Welcome to the Entrepreneurial Leap Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Dubay. For context, this podcast is inspired by the book Entrepreneurial Leap by Gino Wickman. Gino is the founder of EOS Worldwide and an author with over 2 million copies of his books sold worldwide. Now, in his next phase, he's taking his passion for helping entrepreneurs by partnering with five equally passionate, successful entrepreneurs, myself included, who have created the E LEAP Academy, where we teach the content from the book in a one year program guaranteed to increase the success of early stage businesses. Now, a quick note about me, I've been an entrepreneur since the age of 14. When I started my first business selling Blow Pop Lollipops outta my locker with my best friend, I ran a company that I sold to a public company and later bought back. I'm an author, speaker, host of an annual leadership retreat and I'm partners in several other businesses.

I'll be your host for the Entrepreneurial LEAP Podcast where every other week you will be hearing life stories from successful entrepreneurs who took the leap into entrepreneurship. You will learn from their mistakes and successes and be inspired as you move forward on your journey. Now, before I introduce my guest, I'm going to share with you a bit about Ewe Academy. The Entrepreneurial Leap Academy provides an immersive nine month experience for new entrepreneurs with a focus on the three Cs, clarity, competence, and community. Let's start with the first C Clarity. You'll learn to be clear about who you are, what you want from your business, and how to get it. The next C confidence, you will learn to be confident you are on the right path equipped with powerful mindset tools. The last C Connected you will become connected to a community of entrepreneurs just like you.

Now all participants receive four full day in-person classes led by experience entrepreneurs to equip you with the tools and strategies necessary to build a successful business. The Academy's dynamic community connects participants with a tribe of like-minded individuals for support and networking opportunities. During in between classes, students also receive a seasoned mentor offering personalized guidance and expertise to help you navigate the challenges of entrepreneurship. To start building the business of your dreams, visit our website@eleap.com. Again, that's e leap.com. There you can learn more about and sign up for the next Entrepreneurial Leap Academy. Today's guest is Casey Michael. Now Casey's been in the wholesale food world for over 15 years as an influencer, writer, blogger and marketer. When Covid hit in 2020, Casey had many reach out to her asking for help to access food deals in bulk when the stores were greatly limiting the supply due to the broken supply chain. So Casey started the Food and Meat Co-op with the specific goal of helping during the C crisis. But as the co-op gained popularity during the pandemic, people realized that this was just an incredibly awesome way to buy food all of the time. Thus a full-blown, full-time business was born. What a story and you're gonna love hearing about that and many other nuggets of wisdom during my chat with Casey Michael. So please enjoy

Kasi. Hi, welcome. Welcome to the Entrepreneurial the podcast. I'm so happy you're here. And I'm laughing 'cause I keep saying your name wrong, so that's

Okay how we are. We practiced a few times. How I'm well, how are you Rob?

I'm great. Thank you for doing this. I know how busy you are because you are in Utah, right? Yes. You flew to Detroit, you have a brother in that area, but then you were also going to the Entrepreneurial Leap Academy on what was, we're yesterday recording on a Wednesday, so that was on a Tuesday. Now you're, you, you got home last night at 12 o'clock at night. Yep. And here you are doing this with me. You're the best. You and you're running a business.

Yes. This is awesome. I love, I love doing this. I love what I'm learning from elap, so I'm really excited to talk about it actually. Alright, so

Thank you for doing this. You're the best. Yeah. So I wanted to start by just asking where did this idea of being an entrepreneur come to you at? At what point did you notice this? What did any, was there anything in your childhood where you were like, I like selling stuff or I like doing stuff and selling it, or, I don't know, was there anything that you noticed?

