Restaurant Leadership Podcast: Overcome Burnout, Embrace Freedom, and Drive Growth
Welcome to the Restaurant Leadership Podcast, the show that teaches you how to overcome burnout, embrace freedom, and drive growth
Your host, Christin Marvin, of Solutions by Christin.
With over two decades of extensive experience in hospitality leadership, Christin Marvin has successfully managed a diverse range of concepts, encompassing fine dining and high-volume brunch.
She has now established her own coaching and consulting firm, collaborating with organizations to accelerate internal leadership development to increase retention and thrive.
Each week, Christin brings you content and conversation to make you a more effective leader.
This includes tips, tricks and REAL stories from REAL people that have inspired her-discussing their successes, challenges and personal transformation.
This podcast is a community of support to inspire YOU on YOUR unique leadership journey.
This podcast will help you answer the following questions:
1. How do I increase my confidence?
2. How do I accelerate my leadership?
3. How do I lower my stress as a leader?
4. How do I prevent burnout?
5. How do I improve my mental health?
So join the conversation and listen in each week on spotify and apple podcasts and follow Christin on LinkedIn.
Voice Over, Mixing and Mastering Credits:
L. Connor Voice - LConnorvoice@gmail.com
Artwork by Solstice Photography, Tucson, AZ.
https://solsticephotography70.pixieset.com/
Restaurant Leadership Podcast: Overcome Burnout, Embrace Freedom, and Drive Growth
73: Growing a Loyal Customer Base and Thriving in Tough Markets: Proven Strategies for Entrepreneurs
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What if your biggest struggles—like near bankruptcy or seasonal slumps—were the keys to building a thriving local empire? This episode reveals how to turn setbacks into stepping stones for success.
Imagine starting your business at a bustling flea market and growing it into a thriving local tea brand. That’s the inspiring journey of Scented Leaf Tea House founder Shane Barella in Tucson, Arizona. In this episode, we dive deep into actionable strategies for entrepreneurs looking to overcome challenges like near bankruptcy, seasonal slowdowns, and finding the perfect location. Shane shares insights on customer loyalty, creating a purpose-driven business, and standing out in competitive markets like college towns.
This episode is brought to you by Restaurant Technologies, the trusted partner for helping restaurant operators streamline efficiency and focus on what matters most: growing their business. Learn more at https://go.rti-inc.com/RestaurantLeadershipPodcast
We also discover how Shane built a loyal customer base by prioritizing authentic human connections and how his strategic planning led to securing prime locations, boosting foot traffic, and increasing profitability. From lessons learned in The Alchemist to fostering a unique company culture, Shane provides invaluable tips for growing a sustainable brick-and-mortar business.
Chapters:
00:00:08 - From Flea Market to Tea Empire
00:13:14 - Navigating Challenges in Business Growth
00:20:32 - Summer Business Strategy and Customer Connection
00:28:18 - Cultivating Company Culture and Expansion
00:36:05 - Navigating Business Growth and Leadership
00:43:54 - Building a Purpose-Driven Business
Whether you're navigating the challenges of running a small business or dreaming of launching your own local empire, this episode is packed with practical advice and inspiration. Tune in to learn how to lead with purpose, build community connections, and create a business that thrives in even the toughest markets.
Resources:
The Alchemist
Scented Leaf Tea House
#totaloilmanagement #restauranttechnologies #localbusiness
More from Christin:
Grab your free copy of my audiobook, The Hospitality Leader's Roadmap: Move from Ordinary to Extraordinary at christinmarvin.com/audio
Curious about one-on-one coaching or leadership workshops? Click this link to schedule a 15 minute strategy session.
Podcast Production: https://www.lconnorvoice.com/
I'm excited to introduce you today to Shane Barilla, who owns three Scented Leaf tea houses in Tucson, arizona. Scented Leaf is a beautiful tea house, very fun, energetic, bright, community-focused, playful space full of just healthy tea, nutritious energy and just an amazing staff and culture. So I've had the pleasure to get to know Shane over the last couple of years and really excited to share his story with you today. Shane is going to talk about three main issues today. He's going to talk about his business starting out at the flea market and how he made that jump from flea market to brick and mortar and some of the challenges that he went around in order to become successful on the verge of bankruptcy, which is super important to understand and important to his story. He's going to talk about why it's important and the lessons that he's learned around spending money based on strategy of your business and not impulse when you see those dollars spiking and you see the business doing well, why it's important to not immediately spend money then and to hang on to it for some of those slower months. And finally, he's going to talk about his core values and how he has started this business based off his core values and how that has really translated over to the staff and who he hires and the characteristics of the people that he's looking for and how that has brought success to his culture and building his team and being able to expand his concepts. And we're also going to talk about his insecurity, which is kind of like his superpower and fear of not being good enough, not being a good enough boss and not being good enough in this competitive world to run a really successful business, and how that drives him to constantly be looking for ways to improve and to grow his empire. I hope you enjoy this episode and to grow his empire. I hope you enjoy this episode.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the Restaurant Leadership Podcast, the show where restaurant leaders learn tools, tactics and habits from the world's greatest operators. I'm your host, kristen Marvin, with Solutions by Kristen. I've spent the last two decades in the restaurant industry and now partner with restaurant owners to develop their leaders and scale their businesses through powerful one-on-one coaching, group coaching and leadership workshops. This show is complete with episodes around coaching, leadership development and interviews with powerful industry leaders. You can now engage with me on the show and share topics you'd like to hear about leadership, lessons you want to learn and any feedback you have. Simply click the link at the top of the show notes and I will give you a shout out on a future episode. Thanks so much for listening and I look forward to connecting, and I look forward to connecting.
