Unlock Your Confidence Now

Speaker 1: hi I'm Melanie bar welcome to the she builted 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

Speaker 1: when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy so let's dive in Sia Stockland has owned and operated businesses since her early teens her business mindset led her to open her first store mam Mia and her second store mode but she didn't stop there her tenacity and success led her to become a Serial entrepreneur she has twice had the opportunity to testify before two US Senate committees regarding the joint employer standard for businesses and its effect on small businesses and franchises in 2015 she represented small business at a White House Summit on worker voice and again in 2018 for a summit on economics Sierra thank you so much for joining us today please tell us more about who you are and about your early career experiences and what led

Speaker 2: you to become a Serial entrepreneur I'm a third generation entrepreneur so I was just around business forever small business every single Thanksgiving table every e Easter dinner I was listening they were talking about small business it was very natural to really think about what I could do as a small business entrepreneur as I grew up I just couldn't figure out how I could sit behind a desk or in a cubicle and do the same thing over and over and so um as a teenager I started creating businesses creating opportunities to turn things um into value and that led me to my first real business in 2006 when I opened my first boutique store in downtown Fargo my father was in business development and I was an only child and so they took me on a lot of work trips and so it's amazing what sinks in and what you learn

Speaker 1: from your family from a young age right absolutely I was just talking to my sister the other day and I said do you remember every vacation we went on we always had to stop so Dad could hand out a business card yeah it was just second nature always meeting with people connecting and trying to figure out how to build something and can you tell us what gave you the idea to open up your first door and how that led to your

Speaker 2: second I started an acting company when I was 13 I was a homeschool student wanted theater opportunity and there was nothing for hes schoolers and so my mom was like stop complaining and just do something and so I started this little acting troop and it grew until I had a studio and we worked with high school elementary college kids so I did that for about 12 or 13 years and then I had been married by that time had a couple little ones and I just was tired of the nonprofit nights and weekend

Speaker 1: and so we decided to shut that down and I told my husband I remember where we were heading to Michigan for Christmas and I'm like okay so that chapter's done I cannot sit at home with my kids I've got to have something to do and he was like you know what what do you want to do next I said you know what I think I'd like to have a store which is so Random I never worked retail in my life but I thought I would like to have a store and build a brand and so I started thinking about what would be a good brand to build in our community that would set me apart and be different than every other thing on the Block and so I thought about a maternity baby store and so that's what we opened I was thinking it would be farther down the road but we ended opening that up six months after that conversation so my restlessness

Speaker 2: pushed me into it pretty quickly good for you and it's great that you gave yourself permission to make that change because so often we'll start a business and we think we have to stay there yes and our life evolves and we evolve as people so isn't it so great when we give ourselves permission to change and to make those different leaps absolutely even closing a chapter sometimes we feel like what will people think or I'll be a failure or no if it's the wrong chapter for you now it's okay to close things down and move on and I talk to my clients about that a lot and they're like really absolutely give yourself permission to move on to closeth to open doors whatever makes sense for you in that moment and for the life that you're living right now when my twins were born I had the same feeling much like you I had supported myself since I was 19 in Los Angeles and my twins were born and I sat for hours with two babies in the nursery thinking what am I going to do and I came up with two different business ideas and I kind of grew both of them and I was about to launch one and then I thought I can't have twins and run two brand new businesses at the same time and so I had to let one go and it was so hard for me to let it go it's great to think that you can always go back and do it later because I can always go back and revive that if I decide I want to but it's so great that you gave yourself permission to make that switch and that change can you tell us about score I don't know anything

Speaker 1: about score absolutely oh my goodness what a wonderful tool for small business owners so score is a National Organization it's funded and so everything is free it is a group of retired business people men and women who have been in business that are just volunteering their time so when I started my store like I said said I never worked retail I need some good advice so I talked to another local entrepreneur and asked her you know where do you find information and she was using a score Mentor who had actually done a lot in retail so I was able to connect with him and we're friends today so we yeah it's just an awesome so you just look up score.org and then type in what you're looking for as far as business advice and they can match you with someone locally or you can go outside your local chapter to find what you need to that's great and it's great to have someone else to go to to bide ideas off of yes tell us about

Speaker 2: what you're doing today my newest Venture is the boutique Workshop so I work specifically with inventory based businesses because of my background in retail and wholesale I work with inventory based businesses to really understand their numbers and to build the confidence to grow a profitable business as a boutique owner myself I learned as I went and I made so many mistakes I didn't know what I should know and so I work with other Boutique owners to help them understand the fundamentals behind building a profitable Boutique business that's so

Speaker 1: great because so often we stumble through certain situations and to have someone on our side that can kind of help us make those transitions quicker

