AP 1139: I’m Starting a New Business from Scratch. How Do I Make Sure It Succeeds?

AP 1139: I'm Starting a New Business from Scratch. How Do I Make Sure it Succeeds?

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Pat Flynn:
If you are a small business owner, this is for you. Running a business is hard, right? There's endless to-do lists, so many hats to wear, things to do, employees to take care of and your ever-present bottom line. So first of all, kudos to you for staying on top of it. I want to tell you about Gusto, our sponsor for this episode. It's a tool that we use on Team SPI, and I wouldn't be here having the ease of managing this team without it. They built an easier, more affordable way to manage payroll benefits and more. They've helped over a hundred thousand businesses with tasks like automated payroll, tax filing, simple direct deposits, free health insurance administration, 401ks, onboarding tools, we use these things ourself. Gusto even integrates with your favorite tools like QuickBooks, Xero, Google, and more.

Pat:
And they actually, and really do care about small business owners they work with. We've even had chats with their support team, it's awesome. They're attentive and extremely helpful. And since money can be tight right now, if you want to get access to Gusto, you can get free access for three months, three months free once you run your first payroll. Just go to gusto.com/askpat and start setting up your business today. You'll see exactly why say it's awesome, and it's easy if you get in. Again, that's three months free of payroll at gusto.com/askpat.

Pat:
What's up everybody, Pat Flynn here, and welcome to episode 1,139 of AskPat 2.0. You're about to listen to a business coaching call between myself and an entrepreneur, just like you. And today we're speaking with Becca and Becca is a successful entrepreneur. She had bought a business and she recently is exiting that business very successfully and wants to start something new. She'll reveal what this business is, and she's also going to reveal what the new business is. And we're talking about this new business, we're brainstorming together and in fact, you and I are going to hear her get excited about how excited I get about some of these ideas that we come up with. In fact, you can check out what she has cooking at goodiebike.com, goodiebike.com.

Pat:
And this is an idea based on just... Anyway, it's really cool. This is a fun episode, you'll hear us both get excited together and I cannot wait to see what she comes up with. We go over a marketing plan to help her get started and some other ideas, and we talk about the future of this brand-new business, and then we also have to bring it back to, "Okay, well, what's going to be the first step?" So listen in, this is a good one. This is Becca from goodie, G-O-O-D-I-E, bike.com. Becca, welcome to AskPat 2.0, thanks for joining us today.

Becca Wenning:
Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

Pat:
This will be a lot of fun. Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and what it is that you do?

Becca:
Yeah, awesome. Thank you. Well, my name is Becca Wenning. I live in Coldwater, Ohio, which is a small little Midwestern town really close to Indiana. I currently own a bridal shop; I've been a bridal shop owner for ten years. And excitingly enough, I am going to be passing the torch to my manager, who we've agreed upon a buyout and she's going to become the owner here in a few short months. And I've learned so much over the past ten years of being the owner and kind of came into that business with a marketing and design background, and then ended up being the full fledged owner, running day-to-day, doing inventory, managing employees and everything that goes, like you said, just wearing many, many hats in the business.

Becca:
So I've been kind of looking for my next opportunity, my next option, what I'm going to do. And when I reached out to Pat, I wanted to kind of get some advice on this brand new business. When I came into the bridal shop it was already an existing business, I didn't start it from the ground up. They had a really great clientele locally, but it was ten years ago. A lot has changed with the internet and marketing and communicating and overall how the business is run is completely different now than it was ten years ago. So I've been through a huge evolution there in a small business, but it was already there, it was a name, it was built, it had been going strong when I bought in. My new adventure is starting something completely new something I've not seen in my area or anywhere else. And it's called The Goodie Bike and it's green, mobile marketing. That's kind of where I'm at and where I want to go to in my next chapter in life.

Pat:
That's so cool. Becca, first of all, congratulations on your success with your bridal, that sector and crushing it there. And how are you feeling sort of getting ready to, very close to that point where you're going to be letting that go? Is it exciting? Are you a little bit nervous? What's going through your head right now with regards to that?

