Episodio 4: Lindsay White, The Little Milk Bar

Lindsay White is an entrepreneur and the founder of The Little Milk Bar, a distinctive hospitality concept in Utah known for its creative approach to beverages, food, and highly curated customer experience.

Recognized as part of Utah’s Forty Under 40 and featured in multiple regional publications, Lindsay has built more than a business—she’s built a brand that blends creativity, operational discipline, and a strong point of view. The Little Milk Bar stands out not just for what it offers, but for how it makes people feel, combining thoughtful design, intentional menu development, and a clear brand identity.

As a business owner, Lindsay represents a new generation of operators who understand that success today requires more than a good product—it requires clarity in positioning, consistency in execution, and the ability to translate vision into a scalable operation. Her journey reflects the realities of building something original while navigating growth, risk, and the day-to-day demands of running a business.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:06

Welcome to Swaza Podcast. So we're here today with uh Lindsay White. She is the uh founder and CEO of the Little Milk Bar. That you know nowadays is like a big big deal. Yeah. Right. Uh and the branded started um, let's go, let's go back to the story, right? Uh the branded started in 20. Well, you started business in 2014. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 0:29

How was that? Hard. I thought I was gonna be so successful from the beginning and it was gonna be easy because I quit my job to do that. Um, and it did not do very well, but it did get me to start the little milk bar in 2018.

SPEAKER_02 0:42

Okay, so let's just talk a little bit about that beginning. So you quit your job, you want to start like uh something for new or you start in Etsy, right? Yeah, uh with lot 801. Lot 801, yeah. Uh huh. And how how was that? Like how was the how how how did you start? I guess you started with some initial capital.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

How how I started with like $400. Okay. I designed some patterns for baby leggings. Oh, and I ordered like my own fabric. I didn't even know how to sew at the time. I ordered the fabric. I learned to sew over a weekend on a YouTube video. Wow. I like just Googled how to make baby leggings, and by Monday, I opened my auntsy store and started selling baby leggings. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_02 1:26

Yeah, me too. Me too. I love I love the idea of because a lot of young moms like they want sometimes to stay home with their babies and stuff like that, or or oh, the young entrepreneurs have an idea. Um, what made you quit your job?

SPEAKER_00 1:40

Uh, I always wanted to be a business owner. Since I was a kid, I knew that's what I wanted. Um, it's just yeah, like in my blood. My abuelo, my grandpa, he was he owned a barber shop.

unknown 1:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:51

And then my my dad owns a flooring store here in in Utah. So uh seeing my dad be able to come to my softball games in the middle of the day, like I wanted that for my kids too. And so once I had my daughter, I knew I'm running out of time. I want to do this now. So I started my Etsy shop and ran that for about a year and a half. Okay. And doing both was very hard. Being a new mom, uh now running an Etsy shop and then also having my business or working for my full-time job. So I quit a year and a half in and went full force, and I shouldn't have. That was a mistake.

SPEAKER_02 2:26

When you say I shouldn't have, like, what what you know? Because like sometimes we're like, you know, I shouldn't have done this, but that sometimes that experience gives you a lot um of information, a lot of experience for you to, you know, something big like you're doing right now. So what what did you what did you get from this?

SPEAKER_00 2:44

So I can't say I would take it back because if I did, I wouldn't have the little milk bar. And everything I learned there got me to where I'm at. So it was the journey I was meant to take. But I I was the breadwinner in our family. We had just built a house, we moved into a home. My husband's career hadn't taken off yet. And so I just I had too much confidence in myself. And I thought if I quit and I only focus on my business, then I'll make more money and it will be fine. But when I quit my job, I had zero income coming in. I mean, my husband had income coming in, but mine stopped. And I didn't make money from that first company at all. So I was never to take it, never able to take an income. And so I say I probably should have ran them both longer together. So I still had money coming in and utilizing my paycheck while still trying to start it. Um, because that was a tough years.

SPEAKER_01 3:37

I have a question really quickly. Did you have any entrepreneurial experience prior to quitting your job, or was this just kind of like spur of the moment thing?

