Made for Mothers
31. Pumping Rights and Workplace Advocacy w/ Sarah Wells
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Hello and welcome to the Made for Mothers podcast, your one-stop shop for candid and relatable conversations about motherhood and entrepreneurship. Think of the show as your new mom friend, where we dive into all things marketing, branding, mindset, money, childcare and growing your business. While we all navigate our roles as both CEO and mom, I'm your host, mariah Stockman, and I wear a bunch of hats. I'm a boy mama, I'm serving as a marketing mentor for mothers, I'm running a six-figure marketing agency and on top of that, I'm the proud founder of the Made for Mothers community. This show is about sharing the real stories and the practical strategies from fellow mother-run businesses. So dive in, grab your headphones, reheat that coffee and let's go. Hello, hello, hello and welcome to another episode of the Made for Mothers podcast.
Speaker 1:I am here with Sarah Wells from Sarah Wells Bags and I'm so excited. She is a notable leader in the breastfeeding space since 2013. She started with the vegan leather Maddie pump bag, snowballing into more designs like totes, backpacks, cross bodies, cooler bags all the things from small beginnings in her garage to an internationally distributed company. Sarah Wells Bags has grown exponentially. All of that is very like bio, bio, bio, right, like that's what you're going to read on her website, but I'm going to tell you a little something that Sarah shared with me, which was I cried over washing pump parts. When my daughter, maddie who's now 13, was a baby and I was exclusively pumping while leading a national nonprofit organization. I just cried and cried, buckling under the pressure of not only doing good by my baby and my specific job role, but also not leaving anyone at the organization with a sense that a new mom couldn't do this job. So here we are with Sarah Wells.
Speaker 2:Hello Sarah Wells. Hi, thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to chat with you.
Speaker 1:You have such a name. That should be always said with your first name and your last name together. Do you know what I?
Speaker 2:mean, yes, I love my first name and I have my husband to really thank for a much simpler last name than I started out with. If it wasn't Sarah Wells, it would have been Sarah Bollinger. So I'm really I mean.
Speaker 1:I love it. I'm like I'm Mariah Stockman, but like it doesn't necessarily like roll off the tongue, you know. And I'm like Sarah Wells. Sarah Wells, anyway, sarah, you are a local mom, you live here in Northern Virginia. You have, you know, this massive company, this movement, 60,000 followers, a huge, huge heart for the mission of supporting working moms.
Speaker 1:And you've gone through the lens of, like, this product space, which I think is so transformative in a space that might be seen as transactional, of like, okay, we make this like pump bag, like you know, like we just literally pump them out and we sell thousands and thousands, hundreds of thousands of them. But you have this real heart of it feels like to me, this real heart of advocacy. And I also read that you have a nonprofit background, which I do as well, and we can chat about that a little bit. But I'm always so fascinated when I meet women who are really doing something differently and using their platform and their voice to be advocating, and specifically with the synergy of advocating for working moms, which I'm so excited to dive in. So, like, welcome, so glad you're here, and we just want to hear about you, like tell us your story, who are you?
Speaker 2:All the things. Thank you so much again. Yeah, so, as you mentioned, I have a non-profit background, but it actually really goes back further than that. So I grew up in a very small town with a mom and dad who were absolutely dedicated to community service. So my dad was actually an Episcopal priest and spent days counseling spiritually, you know, working in soup kitchens, helping people families in need in our town working in soup kitchens, helping people families in need in our town. My mom worked in the, in a nonprofit in the area of substance abuse and addiction, and she was also mayor of our town. So I really my heart. It's in your DNA.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, it grew up in, but I always had an entrepreneurial streak too, so amazing community service focused family members. But I was also the kid with the constant lemonade stand out front trying to raise money, trying to sell my product. So I've had kind of that business mindset as well as this passion for advocacy since the start, and I came to the Washington DC area to pursue my degree in public policy. I care a lot about federal policies that impact particularly women's health issues and that's where I focused in the nonprofit sector for the first decade plus of my career and that's where I had my first baby. You mentioned at the beginning me crying over the pump parts. I was executive director of a national nonprofit organization, so I was the boss.
Speaker 2:Yeah, at the tone at the time for I mean, I could make decisions about flexibility with my schedule. I was the leader of the organization. But at the time I believed and I've since vastly changed my mind about this and I'll tell you but I believed that the way you supported future moms or other women was to just have that hard face. We can do it. I'm not phased by what's going on in my personal life. Look at me, how successful I am, balancing it all Right.
Speaker 2:So that's what I was talking about when I wrote to you and said I was crying over those pump parts with mental health and struggling with breastfeeding and all the things going on in my personal life. But I came to work saying if they see me crack, they're not going to ever want to hire a mom again and I have an obligation to other moms to show that we can do this. Fast forward many years later, now that I have been a mom now to two girls and also watched other mothers through my business navigate work and career and motherhood. At the same time, I have realized and I think this is the authenticity I try to bring to the table through my small business is it's actually really important to normalize the struggle, while also saying that a struggle as a mom it does not take away from who we are in our career. So if I could actually go back in time and I'm not hard on myself about this because who knew right?
Speaker 2:I was paving my own way at the time, but if I could go back in time, I would have showed everybody in the organization I'm still doing the great job, but I'm also struggling with mental health, or breastfeeding is really not going well for me right now, or I need some flexibility, and I'm gonna take it, and this is what I really encourage. So backtracking again so 13 years ago, I went back to that job and I was breastfeeding, pumping. I was an exclusively pumping mom. At the time, there was like a little bit of support going on in social media. It was Facebook back then.
Speaker 2:Instagram wasn't even a thing, and it was hard, though, to find a community of support. And I would walk on into meetings on Capitol Hill and you'd find 50% of the people in the meeting would see my jumble of breast pump parts and they would tease the heck out of me, you and your milk machine, and I was really upset about that, because I worked really hard to command those rooms and to get that degree and to earn that seat at the table, and then the other 50% were moms who completely validated the experience. Oh, I remember the pump.