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Speaker 1:Two reduce operating costs. They help you save money by optimizing oil usage and eliminating third-party cleaning services. With their auto-miss technology, some restaurants save up to $300 per month per location. Number three they help you ensure consistent food quality. Fresh oil means better tasting food every single time. They help you ensure consistent food quality. Fresh oil means better tasting food every single time. They help you monitor your oil usage remotely with ease.
Speaker 1:Number four enhance safety. Reduce fire risks and injuries by eliminating the need to handle hot oil. Number five promote sustainability. Join the eco-friendly movement by recycling used oil into biofuel. And number six maintain a clean kitchen. Imagine no more spills, pests or messy cleanups. The result a safer, cleaner, more efficient kitchen that saves you money and keeps your team happy. Ready to see why over 45,000 restaurants, from small independence to large multi-unit concepts, trust Restaurant Technologies? Visit rti-inccom to learn more. Shane, thank you so much for being here today. Can't wait to share your story with the listeners. Since I've known you the last couple of years, you have just had the most wild success with Scented Leaf, and your little empire is growing, so thank you so much for being here today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thanks, I appreciate being here. This is great Awesome.
Speaker 1:Would you start off by telling the listener where this concept came from, because it's a pretty special story.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's really random. I think that's the main word is random. I start off I graduated University of Arizona, did a marketing degree and afterwards I really didn't have any desire to work for a big company no corporation and I was kind of just wandering around trying to figure out what to do. So I worked as a restaurant server and was a bartender and did all that kind of fun stuff in the restaurant business and it took me a couple of years to kind of say, all right, I need to kind of figure some stuff out. So I got into insurance at first because the market was really booming in real estate and my brother was a loan officer and I had a friend, a lot of friends that are realtors and I decided to kind of join the team. After a year of doing that it didn't really work out. It was not my cup of tea, so to speak. But what happened after that first year of doing insurance? I realized I really need to be in front of people. I really wanted to be kind of in a face-to-face situation with people because it just felt more my style. So I started looking around, thinking about what I can get myself into and I came across a company that was going out of business.
Speaker 2:The guy wanted to move back home and it was, out of all places, an outdoor shopping center. Here in tucson. People call it the flea market, a swap meet, and I was never a fan of that style. I grew up kind of going, my parents being, you know, dragged along the way to kind of check out stuff and they would always find knickknacks and I would always just have a hard time being there and all of a sudden fast forward. I'm an adult and I'm looking at this place going. I think I can make something of this.
Speaker 2:This guy had a really cool setup. It was actually a foundation floor. It didn't have a makeshift thing like a lot of people think of. It actually had a building, it had a garage opener, it had walls, it had some kind of air conditioning, it was marked as swamp, cooler, and I was like, okay, this is actually not too crazy.
Speaker 2:But the problem is I didn't know anything about cologne and perfume. That's where the guy sold. He had a perfume business and I said, okay, let's do this, but I really need help. So my girlfriend now my wife she I love perfume and cologne and I would love to help you out and we just started dating, which is kind of crazy. She was willing to do this with me and I was like, all right, you want to help me out, let's do this. So we started this perfume business, did that for five years. We were out there every single weekend in crazy circumstances and weather and people and really kind of honed in our skills about like custom service and working with people that are different um you know, demographics and um different um approaches.
Speaker 2:And once we got through the five years the market was changing. It wasn't as good as it used to be. I was actually in a pretty good situation in the first five years but politics kind of happened in the state of Arizona. Things started happening in Tucson where people started boycotting the area and Arizona as a whole because of the politics at the time. There was immigration stuff that was happening. So we started noticing our company starting to have a hard time and I really didn't want to have my namesake to be on a swap meet business. I thought it was great, but I wanted to do something more. So I said, okay, I'm ready for the next level and when market was getting really bad for us and we lost all our money. We were looking at a situation where like, well, my God, we need to find something else to sell or do, otherwise I'm going to go bankrupt.
Speaker 2:And I read a book along the way that someone gave me. I don't remember who gave me this book, but someone along the way gave me this book that was called the Alchemist. I always tell people they should check it out, read it. It's a famous book, it's been around forever and it's just a story about someone who goes after their dream and along the way, things don't work out as they planned and they end up having to start from scratch. And I just started thinking about this. I need to start from scratch, I need to start with something new and, luckily, when I was on my trip to Spain on an early honeymoon with me and my wife, we decided to go, even though we had no money and also a week before we found out she was pregnant. A lot of crazy stuff happened along the way where we shouldn't have gone, but we kept getting pulled to really make this journey happen and we promised ourselves we're going to go.
