[Short Cut] When Do You Sleep? (ft. Rebekah and Nick Scott)

In this Common Cents Short Cut, Rebekah and Nick Scott chat with Adam about balancing business success with the many other hats they wear. Listen to the full episode, How We Money: When Farming Meets Fashion available now!

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Transcript

- We see this a lot with family businesses that there is a desire to keep it in the family for sure. But there's not always a willingness either. And I think the interesting wrinkle with ag too, though, is there's such a connection to the thing, to the land.

- Yeah.

- Or a building.

- Or a building or that tree
- Or a tree. [both laughing]

- That, you know what I mean? Like we had a tree on the farm. And by God, that was where the swings went and the whole thing. And everyone remembers a tree. And now you go back and the tree's gone. They're like, well, it's not our farm. You know? So it's like there's an attachment to the land that I think is even more impactful than it is for any other business.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Yeah.
- 100%.

- And you wish that you could like write the most, the best paragraph about what it means. But if you are not in the farming community or even like, even those who've went back to their grandma's farm, they get it a little bit, but there's never enough words to describe the weight of like, but this means something. This land, like my great great grandfather bought this, and like starved and did all these, like, there's just a weight that you hold when you're a farmer or a rancher.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- So the flip side, you are a founder, so you're not a fifth generation business owner.

- No.

- You are a founder and you've been running your business for 15 years is that right?

- Well, yes. It's a little fuzzy right now. Because I looked at my sales tax license and I opened it in 2004.

- Ah.

- But clearly I'm not old enough to run in business for 20 years.

- No, no, no, no, you started it in high school.

- Smoke, smoke, smoke.

- Yeah, that's right.

- I've been in business

- You started it when you were nine.

- for 15-
- Yeah, yes. [laughs]

- Thank you. Thank you. [laughs] Such I was selling stuff on the playground when I was nine, so we'll just say that. But yes, we've been for like 15 plus years now.

- Okay. Well tell me about the origins of the business, and what you do and the story.

- Well-
- How'd you get started?

- We were poor newlyweds. And so there's that. And I've always sewn, because again, I'm a good 4-H'er. And I watched my mom be super joyful when she was sewing. So I liked sewing just because I got to see my mom like it. And then we were poor newlyweds, didn't know what we'd do for Christmas gifts. But I'm a big giver and I wanted to give something. And I love purses. I think it's just the easiest thing to update an outfit. And it's like a home away from home. I'll say no more. Okay, because I could always go on about purses.

- Hey, I am a husband

- But, anyways-
- and a father of two girls. So I-

- You get it, you get it!

- I get it. Yeah.

- Bag's a big thing. So I sewed Christmas gifts. I had my sewing machine. That was my college graduation gift. Some people get cars, I get a sewing machine. And I had fabric, so I sewed some purses, and then I started getting orders from their friends and family. Like, "Hey, this is really cute. Can I have one?" And I thought, "Gosh, this would be so fun." And I've always had an entrepreneur spirit. Like I was selling stuff on the playground. I was always like, I worked in radio, but I was like, "Hey, your walls need painted. Can I paint your walls? Hey, you need a janitor? Can I be your janitor?" Like, I was always like, "Hmm, what can I do here?" So I always had that spirit. Anyway, started sewing the purses, filled a couple orders and then I was like, "Nick, if I could get this up and rolling, then I could stay home and raise a bunch of your kids." [Adam laughs] So he said, "Okay." And thankfully you have never said no to business adventures. There's a few where you, I wish you would've been a little louder about your no, but, and which I'm sure he is like too, but he was very, very encouraging. Like we did the math and I did the math wrong. So I should have waited another year, before I actually quit radio. But I eventually quit radio. I stayed up that night until 2:00 a.m. sewing. I was so excited. And then I woke up at 4:00 a.m. and continued like I could not wait to hit the ground running with my own thing.

- You were on fire.

- Oh, I was so on fire. At one point, I ran out of money for supplies, and I was pacing around in my living room, like, what am I going to do? I can't take anything to the show. My curtains were super cute. So I crawled up on a stool and cut my curtains down, and put those into purses and sold those. So I love that story. [Adam laughing] Because that's like you get if you want it, there are options. There's tons of options.

- Yeah.

- So that's how that started. And then it thankfully, I mean it had ups and downs, and we'd have a kiddo and then I'd figure out like, "Ooh, I'm going to need some more help." My mom was my first employee of course.

- Nice.