Speaker 1:And I have, and to be clear, like this was 13 years ago, just to be very clear that, like the actual physical pump is not the pump of today yeah, it is not, it was a big, it was a big. Yeah.
Speaker 2:It was a big. It was a big. It was like one option and it was actually quite unusual to exclusively pump. People would take the pump to work at least what you heard about. Now I think moms were doing something else behind the scenes Then. That's why communities formed eventually around exclusively pumping.
Speaker 2:But it was supposed to be sort of a side thing. You pumped when you had to because you weren't with your baby, but for me that pump went with me everywhere. It was the way I was participating. So I was pumping every couple of hours around the clock. So I just got to this point where here I am. I worked so hard for this professional career, for the respect to look professional that mattered to me. This was still back in the day when there was a lot of business suits on Capitol Hill and I really cared about bringing that professionalism to the table and I didn't have a way to bring the breastfeeding experience into that seamlessly. So after kind of complaining about it to my friends, to my husband, people started encouraging me to look at what kind of products I could develop that would help support moms. And there was really nothing like this at the time. As we said, there was like one pump. There were no bags, there were no designer bags. There were really like nursing bras at the time.
Speaker 2:There were pumping bras that you kept on or wore. It was really at the beginning of all of this, but the one really cool thing is that it's also when health reform was passed and it started covering breast pumps. On insurance so, the topic of breast pumping and the market for breast pumping just boomed.
Speaker 1:This was all during Obamacare right.
Speaker 2:And I had gotten this idea right around when they suddenly said insurance will now cover breast pumps. So what that did is that also spurred tons of tech innovation. That's when we started getting more portable pumps and the concept maybe wearable pumps and just more options, more competition, more options. It was a really good time for advancement and breast pumps, which gave me that. You know right to say I'm going to create the accessories to carry all these, because that's not what the tech companies were invested in at the time. So when I, you know, fast forward a couple of years, I did the nights and weekends thing where I was, you know, filing for a trademark designing as a lot of us do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we call it the nooks and crannies. The nooks and crannies of business, also, with new baby right like it was.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh while you were the director of a non-profit. Yeah, uh, I took my like one vacation for the year to china and went and visited graves uh and I where in china did you go?
Speaker 2:just I'm curious because I've been. We flew to hong kong that time and then went into a couple of different areas where they have breeze right on the mainland. I love it. But yeah, we were all over the place and I put an order in and when I had my first very small order, I decided to make a huge leap of faith, risk decision, and I gave notice to my job Wow when I even had sold a single bag or even put it up on a website. And I decided to do that because I said to myself really believe in me and I really believe in this and I want to give it like 150% and if it doesn't work in a year-ish I'll go right back into the nonprofit sector. But I feel like I would regret not and I was, and I should say this, and this is part of my authenticity of disclosing the real things behind. I had a partner who had an income that we could rely on. I couldn't have done that without that.
Speaker 2:So I'm very grateful for that opportunity, that we were a two-income household and were able to swing that.
Speaker 1:But you know, I hear a lot of moms, I hear a lot of women who share their story and sometimes they feel shame about sharing that part because we're also a two-income. I mean hello, we're in Northern Virginia. I mean there's few situations where I feel like you can really not be a two income family here and I feel like, anyways, there's a huge gap in that. That's a whole other conversation around housing, cost of living, all of that. There's a lot of have have have here. But then there's a lot of keeping up, right, a lot of keeping up. We want the biggest of everything here and that's from, like my West Coast perspective, kind of seeping in a little bit. It's a little different, but I do feel like sometimes there's some like oh, I have to make this disclaimer, I need to like share this from like a place of, of, like, just to be clear, like I didn't have to struggle that much, right, I didn't have to. Really like wasn't like a total blind leap of faith and I had nothing. However, I feel like it's really important to share. I love sharing. Listen, my husband has a W-2 income and I'm an entrepreneur and there's a lot of benefits to that. So if you're worried about stepping away from two W-2 incomes. I love hearing that that is a system that you utilized in order to launch this business and also just that deep belief that you just said to yourself, like that I always talk about.
Speaker 1:That mindset is one of is the thing that, like is so hard to invest in because it's so it's not as tangible, right? Like, just tell me who to hire, let me hire a CPA. Tell me who to hire, let me hire a marketing agency. The mindset piece is it's not something we can just go and outsource, right. We can't just go pick it up off the shelf and purchase it for our business or some concept like that. The mindset piece is really something you have to identify in yourself If you're going to go for this. The mindset is a forever. And how long have you owned your company now? This was 13 years ago.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I yeah about 13, 13 and a half years.
Speaker 1:Okay, so this, you'd be a perfect person to ask this Would you agree that mindset is not a destination, it's a constant? You have to. I'm sure you have been through so many seasons of maybe we shouldn't do this. You know like oh no, oh shoot, and that you have to continually, like a muscle. You have to work that mindset piece over and over again and I feel like the more your business grows and the more kind of, the bigger those goals get and the bigger the revenue gets and the scarier the outsource gets. It's like that mindset piece has to be fine-tuned constantly.
Speaker 2:And I would say one of the most difficult things in shifting my mindset or re-evaluating it constantly is I have found over 13 years, I cannot look at what happened the previous year and set as data to drive decisions, which is absolutely maddening. And someone who really uses data. I like evidence-based information. I'm grounded in public policy and science. This is where I come from in my passion and I want to look at the analytics to make decisions, and I have found that the market is so changeable I have to constantly shift my mindset. I can't say that worked last year, so that's our strategy going forward, or that was our advocacy or philanthropic mission as a company last year, so we're going to do that for the next three years. I have to be very much in the moment, willing to pivot, willing to change my outlook, willing to go with the market, the times, the economy, social media, what's in the news, what's the hot topic. Sometimes there's a pandemic or a disaster or something and you have to be willing to reinvent constantly.