SPEAKER_00 3:46

Spur of the moment thing. Zero experience. But then I did watch my dad build his business and the company I worked at, um, it was a water filtration company, and it was kind of great to, it was a small company, and I got to learn from the business owner. And when I went there, there was only a few employees, and by the time I left, we had more. So I got to learn from people, but I had never had my own experience. Experience. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 4:07

I think I think Diana, because I it's something that we talked about before. Like you guys grew up, like you and Amon grew up in the business seeing that. And I think a lot of young Latino entrepreneurs, second generation, um, they see their parents working and they're like, okay, I'll either take over or I'll build something of my um of my own. Um, however, like we sometimes we have that fear of like, you know, and is this possible? Can I do this? Is this possible? Can I can I do this, you know? And so uh it's it's a great experience. And Lindsay is a big deal. She was listed on the 1002 Wadua Forbes and the uh you know 40, not under 40, 40 under 40, exactly, from the uh Youth of Business magazine. And um, and I I want you to share this this experience because even then, even doing this thing of I'm gonna just drop everything, because I would have people also stay like a long time, oh I you know, I want to do the sure thing. So, do you feel that if you had done um and we can never know, right? Because if do you feel that if you have done this, it would be slower? How because it's sometimes like the need yeah makes you kind of go into a little bit more. After you said I you I quit, I'm gonna do this. Did you go out looking for education, information, and business ownership? How did that how did that go? Like how did you get those like let's walk through how um you know water 801 became the the the little milk bar.

SPEAKER_00 5:45

Um like at what point did you see that pivot?

SPEAKER_02 5:47

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 5:48

So if I didn't quit my job, it would not have got me to the little milk bar because I got to a point where it was so stressful that like I literally cried myself to sleep sometimes. I cry in the shower, this is not working. I made the biggest mistake of my life. And so I just kept saying, There's something I'm missing, there's something I'm missing. What is it? Like I know that I'm capable of making this work. I didn't think it was a me problem, I thought it was a what is the idea? Like the La 801 baby leggings isn't a thing. I'm not passionate about that. I just kind of started it because that was an easy thing to start. And so I knew that there was a piece missing there. And so it got to a point where I was just constantly looking up, looking for what that missing piece was. And what that was is uh I was at a wedding, I was breastfeeding my son Coda. He was about eight months old, and my mom came over to me and she said, Do you really think you should be doing that here? I think you should go to the bathroom and do that. And I remember just looking at her and thinking, if she had said this to me five years ago with my daughter, I would have, I would have gotten right up and went to the bathroom. I would have been probably humil humil humiliated, embarrassed, probably cried in the bathroom feeding her. But that second breastfeeding journey for me was I just had more confidence and I knew my rights and I was educated, and I just told her, No, thanks, I'm comfortable where I'm at. So I sat there and fed him, and then on the way home is when I turned to my husband and like that light bulb went off for me. And I was like, that's what I'm supposed to do. I need to create a brand that is a best friend for every breastfeeding mom, giving her permission to feed at the table. Sometimes we just need that, especially with our generations. A lot of the time it comes from our parents of that's a decent or like I was raised that you go to a private room and you cover up and you feed. And so I was breaking that generational thought process and and then now educating my mom. Of course. And now she's my biggest supporter. Yeah, she she's great, but that was like that pivot of this is where it is. So then when we released our milkmaker t-shirt and it sold out, that was just letting me know, yeah, this is where we I have never sold out of anything.

SPEAKER_02 7:53

So what I see here is like you found a mission, you found like that's the purpose of what what you're doing. Because sometimes we do want to have a business because we make money out of it, but when we find purpose behind behind what what everything that you do comes, yeah, that that you know explodes.

SPEAKER_01 8:13

And so that's a really quick question. In that moment when you started designing the um the cover-up shirts, what were what did you say that they were called? It's a milkmaker t-shirt. A milkmaker t-shirt. When you designed that, was there anything on the market at that point that you there was nothing like it?

SPEAKER_00 8:29

There was nothing like it. Breastfeeding wasn't like a cool thing. Yeah, like I remember cool. But yeah, we made it now. It's everywhere. You can go to an Etsy shop, you'll see so many like knockoffs of our RAM or like breastfeeding. You were the blueprint. Yes, we were the blueprint. I love this. Did not exist before us. Okay. Even when I first started posting on Instagram, I remember our videos kept getting taken down, our photos were taken down, and they said this is being removed for sexual content. That really lit a fire in me and made me realize how much more we needed this RAM to exist because the world was still viewing us in a really bad way. Yeah, and something that is very natural. It's very natural. Yeah, you had a beating featuring your tonics. But an ad could come up about with a woman in lingerie. So, like the double standard here is not okay. So I ended up doing a petition. Um, we turned it into an event for us down the little milk bar. Of um, we already had an audience of moms who were being in power for breastfeeding and educating, being the first generation of their family to do it publicly. Probably finding their their community. You built a community. Yeah, that's good. So we we got them in, we did a petition and we're like, hey, this is what's happening to us. This is not okay. We're so tired of this. And they signed it. We got like 20,000, 30,000 signatures in a couple of weeks. We got the attention of Meta. So Meta was actually in the process of changing their policies for birth uh content. Okay. And um, so we were we had a seat at the table to help them change their breastfeeding content. They then changed their breastfeeding policies and now allowed it. We still have problems. Some of our apps still come down, but now it is um in their policies to have breastfeeding content.

