Running a Small Retail Business: Lessons Learned

[00:00:00] Corey Winter: Hey there bosses! Corey from the Being Boss team here. I'm popping into let you know about a new way for you to stay up to date in the world as a creative entrepreneur, Brewed. Brewed is a weekly email curated by the Being Boss team just for you. We share articles, podcasts, and resources from around the internet on the topics of mindset, money and productivity to help

[00:00:21] you show up and do the work in your business. Learn more and sign up for free at beingboss.club/brewed. That's beingboss.club/B R E W E D.

[00:00:38] Emily Thompson: Welcome to Being Boss. A podcast for creative business owners and entrepreneurs who want to take control of their work and live life on their own. I'm your host, Emily Thompson. And in this episode, I'm giving you a behind the scenes look at what's happening in my product business Almanac Supply Co, as we move into our fifth year of business, including my top three lessons that I have learned along the way. You can find all the tools, books, and links

[00:01:02] I reference on the show notes at www.beingboss.club. And if you like this episode, be sure to subscribe to the show and share this with a friend.

[00:01:14] Ready for another podcast recommendation for your queue. When you're done here with this episode, I suggest you check out the Success Story podcast, hosted by Scott D. Clary. Brought to you by the HubSpot podcast network. Success story features Q and A sessions with successful business leaders, highlighting conversations on sales, marketing, business, startups, and entrepreneurship.

[00:01:35] Just recently, I tuned into an episode with Kara Goldin, founder of Hint. On that living and undaunted life by overcoming doubt and doubters. As an entrepreneur and podcaster, I so appreciated the stories of her deep curiosity and how she used it to pursue her passions, unapologetically discover Scott's podcast at Kara's episode and more by taking a listen to the success story podcast, wherever you listen to podcasts.

[00:02:09] All right, bosses. I am here so low again today, and I thought I would use this time to give you a bit of an update as to what is happening at Almanac supply co, which is my product in retail company that I launched a couple of years ago. Just to give you a look at some things that I have learned over the past,

[00:02:32] lifetime more or less, and really things that have become especially punctuated over the last year of business, because so many things have happened. And I, I just wanted to distill it down for you so that I could give you this like little peek behind the scenes and what I've been dealing. And not even deal how I've been growing and flourishing as a business owner, outside of this podcast that I run, I feel like so often I am in this space sharing things that I'm learning in the Being Boss community, talking to those bosses are in my mastermind groups or with my business besties.

[00:03:09] And though all of that always comes with a flavor of what's happening in Almanac supply co I have not in a hot moment come and just giving you. Update at what's happening in that company. So many things are moving and changing. And even as I'm recording this episode, we have a couple of irons on the fire that I'm not really ready to share yet.

[00:03:34] Which kind of made me feel like this was a perfect time to just sort of distill everything down into a couple of lessons that I've learned before I go and learn myself a couple more if I may. So that's what we're going to be here doing today. But before I dive in, I do want to share a little bit of some backstory in case this is the first time that you've heard of this, or if you don't really know much about what I'm talking about.

[00:04:01] So I launched almanacs applied. Which is a product and retail company in January of 2018 at Almanac, we focus on making and curating. We are a maker business, but we also curate products from, you know, vendors and caves all around the world. We making curate products that help people connect with nature and embrace seasonal.

[00:04:26] Never we launched in 2018. We launched with a candle line, one candle for each season, as well as a candle for Chattanooga, which is where we are based and crystals. And we launched the crystal business a little bit before crystals were all the craze. I think it was just kind of getting started, but I have long been a rock lover and I have a degree in geography.

[00:04:50] So this element of nature and seasonality and those sorts of things are very. So ingrained in what it is. That I do. So since the very beginning we make our candles in-house so we make our entire line of candles. We also now have prayer candles. I think we may be adding some non made by us candles, in the future.

[00:05:11] That's not a topic for right now. We do make all of our candles. In-house along with several of our other products, too. We partner with several maker, businesses, like many of you to make products, whether they're products that you make and we wholesale them, or we partner for collaborative products. And then we also source especially rocks from all over the world.

[00:05:32] And I love this business very much. And the further I go along, the more and more time I'm actually dedicating to almanacs. So if I had to give you a behind the scenes, look at what my sort of split of time looks like these days, or really in the past, it's probably been 25% Almanac and seventy-five percent Being Boss, I would say over the past couple of months, that has shifted to.