Speaker 2:That's exciting, but it's also very nerve-wracking because you keep saying well, I made it for the last 13, so without any doubt, I'll make it for the next 13. You have to be in the moment to say what am I going to do to make it the next 12 months? The?
Speaker 1:next, do you think that that's like an like a really unique intersection of you? You're in like the new motherhood space online, which is always changing right, so you're thinking like, gosh, there's so many new products. There's like, should we be doing influencers? Social media is constantly changing. Do you think that's like this, this like very interesting niche? You're in between the actual nursing, breastfeeding arena versus pumping arena versus being like an e-com business, because you're kind of like, in both of these areas that can be very fragile to lots of different things happening. For example, like service-based businesses, they might thrive during a pandemic, right, because people need to invest in new ways to make their business have higher, higher revenue, um, but when spending is down or when the messaging around pumping and nursing and you know, like new motherhood social media messaging is so toxic, I think I mean it's it can be so toxic.
Speaker 2:so you're it's, you dabble in both, which is interesting so I think I think what I just said about it constantly changing is true of every single type of business. What and when it changes and how it changes is not necessarily applicable my business to someone else's business. So when I speak with and try to mentor new businesses that are not in my specific mom and baby product space, I will say you have to still have that growth mindset, that changeable mindset, but what yours is changing at right now you don't want to just follow mine, right? We don't have. So you're right. The pandemic is a really great example. That was a really downtime for my business, because people were not physically picking up and commuting to an office, which is the vast majority of my customer base, whereas if you were making art kits for in-home entertainment, this was your heyday If you were making your homeschool curriculum, you did great, but that's maybe not your heyday right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah right, exactly so you have to. This is true. The market is volatile and changing the culture and society and social media and how we reach people and advertising, and all of it is in constant flux. So, you know, you can try to look backward or look at other businesses and look at what they're doing, but it's kind of like just to talk about toxic motherhood to draw a parallel here. You can look at what other people or other businesses are doing, but that does not necessarily mean that what's right for you personally or business.
Speaker 2:So I do love talking to other businesses, but at the end of the day, I always go back to what is my core belief system. What am I trying to do here and what do moms need from me today? So, like when we were in the pandemic, people were not going to the office, but what I did have is so many healthcare moms that needed two and three pump bags because they didn't want to take a pump bag from the ICU during COVID into their home to their newborn baby at the end of the night. Because you remember when we were cleaning off our grocery bags yes, wow, fascinating and that became a different time period for me where I said, okay, I might want to invent some fun new product elsewhere, but that's not what the moms need right now. What?
Speaker 2:the moms need right now are, for instance. One thing we did during that time period is we came up with the first ever fully machine washable breast pump bag, because moms were like I need to totally sanitize this thing in a way that we had never contemplated prior. Like you had mentioned in my bio, we have like vegan leather bags. Moms at the time were saying no, no, no, we don't care about that anymore, we want to drop it in the washing machine.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we need to be able to quick watch and get back to work. You know whether we're in the military firefighter. There were a lot of moms still working during that time, so we really focused on what do they need right now? Yeah, come out of that period and then we again. We reinvent ourselves again. What is it that the next group of moms need? For a lot of moms now that's there's like all these wearable small motor pumps, and so we started adapting the size of our bags or, you know, the functionality of our products.
Speaker 1:I love this like the whole flexibility of thought of just like that to me is such the joy of being an entrepreneur, which is, if I can just stay super curious and super creative and yeah, like, use the data, that's great. But the curiosity and the creativity for me is where, when we were just talking about that mindset piece and I love when you were talking, talking about it's fine to look at what other people are doing, but it's great to know what's out there, what the market's like, who are competitors, all of that. But I can't live in that and I try and tell my clients like you can't live in that either, because you don't know the support systems that that business has in the background either. If you're a solo mom entrepreneur and you're looking at another solo mom entrepreneur, you don't know if they have a nanny, you don't know if they have a meal service, you don't know if they have a full-time virtual assistant.
Speaker 2:You don't know if they're profitable.
Speaker 1:You don't know if they're profitable, you don't know if they have a full team, you don't know anything about their business and about the systems that let them execute and implement their business. However, I do think that when we can stay super curious and super creative, that's where I find the most revenue sort of producing activities get for me at least come from, is like, oh, maybe you should just try this. I don't know, do people want to come to this event? Do moms need this? And just releasing that very often like that fear of no, it's not going to work, it's I don't know.
Speaker 1:And then not making decisions fast enough. I mean I don't think we should rush everything, but making decisions quickly is also, I think, part of staying really creative, like let's just do it, let's just get it up, let's just figure it out, let's just, you know, figure it out as we go. And I love that. I love that you have such a concrete example. I feel like every mom who comes on this podcast has some sort of COVID linked story of their business. I mean, hello, it's moms. I mean kids were home or running businesses, but yours directly impacted. You know these frontline, frontline. You know I'm totally blanking on what we called them, because it's been so long, but you know like workers frontline heroes yeah.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, so we called them like they were necessary. I forgot there was another word for them and I'll I won't remember. But yeah, I mean I just find that to be so interesting. But I want you to take us back. Okay, so it was 13 years ago. You went to China. You had no product yet, no website yet all of it. We didn't have social media. And you were like, okay, I'm going to leave my nonprofit, I'm going to leave my very hard-earned identity degree and my professional credibility. Really, I mean, that was, I'm sure, like a huge identity piece for you to be, you know, the boss, to be the head of an organization, to be a leader and say, I'm going to jump into this other thing. So tell us a little bit about what happened.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think you know what I had started saying before and I'll bring throughout the rest of this conversation is I'd like to talk about the hard parts too, because I've been really successful, really lucky to have the amazing community of support.
