The Speech Source
Mary Brezik and Kim Dillon are two pediatric speech-language pathologists with over 25 years of combined experience. As speech therapists, we are often the first professionals to assess young children once they are referred by their pediatrician. Either they are not talking well or they are not eating well. We get to know our patients, their families, and how they are developing. We have a front row seat during the first critical and formative years of development for those who receive our services. Because of this, we have developed relationships with other professionals, observed what parent questions and concerns often arise, and see a need to share the resources and information we have compiled over the years. Join us as we dig into topics that show all of the overlapping aspects of child development and intervention. We invite you to be a part of our collaborative platform as we discuss, learn and grow for the betterment of our kids!
The Speech Source
S3E3: When Friends Become Business Partners with Samantha Drumm and Brittany Voxland
Brittany Voxland and Samantha Drumm are friends turned business partners in Fort Worth, Texas. Realizing their complementary skill sets, they merged their businesses, combining Brittany’s social media expertise with Samantha’s branding and website skills to form Project Social. This transition from friends to business partners wasn’t planned, but it felt natural, providing them with the energy and motivation to stay creative and driven. They emphasize the importance of “leaning into what felt right” as a key factor in their success.
Both women come from corporate backgrounds, with Brittany working in HR and Samantha in government PR, but they sought a career that would allow them the freedom to balance their family lives with meaningful work. Their entrepreneurial journey also led them to open Elle Maxine, a women’s boutique in Fort Worth. They treat the boutique as a client of Project Social, using the marketing strategies they’ve developed to build a welcoming, aesthetically pleasing shopping space that’s accessible to everyone. The boutique, with its chic yet comfortable vibe, feels like a place where customers can relax, enjoy a glass of champagne, and shop.
Brittany and Samantha attribute much of their success to the supportive Fort Worth community, noting how their clients have become friends who continue to support their ventures. The close-knit nature of the Fort Worth area has been instrumental in the growth of both Project Social and Elle Maxine. They also talk about the challenges of balancing business and life, agreeing that perfect balance is a myth. Instead, they’ve found a sense of harmony by involving their families in their work, whether it's their children helping out at the boutique or understanding the work that goes into running a business.
One of the key lessons they’ve learned in business is the importance of delegation. As their businesses have grown, they’ve realized the value of trusting their team and empowering others to take on responsibilities. Project Social now has a strong team, and both women emphasize that growth requires letting go of tasks and relying on the right people. Ultimately, for Brittany and Samantha, entrepreneurship is about creating a legacy for their families. They want their children to see the value in hard work and experience the joy that comes from building something meaningful. Their story is one of friendship, creativity, community, and the ability to balance the demands of business with the rewards of family life. This episode highlights how two friends took a leap of faith, merged their talents, and created businesses that reflect their passion and commitment to their families and the Fort Worth community.
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Welcome to Season 3 of the Speech Source Podcast with your hosts Kim and Mary. This season, our title is Changing the Game.
Speaker 2:We are highlighting small business owners and entrepreneurs who have unwritten all the rules to starting a business and use their talents and their creativity to be able to build a business that is a lifestyle designed just for them and is making incredible impact in our community of Fort Worth, Texas.
Speaker 1:So don't forget to subscribe to this season so you don't miss an episode.
Speaker 2:We are so excited to be able to have two incredible guests with us. They are Brittany Voxland and Samantha Drum. They are two friends turned female entrepreneurs. They started with a social media marketing company, project Social, and then they have also started their new venture of a women's boutique together in Fort Worth, texas, called El Maxine. So welcome guys. We're so excited to chat today about how all of this came to be. Thank, you.
Speaker 3:It's funny. We like finish each other's thoughts and like the same thing too, because we've been working together for so long together and show up in the same outfit often.
Speaker 2:How did you first meet and how long have y'all been friends and business partners?
