No Plan. No Safety Net. She Built It Anyway.

You don’t need a perfect plan to start a business.

In this episode of Girl, Why Not You?, Jennie Blackwood sits down with Nikki Lindgren, founder of a marketing agency, to talk about building a business without a clear roadmap — and why waiting for the “right time” keeps so many people stuck.

Nikki’s journey took her from small-town Minnesota to corporate roles at brands like Pottery Barn and World Market, before pivoting into SEO and digital marketing and eventually launching her own agency.

Starting just before the pandemic, she faced early challenges like team turnover and inconsistent revenue — but kept going.

Today, she leads a growing team and has built her business by doing what most people won’t:

starting before everything is figured out.

In this episode, we cover:

• Starting a business without a plan
 • Taking risks and pivoting your career
 • The MVP (Minimum Viable Product) mindset
 • Growing from freelancer to agency owner
 • Why coaching and mentorship matter

If you’ve been waiting to feel “ready,” this is your sign to start anyway.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello, hello, everybody. Welcome back to another exciting episode of Girl, Why Not You? I'm your host, Jenny Blackwood, and I could not be more excited to bring on this fantastic guest today. Today's guest is proof that sometimes the biggest breakthroughs in your career don't start with a perfect plan. They start with a curiosity. She began her career as a marketing assistant at World Market, but along the way she became fascinated with SEO and digital strategy. Instead of ignoring or assuming someone else had handled it, she decided to teach herself everything she could. The curiosity quickly turned into real expertise. And that expertise turned into leadership, managing teams and shaping strategy for dozens of brands. Today, she's the founder of a marketing agency where she helps companies grow smarter, scale faster through intentional marketing and strategy. But the thing I love most about her story is the mindset shift that made it all possible. The moment she decided to stop sitting on the sidelines and start playing the game. So let's dive in. Please welcome my incredible guest, Nikki Lindgren.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

Jenny, thank you so much for having me today.

SPEAKER_01 1:07

Absolutely. I'm so excited. And I have to tell you, I am in love with your glasses. I love everything about you. You are you are like the vibe I've been looking for.

SPEAKER_00 1:15

You know, I'm trying to, I rotate every week. So if you saw me more often this week, I would be in these glasses all night, all this week, and then I switched through them. So um I probably have enough glasses to make it through a quarter.

SPEAKER_01 1:27

You are really making me rethink my decisions in life when it comes to style and fashion. And my husband is gonna hate you for that because this says dollar signs. All kinds of different glasses. I will I hope to talk to you more so I can sample more of your. There we go. There we go. I am so happy you're here, and I'm really excited to jump into what you have done in your life that is going to really resonate with this audience. When I was reading about you and your story, you are somebody who decided to go against the norm. You're somebody who had a path, you were on it, this is what I'm gonna do. But you had that aha moment of, you know what? This actually isn't for me. There's something else out there. You followed the nudge, you followed your gut, and now I'm excited for you to dive in and share. So I kind of want to take it back. And again, everybody, uh, I'm apologizing for my voice. I'm coming off of like 12 days of the flu. And so if you get some some cracks in there, you know why. Um, but I have my tea here, we should be ready to go. But Nikki brings such a creative edge to the table. And so, Nikki, if you could take us back, take us back to Nikki in in high school. What were your hopes, dreams, and aspirations back then? And then where'd you go from there?