Speaker 2:So we went, found this little shop out of nowhere in Granada, spain, after I proposed to my wife and I found this you know place that was just kind of calling my name. It was selling loose leaf tea in a little tiny little shop. It had really nothing going for it. It was tiny, it was like 10 feet by 10 feet, nestled into a wall off of a cathedral. We were not supposed to find it it was really not a place that people had been shopped, but it kind of pulled us in with the aromas and the smells of the tea and the herbs and we saw it and we came across it and we said, oh my gosh, I think there's something here. I think this is what the alchemist is telling me If you listen to the signs, it'll give you what you need and God will deliver and you just have to be ready to take it on. So the light bulb went off. I said, oh my gosh, I think this is it.
Speaker 2:I don't really know much about tea, but I love tea and I didn't realize that tea was loose leaf. I was always used to it being in a teabag form. So when I found out the whole world is drinking a better quality tea, I saw there is a need for that in the United States and in Tucson, because there was nothing like that. Ironically, teavana was a company that was growing at this time but I didn't even know about it, so we kind of opened up around the same time in Tucson. But it basically became a thing. Like I added, we had another perfume store by the University of Arizona along this journey of five years and everything was falling apart no money in the swap meet, no money in the university. So we basically added tea to one side of the store and perfume samples in the other and people started coming in and buying the tea more and more and more and liked it. And it was a very small selection that we came up with and had blended up for us. And all of a sudden I felt like it was the right thing and I said here it is, let's focus on this.
Speaker 2:Closed down the perfume side of things went down the street, got a better location that we really were fortunate to get. Another business went out of business. We got in and got the lease and no money to start off with literally 200 bucks to my name. We started from scratch, built up a place, didn't have any money for construction, but we somehow, two minutes behind schedule, two months behind schedule, we were finally able to open up and it took us a year or two before we actually kind of figured how to even do it make tea.
Speaker 2:I literally opened up the store without even knowing how to make tea, which is the crazy, crazy part. But we learned and we got better and along the way, we started getting people coming in and liking us, our style and our environment, and I hired a lot of young, energetic people who had a lot of personality and they brought in, you know, people and people just enjoyed it and over the years, we started adding different things, like teas on tap and just making drinks that were unique and different. And then, you know, now we're at it, opened up in 2012. So now we're at 14 years now and we have our few locations going on four and hopefully five by the end of next year.
Speaker 1:Shane, it's. It's such a cool story. There's so much to unpack and what you just said. Thank you for sharing all that, by the way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no problem, there's a short version like that and there's a long version, totally.
Speaker 1:Hey there, podcast friends. I hope you're enjoying these impactful conversations and leadership insights I'm bringing you each week. Before we dive back into today's episode, I want to take a moment and reach out and ask a small favor. That would go a long way in supporting the show. If you've been loving the content I'm providing, please take a moment to leave a rating and review. Wherever you listen to your podcasts.
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Speaker 2:I've said the story so many times in the years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean you took such a huge risk. I mean, you said you were on the you know crux of bankruptcy. Both the flea market location and the shop, your brick and mortar, weren't doing well and you just decided to listen to this book, the Alchemist, and I'll put that in the show notes for everybody. But you let that just pull you and took a huge leap of faith to take this risk and say, okay, we're just going to go all in here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's basically what it was. Honestly, it was survival, it was desperation and it was uh, I didn't have anything to fall back on.
Speaker 1:I was, uh, I was in a situation, yeah, and you had growing your family at the same time. Wow, incredible. Such courage and bravery you, yeah there's. I've had so many conversations with people in Tucson because the markets are such a great way to do business in this town right, they're all year round. They draw crowds of people. There's collaboration, there's marketing right, it's easy to set up a stand and know that people are going to come to you. But what people have a hard time getting out of, I've seen, is how do I make the jump between the market to the brick and mortar? Yeah, what advice would you give people, looking back on your experiences, on how to best do that?
Speaker 2:I mean, I think it's one of those things where you have to have some things fall into place. There's a little bit of luck, there's a little bit of a scenario where you feel like this could be the market, this could be the spot. I feel like location is such an important thing that people talk about forever. You know, location, location, location. To get into a spot that at least you have that part, then you have the ability to get seen. And I was in a spot before that wasn't very noticeable. We were down the street, even though it was on University Boulevard, I thought it was great. But on University and Euclid, which is the street for people who know that area, is further down the main boulevard and people really didn't go past a certain point and we realized that this is a good location but it's not great and it and it was hard to pull off.