Speaker 3:We met back in 2009. We weren't super close back then. We just met through our boyfriends at the time they played on the same kickball team. Boyfriends, no husbands, yeah. And then years later, we reconnected through marketing. We both had our own marketing businesses and I focused on social media and Sam was website and some social and branding. So we she was looking for a person to manage her social media clients and so she reached out to me and then I came on board with them and then we just decided to merge our businesses together so that we could offer our clients more, and we just thought we would be better as a team. Well, I think, to stem off of what Brittany was saying, I think even from the beginning, leaning into what felt natural has been a really good business decision we made, because we maybe didn't think about merging our businesses so quickly, but it was working really well and we were giving each other the energy to stay motivated. So we merged pretty quickly, but it was working really well and we were giving each other the energy to stay motivated, so we merged pretty quickly, but it just it felt right and everything matched up and we were like let's do it, let's go all in and just see if it's going to work, and we both came from backgrounds of working full-time jobs.
Speaker 3:I worked in human resources for 12 years before actually going into business for myself. I left my job when I was pregnant with my first son and then I was home for maybe nine months or so and I was like, okay, this isn't, I'm not happy doing this, and not that I'm not happy being a mom. I love my children, but I also needed something for myself, because just being so used to having a schedule and somewhere to be and reasons to get dressed, and then it was just hard to go from that to being a stay-at-home mom. So then I went into retail and then that's how it all got started for my entrepreneurship.
Speaker 2:And then what about you? All got started for my entrepreneurship. And what about you, Sam? How did you get started? I guess you had your own business and the branding and website, and how did that lend itself to merge with Brittany?
Speaker 3:So, if you've known me for a short time or a long time, I'm always doing multiple things at once If it's two jobs or I've got a new hobby going on, and so I started my marketing company in 2015. That was because my husband and I we bought a title company and his company needed marketing and I was like, oh, I can do it for you, no big deal. So that started by Cat City Creative with a business partner at the time, and then slowly I fell more and more in love with it. I was working for the government at the time doing PR, and I had a mentor say do you want to keep putting bricks in this person's building or do you want to start building your own structure?
Speaker 1:And that really resonated with me and I was like no, I'm going to go all in on my own. I want to build my own building.
Speaker 3:And so then Brittany and I just merged and we went all in and she quit her job.
Speaker 1:That's what I was curious a little bit about that process. Did you both have separate LLCs or established business and then you completely created a new one?
Speaker 3:Or how did that process work? We did Initially we had separate LLCs. We've created another LLC for the boutique, I think after we knew what we were doing and we just thought it would be easier to how that was structured to do it again.
Speaker 3:But no, initially we we had our own LLC. They were structured differently, I think one of them was a sole proprietorship at the time and the other one was an LLC, and you just do what works best for you. And then we just we created a DBA and took Project Social as the name. We kind of went through a process, too, of if we should merge our names, or the ultimate decision was, it was just easier and less confusing if we had one name for our clients. And going forward, we decided that social media was the gateway to how a lot of our clients were finding us.
Speaker 1:We call it the gateway drug of marketing. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Everyone says I need social media first, and then we usually can say well, you actually need all this other stuff, yeah, so that is a lot of the people that come to us. They originally come asking for social media help just because it is so important for businesses to be present and business owners don't have time to do everything, and so then they reach out to us and we also do training and things. You don't necessarily have to hire us to do it all for you. So, anyway, we had just toyed with the idea and decided that was the most attractive name. As far as finding new clients and I think Brittany brings up a good point A lot of decisions we've made throughout the time of being in business.
Speaker 3:We've had to put that hat on and say what is our client looking for right now, or what are they need, or you know, who are we trying to sell this to and what's going to be the most attractive to them. Even though Cat City Creative had been in business longer and, brittany, I remember being like you know you should keep it, you've had it longer, you're more attached. But at the time I remember being like you know you should keep it, you've had it longer, you're more attached. But at the time social media was on the rise, and still is, and I was like, no, we need to meet our clients in this space.
Speaker 2:Project social is just going to be more attractive to what people are looking for. So how were you able to attract your clients to your business? Because, looking at your list of the clients that you've helped with your branding, these are solid Fort Worth companies that you guys are making brands for, very specific to Fort Worth and very much part of our heritage and culture here. Their branding must have been so important to them. So how did you get them as clients or say, hey, I think we're the right fit for you guys as a marketing?
Speaker 3:agency market.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly. How do you market Well?
