Consider the Wildflowers
Consider the Wildflowers
095. Kelly Kussman: A Six-Figure Business Bootstrapped on Corporate Bonuses
What’s your why? You know… The thing that gets you up and out of the bed in the morning. The thing that pushes you to keep pressing on through early morning inbox sessions and late night working hours. The thing that inspired you to leave your 9-5 for the wild and beautiful world of entrepreneurship.
Today’s guest discovered her why through the story of tragic personal losses. Kelly Kussman is the Founder & CEO of Cayla Gray Fine Fragrance. With over 25 years in corporate retail under her belt, Kelly launched Cayla Gray in 2020 on a mission to bring luxurious non-toxic fragrance collections to those looking to enrich their self care and beauty routines.
In this interview Kelly opens up about the heart and mission behind Cayla Gray, bootstrapping her luxury brand on corporate bonuses, and navigating the money mindset shifts in transitioning from the corporate world to entrepreneurship.
I hope our honest, raw conversation inspires you to remember why you started your journey in entrepreneurship. Press play for the full interview
WILDFLOWER SHOWNOTES : shannaskidmore.com/kelly-kussman
📌 RESOURCES MENTIONED:
A 3-Step Plan to Replace Your Corporate Salary with Your Business Income
When you operate from an abundant mindset versus a scarcity mindset, you make different decisions. You need to really make sure that you're spending your money in the places that are going to create a return on your investment. You're less able to take a risk on things that you're less able to take bigger bets on things because of the shift from abundant versus scarcity mindset. After I left my corporate job, it took a good six months of me. I even went to therapy about it, just to kind of make sure that I was comfortable being uncomfortable when it comes to knowing exactly where my next paycheck was going to come from. It was hard. It was a big adjustment. Hey,
Lauren / Team Skidmore:Wildflower, Lauren from Team Skidmore here, and you're listening to consider the wildflowers the podcast episode 95 Kelly kuzman is the founder and CEO of Kayla Gray, fine fragrance with over 25 years in corporate retail under her belt, Kelly launched Kayla gray in 2020 on a mission to bring luxurious, non toxic fragrance collections to those looking to enrich their self care and beauty routines. In this interview, Kelly opens up about the tragic personal losses that led to launching Kayla gray bootstrapping her luxury brand on corporate bonuses and navigating the money mindset shifts in transitioning from the corporate world to entrepreneurship. Let's dive in.
Shanna Skidmore:Hey, it's Shanna, and this is consider the wildflowers. The podcast. For the past 15 plus years, I've had the honor to hear 1000s of stories from entrepreneurs around the world. As a former fortune 100 financial advisor turned business consultant, I have a unique opportunity to see the real behind the highlight reel. I'm talking profit and loss statements, unpaid taxes, moments of burnout and those of utter victory. Or, as my husband says, the content everyone is wondering, but not many are talking about and now I'm bringing these private conversations to you. Hear the untold stories of how industry leaders, founders and up and coming entrepreneurs got their start, the experiences that shaped them and the journey to building the brands they have today, stories that will inspire and reignite, encourage to redefine success and build a life and business on your own terms. Welcome, Wildflower. I'm so glad you're here. Hi Kelly, welcome to the show. So excited to have you. I'm so excited to be here. Thanks
Kelly Kussman:for having me.
Shanna Skidmore:Do you have people call you?
Kelly Kussman:Kayla every single day? Yes,
Shanna Skidmore:I feel like because we're so used to now personal brands and your business name is a personal name. Yeah. I was like, Oh no, that happens to you a lot. Yeah. I
Kelly Kussman:get it almost almost daily chance to tell the story about the brand. So
Shanna Skidmore:okay, well, speaking of tell, will you tell everybody who you are and what your business is, and then we're gonna just go back to life before being a business owner.
Kelly Kussman:So my name is Kelly Kuzmin. I am the founder of Kayla gray fragrances. We are a clean, transparent ingredient fragrance company that was launched a Black Friday of 2020 so we've been in business for about three to four years right now. Okay,
Shanna Skidmore:so exciting. A good three to four years. Has it felt good? Yeah,
Kelly Kussman:yeah, it's been good. I mean, we launched during the pandemic. So that was a wild ride in and of itself, you know. But I think entrepreneurship is a roller coaster, and so as long as you prepare yourself for the roller coaster, we were able to get through it ready
Shanna Skidmore:for anything. How long had you been prepping to launch before you actually launched? Technically,
Kelly Kussman:I have been in retail for over 2023, years at this point in time. So I've been prepping this brand for 23 years, but actually working on Kayla gray a lifetime, but actually working in the business and working on Kayla gray itself was I started in the spring of 2019 so for us, it took about a year and a half, I would say, to actually launch the brand, because
Shanna Skidmore:you're testing fragrances, getting your formulas right. Branding. I mean, there's so much so, you know, I am naturally because of who I am going to wonder, how did you fund all of this before you ever launched?