- She's the master, and she still works for me. Even in her retirement. And then I just started getting one seamstress after the other and then had to get some admin staff in there as well. And we're still navigating what that looks like. Nobody's super full-time except for me, part-time, weekends, all the above. [laughs] And yeah, when, not fair to say the rest is history, but it just developed that way.

- Yeah. Did you set out to own your own business? You said you're an entrepreneur, so.

- Yeah, I wanted it to be mine. And I loved sewing and I love creating. So my biggest, and it's still my biggest mission, is like I just want to sew purses. I just want to sew, because we have lots of things that we sew, but I want to sew purses and raise kiddos. And so we're still doing that. And if the vision goes any different from that, like, I've been pitched different places in town to set up and I was like, "No." Because then I can't be home with the kiddos. So I've just been very clear about what I want to do and I still want to manufacture. And we've been pitched different manufacturing facilities and I'm like, "No." I want to sew and I want to provide jobs. And then on my customer's point of view is I get to give them the chance to create. And like people say often like, why are you so joyful? Or what is it? And I'm like, "Well first of all it's Jesus. And second of all, have you ever created something?" [all laughing] It's really fun. So, on our website, they get the opportunity to create something, and it says something about who they are.

- Yeah. Oh, that's awesome. Well, in addition to that, let me get, make sure I get all your hats.

- [Rebekah] Okay. [laughs]

- You are an author.

- Yes.

- You're a speaker.

- Yes.
- You're a coach and you're a podcaster.

- Yep.

- Is that right?

- Yes.

- Okay. So tell me about how you add-
- Wife, mother.

- Well, yes, that's a given, all the kiddos. Tell me about how you added that onto your journey as well as a business owner. And when do you sleep?

- Oh, well, I would say this. I do sleep well and I don't survive on four hours. When women hear that, especially, then they're like, "Well, whatever, she's." I'm like, "No, no, no guys, I sleep really well." I have a very distinct story about when I started my Encourager brand, which is all those things. And it's coach, speaker, author, podcaster. I love that part. But I was in a parking lot exchanging linings. That's the inside of a purse. And I was exchanging linings with the seamstress. And it was me and probably three of the ducklings with me. We were dressed ready for the day. It was like 9:00 a.m. And probably everybody under the age of 10. And the seamstress arrived with her three kids. And it looked like one of those funny gifs that you get where they're like rolling in of the minivan, and she gets out in her little tracksuit, and the kids are in their PJs and bedhead and all that. And she's like, "Oh my gosh." And mine were ready for the day. Stay tuned for the side by side. Believe me, nobody feel guilty. And she said, "Oh my gosh, tell me you are not like this." And I said, "No, no, no, no, no. We have days like that too." And then immediately felt a punch in my gut, because after reflecting on it, the truth was I was being falsely humble. Like we did have it fairly well put together. And that was how I was succeeding. That's how I was able to employ her to do what she was doing. And I heard a very distinct message of you need to tell people how. And I was being asked how all the time at shows, they would see my sheer amount of inventory. They would see the pictures of my kids, and Nicholas and go like, "Wait a minute. How are you? How do you do all this?" Well, I couldn't tell them in two to three minutes why I wanted them to buy a purse. But I was like, well, I have some radio background. I'll hop into a microphone before everybody was podcasting. And I was like, "I'll just tell people how to do this, so that they can feel encouraged." And so after that moment, I jumped on the microphone and just tell, started telling as many processes. Because I have a lot of tools and strategies that I use to help encourage women to do both work and home life well. And then the rest rolled out from there. So then they wanted one-on-one coaching. I have a digital course where you could just, for six hours or less, you can absorb it an hour at a time. It talks about my food system, my me system, how I take care of myself, sleeping included. You know, my family system, my work system, and then my home system, like how do you do the laundry. And that sort of stuff so that women could absorb it and take what they want. But it's a guided worksheet so they can do it their way. Because the truth is, I can't possibly guess what your role or stage is or how it is you operate, but I can for sure ask you the questions that you don't even know to ask yourself on how you want to do it. And so there's that. And then the book was somewhere in the middle, they said they wanted something tangible. And I said, "Okay, that's easy. I can just Google how to write a book." And I did.

