166 - The Numbers of Business with Shanna, Kayse & Kait
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Show Notes:
Listen, this episode is so good. I say that because I get to sit down and talk with three of my good friends, women who I adore and admire, who run businesses, who are moms. They are so special to me, and you get to hear the inside scoop about their lives and their businesses, but all throughout the conversations, we're going to be talking about this thing called The Blueprint Model.
And I first want to tell you what that is before you listen in, because otherwise you're going to be really confused. So The Blueprint Model is a course that was created by Shanna—who is one of the ladies you're going to be hearing from today—and it's all about the numbers behind your business. But more than that, it's about creating a business that suits your life.
Now, Shanna is a numbers girl, and she helps people. She helps a lot of creatives get the hang of their money, like the money side of business. And she is teaching a free class in two days and I want you to mark this down in your calendar because it's going to be so good. It's on Thursday, the 18th, I believe at 1pm—you can find out all the details at nancyray.com/blueprint, but the name of the class is The Art of Six Figures: Join me live where I'll teach you exactly how to define what is enough in your business and how to align your business goals with your big dreams and life values.
Okay. That is Shanna's class, not my class. She's gonna be teaching it, but it's so good. I'm going to be there. It's so good. Okay. So the blueprint model, which she's going to be explaining in that class is something that I have taken a small group of women through already once this year. I coached them through it and we did The Blueprint Model together and we learned so much and applied it to all of our very different businesses.
And guess what? The doors are opening to The Blueprint Model again in just a few days. And it's only going to be open until August 25th and after that, the doors are going to close. So I just encourage you to check it out. If you think that these conversations resonate with you, just go check it out, go to nancyray.com/blueprint to see if it's a good fit for you.
And if it's not, that is totally great! I know you're still going to get a lot of value from these conversations today because they just get you thinking about what's important versus vanity metrics and the things that we *think* are important. So I know you're going to enjoy it. Make sure you had to nancyray.com/blueprint to register for Shanna's free class or in a few days, it'll turn into the page where you can learn all about The Blueprint Model.
Now, two more quick things, before we jump into these conversations, you might be wondering, okay, why is Nancy talking about this other girl's course so much? I wonder if she's an affiliate. The answer is yes, I am an affiliate because I'm invested in this course. So, whoever signs up for the course through nancyray.com/blueprint I'm actually going to be group coaching you through the course, and I'll be talking with you the entire time as we go through it together. I love the accountability and I love this course. So I am a proud affiliate of The Blueprint Model.
Second thing is, I wish I could give these wonderful long intros to of these ladies, but I'm going to just keep it short and sweet and let you know that I trust these ladies. I love them. I love their businesses and I'm so grateful. So you're going to hear from Shanna first, she created The Blueprint Model, and I think your mind is just going to be blown with her wisdom. I'm also gonna leave a link in the show notes to my last episode with Shanna, which is referenced several times in this episode.
And then you're going to hear from my friend, Kayse, she runs an online business that really equips women and moms. And she's going to tell you all about her business. It's awesome. It's Anchored Women.
Then the third lady I'll be interviewing today is Kait. And she is just a kindred spirit; I love Kait. She creates the Curious Year Calendar, which my kids are total fans of. We have one hanging in our kitchen and we look at it every day.
So I just love these ladies. I love the work that they do, and I'm thrilled for you to hear from each of them today.
For the full episode, hit play above or read through it below!
Nancy Ray: Shanna, I'm so excited to have you back on the podcast.
Shanna Skidmore: Hi, I'm so excited to be back.
Nancy: Okay. Today is going to be just a fun fire round of questions to kind of like zoom out, recalibrate our minds on like what we should be paying attention to in our work, namely numbers, because you are a number cruncher. So, let's start with all the marketing things like social media, email list, website, traffic, Pinterest pins, all the things that we like to kind of watch and look at, what of those numbers should we be paying attention to and why?
Shanna: Oh, I love this. So every month I look at how much my email list has grown. So, total subscribers; I also look at open rates and click-through rates. So those are things I like to just pay attention to: how engaged my list is, not just how big it is.
And we actually clean out our list often, twice a year, if not more, so that it's fresh people. And we see those open rates stay consistent for us. Our open rates are anywhere between 20 and 30% and then our click-through rates, I really love to see like 4%, but two, 2-4% would be our click through rates. I don't know if that's good or bad, but I always like a metric to go off of. That's what ours are. So I don't know if that's good or bad.
So I look at my email list and then I also look at Google analytics. I like to see our website traffic. And so I want to see how many people are visiting the site, because that tells me and that people are finding our content, and when they're coming to the site, hopefully they're getting on that email list.
So I look at how many website visitors, we have our top, you know, where they're coming from and then what they're looking at while they're there. So what pages they're on when we're having a big launch or something. Of course, we have really big numbers that I like to look at, those consistent numbers every single month and how much website traffic.
So we do not do any social media, Instagram, Tik-Tok, any of that. We do have a business Facebook page. I kept my Facebook just because we have been previously running all of our student groups on Facebook, but we are transitioning to a new platform, but we'll probably keep the Facebook page. So I'll just look at how many people are following or liking it.
