100 – Top Takeaways from 100 Episodes with Sue Monhait of Gift Biz Unwrapped

Hi, you're listening to gift biz on wrapped the milestone episode.

Number 100,

take action.

Be courageous.

Go do it.

Hi, this is John Lee,

Dumas of entrepreneur on fire,

and you're listening to the gift of biz unwrapped.

And now it's time to light it up.

Welcome to gift bears,

unwrapped your source for industry specific insights and advice to develop

and grow your business.

And now here's your host,

Sue Mona height.

Before we get into the show,

I have a question for you.

Do you know that you should be out networking,

but you just can't get yourself to do it because it's

scary. Are you afraid that you might walk into the room

and not know anybody or that you're going to freeze?

When you get up to do that infamous elevator speech,

where you talk about yourself and your business?

Well, I'm here to tell you that it doesn't need to

be scary.

If you know what to do to help you with this,

I would like to offer you a coffee chat for the

price of buying me a cup of coffee.

We can sit down through an online video and I'll tell

you everything that I know about networking and how I have

personally built two multi-six figure businesses,

primarily through networking to learn more about this opportunity.

Just go over to Bitly forward slash network Ninja.

That's B I T dot L Y forward slash network Ninja.

And now let's move on to the show.

Hi there it's Sue and welcome to the gift biz unwrap

podcast, whether you own a brick and mortar shop sell online

or are just getting started,

you'll discover new insight to gain traction and to grow your

business. And today I am behind the mic all by myself,

because I wanted to share with you what I've learned over

these last 100 episodes.

Oh my gosh,

you guys are a hundred.

I cannot even believe it seriously.

It feels like just yesterday when I was figuring out how

to do all this podcasting stuff.

But since then,

almost two years later,

I have interviewed so,

so many awesome people from people who own businesses,

large and small,

and every single person has come to us with this golden

nugget of information that we can all learn from.

And I have to say every single time I turned off

the recording,

I'm always so proud because all of my guests have delivered

great content and great information for us all to learn from.

So as I reflect on these last hundred episodes,

which really come out for me is that there are some

common threads that weave through almost every single person's experience.

And that's what I'd like to share with you today.

These three common threads and then a little of detail underneath

each one of them.

These three commonalities,

if you will,

are number one,

what do you do when you decide you want to start

a business for yourself,

but you have no idea what it should be.

How do you come across and decide on what your business

should be all about?

That's number one,

number two,

once you've had the idea,

once you know exactly what you want to do,

how do you get started?

What are those first steps?

And then also success traits.

Boy, a lot of people who want to start a business,

or like,

you know,

I just don't know if I have what it takes.

And I'm seeing that there are certain traits that people keep

talking about that they call upon time.

And again,

that are repetitive over the course of all the people that

I've interviewed.

So that is number three.

And those are the three common threads that we're going to

dive into right now,

as we're going through each of these points,

I'm going to be bringing up people who have been on

the show,

different episodes that have come up that make the point in

the best way.

I'm not going to be able to put all 100 guests

on here.

Of course.

And I want you to know if you have been one

of my guests,

I appreciate each and every one of you,

I'm only selecting a couple just to make sure that I'm

driving the point home with each of these.

All right.

So first off,

what do you do when you want to start a business,

but you don't have any idea and you're like,

what should it be that I start,

I've seen three common areas of identification of what a business

should be.

One is,

it seems like a lot of people go back after they've

had their career,

let's say,

and they're ready to go onto their second career.

They revert back to things that they used to love as

a child.

Things that just really in their soul,

in their spirit,

as they were developing when they were young are things that

just brought such passion and carefree joy to them.

Two of these guests are Donna with Royal cookies and Ronda

with Coco cabana cookies.

Both of them loved cooking with older relatives and just had

that love of the kitchen and,

you know,

mixing the dough and getting everything together and then producing a

delicious result.

So both of these wonderful women resorted back to what they

enjoyed so much in terms of the time in the kitchen

of their youth and built businesses around them.

So think for yourself,

if you're in this situation where you're thinking,

I want to do something,

but I'm not sure what it is.

Go back to your childhood,

to the little you view.

Well, and think through what made you happy.

