a word of encouragement for anyone listening that if you have had failures along the way or tried things that's not so worked out, that sometimes it sets you up to be in an even better position the next time around. Sometimes you don't know what the lesson is you're being taught until after.

Yeah. And then hindsight and reflection and you're piecing it all together. So, so true. And also just that customer aspect as well, I think is also really important. You know, we learned that in chiropractic, you know, one thing I would do is, you know, it applies differently to every single business, but I would always write down like partner's names, children's names, because those are the aspects that made people feel like they were cared for. And I think that's what you're saying too. And it's like making people feel welcome. And when you can stand out, like how does your business stand out against other people's? Most people look to pricing or branding, but actually customer service and how people feel when they walk in. And these can sometimes be intangible

things, but they really hit the tangible assets of your P&L and your profit. So how did you also instill that within the people that you hired? Because to me, that also then becomes a culture. Let's take a quick pause to talk about my new favorite all-in-one platform kajabi you know i've been singing their praises lately because they have helped our business run so much smoother and with way less complexity which i love not to mention our team couldn't be happier because now everything is in one place so it makes collecting data creating pages collecting, all the things so much simpler. One of our mottos at Boss Babe is simplify to amplify and Kajabi has really helped us do that this year. So of course I needed to share it here with you. It's the perfect time of year to do a

bit of spring cleaning in your business, you know, get rid of the complexity and instead really focus on getting organized and making things as smooth as possible. I definitely recommend Kajabi to all of my clients and students. So if you're listening and haven't checked out Kajabi yet, now is the perfect time to do so because they are offering Boss Babe listeners a 30-day free trial. Go to kajabi.com slash Boss Babe to claim your 30-day free trial. That's Kajabi.com slash Boss Babe. Correct. Exactly. I had the values for the company set up at the get-go.

And the mission for Susie Cakes is connecting through celebration. So what I was looking for on day one and still today is somebody who understands what connecting through celebration means. And as long as somebody has a mindset of helping others or wanting to have a connection with people, they're going to be successful at Susie Kix. We can teach anything, right? But you can't teach that mindset. It's either inherent or not. And if you have an interview question that says, tell me the last time you received great service, and someone can give you like a really powerful story of like when they felt great and what they appreciated about that, they understand it.

And so that's a question on our application. That's a question we ask in person. And it's something that we really need to see in an individual before they join our team. I love that. Like bringing, making sure you take that value that you have into the interview side of things. And that's actually a great question for a lot of people as well. Think about something that really relates to your business. It really shows for us. It's the same. It's very hard for us to hire people who aren't passionate about women in the workplace, women building wealth, women having independence and being unapologetically ambitious. If they don't really align with those kind of values that we have also in our business,

it's that they don't quite get the company. And I think that's what you're saying. There has to be this feeling within the company that if you want to expand, it's about you to choose super wisely who you're hiring. I'm also curious, what are other things that you would look at when hiring people? And maybe we can loop in the whole conversation around mothers and that flexibility of working that was so important for you to create when you started building your own business. I'm incredibly proud. It could be one of the things I'm most proud of that 85% of our team members are female at Susie Cakes. And that is women at all stages in life from those who are just graduating high school and are looking to start their career or those who have a college degree or women whose kids started kindergarten to women in their 50s and

60s whose children have left the house. And the way that I attracted women to the brand, I believe, was by the way the business model was set up with the days and hours of operation that we had, which allows women to have dinner with their families, get their kids ready for school in the morning, maybe take a yoga class if they don't have kids, maybe go out with their girlfriends for drinks in the evening. We're not open the hours of some other, say a coffee shop that's open at 5.30 in the morning till nine o'clock at night or a restaurant that closes at midnight. So there was something very, very appealing to women about the flexibility of the hours at Susie Cakes and knowing that

we had a value of wanting women to feel that they could have a career that they were passionate about. So many women are passionate about food and the connection that that has with other people and how it makes people feel good and warm and comforted and cared for. And I think women are natural caregivers and like Susie Cakes just lends itself to that, right? So what could be better than helping somebody with their wedding cake, right? Or baking a beautiful pie for them to have on Thanksgiving, any of those things. So we really started attracting women. And I think when women knew that that was one of my core values of wanting women to have progressive careers in food service without having to

sacrifice other areas of their life, it was a very appealing proposition. How do you balance that? Because obviously, like I said said Natalie has just had her baby too and so for me it's actually really interesting and noticing firsthand you know we want to be independent women we strive to have our own careers and physically there are things that women have to do that men can't do and I think that's also almost biologically, it puts this block that none of us can remove unless you choose not to have children. But really it's something that we have to even address as employees and how we work with women too, because even during her pregnancy and afterwards, there's like the physical stress on your body. I mean, I've not had children,