But we really look at Pinterest. So what I teach my students is to choose one form of marketing you can do really well, and for us, I feel like the best fit for me is content marketing. I really love to give and serve and teach. So we do blogging. We're just starting the podcast. We're doing things to love and serve the community, so we put all that on Pinterest.
So we have pins. So I really look at how many people are seeing our content to views and how many followers we have on Pinterest. So those are the numbers that I'm looking at there. So in all: that's email growth, our website traffic through Google analytics, and then Pinterest, since that's kind of our number one form of getting people to our website is your content.
Nancy: So good. Okay. For anyone listening, who just maybe rewind a little bit and was like, wait, what? She doesn't use social media in her business. I just want to let you know that Shanna and I have done a very long conversation about how to do life and work without social media and still make good money and live a very happy fruitful life without it in another episode and I'm going to link, I think it was episode 147, but I'm not sure. I'll link to that in the show notes here so that you guys can go back and listen to it if you want to kind of do a deep dive. But just briefly Shanna, talk about the realization you had when you did get off Instagram and why, what was your driving factor? Cause I know you said that you wanted to replace your website traffic once you quit it. Talk about that and kind of evergreen content focused versus social media and the difference there.
Shanna: Yes. Okay. Yeah. So I think you asked me what numbers don't matter. That's what I realized following doesn't matter as much as engagement. And so what I was seeing, this was in 2017, 70% of my website traffic, and this was all from Google analytics. So you can look at, and trust me, I am a terrible tech person—so it's simple once it's set up and you know what to look at.
So I was getting 70% of our website traffic was coming from social media, so that's scary, scary and risky to quit, but I tracked how long it was taking me. I tracked my time all throughout. I mean, that's the best thing I've done in my business is track my time. And I was realizing it was taking at least a minimum of an hour, a day to post something on social media, right? The caption. And then I always spent time engaging with the audience, so commenting on other people's posts, liking, commenting, not just liking, but really engaging, and so it was at least an hour every day, and it wasn't the right fit for me. I would get so stressed about, I didn't like having my camera out all the time, trying to document my life, I'm not a photographer, so I didn't have content easily available.
So it just wasn't a great fit. And what I realized it was taking a lot of time. So what I did is I took that one hour a day—so five hours a week—and I thought, how can I use five hours a week towards marketing, but to do it more effectively and efficiently? And what I realized is with a blog post or some kind of piece of content, whether it's a podcast, a YouTube video, for us in the past, it's been blogging. I can write the blog post. Then I could use that in all different channels. So we could still post it on Facebook. We post it on Pinterest and it lives on, we sent it to our email list and it lives forever. We get traffic today from posts that we wrote in 2017, so five years ago.
And what I realized is with Instagram, I was spending all this time on one piece of content. I mean, Instagram is still just content marketing. One piece of content that lives for 24 hours, I mean, if that, whereas a blog people find for years and years and years and Nance, I don't know if I shared this with you before, but I went back to my companies, my clients that I work with that are making multiple millions a year. And I realized, and I guess this is a different season, too, but they got great at blogging first. A lot of them were the people who are blogging every single day just to hone their skills, but that's how they got discovered originally.
And so I just realized if I can only put five hours a week towards marketing, I don't have time for it. Honestly, I don't have time for Instagram. I know that sounds crazy, but I want to put it into efforts that are going to bring me people, bring me an audience for years and years and years. And it's been the best.
It is crazy. Now I don't even think about Instagram. I know how that sounds, so I would have to really sit down and think about what was life like when I had Instagram, because it's so far gone from my system now.
Nancy: I love that. I think some people listening are probably like, “tell me more, I want that!” Like Mind blown.
Shanna: And my company has grown and grown and grown too, so people know my revenue. And again, we did a whole podcast, so we're talking more about it, but it's slowed down. It was hard for six months to a year to have no Instagram. And then after that time it's been better. It's just better.
Nancy: I love how it really just comes down to website traffic too, because that's where you sell your products and that's where you make your money. And it just goes to show social media is not the only way you can do that. There are other ways that you can do content marketing. And a lot of times those ways are actually, there's more return for the effort that you give because it lives longer.
So that's, I'm in the process of doing that transition to my own business where I've been doing a podcast, but I want to do more long-term content marketing on my blog, all that good stuff. So, yeah. That's so good. Okay. Let's talk money briefly. We love to talk about money, Shanna. It's just fun, but yeah.
Money in business. I just want, from your perspective, what financial numbers should, every business owner know like every month or every quarter and why? And practically speaking, how do you do this?
Shanna: Yeah. Okay. Well the most important number I call, what is your Enough? So what is your Enough number? And that is how much do you need to sell?
That's a sales goal every single year. So that's the big top end number. What is, so I look at this every single year I create a money plan and it starts with how much do I need to make in the business?
