#12 Emily Millheim: Balancing a full-time job alongside entrepreneurship

In this episode, Emily Millheim of Emily Marie Glass explains how she works full time and runs a thriving glass-blowing business. Discover practical tips for managing time, making your health a top priority, and leveraging skills from one career to enhance the other. Whether you're considering starting a side hustle or already juggling multiple roles, this episode offers inspiration and guidance to help you navigate the complexities of managing dual careers.

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Nav Technologies, Inc. (“Nav”) makes no assurances or representations regarding the accuracy or sufficiency of the information included in this podcast. This podcast is for educational purposes only, and is not legal or financial advice. If you have questions, consult a trusted professional to help you make specific decisions about your business. The views, opinions, and statements expressed by the host and guests on this podcast are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Nav.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Emily’s unexpected path to becoming a professional glass artist
• 3:14 Balancing a full-time job while running a business
• 7:27 Finding customers in a digital world
• 9:23 The sink or swim moment: from layoff to full-time artist
• 12:11 Importance of mentorship & guidance in business
• 13:41 Business credit tips for artists and creative entrepreneurs
• 15:23 Biggest challenges as a business owner: Staying relevant online and avoiding burnout
• 20:49 Pricing strategy: Learning to value your work and understanding profit margins
• 26:47 Why supporting small businesses matters and final words of wisdom

Transcript

Emily Marie (00:00)

Everybody got laid off. I had a sink or swim moment where I was like, I can either go really, really hard in the direction of my own brand or I can fold and like go get a regular job.

I didn't want to give up. I didn't want to give up on that dream. And so I took a lot of risks and made a lot of life

I had to shoot my shot.

Tiffany (00:24)

Welcome to Main Street Makers, a bi-weekly podcast that features real, local small business owners who have transformed their passions into profitable businesses. Learn from fellow small business owners on how they overcome challenges, find opportunities, and create thriving operations that make our neighborhoods more vibrant, connected places to live.

I'm Tiffany and this podcast is brought to you by Nav, the business credit platform that believes every small business owner deserves the chance to succeed. now let's get to this week's show.

Tiffany (00:56)

Hi and welcome to Main Street Makers. We are welcoming Emily Milheim today who has generously offered to tell us her small business story. So welcome. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for coming. So you have a really cool business.

Emily Marie (01:11)

Hi, thank you. Thanks for having me.

Tiffany (01:21)

Do want to tell us about it a little bit and tell us about your business journey?

Emily Marie (01:25)

Yeah, yeah, I am the founder, CEO and everything else at Emily Marie Glass LLC. I'm a glass artist, so I make these days a lot of custom glass art, all kinds of things. I've had a really long career, my work has spanned a lot of different kind of areas. Right now I'm doing a lot of like custom glassware and also like installations in people's homes. I also like teach occasionally and do gallery shows and that kind of thing. Yeah, I blow glass. I get to make glass for part of my living. It's awesome.

Tiffany (02:05)

That’s amazing. So how did that start? Like how does one start with that?

Emily Marie (02:10)

You know, it was a total accident. I went on a date with a man who's actually still like a close friend of mine. It was 16 years ago he was doing an apprenticeship at that time. And, at the end of the date, he's like, I'll give you a glass blowing lesson. And I went and it sort of backfired on him a little bit because I was having so much fun that instead of like, you know, going home for a nightcap with him or whatever, I was like, “No, I'm going to stay here until they kick me out.” 

Yeah, and I met the person running the studio at that time and they were like, “You have a nack for this. If you wanted to do an apprenticeship, you could.” And the rest is kind of history. I was there as much as I possibly could be for the next, you know, several months. And then, and then it was my full-time job for like 10 years.

Tiffany (02:59)

That's awesome. I was curious because currently, Emily works at Nav. So we work together, which means that you have a full time job and this business. So how do you manage that? So you were doing this full time and then stopped full time.

Emily Marie (03:17)

Yeah. So I blew glass full time for a little over 10 years. I have some medical stuff that makes it really dangerous for me to get too hot. I have multiple sclerosis. So I'm really healthy. I'm doing great, but I have to be really careful about not overheating. But it's really, really, really bad for me. 