SPEAKER_00 2:37

Yeah, well, I'll kick it off saying that I'm from a small town called Pennock, which is the name of the agency I now manage. Um, and it's in rural Minnesota. My local town was about 20,000 people, but the little town I grew up in was about 4,000 or 400 people, not even 1,000. Um, so I had a ton of land, like nine acres, a lake in the backyard that no one else lived on. So it was a ton of like isolated privacy, which, you know, this is before the internet and all the fun things kids get to do these days. So I just felt very um isolated and I wasn't enjoying it. So I think the first thing about my upbringing was luckily my parents did expose me to, you know, travel and some other parts of the country and North America. Um, but I knew I just really wanted to get out and I wanted to go bigger than what I felt like my local opportunity was. So I um was really passionate about fashion in high school. I actually designed all my own prom dresses and had a local seamstress make them. And so I really wanted to study fashion, but likely the business side of fashion. I didn't feel like I was going to be a designer. I felt like I could be really good on like a Macy's org chart, figuring out how much of X, Y, and Z to buy into and you know how to get that um right inventory mixed to different locations. So that's really what I thought I would be doing and what I went to school in San Diego to study. And I was so excited to go to San Diego because it's like the furthest corner of the country that I could go from where I grew up. So it's like in San Diego. Yes, I'm making a good change. Um, but I quickly learned in San Diego that um just the overall vibe was a little too beachy for what I wanted. Like I was really the one going in looking for all the internships I possibly could get. Of course, they were all at like skate apparel brands, which was cool, but I I didn't really resonate with that culture. Um, so as a friend of mine was moving to San Francisco, I said, Do you have, do you want to get an apartment with me? Like I'd love to go with you. And I think that's just sort of like the ethos of how I operate, is like there's no time like the present to take a chance. And so I think like even you know, if we go forward a handful of years to like family planning and stuff, like like there's never gonna be a perfect time to start this next chapter. So if it feels like a good risk, let's go do it. And you know, that's kind of the forward story. Didn't really answer just about high school, but that's okay. I want to know everything.

SPEAKER_01 5:05

Give us all the good details. So you okay, so you're in Minnesota, small town Minnesota. I'm a small girl, small town girl too, so I know exactly how that feels. And I also desire to beach town after high school, but I get it. You know, you go there, you try new things, experience. It's all about growth, right? It's like every little thing is a stepping stone. So here you are, you're in San Diego, you're like, I'm going down this fashion route. I want to be a buyer. What happened? What changed?

SPEAKER_00 5:33

Yeah, so I think um, of course, like had I stayed in San Diego, I probably could have found a career in buying for one of the skate companies because like you know, Orange County to San Diego was kind of filled with them at that time. So there would have been a fine career path in that area, but I thought I was going to end up in New York. Like I wanted to do big city stuff. And so when this friend was moving to San Francisco and the school I was going to had a campus in San Francisco, I was like, done. Like it's one step closer to Big Apple. So let's go get that done. And I think once I landed in San Francisco, um, I did have a lot of great internship opportunities there as well. Um but San Francisco at the time was much more heavily suited for like um home goods. So my first job was actually in product development for Pottery Barn, which was a ton of fun for anyone who was very creative. I wanted to be in business. So to be there and deciding like which um fabrics and which uh, you know, print should go on different pieces of home goods is like this is cool, but like not really my jam. So it was a stepping stool to get into home goods, but it was really world market where I was able to take what I had learned in school and what I was passionate about and start to apply it for the first time.

SPEAKER_01 6:54

Did you ever actually leave with a paycheck, or did you like use your paycheck to buy everything from home goods and world market everything? Because that's what I would have done.

SPEAKER_00 7:02

But you know, the beautiful thing about working in those industries is they have sample sales, and back then it was like an IKEA-size bag. Anything you could stuff in that would be like$10. So two times a year we would have these huge, huge sample sales. You would get bed frames for like$20. So we had a ton of cool stuff, but I was never um really putting my paycheck into it because I wouldn't.

SPEAKER_01 7:27

Good for you. I remember in college, I made the mistake of working in the shoe department, women's shoes in Nordstrom at South Coast Plaza, if anybody is from the down south area. And my gosh, girl, I mean, it was like my parents are like, where is all this money you're making? I'm like, Well, I'm wearing it. So I I get it. So good for you. Good to know. And anybody out there who's looking for another side gig, maybe go work at home good so you can get the sample sale opportunity. So, okay, so here you are at World Market. You're doing the thing. You're like a part of something big. You're you're learning how to get into business. You're kind of you had a pivot at this point from where you originally thought you would be. Take us down that road. You know, what what happened while you were at World Market? What were you doing and what changed inside of you while there?