That is actually a really good question. So I don't know that I actually ever identified myself as an entrepreneur or like clearly defined it until eap, but I have been actually a, at-home entrepreneur. So I've been an at-home mom entrepreneur for 20 years. And so before that though, like I don't know that I, I ever like took time to deliberately think, what am I thinking or what am I doing? Or why am I doing doing this? But I have always been involved in something from probably my first memory where I could offer a service or where I could help somebody. And all of it was about competing with myself. Like it was like trying to see if I could do it, trying to see if I had the ability, like if I said I want to do X, Y, Z, so I'm going to try X, Y, Z to see if I could accomplish X, Y, Z.

And so that has always been a part of me. And so that followed me all through school, all through sports, all through my college education, everywhere that I went, that was my behavior and my attitude. And then when I got married, you know, I had a full-time job at the time, but I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom when we started having children. And so like I quit my job and I started my first business from home when I was pregnant. And I have had multiple businesses since, like numerous businesses, some successes, some failures, you know, all along the way. But here we are 20 years later, so getting ready to talk about this one, which is awesome.

How many businesses have you had over the 20 years?

I have had a lot of people ask me that and I have attempted to count them. So I guess I need to go back to the states I registered businesses in and actually see how many LLCs I signed up for. I researched but doesn't

With five things going on right now, which we're gonna talk

Five right now. Yes, yes. Five right now. Dozens. Probably dozens. I don't even, I'd have to really deliberately think about that. So, so

Wait, you mentioned you went to college. Is did now, did you finish?

I did, yes. I became a paralegal. I actually wanted to be a lawyer. Oh, interesting. I didn't wanna be an entrepreneur, I just liked solving problems and I, that's why that's what I wanted to do. And then found myself an entrepreneur.

Now was that, is that something you look back on and say, I'm glad I did that, or do you, do you, did you feel like that was a waste? I should have just gone right into business?

No, I mean I learned a lot even during that time. Like even just some of the legal knowledge I've learned has helped me in my entrepreneurialism. But I am so happy with how my life has turned out. I'm actually very glad I didn't go down that path and that, you know, my life was redirected in a different pathway because I absolutely love being an entrepreneur. I love it. Yeah.

Did you just call it entrepreneurialism?

Yes. Is that a word? Yeah,

I, I don't, I've never heard that, but I like it entrepreneurialism. Okay, thank you. I love that.

Good. That's awesome. Okay, well then I love it too.

Do you remember your first business?

I do, yes. What

Was it?

So I actually was buying items for cheap at Lake State Sell and flea markets and reselling them on eBay. And I ended up like coming up with this like thing that was a popular thing in eBay 20 years ago where you find like a whole collection of a specific item or a specific category and you sell 'em in lots so you could get a big sell at once. So it started off with me selling individual items and I'm like, this is kind of a waste of time when I can make in a couple bucks here. How about I have like a whole collection of, you know, star Wars stuff or Blues Clues was popular at the time, right? And we collect all this stuff and sell it in a lot and then you can sell the whole lot for a couple hundred and then you're making, you know, 50, 60, 70 bucks all at one time. So that was my first business and that's what I started doing. So Unbelievable.

Yes. Okay. And so as we mentioned, you have five things going on. You also, I don't know if this is included, but you have a book that you wrote. Mm. It's a great title by the way. The 2% Rule to Get Debt-Free Fast. Yes. In Innovative Way to an Innovative Way to Pay Off Your Loans Off for Good. Sorry. Yes, I, anyway, you get the gist of it. Yes. So what's your primary focus, actually that's what I'm curious. What's your ma do you have a main business?

So right now my main business is actually when I started in May of 2020, the Food and Meat Co-op. And that is actually a full-time business now. And it's become massively successful that, that is considered full-time in my other four ventures or my side hustles, if you will. Side, side hustles? Yes. Side hustles, sidelines, whatever you wanna call them. Yeah. So I'm actually in the world of food now, wholesale food, direct to consumer. It's like an online grocery store that we have, sell everything online. Then we have local pickup and home delivery. Yep. And it's kind of like a cross between a farmer's market and like misfits or imperfect foods, ButcherBox and Costco. Like basically I've taken the best of all of those food worlds and put 'em together into one food service and that's my main business. Now

Share a little bit about the story of how you recognized this need. Sure. And when that all took place and how, you know, it's grown the way it's grown.