but when you have someone very close to you, almost like a sister have a child, you hear all the things that no other woman really shares with you. And I had no appreciation of physically demanding even the pregnancy was and then afterwards and then the hormones and all these things. Like how do you create also a workplace that takes those things into account and has that flexibility around that and still drives the business forwards? Because ultimately, if it's not a successful business, there's no jobs for anyone. So I'm just curious on how you've done that over the last 16 years. I think when you have a female CEO who believes that there's a place for everybody in the organization, and even though I am not a mother myself, like you, I've seen enough people close

to me have children and know all the challenges that go along with it. And so being understanding really of if somebody can't come into work because something, you know, they don't feel well or having morning sickness or something like that, I think we're just a lot more tolerant of that because usually you are reporting into another woman who has had children and been walking in your shoes. And so it's a lot more relatable to understand the issues that a woman who is either pregnant or just had a child are going through if you are a female yourself. I just think that, again, it's different. Yeah. And do you think you've created a culture where it's even spoken about? Because I'm also curious if women previously maybe in corporate backgrounds or if they have maybe bosses, women or men that don't really understand this aspect or care to have empathy for it. Like, is there a culture of not really wanting to say like, hey, I can't come in today because I am like sick as a dog. So I've got morning sickness. And I guess while morning sickness is not just in the morning or like hey like my even just like coming back to work I'm like learning about children going through teething processes at different time all of a sudden they sleep then they stop sleeping and

then just all these different aspects that I'm just wondering how as women we create that safe space to even share the reason behind why they're having challenges in the first place? Allowing people, actually inviting them, not just allowing them, but inviting them to be opened and honest and then supporting them. But it has to be twofold, right? If somebody's open and honest with you about what's going on with them and then you're not supportive, well, then that's defeated the whole purpose of what you're trying to do by having somebody be open and honest about what the challenges they're having outside of the workplace that they are battling. It comes down to having really supportive communication throughout the organization and hiring the right team in the HR department is very key, right? It always starts with who you are hiring and assuring that they live those values.

And everybody at Susie Cakes knows what the values are, know what is important to us as an organization. And if somebody is not living the values, then they're not going to be at the organization very long. Does that make sense? Yeah. No, it does. And I think that's also, there's a give and there's a take as well. And it was all about, I guess, that balance. And, you know, there are definitely,

let's say, values that underpin even those types of conversations as well. And I guess someone can be right for a role in so many different ways, and they can be wrong for a role in so many different ways outside of being whatever gender they are. but like you say, the values that they morally have too. And I think everything, and particularly in small businesses is one of the biggest things that I've learned is like, if you don't have a similar moral compass or value driven base, inherently you're never going to be a fit for that company because there's too many differences in attitudes or, you know, like, and I'm not saying my way is always the right way. I'm just saying that when we create a culture that is about ambition and putting out different

pieces of content and different angles, that might not be for somebody who is just like, you know what, I'm not ambitious at all. And I don't care to be ambitious. And that's also really amazing, but they might find the pace then that we were kind of challenging. So I just think all of this is just really good conversations to be having around culture and how we create better culture for all of our teams. So I just really appreciate you sharing your wisdom over the last 16 years. Are there any other aspects that you've also done that you feel have improved culture? Like, do you do team building exercises? Do you bring people together? Like, what are the things that you found are really important? We do quite a bit of that. So we first, you know, the connecting piece has to start within the four

walls of each bakery. And our teams are working closely together. There's between 10 and 20 individuals in each bakery location. We have 26 locations now. And it starts with how they are appreciated amongst their peer group and whether it is we have EE cards, which exceeds expectations, right? So the general manager has a stack of gift cards that they just pass out when somebody is either having a hard day or did a great thing for a guest. And we pass those out. And quarterly, we have team member of the quarter luncheons, and they have a theme. And a team member of the quarter is awarded $100 because they supported their team members that quarter. We have anniversary gifts.

Tenure is highly celebrated at Suzy Cakes. So when I first founded the company, I said, oh, at 10 years, someone should get a five-day trip to Hawaii for two people thinking, who is going to be at the company in 10 years? I really made this great 10-year gift. And at this point in time, I think we've had 18 people take their 10-year anniversary trip. What in this day and age is unheard of, especially in food service, right? And so it first started by saying, oh, at three years, you get a different color bandana, like the karate kid, right? As you're advancing in Suzy Cakes, you get a Suzy blue bandana. And then at five years, you get a watch.