[00:05:58] During the holiday season, it was probably more Almanac than Being Boss. Since the holiday season has ended. It's probably been half and half with over the next couple of months. I think we're going to go pretty face first into most of my time being spent in Almanac for a variety of. One being that we opened a retail store, which I'll talk about in a second and oftentimes I'm needed on the sales floor, but also because the volume of what we're doing is growing so much that I am in here doing a lot of things.

[00:06:29] And also building some processes so I can grow my team in the future, but I'm getting way ahead of myself because I want to talk very briefly about why I started this business because. I wanted it because it was my dream. It has always been my dream to own this kind of business. Even like further backstory.

[00:06:52] My first business was a brick and mortar before you even had Facebook pages for businesses. So really this like in real life, physical store has always been my true entrepreneurial desire. I know. Stumbling into online and I love it here. I'm obviously not leaving I'm here. I have one foot firmly planted in each sort of world of business.

[00:07:16] And I love that about myself. I love that I have accomplished that. And then I'm able to bring the perspectives to both and have both be a part of really both of these. So I did spend years helping creatives build really dreamy businesses through branding and websites. I love doing that. I was very jelly.

[00:07:38] Every time I launched a new website because I wanted that for myself. So. I did it in 2017. I was almost full-time Being Boss. So prior to that, I was doing the branding and websites. I had went pretty full-time Being Boss and we discovered that the conversations that I was bringing to Being Boss were a little flat.

[00:07:59] Because I was podcasting about running a podcast business and that's kind of lame. So I wanted to have more perspective. I had some, did I have room in my schedule? Probably not, probably not, but I felt it was time for me to do the thing that I had been wanting to do for so long. So I started Almanac supply.

[00:08:22] I will say that I share so much of this journey on a podcast that you can go listen to. So if you search wherever it is that you're listening to podcasts, find making a business by Being Boss, you will find two seasons of really the first year of following me through the first year of starting and launching almond app.

[00:08:44] And you can listen to that wherever you listen to podcasts. And there is a season three, four and five that is available exclusively to the Being Boss clubhouse, which is the paid tier of the Being Boss community. So I did share the first year within those first two seasons that everyone has access to, but I have continued a monthly log basically of what is happening at Almanac within the Being Boss community, as we've continued to making a business.

[00:09:13] Gas within that exclusive capacity. So if you're totally digging this and you want more of that, you're welcome to go find it. There I've covered things like the tools that we use to run our e-commerce and how we research and develop products and how we've prepped for the holiday season. And then a follow-up of how all of that prep worked out for.

[00:09:33] So I'm really sharing all kinds of things. And I hear just as much feedback from service-based business owners who appreciate, the inside look as to what it takes to run this business. As I do other maker, product and retail bosses who are in it and whose same capacity that I am. So if you do love this episode and you want more of them, go check out, making a business.

[00:09:57] The first two seasons, wherever you can find them. And then the continuation of that story and the Being Boss. And I did do a recent episode about opening our first brick and mortar location and episode 267 of this Being Boss podcast. So if you just want to know more about that, that was a magical experience.

[00:10:21] You can find that in episode number 267, and if you want to check out Almanac Supply co and all the things that we're doing there, you can find us in almanacsupplyco.com. Now I think I laid the foundation of this conversation with that, that's me that, that's what we're doing at Almanac. And maybe even let me tell you what I'm doing, particularly at Almanac.

[00:10:45] I made a joke recently. I can't remember if it wasn't a Being Boss clubhouse or community meetup or, or maybe it was here on the podcast where I was talking about how I don't even know how to make candles anymore. I have not made a candle at Almanac since probably the first six months of business.

[00:11:05] Six to 12 months of business. Since then, I have not even have a funny story. My mom called me before the holidays. She had bought a bunch of candle making supplies because she wanted to make candles for family members. And as moms often do, she called me and was like, Hey, but do you want to make them? And I know what she meant.

[00:11:23] Like I'm a candle maker. I have all the supplies. I should just be able to like a whip up some candles. Right. And I was like, mom, I don't even know how to do that. Like, I wouldn't even know where to start. I don't even know how to turn on our wax melter. I could probably figure it out. I'm a smart person, but I don't even know how to make candles.

[00:11:42] So what my role is, because I don't know how to do that. And it's because the production has grown so much. There's so much of what is happening at Almanac that I, I didn't even create the systems, let alone, like, can I go in there and, you know, figure it out again. I had to like really have to learn some new things along the way, but what I am doing is I am head of.

