Leadership Capacity with Hilani Ellis
Leadership Capacity is a limited conversation series with founders, CEOs, and executives who know firsthand that as companies and teams grow, leadership has to grow with them.
Hosted by Hilani Ellis, each conversation brings forward the experiences, decisions, challenges, and lessons that have shaped how accomplished leaders lead today. From building companies and developing teams to navigating change and preparing for what comes next, Leadership Capacity gives curious leaders a closer look at what leadership requires when responsibility grows.
Leadership Capacity with Hilani Ellis
From Founder to Franchisor: What 15 Years of Building Taught Erin Fletter About Leadership (E: 001)
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
What does it take to build a business for 15 years, and keep expanding your own capacity to lead it?
In this episode of Leadership Capacity, I sit down with Erin Fletter, founder of Sticky Fingers Cooking, to talk about the side of entrepreneurship that rarely makes the highlight reel.
Erin started with three schools and an idea: give children the opportunity to learn how to cook. Fifteen years later, Sticky Fingers Cooking has grown across the country, expanded into franchising, developed its own proprietary technology, published five children's cookbooks, and created opportunities for other entrepreneurs to build businesses of their own.
But getting there wasn't a straight line.
We talk about why perfection can paralyze a founder, the years Erin spent being "the engine" of the business, the pressure of bootstrapping, the moment she nearly sold her wedding ring to make payroll, and why she believes it can take ten years of chaos to truly build a company.
We also explore what changed when Erin's job became less about doing the work herself and more about developing other leaders, creating systems, trusting her team, and helping franchise owners succeed.
And after 15 years of building? Erin shares what she would tell the younger version of herself if they could sit across the table today.
In this conversation:
Why founders can't afford to be everything to everyone
Moving from doing the work to building the people and systems that carry it
What bootstrapping really demands from a founder
Why Sticky Fingers Cooking eventually chose franchising
Building trust across a growing organization
Self-awareness as a leadership responsibility
Creating opportunities for other business owners
What 15 years of entrepreneurship taught Erin about pressure, instinct, and endurance
Leadership Capacity brings experienced executives and founders into conversations about what leadership asks of us as our companies, teams, and responsibilities grow.
00:00 — Preview
00:39 — Meet Erin Fletter: Founder of Sticky Fingers Cooking
01:38 — From Employee to Entrepreneur
03:53 — What Matters Most in the First Year of Business
08:11 — When Building a Business Becomes Leading People
09:39 — Learning to Let Other People Build With You
13:10 — Bootstrapping a Business & Almost Pawning Her Wedding Ring
14:18 — Why Sticky Fingers Cooking Became a Franchise
16:15 — What It Really Takes to Build a Business
19:17 — Why Franchising Became the Path to Growth
22:22 — What Leadership Requires as a Business Scales
24:36 — Developing Franchise Owners as Leaders
28:26 — What Erin Would Tell Herself 15 Years Ago
Sticky Fingers Cooking: https://stickyfingerscooking.com/
Erin Fletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erin-fletter-74b24454/
Grab the Leadership Book: https://www.hilaniellis.com/hilani-ellis-capacity-the-new-advantage
Subscribe to Leadership Insights: https://www.hilaniellis.com/
Follow along on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hilaniellis/
Ikigai: https://amzn.to/4wVGM0U
We made lemonade out of lemon. We used the sugar for me. I love the saying, perfect is enemy of the good. Oh, yeah. Because you really have to dispel this responsibility of getting everything right. I even tried to hawk my wedding ring four years in to make payroll. Yeah. And then and then I realized, wait a second, I can there's always a different way. There's a different way. Just the right amount of pressure. Just the right amount of pressure. Yeah. Yeah. But anything worthwhile in this life, there is a cost. It's hard-earned. That's what makes it taste even sweeter.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Flatter. Uh, you've built businesses, you've led teams, you've spent the last 15 years building and growing sticky fingers cooking. Uh, but what interests me most is simply not what you've built, because that's fantastic, along with five children's cookbooks. You've gained a perspective that is pretty fantastic from having been an employee and now moving to a business owner, who, by the way, is running a franchise product. Um, many people dream about starting a business. Um, I'm very excited today to hear about what transitioned you from employee. I realize also that you still own some restaurants, which is fantastic. Uh, what mindset shifts did you acquire? And uh what leadership lessons did you learn along the way in scaling the last 15 years with uh sticky finger uh cooking, sticky fingers cooking. And uh, welcome to the Leadership Capacity Show. I'm excited to have you.
