Creative Cash Flow Tips

Speaker 1: [Music]

Speaker 2: if you're an entrepreneur you're inherently a Visionary because you're building something that doesn't exist in whatever capacity that is and so you have to be able to inspire others around that idea hi I'm Melanie bar welcome to the shiled experience with Melanie you're here because you want to experience the life and business that you crave join me as I talk to women who have successfully built it a career and business that they love we dive into the topic of how they built it and talk about everything from Having the courage to make career leaps to the details of how to lead effectively create successful teams Implement strategies for growth and Infuse Tech Innovation magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy so let's dive

Speaker 1: [Music]

Speaker 2: in Katherine Smith lary is the owner of two successful e-commerce businesses with the focus on eliminating your cash flow stress to grow your brand team her course the cash flow method for Creative entrepreneurs is a groundbreaking approach to financial planning for startups thank you for joining us Katherine you launched your first e-commerce company at the age of 25 an online destination for luxury fashion by emerging designers and received a Rising Star Award in retail from the Fashion Group International and you are named entrepreneur of the week by NASDAQ tell us about the pivotal moment when you decided to make your leap and launch your first business

Speaker 3: thank you so much for that intro the pivotal leap was when I realized that I wasn't really sure about staying in the industry that I was previously in which was magazine journalism sort of at the end of the Heyday of the magazine job and I noticed that because of the rise of Instagram at the time this was 2014 Instagram was really changing the game for these emerging designers who typically in the past would have needed a lot more resources and a lot more time to break into the Retail Landscape all of a sudden these designers were able to go online with a few Styles so maybe they've got four or five bags or they've got a couple of small collections but customers were able to find them and then I realized there was an access problem like maybe they made five bags they pre-sold all of them but there was all of this demand so I it clicked for me that customers really wanted the new and the next of fashion space and so I created an e-commerce site dedicated entirely to that and the other part of this was we really told the designer stories so we didn't just put pieces together from different brands we had editorial features about who they are about their inspiration so our clients could really learn more about them and feel like they're supporting them similarly to how you would support like an emerging artist and that makes you much more willing to want to buy from them too when you know who they are and you know their

Speaker 1: background and you know everything that they're putting into what they're designing and isn't it so great that designers can have four handbags and come into the market now oh I couldn't

Speaker 3: agree more I mean to your first Point connection with the Creator is so powerful and I've spent over 10 years living in New York City and was lucky enough to be around designers and I remember I was at an event with Oscar deara and he at his Madison Avenue store this is years ago he you know he since passed away but he pointed out a dress to a woman and said oh this color would look amazing on you and I watched that woman look at Oscar look at the dress look at her friend and immediately need that garment and a lifelong story and relationship was forged with this piece in that one interaction and so that's not limited to designers who are very established that is an artist seeing you and saying this would look amazing on you this was made for you it's the idea of transferring like the confidence that comes from wearing something that you really feel greated and also back to Instagram becoming a part of all of our lives these designers would see women post pieces from us from my site and tag the designer and so the designers commenting and it's creating your own world within the fashion industry without relying on being in the right place at the right time it created a shopping experience for our customers to directly engage with the next generation of luxury fashion designers and don't we want to feel good from even wearing workout clothes up to going to work or going out or going to an event yeah every step of our day it's universally true that pretty much everyone feels better when they feel good about themselves inside out they feel prepared for whatever their day has for them it doesn't matter where you live or what you're doing you have a more productive positive day when you feel good in your skin after scaling

Speaker 1: your first business you went on to create a second one the cash flow method for Creative entrepreneurs a proven method to eliminate cash flow stress and Empower you to grow your brand and team what inspired you to create your second

