On today's episode of Gathering the Kings. You look at people still in corporate, and you're like, you have no idea what's possible. Literally. The amount of money that someone's telling you that you are worth versus the amount of money you could go out and literally create for yourself unlimited, it will blow your mind.
You are listening to Gathering the Kings with Chaz Wolfe featuring fellow 78 and even 9 figure business owners who have real battle scars from business and life, but have prevailed as the king that they are designed to be. We welcome high performing entrepreneurs to the stage in order to reveal the real of the real on what it takes to build a successful business today.
We dissect the good and bad decisions they've made along the way Chaz give a true and accurate picture of the journey of success and how you too can get there. Through this dialogue, you will learn the value of growing your network and surrounding yourself with power players and keys like today's guest. Grab your pen and notebook because we're about to dive in. What's up, everybody? Chaz Wolf, gathering the king's podcast, Jennifer Ruskin, a queen on the king stage today. How are you?
I'm so good. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. I say this almost every time we have a wonderful queen on the show. King is not masculine. It's mindset. When I said that to you, what'd that make you say? What'd that make you feel? Would that make you think? I said, I like that. I've never thought about myself having king energy, but I do. I like it. Got it. Okay. What kind of business do you have or businesses in your case?
Yeah. Several but the predominant one, and I think the one we should talk about today is I own a company called growth for sales and marketing. We service brands into Walmart and Amazon. We also do Shopify. So, really, we're following where is the customer purchasing in massive ways, and that's where we're showing up. Love it. And you help customers get in that stream. I do. Absolutely.
That. Okay. Before we get into nitty gritty, your story, all the tactics, I wanna know what drives you at this point. You've obviously, you're creative. We were just we're having a blast. I had to hurry up and hit record. Yeah. Because we're having so much fun together, but Why are you doing this at this level still? Honestly, to create a balanced life and by balance lots of fun and not having to do a lot. Like, I spent a lot of years hustling and working so fucking hard.
Can I guess on this podcast? Go for it. Just not a bunch because I gotta put that on the Apple deal. Ah, okay. I had to work so incredibly hard to get to this point Chaz now it's really fun to to kind of bask in the creation that I've made. And a lot of people I'm not forty yet, but I don't I'm sure you are too already getting the question. Like, you are really successful. When are you gonna retire? I say, why would I retire when I live like I'm tired. Exactly.
Yeah. Yeah. So you don't see yourself having an end because you love what you're doing. Is it is is it the thing? Is it the people? Is it the client? Is it the fulfillment of your family? Is it all tied together? What resonates from what I'm saying Chaz, like, a deeper motivation for you. Yeah. It's a few of those. So one is my goal is to empower others k. Our others can show them what can be possible in multiple different ways. Through retail, I do that with my clients to show them.
We can create $1,000,000 accounts, multimillion accounts in Amazon and Walmart. You can be a millionaire. We can create this business that supports you. And then the other side of me loves bringing people and saving them from corporate, saving them from the So good. I interviewed a girl once, and she had this program called The Great Cubicle Escape. And I was, that's what I wanna do.
So every time I get to add another team member into my world and out of that cubicle, we all do virtual We're all showing up to our kids to have lunch and being in car line and going to get massages on a Monday morning while everyone's hustling into the office. We've created this really supportive beautiful life.
And so when I get to take one more out and plop them into this really incredible world that we've created, it makes me feel so fulfilled and so happy and that this must be my life's purpose Yeah. Show other people. Yeah. I wanna know because as a high driver, I at the point now, I appreciate those things. Yeah. Obviously, in my retail locations, they have to be there that there's no way around that.
But for the folks that don't have to be, I am just totally amongst the same thought process of we need to create something that's valuable. And if that means work from home or if that means 11 AM massage or you're at the kids stuff, or we Chaz figure this out, but I wasn't like that always. As a high driver, I feel like it's always like, You know? And since I was willing to work 18 hours a day, every day, I wanted other people like me as well.