Speaker 3:said Brittany, we do these strategic sessions for our own clients and we had to have that aha moment and say we have to do this for ourselves. We tell our clients to sit down and make business goals and then we set marketing goals that match those. So we had to set business goals for ourselves and we set clients that we wanted to target, people that we work with today. We put them on a list and said we want their business. How do we get to rise to be worthy of getting that client? We made a big decision a couple years ago to actually let go of our not Fort Worth based clients the most glamorous but we just felt like we were serving the Fort Worth clients so much better and our goal was to be the number one social media agency in Fort Worth, and we all knew that.
Speaker 3:We all said it. That was just our goal. So helping this client that was not even in Texas wasn't helping us reach that goal. So we let that client go and it seemed difficult at the time but looking back it probably was a really big turning point for us. I can even pitch that to a new client now and say we let this client go because we want to serve you here in Fort Worth and that really does resonate with them and it means a lot that we want to help Fort Worth companies grow.
Speaker 3:I think the other thing is we just had to have the confidence that we were good enough for those clients. When we walked in the door and said we want to help you with your business, we had to be confident that we could actually do it. Yeah, being able to sit down at a client's place of business and really hear their needs and be in that moment with them is so important, especially these days when you can go buy a logo, you can go buy social media, this and that click of a button. But we wanted to offer our brains and our creativity and our presence, and so just being able to literally be an extension of their team was our goal and to become submerged in their business and really have a clear idea of what they needed, and so we're able to customize every client package I guess you can call it to really know what they need. And we reevaluate and we say well that didn't work.
Speaker 3:Let's do this. This worked really well. Let's do this again. And so just being in the same places and knowing who their customers are and we're their customers, and so just being in the same places and knowing who their customers are and where their customers, and it just gives a really personalized service, being on the end of starting a small business.
Speaker 1:The internet is saturated with resources to market yourself, from YouTube to just courses, to all these platforms that you can get on, and it seems like you can piece it together. But having someone be able to walk you step-by-step through that process because it can get so overwhelming, I think about what we've learned just with us doing it. I can't imagine what y'all have experienced, client after client, and then having that expertise to say, okay, what do you want? I can step-by-step walk you through this process.
Speaker 3:And I think what you're also saying is the support system, right, like whenever you're sitting there trying to go through all those different resources or figure out what you need. You also need someone to talk to or bounce ideas off of, or someone that's been through it, or a mentor, or to hire someone, right, but you typically need, I know, as women, we like to verbalize things, so we need someone to bounce all these thoughts off of and say do you think this is a good idea? Or I'm thinking about this? Have you had any experience with it? I know that throughout all of the time that I've been in business, I know my one thing is I could never be in business alone. I just I have to have someone along the way with me to say tomorrow's going to be different, or that's a terrible idea, or it looks great, you should do it and it's just way more fun.
Speaker 1:And it's way more fun. Yeah, we agree with y'all there for sure, yeah, and to working with clients.
Speaker 3:Having that person who focuses on marketing, having that team, is so important to actually execute ideas. But when is that idea going to actually come to fruition? And you need people to say that's a great idea, but this is what it's going to take to actually make that happen. And I don't think we have the resources or the time or the money, whatever it is to make that happen. So just taking those ideas and being able to talk it out and say, let's do this one, let's mark that one off, this one's just causing us stress, we're never going to do that, and so just really just talking it out, is we enjoy doing that so much with our clients and figuring out new things to do and being creative with marketing tactics?
Speaker 2:And listening to you guys talk, I guess I did not appreciate how much trial and error comes into play with marketing. And I think about it with Kim and I as speech therapists. It's all trial and error with kids. We're working with them, we're like, oh, you didn't like those, okay, we're going to do this, and we're constantly pivoting. But then you take someone like us and we try to do something in marketing and then, when it doesn't work, or even if it does work, you don't have the toolbox to know where to go from there and you realize how much you need someone, and not just that you can pay to do something, but, like you said, with your Fort Worth clients, that understands your business, understands who your customers are and can tell you what you need better than you even know yourself.
Speaker 3:Absolutely so. When I first went into marketing I had opened a store actually two and then I don't have a degree in marketing. I learned all from running my own businesses and literally having to figure it out myself from scratch. So when I sold those two businesses, I decided that's where I was headed after that, because I knew how many business owners there were locally who were trying to do everything and I thought I can take my experience and help them apply it to their businesses and dedicate my time to actually helping other businesses do that, just because I understood it so well from that perspective. And that's how I started doing social media, because I thought I can easily roll in and say here's what works, here's what doesn't. And I find it really interesting and fun.