And at eight years, you get an iPad. And so there's these milestones that we celebrate as an organization. And we make a really big deal out of this. And there's flowers and balloons and making sure that people feel incredibly valued at their journey in Susie Cakes. And we also incorporate our values into everything from, as I shared, the application process, but also annual reviews are, you know, how are you living the values? We incorporate them into our awards. When somebody gets an award, it's always around a value that they are living within the organization. And we have a monthly newsletter. Again,

just like always kind of reiterating the celebration piece and this connection piece throughout any avenue that we possibly can. I think that is really incredible. And it's one of my biggest learnings more recently. I was never from a corporate background and I've always worked in startups before founding my own startup. You know, now we've brought on a new COO and more senior team who come from bigger company backgrounds than Natalie or I have. Like it's so, so powerful to retain employees over a long period of time because hiring takes so long, training takes so long. And really also, I think it says a lot about a company when you have that many people have done 10 years you know you're creating a really really good workplace environment

and I love that that you have these milestones I'm literally gonna call my COO after this and be like we should have milestones because you know I say this over and over again but Boss Babe wouldn't be where it is today without its teammates. And I'm sure you agree, Susie Cakes wouldn't be here today without its employees either. And as founders, I think that's very, very important to come back to. And yes, in the early stages, it's very, very scrappy and you're not necessarily thinking about any of these retention pieces, particularly if you're in a company that doesn't necessarily have a brick and mortar side and it is this, but the sooner you do think about it, the better. And the soon as you get someone who has their eye on team progression, I think culture,

you have to have your eye on from the get go. You have to be very intentional about your culture, but that team progression and that journey that people can take with you. I think we were missing for a little while for sure. We're getting there, but it was definitely not even on my radar when I first started. So I think a lot of people, depending on what background are going to be similar, if you've come from corporate backgrounds, you're going to think about it earlier than if you've always been scrappy and in the entrepreneurial space, you're like, wait, oh, I have to think about these things. So I'm really curious, like what would you, looking back to 16 years ago, what advice would you give yourself when you founded this company?

Are there things you would do differently? Things that you would change? What would that look like for you? There are many lessons, of course, but I think the one that stands out the most to me is to, I wish I had followed my intuition more frequently. Anytime I went against my gut because something seemed like on paper or in black and white that we should do it, move forward with it, whether it was a real estate decision or a hiring decision to say, oh, this person has 10 years of experience and educated.

But my core was like, I don't know. It seemed like those things never worked out. And every time I said, I kind of maybe went against that and said, or took the person, hired the person who had no experience. I just think they've got it. They've got that secret sauce and that service mind and that desire to do more. So following your gut and your intuition, you will never be wrong. You'll never be wrong. I could say that wholeheartedly. And that would be very big piece of advice. I would say, you know your business better than anybody, right? You, you founded it, you had the vision for it. And that there'll be a lot of people and a lot of experts and consultants who will come in and tell you, you should do something that again, you know,

is not right. Trust yourself, trust yourself. So much power in that intuition. 100%. I really agree with that. I had the conversation with Jamie and Ken Lima who found it cosmetics. And she reminded me of this actually. And she said the same, like, there'll be some things that there's just people advise you to do and move forward with, but there's just something in your gut that is saying no, and always, always listen to that because that is what will set you apart more than often as an entrepreneur is when you follow your gut versus the sense. I'm going to put that into quotation marks because, you know, quite often you're doing things that other people haven't done as entrepreneurs. You know, Susie Keats, she found it because there's a gap in the market that you notice the same with Boss Babe, you know, so you're often as an entrepreneur pioneering and moving through spaces that people

haven't traditionally been through. Same with Jamie, she founded a beauty company for the normal woman versus all the beauty queens that were currently modeling for them. And when you go against that grain, you're always going to have people that say no to you. And sometimes that's actually a good sign. And it's one that you're like, Oh, they're saying no, they can't quite see what I can see right now. But I know in my gut, I am this consumer, I am this person and it is really needed. So I think I just love that that was like one of the key things that came out for me from your entrepreneurial experience and sharing that with so many, because I think it's also an untapped superpower of a woman, in my opinion. I think we always say

that woman's intuition, like she knows. And I think we always all get to listen to that a little bit more. So thank you so, so much, Susan, for coming on the show today. Would you like to share any handles, website addresses? Where can people find out more information around you? Sure. We are at suzycakes.com and on Instagram at suzycakesbakery. The other thing I wanted to mention is that we just launched nationwide shipping. And that is a huge initiative for us that I have wanted to do for a very long time. But as you can imagine, trying to ship a cake is not the easiest thing to do. But I think we've really perfected it. And I'm very excited

to be able to bring more cakes to more states and introduce our celebratory cakes and sweets to everybody in the US. I love that. And they're truly delicious. I love what you are doing for women. I love what you're doing for celebrations and just really appreciative for you sharing your words of wisdom in your 16 years of entrepreneurship. So thank you. Thank you so much, Susie. Thank you as well. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening. And if you enjoyed this episode on the Boss Babe podcast, then I'd absolutely love it if you leave us a review. As a thank you, we'll send you our side hustle success kit, your simple no BS guide to keeping track of everything that you need to do to start and grow your business. To access this freebie, all you need to do is leave us a review,

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