How to determine that number is then looking at how much you spend. So how much do I need to run the business every month? What are our expenses? How much do I need to pay myself? How much do I need to say for taxes? So I always kind of reverse engineer app starting with, what do you need to make? How much do you save for taxes? How much does it cost to run the business? So, what are those expenses? And that'll lead you into that big number, your sales goal, or what I call, what is your Enough number? So that's how I create a plan every single year.
So that's kind of step one. I would encourage everyone just to go in with a plan. There's a lot of peace of mind knowing that I need to sell $50,000. I need to sell $100,000. You can make a plan for that.
Whereas I think a lot of business owners just go in, I need to sell more, more and more and more like more, just get every single client take on every single client. Like actually that could be doing you a disservice. If you're so busy working with clients, you might not have time to build the backend or look at your pricing or perfect your sales process.
So I say, take on enough that you can pay all your bills, pay yourself. And so know that number. So that's step number one is just make a plan every single year. And it's as simple as, okay, how much do I need to make? How much does the business need to run to keep the doors open? And then what do I need to sell to cover all that?
And then every single month I would encourage people to look at, yes, how much you sold. So that's revenue or income. How much have you sold? What are your sales? But also look at your profit. So how much is left over after all of your expenses? So that's something I really see business owners get in trouble with is not really tracking their spending.
I hear a lot of business owners saying reinvesting in the business, re-investing in the business. That's good, but we still need a plan for spending. I see this especially with people who don't have to pay themselves. They can get into those habits of spending every dollar they make. So I really look at how much I'm making every single month. I sit down and do that. I look at our revenue, look at our profit, how much is leftover after expenses. And then the last thing I would say to look at is how much you've paid yourself, or if you're not taking a regular paycheck, even how much have you spent on the business personally, because technically that's income. You know, that's your money, that's your salary because you'll owe taxes on that.
And so that way, you know if I've paid myself $10, I probably need to say 20 cents for taxes. So good.
Nancy: Listen, just the last 12 minutes have been a wealth of knowledge, just I'm like, I'm going to just go back through and listen to this anytime I need a little refresh on what I should be paying attention to and what I should be doing because we do, we get so caught up in the work we should be saying yes to, like you said, all those clients. Yes, yes, yes. And then I think we get caught up in vanity metrics like Instagram, Tik-Tok, all these things. And one thing I realized as you're talking Shanna, those numbers are right in front of you. Those numbers for Instagram, you're following is like always posted right there. But the other numbers of website traffic and things, you kind of have to dig to find those numbers. And they're not as sexy. They're not as like, “Ooh, I want to know that.” But those are the numbers that are important.
Shanna: Those are the numbers that are, and I love that you said vanity metric because I see a lot of six figure business. Multi-six-figure business now, seven figure, but everybody wants a seven figure business that is actually a vanity metric. People use that based on their revenue. And I, trust me, have worked with lots of businesses that are multiple seven figure businesses that have nothing left over at the end of the day.
So what, like you said, dig for the profit. What is the money left over? Because that's the money that pays your bills and pays off your house and buys a new car. That's the number that really matters is profit. So yeah, I see a lot of numbers thrown around that really, when you think about it, don't mean anything, right?
Nancy: Yeah, Absolutely. Okay. You teach the blueprint model. I've been through this course and you're coaching. I am a huge fan and I love the tagline because it's called Businesses Built for Life. Talk a little bit about what that means. And then at the end of this episode, I'm going to tell you guys a little bit more about The Blueprint Model.
Shanna: Okay, I would love that. So I'm thinking, you'd see. When I worked at, I used to work in finance and that's how I've started my career. I had a mentor. Tell me if you don't want to make more money, you're just lying to yourself. And for years I operated that way. I tried to hit goals that other people told me were important.
And what I realized is first of all, I never hit those goals because they didn't matter to me. They weren't my value. So when I started my own business and now I teach this in The Blueprint Model and to all my clients, I want to start first with what does success mean to you in your life? How much money do you need to make? What type of lifestyle do you want? What type of business do you want to run? What do you want that to look like? And then back into a business model that fits that. So I always tell people, I can teach anyone to make a lot of money, but I can't make sure that it fits the life that you want. That's your work. You have to figure out what you want in your life. And then we can back into creating a business that's designed around that.
And so I created The Blueprint Model and that's exactly where we start. What does success look like for you? And then we've worked backwards into, are you building a business that aligns with that? You know, I am wanting to go into, when I was working in finance, I thought I would go into private equity. Think Shark Tank. That's what I thought I would do and be an investment banker. And they told me that I would be working four days a week, not at home. So I would be gone Monday through Thursday, meeting with clients all over the world. And that was a big moment for me to be like, this is not the life I want.
And that's when I started my consulting company because I thought I can work with clients all over the world from my computer. And so that's really neat, right? Like I had defined what I wanted in my life and I built a business around that. So that's what the tagline means—Business Built for Life.
We start with life first and build a business that meshes with the life we want.
Nancy: It just is so refreshing to hear that every time I feel like I can never be reminded of that enough. And I know it to be true and good as I've worked through your course myself, but just coming back to that again, and again is just a breath of fresh air because I do feel like the world is telling us to do things a certain way and we have to just get quiet and say, what do I really want, and build from there. I think that's so good.
