Gift biz on wrapped episode 168.
Don't be afraid to try something just because you think it
is hard Attention.
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Your gift biz.
Here is your host gift biz gal Sue moon Heights.
Hi there.
It's Sue and thank you For spending part of your day
with me.
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Thank you for making time each week to listen to the
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out to me at SU at gift biz,
unwrapped.com. Today,
I have queued up a really important topic for you,
and that is inventory.
If you manage your inventory properly,
it really can help strengthen your business.
You're able to find extra money to invest and just keep
all the dollars moving as you're growing your business versus having
them locked up in inventory.
That's sitting on the shelf for months or heaven forbid,
should I say years?
Lane booth is here to talk with us about this today.
And without further ado,
let's just go ahead and dive in Lane's business.
The project booth focuses on the inventory and ordering mayhem.
That becomes a struggle for many product based businesses.
Lane grew up as a math nerd.
So fun that you use that term land graduated colleges with
two engineering degrees and went straight into manufacturing.
She spent over a decade in the supply chain world,
but as her family started to grow,
she was ready for more flexibility.
She started the project booth to help businesses confidently plan their
sales, their inventory,
and maximize their bottom line lane makes the numbers in your
business. Air quotes show you the money.
When not nerding out with numbers,
you can find lane enjoying time with her family at the
playground or catching the latest superhero movie with her husband lane.
Welcome to the gift biz on wrapped podcast.
Thank you so much,
Sue pleasure to be here.
When I found out what you do in your business,
I was like,
Oh my gosh.
So perfect for our audience,
because this is a topic we've never talked about before,
so I can not wait to get into it.
But before we do,
I like to start off every show by having you describe
yourself in a little bit of a different way,
and that is through a motivational candle.
So if you were to share with me what your ideal
candle would look like in color and quote,
what would that be?
I love this question.
Sue, such a good one.
Since I love clean,
crisp elegance,
I'm going to go with a bright white for the color.
And the quote is actually going to come from my mom
at something.
She told me when I was a teenager that really stuck.
And if you think back to your teenage years,
what your mom said to you,
a lot of times probably didn't sink all the way through,
but this one did.
And she told me don't be afraid to try something just
because you think it is hard.
And that is something that has impacted so much of my,
everything from college choice to my career and now my business.
So don't be afraid to try something just because you think
it will be Right.
Because I mean,
the thing about hard too,
is a lot of people won't try because it's hard.
So if you do,
you are way ahead of everybody else.
Absolutely. And it's ranked true.
I bet.
So does your mom know that this is a quote that
you use?
I mean,
have you circled back and does she know this Didn't really
bring it up until about a couple years ago and we
had kind of a teary-eyed moments.
Oh, that's so sweet.
But yeah,
just something that has really impacted a lot of decisions in
my life.
So she knows,
and she's very pleased and happy to know that that's impacted
my life And now you're sharing it with like tons of
people too.
So that's exciting.
She has to know that too.
Now I know I have to make sure she listens to
the podcast.
Exactly. So let's talk about how you identified and started the
project booth,
how you identified the need that this existed having to understand
inventory and then how it circled into the project booth.
Sure. So my supply chain career has been focused quite a
bit on inventory and what we would call sales forecasting.
So how is that all going to tie together?
Because if you think about corporations,
they're all about the bottom line for my career.
I had spent so much time projects and efforts to really
maximize the right amount of inventory to get the right amount
of profit at the end of the day.
And I just had a thought that this might be really
beneficial for smaller businesses.
So I started doing a little bit of market research,
started talking to some small business owners and asked them about
what is your ordering process look like?
How do you figure out how much inventory to have?
And I was getting a lot of dead air on the
other side.
Yeah. It's like guessing,
right? I mean,
really that's what most people do It is.
And you got to start somewhere so guessing that was a
start for some of these folks.
But when I talked about the benefits of that and how
that could reduce some of the chaos and the confusion,
it really started to identify that,
yes, this was a need in this small business,
medium sized world.
So What were your first steps?
How did you,
so you identified the need,
you understood that there were potentially customers out there with knowledge
you had that could help them.
How did you develop,
what were the first things you did to start the project?
Both. I started with a couple of folks that agreed to
be my Guinea pig,
Which is a great way to start.