What made you carefree,

maybe it was being out in the garden or sewing with

your grandmother or something like that,

and consider that as a potential opportunity for your new business.

The second thing that I continue to see is that people

have had something trigger a real passion in them,

real desire and a real cause,

which is the sole basis behind the business.

A few examples here are Mike from Rwanda bean.

Mike is from Rwanda and he knows very well.

The farmers plight there with all their coffee farms.

And so his mission is to integrate that within obviously our

love for coffee clearly in the States,

and I know elsewhere.

And how can he then help farmers back in his Homeland

in terms of producing and sharing their product?

Tracy from icing smiles is another,

how can you bring joy to families who have a child

in the hospital for one reason or another,

or the siblings of those children.

And she's created a whole business around making cakes and integrating

in local bakers into the cause to bring joy and peace

and happiness to the lives of families who have a young

one in the hospital.

And finally,

under this category,

someone who always is near to my heart and comes to

mind is Stacy with shopping for a change.

She on a trip to Peru,

saw all these beautiful products that people were making and mothers

who were working so hard to provide for their families.

And she wanted to help some of these third world countries.

If you will be able to improve their quality of life,

she came back from that vacation and just felt like she

couldn't just sit back.

She had to jump in and do something to help those

people. So these are all,

again, passions that have come up and truly starting a business

takes a lot.

It takes a lot of work.

It takes a lot of courage and you've got to have

that deep down passion,

but that might just trigger a thought for you in terms

of what your business should be.

And number three,

under this whole question,

you know,

what do I start as a business would be?

I've had some guests who say,

you know what?

I wasn't even expecting it,

but there was this one single event that came up.

It does one thing that happened that started the whole idea

and the whole concept of having a business Claudia with exclamations

gift baskets in San Diego,

she was out shopping with her mom one afternoon.

She walks into a shop,

turns around and all of a sudden what catches her eye,

these beautiful red and gold baskets from there has developed one

of the biggest and most successful gift companies in all of

San Diego.

Another one that comes to mind is bill from cookies in

a snap.

He was just walking through the kitchen,

watching his wife,

do some cutouts of cookies and out sparked this brand new

idea for a product that is now cookies in a snap.

Amy marshmallow MBA was sitting with a friend over a glass

of wine and they were talking and all of a sudden

her friend is like,

you ought to start this business with marshmallows and you got

to go check out what that product is all about.

And finally,

another one is Kathy from Cathy Nolan art.

She was young.

I want to recall properly and say she was in high

school and she's going through an amusement park.

And she ran into some characteristics and she was so enamored.

Everyone wanted to have her,

you know,

Kathy, Kathy let's go.

We wanted to go on some rides,

but she loved so much what she was seen with the

characteristics that she stayed there.

And she watched almost the whole day.

And now what does she do?

Kathy Nolan,

art characteristics and her stuff has been recently up in times

square. You guys,

she has done characters of the most recent elections.

Both sides are not being partial here,

who would have thought this was a high school trip to

an amusement park.

And that sparked an idea for her,

for her lifetime.

So if you're in a situation where you're pondering,

what should I do to start a business?

Think of these three things.

Is there a childhood love that you just had so much

passion for and made you feel so free?

And so tiled,

like if I dare say that could be one,

is there something else there's a mission or a passion that

sparked by something that you've seen or a cause that you

want to support?

Or is there just a single event,

keep your eyes open.

As you go through your daily life,

there might be something that's going to happen right after you

listened to this show.

That'll spark an idea for you.

So keep your eyes open and go and identify what it

is for your business.

If you've already got a business and all of this has

already been figured out,

and of course you're starting,

this is great information for your about us page on your

website. So think about that.

All right.

To all my newbies,

you identify a business or you might already know what you

want to do,

but you're not sure how to get started.

What is the first action you take?

How do I build from this idea that I have?

That seems like nothing right now,

but just thoughts in your mind to actually establishing a business.

Well, honestly,

and truly it is super simple.

You just need to get started.

There are lots of resources that can help you with this.

I have a course called gift biz builder that walks you

through every step of starting your business.

And I'll link that over in the show notes.

That's a paid course,

but I also have a free 12 step guide on the

different steps that you need to take to get your business

started in the right way.