So it got bad enough that I couldn't work in the summer anymore. So I wasn't really making enough to like not work for four months out of the year. I live in a very hot place and yeah, so I decided to try my hand at a desk job for the first time when I was 31 years old and got referred to Nav by a friend of mine who used to work here and said, hey, you're a business owner. I think that you would maybe do well relating with other business owners and being a part of a company that helps business owners understand finance and run their businesses. And so I tried it out and now it's been seven years, or almost seven years. And yeah, and I'm somehow doing both. 

It's definitely a lot of time. If I had kids, this probably wouldn't be a possibility, right? I work, I just work a lot. I work 40 hours a week for Nav and I work 20 hours a week for my own business. A little less in the summer when it's hot. Yeah, it's just a lot of time.

Tiffany (04:55)

That is impressive. Is it mostly evenings and weekends? I mean, those are the only other times that you have, guess. Talk us through your typical week.

Emily Marie (05:04)

Yeah, it's mostly evenings and weekends for sure. In the summer, pretty much I am not blowing glass very much, except for like early weekend mornings, because that's the only time that's cool here in Salt Lake, which is really, really hot in the summer. In the winter, I finish up work at Nav and I go to the studio. And then that's like, that's what I do for like most evenings and then I spend at least one good like 10 hour day in the studio on a weekend when the weather is a little cooler.

Tiffany (05:40)

Nice, that's really awesome. Yeah, I mean, it's so cool that you just decided, like, “I love this.” So how did it go from like a passion to a business? What were the first early stages like?

Emily Marie (05:42)

Well, I think like a lot of business owners, I loved it enough that I was really dedicated to just figuring out how to make it a full-time job as quickly as possible. And I think I'm like probably the vast majority of business owners who kind of value being able to decide what they do with their time more than anything, like being really in control of… 

Look, I will work more, like business owners absolutely work more than like, now that I'm kind of in both worlds and I have a full time job and a business and I've been on both sides, like yeah, business owners work more. Absolutely. They work more and they work harder. But it's kind of worth it to that kind of person to just be in charge of where their work is going, like really have autonomy and to do the thing that they really love.

To me, it was just all about… I'm pretty obsessed with this thing. I love it. I love being in this world. How can I make this my full-time job? So I mean, from the time that I started blowing glass to the time that I started doing it full-time was not all that long. You know, three years or something like that. So I got good enough that I could work for someone else full-time and then started my own brand and started doing that. It was like, as soon as I possibly could, I started doing it full time.

Tiffany (07:20)

That's very cool. You say you do a lot of custom work, so how do you find customers?

Emily Marie (07:26)

So a lot of my customer base is, I mean, my customers are kind of nationwide. I have some international customers as well. It's all online. So in the beginning, I did a lot of traveling and like competing at national competitions and like, and doing gallery shows all over the country. And then, you know, sort of have to maintain that presence, that reputation, with a really strong online presence, which is difficult because it's changing all the time.Staying relevant online is probably the hardest part of any business that isn't just like a local restaurant or like a walk-in kind of place. So yeah, just managing an online presence and all of that is kind of how I maintain that and how I remind people that I exist and I'm taking orders.

Tiffany (08:22)

That's very cool. And so what goes into maintaining that online presence?

Emily Marie (08:27)

I've actually never paid for marketing. I think I got pretty lucky. Like I think if I were starting to build, uh, an online presence today, I would probably have no choice, but to pay for some, to pay for some marketing. Um, but I kind of got into it when, um, when Instagram was a little bit easier, easier to manage.

I post consistently. These days, I'll be honest, I'm a little bit exhausted with social media and I'm sort of focusing more on contacting galleries with my work and like keeping track of what kind of shows I might be involved in so that I'm not having to just completely lean on social media for marketing. So it's been a little bit of a hybrid, like using my industry connections to make sure that I'm involved in events that are happening and maintaining an online presence with social media and my website.

Tiffany (09:21)

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So you said that you originally worked for somebody else full time blowing glass, and then you started your own brand. Can you talk us through how that worked?