Speaker 2:So I would I would say that what changed for us was when we were able to be seen and be able to have a presence and people were able to actually walk into our store. So I know what it's like on both sides to have. You know the visibility issue. So I would say you know people try to find an area that you know people are going to be able to see you in, a market that you know knows that product. Sometimes people open up something and it's just so difficult for people to grasp. I saw this a lot at the swap meet and people would open up and they would bring in some of their cultural items and they would come from another country and they would sell it and the people would have a hard time buying it because they just didn't have, they didn't know how to grasp the idea of it, even though it's beautiful jewelry or beautiful this, and that it was still something that was hard for people to grasp. So I always wanted to make sure I chose a product that was, you know, something that could stand the test of time, something that I knew there was a need and demand for.
Speaker 2:And when I came across tea, I said it checks everything off for me. It allows me to be in front of people, it allows me to be a social person and it also is something that people consume on a regular basis. Even though coffee is number one in the United States, coffee is number one on the hot side, but on the iced side, tea is number one. So when I learned that fact that I do, that I enjoy tea and everyone around me was drinking tea at restaurants that I worked at Everyone I worked, you know, in a restaurant job you always have people come in and you can see what people are consuming, and I saw people drinking less and less sodas and there's obviously people drinking alcohol, so wine and beer but tea was like kind of the go-to.
Speaker 2:There's obviously people drinking alcohol, so wine and beer, but tea was like kind of the go-to. It was safe, it was easy and didn't keep people up all night. So I was like this is checking all the boxes, so going back to that, find a location, find a product that people actually would like to have in their life and then make sure you have the service.
Speaker 1:You know so much about location with just your expansion opportunities and your years in real estate too right, and now being in this business. But it's crazy, I think you look at for those people that don't know, Tucson University Boulevard is perpendicular to the campus. You literally walk off of campus and you step onto University Boulevard and there's this row of bars and retail shops and restaurants and I you know, I think if anybody looks at that little two block street right there, they're like this is a great location. There's, there's buzz, it's very walkable. The little train goes through there right, the rail, car, whatever we call it, but it's the nuances to where you are on that street is so, so important and I think it's really interesting. You know, again, your approach of like finding a spot and then understanding what the need was in that area, versus saying I've got a concept, I'm just going to go find a location, because that's what a lot of people do sometimes.
Speaker 2:That's really tough and I understand that University Boulevard is a great location, but I also want to emphasize that there has been a lot of businesses on University Boulevard that have gone out of business. There is a challenge that you have to overcome, which is the downtimes. You have a downtime in the end of December when students are gone. You have to figure it out. It's tough and you lose on certain months. You just don't have a way around it. There's nothing that's going to help you out, to help out your bottom line.
Speaker 2:In June and July You're going to be in a situation there Luckily for us, we've been in business long enough that we have people who know about us in the summertime to continue to increase those sales so that every year the summer is not as big of a burden. But it's challenging for people to be in a situation where you have a market that goes up and then down and it really is a market that goes straight up and then straight down. So the location is great for a lot of reasons, but it's also challenging for a lot of reasons. You live and breathe with the students and if you don't cater to the students and this could be for anyone's market, you know, if you don't cater to that area, to that demographic that you're selling to, then it doesn't really matter what you do, you're going to have a hard time making it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, how did you manage? I mean, it's such a great point. How did you manage that downtime and survive those first couple of years?
Speaker 2:You know scheduling is. The best thing you can do is to look at it as all right. I need to reduce my costs as much as possible. That was really. The only thing you can really change was how many people were working at one time, and we would just kind of keep it lean and mean. Fortunately we had a lot of students that would leave during the summertime as well, because they would go back home. So it allowed us to say, okay, we just lost 70% of our labor force. Now, this was going to keep the 30% who are basically Tucson bound to have a job during the summertime. So I would just say that it was the only way we can pull it off.
Speaker 2:There's nothing you can do with. You know. You can try to, you know, tweak your electric bill by not having it be so cold in there and keeping the door closed. But you know, bottom line is, the more you kind of restrict comfort, the more you're going to have a hard time getting people to be back in there and enjoy it. So you kind of have to bite the bullet and you kind of have to make enough money in the other times to be able to kind of keep that momentum going enough so that it gets you to August and then, once you get into middle of August, then it's OK and it's similar to people who are in a cold environment. If someone is up in Flagstaff, for instance, during the wintertime, yeah, they have the university there. So maybe they're not the best example, but let's just say a cold environment that doesn't have a university, people are going to not go out as much during the wintertime and maybe it's blizzards.
Speaker 2:In Colorado, maybe there's something crazy in Montana. You're going to have downtimes and every market has those peaks and valleys throughout the year. The other location we got recently on Tanque Verde on the east side has been the opposite. It's been able to kind of stay steady all the way through. So it's really making us think. Like you know, we've got to have these other type of locations. That balances out the act so that during the summertime it kind of fills in those losses. Yeah, the summertime it kind of fills in those losses.