Shanna: I love that. I always say, Nancy, if you don't define what you want, the world will define it for you.
Nancy: Yes.
Shanna: And I just think you have to, and as we talk about, come back to it often: What does it look like in this season? What does it look like and how can my business serve my life? Not the other way around.
Nancy: Yeah. Well, thank you, Shanna. Thank you for your wisdom. I'm so grateful to call you a friend and also just to have your voice as a business mentor in my life. And all of what you've shared today is so good. You can find out more about Shanna by visiting her website and learning about The Blueprint Model, which I'll tell you all about in a little bit, but I will leave links to all this stuff in the show notes, as well.
Thank you so much just for coming on the podcast and sharing your wisdom with us.
Shanna: Thank you.
Well, we just heard from my friend Shanna, and now we get to hear from my dear friend, Kayse—
Nancy Ray: Kayse, welcome to the Work and Play Podcast. Tell us a little bit about you and your business.
Kayse Pratt: Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here and I will tell you that my daughter is even more excited that we're talking today because we love your podcast in our house. And she was so thrilled, so
Nancy: So sweet. She gets to hear mom be on the podcast.
Kayse: Well, it was more like she was excited that I get to actually talk to you in real life.
Nancy: Well, she made my day tell her thank you.
Kayse: Well, that's a big part of who I am. I'm a mom of two. I'm married to my husband, Jon. He is a high school theology teacher and we live in Las Vegas, which was never our plan, but God had different ideas and His ways are better than ours because we just love it out here. I homeschool my kids and also run an online business called Anchored Women. As far as the business goes, our mission is really to help women quiet that running to-do list in their heads so they can focus their time and energy on the things that they truly want to be doing. The things they feel like God has called them to, instead of always feeling distracted by the next thing on the list.
And I don't necessarily mean like, you know, big, giant things. I just mean like being able to be present with your family instead of always moving on to the next thing in your head. So we talk a lot about planning. We talk a lot about home management and routines and schedules, but we come at it from a little bit of a different angle. We want to kind of flip the traditional planning methods on their heads. And come at planning from a place of rest and reflection, instead of trying to take control of everything in your life.
So we really try to remind ourselves and our community that God is in control, not us. And then when we go to plan, we really stop and look at our season, our family's needs and our own needs before we ever make that plan. And then we have a whole planning process that we help people with once, once we kind of take that minute to stop first and figure out what we need, what our family needs, so that we can actually make a plan that works and keeps the important things important.
So the main ways we do that is through our planner. We have a weekly planner for moms that's totally customizable. And then, well, for women, it's not just moms, I'm just a mom, and our membership, the Anchored Life Club, which essentially is the plans that go along with your planner. So we provide women with monthly plans, we've kind of done all the legwork for them, so that they are truly focused on making space for things like breast and wellness and family connection. While also getting all of like the cleaning done and the organizing and that sort of thing. And then we teach women how to customize those plans for themselves, for their family, take what they want and leave the rest.
And then we also offer with that membership, we offer a community where we dive into like one space a month in your home or your personal life and help you make progress in kind of aligning it with your priorities so that our community is anchored in Christ first and then able to steward all of the things that He's given us well without stress, that's our goal. So that's kind of what we do.
Nancy: And that is exactly why I wanted you on the podcast, because everything you just said aligns so much with our values here, my values and just the Work and Play mission as well about living an Integrated Life, which I love so much. So you told us about your work now. I want, I would love to just hear about your play, Kayse, like you talked about, you know, making space for rest and the things that really fill you up. So what do you like to do for fun? And what do you do to be refreshed? Because you have a lot on your plate, homeschooling, managing your own home, your own family and running your business. So tell us a little bit about your play.
Kayse: Well, I love to read reading is my favorite. I'm a total introvert. So if I have, if I need to be refreshed, then I'm generally doing something by myself. Fiction is absolutely like my favorite thing in the world. I just love a good novel, but then, but as a family, we are, we're kind of total nerds, but we just love we've really gotten hooked on HGTV shows like our entire family, me, my husband, my kids. And so after dinner each night, we will watch like an episode of Rock The Block, or right now we're watching a show called Help, I Wrecked My House and we like, it's just really fun for us as a family.
It's so funny because now my kids are like, I walked into an office building with my daughter yesterday and she's like pointing out all of the decorations. “Mom, that's, mid-century modern; mom, that's industrial design.” I mean, I don't even think we could fix half the things in our house, but we're as a family, that is our fun thing. Like, we totally are obsessed with those shows. And then we like to get outside and go on hikes, but not in the summer in Las Vegas. That would be a little brutal.
Nancy: I love that. Well, let's talk business just for a minute, because we went through The Blueprint Model earlier this year, and I loved just the chance to kind of get a deeper look into what you do and what you offer and your business. And I really want to get practical with numbers and kind of some things that maybe you learned or took away from The Blueprint Model going through it in my coaching groups. So first, what numbers do you pay attention to the most in your business?