SPEAKER_03Thank you so much for I'm really honored to be here. Thank you so much.
SPEAKER_01So I would like to hear from employee into the capacity of first a business owner, the franchise part just started about three years ago, you were telling me. Yes. I want to hear that transition, that story, maybe that calling that you had that said there's something a bit bigger that I should be doing, alongside still owning some amazing restaurants.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that that feeling of I've always wanted to build something bigger than myself is something that it's just been inside of me for as far as I can remember, even as a young child. It was something that, you know, I was always drawn to being very creative and artistic and building things. And so that was something that was really deeply rooted inside of me. And um, and I remember, I mean, being uh being a mom of young kids and feeling overwhelmed and not being and not having that outlet and just feeling like, you know, I want it, I really want to build something beyond myself. Um, around that same time, I was introduced to after school enrichment through my own kids that were staying after school. Sure. Um, they wanted to yeah, like children, you know, we need to give children more opportunities to be curious. Yeah. And instead of saying that they're gonna be the next golf champion or the next chess master or whatever it might be, you know, we push kids to be like the best of the best, just to be curious and to try new things. After school enrichment is exactly that, where uh my kids wanted to try taekwondo and then try Japanese class and then an art class. And so I thought, why can't we do this with cooking?
SPEAKER_00Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_03And that mindset between, you know, it's it's a very small incremental shift. Um, you know, you have to build up your own internal confidence, and you also just have to, the only way to do something is to do it.
SPEAKER_01To do it, yeah.
SPEAKER_03So I started very simply with three schools here in Denver. Um, and that's really how the genesis of sticky fingers cooking started.
SPEAKER_01Amazing.
SPEAKER_03And, you know, I started a uh a cooking school, and I never realized, you know, to teach people and to teach children how to cook, right? I never realized that it would teach me to become a leader.
SPEAKER_01Isn't that amazing? So things that just kind of pop up. Um what immediately I'm thinking about is what did you feel responsible for getting right in the beginning, in that first year, kind of tied to your comment there about things are revealed year over year. When when leaders start something, they have a vision, and then of course, something pivots. So we have to have high change capacity to be able to do that pivot. What was it that you felt really responsible for getting right in that first year?
SPEAKER_03That's a fantastic question. The responsibility for getting right. Um, I don't know. My suggestion would be I love the saying, perfect is the enemy of the good. Oh, so you really have to dispel this responsibility of getting everything right. You really, you, I mean, um, so something that I'm very proud of that I wanted to focus on was not being everything to everyone. That's a great point. Being very, very laser focused. I believe that any business that has a simple directive and that is excellent at one thing has the best shot at succeeding. So being, you know, when I started Sticky Fingers Cooking, I mean, people want it, they're like, oh, you should be partnering with farms and you should be selling products. And what about pre-packaged foods? What about, I mean, we would have gotten nothing accomplished. And so um, back to your question, you know, first of all, not being trying to be perfect, putting one foot in front of the other, knowing that in life, in business, personally, professionally, moving forward is how you're gonna learn. Um, making mistakes, fumbling, that's part of the process. Um, children learn how to walk not just by getting up and walking one day. And that's something that we forget. Like you, when you're learning a new skill, it's gonna take some time and you cannot expect perfection ever, or else you'll be paralyzed by it. So we really focused on the same thing that we focus on today, which I'm very proud of. That's awesome. It was like, okay, we are going to make a business as simple as possible for the heart and soul of our business, which is our chef instructors, to feel supported, yeah, grounded, being able to have all the resources that they have that they need so that they can connect with their with their uh students. That's the most important thing. And then if the students feel that and they feel connected, then it's gonna create a culture within the school or the community center wherever we're offering those classes. It then then the children feel empowered to want to go to their parents and say, I want to cook at home. It creates this very quiet movement, and so we were very intentional about that from the beginning. And just, you know, we're gonna teach kids how to cook. Yeah, we're non-brick and mortar by design. That is our secret sauce.