SPEAKER_02 10:09

And and that's the thing. Sometimes, like uh in our business journey, we find these things that can be like it could bring your business down in your business. But you actually use community to support you to, you know, like to bring awareness to do something different. And that's amazing because like a lot of business owners, new business owners, um, they come on come in with it with a dream and they want to do something, and then they all of a sudden find these uh hiccups of the road. Exactly, exactly right. Just spare the artist y'all. But it it was amazing that you know, like using the community, um, you know, going back there and not stopping because because you were like, no, now I'm more passionate, now I'm doing more. I think you're probably very competitive. I don't know, but totally, but uh but then it's you know, like it's doing these things, and uh and uh this will mark the difference between you know having something stopping that because you had that first business, it was fun and probably uh like to say, okay, I'm starting something, you have a hope there, yeah. You didn't have a mission there, but you found your mission, and then now all of a sudden it's like I'm gonna educate these people and I'm gonna go big and I'm gonna make sure that people listen. And sometimes, like, we like we especially Latinos here in the the the US. Sometimes we're like, we are the only ones in the room, we are the ones, you know, and we want to find that community.

SPEAKER_01 11:35

You've you've built that community, and so that's that's do you feel like building that community or building a community within your brand has been a huge part of the success of Little One?

SPEAKER_00 11:47

100% why we've been successful of it. And it and it was very intentional. Like when Instagram kept taking down our posts, it got to a point where it's like, well, what do I do? How do I market a product that I can't even post? So what do like, do I just shut down? Like they're just gonna stop me. But I was like, no, we need to turn in this kind of into a PR thing. Like, yes, we were fighting the moral standards of it all, but also I have this community already that we're talking about this. They're pretty mad about this too. How can we turn this into a huge campaign to really bring some light um to the little milk bar? And so when we did that, we actually did a shadow ban campaign where we made black sweatshirts with milk bar on them. And we did really cool photos, like we made moms look so cool while they were breastfeeding. It went viral, and then like all of the big news articles were were publishing it, so it amplified us even more and like put our name on the map. That's wonderful. But let me let me back up all of it.

SPEAKER_02 12:47

How did you beat that community? How did it start? Yeah, exactly. What were the steps? If I'm a new business owner, I have this passion, I have this thing, how do I start? Because I think that's where people get lost. Where did you start?

SPEAKER_00 13:00

Social media. Social media is free, and we live in a time where it's um easier than ever, and at the same time also very hard because there's lots of competition. But I will say when I started in 2019, 2018, there wasn't a lot of competition in my industry specifically. There was zero. And so since we were the first, it kind of caught fire pretty quickly. But um, you don't have to pay for news articles anymore or magazines or billboards or TV ads. You have social media as well. So I started building content on my social media page, and I was very intentional and not being salsy. So a lot of times I wouldn't even post about our new product. I would just be talking about information, education on breastfeeding, um, educating working moms on their rights, going back to work and pumping. And so we were creating valuable content for them, but in every post, we just made sure that we included one of our products. Of course. So, for example, if I did a post on um when you're going back to work, what your federal rights are in pumping, we would have a mom sitting at a chair wearing our milkmaker t-shirt, but that wasn't the main focus, it was the the information on there. So it would like like a new mom would have all of her new friends that just went back to work. Like, you need to see this post. And then it would become so shareable that we just would get lots of followers from that.

SPEAKER_02 14:20

And that's that's a good thing because these days we don't want to be sold to. We want to find things we want, you know, like we want to go for what we believe, and that's a great way. But I I wanted to ask about it because it's so I think it's a question that a lot of young entrepreneurs have. Either they have a great product or a great idea, but they are concentrating selling it instead of creating that creating unity, and I think that makes a big difference. So that's that's that's amazing. So you had that um with Meta, you are working now, so you still have some of your ads uh taken down. What is the process? What do you have to do?

SPEAKER_00 14:57

Like, you know, when that happens, do you like go back to the we petition it and they always they come back and they still take it down? We're just at their disposal, like they do whatever they want. So I'd say 20% of the time we petition it and they will put it back up. 80% of the time they still remove it. Wow. So it's it's it's hard work. It's very hard, and it's hard to work with any ad agencies because they aren't used to that. They're like, oh, this got flat. We now are used to it.

SPEAKER_02 15:25

Like it's just regular. Yeah, let's go look into your life. I mean, your mom, your business owner, a mother, a wife. Yeah, exactly. How how how do you manage all of that together? You know, having a successful business, doing all of this, but also having your family and having the value of putting my family first. That's how all of this came about, right? How do you how is your day?