Yeah, so I actually think that the journey to this business that I'm running now started probably about 15 years ago through another business. And that was that I, I was a online influencer and blogger and I, when I started this blog, you know, 15 years ago, I actually wasn't expecting it to be a business or a moneymaking adventure. I just wanted to share with people how I was working side hustles to pay off our debt. And that's the book that came several years later, right? And so I had, I was teaching people in person how to save money, how to run side businesses, all these kinds of things. And then somebody back in 2009 said, you need to start a blog and tell people how to save money, how to get outta debt, all these kinds of things. And so I was like, okay, I'll start a blog 'cause then I can reach more people than just my local community.

And over the years, this blog, a lot of the focus became on saving money on food. And we are a big family. We have six children. And so as you could imagine, trying to save money on food was a huge category of online, right? Yeah. Especially during, you know, that time period, you know, in the early 2010s and all that kind of stuff in America. And so our topic became very popular and one of the ways that we ended up saving money was participating in food co-ops, bulk food buying, you know, collaborative buying with a lot of other people to save money buying in bulk. And so what had happened is I actually had become an authority online about food co-ops. And in fact, to the point that we had a lot of SEO authority, if anybody knows what that is in the, in the online world.

And so like if you Googled how to be in a food co-op or how to participate or what is a food co-op or any of those kinds of topics, our blog or my blog would be towards the top of the Google search. And so I had people all over the country that are like, teach us how to save money on food and you know, food co-ops just became huge. And then I worked with, as an influencer for a national co-op type company that is now out of business. They went outta business in 2018, but I'd become a big influencer for them. And so a lot of people knew that I knew how to buy food in bulk and how to save money. And so that was in that, so they closed in 2018 and then kind of like dabbled, like I, I worked with a few other like food like direct to consumer type of companies as well, either as an influencer or helping them on the administrative side.

Like I actually got an actual stay at home job work from home job for one of those companies after that one closed. And so I was helping them on the administrative side. And then anyway, then 2020 hits, right? And we all know what happened in 2020. So in May of 2020 here locally, and I think this happened across the country, probably across the world, but you'd go to the grocery store and you were limited in what you could buy. So no matter what your family size was, they were only gonna let you buy one or two pounds of chicken or one or two pounds of beef. And especially being here in Utah, like that was a major problem for most families. And we did not have that problem because I knew how to go directly to the food producers to get the food. So I was buying food directly and in bulk and not having the food shortage.

And the other reality of what was happening is there was actually no food shortage in 2020. There wasn't, what was happening instead is there was a supply chain, like the supply chain broke and so they couldn't get the food to the grocery stores, right? And, and so food was being dumped by millions of pounds. Anyway, I didn't intend to start this business that is out of all my dozens of businesses has now been my most successful. But what it was at the time is I had people like all over the country saying, help us find ways of, of getting food we want. We still needed affordably, we need food. And I had people everywhere texting me, emailing me, Facebook messaging me. And so I would try to offer any kind of advice I could to anybody outside of my area. But then I had just had so many in my area that were like, can you just help us?

Can you just help us? And I was like, you know what, I can help you. Yes. So I'm gonna start this thing. We're gonna get food directly to you, you know, your basics, especially chicken, beef, bacon, other proteins, and get them directly to you. We're gonna buy them directly from the producers. We'll figure out that our own mini supply chain that cuts out a lot of the kinks so we don't have the same problems. And thus, food and meat Co-op was born in May of 2020 and you know, at the time I was intending it to be to help during that particular time period. But then what happened is people acknowledged that not only like outside of a pandemic, outside of a broken supply chain, this was just an absolutely brilliant way to buy food. And so we're just spread like wildfire. And so we're all over the state of Utah and we've expanded into Idaho and into Wyoming. Geez. And in this next year we continue to just plan to continue expanding our, our passion project and we have teams. So what we're doing is we're setting up teams in the local area so they can work with the local producers there and help them set up their own co-op community. Like in Idaho and Wyoming. Like I obviously run the one here 'cause I live here, but we have other people that run the ones in other states and we just continue to want to do that and grow. Amazing.