Speaker 3: business it was actually the designers for my first business that inspired this second one because we were the first Ecom or retail partner for many of these Brands I was very close with the designers they were doing all of their own sales production manufacturing shipping invoicing so I was communicating with them all the time and what naturally started to happen about a year into the business was the designers would ask me questions for example how do I export from you know my country to you in the US and how do I get a warehouse how do I fund my production order that I just got from nean Marcus they saw that I've got a couple of stores they saw that you were the first one and now a few seasons down the line their brands are growing they would come with these questions that were very much finance and operational in nature and for whatever reason and certainly

Speaker 2: because of my earlier career experiences working at magazines within the cond Nast publishing family I saw incredible examples of how organizations run and how you get things done and how how you make things happen so I had this perspective of like I'm going to figure these things out I'm going to empower these young designers to be successful and what I realized at the end of the day was everything came down to cash flow timing planning balancing the difference between your receivables and your payables and trying to understand how can I get ahead of running out of money actually there's this saying that every entrepreneur has a few key responsibilities hire Inspire retain and that's all about talent but the fourth one is don't run out of cash this is a problem that's faced by every single business regardless of what industry you're in or what you have going on and so we morphed from just being an eCommerce site to being a finance and operations advisory firm for emerging luxury Brands and so worked on a number of different financial planning exercises with designers everything from marketing activations we were a bit Broad in the beginning because the questions were Broad and then over the next several years I began to realize how critical it was that someone needed to create like a financial learning tool for Creative entrepreneurs specifically simply because they've never been exposed to what these templates look like you've not seen what a financial model looks like and Excel if you've spent the last five years on a creative path sketching with fabric certainly you're learning how to buy how to sell but you're not learning how to think about Finance in terms of like columns and rows and timing and so even in my business I got to a point where I looked up from my desk I had five women working with me in my office and I said I don't know what's next for me or this company I've taken it as far as I can my mid-20s six figures in sales every year but I was like I don't know what's next so I applied to do the um Executive MBA program at Columbia business school and went and did it and focused on like hardcore finance and so all the combination of these things led to developing this specific method that is designed to help creative thinkers business owners entrepreneurs understand what is the data that needs to go in this template How can I do it myself so that I feel really fluent with the numbers that are in this and how can I use it to make

Speaker 3: decisions that's such a great resource and fashion and any creative business the person running it wants to be on the creative side it's hard to switch over although it's important and needed and a must in a business that part's usually the trickiest part so it's great that you created that resource for creatives and multi-passionate

Speaker 2: entrepreneurs thank you so much it's very hard to switch over to it because it's a trade almost learning how to look and think through finances this way is a skill set you have to hone over time it's a course in format because a lot of just business owners in general need to do this on their own time they don't want to work with a consultant one-on-one and most importantly because I truly believe they can't have someone holding their hand so I'm teaching there are template downloads there's a workbook there's a community and every class has a video lesson with me explaining exactly how to apply the

Speaker 3: method to your business but I've seen it so many times in investor meetings or let's say a family member has invested in your company and they're asking you questions like at Thanksgiving about the performance of your business and you have no idea how to answer questions that they're asking you based on some Excel template that like an intern from a business school put together for your company that doesn't help I've even spoken to lawyers who've gone on to run law firms they were taught to be lawyers and good lawyers but they weren't taught to run the firm so it's great that you did this for fashion designers and creatives it's like the cash flow method for business owners who do not feel comfortable with finance and it's great that you created a resource they can do in their own time and you're right they have to want to that's the truth with any course especially if you're going at your own pace because I've signed up for courses where I didn't really go through them and then I've signed up for other courses where I put 100% and I don't know how someone doesn't want to put 100% effort into the finances of their business because that's the heart and soul you can't learn anything or make valuable change in your business unless you're planning 12 18 24 months out so this also teaches you and forces you to go through that method because if you don't go through the exercise of looking at multiple years you can understand what your cash flow needs are going to be based on your goals it also takes away the stress because you know what you're looking at for the year and you know what you're comfortable with instead of not having a plan and feeling