[00:12:07] I am the marketing department at Almanac. So if you sign up for our newsletter and I highly recommend that you do, obviously I'm creating that email every single week. I'm creating our social media. I am doing all of the marketing planning around the store and our online I'm keeping our website updated.

[00:12:25] Like I am the marketing digital and otherwise marketing department that. That's really the core of what it is that I do that I contribute. And honestly, more or less, that's my expertise. It's not my favorite hat to wear. I have been pretty open about that here and everywhere. I know marketing, I do marketing.

[00:12:47] I know how to get the job done, but I don't love it. So a lot of what I do at Almanac is that we have some plans in the future to start getting me into the places that, that I most want to do. I also am the CEO role. So I do have David as a partner at Almanac and we are partners. He does so many things that I don't even know what he's doing.

[00:13:09] I'm doing so many things that he doesn't even know what I'm doing. He actually recently told me he was like, I actually don't know what you do all day. And I was like, that's fine. Cause I'm doing so many things. I couldn't even give you a list, but also ditto. But we do know it's all getting done. And so David is my partner, but I really am the CEO role.

[00:13:30] I am making the decisions. I'm obviously asking him and it is a partnership, but whenever it comes to those final decisions, I also have the most business experience. So when it comes to seeing all the pieces of the puzzle and putting things where they go and making those final decisions, though, David often will give me the insights that inform that final decision.

[00:13:52] The final decision is, is mine to make. And then my sort of favorite thing is buying. I love buying rocks y'all and not just rocks, but books and t-shirts and the things that we are putting together to make this retail store happen. I love doing the buying similarly with making products. I love designing the products that we make.

[00:14:19] And creating the systems for making those products. Obviously, candles got out of my hands a long time ago. We have made other products along the way. And then also to some extent, to working with our collaborators, for the additional products that we are making. So products is really my realm. I usually do the initial setup and then David often does a lot of the actual buying, but, but really those products is the piece that I most love.

[00:14:49] So, you know, if it's 50, 50, Marketing and products and I love products and really could do without marketing. It sounds like most bosses in the room, doesn't not. Almanac really is a business that I am all the way in. And so many ways in a way that I haven't had to be in Being Boss in a really long time, which is, you know, the difference between the trajectory of a service-based versus a product business, or even the difference of even a couple of years or Being Bosses, you know, seven, eight years old, Almanac is

[00:15:24] five years old. There's a lot of difference. I think that that three years has made between where I am able to be and Being Boss versus where I'm able to be in Almanac. So that's my role more or less. And I love it. I love the work that I do at Almanac. I love digging in there. I love the numbers, which we'll get into in a moment.

[00:15:48] But today with that foundation, I want to share. A couple of lessons that I've learned over, or really the ones that feel the most punctuated for this moment. So here come three lessons that have been shoved in my brain as a product and retail business owner, over the past couple of years and with where we are moving forward.

[00:16:16] So lesson number one, Oh my God, this one makes me mad. This one actually legitimately annoys me. And that is that your website is your most valuable employee. This is not something that is new. In fact, if you look back at episode number seven, number seven, that's in the 10 episodes of this podcast. We are now in what, 290 something, episode seven of the Being Boss podcast is an episode that is called your website is your most valuable employee.

[00:16:53] And oh boy did the last year really drill into my mind how freaking true that is. And just like a valuable employee. Your website requires constant love and attention. Period. So here's what happened in January or February of 2021. We launched a new website. We are on the Shopify platform. This is not sponsored by Shopify though, for years I've been knocking on your door.

[00:17:23] So if someone is finally hearing this and would like to give me a call, hello@beingboss.club. Thank you. Our website is on Shopify and we had had, we had been using a website template that I built myself, scratch that. I didn't build it myself. It was a pre-made template, a free template from Shopify that I adjusted myself with the help of my web guy, Corey.

[00:17:52] And so this website had been in place since 2018. We'd be used it for several years. It was working just fine. But we had hit a snag, a couple of actually little snacks where it was an old template. And this is like, Probably an episode number seven, I'll tell you that a website is only really going to last you two to three years, because everything changes so quickly.