SPEAKER_00 15:49

How is your everyday? It's a hard question to answer because I don't do it all. Um, I'm very lucky. I my husband is a stay-at-home dad. Okay. He quit his job about four years ago, five years ago. Um, I got to a point in my business where we were doing well, but I was doing well with kids at home. And I was like, how, like, I can't imagine if I didn't have to watch the kids at home, like how much farther I could take this. So I asked my husband one day, I'm like, Will you quit your job and stay home with the kids and let me focus on the business? I promise I'll double my revenue this year. And he's like, Okay, I believe in you. Let's do it. So he quit his job, and within 12 months, we more than doubled that year.

SPEAKER_01 16:28

Shout out to Stay At Home Dead.

SPEAKER_00 16:29

So he, I couldn't, I could not do what I do without him. I'm allowed to go to events in the evening, come to podcast interviews, go to work every, you know, like he really helps me um with the home front and allows me to do that. So did you ever face mom guilt in any point? Yeah, so mom guilt's a crazy thing for me. I think no matter what, you'll always face mom guilt. But I'm kind of a different um beast. I feel I love that. I I know what I'm working for, so I don't have a lot of guilt. I I feel like, especially with the generation of my grandpa being the first one to come to the US, um he worked as hard as he could to help his kids. So now my dad's here, he's got a little bit of roots in Utah building his own business, and he did what he could for me. And so I feel like I'm very intentional in knowing that I'm building this business to help my kids get even farther. And so there's guilt occasionally on day-to-day, like, oh, I wish I could be there more, do this. But I'm really, I really work hard to give them a better life than I had. And yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:44

Yeah, and and that's you know, I think that's one like the Latino culture has a lot of that family thing. We work together, we go through hardship together, we do these things, and we build for our kids and for the kids of our kids. And so that that that's pretty amazing. But um, I also hear you saying, I don't do everything. And I think it's one mistake sometimes that as a business owner, we wear start and we and obviously what business is. And and we want to hold to that, and we don't understand sometimes that you know there is a point in time that you have to say, hey, you know, so I have to let go and trust my team as well.

SPEAKER_01 18:20

That's hard.

SPEAKER_02 18:20

Yeah, and yeah, trust your team. Your husband is part of your team. The people that you work with are, you know, you have to trust that they are gonna do their work. And and when I say trust is not just letting yeah, you don't you don't take responsibility on it, but you trust that the person is gonna be there and is gonna respond. And I think that makes a what are some of the hats that you wear for your business at this point?

SPEAKER_00 18:42

So I um I don't do customer service anymore. Thank goodness. I have a customer service thing, so that's been really great. And they all talk through Instagram, social media, all of that stuff. Yeah, they do that. Um, and I have an operations manager, Candace, who's great too, and she manages like more of the day-to-day. So what I do right now is I still am in marketing. Marketing is my secret sauce of my superpower. I love it. I'm really for marketing? Did not. Okay. Okay. I went to school. I did have a degree in business on my minors in graphic design. Where did you go to school? Um, Utah Tech. Okay, cool. Yeah. And uh so I work on designing new products. I work on um all of our marketing launches, launches as my secret sauce too. I love introducing a new product to the market. That's fun. Um, I still work on social media, but I do have a social media strategist now, and that has been life-changing for me. I've been the one running our Instagram account for years, even though I wasn't the one always replying to comments. Um, I now have a social media strategist that we hired in January, January, and she's been amazing. It's given me a minute to breathe. Breathe. No, seriously. Yeah. And um, and then managing the team. Um, yeah, yeah, that's good.

SPEAKER_02 19:51

That's that's pretty amazing. I love that. You know, I yeah, me too. Now, when you say on your business, like because you said about marketing is my my secret sauce. Uh, you love launching products. Do you have any advice for like you know, somebody trying to launch a product, trying to do things like that? What would be a couple things that you would say, hey, watch for a day? Marketing wise. Yeah, marketing wise.

SPEAKER_00 20:12

Okay. The launch is not about the day you launch, it's all about the work before. So to about two weeks is when you want to start talking about the product, hype you get up and really stories, stories, everything, like anything you can. TikTok sounds, TikTok sounds. You like it's the it's the before the launch that actually is important. A lot of people will go into a new product and they'll launch it and they'll be like, hey, we're launching a new product tomorrow. I can't wait for you to see it. They launch it and it's like crickets, yeah. And it's because you did not warm your audience enough to this. So I'd say two weeks. Yes, at least two weeks, you need to start talking about the product, getting them excited about it, showing all the features, telling them the story behind why you created this product so they can connect to that story as well. Um, but storytelling in general is is important. You're not selling a product, you're selling the emotion behind the product. And so it's really good. For instance, we did an Alibra, Ali, an Alibra named after my first daughter, is that uh our bestseller in the company, and it's a nursing bra. And we did a launch at the end of last year, and it's called Before the World Wakes. And so we did a whole launch video series of moms who were up in the morning because we usually are the first one up with the baby, feeding the baby. Everyone else is asleep, that you're seeing the sun come up. So we did a video sequence on that, and it was called Before the World Wakes. And so we did little snippets. We did like three or four different, like seven to ten second videos to kind of warm them up with some emotional text over it, really hitting on the harsh rings of what that emotion feels like when you're the only one up with your baby. And then we did a whole lot of.