Yeah. So just outta curiosity, you said you have six kids? Yes. So what, what would somebody save by doing the co-op as opposed to the traditional grocery store on a, yes. I don't know, a weekly basis or something?

Sure, sure. So every product is a savings of at least 20%. So we won't offer product unless we can save at least 20% over the grocery store. But we, we average probably about 37% savings overall on your whole grocery budget. So it's a pretty big savings. So like obviously the bigger family and the more you're buying the, the, the more cash you're saving. Right. But yeah, across the board it's about a 37% savings.

So if, if you were spending like $500 a week, is that a around a, a family of eight? I I have no clue.

A week, 500 a week? Yeah. Is

That a lot? I

Don't know. So it might be for somebody, but you gotta understand, I've been teaching people how to save money on food for 20 years. So that sounds like a lot to me. That's

No, that, that's,

But my perspective is skewed. So yes. So I, for a family of eight per week now, I would say it's probably at least 300 and we would save, you know, far greater than that for sure.

Yeah. Yeah. So, okay. Got it. I love it. Yeah. Okay, so now how many team members do you have at this point?

Yes. So right now we have six employees. Yep. 20 contractors. Yep. And two owner operator families. So the opera owner operator's, like a husband on wife team. Yep. So that is our current staff.

Okay. So there's, once you have more people, there's a lot more complexity. And I'm curious, a couple things. First, have you noticed, is this the perfect business for you?

Yes, absolutely it is. So I like, yeah, like I've told you, I've done dozens of things and I have never felt more like satisfied and fulfilled than what I'm doing right now. That's so

Cool. That's so cool. It

Is awesome. Yes.

And then with all that complexity, I imagine sometimes there's problems.

Yeah, absolutely.

Do, do you have a story of what we like to call the nightmare?

Yeah, I can actually probably give you a couple that, that's a typical answer, by the way. Which one do you want? Okay. Yes, yes, exactly. I mean, you've got like little ones. I mean, I was just in the, the e elite class yesterday, right? Yeah. And yesterday's class was all about problem solving and, and I loved it. Yeah. And, and, and what was cool is like, I thought to myself as I was sitting there, I was like, I actually love solving problems. And then Ryan a few minutes later said, if you love to solve problems, you're an entrepreneur. I was like, oh good, another confirmation. So, but in the midst of that, he was talking about how you have an average of six problems a day as a business owner to solve. Right? And that is absolutely true and legitimate. Now, out of those six problems, most of them can be solved within a couple minutes.

Few minutes or whatever. There's not too many times that there's a problem so massive that you, that that's memorable in that sense, right? But I definitely do have a couple, but they've all been very positive thing. So like our biggest nightmare that has been ongoing actually for three and a half years has actually been our technology. And so that is like, you think that in this modern age of te of technology, you know, galore, that it wouldn't be that big of a diff like that big of a problem to solve. Like it wouldn't be that difficult. But our system is so unique and our processes are so unique that we have struggled. And I know for a fact that we lose quite a lot of like new customers trying to check out. 'cause like if anybody visits our website right now, it's, it's complicated. Like you can't check out easily.

So it's a barrier. Like it's a huge barrier. And I think about like when this is clear and done, what that's gonna feel like, but we have been, we have been on the quest to solve this problem for two years and anywhere from like, we need to spend several hundred thousand on custom development. And then after that you'll have this several hundred thousand of maintenance for who knows how long, you know. And so I've gone back and forth on that. And then you have like taking outta the box and then trying to personalize, like, it's been a nightmare, honestly. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. It's, it's kept me up at night and we're currently on a path that I do feel really good about. And we've hired some outside, we're on Shopify actually. And I, I chose Shopify because Shopify, I could, without te knowledge, I could immediately start a business.