Right. Just to start getting a little bit of traction going
with your business.
Yeah. So I connected really with some great ladies in the
candle business and some in the consumables and said,
Hey, you know,
I think this bull could be really helpful for you and
the candle business.
You've got to figure out how much wax do I need
for how much fragrance oil do I need in each candle?
And if that's all happening,
how much do I need to order?
And at what point in time,
because you've got to work with lead times and all that
sort of fun stuff and deliveries.
So she walked me through her process and I said,
okay, great.
I have an understanding of what's working well and what's not.
Let me pull together a tool that I think could be
really helpful for you.
And so it started out as a pretty simple inventory ordering
template, and we figured out how much wax and scented fragrance
she needed because she does a lot of events.
So a lot of farmer's markets and traveling for other events
and things like that.
So she could all at once put in how much she
thought she was going to sell of each fragrance.
And then flip that around to see,
all right,
I need to order this much wax,
this much oil,
this many wicks and everything else,
jars, to be able to support that event.
That's coming up in four weeks.
All right.
So first I just have to say,
as an aside,
you totally sparked my interest and excitement because you're talking candles.
One of my favorite things,
interesting that you kind of walked the path with her to
see what she was already doing.
And then you saw areas of development.
I think that's the way you approach all your clients,
right? You see where like get a baseline and then figure
out from there,
how you can enhance the business and get the supply management
going well.
Right? Absolutely.
That was definitely the start.
And now that I've been helping several clients along the way,
I'm starting to see a lot of similarities.
So while pieces of the process do tweak a little bit
based on their product,
a lot of the core baseline is the same.
So now we have a very streamlined approach as to all
right. Here's what I need to look for.
These are the major call-outs I've seen in other clients.
And then what are those custom pieces that we do need
to tailor specifically for their business?
And so it models all of that together.
Perfect. Perfect.
Can you share with us some of the common challenges that
you're seeing because I'm guessing a lot of our listeners are
going to be able to say,
yep, that's me.
Absolutely. I'll say the one that hits home the most is
probably cashflow because here you are trying to get your product
out to the market and you're not sure how much to
order, and you're also have limited funds.
Typically, I,
you can't just order three year's worth of inventory and sit
for awhile.
So cashflow is a big one on how much have you
already spent how much inventory is sitting on your shelves,
that's cash that's already spent.
And then how much do you think you're going to need
to service your customers?
Well, over the course of the next few months,
so cashflow really ties straight back into inventory.
I'm guessing the goal here would be,
you don't want to buy more than you really need for
a certain amount of time,
then you continually cycle and replenish,
right? And that,
and that replenishment gets to be more and more as your
business grows.
Absolutely. So one of the other top challenges we see is
how much to anticipate for your future sales,
because that is going to dictate how much inventory you need
to buy.
So you're not necessarily buying for tomorrow.
You're buying for a few months from now sometimes depending on
where your product's coming from.
If you have to order from Asia,
then it's going to be several months.
If you're making it yourself,
then you've got the limitations on how much time you can
dedicate to being able to produce enough product for what's coming
up. So being able to pull that together is definitely an
area. So as a top challenge,
And I bet that's different for everybody.
I mean,
I'm thinking of myself over here with one of my businesses,
the ribbon print company,
I do make my own brand of ribbon.
And it does come from Asia.
And not only is there the time to produce it,
but that,
and the time to get it over,
it could get stuck in customs for awhile.
Like all of that stuff,
you have to kind of figure out,
right? Plus minimum order quantities that you have to,
Yes, you may only want a hundred,
but the minimum order is a thousand.
So now what do you do?
Right? Or as you order more,
your cost can also go down.
So those are all different things I think are very customized
based on each of your individual clients.
Absolutely. Interesting.
Okay. Can you give us another,
so we've talked about cash flow.
We've talked about anticipated sales.
Wait, I do have another question with the anticipated sales.
When somebody like you were just talking about your client who
had events.
So when you have events lined up,
then obviously you're going to be selling more.
So I'm thinking you flex everything based on what the plans
are in the future and the growth of the company based
on events.
You're going to,
I guess,
just general overall trends,
et cetera.
Absolutely. That has been a challenge,
especially for that person that I worked with early on,
because she has not only an online business,
but she also has the event business.