SPEAKER_01 21:59

I'm sorry. That I'm gonna cry you guys. Um, but yeah, I'm a new mom as well. Wow. I'm not even gonna cry. Oh my god, I did not expect to cry right now. But no, everything that you're saying is so true to my life right now. I'm a new mother, I'm postpartum. And yeah, that is true. I am up with my daughter. Wow. I did not want to cry. You know what? But this is but you're just speaking truth. You are very, very much speaking truth to my reality right now. So the people that are in that reality, it hits home. It hits home so hard. So thank you for like just breeding light to this. I feel like all new moms can relate to this, and I have so many friends, and I've also I feel like in my journey right now, I didn't mean to make this film me right now, but um, I'm learning to grow up, or not grow up, but like I'm learning to build a friend group. Thank you. Um, that are moms as well that I can relate to. And I feel like that is so important that moms have that community that we can relate to. And you know, this is a whole new journey for us. So thank you for kind of honestly shedding light to that because that's so true. It really is.

SPEAKER_02 23:09

But for the movie, it's cells only. Oh my goodness. You're you're changing your identity, yeah. Especially like if you're a first time identity, you're changing your whole identity of like I'm now this person responsible for this the little girl. Yeah, and and and to me it's amazing because like this is this is connection. Yeah, she's crying, it's connection. It's I feel, I feel, uh, and and that's what we need to learn as as business owners, because she has a mission, because you believe on what you've started, you pass this on, and somebody feels hurt, somebody feels this is my place. And I think it's uh it's it's super important. Um, I'm starting my business, I'm very passionate. Whatever it is, I mean, this case is this, but sometimes it's something else. It's baking a cake, is having, you know, like uh it's the moments with baking the cake.

SPEAKER_00 23:58

What are you? Yeah, it's like something to, and those are exactly it's not about the cake, it's about watching your daughter sum into womanhood, exactly. And so creating content around stuff like that of not the cake, but what is the emotions and feeling behind that?

SPEAKER_02 24:13

Because the other the other is exactly what what it is, too. Like you guys are celebrating the 19th year anniversary of your business. Yeah, and it starts like this, and you have see little pictures of Munotiana, and she was like what, say seven years old, baking and stuff like that. And this is this this was that. So, so what I take out of this, and if I like if I can kind of like put together something, is like we need to build connection. If we want to be successful, we can have the business idea, we have to have a mission, and we need to build connection, connection to our clients, understand where they are coming from, what's hurting them, what you know, and how our product, our service can, you know, and always speak to that one person.

SPEAKER_00 24:55

And what I mean by that is your social media posts, your email newsletters that go out, if you have an SMS list, don't try to, I don't try to make this problem. Oh, you can wear it during breastfeeding, but you can also wear it after. And you can, I mean, my 14-year-old daughter wears it too. Like you can't do that, you have to focus on exactly who your customer is and only speak to them because that happens. Yeah. And then they feel connected to it. But if I would have been like, oh, this is the bra for everyone, you would have felt no connection. Exactly, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 25:23

It's exactly what's behind it. I love that. And and that's so creating a target audience for who you are selling to is you can't sell to everybody.

SPEAKER_00 25:31

I actually, this is a piece of advice. Sorry, don't want to go over this. I create an avatar. Okay, my avatar's name is Rue. Okay. And um, it can be you can name yours whatever you want. But if you own a business, you have to do this. You have to get a piece of paper, you write down your your target customer's name. Like if an ideal customer for you, what are they buying? Or the person who's buying from you, what's their name? How old are they? Do they live in the suburbs? Do they live in the city? How many kids do they have? What kind of car do they drive? You should know this person better than you know yourself. And you're just like making their money enough. What's their favorite color? What TV shows do they watch on Netflix? What music do they listen to? Why do they buy how much money do they make a year? Literally every single thing about them you need to know. And then so every time you create a piece of content, email, newsletter, anything, you're writing to only that person.

SPEAKER_01 26:20

Yeah, and that's the difference I feel like between marketing and branding, creating that brand and that voice with is important so that you wait you're able to then follow through to who you are selling to.