[00:18:13] And if you have lots of plugins, if you have, or if you just want to keep up with new media trends and those sorts of things, you have to keep your website updated. So we had gotten to the end of the life of that initial website, and we had a couple of things that we wanted to do. So we had a couple apps that weren't updating correctly

[00:18:29] because we were using an old template and we wanted to be able to incorporate more video content, especially for rocks, because imagine a sparkly rock video on a website. Yes, please. We had wanted to incorporate some of those things into our website and so we needed to make a change. So I spent a couple of days finding a really great template.

[00:18:51] Pre-made. That I could customize the way I wanted that supported all the things that I wanted to do. We spent a couple of weeks getting out loaded, updating all of the pages, just like really bossing this website out and we launched it and I love it. I think it's a beautiful website, but almost immediately I noticed that our conversion rates were tanking.

[00:19:15] So your conversion rates are, it's the comparison number between the number of people who visit your website and the number of people who actually buy something. So traditionally in an, in the world of e-commerce, a two to 5% conversion rate is, 5% is great. Like you are doing a great job too. Two, like you're duping it.

[00:19:38] Ours dropped into the 1% range and I thought I was being a boss and really wanting to give it time to properly test and change. Right. We tested, we were testing a new website. We saw the numbers, but I was like, maybe something else is happening. Right. We're in the middle of a pandemic. Maybe people are tired of being online.

[00:19:59] Let's like, hold a minute. So we held and then we opened a brick and mortar and then it was time to plan for the holidays. And then, and then, and then, and then, and though I knew the entire time that our conversion rates were not with a, had been in the past, so not what they could have been. I didn't do anything about.

[00:20:21] At the end of the year, or really at the beginning of this year or the beginning of 2022, David and I sat down for our CEO days where we went through the Being Bossy yo day kit. I highly recommend you check that out. Being Boss.club/ceo, we did the kit together. And then we go through and do all of my spreadsheets because I've got spreadsheets that I do every year to do a really great comparison numbers.

[00:20:44] I saw really in that context, what our conversion rates have been doing. And I was like, Ooh, this blows, let me do some math. And I shouldn't have done that math because that math made me incredibly angry. What I learned is that simply by losing 1% of my previous conversion rate, we lost over $60,000 in revenue.

[00:21:15] To sit on that. And really I lost two or three percentage points of my conversion rate when we launched this new website. So I potentially lost six plus figures in potential revenue from having a website whose conversion rate simply wasn't what the previous one was. If I had taken more immediate action and fix the homepage, updated the menu, test and change little things along the way to increase that conversion rate.

[00:21:56] I'd probably be less mad right now.[00:22:00]

[00:22:01] Right. And so, as someone who. And really halfway through the year we stopped being an online, only website or online only retail company. We added brick and mortar, and then the numbers started looking very different as opposed to a hundred percent of our revenue coming from the website. It was, then it became sort of 50, 50, 50% from the website, 50%

[00:22:27] from our brick and mortar. And so it seemed a little less important. It seemed because I wasn't watching my numbers all along the way. And I wasn't consistently making sure that my website was performing at the level that I knew it could. So hard lesson learned. I need everyone to like learn from my mistake.

[00:22:51] Go check on your website, go take care of it, do what you need to do and to increase your increase, your conversion rates, and to make it easier for people to find you. And that sort of even a funny thing too, is one of the things that we were experiencing with our website was actually a good bit of traffic growth because a lot of our SEO efforts were starting to pay off.

[00:23:10] People were finding us more organically and there is something to be said there around how more organic traffic can skew otherwise really great conversion rates. When you start getting more volume of organic traffic, usually your conversion rates will go down because more people are just coming because they, you know, for us, you know, smokey courts, they search for smokey courts.

[00:23:33] For whatever reason they click through. Maybe they just want to know what it means. They don't actually want to buy it. They were never really a highly qualified customer. So high organic traffic can skew your conversion rate down, but it shouldn't have skewed it down as far as. Okay, so lesson number one, go take care of your website.

[00:23:55] Our website had the potential of making us over a hundred thousand dollars more revenue last year. And that's an employee that I want to take care of. Right. So lesson number one, your website is your most, most valuable employee. Go take care of it. I'm taking care of mine. All my to-do list. This week, we're launching a new homepage and now we'll test and change the little things along the way.

[00:24:20] No more waiting to see what happens. That's a lazy excuse. I got to move on to the next and I'm getting mad at myself.

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[00:26:12] Okay. Lesson number two, it takes real business chops to win at retail period. Every business is a number game. You've heard me say it before. I will say it all the time, but I also know that in a lot of industries you can kind of phone it in sometimes, especially in industries where there are big profit margins, right.