She still has a couple of products on Etsy.
So she's got several platforms that are continuous and you can
have orders coming in all the time.
But then that event could be several thousand dollars in a
weekend. And you want to maximize as much as you can
through that event.
So we had to look at not only the event piece,
but also all right,
we've got to remember that you can have orders coming in
every day on your website and Etsy.
How do we manage them as well?
And so that has been kind of a blended approach.
So you also don't want to carry too much inventory at
a time,
especially candles.
I mean,
you can have so many fragrances.
We did tailor those down a little bit,
so that helped her with reducing her inventory or to at
least have different fragrances available at different seasons.
So you don't need every fragrance available 12 months out of
the year.
You can have your spring,
you can have your summer,
you can have your fall winter and by eliminating some of
those options that allowed her to really focus on,
alright, I'm going to make these 10 for the season.
And so when she's doing her event prep,
she can also go ahead and prep for all right,
the next two weeks,
I think I'm going to have this many in daffodil.
I'm making up a fragrance here that could be ordered from
the website or Etsy over the time period.
So she started being able to batch process things together based
on what was coming up in her business.
I'm so glad you bring up this topic because I've talked
a lot in the past about limiting the number of offers
you have,
whether it's flavors or scents or whatever,
because it can become overwhelming to somebody.
Even let's take it a craft show.
Since we're talking to events,
people will come up and if there are too many options,
sometimes people get overwhelmed and they walk away.
You would naturally think,
well, if I have more offers more options,
then there's going to be something for everybody.
And people are more likely to buy.
And actually that's not true when you whittle it back,
it's easier for people to make decisions and to purchase.
That's been proven over and over again,
but I never thought about it really in terms of inventory
control and purchasing of the materials that you need to create
your product.
So this is a really important point.
What did your clients see after you instituted this procedure?
Well, she was able to minimize how much inventory she was
keeping, and then she's working out of her home still.
So the closet can only hold so many candles.
Right. Although I could help her out with that,
FYI I'll let her know.
Okay. And then the other piece was it's either that she
houses a little bit of inventory in her closet,
or she's got to stay up late one night and actually
make the candle to the order that day and make sure
it ships out in the two to three day window that
she's promised the customer,
which got really frustrating.
She had a really good example in time of she stocks
a lot of this 1 cent and she has a standard
eight ounce candle.
Well, someone on Etsy wanted a four ounce of a very
minimal quantity that she would typically have for another candle.
So she had to stay up late and make this little
tiny four ounce candle and ship it to the customer.
And so stuff like that started to go away.
Once we trimmed down how many fragrances she was offering at
that time.
And so she could not only,
I mean,
she still might have to make a fresh batch when something
goes out,
but she knows she can make eight a time.
And those will sell over the course of the next few
weeks. She doesn't have to make these very small batches and
then almost waste her time making just a single four ounce
candle. I think so many of our listeners are sitting there
like, yup.
I know life,
because this is what I do.
I think with your story,
she gained back the freedom to not have those last minute
issues all the time.
Because what if something does come in and you had a
big family event you're going away for the weekend,
how would you possibly juggle things like that?
So I think your service actually brings back some balance into
your whole life too,
especially if you're still producing yourself out of your home.
So was she calling you saying,
thank you.
Thank you.
Yes. She's been wonderful.
Like I said,
she was one of my Guinea pigs,
so we've done a lot of trials through her and found
out what works for her and then tried to see if
we could spread that across some other industries as well.
Got it.
So we've been talking about the challenges with inventory.
So we've talked cash flow.
We've talked about anticipated sales.
Is there now another one that you could share with us,
I would say focus on your lead times and for people
that aren't necessarily familiar with that that is how long it
takes you from knowing what you want to make to when
it is shippable from your,
either your home or your,
if you have a distribution center or warehouse,
you want to know how long it takes that product to
be created and shippable.
And there's two versions.
You could have that internal.
So that's how long you actually take to create the product.
So if you are stay with candles,
if it takes you several hours to produce a candle and
then it actually takes several more hours for it to dry
and cure,
then you may have a 24 hour lead time for that
candle. So you need to know that at any point in
time, if you get orders,
you've got to have at least 24 hours to be able
to get that out.