Speaker 2:But there's pain points throughout all of this too. So you know I was revved up to leave the job to try to start this thing that I had put like at that point, almost two years of time and investment and travel and everything into building, and I believed in the product. But not everyone was thrilled that I left my national nonprofit organization job. I think a lot of people thought I was going to be like sitting in the basement sewing a bag at a time, right to sell, and I think that you always have, I think a lot of us have imposter syndrome. I still fight that in new spaces, yes, yes, and it doesn't help when people you know act supportive but also are sort of questioning whether this is going to be a real job, a real success or sort of in a, in a smaller box than what your dream is for the project.
Speaker 2:That was a hard time for me. I also think like oh, you're just like.
Speaker 2:This is like a hobby, right like this is sarah wells's hobby and I'm like that's not how this works it was like um, you know, it's a very like mushy, confusing time because I think they I think a lot of people sort of were like huh, don't really get. And I actually really understand that because I was entering a new space. It was like not yet it wasn't concrete in a way that they understood, oh, she's selling something that they know about, right, this was a new space. I think people believed in me but didn't understand it and it was such a big we and so there was a period of just in my mind it feels like a mushy time. For the first couple of months I remember sitting like opening up my laptop, like day one when I was not in my other job and I'm starting the business and just being like now what I can just see that, like that cursor, just like staring back.
Speaker 1:I can just feel that what that must have felt like, like, where are we doing? Yeah?
Speaker 2:Like I didn't get out and everybody was still like, unequivocally five days a week in an office and commuting into dc, you know. So like I stopped commuting, suddenly here I am, it's all on me, a lot of anxiety about that. Did I make the right decision? And so on and so forth and you have young kids.
Speaker 1:you did, you had another one at some point, I mean later on. Yeah, but, yeah, but at that point I had Maddie.
Speaker 2:She was just a couple of years old at that time. Yeah, that was challenging. I had a mentor from like maybe the first or second month of just doing the nights and weekends thing, and she has stuck with me all the way through this whole entire 13 years. Wow, really, oh, yeah, amazing, yeah, and that helped because whenever I was having the imposter syndrome, I call her up. I also did something that, looking back, I think was just so helpful to me and in helping build my confidence is that I would schedule, at least several times per week, calls with other entrepreneurs who are a little further ahead than me.
Speaker 2:At the time, dc was a little harder to find business networking groups that weren't like real estate or federal contracts. There wasn't so much e-commerce here but what I did is I would find them in other parts of the country and I'd set up two or three calls a week so that even if I wasn't selling a single product that week because there were a lot of weeks where there was nothing sold, for sure I had something to like, look forward to. That felt like progress. I have this call. I'm going to ask them.
Speaker 1:Wait, you're saying like a community and a village and like networking with other like-minded entrepreneurs. I don't know, maybe moms who are entrepreneurs, maybe that's like a super secret to success. No way, sarah Wells Welcome to Made for Mothers.
Speaker 1:I know exactly and also it's crazy to think like okay, so you know it just. It's crazy to think that everything okay, so you know it just. It's crazy to think that everything that you're talking about, like I've done via Instagram DMs, right, so like, I'm in my mind. I'm like where did you find these people Like, how did you look at them? In Nebraska or wherever they were, you know?
Speaker 2:because it's it was so not the ease of accessibility of creating community online Like it was usually like asking I had a couple of questions, I would always ask them Give me somebody else I can talk to, Like who have you come? Across, like maybe at a trade show.
Speaker 1:Like who do I need to know?
Speaker 2:Yeah, who have you talked to? And I always asked and I kept like a running log what is something you did really wrong? Oh, I love that. And I kept a running long because my thought was I would read all these business articles and they would always be like you're going to fail, like it's, and you do, but like, but I kept thinking I wonder if I could minimize how bad I fail. Yes, If.
Speaker 1:I sort of took Can I learn from other people's failures, if I?
Speaker 2:took them like right. If I synergized all the things people did wrong and could avoid those, would my do something wrong or my mistakes be?
Speaker 1:minimized. I love that because even you know company Google. Google has Google X, which is their arm of Google. That is like the most innovative secret laboratory. Things are going to space. You know things. Google X pays their team when they fail, like they incentivize the fate, like they award you for saying I took this project far enough and I recognize that it failed and what can we learn from it. And they actually award them for the failure, which I think is amazing. I always like to ask what's the first thing you outsourced and would you still outsource? Would that still be the first thing you outsource with what you know now?
Speaker 2:And I would say that was actually the fail for a lot of people was outsourcing the wrong thing. That came up a lot.
Speaker 1:Right or not outsourcing? What would you say right If I asked you right now what was your biggest failure so far?
Speaker 2:Believing that I needed to jump from like one product to 30 really fast to sort of prove the value of the company or the like actual financial value of the company or my worth in the category. And I since then have really told other entrepreneurs I've mentored it's super tempting to want to have nine color variations, to want to have six different versions of this product or go into three spaces. But do one thing super, really really really good and successful and do the second thing, really really good and successful. And every time you go through that, keep asking your customer base what do you want next? And if they have any negative reaction to your idea, believe them.
Speaker 2:Because maybe they'll believe, like you might not believe your grandma's input on that or your neighbor's input. But who is your core customer? And if they don't want it? And I tell you, there are several products I have developed that are sitting in my basement right now that I love. But when I tested that with customers it wasn't love and I didn't bring it to market.
Speaker 1:That's so funny, I mean I have to love it. Can you name one? I just want to know what is. What's one product that?
Speaker 2:you didn't bring, oh, just all sorts of like different shapes of bags or things. And now I go down and look at them and I'm, like you know, at the time, like maybe I thought some style of a bag was trendy, or I mean, a lot of times I was trying to be something that I wasn't like looking too much like maybe some really amazing European handbag that I love like trying to lean into something that wasn't my core who you are and what your style is, what your visual is.