[00:26:37] And by phone it in, I'm not saying that you're not great at what you do. What I'm saying is you're probably so great at what you do that you may not be the best business owner. Maybe you, don't pay your invoices on time. Maybe you are slacking on your bookkeeping. Maybe you don't know what your profit margins are.

[00:26:54] Maybe you have no idea. And y'all, I've definitely talked to many, a business owner that does not have a clue. So, I'm not saying by any means by any means that you're a bad business owner. If you're phoning it in, because I think that's fine. As long as everyone is happy and you're making money along the way.

[00:27:13] Fine, not great. It's fine. And I can even think of several people that I've known in my life who've had pretty good businesses, but a lot of things are phoned in. Maybe they don't have an email list and they're not using it. Maybe they don't know what their profit margins are. Maybe their website is like 18 years old.

[00:27:30] Whatever it may be, there's something that they are doing those so right in their business that they can afford to phone things in. And I think there's something really great in that first. They have high demand. They're delivering to their customers and they are otherwise doing enough. Good enough, great.

[00:27:47] That they can afford to phone some things in. I don't think you can do that in retail. I do not think that you can truly, truly do that, especially. Small, boutique-y retail in retail. You have to have your finger on the pulse of everything here at Almanac. I am constantly dialing things in, right? And this website situation is one of those where I should've been dialing it in a lot sooner, but it's something where my finger is consistently on the pulse of profit margins of conversion rates of open rates to the web, to our emails.

[00:28:26] So the speed with which vendors can get us what it is that we need. All of the things I am consistently keeping my finger on the pulse because in retail, the profit margins tend to be so narrow that any, any place where you are losing money, where you are bleeding money, can put you under. Any amount of phoning it in and retail will absolutely ruin you.

[00:28:57] And so I do believe that on some level products, but really like the whole retail picture. Is an industry where you cannot afford to phone it in. And this is something that I've definitely known from the very beginning. Like there's a lot of things that you just have to know to like start making your numbers and doing the thing and making it work.

[00:29:21] But over the past year or two, especially in light of this global pandemic, I have really seen the effects of that. I've seen people who've been phoning in parts of their business. Just have to close down because they don't have any room for a margin of. And that's unfortunate. And so there is this like extra diligence that I find myself having to have in Almanac supply code that I have never had to have in any service-based business that I have, that includes the Being Boss podcast and the community and everything that we do here.

[00:29:55] And, my web design company that I owned for eight ish [00:30:00] years. And those we could, like, it could find some things in link. So what if you don't know what the profit margin is on every single project, right. It's fine. It's big enough that it won't really matter, but in retail it's literally a matter of dollars that make the difference.

[00:30:16] And so it requires an extra kind of diligence. I say all that to say like, have we figured it all out? Absolutely not. Obviously. Did you, you hear the story about my website? Just now. Right. But we have figured out a lot of things. And most importantly, I know that I have to be extra diligent that I can't afford to ever really phone it in.

[00:30:38] And because of that, because of that understanding, because I do have the sort of privilege of the comparison, right. I know what it's like to own and run a multiple six-figure sort of online media company and, or web design business. Right. I know what it's like to sort of. Just do great work and everything else sort of falls into place, but in retail, that sort of privileges.

[00:31:02] And there are that like that again, margin of error isn't there. And so, because we've been extra vigilant, I know that that is what has afforded us the ability to have a level of comfort throughout the past two years of this pandemic that so many people haven't had, and I'm so grateful for my experience that has led me to that understanding so that as I'm watching so many retail businesses around me shut we're growing and expanding, or at least surviving we're growing and expanding now.

[00:31:40] But for a long time, we were just surviving, but surviving relatively comfortably. With all that I want to say that retail is not for the faint of heart. It is not for someone who wants an easy business. It is not for someone who wants to, just focus on doing the thing that they love. You have to love retail.

[00:32:04] You have to be diligent about retail. It is a whole other level, that I think is only probably like superseded by restaurant. Which I will tell you all is never a kind of company that I have ever desired to be a part of. Like, I want to own all kinds of businesses trust me. When I say that I have no desire to get into the food industry.

[00:32:31] There is a small asterisk there, that I will not expand upon in this moment, but in general, I think restaurants probably the worst via my own, via my own set of like how it is that I want to show up and run a business. I think they are great. I love restaurants. Thank you. Thank you all to the, thank you to all the restaurant people who do it because I love what you do.