Speaker 1:So that's been a great change for us. Yeah, I mean, like you said, every business is seasonal in every single market, right? And it's about understanding those trends and planning for them and when you make that money, make sure you're putting that money in the bank and saving it for a rainy day, I mean the summertime. Just being here for the last couple of summers, there's a really great opportunity for every business owner to connect with those people that are coming in in the summertime, because those are your regulars, those are your locals, right, those are the people that are supporting your business during the off time. So really great opportunity to build stronger connections with them during the downtime.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. That's huge for us. Regulars are everything for us. I mean, when we first started, I mean my whole thing when I told my staff we had a staff of two, two girls from the perfume store came over and started this whole tea thing with me, I was like I didn't have any other employees, I couldn't afford another employee, and I just said, guys, it's the same thing as sound perfume.
Speaker 2:You know, we have a spiel that we basically do, which is we greet people when they walk in. We have a little of this and that we give them the information we need to give them. We make sure that they have a handheld throughout the entire journey. And that was what I did at the swap meet and that's what I did as a server before that. You know, there's a system that you follow and it works every time. You know, in the restaurant world, you tell people what the specials and you kind of get you know talking about this and that and they get excited and they buy stuff. Same thing with the perfume business. We kind of did the same thing.
Speaker 2:Now, the tea thing was my baby and I said, okay, guys, we got to make this thing work. So everyone has to have the ability to have a conversation with someone who walks in. So people who are shy can't work here. People who are have a hard time communicating with humanity and not be really fun and open and boisterous can't work here. Yet we need to keep this really active and lively, because everything for us was like keeping every single customer, because I knew I had Starbucks around the corner, I had Dunkin' Donuts around the corner and I knew the only way we were going to be able to survive is they loved us. They loved us personally and they loved the product as well, but the product was secondary in my opinion.
Speaker 2:They come in there because a lot of places don't give people the welcoming that people feel like they really need to have so they would come back and feel comfortable. So many places you walk into and they don't say hi to you, they don't acknowledge you. You go to the menu and they just say whenever you're ready, we're ready for your order. There's no help, there's no dialogue, there's no, nothing back and forth, whereas our place they're confused, they didn't know what was going on.
Speaker 2:It was actually one of our best things was the fact that they were confused, because it allowed us to break through this situation of them being uncomfortable and allowed us to go hey, I'm here for you, let's talk, don't worry about how crazy it is, I'm going to break it down. And in that process, people started going oh, I feel like you're helping me. I feel like you're actually an ally, a friend. I'm going to come back and your name is Shane Okay, great, my name is John. And then we had this thing happen. So then, during the summertime, where else? It's like a place that they know they're going to go to, a place that they feel most comfortable, and that's what Scented Leaf has always been able to do.
Speaker 1:And there's a common thread there that is not only, you know, extending itself through the guest experience and the customers, but also through your staff and through the environment. I mean, you talked earlier about when you first walked into that tea shop in Spain and got hit with all those aromas. That's one of my favorite parts of walking into any scented leaf, because it just smells like something I've never smelled before. It makes you happy. It's like it's bright, it's fresh, it's um, it's, it's just this like beautiful combination, um, and it's not like, it's not overwhelming.
Speaker 1:You know, it's not like a perfume store where you're worried if you're going to smell like that when you walk out, right, but there's, you've got all these plants and there's this like beautiful green, you know green velvet furniture, the wood textures. There's a lot of intentionality around creating that experience in every aspect of what you guys do. And you've got this amazing menu with a hundred plus teas, you know, right there on display for people, and so it's easy for them to kind of walk in immediately, you know, be in awe of like, oh my God, what is this? And then have your staff jump right in and offer that, you know, helping hand, which is great, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it worked for us in terms of the complexity of it Cause right, but bottom line is, it's no matter what you're selling. You know, it's a pretty basic thing to get someone to find someone that they like and it's just asking a couple of questions. And I think that was the thing that people who work for me they had a hard time with. But once they got to that level of talking to someone and asking questions, it really opened up their personality and it really gave them confidence. And I'm always amazed when people come through the center leaf, who started off in a certain way, that was, you know, maybe just a little more like kind of narrow thinking. Maybe they stuck with their own flock.
Speaker 2:I had a lot of sorority girls that worked for me and they would just kind of be you know a sorority girls that worked for me and they would just kind of be, you know, a sorority type person and focus on their Greek family.
Speaker 2:And then also now they're working with people who are different.
Speaker 2:You know they're having customers that were different and they had to force themselves to get in front of other people and talk to them and all of a sudden they would come back and say, oh my gosh, I this is first of all, this person I hear I love, this is my new best friend and this is a lifelong friend here.
Speaker 2:This is something that's amazing, that just happened here. But their ability to communicate really changed and their ability to, when they left, send to leave, to go into another job and do an interview, for instance. They flew through it because there was just so much of that back-and-forth dialogue that people want to be involved with. When you hire someone, you want that person to have that personality so that you know they can talk to coworkers and and to the bosses and to customers, and I think that constant making sure you actually interact with human beings and ask them how they're doing and you know it's a challenge after all these years of so many employees to keep that going, but that's really my focus is to make sure people have that ability.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. Hi everybody, we're taking a quick break to offer you an exciting opportunity. If you're a restaurant owner or manager looking to enhance your leadership skills, I invite you to join my 12-day leadership challenge. In just 12 days, you'll receive a guided packet with actionable strategies to transform your leadership in less than five minutes a day. Join the challenge and the community and grab your copy at kristinmarvincom. Slash 12 days. Now let's get back to the show. Yesterday, when we were meeting, one thing that really struck me was the conversation that we had around a couple of the employees asking you to do some student projects, write a paper on you or interview you for your background on your business and why you've been successful and coming up to the new regional when've been successful and, you know, coming up to the new regional when they saw her and giving her hugs. There. There's this really awesome culture that you've built at scented leaf. Will you talk a little bit about your approach to that and how you've built that culture?