Kelly Kussman:So I have been working in corporate retail for over 20 years. Started as an assistant buyer fragrances, which is where I completely fell in love with fragrance in the way that, like scent makes memories tangible. And I worked my way all the way up into a I was the senior director of sourcing and procurement for a Fortune 500 company, and was managing a book of over 2 million or $2 billion of revenue at the time. And so with corporate life comes bonuses, steady, paychecks, all the things that come with it. And so I saved a ton of my bonuses knowing that one day I was going to start my own business. So I was pretty much funded through my Yes, through my bonuses. So you're my corporate jobs.
Shanna Skidmore:You were like, at what point did you know, Kelly, that you wanted to own your own business?
Kelly Kussman:It actually happened after suffering from some loss in 2017 and I can tell you a little bit about that backstory, but yeah, I had been, you know, working my way up the corporate ladder. Was happy, thought the accolades and the, you know, the promotions and the money and the bonus. And those are all the things that were making me happy, until in 2017 I actually suffered from a ruptured ectopic pregnancy and almost lost my life as well as our first baby. And then it happened again in 2018 and it was really after those two moments that it shook me. It made me realize that life is so short, it's not guaranteed, and I needed to go after my dreams, and one of my dreams was to start my own business. And so it was really after 2018 things kind of went quiet for me for a while. And, you know, I needed to fuel my energy into something to help me heal. And that was building this business, this, this Kayla gray business.
Shanna Skidmore:Kelly, how rare is it to have an ectopic pregnancy and how rare is it to then have two
Kelly Kussman:the rarity of having an ectopic and having a ruptured ectopic is point zero, 1% and then having it twice, as you know, point zero, 1% or point zero, 1% so extremely rare. And even more rare to have it rupture and so to have it happen twice was, you know, something very much. It almost felt like a dream. Two years of my life almost felt like a dream, but looking back on it, it also provided me with a lot of blessings, and a lot of, I don't know, reality and gut checks with the ways that I was spending my days, and I've completely changed my life since then, based off of all of the aha moments I've had since those moments.
Shanna Skidmore:Would you be willing to share just some of the ways going through those hard and tragic moments, and like you said, almost losing your life has shaped who you are today, but six, seven years later,
Kelly Kussman:yeah, I think what was really interesting is, like I said earlier, what I thought was happiness. You realize at the end of the day for me, really wasn't the happiness. I thought the accolades and the recognition and the money were things that were super important to me and that, you know, you a lot of times, you do need money to be able to do all the things and have the freedom to afford you to do the beautiful things that you want to do, to experience this world. But I think after everything stopped and slowed down, and things just went very quiet for me for a few years, it became very clear to me that the thing I valued the most was freedom of my time, yeah, and freedom of my time to spend time with the ones that I loved so much. I mean, that was what was more important to me, than the money and the accolades and the titles. And so when I started working on Kayla Gray, and we named the company Kayla gray because that was actually going to be the name of our first baby, so a way to kind of honor the heartbreak, but also put beautiful things into this world. And so after I started working on Kayla Gray, my whole goal was to create a life around being present in the moment that I was having throughout my days. There were so many days when I was working a corporate job that I was just going through the motions. I was, you know, living for the weekend and then getting the Sunday scaries because I was just so anxious about, you know, the Monday morning reporting that me and my team were having to do, that I was missing all of the beautiful moments that were right in front of me, so I think that was probably my biggest aha moment, and the beautiful blessing that came out of the heartbreak that was those few years for me.
Shanna Skidmore:Yeah, Kelly, thank you so much for sharing your story and how you've found beauty in the ashes and how I am interested. How are you building your business with this motto is on just this life vision and values that you have now because of what you've gone through. So many business owners start a business, and we live, eat, breathe, our business. Would you say, for you, having these experiences before launching has really changed how you are moving and growing your business.