I could immediately start sewing. But Shopify definitely has limitations for the business that I am and has made it very challenging from the customer perspective. And because of that, we have not been able to grow and scale like I have wanted to. Like the technology has been our blocking amazing point. Amazing. Yes, yes. And it, and, and so I'm excited about the next step. And after two years I think we found a solution that is both affordable and reasonable and solves their problem. Like, 'cause you know, like trying to spend, like the first quote I got on a custom website was $250,000, you know, and I'm trying to run my business debt free, which I have successfully, by the way, all this time. Yes. Congrats. In three and a half years. And we've been in the black the whole time too, which is also awesome.

Yeah. So I'm pretty particular about the financial side of it. So then to invest that much money in a website was scary. And so I'm glad we didn't have to do that. And so that new website will hopefully have a soft launch sharing three weeks for our December sell, and then we gonna do the hard grand opening in January of 2024 and hopefully enter like with a whole new checkout process, a smoother experience for the customer. That doesn't make it so complicated. But that has definitely been a roadblock that I know has slowed our growth down. Yeah. Quite significantly. That's

A great example. And I think that's very common. Many can relate to that. So, you know, in the academy you might remember we talk about six essential traits that entrepreneurs have. And I wanna read them to you and, and Okay. I'm curious to know if you feel that you have them. Okay. Visionary, absolute passionately problem, solver driven, risk taker, responsible

Check. Yes, absolutely. Check, check, check, check, check all of them. I'd say the one that I'm probably the weakest at though is the risk taking. So when I did the, yeah, yeah. So when I did like all the, the tests and everything, the risk taking was my lowest score because like, I like to make calculated risks, right? Like, I do not like to lose money. So, and so I'm probably not as like bold about risk taking, but I think that's been of my benefit too, because I've been able to make some really good gradual steps without like sinking us financially. Yeah, yeah. And so, and that's always been important to me, but that's probably my weakest point. But I am, I mean, compared to other people, I am more of a risk taker. Yeah. But compared to other entrepreneurs, I know I'm not as much of a risk taker. So that's my weakest one.

It's interesting 'cause we talk about different stages of the business while we're growing and you know, responsible risk taking is important. And you know, you talked about being in the black, being really focused on the numbers. And maybe you can talk a little bit about the importance of one of these stages, which is generating cash.

Yes, absolutely. So yeah, so like when I set up this company from the very beginning, like my goal was to be debt free. So I funded it to start and I got very, very creative with the equipment that I needed, the things that I needed to do. And every step that we've taken, like every month I've reinvested back into the business, right? And I did not pay myself anything the first year. And then the second year came along and I did start paying myself a little bit. And now here in this third year, I do make my, I do make a regular salary for myself and I have, you know, a team now that I pay and yeah. And so all of those things, but it's all been very, very closely calculated month by month, by month. Now I am like super focused on numbers and data and I make decisions based on numbers and data.

So I'm like always doing calculations. Like if I'm just sitting here, like I have my phone out and you made me think I'm like screwing around on social media or whatever. No, I have my calculator open and I'm like running a whole bunch of scenarios and numbers through my head and popping them into my calculator. And my head is just like going all over the place. Like how can I accomplish this? Like I want this much cash at the end of this event. What do we need to do? How many customers do we need? Like I know very well my average customer order value and it stayed consistent for three and a half years. I know how many customers I need to hit the goals I want per location. I know all of those numbers. So if I say I have a project I want to fund, like this technical project that we're working on, it wasn't $250,000 thankfully, but it's not right?