Emily Marie (09:32)

I first started blowing glass full time… I was working in a production studio. I had my business, I was a contractor, right? But I was creating work for another brand. And then that business, that brand started going through some struggles and everybody got laid off. And I had kind of a sink or swim moment where I was like, I can either go really, really hard in the direction of my own brand or I can fold and go get a regular job. And so I started signing up for, for like more competitions and like more travel. And, you know, I put all of my money into a home studio.

I'm like, I guess I'm gonna go hard in this direction. I, through a combination of luck and hard work, it paid off. And then I launched my solo career sort of in dire straits, but by the skin of my teeth made it really, really work well for me.

Tiffany (10:46)

That is very inspiring. Was there something that swayed you one way or the other or swayed you toward your own brand versus a regular job?

Emily Marie (10:59)

I just love to blow glass. I just love to do it. And I felt like I had built a lot of skill and a lot of connections and like I had invested so much in being good at this thing that I loved. And I was terrified to make the leap to do full time, but I also didn't want to give up. I didn't want to give up on that dream. I felt like I could do it. 

And so I took a lot of risks and made a lot of life changes. I moved from where I'd been living to a way less glamorous part of town with a bunch of roommates so that I could afford to build out a home studio. I really made whatever sacrifice I could to make this thing a reality, even in the face of… it's a terrifying move. But I think I just couldn't give up on it that quickly and I had to like give it my I had to shoot my shot.

Tiffany (12:05)

Yeah, that's fantastic. Did you have any coaching or guidance at that point or you were kind of just winging it?

Emily Marie (12:13)

I definitely had a lot of guidance. I had the brand that I worked for, the owner of that company, we're still close friends. We actually still share a studio. Like I rent studio space from him. And even though his business could no longer support its employees — his name's Christian Merwin — he was an incredible guide to me. 

Glass artists are a pretty tight community, pretty small community. So I was not lacking guidance for sure. I'm really, really fortunate for that. And then I also had my mom who I really credit. She was a very self-made woman. We grew up super poor and then she's a financial advisor and like she's the reason why I was able to survive on a full-time artist’s wage for a decade with an autoimmune disorder and not destroy my credit or make any really bad moves. 

She taught me how to manage finances, which is such valuable knowledge. I mean, it's absolutely golden knowledge that's really difficult to come by. And even though I wasn't handed money to make my business work, I did have a ton of know-how and there's a lot of times I would have been absolutely up a creek if I had not had that knowledge.

Tiffany (13:41)

That's such a good segue. What would your top pieces of advice from your mom for other small business owners be?

Emily Marie (13:52)

Manage your credit, be careful about managing your personal credit. I mean, there was no way I was going to get a loan or anything. Like when it came time to purchase my own, like when I, when I got laid off and it was time to, to sink or swim and I decided to invest in my own studio, was like many thousands of dollars that I needed to put into building the space and purchasing equipment, like expense, really expensive equipment.

My kiln was six grand and my torch was five. And like at that time I was young and I didn't have a bunch of cash on hand. So when it came time to make all those investments, I really had to lean on my personal credit in a big way. Get basic knowledge on how to manage your personal credit and have a budget.

Understand that there's a lot of companies out there who are really banking on you not knowing how to manage that because they make a lot of money when you mess up. And so arm yourself with the knowledge about how this stuff works and the discipline to keep yourself in a healthy position as often as you can.

Tiffany (15:04)

Yeah, that makes so much sense because like you said, it was a sink or swim moment. So you don't know really when that kind of moment is coming. Focusing on your credit and things like that, you're giving yourself options that you might not otherwise have. Yeah, that's really valuable. What has been the biggest challenge for you as a small business owner?

Emily Marie (15:12)

I think with any artist, it's kind of staying relevant to your audience, I guess, and staying in front of your audience. That's a really difficult thing. 

And also avoiding burnout, caring for yourself, you know, you can work 12, 16 hour days for a really, really long time. I can do it for a really long time, but at a certain point, especially when what you do is make art, like, you know, is something that requires you to be genuine and energized and present and all of that. You really have to take care of yourself and like, and make sure that you're getting sleep and staying sane. 