The other piece of the lead time that I find folks
often forget about is how long it takes their supplies to
get to them.
So if you are ordering from Asia and it's a four
month process from the time you place your order,
until it arrives at your doorstep,
pending minimal issues with customs or damage on the boat and
things like that,
that do come up,
but it should be more rare.
You do need to think about how long it takes you
to get your supplies,
because I'll find that folks try to order or they'll expedite
at the very last minute.
And then they're upset because it's another three days late.
Well, three days late in the world of supplies actually is
not too uncommon.
So you need to be able to have that lead time
and then a little bit of buffer as well,
so that you can continue to support your business.
And there's no stop starts because you're waiting on your supplies
to come in,
to create your product.
Two things about this that I think are important.
One is that word expedite totally freaks me out because that
possibly means more costs to get your product to you in
additional costs,
probably wasn't included in the pricing of your product to start,
which means your margins are going to decrease.
Absolutely. That goes back and circles back to cashflow.
But I'm thinking all that you're talking about here,
lane, all circles,
back to the same thing,
they're all integrated to have the best result you can.
Right. And what you mentioned actually brought up another thought experience
I had with another client who is in the book publishing
business. Before we hear about lanes of book publishing client,
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He had someone in the States that was printing her books,
but she was also starting to look at someone in Asia
who had a much better pricing.
So not to jump from one and go to the other.
But we had a time period where we were testing both
and we wanted to make sure that they could meet their
expectations. If they said they were going to be here in
12 weeks,
that they were here in 12 weeks,
that the quality was the same that we didn't have to
expedite orders.
There weren't any other hidden shipping costs because it might be
one thing to produce,
seem like it's half price to produce in Asia.
But then you also have to think about,
well, the extra shipping charges that would incur.
So we had this testing period and then found that Asia
actually produced higher quality for the type of book that she
had. And they were able to deliver on time.
And she actually had tremendous cost savings from being able to
move her products and being able to print overseas.
So that was one area where she was able to dramatically
reduce her cost of her goods.
And as you are doing that,
that allows different opportunities.
So you think about kind of the backend cost savings,
but now you have funds to put on the front end.
Now you have funds for marketing and advertising because you've been
able to save in that area.
Now you can increase your spending in other areas,
what should just continue that cycle of more exposure and more
sales Yeah.
Driving sales,
for sure.
And so it's an entire balancing act,
right? I'm thinking of the old fashion weight pendulums where there's
one side and another.
That's exactly what you're talking about here.
And the issue too is sales fulfillment.
Because if you don't have the product,
when an order comes in,
it's not going to take too long for that customer,
never to come back to you.
So you've got to have it available if you're promoting it
as well.
The other thing I was going to say about Asia,
I don't want to scare people off because I also have
other products coming.
We source as much American as we can,
but I have other products that come from Asia and I
get them in like two days.
Sometimes I get them faster than in the States.
It really all depends on what your product is,
where your factory is or who you're working with in terms
of receipts.
So don't be scared away from this conversation in terms of
dealing with it,
because clearly that client you're talking about with the books,
that was a perfect solution for her.
Yeah. And sometimes,
I mean,
truthfully, the expertise may sometimes be moving from us to overseas.
So it really depends on the manufacturer.
Just like it,
it depends on the manufacturer here.
Some are going to be more tighter on their processes and
better on quality and you'll find the same overseas.
So you just got to find the right person,
right. Manufacturer to work with.
Right. Okay.
Wonderful. So we've covered cashflow anticipated sales so that you're ready
for them,
both in creating and being able to have the product ready
and inventory.
We've talked about lead times,
both in pricing for production time and then also supplies.
And then we've talked a little bit about management too,
if someone is way before all of that.
Okay. Cause this is all talking about someone who has a
product they're out to market already.
What advice would you give somebody who's just starting.
So they're just now starting to make their product,
bring it out to shows so that they're at a perfect
place where they can do it right from the start instead
of back-filling better systems.
Is there any guidance you have for someone who's just starting
out what they should put in place or what they should
be looking at at different points along the way for a
startup? Absolutely.
Yes. I feel like startups tend to focus on how much
should I bring to the event or how much should I
make and you really to take it just one step backwards
and say,
how much do I think I can sell?