Speaker 2:I really wanted. I have this. I have this I have always had a fear of am I good enough as a boss? Am I good enough as a company? Am I good enough to compete with bigger players? And in that insecurity you know my kind of personality of pleasing people comes out and making sure that everyone is happy. It's like when you have a party and people come over, you want to make sure everyone had a good time.
Speaker 2:When I was younger, I used to go and you know me and my friends were social. We would have parties, people come over and I was always the one that was most concerned about how we came across, how we looked. You know, guys, we're good, we have drinks, we Are, we are everyone happy, and I think that was part of the way the culture built up was I was always making sure that I was able to talk to them in a regular human to human way, not like a boss, to an employee, more like I was able to be kind of, just maybe like the older brother at one point older brother now, now the dad because of the age difference that keeps growing but it's been one of those things where I felt like I was able to communicate with them on a level that was not so formal and not so rough. It was just very. I wanted them to be comfortable around me and I think in doing that getting them to interact with me as a friend, almost it allowed them to be more comfortable and allowed them to enjoy their job and then spread the way they felt to other employees that would come into the picture we would have. Another thing that I did a lot was I had a lot of events where I would take them out. We would go to the bars, we'd go to the restaurants, we'd go do something social. We'd have some kind of Christmas party, end of the semester party. We still do this to this day. We've had three or four parties this year and we're going to probably have one more for Christmas parties this year and we're going to probably have one more for Christmas.
Speaker 2:So getting them to be comfortable with you and everyone, to get along with each other, choosing personalities that are unique and different but not combative and not challenging, is another thing. Hiring at the very beginning is probably the most important thing of making sure is this a fit for this entire community, because when you have a fit, it all works. When you don't have a fit, drama happens. People start not liking to work. I don't want to work with this guy. I don't want to work with her. We fight all the time and that really changes everything.
Speaker 2:So, being able to go, you're different, you're unique, but you have a lot of things that are going to be easy to work with and you're not going to be coming in here and spewing a harsh personality issue of, like how you feel about something. No politics, no stuff that is like really sensitive. We don't have those conversations. We keep it fun and I want them to feel like they can go to me and talk to me about anything, and I want to be able to talk to them Like I'm not their boss and feeling like I don't want them to feel intimidated.
Speaker 2:So, with that whole kind of thing I just said, it creates a culture of people would just feel in themselves, comfortable in their own skin there, and I let them wear what they want to wear too. That's the other thing that's interesting. We don't have uniforms. Um, sometimes it's gotten a little bit weird, but we kind of have to like understand that's, that is what it is, and that we have to let people be themselves to a certain extent of like, making sure it's not discriminating against people and nothing you know vulgar or or too revealing. You'd be surprised what I've had to go through with letting people wear their own clothes, but it's allowed them to be once again themselves and that's huge.
Speaker 1:Yeah, how do you know, because you do correct me if I'm wrong. But do you do all the hiring still for all the locations? Not anymore, I used to.
Speaker 2:I would say that changed probably a year ago. I really started going. I can't keep doing this. This is not helping my managers and I think a lot of it was, you know, talking to you in the past and other people in the past about you know that's great that you're good at that, but we really need to move on from that because you can't always be the person hiring and, yeah, I mean I feel like that was my forte but I was able to kind of create a culture that the managers go. We know what Shane likes here. We want to make sure we have that Because you know it's funny, because they have made mistakes.
Speaker 2:My managers have made mistakes when they hire people and they went against the norm. They kind of chose someone that wasn't fitting that criteria and it bit them, you know, really hard they had to deal with firing people, they had to deal with letting people go and that's not fun. So they really try to keep it, you know, to the way that. You know we've always hired which is just really fun people who are extroverted, who have an ability to love humanity and they're not pessimistic and they're not. You know people who are sassy and you know people who are, you know, maybe I always use the word hipster.
Speaker 2:I feel bad. Thank God hipster is not a protected class, because hipster to me is like people who it's not cool to be cool to people, nice people, because that's too mainstream. I don't want people who are trying to be too cool, to be cool, too cool for school, right, like I don't want those people. I want people who are like yeah, I enjoy talking to someone, I enjoy helping someone, I enjoy being around people and if they fit that, then they get in. But if they don't and they show me any signs that they don't like to be around people, then I say no to them.
Speaker 1:What's been your biggest challenge with growing and expanding your tea house from two to three locations?