It's not nothing either. So I wanna fund this debt free using my business while still paying my employees, while still paying myself, you know, all those kinds of things. What do we need to do to generate that kind of cash? And I act, that's actually one of the reasons why I love e-comm is because esp, like if you can set up a Shopify store and sell anything, you can generate cash immediately. And so you can fund whatever projects, whatever things you need immediately, which is awesome. And so like I'm hyperfocused on those numbers and that data and I'm always calculating, okay, here's our next goal. Here's what we need to do to get there. And then I break it down in like bite-sized pieces for my team, for my marketing team, for my admin team, you know, my team. I'm like, this is what you are hyper focusing on. I will fixate over here on this in order for me to fixate on this, you're gonna focus on this. And if you focus on that and don't lose sight of that, then everything will come together. And then we should get to this goal that I've set here. That's

Good. That's so good. So

Yeah,

Every person in the academy receives a mentor. How's that been going for you? And what, do you have other mentors or have they been useful, important? Talk a little bit about that.

Yeah, actually, so I have to be honest with you, in 20 years, my very first mentor has been through eap. That was not something I necessarily recognized that I needed or that I should have had. And I probably should have had it from the very beginning, a long time ago. Now I have like friends who have been in the entrepreneurial world and of course we talk and you know, we have encouraged each other and we learn what's worked and what hasn't. But in terms of like a legit mentor, I haven't had that opportunity until Eli. But in fact, the class yesterday, that was one of the tasks or challenges that we have to complete in the next 90 days is finding a mentor. And so I've, I've had the opportunity to work with Ryan and he actually helped me really think through and solve another problem that I didn't get to talk about.

But I can talk about that. And I, without his insight, I would've thought about it completely different and thinking and hi about his input and thinking about his insight has really made for like just a fantastic successful solution. Very cool. And so I actually got to a point here in my business where I realized that I need help and this was getting too big. Like this was getting bigger than what I could handle. And I was trying to run the operations, run the marketing, run the finances, like all the things, right? And I already knew, like I came in kind of with a marketing background. Like when you come in as an influencer and you are running your own businesses for all these years, you're kind of a natural, like you become a natural born marketer, right? So I started this business with a vast amount of marketing knowledge so I could sell the crap out of the food Rob, like we could sell so much.

But where the challenge came was the operations and the fulfillment. That's where the mistakes would happen. That's where the chaos would happen. That's where the frustrations would happen. Yeah. That's where the costly mistakes would happen. And, and so I recognized that I needed help. And actually it was in the first EAP class, the topic that they dealt with quite a bit in that first class was, are you a partner person or are you not a partner person? And you know it, I'll be honest with you, as I was sitting there in the class working through that particular topic, I actually got frustrated. And the reason I got frustrated is 'cause one, I'd never really asked myself that question clearly. Like I knew I needed help, but I didn't know what that meant. And I have been in partnerships in the past that we're not well thought out and we were not well matched.

It was kind of like, Hey, we should do this thing. Sure, yeah, let's do this thing. And then you do this thing and then you're like, we shouldn't have done this thing together. But it wasn't like thought out, you know what I mean? It was just kind of willy-nilly. And so I'd had a bad experience with partnerships in the past and, and so when I was sitting there, like everybody at my table and seemingly all the other tables were like, are you a partner person? Yes or no? And everybody was like, yes or no? And I'm like, where's the, I don't know, you know, I don't know. And, and so I actually talked to Ryan about it, you know, and he, he like tried to walk me through it and I talked to another person at, at EAP and this person really walked me through it and asked me like legit questions.