Not how much to bring,
how much do you think you can sell first?
And that is going to come from a lot of times
conversations. A lot of times,
if you are going to an event that has baked goods,
you could talk to someone else that is sometimes they might
be competitive or not,
but you're probably will find someone that is not a competitor
to you there that has been to that event in the
past, ask them what they sell.
Talk to people that have been to that event in the
past. That is a great starting point for you.
And then you can use that and you might want to
go, all right,
maybe another 10 or 20% heavier just because when you're starting
out, like you said before,
so you don't want to miss out on that sells fulfillment.
So you want to have a little bit over what you
need, but not 10 times what you need going into that
event. And so being able to estimate what your sales will
be, and then go just a little bit over that to
be able to maximize your sales at that event.
That's great.
I love,
love, love that advice.
And then I think also just some type of a method
to take information from someone.
If it does happen that you run out of product,
maybe there is a scent we're sticking with the candles here,
my favorite,
but let's say those daffodil candles that you were referencing earlier,
you just happened to run out.
I would think you tell me if you think differently,
but I would think just having a system to,
Oh gosh,
they were so popular.
I wasn't anticipating that.
However, I can get you one in two or three days,
what's your address.
And even take the order right there and then turn it
around for them super quick.
But to have that plan in place,
instead of just losing the sale,
I guess I'd say Absolutely.
I've seen that happen kind of in two different ways.
I've seen just a simple sheet of paper.
Hey, you like this candle,
I'd be happy to get back with you when I get
back home and just write down your name and your address
or name a number and what you were looking for,
what size did you want?
What fragrance.
And then some folks will actually have,
like the lady I mentioned has a website.
So bring your iPad,
let them order the candle right there on the spot.
They can enter it in the website,
on the iPad.
And then you've got that order ready to run with.
As soon as you get back from the event.
So Smart lane,
I agree.
Take the order right then and there.
And the trick is having the plan,
having the answer right there.
So you're not fumbling and not knowing what to do.
You have the plan.
Okay. Perishable products,
probably the most challenging of all.
And we've talked about this a little bit already,
but not in this way.
Any advice for that?
Because ingredients with that,
or if you actually make your cookies or your cupcakes and
you bring them to the event and you don't sell them,
that is lost money.
So what do you do?
Right. So unless you're planning on having a big party afterwards
with all of your cupcakes,
Oh, well,
there's an idea.
It's always a win there.
Right? Right.
That's one.
Where do you have another outlet that this product can go
to? So maybe you are selling at a local bakery,
but then you also have this event coming up,
trying to have multiple streams of where your product can go
will be very helpful as well.
So you're not locked into just this one event.
Oh, I didn't sell all of my mini breads or all
of my cupcakes.
Is there somewhere else that they can go,
but it really,
even better than that,
it comes back to what are your anticipated sales back to
that sales forecast?
What have other people done?
How much do you have?
And then also being able to move it into other streams,
other accounts afterwards,
it will be incredibly helpful.
And then the last piece on that though,
is this is assuming that you are a brand new startup.
You've never done this before,
but now,
you know,
now you've been to this event now,
you know how much you sold now?
You know where the prime location is.
Next time when you come back,
you'll not only have your numbers,
you'll have the experience and you'll have the knowledge of how
to position yourself differently next time.
So one thing I highly encouraged to all of the startups
is to record your sales,
where you were and record any,
just commentary notes of how the event was run and what
you would like to do differently.
Do you want to come back again next year?
Keep up with that because your numbers are going to be
more impactful than anybody else's numbers down the road.
Sue's cupcakes may be very different from Lane's cupcakes.
And so being able to track your numbers going forward is
going to be the most impactful thing you can do for
planning your business going forward.
Yeah. Show to show can be different too.
Some shows will perform better than others.
And when you start doing more and more shows,
you kind of forget.
So tracking it right away after the event is really important.
I'm so glad you brought that up.
Yes. Wonderful.
Okay. Any other thoughts for a startup or you think we're
good here?
The other piece would be,
be careful not to order too much.
I did have a client one time.
She got a great discount if she ordered,
or if she prepped a thousand jars of her product from
the co-packer.