Speaker 2:money has been a challenge, because you grow and you make a little bit of money but then it goes right back into business. And being able to balance that out and actually understand your numbers to the point where you actually know what you can spend and what you can't, I think it's been a thing that's been challenging for me, because I kind of see us being busy and I see, you know, a better month than the previous year, I see a little extra money coming in and I say, okay, let's now do this to add to the store, let's buy this for the store, let's add more things, and it gets to a point where it's not very strategic. It's more impulse and when you get into those impulse buys for the business in the long run it's fine. And when you get into those impulse buys for the business in the long run it's fine. You know you needed that new thing, you needed to make things better, but it's been. I don't have any guardrails, and when you don't have guardrails you can put yourself in a situation and I think that's been a challenge for me, especially now that I'm expanding and I'm spending money on opening up new locations.
Speaker 2:No-transcript, you can actually get a bank to help you out. You can ask SBA for help and then when that happens, things open up and you can deal with the idea of handling debt with the fact that you know you have money coming in to handle that debt and not feel so overwhelmed. Otherwise, you take on a burden. There's a good example when I had a situation where I needed money one time for various reasons. There's a thing you can get with your point of sale it's called a capital from them and they would give you like square, square capital and they'll give you money and they'll go hey, your business is doing this, so we're going to give you this amount, so $25,000. You're like, oh great, well, I need the money.
Speaker 2:So instead of kind of going through the process of getting a loan, you say yes to this and then you have to pay this back in a very short period of time. They'll pull money out of each deposit that goes into your account. So you borrow 25,000. The expectation is they get that back in four to six months. So when you do something like that, you put yourself in this situation where now your cashflow gets literally stymied. You have no ability to change that and you're stuck with this burden for three to six months and all of a sudden you're like whoa, that was pretty intense, so making those mistakes when I could have went to a bank or I could have went to something else, and said can I get a five-year term and make it so it's not such a heavy toll? That would have been good for me, but I just wanted to do things on my own.
Speaker 1:Yeah, good lessons to learn right. Do things on my own yeah, good lessons to learn right. I mean, it's difficult when you're a solopreneur and you are trying to manage everything and trying to learn. You know, manage the business day to day and the marketing and the HR component of it and the, the ordering and the. You know the finances, and trying to teach yourself the numbers moving at the speed of light Right and then having to balance that out with taking the time to slow down and be really strategic. It's very difficult to do.
Speaker 2:It is. I don't know if you're good at that area. The finance stuff was not my forte. Accounting was not my forte. Still not my forte, yeah.
Speaker 1:I tend to find when I get stressed out about an area of my business, it's because I just don't know enough and so I have to stop and drill down. Stop and like, drill down, and once I get more information and fully understand, then that helps me calm my stress level and make better business decisions for sure. Yeah, that's where the strategy comes in, absolutely. How have you been able to develop yourself as a leader running these multiple concepts solo?
Speaker 2:Well, I have my wife that gets to hear every crazy idea under the sun. I have my wife that gets to hear every crazy idea under the sun and I play devil's advocate to myself a lot. I tell a lot of my people around me to be devil's advocate to any idea that you have and be critical of yourself first so that you can beat yourself up enough to the point where you're like okay, I've turned this idea into something that actually has a chance to make sense. But hearing everyone's opinion has been a good thing for me. I have learned from mistakes of how I communicate with people. I've had to deal with the understanding that I'm in a different generation in terms of communicating than a lot of younger people, and I also had to learn the hard truth that text messaging does not come across the way you think it's coming across. So when you choose a lazier path to communicate, it causes ripple effects that you don't foresee ripple effects that you don't foresee. And then you have to change and fix and basically put out the fire as fast as possible because what you thought went out isn't what was received and I've lost some personnel because of just simple texting that came across the wrong way. So learning to really take a step back. If you are going to do texting and craft it to the point where you're like there's nothing left here besides this tone, this tone is really coming across. And if it's something that is too sensitive to never text, to always pick up the phone, make that phone call, talk to someone, let them hear your tone so they know you're actually coming across in a way that's not attacking or not defensive and, better yet, have a face to face, which is the best. So I learn from mistakes. I learned from being stubborn with oh there's no way that they're going to have a problem with this message or this way of thinking, and you don't realize that it comes across a different way.
Speaker 2:I've been living off this idea of perception is reality and no matter what I think or whatever a manager thinks, it doesn't have any value unless the perceived value is what that is. So if you say something and everyone's like well, shane's a jerk and I'm like I'm not a jerk, I didn't. I'm not a jerk at all, but everyone thinks I'm a jerk Guess what? I'm a jerk. It doesn't matter. If I don't think I'm a jerk, it doesn't matter. So that was a big one too. Matter if I don't think I'm a jerk, it doesn't matter. So that was a big one too.
Speaker 2:And then just like knowing that if I come across too aggressive or I get frustrated or I lose my patience, it doesn't do any good for me, it doesn't do good for my company, it doesn't good for my staff. My kids are the ones that kind of, you know, still get me riled up, but my staff won't. They don't get me riled up. They could break things, they can make mistakes, they can cause issues. I won't get riled up. I used to, but I learned that it doesn't do anything for me, it just makes it worse.