Kayse: Sure. I can talk about business all day. I love it. So the most important numbers I learned to pay attention to—The Blueprint Model was really transformative for me. I am not a numbers person whatsoever, like
Nancy: Me neither.
Kayse: And I just like, I started my business because I'm a writer and that's, that's my strength. So numbers is just really confusing and frustrating for me in general, teaching my kids math, I think pretty soon I'm going to have to outsource it. But as far as the numbers that I pay attention to now, I really, I really pay attention to my, the number of members that we have in our membership. Our membership is basically the foundation of our business. It is what pays the bills. It it's the steady stable income every month.
And so understanding exactly how many members I need in order to make my budget work is really important. And then I also pay close attention to my daily income. I just check my income on a daily basis because I have a general idea of how much now I know that we need to be bringing in every day in order to make our goal for the end of the month.
And so I can tell easily now, okay, if I hit that point, then we're okay. And if not, then I might need to, you know, tweak the plan for the end of the month, throw in a sale or, you know, grab like some new marketing strategies or things like that. So, and then the third number that I pay attention to is really seasonally, but I pay attention to planner sales. We launch the planner in October and again in May, depending on, you know, which version of the planner you want, if it's calendar year launches in October and then the academic year launches in may. And so I have a good understanding of what sales we need to hit for both of those launches, because between the membership and the planner, that's like almost 90% of our income.
Nancy: Yeah, I love how you have such clarity around your offers and the things that you need to pay attention to. And that one is, you know, every month, your membership comes in every month, but then there's another seasonal aspect to the business with the planner.
So it's just fascinating to learn how people set up their businesses and kind of how you need to customize what you're paying attention to, according to your business and your offers and how you serve your people the best. So talk to me a little bit about just your experience with The Blueprint Model earlier this year. It was so sweet. You know, we had, I think about 11 ladies in a group and we went through Shanna's Blueprint Model and learned all about the numbers and all about the business side of things. And I feel like most of us in the group were like, yeah, we're not super gifted in numbers, that's why we sign up for this. But I'd love to hear maybe like a surprising takeaway or just like maybe one big thing that you really learned that was like, worth it for you or just yeah, your whole experience with it, what you loved about it. What changed the game for you and your business?
Kayse: Well, actually what you just mentioned is kind of what I got out of The Blueprint Model was understanding that, I mean, I have a shop full of products, full of products. We make a meal planner, a homeschool planner. We have all kinds of different products for people that help them plan and organize. But the majority of our income comes from two products, the membership and the planner. And I was kind of in this hamster wheel of creating new products all the time, instead of realizing that, oh, actually actually The Blueprint Model helped me figure out where my money was coming from and, and understanding that, okay, I could eliminate, not take things out of my shop, but not spend my energy focusing on promoting them all the time, and instead just focus my time and my energy on the two things that are actually working really well so that, you know, really my time is freed up because my goal is not to work more and become this, you know, big, giant business. I just need to be able to pay myself and my team because I really want my time to be focused on my family.
I want to serve my community well, don't get me wrong. Like all of the women that are in our Anchored Women community, I just, I just value so much and I want to be able to serve them however I can, but I know for my priorities, that comes third after God and my family. So I need to be able to not, I was sacrificing a lot of my family time and even my health and wellness to serve the business. And so understanding through The Blueprint Model, like actually where my money was coming from knowing exactly how much I need to get by each month to pay myself, to pay my team, knowing like that I'm doing the right thing with taxes, like just understand these numbers better. And knowing that, having a good understanding of what I need every month, instead of just like hoping we make, it has really changed a lot for me because I'm able to plan ahead. I'm able to know when I need to work a little harder when I need to rest, but I'm able more than anything to keep my family and my faith first and then let my business be an outflow of that. It helped me even do what I feel like we do as a business, but just get my priorities in order so that I know, you know, exactly what's going on and understand when I have enough to make sure that my team gets paid, but that also then I can rest and I can back off because my goal is not, like I said, to grow this big giant business. My goal is just to use the business to glorify the Lord, to serve my family and my community well.
Nancy: Yeah, I love that. And I think one of Shanna's signature things that she talks about, and one of the first lessons you dive into is what is enough? Defining enough. And I don't feel like there's a lot of business mentors or courses or coaches out there that are teaching that like a lot of them are teaching how to make six figures, how to make seven figures, how to make more, more, more. And Shanna's like, no, like you need a business that serves your life. And the first step in that is actually getting out the numbers and looking at it on paper and saying, what is enough for me and my family? That's like the bottom line. And then you can have, you know, your next financial goal, if you want, then you can have another financial goal after that. But just knowing that is so freeing.
And another thing I love that you said is that you want to provide value to the women in your membership. You want to provide value there, but they also want the exact same things that you want, which is like, God first, family second, and then work. So by you embracing and modeling that that provides even more value to them, in my opinion, you know than if you were just working all the time. Like they want that for you too, which is just really, I don't know. It's just a really beautiful picture that I got. Like, I imagine maybe one of them listening to this thinking like, yes, Kayse, like, we want that for you, too. And we want you to have that kind of business and life.