Because I think whether you're making art or doing something else, I think that running a business requires you to be in a healthy, solid, not panicked head space so that you're making the right moves. And that's really difficult to do when you're running a business that takes 150% of your bandwidth most of the time. Yeah, but I think it's probably taking care of yourself so that you're in a place to make good decisions.

Tiffany (16:52)

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. We hear from a lot of people we've talked to is… burnout. Burnout is a big fear and a big problem for sure.

Emily Marie (16:58)

It's huge. This is hustle culture, you know, like that's where we're in. If you're running a business, it's hard, it's hard work. Yeah, take care of yourself. Get help. If you have a partner, have a team, don't put yourself in a position to do a hundred percent of it by yourself if you can help it.

Tiffany (17:26)

Yeah, definitely. And a lot of people seem like they gradually add team members as they're able to, which is really helpful. But like you said, maintaining an online presence is one of the biggest challenges. Do you have a schedule, like a social media schedule, or is it just whenever you get the bandwidth to post?

Emily Marie (17:35)

For years and years, I had an app that I used to manage my social media posts, and it was great. And the reason I don't have that now is because the algorithm has changed so much that it's made it kind of, it's not really worth it anymore to manage it in that way. It's not bringing enough to continue to try to manage it that way. 

For years and years though, I leaned really heavily on like a scheduler app and was reading all the articles about, when is the best time to post? I have hired a consultant before to help me understand how that stuff works and make sure that I'm doing it at the right time.

But these days, like just recently, honestly, like I'm just kind of shifting my strategy a little bit. So I'm not really using that now.

Tiffany (18:43)

Yeah, that's really interesting. It is definitely a changing and ever-changing landscape. Do you think you would hire another consultant, like a refresh?

Emily Marie (18:48)

I think I actually think I would. I'm sort of developing a body of work right now. It's gonna have to wait until probably winter, fall or winter. But I think once I kind of have a sense of what I want that to look like and how I want to market it.

Then I probably will hire a consultant and have them help me because I think that's an area that changes so quickly. Then unless you're an expert in it, keeping up with that is kind of its own full time job. Have a team. I'm not going to spend another 10 hours a week, you know, learning how to do exactly the right thing. In that way, I'm going to lean on the help of experts around me.

Tiffany (19:39)

Yes, delegation is key, but it's also how did you find the original consultant that you worked with? Because I feel like sometimes it's hard to find or know who to turn to.

Emily Marie (19:41)

Yeah, I think at that point it was just a friend of mine who also has a business said that they did really well for her. And honestly they did well for me too. I didn't want to pay somebody else to completely handle it for me. I wanted somebody to teach me how to do it and kind of teach me the rules so that I could set my own system up.

And they did really well for me. It was word of mouth. Like another business owner referred them to me. I think that's another thing I would recommend too, to business owners: network with other business owners that don't do what you do, or ones that do, but build a network around yourself of other business owners. Because everybody runs their show differently. Every industry is different.

There's a tremendous amount to learn from other business owners.

Tiffany (20:36)

Yeah, that is really valuable advice and it seems like most business owners are so willing to share knowledge.

That's really good advice. So I'm curious about your pricing strategy. How did you price your work when you were starting out and how has that strategy changed over time?

Emily Marie (21:01)

When I was starting out, I priced my work incredibly, incredibly low, like really, really low, which I think is something that most budding artists do. Pricing your work as an artist. I mean, I couldn't, I honestly couldn't tell you, I couldn't tell you how to do it at this point. I mostly followed the advice of people around me. In the beginning, even some shops that were purchasing my work wholesale were like, “This is too cheap. This is too inexpensive.”

The psychology of buying art is very, very weird. So to be honest with you, in the beginning I sort of just responded to people's advice to like the mentors around me, like, “Hey, you need to probably raise the prices on this.” Usually it was, I was advised to raise them. And then occasionally they were like, “Nah, I don't know that anybody's going to really pay that. I would lower it.”