SPEAKER_02 26:31

Well, I think I think this is this is a very big lesson that many times uh business owners miss having this client and not a client, the client, you know, that you are talking to, that you are, that you are relating to, and everything. And so I I really appreciate you saying that because I do believe that myself. And uh, but sometimes people think, oh no, I we want to sell to everybody who everybody's everybody's my customer, you know, everybody. And I'm like, no, you have to concentrate on the one that you say, and and sometimes I mean other people will see the value and they'll buy it and everything, but your client is that one that you were talking to, and you're generating that connection. So I appreciate you say you're saying that. That's a really good point.

SPEAKER_04 27:18

Yeah, that's a quick question, we'll see. So, what's the inbound marketing process that you're using for your company? Is that something important for you guys at all?

SPEAKER_00 27:26

So, what do you mean, elaborate?

SPEAKER_04 27:27

Like uh so I mean uh the the outbound is whatever you're putting out there for people to see, and then they come to you, right? But there's also uh an inbound system that allows you to connect with customers um in a more frequent basis. Like let's say you have an email list, you send them an email, and that kind of becomes a more interactive conversation with them. Yeah, I'm assuming you do it through DMs and why not, but uh what will that process be like for you guys and how important or meaningful it is for your company?

SPEAKER_00 27:59

One of the most important my team knows if somebody DMs us or comments us, comments on a post, we reply to them. Every single one. And because our brand is so emotional, if a mom reaches out to us and says, Oh my gosh, I love your bra, it changed my life, I no longer have this problem or this problem, and we ignore that or we don't respond to it. She now just feels like another customer. Yeah. So we have to make sure that we're replying with not just, oh, that's great. We reply with a real human connection. Like, we're so glad this has helped you. Let us know if there's anything else that we can do. We're wishing you so much love on your journey, or if a mom reaches out and says she weaned her baby, we respond with, oh, it's such a sweet, bittersweet process. Like, we we respond with real, real, real stuff, real connection, real connection.

SPEAKER_01 28:49

Yeah, yeah, that's important. I can see why that would be really important. I have a question, maybe going off topic a little bit. Have you felt or seen? Do you do like PR packages? Do you send them to influencer? Like, what is kind of that? Have you ever tapped into that type of thing?

SPEAKER_00 29:03

Okay, so this is a whole fun conversation. Yes, we do PR packages. I'm gonna like back up a little bit and going back to Poncho. Um and another way that we respond, we do have a text list and an email list, and we listen to those people don't always reply because they think that it's just uh a salesy thing, right? But like for instance, we had a mom reach out saying that she was having a really hard day um and she just needed a sweet message. We had sent a sweet message, it wasn't a salesie comment and we found her. I was like, you guys look her up in our in our orders and see if we have her address. We had her address and we sent her flowers that day. Oh wow, that's amazing. Those connections are important, so we do so much extra PR, like not necessarily PR foxes, which we do too, but we do a lot of that stuff. We send three bouquets of flowers to our community a month. Out of the and we have a list of like moms who may have reached out having a hard time or going through this. Um, and then we do have pair boxes that we send out. We probably send four or five throughout the year. We have a list of uh influencers that we work with, influencers, celebrities, UCG creators, and we do send to that, but we always leave half of the list open. And we will go through and see who our top 10 customers were for last month, um, who spent the most money with us last year. We'll go through who's been commenting and just engaging with our community. And we add them to the list, and then we always do a little giveaway too, where we'll like give away five just for people interacting um or liking our posts or whatever. So, yes, influencers, but we really do focus more than who actually supports you guys.

SPEAKER_01 30:39

That's important.

SPEAKER_02 30:40

Yeah, yeah, I I love that too. Um let's talk about. I mean, this is a lot of work, you know. You have you have a lot going on. How do you do? Do you feel lonely sometimes? Do you how do you take care of your mental health? How do you go about as I am this this CEO of this big company? I am making, I mean, you not only helping monks, but you have your employees that are depending on you and your company, huge team. How do you feel about that? Then how do you take care of yourself?