Becca:
Yeah, definitely a lot of both. This has been in the works for the past couple of months and then with COVID coming in on top of it, it would have happened a few months ago, but we had to make sure everything was still continuing strong. And it is, luckily, in the bridal industry, it's kind of a unique industry there. But I've had to do a lot of just soul searching and changing directions and that's been my identity for the past ten years and now I'm going to shift gears and I questioned, is this the right decision? Is this what I want to do? And so, yeah, it's been a lot of anxiety, excitement, but I know the business is going to be in great hands and my manager Lauren is going to do outstanding and just kind of hit it out of the park, I think.

Pat:
Well, that's good. At least it's in good hands and you can move on. And moving on is an important part of this, right? We have to let go of what we had, and I just wasn't sure how much involvement you would still continue to have. It sounds like it's all out of your hands and you can fully focus on something new, is that the case or will you still be sort of required to advise or be a part of the workforce there?

Becca:
I won't be required to advise, but I've always said that, I'll be there if she needs any advice whatsoever, as far as if she wants help with marketing or maintaining the website or any images that have to do with the overall look. But Nope, it's in her hands, it's going to be her baby and I'm free to do what I want to do.

Pat:
That's good. And you're fully able to, in your mind, let go of that, to move on into something else?

Becca:
Yes, absolutely.

Pat:
Good, fantastic. Tell me the origin story of this new business idea, it sounds very unique. I'd love to have myself and the audience learn a little bit more about it. And by the way, before we keep going, just, I need to thank you too Becca for your artistry and your graphic design work. We actually connected through Twitter, I think it was, when I asked just for a little bit of graphic design help, and Becca stepped up and delivered and just thank you for that, I appreciate you. And then this is how we got to know each other through Twitter, and now we're here and now we can learn more about your business. So first of all, thank you for that, by the way.

Becca:
Yeah, for sure. Absolutely.

Pat:
So tell us the origin story of this new... What's the name one more time and kind of where are you at with it?

Becca:
Yeah, it's called Goodie Bike. It's goodiebike.com, G-O-O-D-I-E B-I-K-E.com. I have a little landing page set up for it. Like I said, I've been thinking about it probably since last November, I actually purchased a bike. And it's taken a little bit longer for it to come in because of the supply chain issues, everything with COVID is getting back up and there's so much uncertainty. But I've always had a passion... I love design, I love graphic design, I love connecting with people, I love marketing and I live in a really cool area. I live in a very unique, small town, Mercer County, Ohio.

Becca:
And we actually had, before COVID, the lowest unemployment rate in all of Ohio. So where we live there's so many hardworking people. There's people that want to work for somebody, there's a lot of people that want to own their own businesses. People just have great pride in everything they do in where I live. And I've been able to connect with a lot of different small business owners through being on the Coldwater Chamber and volunteering with coaching and things like that. I want to help these small businesses. There's so many cool, unique businesses, coffee shops, ice cream, bakeries, an amazing promotional company called Totally Promotional. They are the biggest promotional provider in the country, you would not know, they do all the koozies and things like that. I have really exciting connections with a lot of those business owners and I want to be able to help them in a way that they can actually have a further reach outside of just their brick and mortar location or maybe just their catering location.

Becca:
So I came up with this idea called The Goodie Bike. I saw a picture of this bike and it's almost like a tricycle that has a cargo container on the front, you might see them. I live in a small town, we are not close to the city, so we're a little bit behind the times here. And so I saw one on Instagram and I just thought, "Oh my gosh, I'm going to do something with this bike, I'm not sure what it is." And we have a local bike dealer who's amazing, and I reached out to him, I said, "Greg, can you get me one of these bikes?" And he's like, "Yeah, I'll put an order in. It's going to take about five weeks." Well it's been about three months now, and he's doing awesome, and he's doing everything that he can and it actually shipped today. I found out this morning that it's actually shipping today.

Pat:
One bike?

Becca:
Just one bike, I'm going to start with one bike. What I want to do is actually collaborate with local businesses and have it set up in different locations. Like for instance, we have a really cute, it's called Lake City Creamery, it's an ice cream shop. I used to coach with the owner, great product, amazing ice cream, people come from all over. So perhaps we do a little setup with The Goodie Bike at a local business, or a school, or an event, something that's going on and then people can actually come in and buy the ice cream there at that location. So it's kind of like a popup, it's like a little popup mobile event.

Pat:
And not just for food obviously, but just some sort of mobile commerce bike.