It sort of in response to how the market tended to value my work. And then as I grew more confident in what I was making, what I was offering, I started to feel out like, OK, this piece actually takes me — including like annealing time, starting up the shop, all of the marketing and all of that stuff — it takes me this long and I have it priced too low. And so I'm going to move it up in this range or the opposite or whatever. 

So in the beginning, I just was leaning on a lot of advice. And later on, as I got a sense of what my actual profit margins were — which were a lot smaller than I thought they were initially — I was able to make more informed decisions.

Tiffany (22:47)

Yeah. I think that's so common, to underprice your work when you're starting out.

Emily Marie (22:52)

Yeah.

I would advise if you're a maker, like if you're thinking about how many hours does it take me to make this thing? I think there's a lot of time on the front end and the back end of actually sitting down and creating something that we don't really consider. And maybe like materials costs that we don't really consider. 

I would have a really good sense of what your profit margin on something actually is, especially if you're a maker who loves what they make, because I think that we can undervalue our work a lot. And it's pretty easy to get yourself into a hole where maybe you are creating something that people love and you're offering at a really low price point, and then you are buried in demand for this thing. It's partway through that pile, you realize, “My gosh, I'm making almost nothing on these.” 

So really closely examine what is your actual profit margin at the end of the day? And can it support you?

Tiffany (23:54)

Yeah, that's great. So how do you know what your profit margin is?

Emily Marie (23:59)

OK so materials cost, a rough estimate of time per piece, factoring in the ones that don't work out, right? A lot of the stuff I make is very, very technical and I work in a medium where… glass is pretty brutal. It can be really unforgiving because you can put many, many, many hours and many iterations of something into a design, and then if you get 15 hours in and it breaks, you don't get any of that back. Like it's completely gone. It's gone forever. 

So yeah, like the time that it takes to create it kind of including the ones that don't work out, that's important. And I figure out sort of an hourly dollar amount that I need to be making to sustain myself and keep my business going. 

I want to be making enough per hour that I'm not waiting to be paid on one project before I can start another project. Meaning I have enough in the coffer to purchase more materials for another project that I'm working on before I get paid up for it completely.

Tiffany (25:16)

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. Do you do invoices? Do you invoice people? And so you have to wait sometimes for payments?

Emily Marie (25:26)

I do invoice people, yes, but I always get a deposit. And I'm very fortunate that it's standard in my industry. It's not standard in every industry. Like working in Nav I'm realizing like, wow, there's a lot of people who do all the work and pay for it and don't get paid, don't see a dime for like 60 days. It's mind blowing to me how people can run a business like that. But like any kind of contractor, that's what they do.

It's brutal. It's totally brutal. So I'm very fortunate and I'm in an industry in which it is standard that like, no, I get at least 30 % down.

Tiffany (26:02)

Yeah, that's good. And I wonder if other industries could just start doing that.

Emily Marie (26:06)

It would be really cool, but I mean, especially with large contracts. I've seen that too with customers that are high-dollar jobs, they have an expectation that they don't need to put as much down. And that seems to be the case with other businesses, like commercial, large commercial clients or government clients, they'll pay you whenever they're going to pay you, which blows my mind. Because they're like an even larger extension of risk and time.

It seems to be standard. I don't understand why.

Tiffany (26:37)

Yeah, we've heard the same thing, that somehow the companies that have the money are the slowest to pay.

Emily Marie (26:39)

Yeah, I don't get it. I don't understand.

Tiffany (26:47)

So, how has your business experience informed your work at Nav?

Emily Marie (26:53)

I genuinely care about business owners. I care about this plight. I care about the environment that a small business owner exists in being healthy.

I just really actually think this is critically important to humanity and to our country. And I think that partly that's because I have the experience of being a business owner. So I think it's just given me a lot of empathy and a lot of understanding. I can put myself in the place of a business owner with extreme ease and just be like, yep, that sounds hard. I've been there.