SPEAKER_00 8:12

Yeah, so I was brought in to do uh a mix of things. So one of the things I was doing was deciding how much inventory to allocate to our warehouse to then be sold through e-commerce. And that goes back to some of my time at Pottery Barn. I moved from product development into the inventory management team. So I was getting, again, like that stepping stone to get closer to something in the more business, quote unquote, part of um running, you know, working for a big corporation. So I was doing inventory management. Um, I got to go to the uh 3PL down in uh Georgia and just like do inventory checks every now and then, which uh, you know, was some more fun country bumpkin type stuff because it was in the middle of nowhere. Um and then I was also in charge of doing parts of digital marketing. Um, so inventory to warehouse control to marketing was really in the ethos of things I was working on there. And um, because we were part of World Market, which had already established about 200 brick and mortar throughout the country, we didn't have to do a ton for awareness marketing of our e-commerce play, right? Like people knew who we were, thank goodness. So we weren't spending, yeah, we weren't spending too much on like paid media. So I didn't have, I don't actually even recall what we were doing for paid media to be honest. Like that's how little it meant to me at the time, which is funny because that's our main discipline at my agency now. Um, but we did hire a really cool SEO agency to help us and all my counterparts there. So I was the one managing the relationship with the agency, and my counterparts were women about my age. So we just kind of hit it off, and I was able to not only like pick their brain to understand SEO better, but I would spend like my nights and weekends really analyzing their data and their roadmap to a different future to be like, how the heck does this make sense? And like, let me kind of learn as quickly as I can. And from there, I think I spent about two years there. What became really apparent to me was like no one at the company world market was going to educate me and mentor me in digital marketing because that was not who was established in that like founding e-commerce team. They were all coming from basically brick and mortar or some bigger corporation like a Gap or Levi's or William Sonoma to run e-commerce. So I really needed to leverage this SEO agency to kind of stay top of my game. And I took a risk after that. I found an opening at an agency for SEO only. And I was like, I'm gonna take a gamble, I'm gonna go in and interview. I'm not gonna be totally honest that I personally am not doing the SEO, that I have an agency that's doing the SEO. So I kind of kept that guarded, but really kind of proved at the same time that I knew my crap. Um, and they hired me, and it was a huge pay change. I got to start running about 15 different e-commerce stores SEO. And throughout the course of my time at this agency, I was able to get, I think all the way up to like 45 stores, I ended up getting to oversee um paid ads and affiliates too, so lanes in which I continued to operate in the future. But like I remember I felt a little nervous about it because I was like, I'm going in to do a job as a full-time employee that I've done parts of before. Like I've never actually done this job on paper. Um, the the job description on paper ever in my real life because I had an outside agency helping me. So I was really nervous. I really felt like I had stuff to prove. And um, I don't think I disappointed. Like I believe I was promoted within my first like three uh six to nine years. So like it ended up being a really good fit for me, but I was afraid I was gonna crash and burn because I kind of was, you know, not totally honest about the reality of how I had operated in the past.

SPEAKER_01 12:06

You know, that's an interesting thing you bring up, and it's something that I see as like a pattern in successful people. Like you got to a point where you're like, okay, this is all cool. I like this, I like this, but there was like something that like left something to your curiosity. Like you were like, I want to know more about this. This seems really cool. And you weren't getting that. And so instead of just being like, eh, whatever, I'll just go do something else that I don't like as much or as I'm not as interested in, instead, you decided to take matters into your own hands. And I think that that's something for everybody listening to like really, really harness. If you don't like something you're doing and there's something out there that's more intriguing, what is stopping you? You know, what is stopping you from inching forward and figuring more out about it? And I love that you kind of like you said, you're like, well, I took a risk, I took a leap, and I'm gonna go try this, you know, full time, something that you just really were interested in, you wanted to know more about. But then, because you did that, it was like, again, it was like another, I call them lily pads. It was another lily pad for you to get closer to where you were meant to be. And so I really applaud you for taking that. And I I kind of did something similar. Like when I used to work for big marketing and advertising agencies, that's where you it's like almost like we go through college, we go through all these things, we get this education we're probably never gonna use. But when you go into a field, like in a career field, marketing and advertising, we'll call it for both of us, go learn from the big dogs, go learn from the people who are getting the big paychecks, who understand what they're doing. That's the education that's really gonna matter as you formulate a career, or if you're trying to get into entrepreneurship. It's almost like working for somebody but being business coached at the same time, right? You know, it's like they don't know that. But for you, you're like, this makes sense to me. I'm going to go down this path because this is gonna get me closer to where I want to be. And what you found, I'm assuming, is when you were at this agency, you found, okay, I got this dialed now. I still love it. You were able to do like a temp check on that. I still love it, and I've learned a lot about it. And then tell us what happened next.