So you're profitable because one of the things that we want

to make sure to talk about is it really continues and

stays a hobby.

If you're not making any money,

it flips over to being a business.

Once you go into the black,

you actually put money into your wallet that you have made

from your business.

It can be just a penny,

but once that happens,

it's such a great rewarding feeling.

And you are now a business.

So getting started,

let me talk about a couple of people here,

Kara of Caras vineyard wedding.

You may not think that you could turn something like this

into a business,

but she focuses on weddings obviously.

And she started making wine cork wedding decor.

Okay. Think about that one product,

one initial audience focus people with weddings and she started a

business just right around that.

So don't think that you don't have enough of a product

or the breadth of the range of your product offerings is

too small.

Kara is very successful and she's proving that wrong.

Just with one wine cork.

She started her business.

I'll also bring up Karen of a little pink ladybug.

Karen makes Bows,

well, I should say she started making hair bows,

but since then,

one thing has led to another.

She got her hair bows in some local shops and on

and on,

you can hear the whole story,

but now she actually provides patterns.

So other people can make hair bows just like hers.

She is so talented.

I mean,

she makes hair bows of flowers,

giraffes, popcorn boxes with popcorn,

coming out,

all these crazy fun,

beautiful designs.

She's an artist.

And she puts all this together and it started from just

one hair bow.

The point is just get started again.

I'll link my free 12 steps to getting started in the

show notes.

So no excuses.

You guys,

if you have your idea,

take action.

Be courageous,

go do it.

You hear in every single podcast that I have done thus

far is people just decided to Go forward and it's action.

That is important.

It's not just telling people you want to do something.

It's actually getting out there and getting going.

And that is what we're here to support your activity,

your action and your Success.

Speaking of success,

Let's move on to success traits.

I'm seeing that there are really four traits that continue over

and over and over again throughout all of these hundred shows

that I've done.

Now, the first one is resourcefulness.

You really need to rely on yourself to solve any problems.

You are the boss.

Now, when you own your own business,

it is up to you.

Lucky for us.

We don't have to run to the library.

We don't have to go through.

Encyclopedia is the internet and Google are right at our fingertips

and there's virtually all the information you need to get any

answer right online.

I love the story of Janet at Alden's kennels.

She was running she and her husband,

an older fashion kennel business,

if you will.

And they were seeing the business declining and she knew she

needed to save the business,

but she had no idea how to use computers,

none, zero zilch.

What did she do?

She started Googling and figured out how to build a website,

how to go on social media.

She's a pro now on YouTube videos,

not with tons of investment,

not with lots of money for fancy cameras,

but the courage to go ahead and learn it and do

it. And now not only is her kennel going fabulous.

She now hosts a four state networking event every summer where

hundreds of people come and share their businesses with each other.

So she has taken that business and really turned it around

because she was resourceful.

I'll also talk through both Jen of Abby farms and Teresa

of bear Creek design.

Both of these women live on farms and being able to

stay within that farming community.

And most importantly,

being home with their children,

for schooling and activities and events and all of that is

so important.

They've been resourceful and being able to grow their companies as

well, right from their homes and off of things that their

land produces.

Again, being resourceful now for your product,

versus as Janet had been doing,

being resourceful for getting her name out.

So different types of things,

but resourcefulness,

this isn't something you have to learn.

It's just something you have to do because when you go

online and you Google,

one thing leads to another leads to another,

and eventually you find your answer.

The second thing is determination.

Really important.

You have to be.

So, and this speaks to a little bit to the passion

we were talking about earlier.

It has to be such a part of you in such

a drive within you,

that you are determined to be courageous,

okay? Because some of these things we do let's face.

It are a little scary,

but you're determined to be successful.

And you are going to find the answers to any challenges

that you encounter.

Tom was kind of funny.

He's with squirrel away bird cafe,

he was determined to make a bird feeder that the squirrels

weren't going to be able to get into because when he

retired, his designated job was to keep the birds fed and

the squirrels kept stealing all the food.

And so what happened?

He made this new bird feeder,

and now in retirement,

he has this whole business popping up.

And then we have Shelly of Luxe bloom.

Shelly's product are roses that last 60 days without water because

of this beautiful and interesting product,

she's putting installations in some of the country's most prestigious locations.