So what would your thought be, or what would your maybe advise me to someone who's listening today who maybe thinks like I used to Mhmm. But that maybe aspiring to give what you give to your people now. That's such a good question, and it's a question I often get from men. So I was part of vestige. I don't know if a vestige. Yep. Very masculine. I would say at least in my area in Northwest Arkansas, 95% men.
So I was one of only women in the entire room every time we got together at a multimillion dollar plus table. Yeah. Pretty normal, really. Very normal, yeah, as a reflection too of, like, how many women you have on your podcast. Right. Again, another side note, a reason for me to continue to show up is to say it is possible, and here's how you do it. But here's my secret sauce.
So I had a lot of men within the group that would look at me and the way that I run my business so differently, and I'll explain that in a minute, but And they'd be like, why are you not having to work so hard? Like, why are things just showing up for you? I don't understand. Can you teach me? And I would say, I use feminine principles in my business. Now while I was invested, and I was learning a masculine program, listening to Gary V, and the Tony Robbins. I even saw him in real life.
And Canada flew all the way to Canada just to see him speak. I was very masculine for a lot of my business, and that's really honestly, probably what created the support in the container that I need for today's very feminine flowy business that I've created. Sure. But for me, currently today, my success is living in the feminine flow and allowing all the people that work for me to do the same thing. And then my team mates my the people that work for me will leave. Clients will leave.
Clients will stop paying. Like, all of a sudden, there's this tightening and constriction that happens. And it's fleeing. Where for me, if I keep things flowy and I keep things open and I operate from a place of love and support and how can I be of help for everyone in my Wolfe, that's what creates true abundance for me? Yeah. You're spot on. It you the picture that I got in my brain as you're talking is it's his hand, and it's either open or it's tight.
And you're being the tight strength the good, the bad with masculine, the open with the good, bad with the feminine love support soft, And there's obviously good or positive negative to to probably both energies that both are needed at both levels. I love how you distinguished maybe the listener right now at a six figure level who trying to build and grind and get there. Yeah. They really just need to push. They really just need more sales.
They really just need to figure out a funnel to be able to get client acquisition to a certain level to where there's revenue that they can build a team and Yep. All of those things take push, but then eventually it's what in Gathering the Kings, it's more of a a just a higher mindset of, okay, now I'm not just in the battle. Right? I'm running a kingdom. Or a queen is more queendom. Aquendom. Right? And so you have more to think about.
You have you've got not just the warriors or the army, but you've got the other factors inside of the economic system that's this kingdom. Our families, our team members, our communities, churches, all those other things that now get put on our shoulders at some point. And what I'm hearing you say underneath all that is the love support really seeing people Chaz energy is what's helped you stay in and obviously continue to grow from that level. Am I hearing you right? You are.
I'd love to go back to what you just said, though. So when we're creating our businesses and we're creating structure is a masculine driven activity, and it's very important. In any business whether you're flowy like me or you're working 16 hours like you or like you used to do. The structure is the foundation So I always tell my clients. I tell my team members we have to have the structure in place.
What I have found is the best part to start to add in maybe some feminine attributes to your business is where can I take a hat off and hand it to someone else? That's a feminine act, right? The giving and allowing someone else to do it. So instead of me building my own funnel and spending 250 hours, building my own entire funnel and writing 500,000,000 email sequences. Right? Yep. It all need to be done. What I would do and what I have done is pay someone else to do it.
And I think it as especially as small to midsize business owner, maybe you haven't quite hit your 1st 1,000,000 yet. You're like, oh my god. Every single dollar counts, and I have to squeeze every single penny out of everything in order to make this thing work. Yep. That is true. And you're not good at everything, but just be on honest. Out of all the things I have to do in my business, I'm probably good at 15%.
And that's business development showing up being shiny, being present, really understanding my world and being able to eloquently capture and retain a new client. And then my team does all the other things that I'm not good like, micromanagement and being in the details.