SPEAKER_00 14:08

Yeah, so I think, I mean, first of all, I can like put myself in the headspace of being there for those first six months because I was like, I've really I don't only have to prove this to myself, like I have to prove to everyone at the company that this was an intelligent hire. So I was gonna put butt off. Yeah. Um, so because I was working so hard, I'll call it. I don't recall working super long hours or anything, but you know, working, working really diligently and hard, um, I was recognized for it. So it was a really good work environment for me to work at an agency, which is great because that's what I do now. But I loved shifting gears from client to client and looking at the commonalities among different brands and just being that voice of authority in my lane to clients and to the internal partners was just like really um really fit my personality type to work in that environment. And so I just continued to thrive. So eventually hired a couple SEOs, and then as the org was changing a little bit, they're like, why don't you just lead all of performance marketing or growth marketing tactics? So got to kind of cobble up a couple other team members and continue to hire. And the only reason I left that company was, you know, one agency life sometimes falters, so they were kind of in a downturn. They had done a couple rounds of layoffs, so I just felt like it was possibly starting to sink. Um, and my husband and I, with our new child, relocated to South Bay, so you know, further away from San Francisco where the office was. So had um had we not moved, I probably would have rowed the ship out longer, but it was gonna be like a 50-minute commute on you know, on train both ways or each way. So I was I was not that interested in doing that with a new kid at home. Um, so I took some other risks and I went in a totally different direction that crashed and burned real quickly. Um again, the idea of like doing something new and challenging, and it ended up being I was working for a V VPN company trying to figure out how to grow the user base. I don't even know if the goal was internationally, but they just really didn't understand the um concentration of users around the globe. And so they wanted someone to come in to be that analyst to put it all together and then build the roadmap as to how to do better, both for um app store optimization, since I had done SEO, app store optimization is very similar, and then overseeing some paid media. So I went in and did that, and it became very clear that one, my manager was um really not up to the level of seniority he had at the company. And so that kind of was challenging for me. I think I dealt with it fine. I don't know that cross-functionally people knew I had issues with that. Um, but the second thing was they had not hired, this was a brand new hire. So I don't think they really knew what they wanted in the role. And whatever it was I was finding for them to want, it just wasn't landing. So it was a very temporary job. I think I was there for a little under a year because it was very apparent that this wasn't gonna be a fit for either party. Wasn't serving you. That's not where you were meant to be. Yeah, and it wasn't serving them, and like they had a really big aha. Um, the places around the c around the globe where they were big ended up being like um US military bases. Okay. I think they could have found that without my help, but you know, that's that's really kind of what it came down to. So throughout the globe, we were still marketing to Americans basically to use their product.

SPEAKER_01 17:36

I could see how you were like, okay, this was like something different. I tried it, wasn't for me, moving on. So what led you to your now agency, Panak? You know, at what point did you have that pivot where you were like, you kind of almost like started to get to a point maybe where you felt stuck? You know, you felt like you were like waiting for more these jobs that you were, you would start, you'd do a great job, you'd be recognized, but was it like you always felt like something was still missing?