And you've got to believe that she's had to have a

lot of determination that she was going to be able to

pull this off.

Then we've got Ray of Dr.

Ray's tophi who started off with small batches,

but his product is just so good and so popular.

He had to find a way to mass produce.

He searched high and low for options could not find a

solution here in the States.

So had to cast a wider net.

And finally,

after taking some risks,

testing, a number of different types of products landed on his

solution. And he was able to do that because he was

determined not to give up.

And then I also want to bring up Amy of cuffs.

She has a woman's accessory product,

and she wanted to make sure that this product was just

right and that people were really going to be able to

use it.

So she tested over and over and over again and continually

revised her product.

She also had to learn all about the apparel industry because

it, as every industry is,

is a whole world unto itself,

but she was determined not only to land the product,

but also to become a leader with her product in an

industry that very beginning,

she didn't even know of.

She also,

I have to say,

didn't even know how to.

So at the time she came up with this idea,

but what did she do?

She borrowed her mother's sewing machine.

And she taught herself to sell success.

Trait, number three,

loving people being at ease with people,

the whole small business world succeeds because we lean on the

shoulders of others.

You are listening to me right now.

I am getting new information all the time from my guests.

I get new information and support from my chamber or other

networking events that I'm in.

I get support from my customers because they are buying our

products that keep the business running.

So we all could not do this without each other.

And having a love for people really important,

Eileen of Y Q I like U I Y Q U,

like that tea room does so much to gather people together.

And she creates programs right in her shop.

She figures out when the services are being completed on Sundays

and make sure she's all ready for a crowd after services.

She does lots of events in her shop at night,

getting people together and getting a community together has led to

her success because she loves being surrounded by people and treating

people to her tea and all of her goodies over there,

Lana, another woman who loves people and she makes cheer bears

for cheerleading.

You guys,

she makes a year's salary within three months,

every single year.

She goes to these competitions.

She has these cheer bears and she custom prints ribbon.

The key to her success has been how she works with

customers, how she promotes her product.

But it's all with this love of being around people.

It's a great demonstration of how to work things at a

craft show.

Moving on to number four,

this is a little bit of a duplicate of what I've

talked about earlier,

but you have to have a passion for your product and

service, and it has to be doing something.

It has to be providing something that you are so passionate

about that you want to share with the world.

Marlena from love that spice and Alex from life garden farm,

I'm going to put them in the same category as spices,

even though Alex is hot peppers,

but he ground his into a powder that you include with

food, but both of them recognize the value of their product

and how it just doesn't make things taste better.

Or your tea be a little more flavorful.

Both of them provide real serious health benefits by consuming something

that's natural and consuming it in a fresh state,

not something that's been sitting on a shelf in a grocery

store for months,

and then it doesn't have the potency or the healing powers

that they do when you buy them fresh.

Both of these folks,

I got to tell you,

when you listened to their podcast,

you just can't help,

but smile because they talk with such passion and such love

for the products that they produce really,

really important.

Again, to the success of your business,

to summarize these four success traits,

they are resourcefulness determination,

having a love of people and an ease in communicating with

people and a serious deep down passion for your product and

the results that it provides for your customers.

Having now gone through these hundred shows,

I've come to a couple of conclusions.

The first one is that nobody knows for sure where they're

going until they get started.

And until they start walking down their path,

you know,

you start with one thing and I've talked about this before

and something comes in your path and you make a decision.

So you turn another way and then you encounter something else.

You make another decision.

You turn another way.

Another opportunity comes to you and you decide to go ahead

and take it.

So you turn another way.

Nobody really knows the end game as they're getting started.

So be open to those types of opportunities and it can

lead to huge growth to people that I love to show

as examples for this one is Yohana.

She is a graphic designer from the UK,

but that's not all she is anymore.

She has an extremely successful graphic design business,

but now she also teaches other people who are graphic artists,

how to build a business for themselves.

She never would have expected it.

She does a lot of social media training,

business training.

I don't think she ever thought when she got started,

that that was what she was going to ultimately be doing

in addition to her artistry.

So that's a great example of how one thing leads to

another. The second one is my wonderful photographer.

Cyrissa from immerse photography.