SPEAKER_01I love it.
SPEAKER_03Our location is our community, and that is super intentional.
SPEAKER_01You said a few things there that are exciting. Uh, I'd like to announce here I'm a recovering perfectionist. It's really great on this side, but I also like to make the joke with that statement that I can be a perfectionist when necessary. Yeah. Um, deliverables, you know, interacting and being prepared. So there is a I I also say a gift and a curse with being a perfectionist. And so you had a when I was doing research and preparation, fail forward. And I was thinking about that when you were giving the great illustration of, you know, when we start to crawl uh and then we start to walk, we've got to take those steps, which we absolutely will fail forward, uh, fall down. Um, and that risk piece is hard for so many. Uh, it's scary. And you even said the word confidence in there just really quickly. Uh, I really appreciate also, and a lot of business owners, they do try to be all things for all people. Yeah. Um, I had that experience at the very beginning, uh, but also knew what my niche was, where my specialty was, and also where I could be the most successful versus trying to do all these outside things. Right now I'm dabbling in a few different things because the catalyst of where I started and where I'm at now has presented new things. So that's actually a segue I want to ask you next. You know, when did it become less about cooking and actually more about leading others? Yeah.
SPEAKER_03I think that's the biggest, uh, that's the biggest uh shift and pivot for sure, is that, you know, when you're when you're building a business, you're everything. Yeah. I mean, who was the chef, first chef instructor? Me. Even though I knew that, you know, this business was meant to scale and grow, um, that I am best as a visionary behind the scenes. But when you're just starting a business, you don't know if it's gonna work or not. So I was everything. I was in the marketing department, the hiring department. That is I was I mean, actually, for the first 10 years, I was writing all of the recipes. And we write a new recipe with supported curriculum every week of the year. We've been doing this. It's amazing. We've been doing this for 15 years. It's amazing. Thousands of recipes. Thousands. And so, you know, I was um I was the engine. And what I learned is I needed to build the engine. And if I'm to, if I I want to summarize my uh my my business strategy in one sentence, it's hire for excellence and hire people better than I am. Yes. And luckily, uh it only took me a couple of years to to realize that. Then we do a little fail forward again. You try to be the dumbest person in the room at all times. Sure, sure.
SPEAKER_01But you have the vision and you have the ideas, and you're the one at 2 a.m. who's excited to be waking up with another idea or another ingredient for those recipes. Yeah. That's amazing. Um which was harder? Building the business or learning to let other people build it with you.
SPEAKER_03Um gosh, both, but on different levels. Right. Um, you know, building the building a business is an art form. I mean, you just it's like um you you're walking this tightrope about, you know, growth versus systems. Systems versus progression. They're competing constantly. Yeah. I mean, it's it's like I I mean I equate it to a to a like a soccer team, offense or any any sports team, offense and defense. Yeah. And you need both to be able to go. You like if you're uh if you don't have any defense, you know, then then then you're sunk. Yeah. And if you only have offense, then you know, if you have no defense, then you're sunk. So, you know, you have to have both of these things. And then um, and then building a leadership team is something that is that is absolutely necessary. Yeah um, you know, I did it very organically. Um uh sticky fingers cooking has been just grown organically.
SPEAKER_01Um great connection, yeah. For real.