SPEAKER_00 18:08

Yeah. Well, I was title hopping. So after I left that VPN company, um, I found a great company with a kid subscription box. It was local, the employees were all great, but I just didn't feel like I was doing enough there. So I wanted to jump to a more senior level role. And I found that in a wearable tech company. Um, so I was very excited to make that pivot and have more responsibility. It was a Chinese-owned company that was ramping up in the US. They quickly ramped down after ramping up in the US or attempting to ramp up, I should say. Um so I think it was that one door closed, I was laid off, um, but another door open, being like, I can get onto any consultancy um network, like a Fiverr or an Upwork, and see who needs my services. So I really just started consulting. I was also pregnant with my third kid. And so I was like, you know, I'm not really working too hard right now anyway, so let's just take a gamble. Um, and I started consulting, and I did that for about two years mainly with two like hero brands that gave me about 40 hours across the two of them. Um, but I slowly found more consulting gigs and started to build a network of freelancers, and that eventually kind of rolled into um, I don't want to work with freelancers, I want to work with staff members. So we ended up hiring our first employee and like really in, you know, incorporating, I guess, as Pannock right as the pandemic was hitting.

SPEAKER_01 19:30

Oh, that's fun. When everybody's budgets are going down the drain, and you're like, I'm starting a business, that had to have been hard to navigate. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:38

Yeah, I mean, it was hard. But I think like I do think the risk-taking thing is something I've done fairly well. So basically, I got to a point where retainers were large enough to hire um a full-time staff member, if not two. And so then I was like, cool, I don't know what the runway will look like. And this was, you know, December right before the pandemic happened. Hired my first person. And then as the pandemic happened, not only did they um leave without any notice, they said any open invoices were not going to fulfill. Uh, so now I have headcount, I have payroll, I have, you know, healthcare 401k, all that fun stuff for my first employee. And I have no proof that I'm gonna have revenue anytime soon that's going to cover her headcount.

SPEAKER_01 20:26

But you're taking the risk because you're, I think what I know exactly how you feel. It's like you're almost like, I'm not gonna live in the what if this doesn't happen? You're gonna live in the it's gonna happen. And you're you know, like my last episode was all about manifesting and and whatnot. And it's like, yes, you can manifest. You should live in that life of this is where I'm going and just believe it. But you also have the tactical skill that you're putting forth to actually make that happen, right? We're not just gonna sit back with our hot tea and hope that it like hits us like a train, right? So I I mean, what I hear from you that is unbelievably impressive to me is you've got a lot of grit, girl. Like you've got a lot of grit, and you are somebody that doesn't settle. And I think that that's something that a lot of people struggle with is like people just get so dang used to settling in so many different ways of life, but it's like you are a true real life story of hey, every time something wasn't working for me, I pivoted. And you pivoted until you got to this point. And I I think it's I love that you've just casually thrown in there, you know, and at this time I was uh having babies and they were just in the background. That's a really big deal. That's freaking hard to go through all these different life changes, have these babies be pregnant, you know, have newborns. How how far apart are your kids in age?

SPEAKER_00 21:47

Um, three and a half years top to bottom. So I've got 12, 10, and eight now.

SPEAKER_01 21:51

That's that is so hard. And like the fact that you're not like because that's like my whole thing. I'm like, oh my god, I'm doing all this and I have a million kids. You're like, oh, and by the way, I I had three children. Along the way, you know, like that is you are a total badass, in my opinion. Um, but I think that that's huge. And so for you, okay, so you get to this point and you're like, all right, I learned that I really like SEO. I learned that I've gone the Fiverr route, you know, the upwork route, the the freelance route. Like you gave yourself a ladder to climb for yourself, right? That's a big deal. And so here you are now. You have this agency, you have an employee. The fact that you're off, I don't know if people understand this. If you don't own a business, you probably, if you have a nine to five, you think when she says, Oh, I'm offering a 401k and healthcare, you probably think, Oh, well, every employer does that. No, my friends, when you own your own business, that is a very expensive, very difficult thing to do. And the fact that she's doing that is like a very big deal. And so tell me, Nikki, like when you started Panak, you know, like you said, you started in a freelancing place, now you're this place, you have a staff member, you're like all excited about it. What do you feel like? Do you feel aligned with where you're at now? Do you feel like this is what I've been trying to get to, or do you feel like you're still on another lily pad searching for the final?

SPEAKER_00 23:11

Yeah, that's that's a very good question. And I feel like some soul searching on my end too is like fully not um developed, I guess. So we uh we continue taking risks. So every time we got like about four new clients, we would hire another team member. So we got the agency. We're now about, I think 12, 11 or 12 full-time employees.