Speaker 2: and easier is so great yes I had my score Mentor but I would have loved a group of peers that I could have talked to you know I often look to like my bookkeeper and accountant for help with the numbers I made so many mistakes just not knowing the right pieces and so putting together a group of Boutique owners and really helping them Focus on those things I love it it's great how

Speaker 1: has your early career experiences influenced you as a business leader and leading your company and how does that experience help your clients your leadership style and assist you in

Speaker 2: managing your business today I understand my superpowers now and I understand what I am not that great at early on in entrepreneurship well for many years I just felt like I had to do all the things and I understand now here's where I thrive here's where I don't Thrive and I need to Outsource those things and then lean into what I do really well so I think confidence has really come from understanding who I am how I'm wired how I'm made and that kind of goes back to what we talked about a few minutes ago giving yourself permission to change course to quit things if you need to to try things if you want to the more we know about ourselves the more confidence we have I was working with one client and she does popup events and she was just really struggling with the Online technical side of her website and I said you know what just give yourself permission not to have it like if you don't love that if you don't want to serve your customers that way just because every other Boutique has a website doesn't mean you have to and that was huge like really absolutely so I think that's where my leadership style comes from is really being comfortable with who I am and then giving my clients permission to be comfortable with who they are as well

Speaker 1: it's so great that you told her that because if she doesn't enjoy it customers and clients are going to see that right and we just stress and strain over the things that we think we should do instead of doing what we really love doing and we're always going to be better at doing what we love doing 100% And in the beginning we feel like we have to wear all those hats because if you're building a business or a brand from nothing you take on all of it and then you get to a point where you think okay I cannot scale and grow if I don't doing it all exactly if I don't Outsource some areas so good for realizing the things you're good at and that you love right and thriving few years but yes it does because in the beginning you kind of have to know all the pieces of your business right right because if you have to train someone new you kind of have to know where those

Speaker 2: pieces fit yes absolutely can you tell

Speaker 1: us about a particular life or business experience that is memorable to you that you carry with you today yes so as I was coming out on the other side of one of those valleys in business where things weren't turning out the way that I wanted them to and you tend to want to have that pity party I was out for a walk in North Dakota it's freezing cold here in the winter I remember being bundled up and I was walking my little puppy and I was kind of having a pity party like okay all of this crumbled around me what was it for and then I thought it was this like aha moment of okay Sierra all of the pieces of what you've done so far make you who you are today let's pick those up let's put them together and see what you can build next and then from that came the inspiration to build my next company and so just being willing to yes we have those moments that are hard and sad and we want to throw the pity party but not staying in it but instead saying okay I'm gonna learn from this let me figure out why and then what can I do with that why so I'll always remember that walk either because it was 2010 20 below or because like something was born out of it one of those two reasons thank you

Speaker 2: for being so real about that because we all go through those moments where we feel like we're not doing enough or our business isn't far enough and everyone has those moments at time and that is it's okay yes for sure yeah I think another moment for me I was sitting on the couch you know we hear a lot about having Envy so we look at Facebook and Instagram and they have beautiful hair and wonderful skin and a nice family and a great house I've never struggled with that as much but with business Envy so I remember sitting on the couch and I was like I have to turn Facebook off for a while because I was scrolling through and it was exactly what you just said I've been doing this as long as her why does she have all these followers I've been doing this as long as her why is she being asked to speak in public and I'm sitting at home in North Dakota on my couch and it was that business envy and I needed to say okay stop you know nothing about the inside of her story and your story is your own so instead of complaining and having that Envy right let's just stop looking at that and let's focus on what you do have and that was a real Moment of clarity for me as well I love

Speaker 1: how you always go back to your inner confidence let's take the things I have

Speaker 2: done and let's build from there it usually seems to happen to me on a weekend when I'm scrolling through and getting that same business envy and I just put the phone down I just say okay until Monday morning I am not going to look at this and then maybe I'll get my marketing self together a little bit over the weekend and reemerge on Monday

Speaker 1: yes absolutely but let's just put the phone down yeah yeah let's just stop what gave you the initial courage to make your leap to launch your business

Speaker 2: my crazy inner self I just can't sit still I'm a really optimistic person so I always feel like what's the worst that can happen so I launch it and no one comes okay then I just try something else right so I think just that confidence and that what came from my parents for me it's just that ability to say you know what's the worst that can happen not much and most often the worst isn't what happens so let's just give it a try and let's see what

Speaker 1: works that's so great because you're giving yourself permission to fail you're saying if no one comes that's okay I'll just do something else because you have a new day yes you have that confidence that whatever I do next someone will probably come ex or someone might even come for the first thing that you initially do but I think sometimes we got to be comfortable with the failure first in order to make those