SPEAKER_03I mean, I um it's very natural for me to work with people that I trust. Trust is our number one core value at Sticky Fingers Cooking. And so I have actually built this business um, first off, with my father, who was the you know, the very first person that I told the idea to. He actually moved out from San Francisco to help launch it. Um, my husband was the first accountant. I called him the bean counter. Um, and then I just naturally grew the business with my friends and my neighbors. Yeah. Um, and we are still growing this together. Amazing. And uh now on the executive team, we're all women, we're all mothers. Um half of us are still neighbors. Yes, it's funny and friends, amazing. So um, you know, and and we've all been leading and growing together, but in different phases of growth, you have to be super intentional about it. Um, and it hasn't been rainbows and unicorns the whole ways. I mean, you know, it's just like from funding to to uh to the right the right person in the right seat that adjusts and things, there's been attrition, sure, there's been hard decisions along the way, and um, we've just really remained focused on what our mission is. And our mission is to teach children how to cook.
SPEAKER_01It's amazing. Uh there's no blueprint per se. Which poses the next question is anyone doing what you're doing?
SPEAKER_03You know, 15 years ago, nobody was doing what we were doing. Yeah. Um, very few people are now. Sure. And I actually I think that competition is a very healthy thing. I agree. Um, competition uh makes everybody better. It's so true. And uh and I and especially if, you know, if we're we're working in the children's enrichment space, this is such a much needed category uh across the world, especially in the US. Yeah. Children and parents need so much support. I think there needs to be more of us. Yeah. Um, so I'm really, you know, I think that I think that competition is incredibly healthy.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah. Uh I've I've worked and I know the CEO of the Boys and Girls Club here in Metro Denver. And so when I think about enrichment, I think about you know the impact that they're having in the community as well. Um, I absolutely love that your dad came out from San Francisco and uh put sweat equity in and then the bean counter, the husband, which is fantastic. You know, looking at back on those early years, is there anything you'd do differently?
SPEAKER_03You know, it's it's just like any journey, right? I mean, when you're it's climbing a mountain, it's exhausting. You want to give up, you're not sure if you're on the right path, you're not on the right trail. But when you actually scale the mountain, you look back down, you know, you often wouldn't change too many things. Sure. Um, we have been bootstrapped from the beginning. We've been self-funded from the beginning. Amazing. Uh, which is amazing, but it's there's there's two sides to that coin, right? You know, there's also a lot of stress and pressure that goes with that as well. So, yes, we don't have any investments, uh, investors that are looking at us to or uh or influence us to go one direction or another. We can make our own decisions. Um, and so that's phenomenal. And uh at the same time, it's been a lot of pressure and a lot of sleepless nights. I even tried to hawk my wedding ring four years in to make payroll before.
SPEAKER_01And then, and then I realized wait a second, I can, there's always a different way. There's a different way. Yeah. That's amazing. I appreciate the comment about the bootstrap. One thing that I sort of mentioned in the opening is the last three years prior to that, so four years ago, something either was presented to you or you had an idea that decided you're gonna go franchise this. Is it to create actually revenue businesses in franchising or overseeing sort of those enrichment after school programs? What does the franchising look like? A lot of people think, hey, maybe I should start with the franchise and it's that step into entrepreneurship, but with a team that's already existing, that's done the fail forward, that has those solutions and also can talk me through sometimes of walking me, talking me off the ledge because it's scary. Tell me a little bit about that franchise transition uh to speak to those who either want to own a franchise or actually love to cook and didn't know that there's an option like this for them with you. Tell us about that.