Speaker 2: overwhelmed by the rest of the year yeah something else too that I find really helpful you have to set a strategy and commit to it and the structure of your business needs to reflect the strategy that you've set sure you can make changes if something's not working but if you've got a strategy in mind and your structure of your company is set up to support that it's so much easier to make decisions

Speaker 3: with two successful businesses you are juggling a lot what do you think is the most important element of leadership and growing your

Speaker 2: teams I feel so blessed first of all to have really worked with Incredible people prioritizing your team's well-being their own career trajectory is the most important thing for me we all have a finite amount of time on this Earth so if someone's willing to work on my idea I am so invested in that person's success and it's something that I try to make very clear that really brings the best out in people and I'm genuinely so grateful to have their support everyone that's worked with me knows I have their back and I'm always looking for opportunities for them and and to support them in wherever they are and I'm so proud like the the interns out of fit who have started with me that have stayed for years are now doing incredible things I consider it a huge privilege and a responsibility to ever be an employer I

Speaker 3: love the way you say that if someone's

Speaker 2: going to invest in what I'm doing and the time and looking at the human side of things it's so important it it is if you're an entrepreneur you're inherently a Visionary because you're building something that doesn't exist in whatever capacity that is and so you have to be able to inspire others around that idea something I find very helpful is really communicating what that vision is being very consistent and loud and clear about that that's something that I had picked up from paying attention to Anna wintor from Vogue she has always been very clear about you have Direction you communicate it clearly you have conviction around your decisions and that inspires others and that I think is key to leadership what

Speaker 3: advice do you have for others who are scaling businesses and what are a couple of the most meaningful things that you

Speaker 2: have learned along the way my advice for other people scaling businesses are there's two key pieces of advice the first is find and assemble your own personal board of directors I have people in my life that are always there to talk to me listen to me they're there cheering me on and if you're building a business and you know you're trying to scale you're alone in that you might have a co-founder you might have business partners but if you have employees it is not their job to cheer you on it is not their job to be your therapist and counselor but it is your job for yourself to assemble people who can support you along the way the other piece is I actually just read this the other day it was about horses and horse racing when horses are racing they have blinders on because if they don't have blinders on and they take a look at like the other horse next to them terrible things happen so stay in your own lane keep your blinders on comparison is the thief of joy just focus on what you're building and if you've got that Clarity of vision and purpose and you're focused and you've got people to support you I mean you can't fail certainly we all make mistakes but something not going right or or a failure can always be learned from and something's only a mistake if you don't learn something from it so and that's what I love so

Speaker 3: much about you and the way that you approach entrepreneurship it's like what would you do if you think if you thought

Speaker 2: you couldn't fail thank you

Speaker 3: it's one of my favorite questions to ask

Speaker 2: it's truly it's truly everything and the world needs entrepreneurs you can also Inspire so many other people around you that you're not even aware of and that is everything you know growing up it was actually my mother who if I was faced with something I was afraid to try or do she would say if you don't try this will you always regret it and you get that answer instantly maybe you don't want to go for it but maybe okay I will regret this the rest of my life if I don't take a shot it's absolutely right and if you have something like that that is kind of clawing at you in a way the key to understanding if you're ready to do something as an entrepreneur is if the idea of it really moves you out of bed in the morning if you feel this pull like a gravitational force forward related to the thing whatever it is that's how you know you're ready to go and if your idea isn't yet moving you forward and propelling you out of bed just wait for a better idea that does because it is very difficult but if you feel the pull get your personal Board of advisers and keep the blinders on and

Speaker 3: it's go time such good advice and I love the analogy of the horse race such a good one thank you you have been featured in Harper's Bazaar L and women's wear daily and receive numerous Awards how does it feel and has it helped your business the Press support