SPEAKER_01 23:31

Oh, you have oh my gosh, I thought you meant the person. Oh my 12 employees, that's massive.

SPEAKER_00 23:37

Yeah, I mean, it's it's a different level for sure than than one or two. Um, I think the first year was basically two of us. So it was, you know, nice to have that uh, you know, that growth over the years. Um, but I think like the reflection is I'm only as good as I am the moment I am because I don't know more, right? So like our first couple years of business, I think I was panicked and freaking out all the time because we didn't actually have strong SOP standard operating procedures. And I was just like, well, I'm hiring experts. They should all know how to do things the way I do things. Um, and so it just kind of hit my head on the wall because I'm like, why are they doing it so differently than me? I don't get how they're thinking. And this was, you know, about my team members that I should be like so thrilled and honored they're coming to work with me. But I was just kind of feeling this level of disappointment. And so I think it was like moving into figuring out how to use a project management system, how to customize it for our needs, really kind of helped put me at ease. And I'm like, okay, now we've like 2.0'd some of our processes, um, did the same with like reporting and analytics, and now we're kind of in the evolution of how do we bring AI into the mix of what we're doing. So to answer the question, like it does feel like a lily pad. I think the macro environment made it, made it so, right? Like, I think had AI not come forward at the rate it is and all the change with everything marketers do nowadays, I would have felt like alignment more so than I probably feel right now. But I think like I'm not, you know, I have some agency friends who own SEO or um email businesses or organic social businesses, and they're just like, I'm done. As soon as all my clients roll up, like I'm I'm just pivoting altogether. I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to be competed with, or I don't want AI to compete with me and I'm not gonna integrate it into my agency. But to me, it's more like this is a way to, you know, make all of us more efficient at our job. I mean, there's a ton of things in SEO, in paid media, in affiliate that humans have been doing forever that are basically like just clicking buttons, right? So, like if technology can enable us to actually be strategic and not just doers in some of our disciplines, we're all gonna be that much more powerful. So I'm really excited about this moment, but for that, it feels like another lily pad.

SPEAKER_01 25:59

Yeah, we are constantly having to evolve, right? I mean, just as human race, uh, business people and our relationships, we're constantly having to evolve. So I totally understand that. And, you know, to some people, that might sound scary. You know, I think some people like to just like be comfortable all the time. But I mean, talk to the listeners about that a little bit. You know, if you had decided to be comfortable instead of taking all these different risks and these different chances and getting to where you are now and you're still an evolving piece, right? What do you think that would have looked like for you?

SPEAKER_00 26:33

Yeah, I mean, I'm I'm a glass half empty kind of person, unfortunately. Like I don't know, I don't know how that came to be in Minnesota where like everyone's kind of like nice and happy about everything, but I'm like, there's always, there's always something more. Like we could always like could have done that a little differently. Um, so I think I would be, I don't, it's it's hard to go back and reflect that way. Like I think I would feel like I was sort of stuck and trapped if I was doing the corporate route. I think my my dad owned a small local business, and so I had seen entrepreneurship growing up. Um, and so I think I kind of knew all along that I wanted to go this route and be my own boss and make my own decisions. That being said, like one of the things I'll tell my husband all the time is like, I feel like I would be better if I had a boss. Like I need a board of directors or something. Like, I just need someone to kick me in the butt and tell me to work harder in this area because I just it's not like I'm enjoying being stuck in different parts of the work, but like I'll sit in it for a really long time. Um, so I don't know that I fully answered your question, but that's you know, you did.