- YouTube it.
- And I found a guy in Sioux Falls. And I had a couple meetings with him, and I was like, "All right, I'll get to writing." And then I realized I was like 10 months pregnant, [Adam laughs] and I was like, this is not going to happen. I got to be wise here. Like I can't write a book in the middle of this. So I called him after I already had money down on it. I was like, we're going to have to pause. And he totally respected it. And then to get the second round, like published, and all that stuff we did, I did have to ask Nicholas for some livestock. I was like, "Hey, do we have anything we could sell for my second round here?" [laughs] [Adam laughing] And he obliged. And so that's how the book got written.

- Sold some cows to publish a book.

- Yeah, kind of. [laughs] It's a little more layered than that, but yeah.

- Yeah, yeah. Oh, I love that story.

- Yeah.
- That's awesome. [Rebekah laughing] Well,

don't feel bad. I, we paid for this podcast a year before we did our first episode because-

- [Rebekah] Right.

- I knew how much work it would be.

- Yes.

- And I was scared to start. And I knew once you started you have to keep going.

- Yes.

- And so I was just like frozen. And so finally I just said, "We're going to do it." And here we are four years later. So.

- Oh my gosh.

- We'll see what happens.

- And see the world of podcasting really is consistency in tech. And obviously you have beautiful tech.

- We do.

- And you've been consistent. If you can manage those two things, you can podcast.

- And some days it's hard enough to manage those two things.

- I know. I know. [laughs] They're enough, right? That's why I'm glad I have the purse business, because I always have content of like, "Well, I learned this guys don't do this."

- Yeah, yeah, yeah. For sure. Well, speaking of managing things, you guys are so busy. Like how do you, at this point in your marriage and your relationship and the businesses and all the things going on, like how do you stay on the same page financially?

- Oh, we have a meeting.

- You have a meeting?

- It's called the honey huddle. Mm hm, I know.

- She named it.

- I thought you might've
- Actually, my staff helped me name it.

- named that Nick.

- But it's called the honey huddle. We just had it last night actually. And it's just a monthly meeting. And it's actually a downloadable resource on my website, theencouragerpodcast.com. Anyways-

- Plug.

- Plug.

- Yeah, there we go. Printed it off. And it's just prompts. So it's like calendars and schedule. And then one of the prompts is budget. And so then I can tell him like I still manage it. So I go onto every dollar, and I enter in all the stuff that's coming in, and then all the stuff that's going out. And then I tell him like if we're short or if we're above. And he goes, "Okay." And then probably about the middle of the month we refer back to it, and I'm like, "Hey, we were prioritizing this, but this happened." And he's like, "Oh, okay." So not that, but...

- There's always going to be a kid getting hurt or injured or needing football cleats.

- Yep.

- You know, that you don't plan. You know, so if you can meet once a month and get on the same page, then those uncertainties aren't a curve ball. And you know, and make it that much harder, so.

- It helps too when we put our priorities on there, because it prompts that too. So that-

- Yeah, I was just going to ask about that, yeah.

- The expectations are the same. Where if I'm like, "Hey, can you build the deck this month? Would that be possible?" He's like, "Honey."

- No. [Adam laughs]

- I'm like, "Okay, fine, but can I move it to next month?" But like the expectation, if I would've been thinking like, "Oh, I thought we would finish," then there, there'd be anger there. But as long as he can tell me no politely and kindly, I'm like, "Okay, fine."

- Yeah. So do you use those meetings to talk big picture stuff too?

- Mm hm.
- Or is it? Okay.

- Yeah, that's why you went to Africa was because I can look back at our notes. It was like three years ago that there's a prompt in there that says his and her goals

- Dreams. and dreams.

- So that it prompts both of us to be like, "Hey, what do you want to do?" And Africa actually wasn't one of his, it was the Yukon. But I was like, "Well this one's available." I mean, he came to me and said, "This one's available." I was like, "I'm pretty sure you've been asking for that. Let's make it happen." So then that was a whole nother money conversation of like, "Well, how?" And we figured it out.

- Again, being on the same page. You know, if I wanted to go to Africa, and she was, you know, not for it, you know, it would've been that much harder. You know, but if-

- Which is interesting during that, and I might have told you this too before, it's like women, when I said you were in Africa, were like, "Oh boy." Like I should have had all these reactions. I was like, I couldn't understand because it was such a, like we had saved for it. I was so excited for you. I didn't have any of those resentment feelings that I think a lot of couples experience. And I don't even know how to describe why you wouldn't be excited if that was the other person's dream.

- Hmm.
- I don't know.

- That's probably a different show.

- Probably. [all laughing] Fair. Fair.

- But I get the reaction, and like, because I hear that as well.