That really helped me identify that yes, at the end of the day, I am a partner person, but my hesitation has come because I've been hurt from partnerships in the past or I've had a bad experience. So just because I've had a bad experience did not mean that I wasn't a partner person. And so that class really solidified the fact of exactly what I needed to do next. So that was actually my 90 day task after that first elite class was to find a partner slash integrator. And, and so then I did spend the next 90 days with my mentor and a few other people kind of working through this. Like I knew who I wanted to be, my integrator and my partner. And then I went through like all this process of mentoring. Yeah, just mentoring. I, I guess I kind of called it almost counseling in some sense, but it was mentoring and got to this place and by the end of that 90 days I had my partner integrator. And that has been a game changer for my business. So That's

Amazing. So when you say partner integrator, the part, now this person is a partner in the business with you? Yes, yes. And they're, because sometimes people hire an integrator Yes. But they don't make them a partner. So that's really interesting. You, you did two things in one. Yes

I did. And

You decided on the partner and the interviewer. That's really cool.

Yes. And I decided on that, to be honest with you, Rob, because I wanted somebody that had the same amount of passion and care that I did. And so I didn't wanna just hire somebody in that role. I wanted somebody to embrace that role fully, you know? And I just knowing my own personality, like if I was just hired to be an integrator, yeah, I'm gonna do a dang good job, but I'm not gonna probably have the same passion and drive if I didn't feel like it was my own. Yeah. And I wanted that person that had that same charisma and that same passion and that same drive, but on the opposite skillset, which is exact opposite personality too, to be honest with you. Yes. So it's perfect.

You know, one of the things Gino Wickman writes about in the book Entrepreneurial Leap is that for, for early stage entrepreneurs, a must do is noticing the bigger the problem you solve in the world, the more successful you'll be. And I'm just curious because have you ever thought about this business as solving a really big problem?

Yes, absolutely. In fact, so I had gone through the process of creating my vision statement and my core values on my own, and then I did it again with my partner slash integrator. And that particular piece of like, we are changing the world of food, like everybody has to eat and food is one of the most intimate things. And food can also be one of those like things that is a crisis in your life and it becomes a massive need. And like it is such a cool experience, Rob, like what we do, like, I don't know if you've ever been involved in a business when you get to provide the service or product to your customer, and that customer looks right at you in the face and says, thank you for doing this. And I cannot tell you how many of our customers we encounter that, you know, come up to us and say, I really appreciate you doing this. Yeah. This is amazing. You're changing our lives. Like I've never had a business that's done that. And, and so yes, I wholeheartedly agree with what Gino wrote there. Yeah.

I love it. I love it. And curious when, when you first got started, you know, another must do that we talk about is getting feedback from customers and clients early and often. Did you do that? And what kinds of things were you hearing? Did you make changes or,

Yeah, that's actually a really good question and I, I don't think that I have, I heard it again yesterday and I don't think I've done it to the level that I should. But one, one thing that we have done, which is probably different than a lot of businesses naturally, is we actually foster communities, like through social media groups. And so I'm speaking directly to our communities, to our participants, and to our customers through social media. Like I post on there, they ask me questions, they're actually part of the process in choosing what foods we bring on each month, those kinds of things. And so in some sense, I've kind of done that naturally from the very beginning. But after the second E Elite class, we have officially started a post pickup survey, but I didn't necessarily do that before. But I would go on social media and unofficially say, what do you think of this product? Yeah. Did you like this product? You know, that kind of stuff. So I've always done it unofficially. Yeah. But now doing it officially has also given us a whole nother level of enlightenment in terms of what we should change and what we should do. And we've been implementing some of those changes, which I think is also helping us with our growth. No doubt, for

Sure. Doubt, no doubt. I love it. Yeah. You know, different stages that we talk about. One capitalizing on coaching, training, mentoring. Here you are in the entrepreneurial LEAP Academy. How's it going? You've had three sessions. What's coming up for you? You've mentioned some of them already, but I'm just curious, how's it going? And have you found anything really challenging? You know, is there anything where you're like, ah, this one's tough.

Yeah. Well I think the first one was definitely am I a partner person? Partner, not a partner one. Yeah. I wonder. Yeah. Like that, that actually caused me like stomach ache. I'm like, ah, I don't know.

I love that. I love the way you say that. That's so perfect.