Speaker 2:Like off timing. So one of the bags I have in the basement is a very small breast pump bag.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I had that way before the wearable pumps came out and people looked at me like this honking huge pump I have is never going to fit in this. This won't work for me. It's funny I was like ahead of the time, I didn't know, you know. So in the end I ended up adapting something very similar. But you've got to make sure, with your customers, you're in the right zone. Again, we talked about sort of the culture and dynamic of what's going on in their lives right now. What do they need, and align it with that. So that would be what I would mainly tell other businesses is just slow down a little bit. That's so relatable.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I had a really from the get-go, really great series of banking relationships which helped me be able to buy inventory, and one of the bankers said something to me that has always stuck with me. That ties into that. He said when banks are looking to make loans to small businesses, we're actually not looking for rapid growth. That's scary. We're looking for stability. And it's really stuck with me because it's so tempting when you start to have some success to just want to take it off in again 20 directions. And I always go back to what the banker said, the long-term businesses. They grow, but it's sort of thoughtful, stable growth. The ones that go from zero to 100, it's really risky that it's just gonna drop out or you're gonna be over-inventory or take out too much debt. Refinance your home. You may go beyond, like what you're willing to do or right for you.
Speaker 1:I mean you hear all the time that real estate is the best investment, like that's the best place to. That's debatable for different people, but I believe in that and you think like well, they're giving like 30-year mortgage. I mean they want like a slow investment where you look at something like Bitcoin or something like these cryptocurrencies that are so so can be so up and down, so unpredictable, and I mean some of those work because they go back.
Speaker 2:Some of them work, they go 1,000 viewers and then they exit.
Speaker 1:So you have to look at what your mission is.
Speaker 2:My mission was never to like get into breast pump bags, make a zillion bucks and get out and sell it. And sell it or something like that. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, and here I am three years later. I love the whole concept of like having relationships with bankers because someone I had, a mentor, tell me like, before you do anything, think about are you willing to take the risk and invest in yourself and get a small business loan? Because I think I don't know how many people in my like direct sort of circle of influence take small business loans. Sort of circle of influence are take small business loans. I think we live in the world of I'm just going to finance it on credit or something like you know, on a credit card or something. If I need to make a big investment, like, say, someone wants to get like a $15,000 website, they'll just put it on a credit card at some 17% you know interest rate on a credit card.
Speaker 1:It's been crazy where having a small business loan as an option it seems almost like old fashioned or something I don't know. And it's not. And it's such a smarter move if you are in a big season of, okay, I need to do this big thing, like for your business. If you were like, okay, I need to lease a warehouse or something.
Speaker 2:I don't know anything. I would also really encourage people to do it because it teaches you something really important in business. You know how, like maybe we want to go and shark tank or we want to pitch investors. That's what a bank loan is. You go into the bank and you pitch your business to someone who has absolutely no knowledge of it yeah, who's not following you on social media and if you're in the mom and baby space, likely doesn't understand your product. You have to go in and it's like showing your credit report. You have to go in and show them all your financials, your business plan, all of that. And if you come out of there with a loan from that bank, it is like an amazing validation that this like maybe huge international bank institution believes you're going to do it.
Speaker 2:Yes, they're not going to invest in it and give you that bank loan if they don't believe you can pay it back.
Speaker 1:you're going to do it, and there's something like that makes you do it too, cause you're like, well, the bank's involved. Now, like I got to do it, like this has got to be such a boost yes, I wanted to do good and I and I like really have developed those relationships.
Speaker 2:So I love my commercial banker. He's a dad to multiple kids and we talk all the time and I want to do good by him. So I keep up on that loan and I keep communicating with him. But the really nice thing about working with a bank loan is I still have 100% ownership of my business. So there are a lot of ways people fund their company Self-fund investors, bank loans. For me, my company is Sarah Wells. I am Sarah Wells. I really wanted to keep my company.
Speaker 1:Sarah Wells, mama Sarah Wells.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that's how that rolled for me, and there are other ways to do it that work well for people. But don't be afraid of the bank.
Speaker 1:It's good practice. Yeah, I mean, especially just looking at the rates of investment and what kind of debt you're really.
Speaker 2:That liability that you're taking on is so much safer, I think they fund you with a bank loan, you are paving the way for more businesses to get funding, and this is an area where it we really have lacked right. Banking is still very like, male dominated, and so, like I have felt super proud that this international bank supports a breast pump bag company. I love that you don't think of, like you again, how you're paving the way for the next mom to get in there and to have it's that the whole world isn't just run by tech companies right, that there are all sorts of companies and small businesses that deserve support. So I always have this thought going through my mind of, like, what am I doing to set up the next business that comes behind me?
Speaker 1:That's really from that advocacy piece, that thread in you that is so strong and so loud. I love that. So toot your horn. Like what is your business like today? Like what are some of your success? Like what are some? Share some data with us. I want to ask you that because I want to ask you something next. So we have to set the stage.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so, yeah, so we're 13 years in. We made a huge product expansion once. We were sort of over the pandemic hump, which is that we dove into clothing. So we have pumping and nursing bras. We actually have bathing suits. This summer we have, like, a pumping, nursing bikini top, which is amazing.
Speaker 2:We're really big into like all bodies are for candy bodies, like just inclusivity and celebrating moms and like if you're sitting out back with your water table and your toddler and your baby nursing, like flaunt it and you're amazing, yes, as we call it. So we have that whole line expanded. So we're not just bags anymore. We're into coolers and wet dry bags and clothing and we've done tons of collaborations with influencers and other great brands in the space. So we're still really growing and changing and pivoting and reinventing in those spaces.
Speaker 2:But what has culminated this year that's really exciting is that I have a book coming out. Oh, yes, yeah, I wanted to tell you that a few years ago I was on a podcast actually, and podcast was centered around how to support moms in advocating for themselves when they go back to the office, and it was an amazing experience. I think I gave some great advice, but I got off the podcast and realized that this was like the in my career, probably 20th time I'd given advice on moms, on how to do the return from leave better, when we just weren't ever talking to the employers.