Speaker 2:Tell us more about Elmaxine. How did that start? And then, brittany, I didn't realize that about you, about your previous history in retail. Just why did you decide to do a boutique together?
Speaker 3:So I was doing retail in 2015 and then sold those businesses and decided to go to marketing, and then I really wanted to do another store in Fort Worth. I felt like we're in our own little world here and I just felt like there was still a market for more boutiques that have a luxury field that everybody can come to. So I decided that I wanted to do retail one more time. I gave it another go and, of course, I had to bring Sam along with me, so now I tried to warn her. We're all about retail and everything that it comes with. It's so fun. We treat the store like a project social client, which I think has been a really easy way to marry the two businesses. I always joke that El Maxine should be the best project social client because we should be listening to all of our own ideas and doing all our own ideas to the fullest when I was telling Sam about opening a store and going back into retail.
Speaker 3:It's just, we have lots of friends and we were just social and I was telling her it fits into our lifestyle. It's just a lifestyle being in this retail realm. It's really hard and it's a lot of work, but it's a lot of fun and we just, as a marketing team, work so well together and we just really balance each other out. And it's been amazing so far for L Maxine. We've been in business for six weeks and someday that feels like years, like we've got some systems in place, which is awesome, and some days it feels like we opened yesterday, yeah. So I think that whole us already having been working together and knowing how we work and knowing where we are organized and where we're not, we already have each other figured out. So having the store come together quickly has been such a great experience.
Speaker 3:The goal behind LMAXY was to provide a really aesthetically pleasing place where you can shop. There's a price point for everyone. You can come in, have a glass of champagne, relax, shop. We have home goods stuff and we wanted to be sort of like you go grab a Starbucks and you go to home goods and you roam around. That's fun to a lot of us. But then you get to also shop for clothing and shoes and jewelry and things we really just focus on easy to wear, not too trendy, because Fort Worth we love what we love. It's a lot of fun.
Speaker 1:It's almost like a live portfolio for your other business. Look what we can do. These are examples of how we can market. One of the articles Mary sent me when we were researching before our interview was your blog post about the five things that businesses need to stay organized, and that was a really great read. And how have y'all figured out how to organize both of these businesses as far as? Do you have certain days that you allot for one business, or how have y'all figured that process out?
Speaker 3:We have an amazing team. I was going to say our team. I don't know how we've been so lucky, but we sure do have an A-list team and we could not do it without them. Since we first started working together, we both came into it like with a tight grip on our tasks and our businesses and how we wanted to be ran and all these things that we've slowly let go and let other people help us, and then it worked.
Speaker 3:And then we realized, okay, this is how we're going to grow, by letting people help and putting a good, solid team in place. But yeah, we definitely are trying to work out a schedule to where it's like on Mondays we do this, on Tuesdays we do this. We have a set monthly meeting where just she and I meet and it's our CEO meeting and we talk about everything that we need to talk about. We don't do it at the store, we do it at a place where we can just focus. Yeah, I think something too that we've learned, that maybe five years older, samantha and Brittany didn't know. That we know now is before. We thought this fancy new software or new tool would fix all of our problems for a system or organizing or reminders, and now I think we rely more on the system. First, I wish I could show you I carried around this piece of paper in my purse for a month, like it's so soft because it's been worn. But that piece of paper is what we just kept referring to and we kept refining it and we were organizing job descriptions and we were organizing all kinds of stuff and daily tasks on it. But we didn't need this fancy software to do it for us. We just needed to sit down and say what's really broken, how do we really fix it, how do we utilize the team we have, and do that instead of thinking this shiny tool that you can buy for $9 a month is going to fix it all for you. But we really just dedicated time to focusing on it and to working on that, and then the software and the systems and this is like for a lot of businesses. We tell them that can come later. You've got to have that system in place first and knowing how you're communicating with each other if it's a whiteboard or a text chat or whatever you've got to have that fixed and that down and then you can implement systems, a shiny system that'll help you streamline it. Yeah, we do. We're old school.