SPEAKER_00 31:11

This kind of goes back to the question of when you uh when you said, like, how do you put your family first and all of this? So I am not gonna sugarcoat it. When you are starting off as an entrepreneur, your family does not always come first. There are times where you do have to put your business first, especially when your family is relying on that income for you to have to be able to feed them. So there are days where it is definitely off balance. Business comes first, family comes first. Um, but there's a point that when you start to hire a team, you are able that like the it happens less and less. So you're able to focus more on the family. So there's that. Um, I thought of therapy every Thursday more. I love that therapy. Everyone for this today. Oh, thank you. Every Thursday we go, I go to therapy and it has your careful. This will be your therapy. It it does wonders. Um, and then entrepreneurship is very lonely. Yeah, yeah. Oh, I mean, even if you have a team around you and even if you have a family around you, um, I don't always want to be the one that comes home and talks about work all the time to my husband. We have to have a relationship outside of that. And I also don't want to, I'm not gonna go to work and talk about my personal life either. So there's very much two walls that you're kind of two rooms that you're set inside all the time, constantly. Yeah. And so I think it's so important to find other entrepreneurs that you can vent to. Um, I found a group, journey. Yes, yeah. There's a group that my friend Mackenzie from Thread Wallets uh she started called Female Founders. And I joined that about two years ago, and we go on about one to two trips a year. Um we've gone to Morocco, we've gone to Bali, we went to Costa Rica. That is so cool. I want to be in that group. It has changed my life drastically. Um, especially because there's not very many Latina owners. Like when I go to events, uh, there's sometimes you're the only one in the room. Yeah. Yeah. And so there's that we don't have a lot, I don't have a lot of roots here in Utah. I don't have connections to banks. I don't have so-and-so who owns this company that can help me figure out a manufacturer for this. The smaller thing.

SPEAKER_03 33:22

I'm the first one figuring out.

SPEAKER_00 33:24

I'm the first one figuring this out. And so when I joined that group, um, I was accepted in belonging in that. Yes, and the networking. So I always tell my husband, I can't afford to miss one of those trips because the value I get from them is incredible. I've met bankers, I've learned how to manage money. I learned that you're not supposed to put everything on a debit card and you're supposed to put it on your credit card in the business because you're protecting your own cash. Those are things I didn't know before. And so finding people within the entrepreneur give you tips and tricks to get better news. And you can vent to you and not feel simple.

SPEAKER_02 33:59

Yeah, exactly. Super, super important, you know, like um look for your tribe, find these people that are going through the same thing as you like here at Swazo. That's one thing that we're trying to build a lot too, is um to bring this, these young entrepreneurs that don't know, like they have a dream, but they don't know where to start and everything, you know, bring that connection, the education, you know, like giving as much information. That's one of the reasons that we started this podcast, is because we want our our uh clients to have somebody to look up to be inspired, a real person here from the community. You don't know what you don't know.

SPEAKER_00 34:39

So having different people come on this podcast is gonna be so valuable.

SPEAKER_02 34:43

Yeah, yeah. And so uh we really appreciate having you here sharing, you know, like this experience with us. Um, Diana, do you have any more questions?

SPEAKER_01 34:51

I feel like I want to go into the mark uh the networking aspect. How important do you feel like networking? I know you tapped a little bit into this, but how important do you feel like networking is for your business's success? Do you obviously because you said um you learned tips and tricks? I guess you kind of answered this.

SPEAKER_00 35:08

All of it. I feel I think people underrate um networking is just so underrated. You get invited to an event with other entrepreneurs, you need to go. You don't ever say no if you're able. Like I understand if some of you but like you you make space to go to those things. And I think early on I didn't understand that. And and I would not go because I was so exhausted, or I needed to get home to be with the kids and um do this or that. And then I realized, wow, um, I'm missing out on really incredible conversations that I didn't even know I needed to be a part of until I went to these events.

SPEAKER_02 35:44

Wait, so what did you what made you realize that? Because you were not going because you were tired and everything, and there was a point in there that you said, I have to change this, I need to start going. Now you see the value. What what was that?

SPEAKER_00 35:57

So, what changed was when Mackenzie put together that group called Female Founders, she said they were going on a trip. This was the very first one they were going on, and it was to Morocco, and you had to apply and be accepted. And I remember applying and thinking, oh my gosh, like please let me get accepted. I've never been to anything like this. I didn't know anyone, so I was kind of like scary. I got accepted, and because I got accepted, and I I was just like, I'm gonna, I'm just gonna go. I don't know anyone. I kind of knew Mackenzie, but I didn't really know her very much at the time. And that one was sponsored, I think. I think we only had to pay like a thousand, I can't remember. Just it wasn't very much to go on this trip. And so I asked my husband, can you and I was like, kids, will I vote? He said, Absolutely. So when I went and I was surrounded by 19 other female founders, the conversations they were having, I didn't even know existed.

SPEAKER_01 36:50

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 36:50

There were things I had no idea that I was supposed to be doing in my business, and they all knew. Like they all knew. And I was like, these are conversations I've been missing. Yeah. Oh my gosh, I didn't hire in you, so yeah. I love that. I didn't even know what questions to ask.

SPEAKER_01 37:06

You know, and so do you feel like maybe this goes being the student is always better than being the teacher in the room? Like, in like, you know how people are like, um, never be the smartest person in the room. Yes, I feel like that's true to us.