And I'm in such a similar place where I want my work and my business to support my family financially, but you know, just kind of make some bonus money to put towards some bigger like family goals that we have. But thankfully, like I have the perspective to know exactly what I'm trying to make because of Shanna's course.
Otherwise I feel like I would just be like constantly working, like trying to get more because what if you don't know what enough is then you just keep going because the world's always telling us that we need more.
Kayse: Oh absolutely. I mean, that's one of the reasons why I kind of jumped on board. I mean, I had never heard of Shanna before your podcast and I listened to that episode and I so desperately wanted—I'm talking about the episode that you did with her on running a business without social media. It's so good. And you know, social media doesn't fit in with my priorities for my life. And so I really wanted to know like, okay, who is this girl who is running a successful business without social media and is not, you know, shouting from the rooftops, the common business advice right now, which is, you're exactly right. Like how can you do more? How can you build your business? How can you be great? And those aren't the things that I want.
I just don’t want that. We have to have my income in order to provide for our family. Like, it's not an option for me not to work. And so, you know, it very well could take over my life, but I love Shana's approach to it. It aligned, like you said, with my values so much, and you're exactly right. The people in my community, oftentimes when I'm like, “Hey guys, you know, I'm, taking the week off or, you know, I’ll get a really big idea or make an announcement before I should have, and then I have to backtrack. And I'm always a little nervous, like, oh, they're gonna think I’m crazy or whatever. I always get emails saying, “Thank you so much for showing us that, like, we can't do everything and we don't have to do everything.”
And, and really now I just unashamedly talk about that. It's just that common business advice of the day that you can do everything and be everywhere. It's just, it's not grounded in reality whatsoever.
Nancy: So true. Yep. I totally agree. Well, thank you just for your transparency and sharing all of that. Cause I know it's going to be so helpful to anyone listening, like just getting back to reality, getting back to priorities. And I would just love to close our conversation with you sharing a little bit about where anyone who's listening can find you and that resource that you are about to release, the free class. Tell them a little bit about that, too.
Kayse: Sure. So like I said, social media is not my favorite place to be. I am on Instagram at @anchoredwomen, but the best way to find us is to join our email list.
I send out emails every Monday and Wednesday that are just kind of packed with both encouragement and practical help for your daily life. But we actually do have a free class. We offer free classes every now and then we have a free class coming up tomorrow, August 17th. So whether you're listening to this now on the Tuesday that this releases, or if you're listening later on, you can still sign up for the free class. You can either come to it live, or you can join us for the recording.
But our focus on this class is how to quiet the running to-do list in your head so that you can show up more present in your daily life. So we're gonna really focus on some planning strategies that help us get that to-do list out of our head and onto paper so that we can not feel like we're constantly, you know, moving on to the next thing in our head or thinking about the next five things on our to-do list instead of actually being able to rest in the moment and be present with our family or with our work or, you know, in our community. So you can sign up to join us for that using this link.
And if you sign up for that, you will also end up joining our email list and receiving those. We call them our weekly anchor emails.
Nancy: I love that. Man, that class sounds awesome. I'll definitely leave a link to that in the show notes. Kayse, thank you so much for just taking your sweet time and chatting with me today. I'm so grateful to have been connected with you through Blueprint and I'm so grateful for our continued friendship.
Kayse: Me too. Thank you so much for having me. It's always fun to chat with you.
Well, you just heard from my friend, Kayse, and now you get to hear from my friend, Kait—
Nancy Ray: Kate. I'm so excited to have you on the Work and Play podcast.
Kait Saunders: Hi Nancy. I'm so excited to be here. Thank you for having me.
Nancy: Absolutely. Thanks so much. Let's start with you just telling a little bit about yourself, your family and your business.
Kait: All right. So my name is Kait. I live here in Richmond, Virginia with my husband, Greg, and our almost one-year-old baby girl. Her name is Hallelujah, but we call her Holly and my passion is to help people celebrate well and find a little fun in the every day.
I have a product-based business called A Little Something Goods, and the main product I sell is a wall calendar full of holidays called The Curious Year.
Nancy: I personally am a big fan of The Curious Year. You've sent it to me a couple of years now, and my kids are obsessed. Like Kait, I can't even tell you, every day they come downstairs and they're like, “Mom, mom, what's today?” And they're always the first thing to remind me if I forgotten to flip the calendar to the next month. So it's so much fun. The first thing we do every year when we get it is they find their birthdays and they want to know what is their birthday holiday. So it's in the Ray household. And can we just pause and acknowledge like the most beautiful name of your little girl?
One thing I discovered about Kait, because Kate and I really got to know each other through The Blueprint Model earlier this year is she has this like natural, I don't know, it's like a spiritual gift of naming things. Like, can you have an amazing name for your cat too.
Kait: Oh, her name is Minerva, like Minerva McGonagall from Harry Potter, but we call her Minnie.