Kelly Kussman:Yeah. I mean, I will say that I am just a very ambitious person in general. So there's always going to be numbers and goals that I'm trying to hit every single year. There's growth numbers that I'm trying to hit. There's, you know, certain amount of followers on Instagram and you know, I mean, all of the things that we work so hard at trying to achieve in life, none of that goes away. I think what is important for me is to kind of structure my days around making sure that I have the time that I need to go inward and go quiet when I need to, or I have the time that I need to spend with my friends and family, and I think being able to have the freedom to work at weird hours of the night, or work on weekends, or, you know, work during different times of the day, to allow me to be present during those things that feed my soul, is kind of the work that I'm really working towards creating this business around, and also allowing my staff to have a Little bit of freedom to do that too. It was one thing that, you know, I really felt was missing in my corporate job. As you know, you had to be there 7am till 7pm you know, Monday through Friday. You ended up working a lot of weekends. And I really missed the freedom to, you know, get the work done when I was able to get it done in order to, you know, make sure we were. Hitting our revenue numbers. So really trying to build a life around doing both as much as I possibly can. When you build, when you start a business, though, I mean, you know, you're working long days, you're working weekends, so it takes a while to get to a point where you're able to take the time to do those things, but it was worth it for me. Yeah,
Shanna Skidmore:I love it. Okay, I have one more question, and then, you know, we'll start the questions. Coming from a corporate environment, but in a similar industry. I don't know if we've had anybody on the show. Maybe we have, but what would you say you've you learned from corporate that now, in one way or another, is moving, you know, it's is present in the business you have today, for example. Of course, you learned a lot. I'm sure about developing the fragrance. But how about like, sales goals and audience objectives? And do you feel like you're bringing all that in with you? Where are you setting different expectations as a small business versus such a large company?
Kelly Kussman:Both I would say, I would say the last 20 years of my career have built me up to a place to be able to hit the ground running when it comes to starting my own business, we surpassed six figures within our first year because I had laid the foundation within the twice past 20 years, building teams of hundreds of people managing billions of dollars of business for other organizations. It very quickly taught me where my skill set was and where I needed to hire in order to move my business forward, to get to past six figures of revenue within that first year. And so I did almost everything within retail operations in my corporate career, everything from financial planning to project management to sourcing to transportation to production to buying, pretty much everything when it comes to an operation side of a retail business I have experience in. And so I was able to figure out how to solar, source and create and negotiate a product and get it out there. You know, the areas of business that I didn't have experience in were things like marketing, especially in a world now where social media is such a huge part of things, old school corporate retailers aren't really in social too much. And so that was a whole new skill set that I needed to learn. But where I really love this, the things that I learned from corporate were the systems and the operations and the project timelines and keeping everything on schedule and on track. The things that I did want to, you know, steer away from a little bit was I wanted to create a really special customer experience for people. I wanted a beautiful unboxing experience for my customers. I wanted to have personal touches, personal conversations with as many customers as we were, we were able to, and so we spent the first, you know, three and a half years of our business completely bootstrapped. We haven't spent any money on customer acquisition costs. Everything was bootstrapped. And I think because of my history, I was able to use the fundamentals that I had learned in a different way with this small business. And so it was a little bit of both. I wanted to take a lot of the corporate skills that I had learned, but also create a more personal touch with people with my new small business.
Shanna Skidmore:Yeah, oh, I love it. Okay, so let's go back to 2019 even working in the fragrance industry for 20 years, you knew you wanted to start your own business. How did you get started? Like, what did that year and a half of R and D look like for you all? And then at what point were you like? Were ready to launch?
Kelly Kussman:I had started my career in fragrance and in buying but then throughout the 20 years of my career, I ended up working for PetSmart, actually, for 12 years. And so the last portion of my career had nothing to do with fragrance. I did so when I decided that I wanted to start a completely different kind of fragrance, yes, very, very different kind of fragrance. So when I decided I wanted to start a fragrance company. It was me, Google University, tic tac University, YouTube University, trying to figure out, like, Okay, what does it even take to create a perfume? And because, for me, I did have some savings set aside to create this new company, I was able to hire master perfumers and consultants that have done the work, that have stood up other fragrance companies to help teach me the ways. And so I took a bunch of perfumery courses, learned how to create fragrances on my own. I even still, to this day, have all of my fragrance notes behind me on my wall that I used to first create all of my corsets. And so for me, it really was hiring people in the industry that I wanted to get into, and then teaching myself how to create what I wanted to create. And then hired manufacturers in order to make sure that we were cleanly formulating everything, which is one of the pillars of my brand. How Kelly,
Shanna Skidmore:did you like, Did you set a number for yourself? Like, here's the budget. What we have for this research phase, or was it, you know, there's, like, whatever it takes we're gonna get there.
Kelly Kussman:Yeah, so I had put together, kind of like a loose budget and plan of what I knew that I would need in order to do R and D, and then what I thought I would need in order to create the packaging, what I thought I would need in order to create that first production run. So basically runway, you know, figuring out, like, how much runway I actually had in savings. And for me, it was really important. I was still working full time while I was building Kayla Gray. I was working on my business for two, two and a half years until I left Petsmart full time to go full time into my business. And so for me, it was very important to have at least 18 months of runway before I even thought about leaving my corporate job. And so we just sat down and put together, you know, how much we thought that we could spend every single month and held ourselves to that budget. And then once we actually started making sales, literally, I never took a paycheck just until last year. Like, actually, just reinvesting that money because we were growing so quickly.