Speaker 3:When we sit down and work, we have an excel spreadsheet with lots of different tabs and and we refer to that we literally have a folder in our OneDrive. It says open this at your monthly meeting and we open it and it's all the things that we need to go over and review, and then, on each tab, we go back and we scroll down and start the new meeting and so we can then look at finances, look at all the whatever issues it is. And now we've just made one for LMAX and to do the same thing, because our minds are going in a hundred different directions. And sometimes on our meeting invite, I put a note on there and it said go to your monthly meeting folder. Like literally have to make notes like that just to be able to keep it all together. But then once we have that meeting, we feel so much better afterwards because we can all we can come together and sort everything out.
Speaker 3:Yeah, one of my favorite things about sam, do you tell, is, um, if I'm stressed out, she'll be like pull your to-do list out, let me see it. And then she's nope, nope, mark that off, that's done, mark that off, that's done. And I'm such a good list maker.
Speaker 1:And then throw that list away and make an even longer one.
Speaker 3:Throw that away and make a longer one, and she's nope, let me see it. And she just dwindles it down and says no, so-and-so, just like making it all. Just bring it back to like reality. Okay, here's the things that you have time to do. Let's get those things done, and so that's one of my favorite things about.
Speaker 2:That is so helpful to Sam. I want to hear from you too on this. How do y'all feel like your skill sets compliment or, I guess, are the same as each other's? Is there a core foundation that's the same and then you have complementary skills? Or do you find that you both have that CEO visionary type style and then you're executing or you're really delegating to get the other tasks done that maybe are not as well suited to you?
Speaker 3:I think it's exactly what you said. I think we both have the visionary, I think we're both entrepreneurs at heart. I think we both have a really positive attitude in general. We can shake off a bad day in five minutes and just say let's move on, it's done, let's keep going. Five minutes and just say let's move on Like it's done, let's keep going, and I think that having that together has been awesome. We're not dragging each other down just because we both naturally get up and keep going and then, I think, compliment each other really well. In regards to the details, I am an executor. I will sit down and make a list and I will delegate every single item out and just knock them off and get them done.
Speaker 1:We're still going to do it ourselves.
Speaker 3:I know this is a podcast, but this has been my list last week. It's just crossing off and highlighting, because I need it cropped off when I think Brittany will maybe go down a rabbit hole and it was a rabbit hole we didn't even know we needed to go down. She's oh my gosh, I realized this and this and we could do this better and be fine tuning this. Or she will go find the new software that makes our lives 10 times easier, and so I think we're able to complement each other really well. On the small stuff, I do love a good process. I love a good system, sometimes too much to where I'm looking for the next one, even though I don't need it. I was telling Sam I almost sent her a picture of all the planners that I bought just for this year I had cleaned out my office and I like a stack of planners that I never use.
Speaker 3:Because I just love a good planner, I only need one Project. Social we did this like a year ago but we literally designed their own planner for what our day-to-days look like. We did exactly what we wanted it to look like for all of our clients. I still use it.
Speaker 2:I guess she's moved on. I love that. Did y'all get it done through like a Vistaprint? It's a company called Blurb.
Speaker 3:B-L-U-R-B and you can upload any book and print one or 50 or sell them on their website so other people can go buy it. Very cool, that's. The other thing is, I'm an endless resource of random tools and I think, as small business owners, we do have to lean on the ones that actually do help make our lives easier. Yeah, and that's that's a good point, cause, like Sam, recently became a Mac person. Finally, after years of trying to convince her, are y'all Mac?
Speaker 2:Do y'all use Mac? I exclusively, I don't know Windows at all.
Speaker 3:Okay, so the little reminder app it's literally called reminders and I always use that. And the easiest little tool now. You can assign people to tasks, you can hashtag and put something in so you can search in that app and it's super simple. We them have a place to reference and check it off. Literally check it off and it's done. Sometimes you don't need to even try to reinvent the wheel and just use the resources that you have right underneath your nose, that are so easy.
Speaker 1:Oh wow, you just gave us a huge tool, mary. We have not used the reminder tool for each other. We need to.
Speaker 2:but Kim has recently converted as well. I did just within the last year and it took a minute but my husband and.
Speaker 1:I both did and I think we're sold yeah.