SPEAKER_01 27:38

You did. I mean, it's it's that feeling of like, uh, I would have been stuck in something that I wasn't totally satisfied with, you know. And and I get that, like what you just said as an entrepreneur. It is hard. I mean, that's another thing that people have to understand is discipline is huge. You know, I mean, you're probably a type A person, you know, I think a lot of entrepreneurs are type A, it doesn't mean you have to be. There's plenty of room for type B entrepreneurs out there, you know, it just looks a little different structure-wise, but it that is hard, you know. It's like all of a sudden you are your own boss. To where when you're used to working a nine to five, if a boss says, hey, have this report done and on my desk by two o'clock on Friday, you're having it there at 12 o'clock on Friday and you're making sure it happens, hell or high water, right? Where it's like easy when you work for yourself, you're like, okay, well, I have like 75 things I have to do right now. I'm just gonna do these two, you know, but all the while, you have things that are just gonna keep stacking. You have to get through it, you have to garner that discipline. Otherwise, things can get a little crazy. So I understand what you say, you know, when you're like, I wish I just had somebody pushing me. I oftentimes feel like, you know, things that I know I'm actually good at. Like I used to have a uh social media marketing agency that I ran, like a boutique online agency. And when I was working for other people, it was like I knew what I had to do, even though I was my own boss and I got it done. Now that it's like, oh my God, I have to post on my own social media. What am I gonna post about today? Well, all these things I can easily tell everybody else how to do it. I'm like, ugh, you know, so I I get what you're saying. So I mean, gosh, I mean, for you, I feel like the sky's the limit. Like, I really get this vibe from you that you're like, you know what? It's not over till it's over. And like, this is just another chapter. You've built a beautiful book at this point. The chapters leading up to where you are now are success, grit, you know, taking risks. You have everything that embodies becoming a successful entrepreneur, right? And so I like when people hear stories like yours because you just didn't settle. You sought for more. And I think that that's huge. If what's like a lesson that you could tell the listeners that entrepreneurship taught you or continues to teach you that no other job ever has?

SPEAKER_00 29:50

Um I mean, I think it's advice I still struggle to take, um, that I give myself that people give me is just to kind of like go with grace, be um you just like nothing's gonna happen overnight. And even if I'm like, today we're gonna switch doing this thing this way, and we're gonna start doing it a new way. My team can't just drop everything and be like, cool, I'm gonna do that 100% effective today. And I think sometimes, you know, you get lost in a detail or fixated on a detail, and you can't get past the idea of it taking time for change to occur. So I think the grace and the patience is um really important to remember. Um, and then I would say the other thing that's helped me a lot, especially since I don't have like people to hold me accountable to my tasks since I am like independently owned and operated. We don't have outside investors helping us, um, is having a an executive coach and being part of a mastermind, just you know, sometimes I think that I should know it all. So why should I pay someone else to give me advice? I can, you know, find it numerous places at this point. Like I'm not that dumb. I can go figure it out. Right. But when it's kind of brought to you by someone who's doing this professionally and they're trying to help you hold you accountable, like it's just a different level. So I do think I was a little slow to invest in the coaching and a mastermind. And I think those are things that were really necessary for me to unlock a couple of issues I was facing.

SPEAKER_01 31:33

I feel the exact same way, and I preach this on a soapbox all the time to people. It's like, I think people see business coach and they just think, like you said, oh, I can go figure that out. I can go find the answers. But the thing is, is like it doesn't matter what you're trying to get into. You need to go to someone you look at as being like your idol in that area of business, someone that has done it, who has already built it from the ground up, who can teach you in a much more quick, dynamic, efficient way, than for you to have to scrape and scrape and scrape and scrape. And I'm telling everybody, uh, ChatGPT is my best friend, but it can only go so far. You know, it's not real life experience. It's spewing data, right? And so it's like, I agree with you, Nikki. Like for anybody, I don't care what you're looking to get into. You could be starting Airbnbs, you could be looking how to start a bakery, I don't care what you're doing. Find a coach who did it and can teach you, like give you a roadmap because that is gonna make you so much more successful from the beginning. You will avoid so many different hiccups, it will just make it much more streamlined. So I'm I'm glad you bring that up because I completely agree with you. Um so for you, like when you think about, you know, yourself as an entrepreneur and you think about anybody who could be listening to you, what are some ad, what's like the biggest piece of advice takeaway besides business coaching? Like, what's your what's your mantra for other women who are like feeling they're not in the right place, they're not aligned, and they want to take their life to a different stuff. What would you say?