Speaker 2: leaps yes I heard a mentor of mine say one time you have to have a lot of NOS to get the yeses and a lot of times we're so afraid of the NOS so we don't make our offering we don't tell people what we're doing we don't try things but if you don't have a lot of NOS you're not going to get that many yeses either and so let's just go out and keep getting the nose because you're going to get for every no you get a yes for every two NOS you get another yes right but if we don't go for the nose because we're so afraid we're never going to get the yeses we're never going to grow or move

Speaker 1: forward yeah you also perfect your ability to get to yes faster the more no you get you do because you're like okay that's why she said no next time I think I'll do it this way right right what is your strategy for management for staying on task to accomplish what you set out to do as well as motivating those around

Speaker 1: and be as efficient as I can I love the eating the Frog I'm going to be thinking about that the next time I'm just eat the time I'm procrastinating on doing

Speaker 2: something cuz you got to do it anyway just get out of the way and it's funny when that Frog's like sitting on your shoulder it just distracts us all day and everything else slows down so just get rid of it it's kind of like when you go on vacation and you know you have to get everything done by 5 tonight CU I will not have internet tomorrow we suddenly get very productive yeah so let's just live our everyday like life like that

Speaker 1: then how has your business shifted over the last year what obstacles have you been able to overcome and what successes

Speaker 2: have you had so when I first launched the boutique Workshop I knew I wanted to build a phenomenal group coaching program there's lots of group coaching programs a lot of times they get a bad rap because people join they feel lost in the shuffle they don't learn anything my goal is to build the most phenomenal group coaching program there is out there so that people that don't even own a boutique want to be in it that's my goal but I've had to figure out how do you present information to a group how do you make everybody feel like they're learning something because in a group you have people that are starting out you have people that have in a business for a long time so just figuring out okay if they start with me and they don't fit there where do I put them how do I have a place for people to move into and then figuring out what I really enjoy doing so I coach but I love group coaching and we're always going to do better at the things that we love and so being willing to say like no to oneon-one clients unless I'm really excited about working with that particular project that's hard especially when you have people that want to work with you and you have earning potential so those are things that have sort of evolved like taking all of the one-on-one and making that a really minimal part of my business and then growing the the group side of things and it has to be so interesting

Speaker 1: to hear the advice from everyone in the group collectively yes so interesting do

Speaker 2: you think that's what you like the most about it is it's a lot of different ideas and a lot of different situations that come together instead of just one I think so because I'm a very fastpac person and so I think I love like coming to the table we solve a problem boom done on our way that's just I like that kind of energy that a group brings I love to see a group member lift another group member up I think if you can build a group that's a non-toxic group oh my goodness the peer pressure the positive peer pressure can do way more than the coach could even do so I love building that positive group where I'm like oh my goodness she just told her to do that that's awesome now they' connected they're both rising in their sales or you know whatever initiative we're looking at so I love that piece of it magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that

Speaker 1: brings us joy what is one tip you can leave with us today about how you find

Speaker 2: and live your joy I love connecting

Speaker 1: people so for me it's so much fun to get on the phone with someone or to hear a question in the group or to be with a one-onone client and they ask a question and I'm like oo this gal in the group just went through that or is doing this super well let me connect you I find so much joy in connecting people so I think if you have coaches that are listening don't be afraid to make those connections it's not it doesn't diminish Your Role it actually it helps enforce what you're already teaching if you will so we can get a little afraid of like o I don't know I'm the authority yeah but we're all authorities in some way or another so I find a lot of join connecting and seeing people thrive outside of what I'm doing or what I'm

Speaker 2: teaching to that's great great and it's so good to have the mindset that there's space for everyone there's space in a room for everyone there is we hear it we say it a lot but we really need to believe that thank you so much for joining me today absolutely it was so

Speaker 1: much fun to chat thanks for having me yes can you please tell our listeners

Speaker 2: how and where they can find you yes so the best place to find me would just be

Speaker 1: at theboutique workshop.com or Sierra stockin.org either one all my contact all my socials it's all there if you are new to Sheil it we'd love for you to join us we offer Community memberships masterminds Innovative virtual events and meaningful connections to entrepreneurs and corporate leaders please also check out our she built it shop curated products from women owned businesses who put their heart and soul into their beautiful and Innovative products we offer Sheil it business Consulting and the Sheil it blog thank you to everyone

Speaker 2: around the world who joined today thank you to my editor rich stalino please download And subscribe wherever you get your podcast and until next time together let's let nothing stop us from experiencing the life that We crave