Speaker 3:So something I've found that's been really helpful too is you pick up your phone and do the exact same things out of a habit. Right, you push the exact same icon to open the exact same app. It is ingrained in your brain, and so if I'm really wanting to change a habit or use a new tool, I will go rearrange the home screen on my phone and I will put that reminders app where Instagram used to be, so that way I just pick it up and open it up, or I'll go rearrange that to trick my brain.
Speaker 2:It's a good idea.
Speaker 3:It's like putting your fruits and vegetables at the forefront, pretty in their fridge.
Speaker 2:No, look at this first, not the other things behind it. I also wanted to ask about, okay, complimenting each other's skill sets and having the same. How do you guys feel like you balance each other in terms of spending? I've been to your store and it's just beautiful. It's this cross between really chic, elegant atmosphere, but at the same time, it's really homey and comfortable too, and it smells really good. You guys have this incredible scent going, but all of that creation costs a lot of money, and so how were you guys able to decide together on what things you wanted to spend money on and how much you should allocate the store?
Speaker 3:is a whole new animal. So when we opened L Maxine, we said here's X amount of money we want to spend. And then we went back in and we I say we, but Sam filled it in and said here's what we've spent, here's where we're at, and just really detail oriented. And so that we were able to stay within that range, we agreed on a budget. But budgets change also and as something would become more expensive or Brittany would say I think we really need to spend money here, then we'd look and say okay, do we want to increase our budget or do we want to take money away from something else?
Speaker 3:I think we have a lot of respect for each other as business partners and I know that if she comes to me and says I really want to spend money in this area, I respect that and I trust that and I know there's a reason why she's saying that. Respect that and I trust that and I know there's a reason why she's saying that. So I think having to be able to talk about it and say do we want to put in more money or do we want to sacrifice something, is the conversation you have to have. I think that crucial conversations are difficult, but you have to have them when you're in business with someone, and with your clients too. If you're not in business with someone, having those more difficult conversations can feel scary, but the second you have one you get closer as a partnership or you get closer to your client and you realize they respect me more. We're doing this together. You feel safer to have the next conversation.
Speaker 3:Typically, yeah, money's hard, it's just like a marriage, right, yeah, I think. But I second what you say about respecting each other. If she comes to me and says something, I'm like she knows something, let's do that. Plus, I feel like I don't know. We both have very similar visions, I think too, and when we bring up a conversation about money, it's we're very much naturally in the same place, I feel like, and I think we're both pretty frugal. I don't think we're both just like big spenders, and so I think we're safe when it comes to that, and just knowing that about each other it just makes things go easier.
Speaker 3:I've had business partners where you're not equal. You're one's way over here and one's over here, and then it causes a lot of conflict. I don't know. I think where we're at is really on the same page and it always has been, so we're really lucky, yeah. And then just within that, like staying flexible, knowing, like setting budgets, but knowing it's just a number, you're just guessing. At that point You're just trying to say we want to spend 6,000 here, and then it's double and you're like okay, now what do we do? It's a puzzle to figure out more than it should be, a conflict, and coming together and problem solving and figuring it out and still supporting each other.
Speaker 1:This is going back a little bit. I wanted to know how big your team was, because what you said about holding on to your tasks, that's hard. I think we have this vision and then it's really hard to let some of that control go. So I'm very curious about the process. How did you find your team and how big has it grown?
Speaker 3:The project social team is ebbed and flowed. We typically keep five contractors like main contractors on retainer or that we're communicating with constantly and, honestly, a lot of that's changed because marketing's changed and social media has changed. If you had told me like five years ago, I need to hire just a social media content writer, I would have been like that's insane. And then we hired one and it was the best thing ever. And now we're like, oh yeah, I see what do we do in the next two years? So we need that position again and that's changed quite a bit.
Speaker 3:I will say I don't think this is answering that part and I preached this to 10 people before I ate the words myself but if you are saying yes to something, you have to say no to something else if your schedule is full, and so when you really write down that entire list of things you have to do, you have to pick the things you're saying yes to, because everything else you're saying no to it. And so you have to start delegating something, even if it's small. I feel like people rise to the expectations you set for them, giving people test projects or tasks, or even are just starting small. But you have to start somewhere because you can't, you cannot do it all. I know this little rant is full of like puns, but I also had a personal trainer say you can't say no, you have to say it's not a priority. And so if you say, oh no, I don't have time for that, you have to say no, it's not a priority, because everyone has same amount of time in the day. So pick your priority for the day.