Speaker 1:It really bugs me, it really bugs.
Speaker 2:And if you think you know, we are very privileged in the DC area. This is a very like high academic area with high professional careers. There are also lots of moms who that if they ask for a pumping space might lose their job in other parts of the country where there isn't. Maybe you know we have a lot of national corporations here who provide lactation rooms, who provide paid leave. Lots of people in this country that don't have that and who are scared to advocate for themselves. So I really I sort of had a a burning desire at that moment to do something about it and I got a book coach, wrote a book proposal, secured an agent and got a traditional book publisher, business book publisher to get behind this, which gives an incredible validity and credibility to the working mom support Topic. What's?
Speaker 1:it called.
Speaker 2:So my book is Go Ask your Mothers the One Simple Step for Managers to Support Working Moms for Team Success, and the entire premise of this is it's profitable to support working moms, and it really is. You know, I told you I'm a data person. There's just data after data, if you whether it's breastfeeding, mental health, child care, fertility support, whatever flexibility, whatever it is that the moms on your teams need and it varies because we're not a monolith right. It varies depending on what people need. If you support that, you will retain the best talent out there, which just pays dividends for businesses. So it's really not just a good, feel-good thing to do. No, it's smart, strategic business decisions, and I do think that corporate America recognizes that now yeah, and everybody, but I think a lot do and they want to differentiate and really provide a culture that will attract some of the best workers out there, which is us, some of the best workers out there, which is us, and I mean there's also so much data that showcases women, but also moms.
Speaker 1:Our efficiency in the workplace is unparalleled, like the time management, our productivity, our sort of like having to get things done because they absolutely need to to, because your child's going to wake up, or they're going to get home from school, or your kids are sick, or your child care is canceled, or you know they're going to wake up and that that whole just. I was just reading this article about neural pruning. Have you heard about this neural pruning? And that's actually what? So this concept like mom brain, this brain fog, is not actually mom brain. It's not actually brain fog. It's called neural pruning and it's the neurological process that your brain is doing to save its resources so that it can only focus on things that matter the most, like in the real time, and that's why we have a hard time recollecting small details. But then we can remember something so specific, like I can remember the height of my child at every single check-in, which is ridiculous, like that's not very necessary, like for me to remember, but I'd be like, oh my gosh, like what was I just talking?
Speaker 2:about Like. What we describe too is like the elasticity of the brain. It changes in a way in the postpartum period. That is, yes, doesn't exist in any other part of our lives, except for when we're children.
Speaker 1:No, and also like may never go back to full, like I mean so.
Speaker 2:So, and the thing is, you know where we have been done right over the last several years is that in sort of different spaces and this is why I wanted to write a book is to bring all of this together Different places and different topics and different fields. The research has been done to show efficiency and executive functioning, strong communication skills. Women in leadership bring a different kind of diplomacy. All of these have been studied and what I did was take that all together, plus my own interviews and polls of moms just going back to work after having babies or adopting babies, pulling that together into one place to say, whatever your hang-up is as an organization, it's going to cost too much. No, it doesn't.
Speaker 2:There's evidence to show it doesn't? It's going to be too hard to implement. People are going to be resistant. There's a way around that. It's going to be a hardship on my small organization. Nope, there's ways around that. Whatever it is, we can present data to back up why you should do this. There's really no reason not to support working moms. There's no more way out of that if you want to be competitive.
Speaker 1:Are you going to go into consulting after with this Going?
Speaker 2:into no, to be competitive. Are you going to go into consulting after? With this going in? I'm still an advocate.
Speaker 1:I feel like what happens you give this organization this you know, really well written, well researched piece of you know book, the guideline, and then they're going to say like well, sarah Wells, we want to hire you to help us implement it. What do you mean? Like?
Speaker 2:I'm out on the path of like webinars and trainings right now and I'm speaking at several different big conferences and I'm talking to nonprofit organizations. I'm going on a book tour where we're going to be everybody from milk banks to advocacy justice organizations, my customers for Sarah Wells back, and so when I'm such a groupie.
Speaker 1:I'm like I want to go on that book tour, like I don't want to follow a band around. There'll be one here too, so I'll let you know.
Speaker 2:But book tour, like I don't want to follow a band around. There'll be one here too, so I'll let you know. But I, what really is exciting to me is bringing so many different people together, right Like people who run a milk bank, with brand new moms in corporate America, with organizations, law firms or whoever wants to get involved, also with justice organizations all to talk about this. And I think that that's the gift I've been given is that I touch so many different kinds of moms from so many different walks of life in so many different parts of this world. Through my husband, it's been able to bring that voice in.
Speaker 1:Something that I even haven't mentioned, which I should have mentioned. You were on such an amazing, beautiful role of telling your story. In the beginning I was like I can't interrupt her, I can't tell her. This is not about me, but so my degree is in public policy and I have a dual. I have a dual degree in social work and public health. I got, I got into it.
Speaker 1:Listen, but you're going to laugh. I got into school because I wanted to work in women's health healthcare reform. I got into school because I wanted to work in women's health health care reform. Halfway through college, guess what happened? Obamacare Shoot. He just did what. I was going into the world with my like policy. So I had to pivot and I went in and worked with legacy organizations and I started at the United Way doing collective impact work, doing community organizing, fell into marketing for nonprofits. That's like the sort of the lineage of my story Moving from the West Coast to the East Coast, thinking, okay, I'll just go work for like larger, you know NGOs and things, and then being really burnt out because nonprofit work really, I feel like, is a young person's game in a lot of ways.