Speaker 2: has been incredible also because I come from the magazine world and so seeing my name in my business in these Publications was a huge goal it's so validating for myself for the idea for my team anyone who's ever worked with me and for the designers that was a huge motivator for us too and why in the beginning our advisory practice did a little bit of like press support because had these organic relationships and they were truly so excited to call and be like Katherine we're doing a story about emerald green do you have any designers with emerald green I'd be like yes this fine jewelry designer from La just did a ring for us that's got emerald and it's an exclusive and they'll be like amazing and that's how we had something in L that's how we had a dress you know on a beautiful page in in Harpers it's just it was really empowering because I felt like the industry had my back and they did I'll share a personal anecdote too because I think so much about entrepreneurship is often inspired by our parents or our grandparents or there's usually some generational connection and my grandfather worked not in fashion specifically but in like home wees and textiles and he did some Partnerships with with people in the fashion industry and he was often himself in women's we daily for his work we were very very close I was the first of five granddaughters I just loved him so much and I didn't get a lot of business chat out of him because he passed away when I was 10 but for me having my business specifically in women's were daily just felt like a full circle moment and achievement and something that I was so proud of not just for of course the awareness and how it would support the overall business but because I felt like he somehow still had a subscription and would get the update and that really mooved moved me forward but now you know I I've had a lot of these exciting like glossy New York City moments and that's been amazing but it's not really what's motivating me now now I'm I'm I feel so grateful and lucky and secure in my own entrepreneurial Journey that that's why the cash flow method is so much more about making sure other people have those moments and that they can build their businesses in a way that is empowering for them personally professionally financially for the people they're purchasing from selling to hiring for me it's about giving back and helping people have a shot at taking their creative idea and really giving it life that can last and be sustainable magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our

Speaker 3: business that brings us joy what is one way that you make sure to find and live

Speaker 2: your joy each day great question I just try to talk to my best girlfriends they are some of the most empowering stylish loving smart funny compassionate people I've ever met and and will ever meet being an entrepreneur I have control over my time so I'll duck out for a coffee have people over I'll go quickly like this morning one of my best friends is hosting a bachelorette party and she she knows I love flowers in the New York City wholesale flower market so I went with her at 8 a.m. to like help her pick things and I was like hey how much are those to the guy you know like I gotta keep her on budget right the finance the finance part of you exactly I was like girl what are you trying to spend okay noted all right those are $35 a bunch you know so like it comes through and everything I do just nourishing my own spirit with the people around me so again personal board of directors just making sure that you are allowing yourself to enjoy the blessings that are already in in your life and your world while you are sort of heads down building what would we do without our girlfriends right I mean that's why I wanted to start she built it because I have supportive men in my life but there's magic happens when women get together and support each

Speaker 3: other and share friendship totally I just heard um Sally croch from elest speak at Columbia business school and she's created this like investing platform for women and she was saying that men have treated their careers and and the last couple of generations like a team sport and women haven't really been able to do that because there were so few spots available for women that it would feel like okay well there's only one seat at the table I have to go get it and I want other women to have it but there's literally only one chair it's like it can't be a team sport if there's only one chair and her punchline was we need women to continue to build companies invest in other women's companies hire each other promote each other because then all of a sudden the table is more than 50% chairs that say woman in charge you know it's like that is we have to be a team yes and that's why I'm so passionate about she built it and through covid you know some women left the workforce so we need to make sure that we keep women following their passions and with through what you do too with helping them build businesses around what they're passionate about and make money while doing it completely I

Speaker 2: love it I have loved our conversation and your outlook on life and business so much fun to chat with you can you share with us how and where we can find you

Speaker 3: yes absolutely so I am on Instagram my handle is cathine pdv which is the acronym for my first company and you can also find me at Katherine pv.com and my cash flow for creatives business is Cashflow method.com

Speaker 2: thank you for joining us today I'd love to hear from you reach out to me at hello Sheil it.com on our Sheed website or at Sheed on social thank you to my editor Rich draino who always makes us sound good until next time let nothing stop you from experiencing the life and business that you crave

Speaker 1: [Music]