Nancy: Exactly. Okay. There you go. Minnie and Halle. Hallelujah. I just freaked out when I heard your daughter's name. I thought it was so beautiful. So sweet. Well, thank you so much just for sharing a little bit about you and your business and yeah. So we heard about your, your business, your work, all these really neat things that you get to create and provide. But what I just want to ask, what do you do for fun and for play?
Kait: Oh, it's such a great question. I think what I really enjoy the most, like what's the most fun is spending time with my closest friends during COVID like, well, when COVID first happened, like beginning of 2020, and we all couldn't go many places, we had this little group, we all started getting together every Friday night and cooking these giant themed dinners together. So we would have like Greek night or like we covered everything. I mean, Italian, we did every kind of Asian cuisine we could get into. So we would have this giant theme dinner. We had a giant Google doc where we would plan out the appetizers and the main course and the dessert.
And we would get together on Friday night and cook this incredible giant feast all together in the kitchen. We would normally like end up sitting down to actually eat at like 10 o'clock, but it was, it was one of the most life giving things to cook this huge feast as a group and then sit down and enjoy it together. Yeah. That was like one of the best. That was like a silver lining of the COVID year 100%.
Nancy: And I want to steal that and copy exactly that.
Kait: Yeah, we do it, you know, sporadically now as everyone's lives are more back to normal kind of speed, but we try to do it every once in a while still. And It's quarterly, maybe, you know, like big dinner with friends, so fun.
Nancy: I love that. All right, well, let's get to the numbers because you know, it's such an important part of business and also it's kind of intimidating and I would just love to know kind of when you're looking at your business and your products that you're selling and creating, what are the numbers that you pay attention to the most in your business?
Kait: This is such a great question. And before we went through The Blueprint Model, I was doing this so randomly or just without a plan. My process for looking into numbers was just not there and I'm just not a numbers person. I find that side of things very intimidating. I have so many ideas that I love to act on, but the numbers piece of business has always been more of an obstacle for me.
But now, after going through The Blueprint Model, I've learned to pay attention the most—since I'm a product based business, I guess this would serve even if you were service-based or something else, but being product based, the main number that I pay attention to now is the price of my product. And then whether or not that price is profitable for my business.
Because I think for a very long time, I had been pricing my products very emotionally, you know, thinking what would this person be willing to pay for this? And then probably like asking for less than the product was really worth because I was nervous or like not really knowing how much my product should cost, that kind of thing.
So anyway, now I know to pay attention to pricing for profitability versus pricing at random.
Nancy: And Shanna has a whole section, like a whole lesson in The Blueprint Model that breaks that down. Like how do you get to that number? And I found that so fascinating now I've been more in like a service based business in the past with wedding photography and we delivered products too, but I found it fascinating because she goes through that for any business model, whether it's service-based or product-based, but just to know what that number is so, it was kind of like freeing and empowering, like, okay, I am charging the right thing.
Cause I'm with you. I do, I did so many like little, I guess I'll charge this much because this other person's charging it over here and you know, it just guessing, and I think a lot of entrepreneurs do that anyway, like emotional pricing kind of guessing because we just don't know we've never been taught. Right. But that's just really cool to hear. Cause it's one of my favorite, it's a little bit nerdy, but it's so empowering once you like get that formula down and you understand exactly what you're doing. So that's so cool to hear.
So just share a little bit about like, I don't know what The Blueprint Model did for you and your business this year, any big takeaways that you had kind of going through The Blueprint Model and then applying it to your business.
Kait: Yes. So, so many takeaways I will give a little backstory to, just to further let you know how much I did not know about my numbers basically, so I've been making this calendar, I think this will be the seventh year. And so since like out of college, I've been doing this very, started in a very immature place. Like I haven't done anything like this before. And basically, you know, I set some money aside. I opened a business banking account and every year since I put the money back in that I make from the calendar and every year, like to kind of gauge where I'm at financially in my business, I just look at the account and see, oh, you know, it looks a little better than last year, maybe.
Nancy: Yep. Done this exact thing.
Kait: And just kind of, you know, planning things out of that versus, you know, tracking things and really understanding where I was putting my money and how I was making money and different things like that.
So The Blueprint Model was really attractive to me because the way that I actually heard about it through you, Nancy, on the podcast, when you had Shanna on a while back like early this year and just how she talked about just equipping business owners and especially women that didn't have this background in finance to really understand that side of their business so that they feel empowered in that side of business, and then it's not as daunting and intimidating. And I say this too, my husband, he works in finance, he’s an accountant. He does like forensic analysis. He could do this stuff like in his sleep and the stuff that I need to know, but he cause he kept being like, you know, I could help you with this. I don't know. Do you need this class? And I was like, I need to know this for myself. I would love to use you as a reference, but I need to understand this so I feel like, you know, I can move forward in the growth of my business knowing what's going on. And anyway, so The Blueprint Model has been so helpful.
It has continued to serve me even, you know, I'm, you know, six months out of it at least. And it was really just Shana's whole approach to business, changed my mindset around my work. So there was so much more to it than just the money piece. And she had just, her whole curriculum really helped me gain understanding and confidence in the numbers side, but really all sides of my business. And I'm so grateful.