Speaker 3:So just getting that mindset of either I'm going to do it all and kill myself trying to do it or I'm going to have to start delegating something to someone, and picking what you delegate can be small in the beginning. But yeah, our team at Project Social has five or six contractors and one full-time assistant right now, and then that LMAX team team has a handful a store manager. Yeah, retail is a different business setup. You physically can't be there every day, so you have to have a manager in place and an inventory manager. And we're lucky to have Project Social so we can roll in all of our marketing into that help there. And then the buying and all of that we have. About what do we have Five on our LMAX team right now?
Speaker 3:But and two, I remember one time when we were we were going through, our full-time employee at Project Social was offered with a better position or a higher paying position and she was leaving us.
Speaker 3:So then Sam and I came together and we weren't even thinking about LMAX at this time and we were like how busy do we want to be, how much money do we want to make, how big do we want this business to be, and then, literally writing down a list of what we both wanted as business owners and what our goals were, then told us exactly what we needed to do, and so it was like we decided it was about to be summertime and we wanted to just spend more time with our kids, and having that person leave meant not being able to maintain as many clients, but also it gave us back time to spend with our family and we knew that we could scale back up after summer was over or if we did even want to do that. So I think, like coming together as business owners and setting goals and priorities personal and business really helps you decide who you need to help you or if you need to help, if you need help at all.
Speaker 3:But yeah, with every person that's like on your team, there's also an additional layer of responsibility or an additional task that's put on your plate sometimes if it's, you know, training or answering a question or scheduling or whatever and so you have to really, because now you're someone else's boss too, and so now you do take on more responsibility with that as well. But then you also can grow, and you can't grow without more people. That's just how it is, and so just depends on where you want to go and where you want to take your business. Do you really have to just have that, sit down, talk about it and really decide what you want, and then, if you do feel like there's tasks on your list that you can delegate, then you can always find someone that's willing to help.
Speaker 2:Since you guys are such a huge part of the Fort Worth community, I want to hear a little bit about how friendships and connections in Fort Worth have impacted your business and your lives personally.
Speaker 3:I feel like it's everything, hugely Everything. I was just saying our project social clients are the best. They're the best. They've become friends, they have given us business because of it. They've supported Elmax Scene. How many communities could you have a marketing business and then be like, oh, I'm also going to start another business, which, in the back of their mind, I'm sure it was like all right, am I going to still get time and attention as a client at Project Social? But they've been some of our biggest supporters and I think Fort Worth is really special that it is still so small town in regards to how it supports each other.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we've had a huge warm welcome with our new business and it's been, you know, friends, family, other boutique owners sent us flowers, you know, at our opening and we have a bulletin board in our back stock room and I've been just tapping all of the cards, mostly from Sam's friends, that are like you're a boss, babe, you're amazing. This is great, all these supportive notes that we guys have hanging there and it's been huge. I think at this point, since we're so new, I think easily could say the majority of our sales are people we know, because just that's how the work, you know we're friends of a friend. You know friends have like talked about it and our friends have been our supporters. But yeah, fort Worth is. We're so lucky, like lucky to be in this town.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's what we've seen time and time again. You can have the best business ideas you want, but unless you're connected, then that really doesn't mean a whole lot. And I think that I really like what you said, Sam, earlier about leaning in when something feels easy and it feels right has been so important in business and something like my type A self. I have to really allow myself to lean in to those things that happen naturally, but it really does all come together.
Speaker 3:And I think that's where Brittany's complimented me so well is. She's just more spontaneous. Let's do it.
Speaker 1:Like, why not, let's go for?
Speaker 3:it, and I'm sitting there in the back of my mind what's the Excel? Spreadsheet going to look like when it's updated and, like you said, allowing yourself just to do it, because sometimes that's where it starts.
Speaker 1:We started off at the very beginning, Brittany, with you talking about. You had your first child and you needed something more that was for you. So, this next question is two part, but the first part is do you feel like you found that, and is there ever okay? How do I balance this now as my family's grown, and is that ever a struggle? And then the second part is with what y'all have created, have y'all sat down during your goals and thought out what is the legacy that you're wanting to leave?