Speaker 1:I hate saying that. That was my experience. I was very, very burned out. Anyways, fast forward now working. I had so much guilt around experience. I was very, very burned out. Anyways, fast forward now working. I had so much guilt around that. I had so much guilt around leaving nonprofit work. That was my identity and that was like gosh, that's how I'm going to save the world and all of these things. Right, fast forward. I'm now still in advocacy for working moms and for moms, and it's so interesting. I said the term earlier.
Speaker 1:The reason why you are successful at what you do is because when you are brought up in the nonprofit sector, I think sometimes people view the nonprofit sector as soft. It's not like startup corporate culture. You know, I'm not working for like some government contractor. I don't work at Deloitte or whatever. Okay, working for like some government contractor. I don't work at Deloitte or whatever Okay.
Speaker 1:Non-profit work is the space where collective impact was born and that you have to get every single stakeholder in the room in order to make real policy and real change. So you can speak. You can speak to like the small little non-profits who are just running a soup kitchen out of a church. You can speak to the Boys and Girls Club, which is like a larger organization. You can speak to policymakers, city council members, government officials. You can speak to financial institutions, banks, blah, blah, blah, because they're often like the largest donor capacity. You know source Plus.
Speaker 1:Here you are something I didn't mention earlier, which was, of course, you had all those feelings when you were working in the nonprofit because, even though you were the boss, you were the executive director, ceo, however you want to qualify it nowadays it's a loose term. Now nonprofit directors are called CEOs sometimes, which that in itself was the fact that nonprofit directors weren't even called CEOs a decade ago and now they are. You had a board of directors to answer to. You had this whole board of directors which were super buttoned up, I'm sure, super buttoned up in every single industry, and you had to prove yourself to that board. So it's like, yeah, you were the boss, but you had a boss of 12 or whatever dictating you. I don't know what your board situation was.
Speaker 1:So it's so cool to see and listen to people's stories, how full circle and how destiny just sort of shows up in works when you trust that little voice and that little nudge that told you just to go for it.
Speaker 1:You know that little moment where you're like you know what I'm going to quit, I'm going to go Because, fast forward, 13 years later, it's like everything you've done has led you to being able to work with so many different stakeholders in policy, in finance, in whatever factories, whatever you're doing, I mean you have your hands in so many things and that's the nonprofit bread and butter of people who understand how that work gets really, really done. It's not a soft, it's not a soft industry. It's. I think it's. I think it's the hardest work you'll ever do for the least amount of pay. And you're working in issues that feel like they just never get solved, like I worked in ending youth homelessness for years and they're still. That's still not solved. It's not solved, but you can't go in with it thinking you can't give up because you're not solving things. Yeah, that's not solved, but you can't go in with it thinking you can't give up because you're not solving things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's never the end goal. Like you know, it's perpetual.
Speaker 1:If you solve one thing, you're going to move on to the next, and a lot of times it's just, it's more about creating conversations and creating spaces where the invisible becomes visible, right? So I love that you have laid your name literally to advocating for working moms. I also want to bring up this one other thing, because you would be a very interesting person to ask this to, because I've asked, I asked one other guest something that got me really fired up was this kite baby fiasco. So very, very, very short, long story short employee gets adopts a baby mother-run company, a company that makes quite a bit of money off of new moms, right, sleep sacks that are like $60 a pop, right, $70 a pop. Her baby gets born it was born early, I think very early premature and ends up in the NICU. She doesn't have enough maternity leave. She ends up losing her job, right, she ends up getting fired, like this whole thing.
Speaker 1:I'm just curious if you have any words of wisdom on this, because I felt like what happened was is that we really went after the CEO of Kite Baby, and I understand where that principled outrage came from. I get it, I feel like, but I feel like that was like the low hanging fruit and I want to like, take a moment to be like, here you are, you just produced, you just wrote this book Like this is your, this is your thing. Like, talk about legacy, right, this is your legacy, sarah Wells, and would you agree that that was the wrong thing to blame, that she was just brought up into a system in our corporate culture, that she felt like that was what she had to do? Or maybe she didn't, maybe it was just a too quick decision, you know, because she's just looking at numbers. How about, like looking at the whole system that that CEO of kite baby is operating? And I'm just so curious if you have any thoughts on that. I don't know if it's okay.
Speaker 2:Totally called it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh yeah. Everyone's like boycott kite baby. And I'm like go write your senators like change corporate systems for working moms, like I think what she did was a colossal mistake.
Speaker 2:Yes, I think it was a colossal mistake and it was a PR nightmare, I think that any company in the mom and baby product space who is in touch with their customer base should be well aware of the support systems that need to be in place within their own company. I reevaluate that constantly. We provide three months paid maternity leave. I have ultimate flexibility of 100% remote workforce. We provide mental health support through the whole pandemic. I ask that's the mainstay. I don't assume either. What is it that you need? What is it that we're not providing that you need the support? I'm shocked that a mom and baby product company wouldn't be asking that of themselves when they serve that very community. So first out of the way. I think it was a colossal mistake.
Speaker 2:It's part of a broader system and I want to be clear, and I'm clear about this in my book we cannot assume that woman run companies or companies of products or services for women are doing good by working moms. Yes, it's a system in which run companies or companies of products or services for women are doing good by working moms, yes, in which, yes, everybody takes responsibility.
Speaker 2:I have lots of moms that I interviewed say older women in my company say well, I didn't have it, so you can't have it or are totally oblivious to how things go now interesting don't have insight into the impact of social media on mental health, or don't didn't understand, maybe, what it was like to have a baby in the hospital during the pandemic. We are are a fluid ever changing, like we. If always did things the way they were prior, can you imagine where we would be? You and I would not be sitting here having a podcast.
Speaker 1:We also had that like twilight gas during pregnancy, like what Put them out?
Speaker 2:So it's absurd to think that it is a constant need to evaluate, audit, reassess and participate, and I never make the assumption that a woman-run company, a mom-run company or a company for moms or women is doing right. We don't think we make that assumption about anybody.