Shanna Skidmore:Okay, now the vlog we threw initial launch. How did you figure out pricing launching, like you mentioned, you maybe didn't have a marketing that marketing background and how, I mean, the first year you did six figures, like what went well, and then what were kind of some bumps in the road that first year, the
Kelly Kussman:first year was wild, because it was in the middle of covid. So I had opened up my LLC in February of 2020, and then everything just kind of shut down after that. And so for me, I was lucky enough to have the job that I was actually in at the time was a Senior Director of sourcing and production, and so I was able to see through my corporate job where all of the you know, the issues were happening in terms of supply chain, what types of materials we were having shortages on, what types of labor markets were having issues. So that I was able to kind of pivot and adjust my launch SKUs based off of where the commodities market was trending because of all of the issues that were happening during covid. So randomly, I got lucky in the job that I was in doing, you know, sourcing and production right? Because it helped kind of guide the decisions I made in order for me to launch specific SKUs because supply
Shanna Skidmore:chain was so big. Yeah, it was
Kelly Kussman:crazy. I mean, if you remember, gas was going up. Labor. There were so many labor shortages that the majority of middle to smaller businesses, a lot of them, are shutting down because they couldn't find workers to keep up with the production runs that were happening. So us, you know, as a giant corporation, a fortune 500 company, were having issues like, of course, me trying to build a small business are going to have 10 times the amount of issues that a large corporation that actually has leverage is going to have. So that guided a lot of my decisions. And honestly, like this, some of the materials that I launched with, I knew were not going to be long term materials. An example would be like for our glass, for our rollerballs. The rollerballs that we used were stainless steel, and I wanted to use glass, but I knew that I could launch a stainless steel and eventually, when you know the raw material supplier was able to get the glass rollerballs back in, we would switch to glass. So there were a lot of small decisions that we had to make, both monetarily and from a marketing perspective, in order to launch the brand on time. And we were able to do it. We were a couple skews short, but we were able to still meet our launch date at the end of the day.
Shanna Skidmore:Yeah, that's amazing. And what do you feel like went well like with your first launch with marketing, what do you feel like? Wow, we did. So this went so well in our first year, and then, other than, of course, the supply chain. But what didn't go well, where there's some hiccups that happened, that you learned and shifted moving forward?
Kelly Kussman:Yeah. So what well for us is that we were planning to launch on Black Friday, and so it was really important for us to build a community around Kayla gray as a brand before we actually launched the product, you know, getting people excited about the brand. And so we actually started our social media campaign on october 1, and spent the following two months just like building community, me going out and talking about the story and why I'm creating this company, and why it's important for me for ingredients to be transparent, talking a little bit about my backstory, so that when the time came for us to actually launch the product on Black Friday, there was a pent up demand that we're super excited to be able to try all of these different scents. So that was something that worked really well, the things that didn't work well, you know, kind of a little bit of what we talked about before was raw material issues, you know, ended up we had to use a screen print vendor, for example, that just completely messed up one of our production runs, you know, causing us to have to scrap about $3,000 worth of inventory, which, at the time was a big. Deal. So we ended up not even launching with our rollerballs until a few months later. So there were just like little hiccups like that, that there was just no way to pivot around during covid, times that we just had to pivot and adjust and keep moving forward. All right,
Shanna Skidmore:walk me through the last couple years, how it's grown. What you attribute that growth to? Like, what do you feel like is going well with the brand, with the fragrances, with your audience. Like, what do you feel like you've done really well? And, yeah, just walk me through the growth. Yeah. So
Kelly Kussman:the growth, we've been doing great. From year one to year two, we doubled our business from year two to year three, we increased our business by 40% and then year three, just this last year, we were up 30 38% year over year. So we're growing. And what I'm really proud of is that we're growing organically. We haven't spent $1 on, you know, paid ads or influencers or any sort of customer. We don't have any sort of customer acquisition cost. So the thing that's really been working for us is creating a direct connection with our customers. I go out and I get on speaking panels, and I talk about my history in corporate I talk about I have a consulting business on the side that helps small business get themselves operationally set up and ready to scale. So I get out, and I talk about those links. I talk about the company. I talk about why I started my business, why I left corporate life. Just put a face behind the brand a little bit and give people a connection to the brand. It's more than just fragrance. There's a story behind it, but also getting people really excited about the fact that we're transparent ingredient like we want you to know what you're putting on your body. It's important for us that you can trust us with what we say. So really getting out there, going to markets, like getting direct customer feedback, was really important to us at the beginning and pivot and adjusting quickly based off of the customer feedback we were getting, we would also go out to retailers and literally take our products to the retailers and ask them, What do you think about this packaging? Would you put this on your shelves? Why or why not? Like, what adjustments would you make? So for us, we spent a lot of time asking for feedback, asking for mentors, asking for advisors to come on board and help us out, without taking any equity or getting any payments. And you'd be surprised that a lot of people are willing to pay it forward if you just make the ask. So for us, it was hustling, getting our name out there, and, you know, having as much communication as possible with both retailers and our and our customers. So Kelly,
Shanna Skidmore:what is your hope now? Like, what do you see for the future of the company? What do you see for your own self as the owner of the company? Like, what? What is your vision? What's the mission that's like pushing you forward?