And I think it's the reason that I'm still here. Again, this is my first full-time job. This is my first desk job in my life. And I'm 38 and like, and there's a reason that I'm, that I'm still here. Like I kind of thought in the beginning, like, man, I'll just get another job for a little bit and see what it's like to have somebody else pay for my health insurance for a while for once.

And I'm still here because I get to talk to business owners and I get to work for a company that actually really, they really care about how their customers are doing. Like that's crazy. It's crazy to find a large company that actually gives a damn about that. And that's why I'm still here, because I get to have those relationships with business owners and educate them and give them things that I think are going to help them.

Tiffany (28:21)

Yes, absolutely. I can attest to the same. It's like this deep in your bones understanding of, okay, I get it. Yeah. Yes, exactly. That's great. So do you have any final advice, final words of wisdom that you could think of that you'd like other small business owners to hear?

Emily Marie (28:28)

Yeah, I get it. Yeah, been there. Yeah. Buy local. It's honestly my advice. Buy local, buy from small businesses. working at Nav has kind of showed me a lot of the behind the curtain world of how finance works among businesses and there's a lot of ways in which the cards really are stacked against small businesses. I mean, tremendous, tremendous odds not in our favor, right? Our economy is stacked heavily in favor of large corporations in way more ways than I ever understood before I worked here. If you're a small business owner, man, buy from other small business owners.

If you're just a person, buy from small business owners. We need each other and that means we need to support each other. We need to actually support each other. I think that's one thing that anybody can do that wants to support the environment that we all are trying to swim in right now.

And also, in my corner of the glass industry, it's better now, which is so great. But when I was coming up in that world, there were almost no women doing what I do. So like 10%... I would go to competitions and there'd be 40 competitors and two of them would be female. Yeah, it was a little wild.

Tiffany (29:54)

Wow.

Emily Marie (30:05)

I think that there's a certain kind of person who is always going to blame someone else's success on their gender or their looks or whatever. Definitely have heard a lot of the like, “People just like her work because she's a girl or whatever, because she's cute or blah, blah.” 

Like, so I've heard just so, so, so much of that for sure in 15 years of this industry. I think that there's always gonna be those kinds of people who are like, “I'm gonna blame it on this thing about them that's like low-hanging fruit.” But the thing is like, those people, like they won't grow past that point because all they can see is like, here's an easy thing for me to place my blame on. 

They won't examine like, what about the way she's marketing herself? Or like, what about all the travel or all the competition she's doing? Or what about her style is getting people excited or whatever? Like they won't ever ask themselves questions that will actually help them get better. They'll just blame. then that means that they stop growing.

I think that this translates to anything, not just a woman in a male dominated industry. I think it translates to kind of anything in life. Like if you find yourself resenting somebody else's success and you find yourself blaming it on, whatever, it's just cause they have more money for marketing or it's just cause whatever. 

Be aware that that's an opportunity for you to dig a little bit deeper and see what else they're doing that's working and try to emulate that. It's really easy to blame. It's like the easiest thing on the planet. It's the thing that humans do best, I think, is blame. But if you find yourself blaming, stop for a second and examine what else you might be able to learn from that person because there's probably a lot more that you're not seeing because you're busy blaming.

Tiffany (32:00)

Yeah, yeah, definitely. And even jealousy, I try to take any feelings of jealousy and think like, okay, what does that mean I need to be doing in my life differently? 

Emily Marie (32:16)

Yeah, that's it. That's exactly it. 

And how much does that tell you about yourself? And about how like, “OK, these are the things I actually value,” or “Hey, maybe these are opportunities for me to make some changes that will get me closer to the life that I want.” You could just sit and stew, but you could also self-examine and grow.

Tiffany (32:55)

Yes, that's such good advice. I love that so much. All right, well, thank you so much for all of this advice. I think it's been really, really helpful. And even non-makers, I think, can find valuable details from your advice. So thank you so much for joining us today.

Emily Marie (33:12)

Thanks.

Yeah, thank you. Thanks for having me.

Tiffany (33:18)

Thank you to our guests for sharing their story and thank you for listening today. Keep in mind that every small business is unique and there is no such thing as one size fits all advice, so take only what you find helpful. We look forward to next time.