Becca:
Yes, yes, mobile commerce. So my plan is to create a really nice marketing platform for The Goodie Bike, where we have Facebook, you have an event, "So and so is going to be at this date at this time with The Goodie Bike." And I market for them via Facebook, I market through Instagram and Twitter so they're going to get a lot of exposure there. We set up The Goodie Bike, we work together and then... We'll have to figure out the logistics of who gets what. I haven't quite figured that out, and that's why I'm kind of here. Do they pay me? Do I pay them?

Pat:
That's what I was going to ask was, what's the business plan? I like the business idea, I like how you ordered one bike so we can test this. I would even get to the point where you're starting to let these businesses know that you have this coming and even give them an opportunity to book one or two moments with this bike for something in the future. Already signing up for it, even for free, just to test it out, give them a little taste, to give you an idea of what it's like to coordinate. And actually, they're going to ask questions to you that likely you won't even know are coming up until you're in that moment. So if you have relationships with companies already in the local area, that's who I would start with just to kind of get a back and forth, but there's going to come a point where you're going to have to come up with a deal structure of some kind.

Pat:
And this is why I think focusing on maybe a relationship or two you already have, or you can go, "Well, what would it make sense for us to do this together? How can I help you and you help me and we can partner up in this case." Maybe it's a profit share, right? Or rev share of inventory? Are you buying inventory from them at wholesale and then selling it? Are you selling it sort of on their behalf, and then you get a certain percentage of anything that you sold. Are you going to keep inventory? I mean, there's so many questions that are going to come up in these conversations. That's where I would start, even before everything is defined, I would just like, "Hey, let's chat. What would make sense for you? What would look good? What questions do you have?" And that would start to poke holes so that you can fill them before this works.

Pat:
And what's really cool about this testing period... First of all, bring a photographer with you whenever you go, because I'm just visualizing beautiful imagery with the bike and the different logos on there. You can have some different brandable parts of the bike, if you haven't thought about that already. And these pictures are what's going to sell it, pictures not just of the bike, but pictures of people buying things at the bike, right? And going, "Ooh, I want to sign up for that, what is it?"

Pat:
And then of course your own branding on the bike itself too, because you're driving around and people are there and like you said, people want to be entrepreneurs or have their own businesses. I mean, word's going to spread around, right? So I can imagine this maybe slowly starting, but then word of mouth and just people seeing it everywhere, it's a spectacle as well and I would definitely play on that too. What were your initial thoughts for business plan or what would make sense for you? And also with relation to that, what's your ultimate vision for this brand?

Becca:
Yep, all that is so awesome. I get so excited, I have goosebumps when you're telling me all of that, because that's exactly where my mind was going. And the fact that you reaffirm that by saying everything that I had exactly thought makes me feel like, "Okay, this is a good thing." [crosstalk 00:13:26]. But to me it's all about the Instagrammable moments, the photo moments, that people want to take pictures and tag themselves at that location, tag the brand. So hopefully the dual marketing between The Goodie Bike and whatever brand I'm marketing with at that moment, it's all about the photos. So absolutely, I never really thought of hiring a photographer, but I think that's going to be a key, key element in the success because everything is so visual. And if you present things in such a beautiful and, I-want-that kind of way, people are just drawn to it.

Pat:
Well, even if the photographer was somebody who could offer those photos to the person who you took the picture with, so that way it becomes even more Instagrammable for that person, who maybe they just aren't great at photography themselves or whatever, but that's something I've seen happen before with other types of businesses. I'm thinking about the bike and adding like an extension on the back for a second seat in case anybody wanted to sit back there and take a picture too, that would just sort of trail or maybe some seasonal related things. Maybe it's Halloween time and you put some pumpkins and sort of a trailer in the back and just really decorated it, and there can be some really cool things. And experiment, have fun. I think this could be a fun, creative moment between you and the business. Like, "Hey, how do you want to decorate your bike? Let's talk about it, let's design it together." And then now at the same time, you're building a relationship with them and that's kind of cool and unique too, but what's the ultimate vision for you?