Kelly Kussman:The mission for me is to continue to grow the brand authentically as much as possible. I think, you know, a lot of brands grow so quickly, they're just trying to scale, to hit a certain, you know, acquisition, a certain exit. And for us, like I really want to grow the brand with the intention of creating direct memories with our customers, for creating little moments with our customers. I feel like a lot of the larger brands are lacking a little bit when it comes to customer service. I want the beginning touch point of our brand all the way to when you get that box in your hand to be something that's really special. And so we're growing and building the brand very intentionally. Within the next year or two, we are looking to take on some possible strategic advisors and possible angel investors to try to start to test out doing some paid marketing. And then we're also looking to expand our private label side of the business. We do private label collaboration sense with influencers, brands and celebrities. And something that differentiates us a little bit from some of the other fragrance companies is that because of my history, like we are able to take on some of the operations for the influencers and celebrities in terms of like ordering, fulfillment, customer service that will allow them to build their own brand and take those things off of their plate. So we're leaning heavily into private label and making sure our customers feel loved and appreciated, and then looking to take on some possible investors as well. How is
Shanna Skidmore:your role like staying the same or changing as the business grows? Do you? I mean, are you the one coming up with fragrances and scents at this point? Are you mostly doing the operations? Like, what's your team look like, and what's the role you hope to play moving forward. I think
Kelly Kussman:when you start a business, especially your entrepreneurship journey, most entrepreneurs start with their hands and a little bit of everything you know, just trying to figure out. For me, it was trying to figure out like where my skill set was best utilized, and where I needed to hire out in areas of expertise that were not mine. So immediately I hired out for things like marketing, social media branding, things that I don't have skill set in. And then I was deep in operations. I'm working on, you know, figuring out, like, what our forecasting model looks like for inventory. I am working with fragrance houses to develop all of our sense. I am hands on with that today, and I. Um, you know, at some point in time, we'll have our own, you know, team of fragrance perfumers, but for now, I'm, you know, definitely the one creating and developing all of our new products. We do have a little store here in downtown Phoenix, so we've got our store staff there, and then I have our customer service manager here that really helps support us internally. Those are our, you know, our internal Kayla gray employees, but we do hire out for other things, like fulfillment, marketing, web development, things that I don't have expertise in. And the hope is to continue to start to pull those external contractors into Kayla gray internal teams as we scale. But for now, a lot of those are my areas of expertise. So I'm kind of still working in the business in the future. The goal is to work more on the business as more strategy leadership than I really am today. But that just comes with scale and time and, you know, increased revenue.
Shanna Skidmore:Okay, so I want to talk about the money and and with your background and what you did in corporate for so long, and then coming into a small business that was fully bootstrapped yourself, leaving your corporate salary, you said you didn't take any money from this business for quite a while, like just kind of talk me through your relationship with money, how you feel equipped or unequipped to run the business side of the business. I do feel like you just naturally have a mind for this, or your corporate background prepared you for it. Yeah, I'm just really interested of how, how it's going running the business side and the financial side of the business.
Kelly Kussman:So my role for many years was, you know, a director of financial planning. So for me, budgeting and figuring out, like, where to best spend the money is something that I'm naturally gifted at. It's something that I help other brands figure out and make sure that they're calculating revenues and, you know, margins and all of that correctly. I think the thing that I was unprepared for, and was a big mindset shift for me, was really shifting from an abundant money mindset to a scarcity money mindset. And what I mean by that is, when I was operating in my corporate world, I was getting a steady paycheck every single week. I was getting big bonuses at the end of the year. I had health insurance. And then all of a sudden you shift naturally to a scarcity mindset where you don't know where your next paycheck is going to be coming from. It just it's 100% dependent on everything that you do, every single move you make in your own business. And what I didn't realize is that when you operate from an abundant mindset versus a scarcity mindset, you make different decisions. You know you need to really make sure that you're spending your money in the places that are going to create a return on your investment. You know you're you're less able to take a risk on things, but you're less able to take bigger bets on things because of the shift from abundance versus scarcity mindset. So I will say, after I left my corporate job, it took a good six months of me. I even went to therapy about it, just to kind of make sure that I was comfortable being uncomfortable when it comes to knowing exactly where my next paycheck was going to come from. It was hard. It was a big adjustment.