SPEAKER_00 33:04

I would say something along the line of like, don't overthink it. Like there's always there's always a reason to say no, right? So find the reason to say yes. And then I'll I'll pull in my husband a little bit here. He's an engineer, so he's always like, look for the um minimal viable product, right? Like you don't have to have perfection, you don't have to have all of your three pricing tiers like fully mapped out. Talk to some of your potential clients, see what they're willing to pay. Like just figure out if you have the MVP and you have some product market fit, and then you can perfect along the way. But I think a lot of people stop themselves before they start because they either hear, oh, there's so much competition already. I think there's like 25,000 different agencies in the US alone. Like, why would I start one? You know, like that's so stupid. Like everyone has 20 different options for their um for their industry, right? Like, why another one? Um, but you know, we do this with new clothing brands, new skincare brands are coming out every single day. So why not, right? So I think um finding the reason to just say yes and try, and then probably look at some of your financials, right? To make sure you are actually comfortable not making an income for however long you think it's going to be before you make an income. If you're going to be a service business and you're gonna be alone, you're probably gonna make income, like profit all the time, right? So I think um it's just kind of understanding the the risk and making sure you're comfortable with it so you don't pull out of your new um venture too quickly.

SPEAKER_01 34:37

Yeah. It's definitely got a lot of hills and valleys when you start your own business and being able to navigate the valleys is just as important as celebrating the top, right? So I couldn't agree more. And I really appreciate your perspective. It's very enlightening. So let's just say that we have some great entrepreneurial women listening to this right now. How could you help them in their businesses?

SPEAKER_00 35:03

Yeah, I mean, I think the things that I could help other women who are thinking of starting their business is probably a little bit around um the product market fit or service market fit, just to make sure, you know, they have an outside voice to say, like, yes, I think you're on to something here. Um, and then probably like just tools and encouragement, like office hours, if you will, to maybe mentor and like keep in touch with some of these women who are really um, you know, wanting a sounding board to run issues and ideas by.

SPEAKER_01 35:31

I love that. I think for anybody listening to this to understand how hugely beneficial to learn those types of things from someone like Nikki is, is honestly a gift that you should give yourself. So, how can people contact you, Nikki? I'm gonna make sure I put all of it in the show notes so I make it easy on people, but what's the best way to get a hold of you?

SPEAKER_00 35:50

Yeah, so our domain is pennock.co, p-en-n-o-c-k.co, and I'm just Nikki at Pennock. So N-I-K-K-I at Pennock.co is how you can get in touch with me over email. Email is the best way to get in touch with me. Um, I am of that age where email is just kind of my favorite communication channel. So um, that's where you'll have the most success in getting in touch.

SPEAKER_01 36:13

Well, I am excited for anybody who takes advantage of that. I myself could really use some SEO love in my businesses. So I will be uh setting something up with you very soon. But I appreciate you being here. You know, I mean, I I truly admire what you've done. I hope that everybody listening just gets to see how you don't have to, again, what's the word, settle? You don't have to settle. Chase those dreams, be willing to take risks. Understand that a lily pad is a lily pad. Picture, you know, you being a very cute frog, jumping across this pond, trying to get to your destination, but don't stop in your tracks, right? Keep it going, stay motivated, keep your eye on the prize, remember why you're doing this, right? And for someone like you, Nikki, who has done all of this, well, starting with one dream that continues to evolve, having three babies, having a husband, going through multiple different moves, I applaud you, my friend. And I really appreciate you being here today. Thank you for everything that you've shared with our listeners. It has been a true pleasure.

SPEAKER_00 37:13

Jenny, it's been great to be here.

SPEAKER_01 37:15

Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity. Absolutely. Well, I can't wait to work with you soon. And everybody, make sure you check the show notes for how to get a hold of Nikki yourself so that you can take your business to the next levels. Have a great day, everybody. If something in this episode made you sit up a little straighter or dream a little bigger, don't ignore it. That's your future nudging you. I'm living proof that you can start messy, start scared, start in the worst timing, and still create something beautiful. Thank you for listening to Girl, Why Not You. Now go take one small step towards the life you've been craving. Hit subscribe, leave a review if you feel called, and share this with someone who's ready for more.