She, as I'm saying is a photographer,

but she's also now training other photographers on how to build

a business and be successful in the world of photography.

Super exciting how both of these women's businesses have grown and

morphed from their original passion and their original craft.

The other thing is,

I don't think you can really always anticipate what the result

is going to be.

And many times it's not expected.

And it's a huge surprise.

Take Jenny of Missouri star quilt company.

She started with long hand quilting because they were going to

finish quilts for other people.

She bought one simple machine and got started.

One thing led to another to another,

just like I was talking about taking step by step by

step. She now employs like half the town in Missouri.

It's a small town in Missouri,

but she's got multiple buildings I've been out there actually to

visit. And who knew that she was going to be this

employment source for so many people in her hometown.

She never could have expected or anticipated that.

Another one is Lisa from kitchen EAs.

Lisa started and was educated as a chemist.

One thing led to another.

She started cookbooks kind of merging some of her mixes in

together in terms of,

you know,

mix this with this,

you know,

all the different spices and elements and people wanted more and

they wanted it easier.

And that led to her making pre-packaged mixes,

which surprise,

surprise, led her to deciding she was going to do a

whole distributor ship.

So she has,

I don't know,

at this point,

maybe 300 people under her who are all promoting her brand,

having parties selling her product.

And so she's built up this kind of like a multi-level

marketing business who would have expected that when she was writing

her first cookbook,

way, way back when,

during a big snow storm at her house one Saturday afternoon.

So you just don't know where your business and where your

ideas are going to bring you.

The point is don't keep them inside.

If you are on the other end and listening to my

voice now,

and you have something deep inside you that you've been thinking

about for a while.

You know,

we focus with bakers,

crafters, and makers,

but maybe for you,

it's a book or maybe you are a musician and you

want to start teaching music.

I mean,

it can be way over and above things that you're making

with your hands.

Of course,

even music has made with your hands,

I guess.

So that will apply.

But my point is share that with the world we are

missing out.

We, me,

your friends,

your family,

your neighbors,

other people who will find you are missing out on that

special thing that you're able to present and give to the

world. Don't keep it inside.

We want to know we want to be able to use

it and see it and help you along with your journey

as well.

So my recommendations are get started,

take action.

We've already talked earlier about ways you can do that step

by step.

And the other thing that's really,

really super important.

And no matter what you're doing,

I want you to stop right now and listen.

Many people.

When you see them online,

you're looking at their websites.

You're listening to them.

Talk me included right now.

We always show you what we want you to see.

We show you the end result.

We show you where we are as a success at this

point in time.

And it's so easy to get the impression that,

Oh, that person never struggled.

They never had trouble with their business.

They never pivoted to do something else because look,

it looks like it's been a smooth road this whole time.

Every single person has had struggles,

challenges, obstacles,

nave used their success traits like resourcefulness determination.

What we've talked about before to overcome these issues.

Okay? If you don't put yourself out there and you don't

try, you're not going to know if your idea is a

success and is going to take off,

or it needs some tweaking.

Now note that I said needs some tweaking.

I did not say failure,

right? Even if you,

you start something and you put it out there and it's

not quite working,

that doesn't mean it's a failure.

And that does not mean that you are a failure.

That is for sure.

It just might mean that approach.

Wasn't working.

You need to try something else.

You need to change your product.

Perfect. How you're getting the word out there.

A lots of different types of things.

I have three examples for you,

of people who they could have said they were a failure,

but no,

they turned the business around and have successful thriving businesses.

Right now,

Julie, with silk thumb was a retail shop right here in

my community.

The recession came through.

People had to pull back and unfortunately,

silk floral,

especially hers.

Cause her designs are masterpieces.

People had to pull back.

I remember talking with her,

she was closing her shop devastated,

but then the idea came up.

I don't have to close.

I limit my expenses,

not have a retail shop.

Now she has a thriving design studio,

not open to the public so she doesn't have to staff

it. But she is putting unbelievably gorgeous,

expensive, lucrative designs in many office buildings throughout the Chicago area.

So her tweak and her business has been hugely successful for

her Regina of RD alchemy.

I won't say that she had any type of a challenge,

but they do cosmetics and oils and all different types of

appointments for our health.