[00:32:53] And I am an adamant customer. To all kinds of restaurants, but personally not the kind of business that I want to run. Retail, I feel like butts right up against it, but I love retail very, very much. Okay. So then that's lesson number two is it takes real business chops to win at retail. And it's one of those things that I have just, it has been punctuated for me more and more over the past two years that you can't phone it in.

[00:33:21] You have to understand business numbers. You've got to love spreadsheets and profit and loss sheets, and profit margin calculations, and sort of visual merchandising, making sure you're putting all the right things in all the right places. And that is based on your profit margins and an understanding of your customers and all of these things.

[00:33:45] So, there is a depth of business know-how and experience that is required to win at retail. And you'll, I know I'm just, I'm just now like really diving face first into it, as we, you know, have our retail store and look at growth plans and it's really just given me a next level appreciation for people who do retail.

[00:34:12] Who do retail and otherwise, anytime I hear a boss is like, I think I want to do a retail store on the honey you better love retail period. Otherwise we've been joking around I'm Almanac of doing some sort of, experience for bosses where you can just come work a crystal store for a couple of days.

[00:34:37] You pay us to come to Chattanooga and work our store for a couple of days, you get to fulfill your dream of being a shopkeeper, which trust me, I know is a dream for so many. I've had so many of you request this of me and I love it. You can come be ShopKeep of a cute little crystal store and sell candles and crystals and go home

[00:34:58] happy. If anyone's interested in that, let me know.

[00:35:05] Oh me. Okay. That leads us into lesson number three. And this is the last lesson and this is a very personal one that it feels very, it feels like I have achieved a level of self-awareness that makes me so much more grounded in who I am that I just have to share it as a lesson. 'cause I think that too is what comes from, you know, doing things that make you uncomfortable, doing things that are difficult, doing things that put you out of your comfort zone.

[00:35:39] You get a deeper understanding of who you are and what it is that you love and the impact you want to have on the world. And that's not necessarily what I'm going into, but I think I could see sort of nuggets in that. So lesson number three, for me. Is that I am a curator. And I think I've maybe thrown that word around here on Being Boss a couple of times.

[00:36:02] So if you're like, yeah, I'm really, you've said that, just know that like I've really owned that over the past year. And I think I'm only going to own that more and more over the next couple of months. And I'm very excited about. So this little, this little Diddy really started in college. I think I've mentioned here before that I was like, heroine way from getting a degree in our history because I loved it.

[00:36:35] I loved it so much. I ended up going and getting a degree in geography, but I do have a minor in art history and because of that, and a lot of language studies, I actually have a bachelor of arts in geography instead of the traditional bachelor of science, which just sounds so like me and Hertz. I love art and science.

[00:36:57] Art and science. So back whenever I was getting that minor in art history, I almost got a major because I really thought for a moment that I wanted to be a museum curator, that I wanted to be the person who looked at a large body of work, whatever that is, and curated the pieces to give people the experience, that this collection could afford that.

[00:37:26] Something that I thought very deeply about. And I really, and I imagined myself, me not moving off to France. I mean the curator of some great, some great art museum when she know they would not let me do, but that was, that was a dream. That was a dream that I had for a minute. And it's always sort of followed me this idea of curating.

[00:37:44] I love putting pieces together. I'm very aesthetically minded. So there's a visual aesthetic. There's also this like deep business understanding of like who my customer is, what it is that they want out of this situation, how it is that I can deliver it through what I have in my hands or at my disposal. It's totally why I love.

[00:38:03] Doing branding and websites for creative businesses. I could take these beautiful creations. They were making these jewelry or t-shirt lines or, or even this lifestyle brand that they were building for themselves. And I could turn it into a thing that a visitor to the website could see and experience. I really love doing these towards the end of my website career, because I had my fingers in all of the pieces of the puzzle.

[00:38:27] I was, I was hiring the copywriters. I was working with a photography to art, to art direct, the photo shoots for products and for brands. And I loved it. I was curating this like online visual representation. Of creative businesses and I loved it. I love doing that so much. I love doing it for myself even more.

[00:38:52] I will say that as also what I do here at Being Boss. And I've always sort of seen that thread there as well. I'm curating content. I'm curating experiences. God, y'all I miss doing vacations so much. I cannot wait until we can start doing, Being Boss vacations and or more mastermind retreats, and those sorts of things, because I love curating those experiences for you, taking you to a place, letting you experience that place, giving you opportunities to connect with each other swag bags.