Speaker 1:I think everyone is. I think it also opens up an interesting side of that is to not assume that just because it's a male-run company that they're doing wrong by women and working moms either. You know, absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 2:And you could, we could you know 20 more podcasts, go in 20 more directions on all the other people, groups, communities that you need to assess and be inclusive of, and your language and how you talk about these issues and all of it, and the entire focus of my book is it's all about communication with the people on your team.
Speaker 2:I love that and, as the boss, your job to ask the questions. It's again, as we said earlier there are risks to people within your organization, even really supportive organizations I think mine is really supportive but there are risks to speaking up to the boss about something. Some people just have anxiety about that, even if they're not gonna lose their job. So it's on the boss every boss to do those audits, to start those conversations, to ask constantly what people need. Assume that one mom's new mom experience is going to be the same as what she experienced with a different team member at another time. There's different nuances and situations that go on with creating families and you need to constantly ask those questions. So I think it was a colossal mistake, yeah, and I think people were really right to be very, very mad about it, but I do think it's a wake-up call to all of us that we should not make the assumption that all these companies that we love, even in this space of happy mom and baby products, are doing that. We all put that pressure on.
Speaker 1:I think what I was upset about was like boycott kite, yes, yes, I get it. Do what you feel like you can do with your sphere of influence as an individual who's principally outraged over something. I think where I would love to see the next like iteration is that where people where we are all very clear, where we can channel that principled outrage like what can we actually do with it? Yes, boycott the company, that's a great start, but what can we do next?
Speaker 2:That's kind of that's where you and I, who have experience and training and knowledge of government systems and public policy and community organizing and advocacy, understand that. But my experience has been a lot of people don't know what they can do, and so I think where it comes down to is the wonderful people like yourself, like me, like others, who do get. Where we can make a chance is putting up those opportunities. So one thing I do frequently is on my Instagram I'll throw up an opportunity to contact your senators about an issue that I know will relate to moms in my community. So there may be, there had been, a ton of legislation around breastfeeding that people may be completely unaware about. This is a great way to get involved.
Speaker 2:So I think you know, especially living in the DC area, here you can get a little like insular in our understanding of how this works and not like everybody maybe have like their high school level government classes and also this is does not feel doable for a lot of people. I think it feels like the big ugly DC. It's hard to crack, and so I think giving people opportunities and reinforcing that their voice matters is also really important. So I'm not one to like usually jump on like a boycott, but what I will give you six ways, tangible, like pre-written templates that you can customize. Yes, contact your senator, because I think I don't want to just say do it. I really want to teach people how to engage in advocacy. So I think that's. I completely agree with you about that, but I do think some people aren't sure what to do and how to do it.
Speaker 2:They're a little disillusioned with it, like I'm not really going to make a difference.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I think that's like really, I think that's a really common feeling. I mean, we won't get into like the larger span of the world right now, but I think that that's just a general feeling of-.
Speaker 2:In the last 18 months, the two most important pieces of legislation around breastfeeding that helped like over 10 million working moms have passed Congress and been implemented. Like, if you think you can't make a difference, like it's happening right now, you think something like paid leave is off the table, it's happening in states, yeah, so I, you, you know, I tell people like, yeah, be skeptical politicians and be and be frustrated by systems, but don't think that nothing can change. Things are changing. It actually is happening and they're amazing organizations that are working tirelessly every day to you know, get this kind of change.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and to get the exposure. The exposure and the messaging is what we, what we need.
Speaker 2:Whatever your topics are that you care about, there's somewhere to apply that, that angst.
Speaker 1:I love this conversation so much Like we literally physically have to end it because of time, but I feel like there's so many other different doors I want to open with you and have discussions with you about, and I'm so grateful that you're right here in our backyard. I'm going to link everything that you're doing in the show notes the book I want to share about it. I want to get a copy of it. I want to go to a book. I want Sarah Wells to come speak at a Made for M event, Like I am so grateful. Thank you, Jennifer Mack, who will probably never hear this, but thanks for the connection to Sarah.
Speaker 2:Wells.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Um, do you what? Just sort of like closing thoughts, anything that you feel like would just be encouraging to someone who's just launching their business, who's on maternity leave, who's thinking about leaving corporate, who's working in the nooks and crannies on their business?
Speaker 2:Anything you can provide, I think the world is so accessible in a way, it wasn't 10 years ago or 20 years ago. It's starting a business, growing a business, that if you're thinking and you have a passion and you've run this by your core customer base and they're passionate about it, I think people should absolutely do it. The barrier to entry is so low for starting a company right now than it ever was before for moms, and we need moms, more moms. You can find in my book the data that says that mom-run, woman-run companies are highly successful and I think we need more of that diversity in the space. So I think you should do it and again, just really focus in on who you serve, whether that's again an advocacy or if that's in business, and you can't go wrong if you really are in touch with your customer base and your wisdom and just all of it.
Speaker 1:This conversation is so energizing and I hope anyone who's listening is literally feeling the potential and the possibility. When we have these conversations and when moms get together, you know and believe in each other and lean on each other. I just feel like it's such a important and needed space for all of us. So thank you so much for being here. All right, well, thanks for listening to another episode of the Made for Mothers podcast. I will link all the juicy goodness from Sarah and her company and anything else that maybe we mentioned, and we will talk to you soon, thank you, thank you, yay.
Speaker 1:You just finished another episode of the made for mothers podcast. As always, you can find more details about today's show in the show notes and be sure to give us a review. Subscribe so you don't miss a chance to grow your biz from fellow moms. Are you wanting more one-on-one support or are you looking to learn how to market your business in a way so you can spend more time with your family and less time stressing about what to do next? Then follow along on instagram at mariah stockman, or book a one-on-one biz therapy session with yours truly and let's find that work mamahood harmony we all deserve. Until next time. This is your host, mariah stockman, and thank you so much for tuning in.