Becca:
The ultimate vision is I would like to franchise this eventually and have it really... I think, with everything that's going on with COVID and the change that's going on, I think small towns, they're going to be stronger than ever. I just feel like from what I've heard, a lot of people in the cities they're kind of migrating back to small towns, small town USA, so I think the strength is in small towns. And if we can make this grow and it's Goodie Bike and I envision it being trackable on an app, this is The Goodie Bike, Cold Water, or The Goodie Bike, another small town in Ohio and things like that. And they have their own kind of Instagram pages for each location, that was kind of question I had too. But going into a franchise mode to be able to brand this for other entrepreneurs that are creative, that wants to connect with their local businesses, that I wouldn't necessarily have that relationship with.

Pat:
Right, right, I love that. Are you envisioning that the bike is set up in maybe a stationary position and then people know to go there? I can see that being definitely useful at festivals and things like that. A bike is mobile, it can move. So is there a potential Uber Eats, DoorDash sort of element to this as well? I was just thinking out loud or I will think out loud right here, but I was just thinking in my head, maybe there's a, "Today in this location, this is the company that has the goodie bike." Like, "Check the app today for which local business in your area has The Goodie Bike."

Pat:
And then put an order in, we'll drive over to you and bring it to you. That could be an interesting sort of, we'll bike it over to you, right? And that way, well, it's kind of a deal of the day. You can create special deals with these companies that in order to get access, they have to give something special. And then of course, there's that Instagrammable moment when the bike rolls up. You can even have in the app, a notification that says, "We're two minutes away, get your cameras ready." Right? You can get video of it coming in and there's a little honker, a honker? What is it?

Becca:
I know what you mean, like a little squeaky... Yeah, like a horn.

Pat:
Yeah, a horn. A honker, I've never heard that word in my life. There could be really some fun things, but I want to make sure that we start simple and we test, and we have these conversations. That's going to give you most of the logistical understanding of this because we can come up with ideas all day, and I'm even getting goosebumps thinking about what this could become. But we have to really define, "Okay, this is the business structure, this is what it's going to be like." Knowing that you might pivot down the road, but at least to start in that first month or two, to get some testimonials, to get some imagery, I think it could be pretty cool.

Pat:
And the franchising thing is something that I think could be a great strategy because then once you nail it and understand the systems, and that's what franchising is about, the system, right? You can open up a McDonald's anywhere because there's a system, it's a pamphlet of just step one, step two, step three. That's ultimately what you're going to need to come up with in order to franchise this. So as you are building, try to make those steps simple and develop those SOPs, or standard operating procedures, much like I'm sure you did in your bridal business, but now it's somebody else's business that they could buy from you and use in their own county and area as well.

Becca:
Yep, absolutely. Yeah, it's super exciting. I'm not from Ohio originally, I'm from Massachusetts and my husband and I met in college and we got married in Cincinnati and we moved back. He kind of brought me back to this small town and I was very reluctant and that was 17 years ago. Super small, I wanted to live in the city. I love Target, I love Starbucks, I loved everything that was there. And he's like, "Just, just try it out for two years, if you don't like it we'll move."

Becca:
And I fell in love with the bike path. We have this amazing bike path from my town to the next town over, it's about a five mile ride, it's really starting to grow in quite a bit. But now on the opposite end of that bike path, there's a beautiful coffee shop, there's a beautiful lake, it's a destination. And I always say that what made me fall in love with Coldwater, Ohio was the bike path in the community and everything about it. And as I was kind of searching through, what am I going to do next? It just dawned on me, I think that's when I saw that bike, I was like, "I'm going to buy this bike and I'm going to do something with it, and this is going to be my next adventure." And so I just feel like it's meant to be, and it's going to be great, I hope.

Pat:
Well, I'm in support of it. And thankful that we were able to bring you here on the show to talk about it. And Goodie Bike, G-O-O-D-I-E bike.com. Before we finish up here, what are some of the worries that you have, or perhaps can you predict maybe some of the challenges that you might expect moving forward that we could talk about really quick?

Becca:
I guess the challenges I have is that maybe I might become too overwhelmed with everything as one person trying to connect and ride and market. I guess, maybe the question I have is, do I have to be the one with the bike at the bike? Or do I look at my son or somebody that maybe is into marketing or someone that wants to work for me right off the bat, that I might be overwhelmed doing everything myself.

Pat:
What do you think the answer should be? What do you want?

Becca:
I kind of want a partner to kind of help me along. It's hard to be a one-woman show, it's nice to have someone to bounce ideas off of. My first thought is for me to be the face because it is me, but if I'm connecting with the businesses and they have my trust that it's going to be set up, as long as I'm there having it set up and I have a reputable employee there, that's going to do it... I don't know that, I guess that's my biggest struggle right now.