So yes, but but it was solved. It was solved and I'm so glad that it was, and that actually happened from the first class. And so from that point forward, you know, like actually one of the problems that we're working on now is actually what my new partner has brought on. Like, like I said, I have no problem adding products to the product line and selling the crap out of them. Right. And I love to sell them, but the operation fulfillment, you know, side, it creates a nightmare if there's too many SKUs and too many products. And so one of the challenges that my partner has brought to my attention that I'm working on and that I actually presented as my problem at ELAP yesterday was that I need to figure out how to go from 80 SKUs a month. Like we're a specialty online grocery store.

So 80 SKUs is a law for us, 80 to 90 SKUs a month down to 50 or 60 SKUs a month, but continue to increase revenue, right? That is the problem that I'm working on solving right now. And I loved that I could present that problem at the academy yesterday. And both my table as well as the room could help provide like insight from their perspective as just consumers in the world, you know, and the things that they would like to see maybe how to manipulate our product line to where we can meet the goals that my partner on the operations side has of simplifying operations while continuing to drive up sales. And so I'm actually really excited, like going through the problem solving steps through that filter that we learned about yesterday. Yeah. And applying those to each part of my product process and figuring out how I can solve this problem.

And so I would say that this is obviously a really good problem, but how do I make his, how do I make him happy with what he wants on the operation side while still seeing the goals succeed in the company? And so, you know, this is obviously a new problem. Like I've thought about it 'cause he brought it up to me like a month ago or whatever, and like when he first brought it up, I was, was like, there's no way we can do that. We gotta keep adding stuff so we can keep growing ourselves. Right? But then, you know, when I take a deeper dive into like the operational side, I'm like, yeah, we're kind of in a mess, like on the operations side. Like I understand what he's saying. Yeah. And so I need to respect him and listen to him and I'm going to solve this problem. And so I'm really excited actually to solve this next problem. And a lot of the ideas I, I gathered from the class yesterday, some of my own thinking and then presenting it to my team and, and us coming up with an idea. So I hope to report here in 90 days that I solve that problem. I love that. So,

And so I'm imagining you are the quote unquote visionary of the company. Absolutely. Yeah. So you have a million great ideas every day. Yes. And your new partner slash integrator is helping reign it in a little

Absolutely.

And hopefully simplify the business, allow you to still grow it, but deliver, you know, an extraordinary experience, I assume, for your clients.

Yes, yes. Absolutely. And that, like, we've been partners probably for, I guess it's been about three or four months now, and like already I can see just a massive difference, a massive change. So great. Even just on me personally, like, just like the stress relief. Totally. Yes. And, and just like even on my own family, like one of the benefits that I'd never thought about that has actually been absolutely incredible. Like I told you, I've been a work at home entrepreneur for 20 years. Yeah. And what that has meant is that during that whole time I'm raising six kids, my computer has always been on, it's never been off. And you can see behind me now, I'm in an office. So for the first time ever, that was one of our partnership agreements is like, we're gonna work together during the day nine to three and my computer goes off at three o'clock and it's been going off fantastic at three o'clock for three months. And I, we did not realize how amazing that would be for our family.

Wow. Congratulations on that, by the way. That's amazing. Yeah, really. Thank you. It truly is. Yeah.

Thank you.

All right. Any final advice or thoughts that you wanna throw out there for any emerging entrepreneurs out there in the world?

So I definitely, definitely read this. Take the test. She's holding

Up entrepreneurial leap the book right now. Okay. Yes.

Yep. Highlight the crap out of it and then just follow this, follow what you highlighted, like the things that spoke to you. I love it. And, and follow it. I love

It. Awesome. I did not cue her on that, people, I promise. I did not. Yes. All right, Cassie, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me today. You are the best. Absolutely. I really appreciate it. Thank

You, Rob. It's been fun.

It's all Yeah, absolutely. And all the amazing entrepreneurs listening today. I greatly appreciate you spending time with Cassie and me today, and I wish you all much love and gratitude.