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, oh, it's a fantastic question. A little complex. And so I'll start from where it makes the most sense to me and the fact that, you know, building the business and building sticky fingers cooking, we started in 2011. Um, you know, like I said, we started in three schools. Sure. We then grew into 30 schools, and then we grew into 300 schools. And then we naturally grew into three states, into five territories, three major markets in the US. And we were operating um our business as a privately held company. We had hundreds of employees in three different states. Wow. You know, we're also a tech company. People are just shocked by this, but we've we've had our own proprietary technology platform for 14 out of 15 years. Wow. That is quite that is built alongside of us. So we were always, we always knew that, you know, we've never chased growth. We've always built our own growth. Sure. And um, and so we knew that we were gonna continue to scale and grow. Um, I always say that it takes 10 years of chaos uh to build a company. You know, 10 years of chaos. Just gonna repeat it for those that needed to hear that. It's I mean, first of all, I mean, not not to not to scare anybody off, but these are the, you know, we're data driven and these are the facts. Yeah. Uh 80% of small businesses that are started from scratch, they fail in the US. That's not restaurants. Restaurants have a higher fail rate, but 80% of small businesses in the US, they fail. Um, when you look at the data and you look at franchising, 80% of franchise owners are thriving after five years. And why is that? Push through that five years. Why is that? It's because starting a business from scratch, I don't need to tell you this. Starting a business from scratch is hard work. I call it death by a million paper cuts because all of the things that you have to build and you have to juggle, yeah. Um, if you even get past that five years, then it's another five years of pure chaos. And so I say it's franchising, you skip the 10 years of chaos.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So we never set out to be a franchise brand. And I was gonna say it probably just happened organically. It certainly did. Yeah. And we were talking about COVID. COVID was a very, you know, pivotal point. So it was a gift out of COVID. We made lemonade out of lemon. I need a shape for me in a couple areas. So there's some gifts out of it. Yes, absolutely. We sure did. I mean, it was the hardest season of my life uh professionally, and then it was also the biggest gift. Um, so you know, we we wrote and published cookbooks, we partnered with 300 public libraries across 18 states and offered like thousands and thousands of classes, and it was it was amazing. And at that time, we were just like, you know, what we want to do is we want to continue to scale and grow. Yeah. I started looking at women business ownership statistics in the US. I'd never done that before.
SPEAKER_01I've been a business owner for many years. Well, you had the downtime now to kind of do some of this research, do some of this reflection, which was another gift out of that period. But yeah, okay. Yeah. And do you know what I found?
SPEAKER_03What did you learn? Well, first worldwide, we are we're the global majority. Women are the global majority. Um, in the US, we're over 51% of the population. Okay. We own 41, roughly 41% of businesses, which I thought, huh, that's sort of equitable. Yeah. Dive in even more. Yeah. 1.7% of female-led businesses in the US gross over a million dollars a year. Less than 2%. Gross over a million dollars a year. I could not believe it. That's lonely. I was, oh my God, it's unbelievably low. Unbelievably low. And if you look at access to capital, if you look at access, you know, and then throw in people of color, all of the things, all of the inequities that are that are in the business world here in the US. You know, I got real fired up about that. I went to our executive team, we're all women, um, and and I thought, let's look into franchising. You know, we we have proprietary tech, we have systems, we've been operating in three states the blueprint. Yeah. Exactly for 10 years. What if we grow through business ownership? Amazing. And what you were asking about is like the step into entrepreneurship. I would argue that franchise owners or franchisees are this unicorn entrepreneur because they see the value in a system. They see the value of skipping that 10 years of chaos because franchise owners, and this is franchise agnostic, they get to focus on growth. They don't have to, right? Like they stand on our shoulders and they achieve more than we ever do. And you know, I will say that after three, so after three years, we launched in May of 2023. Okay. Um, we had one franchise owner in May in 2023. Now we're just over three years. We have 28 territories. Um we're in, we're in 12 states and Washington, D.C. We're coast to coast. We say that we're from uh we're from Smorrigan to Pretsylvania. I love that. And I will tell you, just last week we had a franchise owner that has exceeded any growth in one week that we have ever seen. And talk about standing on our shoulders and reaching higher. And it's because she is taking our system and she's she's making it work and she is just building this beautiful business. And by the way, she also gave birth to a beautiful baby boy on Sunday.