But when she looked at her expiration dates,
how long it could sit on the shelf,
it really did not make sense to get that premium price.
You can save a few cents per jar,
but it didn't make sense to order that much as a
start-up in her business.
It made sense to cut that in about half and all
right, let's move through the next six months within that shelf
life. See what it does.
And then maybe we can warrant a larger,
better priced order in the future.
So be careful not to order too much and maybe not
always accept the first answer you get from a manufacturer I've
seen too,
where, Oh,
well I've got to order this,
this and this,
but this one piece I have to order 2000 at a
time. I would be leery of that.
Let's see if there's another manufacturer that can offer you a
small batch quantity.
Can they give you 200 at a time instead of 2000
at a time,
can you find other people in the industry that are utilizing
that product and say,
Hey, can I go in with you on your next order?
You know,
then you can split the cost.
So good.
Yeah. Yeah.
And they don't want you to feel like you're locked into
that first answer.
Kind of don't take that first answer if it's not the
one that you want,
look and see if there's other options.
Yeah. The other thing that a lot of people will do
is they'll be certain,
absolutely positive that there's a certain scent or a certain flavor.
That's going to be a hit.
So they'll order a lot of that and then find that
they're the only ones who really like it.
It's not even moving.
So I think what you're saying here is so valuable in
that even if it's going to mean you make less money
initially, because you're testing your market,
you're seeing what they like.
And so you're buying it in smaller quantities,
which means it costs a little more in the long run.
You'll be better off.
Yeah, absolutely seeing that where folks have ordered too much and
now they're sitting on three years worth of inventory.
Now they can't pivot in the market because they're sitting on
so much of what they've already bought.
And that's another risk that you would be up against if
you bought too much at the beginning.
Yeah. Yeah.
That goes for packaging too.
How you're wrapping,
how you're branding your product labels,
the whole thing just by small first,
make sure you like what it's doing,
make sure it's working well for you.
So you're not stuck with inventory.
Love that you brought that up.
So as You've been talking,
and this was way back in the beginning of our conversation,
you referencing,
I think that you built in a tool or something that
you use.
Yes. So now I have a tool that's built to where
we will look at it.
Really, it comes down to how much to order.
That's kind of what it's spitting out the end.
If you think of kind of a box with all the
bells and whistles and what comes out of the answer,
it helps with what to order how much and when,
but the pieces that have to feed into that we are
looking at all right,
what is that sales forecast?
What did you do last year?
Are you going to do better or worse than that this
year? Is it going to be different by product?
So we have these conversations,
I, me and the client to say,
all right,
where are you heading?
And a lot of times that comes into what the marketing
plan is as well.
So we'll pull together the sales forecast.
Then we'll look at your inventory.
What are your costs?
And then also the lead time.
So based on everything you've got going into the business,
how long is it going to take for the product to
get there?
And then that makes a clear decision at the end,
as to you could order this much and be covered for
three months,
or you could order this much and be covered for the
next six weeks.
What are the risks and opportunities for ordering the higher versus
lower? And we just have those conversations to see what is
the best option for the business at that point in time.
That's fabulous.
Oh my gosh.
So great.
And that all is encompassed within the project booth and your
whole consulting environment,
right? Correct.
That's what you use,
which I love this example because it's something that you've created,
which is totally yours.
Like no one else can go out and get your tool.
Right. They have to be working With you.
That's right,
right. It's Wonderful.
That's absolutely fabulous.
So are there any other,
I'm thinking I'm just going over now into just the business
environment. Are there any tools that you use or anything to
keep yourself organized?
Because now you have a ton of clients.
You've got the whole consulting business up and running strong.
What do you use to stay focused and in control of
your day?
Oh, I am a big calendar nerd.
So I love time blocking in making sure that I can
execute what I said I could by the end of the
week. So I have certain days where I allow myself these
certain days are for clients,
client conversations,
phone calls these days,
or for client work.
I think you use schedule once I use acuity calendar scheduling
so that when clients or folks that are interested in touching
base for initial consult,
I can quickly give them the link.
And it ties right back to my Google calendar.
And it only books for certain hours out of the day
hours. You've decided already based on your perfect week are times
when you would take calls.
Exactly. That's perfect.
Wonderful. And give biz listeners,
I'll put a link to acuity in the show notes.