Pat:
Yeah, and this is why these little micro experiments upfront are going to be really important because they're going to help you understand. I think that ultimately as the CEO of the company, somebody who's going to be making these partnerships and deals with franchisees and whatnot, you're eventually going to want to get off the bike, right? And [inaudible 00:21:09] of it. But I think it's important, especially to start, that it's going to be you. And it's going to be part of the story, it's going to be part of the journey. And then over time, finding other people to come on, whether it's somebody temporarily or somebody who actually comes on board. I mean, there's so many, probably other by-product benefits of doing this. Like, "Hey, you can get a workout and make money and be a part of this cool company at the same time." Which would be really neat. And I think that starting off to figure out what works and what doesn't for you, can help you better understand how to bring somebody else on and have them understand what to expect.

Pat:
And if you wanted to have somebody one to come on early, or at least a family member to be a part of it with you, that's kind of cool too. I think small towns, family is everything. So getting your family involved could be a neat part of it. But yeah, always staying conscious of after, for example, a day's work coming back and just reassessing. How did that feel? What worked and what should we continue to do? What didn't work and what should we stop doing? This is going to be the quick way to figure out how to pivot faster into the parts that you enjoy and the parts that need to happen versus just kind of feeling like it's a grind the whole time. We call that in my team the stop, start, continue exercise. And we do that once a quarter, but especially for a brand new business where there's specific sort of sessions that you're out there doing the thing, you can do that more often the start, stop, continue is a great exercise.

Becca:
Sounds great. Yeah, I'm really excited. My husband's always told me, he's like, "Invest in yourself, it's the best thing that you can absolutely do." And I believe that.

Pat:
Very cool. Well, Hey Becca, thank you so much for coming on today, we appreciate you. One more time, where should people go to check this out? I'm sure it's going to continue to grow and expand over time, but wherever they're at, whenever they're listening right now where should they go?

Becca:
You can visit the website landing page, it's goodiebike.com, G-O-O-D-I-E bike.com. And thank you so much, Pat, for having me. This was so exciting and so much fun and just really energizing for me. So I really, really appreciate you having me.

Pat:
Absolutely, it's super fun to jam with you on this. I'm looking forward to seeing how all this comes about. And congrats on the shipment, I expect that to come in soon and have it be put together and give you even more joy and excitement, so keep us posted.

Becca:
Okay, awesome. Thank you so much, I appreciate it.

Pat:
Thank you. All right, I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Becca about goodiebike.com. Cannot wait to see what's going to happen there, I'm on the page right now, it's just a coming soon page. And we'll see what happens, I'm stoked to get some pictures. I'm stoked to see what happens. And again, we connected in fact, because I recently just asked for some help on Twitter and she reached out, she provided some great value and I wanted to give back to her and I'm so glad she was able to come on the show and I could help her out even more.

Pat:
So this is awesome, thank you so much Becca, I appreciate you. If you'd like to get coached just like Becca did today, just all you have to do is go to askpat.com and fill out the application there. Fill it in with your details, and it'll give you a chance to get selected by myself and my team to get here on the show and also get some love for your business too, in front of everybody as well. So askpat.com, it's where you want to go. Thanks to everybody who has been listening in, I appreciate you so much.

Pat:
And if you haven't done so, please check out my brand new SPI Pro private community, this is for people who have started their business. If you haven't started yet, it's not for you, but if you've started your business, you're looking to grow and scale, connect with other like minded people in a community that is serious about growing together, we have challenges, book clubs, as well as connections and networking in there. It's not a constant play, you don't go in there and it's hundreds of hours of content, it's not what it's about. It's about the connections. It's about getting your questions answered. It's about the challenges, the ask me anythings with myself, my team, everything from cashflow to growing your email list, everything is talked about there plus more. Check it out, all you have to do is go to smartpassiveincome.com/pro, and you can apply. And if you get in awesome, if not, well, we can work toward that later on.

Pat:
Thanks so much, I appreciate you and I look forward to serving you in the next episode. Just make sure you hit subscribe if you haven't already. Thanks, take care. And as always, #TeamFlynn for the win, peace.