SPEAKER_01Wow, congratulations. Yeah, so she's definitely got a lot of excitement going on in both her private life and her public life. Yes. I love stories like that because it creates opportunity. It does. And what a gift to those who are running a franchise or like you or now are interested in um this isn't a selling podcast of what you're doing, of course, but are interested in like there's an option like that for me. Taking that over. And to your point of standing on your shoulders. That's so powerful. And I think that's actually what creates the right amount of pressure to say, I can actually look into this. Yes. Then have this conversation with you and your team. Hear the legacy systems that you've built that get to become yours. Uh, being a systems person myself, I mean, you can always optimize, you know, always uh maximize your capacity. Through additional systems, also retiring systems that are from a different era that no longer serve you. Having that type of partnership opens up opportunity to your point about the data as well, which is shocking, also being as a female business owner. Would you say that when you think about how you're leading now with this ramp up that you have, what is something right now that is being asked of you that hasn't been asked of you before?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's fantastic. I would say that what's what uh the business is demanding of me right now is to be the best leader that I can be. And that, and I believe that being the best leader is being incredibly self-aware. And so true. It's also empowering those around me to become leaders myself. You know, it's not sticky fingers cooking, it's not about one person. I never want it to be about me. It's not. It's about us as a team, it's about our franchise owners, and it's about being better together. And that's what I love about the franchise industry, which I am just shocked. But here I am like touting the franchise industry. It's such like at its core, the franchise model is um it's this symbiotic relationship where we our success is their success and their success is our. Like we can really embodies teamwork. It is a hundred percent teamwork. Yeah. And I will tell you that for decades and decades and decades and decades, the franchise industry has been dominated by men. And I will I will say that I believe that the the future of franchising is female because it's it is a hundred percent at its core. It takes a village mentality. And for women, it's built into our DNA. Yeah. This is how we started Sticky Fingers Cooking without ever ever becoming a franchise. Sure. But in supportive, you know, we're we're not selling a widget. We are human-based. We're selling a system, we're selling um uh relationships. You know, we're all about relationships. And that's what the franchise industry is at its core. And that's what I absolutely love. So what I see, what is what's demanding of me right now in leading, in leading uh sticky fingers cooking into the future is really empowering our leaders, our franchise owners to uh to to to soar and to fly and to always be learning, striving, being curious, and staying true to your core.
SPEAKER_01When you add on a new franchise C, is there one piece of leadership advice that you give them that you tell them, I don't want you to ever unhear this. I want this to live rent-free in your head. Is there is there an aaronism that was created, uh, or something that you promote, whether it's read this book? Is there something that you offer in that leadership development for these franchisees? Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So we actually every single month, I lead a leader, a leadership round table. Amazing. And it's based on, you know, my favorite Simon Sinak and Adam Grant and Brene Brown and all of my favorites. Yes. And um, and so we uh we're always learning and leading together. Yeah. Um I uh, you know, one of the things that I give as a gift when our franchise owners uh come on board with us is the book Ikagai. If you're familiar with Ikagai is uh is a Japanese word that is not translated into uh into English. English, okay. Um but you know, in uh in the Japan Japanese language language, there is no word for retirement. Oh and if you're leading in your ikagai, this is just a very simplistic uh term, but it's uh or a way to explain it. It's almost like a Venn diagram. Okay. So it's um, you know, one bubble would be what are you good at? Okay, great. What can sustain you and your family monetarily, and what is good for the community? And right in the middle is your ikagai. And that could be gardening, that could be, you know, that could be fixing a car, you know, it could be whatever it is, whatever, you know, it could be being an artist, whatever it is. For me, it's cooking, for me, it's teaching. For me, it's uh it's building it's working on the car. There you go. There you go. And so, you know, IkaGuy for me is sticky fingers cooking, and I built my own IkaGuy. And so I I there's a beautiful book um that that really kind of um encapsulates the meaning of Ika Guy. So that is a book, that is a book that I gift our franchise owners. Um our COO, Kimberly Douglas, she gifts a book that's called Be the Unicorn. Um, it's wonderful. Yeah. And so it's it's the different traits, the different kinds of traits of being uh a leader, a unicorn leader. Yeah. And so we um, you know, we embrace leadership, we embrace growth, we embrace uh ongoing lifelong learning and education because uh, you know, if you stop growing, forget it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, human investment, uh, I'm starting to see just very little a pivot because of AI fatigue. Where where can, especially being a talent strategist and doing hiring? I actually had several calls yesterday and they're like, wow, this is refreshing. Like I'm really talking to a human and we're having a conversation, but yes, it's an interview. And doing human investment is actually gonna have a comeback. Yeah. Uh because I mean, like a handwritten thank you note. My gosh, handwritten thank you note. Just some little simple things like that, but really taking um uh and putting a spotlight on that human piece, and it really sounds like you're making sure to do that. And um, that's legacy that is evergreen, that doesn't fizzle out at all, I don't think. And I think actually there's an appetite for it because of, you know, everywhere you turn, there's something about AI. And so you said a few things that I really love. It's so wonderful about the advice. You also said self-awareness is key. Um, working with so many executives and founders, um, some are not self-aware, uh, and they're leading teams, and some are very self-aware. And so I really appreciate that you put a spotlight on that. Uh, as I arrive here to my final question, uh, which is perfect because you just had your 15-year anniversary. If you went back and sat like this across from yourself 15 years ago and you had lunch at your restaurant, what would you want yourself of today to say to yourself of 15 years ago? So many things. And you're welcome to show up to that lunch with an agenda and a checklist so you don't miss anything.