[00:39:24] I love a swag bag, curating those swag bags for you. I am a curator. I love bringing pieces together to give people experiences and that knowing that understanding of what sort of lights me up has really settled in my bones over the past year or two. And. It feels good to know who I am in that way. I will say I will never call myself a curator.

[00:39:55] I don't think that I'll ever put that on my business card though, though maybe, though maybe. David and I have had many a joke and it's not a joke because I think if you actually go to the Almanac website, We have a crystal collection that we call the legacy collection and it's basically all of our expensive crystals.

[00:40:14] So you will find, you know, a hundred dollars pieces of amethyst up to, you know, a thousand dollar pieces of, of Lemurian quartz and those sorts of things. These are investment pieces for your collection. We've always joked that whenever we are, whenever we retire, we're going to have this. We're going to have our legacy collection and we're going to, oh my God, this is so funny.

[00:40:37] And we're going to, basically make it a traveling museum. Am I going to go full circle and actually curate my own like legacy rock collection? Is that literally what I'm describing in this moment? I had never really put those pieces together in that full circle, but wow. I can't make this shit up. I love it.

[00:41:00] So when you, maybe at that point, I will put curator on my business card. That point I will do it, but for the moment I don't call myself a curator, but I do recognize that as being the common thread that weaves itself through the things that I do, there's the things that I love doing. And I do have a deep knowing that that's my secret sauce.

[00:41:22] That's my core genius, to look at a whole bunch of stuff and pick the right things for creating the experience that I am there to create. And I love that about myself. I really appreciate the opportunities to learn that about myself. For sure. So I w I also do want to say though, around that, that that has only come from many years of showing up.

[00:41:53] And doing the work, whatever it looks like. And I will say like most days for me curating does not look like sitting down and, you know, creating the it's funny literally today. One of the things that I'm doing is creating a new system for curating our, our seasonal product buys. So looking at monthly and seasonal themes and greedy them using notion to create some galleries or I'm pulling in product images and things.

[00:42:21] So I can reference in sort of curate really easily. So it's funny. But in all, that's something that I do a couple of times. Yeah. Right. I'm showing up and doing all kinds of work all the time. But what I really love doing is that curation for both brands in, in my life, I love my house. I'm a little bit of a home decor nerd.

[00:42:48] In that I like to live in beauty, I should probably look at my birth chart at the moment. Now that I'm talking about this and see where all that lies. However lesson here is that I'm a curator. I have a deepened idea of who it is that I am, and it has come from many years of showing up and doing the work and really being super mindful of what it is that lights me up and the threads that, sort of

[00:43:14] thread themselves, I suppose, through all of the things that Brittany joy as a multi-passionate creative. So there you have it. Those are my three lessons that I'm sticking with today. The big ones, as I really dive into what I feel is the next couple of chapters of Almanac. We have a couple of irons on the fire.

[00:43:34] As I mentioned before, I'm not ready at the moment to share what those are. Nothing is nothing is final enough for me to do those shares, but I will tell you that, in the Being Boss Clubhouse and the Making A Business podcast, they will hear about them first and foremost. But for now, those are my three biggest lessons.

[00:43:54] And I didn't even get into building a team or creating systems or what those growth plans are. Because you absolutely know that I have those. These are just the things that I'm sitting on at the moment, as I sort of wrap up the previous phases of Almanac and really look forward to moving into what it is that we're doing next.

[00:44:15] And if you do want to follow me along the way, Making A business podcasts, is an exclusive podcast the Being Boss clubhouse, which is the paid tier of the community. And if you want to come shop what it is that we do, and it's not just me, right? It is my team here at Almanac. And it is so many makers from around the world.

[00:44:36] And many of them here in Chattanooga, you can find us at almanacsupplyco.com. You can also find Almanac supply co on Instagram. And so with that, that's my update. Thanks for hanging with me. And if you'd like a little bit of homework, why not sit down today and think of the three lessons that feel most punctuated for you in this moment.

[00:44:59] This was a really fun exercise for me to sit down and think about what sort of things are front of mind in terms of what I've learned over the past couple of months, that feel most relevant for where it is that I'm going next. So. Feel free to do this exercise for yourself. And if you're in the Being Boss community, come share them.

[00:45:20] I would love to see what your lessons are for wherever you are in your journey as well.

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