Shanna Skidmore:Kelly, how did you That's so good. Everything you just said was so good. How did you navigate now? Like, okay, hiring, setting salaries, not paying yourself. I'm sure that was a conversation with your house, you know, with your husband and in your household. Like, how did you start to navigate the finances differently? Like you said, when it's now relying it's not guaranteed anymore?
Kelly Kussman:Yeah, I think for me, I was the breadwinner in the family, and so it was a big, huge risk for us to take that leap. We did save two years of bonuses. We set them to the side, and then my husband and I sat down together and we decided that we were going to operate for six months as though I didn't have a corporate job. Now this was while I still had my corporate job. So we would operate six months pretending like I didn't have the corporate job. Those paychecks were not coming in, and we put those paychecks in saving just to give us a six month buffer of my salary. And I think at that time was really the time that I was able to work through the scarcity mindset, stuff like, even though I knew I had savings set to the side, like, to actually act within your day to day without that extra salary. It was something that, you know, I kind of teach by my mentees as well as, you know, test it out for a while, see if it's something that you really are prepared to do. And so for us, that was kind of our way to tiptoe into making sure we were prepared for when that day actually did come.
Shanna Skidmore:Oh, that's such a good such a good strategy. At what point did you start feeling more comfortable? So taking, taking a paycheck for yourself, hiring team members. When did you was it a certain revenue amount you saw every month? Like, at what point were you feeling like, comfortable? More comfortable financially? Yeah, I
Kelly Kussman:think for me, when we started to hit multiple six figures, I started to feel more confident in my abilities, that if I needed more money, I could generate more money, I could figure out a way to hit an extra market for that month in order to pay myself like there was ways that you figure out how to get scrappy in order to make sure that you're paying yourself. But for me, my comfort level was wasn't until I was hitting multiple six figures in revenue, and at that point in time, there was a certain percentage of our revenue that I started to take home as a salary for myself. I definitely paid my employees a lot more than I ever paid myself when we were first starting, because I needed them to be able to allow me to do the things that I was good at, instead of getting caught up into my new details in order for me to do revenue generating activities that I as a founder should be doing, yeah,
Shanna Skidmore:and that is so hard. I mean, that's so hard as a small business owner. You know, building it lean. I'm a big fan of building it lean, but also was even something I'm learning just in the last couple of years, and this is our 11th year in business, is when you're operating outside of your own, you know, quote, unquote zone of genius, or the thing that you're the best at, it's actually costing you money. You can't see that money like an actual in your bank account money, because it's future money. And so it's this weird, like hire before you I don't know it's a funny. And as a financial coach, it's this interesting place of like, you know, people say hire before you're ready. And then I'm like, well, there's something about building it lean. But yeah, so all of that is such a tricky little game you have to figure out. Um, Killian, all of this, I would be interested to know, what would you say is the best thing you have learned about money? I
Kelly Kussman:learned how to be real scrappy. I can tell you that. I would say, for me, it's you kind of just said it a little bit. It's like, for me, it was asking the right questions. Can actually save you a ton of money in the long run. So like, whether it's hiring the right contractors, making sure you're asking for referrals, making sure you're interviewing really well. You're quick to you know, quick to fire, slow to hire. You know, is the term that they say. And I think same thing, what you said is, like your money should be making money for you. And so if I am do, if I'm entering orders into QuickBooks, and I can pay somebody $17 an hour to be entering those orders into QuickBooks, and I could be using that time to generate hundreds, 1000s of dollars in a different way, like, that's where I should be spending that money. So be it's like really asking the questions about why you're spending the money, who you're spending the money with, to make sure that you're spending it in the right areas. So the best thing I've learned about money is to ask questions. Why am I doing this? Am I asking? Am I hiring the right people? Do they have references? Am I really hiring the right person for this role? And if they're not good fit, letting them go and being quick to hire somebody else, are the biggest things that I've learned about money. So