SPEAKER_00 37:22

100%. Okay. It is and that's when that opened my mind to it. Like I remember specifically being at a uh, we were like this little poll in Morocco, and they were talking about finances and how they manage their money within the business and going back to the credit card day, and they were talking about their credit cards and they pull out their credit cards and which one's best and annex and all this. And I'm like, I don't know, like I use my Will's Fargo down. And they were like, Oh my gosh, Lindsay, you can't do that. Risky, like, if someone got your bank account information from your card and from they could literally drain every penny you've ever made, and it's not protected. And then what do you do? Because you have zero funds in there. If you have a credit card, now it's on the credit card, you still have your money in your account, and then credit cards that were protected.

SPEAKER_03 38:11

So use other people's money, use other people's.

SPEAKER_00 38:13

Other people's money, and then I always didn't like debt, always terrified me. We were raised. If you don't have the cash for it, you don't buy it. Yeah, my parents bought cars with cash, they like they didn't like anything on credit, yeah, zero credit.

SPEAKER_02 38:26

Yeah, and I I think that that happens a lot to Latino familial families that were well. First, uh sometimes you don't know how to use the credit here, you don't know how it works, and you know, like we just heard of it. And then exactly, and then you are getting scared of like getting to that because that's the mentality that a lot of people come from there.

SPEAKER_00 38:44

So that's I mean, that's amazing. When my grandpa passed away, he had this old pinto, and we they found cash in the truck, and we're like, what if this worked down? Yeah, like you know, like we didn't learn anything. So I always thought that was bad, and then I'm with these people that like know everything, and I'm just I literally had I opened up my iPad, my iPhone, opened up the notes, and I took pages of notes from that one trip. And I came home and I remember telling my husband, oh my gosh, you gotta listen to everything that I learned. Then I called my mom and my dad, because he also owns a business, and these are things that they didn't even know yet, you know, like because they were the first ones pioneering this as well. So I remember sitting down with my mom and teaching her everything that I learned. And I was like, Oh my gosh, this is we're not supposed to be doing this, and that's not bad. We should be using other people's money, and like it was just so overwhelming. And so I like you can't say no to a networking event, you just don't know. I found manufacturers for new products I wanted to work on that I had no idea who to work with, who I'm new to manufacturing. Oh, let me give you my manufacturers. Easy, like for that's so easy to hand me this manufacturer's information. I love that.

SPEAKER_02 39:53

So I heard build connections, I heard learn from everything uh that that you can. Sometimes, like you said, you don't know what you don't know. I I hear uh be faithful to the client, to the person, the client that you're serving, you know, like that special person, there the ideal client that you have. Listen to them, you know, like respond uh and and and build connection.

SPEAKER_00 40:16

Anything else that you would add for um no, but going back to the networking thing, one thing I just want to say, because I know sometimes it's nerve-wracking if you are the least educated one in the room. Don't be afraid to ask questions. Like I would ask, well, what specifically, like how do you mean don't use your debit card? How specifically are you doing this? And I would just ask them and have them explain it to me. Um, but don't ever feel dumb. They will answer if they're great people, they will answer your questions, they will be so happy to teach you. And then take notes, write it down because you'll forget.

SPEAKER_02 40:50

Yeah, okay, that's great. Um, here at Swazel, we talk about a lot about that when we do like teach the classes and stuff like that. Ask. Ask because don't ask you. Maybe somebody else is afraid to ask a question too.

SPEAKER_01 41:03

So you're maybe speaking up for somebody else, but I have that same question. I have one last, or I don't know if we're done, but yeah, if you had eight-year-old Lindsay standing right in front of you, what would you tell eight-year-old Lindsay? What advice?

SPEAKER_00 41:17

Um, we'll see. My whole life I've been, I don't know where I got it from, but I have had the confidence to not be afraid to fail. And I think that sometimes people and adults would try to uh put out that fire for me, like, hey, you need to be more safe or you shouldn't do that. And I would probably just tell her, keep going, you know what you're doing. Don't listen to the adults.

SPEAKER_01 41:39

Yes, I know amazing. There's a on you guys know that movie, The Cars movie. And there's like a a part, a specific part in the Cars movie where like an interviewer is asking Lightning the Queen, like, how did you how did you do it? Like, how did you know that you could do it? And he responds, Well, I never thought I couldn't do it. Yes. Right. Yeah. And so I feel like that's the biggest thing in anything that you do in life, whether it be a business or whatever, it's believing that why can't I do it? Why would I not, you know? So I feel like that's a really good thing. Thank you, Mint. Thank you so much for being literally seeing it.