The Blueprint Model just, it helped me gain knowledge of my numbers and pricing so I can be equipped moving forward, knowing what dollar amount I need, you know, to cover the cost of making the calendar and also to grow my business so that I could share this product with more people and, you know, support our life and lifestyle. I loved how she talked about—my really major, biggest takeaway was how to align my business model with our family's personal values and life goals.
You know, that you can build this business to fit your life and it doesn't need to look like everyone else's and that was incredibly freeing along with the numbers piece. Those two things are like that just like catapulted me out into like, I'm so excited about my business. I'm so excited. I feel so much less overwhelmed and I just feel excited and motivated to take next steps versus intimidated and scared.
Nancy: I love that. Yeah. I think one of the most powerful things you said was that you're married to a numbers guy and I too am married to a numbers guy. Like the numbers come easy to him. Like he, you know, Will has been my right hand man, for so long in my business, doing all the finances, you know, for Nancy Ray Photography for years and helping me now, even, and I love what you said, like, yes, I want to use you for support and advice, but I need to know this for myself.
Like I need to have the confidence as a business owner to know my own numbers. And I think there's just such value in that and the confidence that it gives you. I think my favorite thing about the blueprint is that you can go back through it. Like I plan to do it every year because it's just, you need that refresher. And for people like me and you who maybe the numbers don't come as naturally, we have the framework, not like we can just keep going back to it.
We have the templates, the guides, you know, to just revisit that. So do you, do you feel like you might go through it again?
Kait: Oh, 100%. I got in preparation for talking to you. I got my notebook back out with, you know, all of the Building Blocks. And I was just looking through them and looking through my notes and it just made me excited all over again. And I want to go back through and, you know, listen to everything, each lesson that Shanna teaches and it took me so long to go through everything because everything she said, I would pause that like write it down or I'd highlight because everything was so good. There was not one piece that wasn't relevant and yeah, it was just so incredibly helpful. And I think I'll use it for the lifetime of my business.
Nancy: Yeah. I totally agree. Well, Kait, I'm just so grateful for you being so transparent and sharing everything and just how you would look at your bank account and then kind of look at it the next year.
I mean, I bet there are so many people listening who are like, that is me. I mean, I did the same thing. And so it's just helpful to know that we're not alone, first of all, but also helpful to know there are people out there and tools out there that can help help us like Shanna and The Blueprint Model and the way her mind works is just amazing. And she can, you know, kind of lead us through that and she's equipped you and me and, and helped us a lot. But I'm just so grateful that you joined my coaching group and that you're a part of it. Cause it's just been a joy to get to know you more and you know that I'm such a fan of your business and this calendar and all my kids love it.
So I’m just so grateful you came on the podcast. So share why don't you share where anybody listening can find you and the special generous gift that you have for them today.
Kait: Awesome. Yes. Well again, thank you so much, Nancy, for having me here. I'm so glad that you and your kids enjoy the calendar so much. It's been such a blessing to me any time that you've shared about it, just because you've wanted to and you enjoy it.
Nancy: I think it’s like the best Christmas present to, to like give to a family or something like that. I just love it. It's so cool. Yeah. Well, yes.
Kait: And that's been such a giant blessing to me when you shared about it. So many more people have heard about it because of that. And I'm so thankful. So I don't post a ton, but my, I am there. My business handle on Instagram is @alittlesomethinggoods all spelled out. My website is the same thing, alittlesomethinggoods.com. And, and there's also a link in Instagram and you know, my bio to join my email list. And that's like the best way to find out about when the 2023 calendar will arrive.
I'll share about that launch and everything when it will be available and sales and discounts and that kind of stuff there. But that the 2023 Curious Year calendar will be available starting in October and for the Work and Play listeners. I do have a discount code that will be good through the rest of the year. And it's good for anything in the shop right now because there's a digital version of the curious year calendar that you could download. If you wanted to celebrate, you know, the rest of this year, you could download and print it at home. And anyway, so that coupon code for Work and Play listeners is for 10% off. And it's just WORKANDPLAY. You can enter that in the little discount section when you check out and it'll apply to anything for the rest of the year.
Nancy: Well thank you so much, Kate, and thank you for sharing a little bit about you and your business journey. I'm just so grateful to know you. I'm so grateful to know you too. Nancy. This has been so fun.
Okay. Friends. That was a lot and it was a lot of great stuff. I just want to remind you nancyray.com/blueprint is where you can find out all things blueprint model and the doors do close on August 25th.
Also anchored-women.com/freeclass is where you can hear that free class for my friend, Kayse, and alittlesomethinggoods.com is where you can go to find out a little bit more about The Curious Year Calendar. And Kait has given us all a 10% off discount code WORKANDPLAY that is good through the end of the year(!).
I'm so grateful for you listening today.
If my voice has sounded so different throughout this episode, it's because I've recorded it at different times, and I have been dealing with a little more sickness in my life. So thank you for your patience with that.
I'm going to close with words from Dolly Parton who said:
Never get so busy making a living that you forget to make the life.
hanks so much for listening and we'll catch you next time.