So you see what that's all about and tell us a
little bit about your initial coaching calls in case someone is
Interested here.
Yeah. So we keep it very clean and easy.
It's usually a 30 minute call that people can book straight
off my website.
And we talk about where your business is today.
What type of product do you have and where you want
to be in the next 12 months?
So we're going to figure out a couple of key things
from those questions.
And then what I also ask,
what type of tools are you using currently?
So are you using QuickBooks for your inventory or do you
have accounting professional helping you with your P and L?
So we get a couple of details ironed out just from
that questionnaire and then go through them in that phone call
to see where you are rocking it in your business and
where you see some opportunity and would like to get things
more clear and confident.
So you can feel like you're actually running your business like
a CEO and it's not running you.
Perfect. So if you were to give one overall big arching
piece of advice,
based on all those coaching calls that you've done already,
what would that be?
That's a good question.
Biggest nugget.
Let's see.
It's probably gonna come back down to the cashflow because if
you don't manage that properly,
you're going to be out of business.
Right? Because everything that I work towards on the back end
of your business is really geared towards maximizing your bottom line.
And so we're going to make sure you've got your costs
in line and your revenues planned out to where you at
least have a plan to be successful.
Yes. You might have to Dodge some things here and there,
or you might get some great perks along the way,
but you need to have a roadmap to get there.
And that cashflow is going to dictate what that roadmap looks
like. Perfect.
So lane,
at this point,
I want to ask you my dare to dream question.
Are you ready?
I'm ready.
Okay. I'd like to present you with a virtual gift.
It's a magical box containing unlimited possibilities for your future.
This is your dream or your goal of almost unreachable Heights
that you would wish to obtain.
Please accept this gift and open it in our presence.
What is inside your box?
Such a great question too.
So my dream,
if I were to open up this box would show that
have an agency of folks that are on my team to
where I can service many more clients that are in that
range from startups to scale ups,
to multi six or seven figure businesses so that they can
have that outsourced expertise from years and years of experience in
the industry,
but they can outsource it to an expert.
So I would love to have an agency set up to
where we can handle a broad range of clients.
In addition to,
I want to be able to create a new software that
is specifically geared towards small and medium-sized businesses,
because right now the great forecasting tools,
the great inventory tools are a multi-million dollars and really not
something that is going to be well geared towards small,
medium sized businesses.
So I want to have not only the software,
but the personal support needed to help move these businesses in
the right direction.
I'm so excited about that idea because this whole concept,
I don't think people really think about and to have something
that could be a little bit more off the shelf versus
having to enter into a consulting type thing for you,
I think would be fabulous.
And for people who need the product would also be great.
So love that I am all in on that idea for
you, cause we all need it.
So how can our listeners find out more about you?
Where would you direct them?
The easiest place to find me is just on my website.
It's the project booth.com.
And from there you can read a little bit more about
me or you could also find the link to my Facebook
page. And I also do have a Facebook group back in
brilliance to scale your growing business.
And that is where I spend most of my active time
throughout the week in providing additional tips,
some similar or maybe a deeper dive to what we've gone
over today.
So that's a great place to learn more Wonderful.
And that's a free group to go into it is.
Okay. You also,
I think,
cause I was just looking before we got on you have
some type of a download also on your website.
I do.
Yep. What's that It is five profit mistakes to avoid when
growing your business.
And so this will hit on some of the topics we
talked about today,
but also go into a deeper dive.
And if that resonates with you,
then that's a great segue into hopping on a phone call
and starting an initial consult to see if we can help
you fast track your day.
Oh, perfect.
Wonderful. Yeah.
So download,
read it and then see if you need further information or
you feel like you want to take the next step.
Absolutely wonderful lane.
I am so,
so glad we had this interview.
I think,
like I said in the beginning,
this is a topic we haven't really addressed and I think
it is a key to being able to stay open with
your business.
We've talked a little bit about you do some of these
touch points wrong.
You're going to be putting your money in places that aren't
going to allow you to build or grow so important.
Thank you so so much for being on the show today,
sharing your expertise with us,
giving some hints into some of the consulting that you do
with your clients.
I appreciate it so much.
Thank you so much,
sir. I appreciate your time as well.
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