SPEAKER_03So many things. Um number one would be to trust my instinct. Oh, that's a great one. Uh and knowing that the road is gonna be hard. You know, grit is forged through endurance. And you know, and so so I would tell myself to keep one foot in front of the other. I would tell myself to look ahead at funding. I believe, I mean, I I I would say that that was something that I put under stress on myself where I really was um I could have done a better job of of creating more of a cushion between myself and stress because stress can kill a business faster than anything else. And financial stress is is can be can be tremendous. Yeah, we actually, you know, we tell our franchise owners this all the time. You know, we're just like we, you know, we have our our amazing CFO, Lenia. She is always doing uh financial education with our franchise owners, and we say this from the minute we meet with them as they're interested in the franchise opportunity. It's just like, you know, we we do not want you to be stressed out. We want you to always have a financial cushion. Well, I mean, this is foraged in the fact that I mean, I I mean, so many sleepless nights. Um so I would tell myself, you know, be easy on your be a little easy on yourself. You don't, you know, you don't have to just the right amount of pressure. Just the right amount of pressure.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. But having a partnership with you is great. We want them to have that feel forward because just like you've had these experiences which have brought this new wisdom that you get then to get, you are able to transfer to someone else. They need some of that hardship because then as they hire, as they lead, as they scale what they have acquired, um, that hardship, you know, gives us lessons. And I like you've said trust a couple of times. Trust is so key. And I actually just thought of recently uh for kind of a closing thought. Trust to me, I believe, has um a potential to grow when everyone's standards and deliverables are at a level that matches yours. Excellence. And you said that at kind of at the beginning. And so um, if everyone wants excellence and is willing to have that hardship, um, but by the way, have the hardship with your partnership is just such a gift. Every now and then, and even though I've got some people in my circle, it's like, do I need a different voice to serve what I need to discuss right now, even if it's just like a uh unfiltered discussion, no organization, no agenda. Uh so trust is huge. I think it's really great that you mentioned funding. And I'm I'm sad, but I'm excited now that you had that hardship and that stress because you now have resources and wisdom to pass on to the others, which is really great.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and I would argue, I mean, nothing, nothing important in life is not, it has to be hard-earned. Right. I mean, if you're gonna be a parent, I see the correlation between parenthood and business ownership and business growth almost uh synonymous. It's almost the same thing. That's exactly right. But anything worthwhile in this life, there is a cost. It's hard earned. And that's what makes it the sweet, that's what makes it taste even sweeter. Yeah. I mean, if you're gonna climb a mountain and you're at the and you're at the peak and you're looking around at the vista, uh, it's it's a much more beautiful view than if you had a helicopter copter to drop you off. I know. I know it really is.
SPEAKER_01The sweat equity is what I'll call it. The sweat equity. It really is. Erin, thank you so much. I appreciate you coming here and sitting and having this conversation with me. Thank you so much.
.jpg)