Speaker 1:Yeah, A lot of emotional intelligence and self-awareness in what you just said. And communication is so difficult because there's so many forms and everyone is different. And you're right, Text is such a dangerous way to communicate, but it's so easy and um, efficient and convenient and accessible to everyone these days. But you can send a group text message out to your entire team and every single person is going to interpret it differently. That's just. That's just who we are as human beings. So good for you for recognizing that. What's what's 2025 look like for you?
Speaker 2:You know I thought I was gonna take a little bit of a break from the crazy world of, you know, opening up new locations. But I already put myself into another situation where I'm going to be opening up. I already have a lease that's signed for a new location on Broadway. So that's in the works. So I'll be opening up that in February most likely, and that's going to be a new endeavor for us, but we still have our systems in place. I feel confident we're going to be able to get through it just fine. We have a new person that is going to be taken over, who has been a great manager, who's going to now be a regional manager, so we're going to be able to conquer that one. And then the bigger challenge is to continue that process of opening up another location again at the end of the year. So we have another location we're working on, so that'll put us at five and then getting a feel for, like you know, I don't want to chase. I really don't want to chase money. I really don't want to chase money.
Speaker 2:I didn't think about money for the first 10 years of my business because there was no money. I just didn't see any money. It wasn't like any great story of like, oh you know, shane's making this money and he can now do all sorts of other things. I just put so much money back in the business every year that I just never was able to actually see much of it. And past two years I was able to kind of go oh, there's actually a chance here that I can grow and become able to do more financial stuff for my life and my family.
Speaker 2:But I don't want to like open up these locations because it's going to make me more money. That's part of the enjoyment of opening a business. You have a fact of making more money because you have more sales and net profit, all that fun stuff. But for me it's more like I feel like I'm at an age where I started this. The universe gave me this opportunity.
Speaker 2:I feel like a creative, something special, because people around me have told me that feels really special for them.
Speaker 2:So I'm like, okay, this is something great for a lot of people and I want to continue this thing that the universe gave me an opportunity with and I want to see what I'm capable of doing with it and see if I can pull off you know the unthinkable and compete with a bigger market and be in all places in Tucson and then Phoenix and then other places to see what I'm capable of. So I'm more interested in the actual can I accomplish this big goal of one person starting off in a perfume business, at a Swami, and now has this empire of tea and people all around are getting healthier and they have better place to hang out and the community loves it and the staff are just getting better and better at what they do and they feel empowered and they love their co-workers. So I want to just ride this wave as long as I can and see what my um abilities can take me with help along the way by all means, because that's what I'm learning too is.
Speaker 2:I need a lot of help along the way and I have more people than I ever had before doing different things and I'm finally going yeah, shane, you're not good at this, that's fine. If you're not amazing at it, then you don't need to do it. Simple Like if you're good at you don't need to learn a year's worth of accounting to be the accounting person for your company. It means nothing. You can have someone who's way better than you, who thinks, breathes everything accounting. Pay them a little bit of money. They take that off your table and you can focus on what you really want to do, which is you know help and communicate and be a mentor to a lot of these people who I hire.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're really good at micro outsourcing what you need in order to continue to, to you know, achieve your agenda.
Speaker 1:I think you know you've you've highlighted so many important lessons here, but I think the biggest one that's really sticking out in this episode for the listeners here, hopefully is you have started a business that really aligns with your core values of wanting to be around people and bring health and something innovative and fun to a community and challenge yourself to do something different. A community and challenge yourself to do something different. And you've created an environment and a culture in your company of the same and surrounded yourself with people that also align with your core values. And when you do that, that's how you make business sustainable, that's how you lead with purpose every single day and that's what helps you get through those really tough days and weeks and months where business is down or you're exhausted or you're going through an opening when you can come back to your purpose and you know that you're living to your core values. That's where success and happiness comes from. So kudos to you for doing that. That's incredible, thank you, yeah, awesome.
Speaker 2:Awesome. Yeah, I've always said I want to end my journey where people said Shane was a good guy, he didn't cheat people, he wasn't a person that caused harm to people. He was someone that helped and was giving people a better circumstance when he was around them. So I just don't want to ever, especially in Tucson it's a small town. If you're a bad person in Tucson, it travels fast and it's not my DNA to be a bad person. I just want to leave my journey saying I was able to not have enemies along the way because I was trying to be too cutthroat. I just really want to be able to stand on my two feet and be very proud of what we accomplished.
Speaker 1:Yeah, awesome. Well, you've accomplished a lot, so thank you so much for your time again for being here. That's going to do it for us. Wrap it up this week For anybody that's listening. Please share this episode with anybody that you think could benefit from this If they're starting a business or trying to figure out how to grow a business from a sustainable perspective. This is a great episode. A lot of value here for any of the listeners. Thank you so much. We'll talk to you next week.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
