Feel Beautiful in Every Size

Speaker 2: you're already beautiful but I hope you feel beautiful I think that when you look good you feel good I hope that they find that in my apparel 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 in Erica Davis is the owner of the women's fitness atleisure apparel and workout accessory line imperfect MERS they provide the highquality apparel that you love at affordable prices thank you for joining us Erica you are the founder of imperfect MERS what led you to start your business and what was the

Speaker 3: inspiration behind it absolutely first thanks for having me I started my business in 2018 and the reason is because after I had my son I gained a lot of weight after I stopped nursing and everything and so I started my workout journey and I really got serious about my workout journey in 2017 but what I realized is that most of the apparel I was getting were really cheap quality I was rolling down they were thin so then I went the opposite way and started buying more expensive items and I was like there's no way I can continue to afford this so I started my own business to give women The Best of Both Worlds high quality and affordable crisis so that was the motivation behind it and that was the reason why I wanted to do it for others and it's really hard I ran consistently before I'm a mom of twins it was so hard to get consistent after they were born CU I'd get consistent then one would get a cold and the other one would get a cold and then I would always get the cold and it would be a monthlong journey before I could really get out there again and I found I just had to tell myself that it's not today but it might be tomorrow and another thing I learned is I used to think if I didn't work out for an hour I learned to do 20 minutes here 20 minutes

Speaker 2: there and that was okay yes it is absolutely that's something that we learn a way because we see all these things on TV or on social media we think why can't our bodies do that or should I be in the gym longer and you find out

Speaker 3: those things along the way so my imperfect MERS page started out as a motivational page to follow my workout Journey because most women unless you have the genes or the money for surgery you don't snap back that quick so I wanted to show women how reality looks and so that's how it started and good

Speaker 2: for you for sticking with it and saying I'm not going to give up I'm going to keep doing this I'm going to share my journey too because you're motivating other women when you share your story yes how do you hope women will feel when they wear your brand and apparel first

Speaker 3: of all you're already beautiful but I hope you feel beautiful I think that when you look good you feel good I hope that they find that in my apparel the quality is amazing it's compressed it's holding you in while still being comfortable a lot of women say we want things to hold those important areas in I hope that's what they're realizing you

Speaker 2: also work full-time in strategic

Speaker 3: sourcing how does the work you do help you in running and scaling your own business it helps me with the negotiations one of the things that I do as negotiations and reviewing contract that helps a business tremendously one of the most difficult things I find in running a business is accounting and understanding how the legal side Works my corporate job really helps me with that when running my business I want to run my business full-time down the line I'm going to use what I'm learning to my benefit while I'm doing it not only financially but also the skills to managing a business and that's great

Speaker 2: because so many successful businesses start off as a side hustle yeah you believe in finding strength in weaknesses tell us about that and is there an example or a story in your life

Speaker 3: where you learn this one of the things that was very difficult for me is that in 2020 I found out that I had cancer I am a cancer survivor and at one point it broke me down I'm thinking that I'm this healthy person but we don't know what's going on inside of our bod at first it was hard but I didn't let it take me down I did find that strength once I found out from the doctors and those Specialists that understand what I need to do to get healthy I found my strain during that tough time and I found my strength to also help other women go to the doctor encouraging them to do that and finding that strength to also motivate others during a time where I needed motivation myself and that's so

Speaker 2: great because now you could be a motivational inspiration for your Fitness and weight loss Journey but also for people that might be going through cancer and when you're told something like you have two choices either give up or say no I'm going to fight this with everything I have so good for you it was very difficult but we made it through got to be great to be on the other side oh yeah you say and many would agree being mom can feel like an impossible job with NeverEnding tasks it can be overwhelming and cause even the most organized women to feel like they are in over their heads as a mom twins I can completely relate I know you can relate as a mother juggling a busy lifestyle how do you juggle it all and what advice

Speaker 3: do you have I write everything down my son is in second grade I write down everything what his schedule will be how his homework will be when he gets from school what I would need to do not only for my family but what I need to do to help him with his work what time I'm going to a lot for my business I know sometimes things don't always go as plann also the advice I would give to women because as women or as moms we tend to struggle with this is ask for help I know we believe and we know nobody can do it like us but ask for help and if you feel like it's going to be a struggle it's going to be hard it's it's okay to write a few things down when you are asking for help for that person or people that are helping you but you have to ask for help you cannot do it all and that is my biggest advice my husband plays a huge part in why I'm able to manage a lot because I ask for

Speaker 2: help what do you think is the most

Speaker 3: important element of leadership and building successful teams and Company cultures having processes in place it helps you in so many ways when you have processes spelled out as far as what you want done and how it should be done nobody can argue it because written out and it helps your people learn it helps you learn from it it helps ideas to build more and more processes that helps a company grow it helps the culture another thing is having that open door policy to listen to ideas listen to concerns when people say they have a open door policy sometimes it's not always accurate you have to really have an open door policy with your team that's the way they're going to support you and support your business and believe in your business and another thing is have your people's back I was a manager of a huge department when I worked at a previous company one of the things that my team would always tell me when we have these recognitions of say good some good things about your manager they will always say that I would have their back even though in private I might get on them but if I know that they were right in the situation and they could have probably handled the situation differently I'll support what they were right about in public but I would get on them on how they handled it and try to coach them that way but you have to have your team B when they're in the right and that shows what a good manager you are too and you're right having structure in place for expectations because it's the worst to be in a role and not know if you're doing either what your manager or the founder want you to be doing yeah absolutely I'll give you an example what's imperfect MERS I had someone help me with social media I'm just so busy and I need to step out of social media so I had someone help me well my followers started to decrease and my sales started to decrease and I'm like what's going on later I found out after serving customers and talking to a couple of friends they were like oh you don't interact on your social media you just post stuff people will inbox you nobody will hear back people will tag you and you don't share the post so all this time the person helping me wasn't doing any of that they were just posting so of course I had to take over my social media again and I was thinking and I was like Erica how is this person supposed to to know that's what you expect when all you did was say I need you to take over social media you didn't

Speaker 2: have any processes in place you didn't have a job description in place you didn't have any of that in place so how are they supposed to know what your expectations are so we have to have processes and expectations set so who

Speaker 3: we're hiring can really help us so true and I love that example because as Leaders we all have to do this because there's areas where we can always make it better right but it's great that you took a step back and said okay how can as a leader make this better yes Magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy what is one way that you make sure to find and live your joy each day

Speaker 2: my family is number one but I love working out I wake up at 4 o'clock in the morning and I work out to start my day and that's something that brings me joy if it's a day that I'm supposed to work out and something happens where I can't work out I can feel it throughout the rest of the day it doesn't bring me down emot or anything like that but still like I can feel something is off when I don't work out because that brings me so much joy endorphins are

Speaker 3: such a beautiful thing aren't they carry you through the day as a mom at work you happy exactly you have been so fun to talk to today everyone should check out imperfect MERS please tell us how and

Speaker 3: mom.com thank you for joining us today I'd love to hear from you reach out to me at hello Sheil it.com on our Sheil it website or at Sheil it 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