Shanna Skidmore:good, such good takeaways. And I think, yeah, so especially when you're bootstrapping it, when every penny counts, it can be really hard to make some of those decisions before you feel ready, but you're so right time. I think we all feel this way. Time is so limited. And when you realize, and I've been feeling this lately like I can't get done the most important things I need to do if I don't have the right team in place, should I be answering this email right now, or could somebody else be doing that better? I love it absolutely okay with your history and with your journey and your story and all that you've gone through and the mission behind your company and the name of your company, you know, I love always talking about money, but I equally love talking about life balance, and I would love to hear Kelly How you feel like, you know, kind of in a world that asks us to do everything really, really well. And coming from a corporate background where you're used to working probably 6070, hours a week, how are you seeking to find balance, which I love to call harmony, in your work, in your life, as you grow this brand, I
Kelly Kussman:think there's a few things. I think first for me, there is no balance. You know, I think trying to find balance work life balance is something that, to me, always felt overwhelming and like I was setting myself up to fail, because there are certain times that people in my personal life need me more than I. Business does. There are certain times where I am pushing hard in my business, and, you know, my family needs, you know, they're they're gracious enough to understand that I may be a little less available, you know, for a week or two out of that month than I normally would be. And I think for me, it goes back to a mindset thing, like setting myself up for making sure that I'm communicating very clearly with my work responsibilities and my home personal responsibilities in terms of like, this is the give and take that it's going to, you know, that's going to have to happen in order for me to be successful, both in my personal life and my business life. So I wouldn't say that balance is something that I necessarily strive for. It's really making sure I communicate to everybody in my life the things that I'm really focusing on, the things that are important. And making sure the people in my life feel seen and heard is very important, I would say for myself, personally, the things I do to make sure that I'm doing well in terms of harmony are I take two trips every single year by myself alone trips, I immerse myself in nature and just tried to disconnect for a couple of days in order to kind of come back home to myself a little bit and really hear what my gut and my body are saying in terms of like my strategy or direction next in my life and the others, I've implemented CEO Mondays. So Mondays, I completely block my days off. I dive into emails, I dive into just catch up things. Sometimes I just go out and take a walk in nature for a few hours. It just I kind of block those days to make sure that I am able to give myself a little bit of balance, and I can slow down and go inward when I need to, so that I am fully prepared to go hard in my business or in my personal life when it's required of me. So I don't know if there is a balance for me. I think it's a little bit of an ebb and flow, and being comfortable with the ebb and
Shanna Skidmore:flow and understanding. I think for me, finding harmony is being really clear on your values. And like you said, there's seasons where the business needs more of me, there's seasons where my family needs more of me. There's days where Shanna just needs Shannon. I'm obsessed with CEO Mondays. I love that. You just said that I honestly did this kind of it just happened. But yeah, every Monday now for me, it's the same. I have no calls. I don't do any like recording. It's just, I need a day to do my my work, and I love it. Kelly, it's just, I love hearing your story and your company growth, the mission. Thank you for sharing just what you're doing and what you're learning. It's just been such an awesome conversation. And I always, I want to, um, move into a just a fun little quick fire round with some fun questions. So let's dig in with what is, what is one thing you would be embarrassed if people knew.
Kelly Kussman:Okay, this is a funny one. I literally just confessed to my best friend that I, while I'm working during the day, I put on these live Eagle cameras footage of these live eagles that just laid eggs. They're called. Their names are shadow and Jackie, and they just hatched three eggs, which is, like unheard of for bald eagles, and I literally, I have them streaming on my computer during the day, and I'll check in every couple hours to see what's going on with the two eagles. So that's something that's slightly embarrassing that I've been doing lately. So
Shanna Skidmore:Kelly, tell me about how like is this? Do you like the Discovery Channel? Is this a surprise to you as it is to everybody else? Like, are you like? No, this makes total sense. Makes
Kelly Kussman:total sense. 100% Yeah, nature. I love nature.
Shanna Skidmore:You love nature. I love it. That's the thing. You know, when I hear people that like listen to music while they work, or no people I can listen to music, but people who watch shows while they work. I'm almost, like, so amazed by because I was just so easily distracted. But I think I could watch shadow and what's the other one's name. I think I could watch bald eagle baby shadow
Kelly Kussman:and Jackie able to focus. Yeah? I think, yeah. I just think it's fascinating. And, you know, just like the lull of the background, I think it's a little strange and fascinating.
Shanna Skidmore:Okay, any regrets or wish you could do over moments?