Speaker 3:Yeah, when I first started as an entrepreneur, it was really hard, because not only was I a new mom but a new business owner. I had always reported to somebody and had a very structured schedule and expectations. So yeah, that was really challenging and finding that balance was really difficult, because when you own your own business which I'm sure you guys know you can't turn it off.
Speaker 1:It's on all the time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was really hard and plus, when retail comes, travel and little ones and you're traveling, and that was really challenging. But I feel like this time around in retail has been completely different, just having a business partner that's on the same page as I am and more organized and systems in place, and it's definitely better. And now that I've had experience and done it the wrong way and regretted it, and now it's okay, now I've learned from my mistakes and doing it now.
Speaker 3:And if I's okay, now I've learned from my mistakes and doing it now and if I could talk to somebody that was in a position I was in back then and just tell them it's all going to be okay and it's just, it seems so important for your business to go perfectly. But really and it's I'm only doing it because I want to be with my family, when I want to be able to make my own schedule and things like that. It's definitely challenging and I feel like, plus, I'm a lot older now and so I feel a lot more laid back and less just able to have a grasp on things a lot easier when I think the retail side more than project social, we allowed our families in the business a lot from kids hanging clothes or hiding in the dressing rooms watching their iPads at night, but I think we just we brought them into that business a lot in the summer had a lot to do with that, but for them to experience a little bit of it we.
Speaker 3:My son was our biggest critic whenever the build-out was happening, cause he was. This doesn't even look like a store, but we want him over, so that's good. He wanted to be our cash register guy. He wants to be trained on cash register, but just bringing your family in, because by dinner time we were talking about how the day was. Our kids are a little bit older now so they can ask and you can talk about something and they have a point of reference because maybe they were there or they saw it.
Speaker 3:I also think I've learned. My kids are six and almost eight now. It's okay for mommy to not be perfect around them, and I think it's probably a good thing for them to see us weak or just having a down day to struggling, because they're going to struggle too, and so for them to be able to feel comfortable, for me to say, oh, I had a bad day two days ago, remember that this is how I was feeling and I think the balance it doesn't have to be perfectly balanced, it's okay just to bring them into the business side of all of it, even if it's a bad day To go into the question about the legacies.
Speaker 3:My son is 10 now and I feel like he's really seeing what mom is doing and hearing dad say I'm proud of you and things like that, and just asking me about the business and hearing and seeing those things. He asked me the other night just out of the blue mom, how's your store going?
Speaker 1:And it's just so sweet.
Speaker 3:The other day he went on a bike ride. It was so sweet. The other day he went on a bike ride. It was so cute. He went on a bike ride and he just recently is allowed to go around the block and he saw a yard sale and so he stopped to look at the yard sale and then he came back and he's mom, there's a lot of things you would like at that yard sale. And I told him about your store too and I was like, oh, that's so sweet, sweet, and so I see little things that he's doing and he's like proud of it and so it makes me really happy and I feel like that he's taking it in and he's learning too that he could.
Speaker 3:I don't know he could potentially be a business owner one day. He has a little post-it hanging on the cash wrap where he's tallying up his paycheck because he'll come in and do a few things and he'll add it up.
Speaker 3:And so yeah, I think they're learning from us. Honestly, when I first started working for myself, started a business, it was simply to be able to pay for my kids' education and not have it come out of family funds, and so that was my original goal, and when you keep it in that perspective, it's all worth it. So just all about them.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's amazing. Thank you guys so much for sharing. I love to hear how personal the business becomes. Before being a business owner myself, I guess I saw them very separately of okay business, and then you have your family. Even when Kim and I started this podcast of okay, how are you balancing the two? And the more we talk to people and the more we experience it ourselves, we're like, no, no, balance does not exist. There is no perfect balance, but I love to hear how the real answer is that they're so connected. You're building your business for your family and then your family is able to be a part of the business and, like you said, brittany, to be part of that legacy. So I love hearing how you guys are living this out and are such a great example to your kids. And then you are just such a huge asset to Fort Worth. Fort Worth is really lucky to have you so sweet.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
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