But they're also very,

very passionate about research.

So she also has been shutting down her retail shop just

recently this past December because they want to focus more on

research. So it's a little bit of a pivot.

It's a little bit of a tweak of their business plan.

Doesn't mean anything else that they've done up to this point?

Hasn't been perfect,

but they're adjusting their plans to meet new goals,

new opportunities that they're identifying as they move forward.

The final person I want to mention in this category and

also probably in this podcast,

unless I think it was something else is Tim from Burton's

Maplewood farm.

They do all different types of syrup's from their maple trees

on the farm.

And something that you might think was an accident.

One day he was just going around.

He found this barrel.

He was trying to move and it was really,

really heavy.

He's like,

wait, why is this barrel so heavy?

Well, apparently not only had they been using whiskey barrels to

store some of their syrup that whiskey barrel had been by

the fire for,

I don't know,

six months,

maybe a year.

I've kind of forgotten now,

but he tasted it.

And Oh my gosh,

much to his joy,

the syrup was fabulous.

So now from that,

from a barrel that was kind of forgotten for a while.

He has created a whole new product.

In fact,

he's termed this fire infused bourbon syrup and O M G

it is de licious.

I tried it once,

not even knowing about Tim in new Orleans at one point

and loved that syrup and just happened to run into him

at a trade show.

So I got to find the source of that delicious syrup.

So again,

something unanticipated and something that you just take as a learning

and then you build on it and adjust and tweak your

business as you move forward.

The other thing I just want to mention here,

I would be remiss not to is environment,

change businesses,

change your consumer base might change for one reason or another.

So you always need to be analyzing and tweaking your product,

making sure you're up to speed with everything new in your,

so you stay the expert in your field and you continue

to grow and you continue to develop.

And I gotta be honest with you.

You know,

we are creators.

So changing and adjusting is more natural for us than someone.

Who's not a creator who has a business.

So that should be easy,

but I want to keep it top of mind for everybody

that you do want to continue to grow and build.

Maybe it's rotating out stock that you have in your shop,

whatever it might be,

because you want to keep what you have fresh.

You want to keep your existing audience coming back to you

for more and more,

whether it's on the website,

ordering online or walking into your shop.

So continued training totally important there,

you have it.

These have been my learnings and it's been so consistent.

It was really pretty exciting as I looked back on it,

I was starting to sense this about halfway through like a

lot of these answers have the same kind of thread going

through different ways.

They're accomplishing things,

but similar things.

So I really,

really am pleased to be able to share it with you

here on this hundredth episode,

we've gone through how do identify what your business is,

what you should do to get started and success traits,

things that people have reached back into and used to make

sure that they achieve success.

I've gone through two of my conclusions for you.

And then my overall recommendation again,

is to just get started.

If you have that inside you,

we want to see it.

And it's your responsibility to share it with the world.

We hope you do.

I have some great podcasts already recorded actually at the time

that I'm doing this one that are coming up past episode

100. So I do hope you continue to join me here.

Also know that if you have any questions or any comments,

we have a Facebook group called gift biz breeze.

It's open for everybody.

I would love for you to join us over there in

the conversation.

Any questions you have as you're growing your business,

you can put them there and you'll get my feedback as

well as others.

All right,

everybody take care.

Have a great day.

Thank you so much for listening to this.

My hundredth episode,

I don't know yet what I'm going to do to celebrate,

but it's gotta be something.

This has been a lot of hard work,

these podcasts,

but it is my joy and pleasure to share them with

you. Take care,

everybody. And I will catch you on episode one.

Where are you in your business building journey,

whether you're just starting out or already running a business,

and you want to know your setup for success.

Find out by taking the gift biz quiz,

access the quiz from your computer at bit dot L Y

slash gift biz quiz or from your phone by texting gift

biz quiz to four four two,

two, two.

Thanks for listening and be to join us for the next

episode. Today's show is sponsored by the ribbon print company,

looking for a new income source,

but yoga business customization is more popular now than ever brand

your products of your logo or prints a happy birthday,

Jessica Griffin,

to add to a gift,

right? A checkout it's almost done right in your shop for

cross studio in second,

check out the ribbon print company.com

for more information after you listened to the show,

if you like what you're hearing,

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