Kelly Kussman:Um, I would say, you know, I regret, I guess I would say is that maybe in my corporate career, like, there was always this, like, shiny goal that I was marching towards, but I don't know that I was, like, actually enjoying the day to day process of actually achieving that goal. So wishing, like, there were so many years that I was just I would have reached that next goal, next goal, or hit that next ambitious, you know, moment, and then I would just be on to the next one, instead of, like, actually enjoying the days in the process of achieving those next moments. That's something that I would say, I wish that I could have. Do overs, you know, to really like immerse myself in the moments and actually absorb them as we were moving through our days. Do
Shanna Skidmore:you feel like that has made you celebrate more now,
Kelly Kussman:big time. I mean, there's there's some, there's just moments in life that I recognize and are so much more amplified now, like an example would be at Thanksgiving this last year, you know, the whole family was busy getting ready, making sure that the meal was set at the table on a certain time a certain hour. And like everybody was running around doing their part, and in the corner of our living room, my two nephews were playing with a train set, and they were laughing so hard, giggling so hard, like just the sound of pure joy was echoing throughout the house, and like, nobody heard it, because everybody was so busy getting, you know, this perfect meal prepped. And I definitely absorb a lot of those moments, and hear a lot of things and see a lot of things a lot more clearly than I ever have before. And that's one thing that I'm very grateful for in this big transition of life that I've had, I
Shanna Skidmore:think so often going through hard things or different seasons of life that seemed really tough for you know, like not celebrating in your corporate job, I always, I have some things like that in my own life, and I'm like, I'm so grateful I wouldn't maybe choose it, but I'm grateful because I live my life differently now, celebration, though, is one for me that's still a challenge, I really and I'm so glad you brought that up, because I need to to get back to again, stopping to celebrate. I love that. Okay, yeah, a big win or pinch me moment.
Kelly Kussman:So we had a big in February of last year. We had a very big relaunch party. So we kind of relaunched the brand, and I hosted a big party with all of our friends and family and community that had supported Kayla gray over the previous two years, and I would say, I got up and gave a big speech to everybody, and there was a moment that a camera flashed at me in that moment, and I stopped, and I literally looked around the room, and I was shocked that there were 150 people there excited to celebrate Kayla Gray, this beautiful business that I had started in our next chapter. That was a huge pinch me. Moment for me is that I created a business out of nothing, and that all of these beautiful people were there to support us. That was a big, a big deal for me. I
Shanna Skidmore:love that. I love that Kelly best advice, or just really good advice that you have received.
Kelly Kussman:My dad gave me this advice that I literally have lived and died by for the last decade of my life, and his advice was really to wait 48 to 72 hours before you make any big decision, whether it's financial, whether it's personal, whether it's business, you know, it could be purchasing a house or buying a car, or, you know, ending a relationship, or which typically it takes longer than 48 hours to come to that conclusion, or accepting a job, or hiring somebody just really, like a lot of times, your initial reaction to a decision is emotional, and so allowing yourself 48 to 72 hours to allow the motion to soften a little bit and the logic to kind of shine through, will allow you To make a decision both with emotion and logic, and typically, you know it's always the right decision when you give yourself a little bit of time to think through it.
Shanna Skidmore:Great advice. I love that so much. Okay, last quick fire, and then we will send it off. What are you working on now? Or one resource that you would like to share
Kelly Kussman:right now? I'm really working on allowing myself to slow down a little bit more, and that is one thing that I would recommend people doing, is just taking a little bit of time for themselves, if you're if you're able, if you're financially, able to, you know, take a weekend and go somewhere by yourself and immerse yourself in a different environment, and to just go inward and start to listen to what your guts telling you. Start to listen the way that you're feeling about the things that are going on in your life. For me, it's just something that I always love to do, to kind of bring myself back to my center a little bit more, to allow myself to make better decisions go forward for, you know, the next six months until I take my next alone trip, but that's something that I'm currently working on now is kind of retuning my gut, my gut instincts slowing down a little bit and going inward.
Shanna Skidmore:I love it. Kelly, thank you for coming on the show and sharing more of your story. It's just been so wonderful to get to know you, and I want to send it off with you going back to 2019 when you first started testing fragrances, figuring out the name of your business and your brand and all those fun things. What would you tell yourself looking back now,
Kelly Kussman:oh, man, I would say that entrepreneurship is a roller coaster. So like you need to expect that. Going to be some low lows, but like to always know that a high is literally just around the corner and that it's pretty much guaranteed to come if you just operate with consistency and stay consistent in your business, just to ride the roller coaster, there's always an upright around the corner. Kelly, thank
Shanna Skidmore:you so much for your time and coming on the show. It's been so much fun. Thank
Kelly Kussman:you. I so appreciate you having me on Hey Wildflower.
Lauren / Team Skidmore:You just finished another episode of consider the wildflowers the podcast. Head over to consider the wildflowers podcast.com. For show notes, resource links and to learn how you can connect with Kelly. One final thought for today from an ancient proverb, certain things catch your eye, but only pursue those that catch your heart. If you have a friend thinking about leaving their corporate job soon, I encourage you to text this episode on overtoon And of course, don't forget to leave a review. I'm not exaggerating when I say it literally makes our day as always. Thank you guys so much for listening, and we'll see you next time you.