I would say first good step in in an exercise and how having how you can live in this world of being a massive CEO in big companies or in your own entrepreneurial one that you've created Chaz a solar printer is just start to hand one thing off. It could be hiring an accountant to manage your QuickBooks and your payroll. It could be hiring out somebody to run your funnel. It could be hiring even a mentor just to have another person to talk to and to give you advice. Yep. That's the first step.
Yeah. Love that super practical. Let's go to your story. How did, like, how did you become an entrepreneur? How did you become a queen? How what was the beginning? Was retail the beginning, give us a story. We wanna know it. Sure. Absolutely. I've always been entrepreneurial. I think it came out of the womb. I've got 7 a very blended family, lots of divorces and remarriages, and then they had a kid, and then they had together lots of kids.
So I feel like I've always been a leader And I've always felt responsibility for other people. So you've already heard in my story how I really feel responsibility to my team and even my clients. And so I think that spurred in me this. Oh, and I come from entrepreneurial parents. So we underrepresented when I was a kid. I grew up, like, busing tables at six years old. I was always in the family business.
Yeah. So as I grew up, I my neighbor across the street sold Mary Kay Cosmetics, which everyone's heard about. Right? Hello? And and everybody should do at some point. Exactly. So I started out, like, the day I turned 18. I walked across the street, And I signed my Mary Kay paperwork, and I became a distributor. And that was the very first business that I owned, which how many people out of business at 18? Right? Yep. But I felt, oh my gosh. I can make money.
So when I went to college, I did my Mary Kay, and I worked at a bank, and I went to school. So I've always had multiple jobs. My dad owned the restaurant So I'd come home on the weekends and wait tables or babysit, and I think that that just that drive has gotten me here from the very beginning. Sure. But it landed me after college in mid college because I chased a boy for a while and lost a bunch of credits and had to redo more.
But, anyway, in college, in my mid twenties, I found on Walmart, Walmart home office. I live in Northwest Arkansas. I'm 20 minutes away from the home office now. Yep. And, and that's where I learned and fell in love with retail. The creation of products at an amazing buyer who let me get my hands dirty. I got to create a hair dryer that actually ended up on the shelf. Wow. It was so cool. I think it was Con Air that I was working with at the time. And I thought, Oh my god.
I wanna do this forever, and I wanna be a buyer. Like, I wanna make the decisions and put things on shelf. And so he looked at me kind of my first mentor. He really acted as mentor for me, and he said, I love that you wanna be a buyer. Let's go get you a little more seasoned in other spaces. So I went to replenishment, and I learned that.
And I played some with planning and learned numbers and how to run P and Ls and how to squeeze profitability out of these giant Walmart stores because a Target moved next door. So I would learn how to control inventory flow. It was really fun. Like, I did all these little things that then and while I was there, finished my undergrad, finished my master's degree, had 2 children, and I'm 28 by this point. This is the massive big change for me right here. Twenty eight years old.
I was doing, like, six people's jobs. Walmart is constantly downsizing to try to squeeze out profits that you're doing at everything. And I had these 2 kids, and I'd sit in my cubicle, and my heart Wolfe, like, palpitate throughout the day as I'm, like, trying to get everything done, and there's so much stress And I remember looking up one day and going, there has to be more to life than this. I might, like, I'm gonna die from 30. Yeah. I think everybody listening has had that feeling.
Yes. We've all had these come to Jesus moments. For me, that was it. And I got on LinkedIn, and back then LinkedIn was still kind of a new thing. This was, like, I don't know, 2013 ish and went to work for a supplier. So I left Walmart, went to work work for a supplier and sold Granola into Walmart and seen the club. I was their account manager. Right. And then I woke up again 6 months a year into that going, this is boring. It was my dream life. I tripled my salary. I worked from home.
I got a nanny. I got to have my kids at home. And I was like, I'm so working board. I've spent all this time in school getting my MBA. Like, I need to create my own thing. So this was another come to Jesus moment for me. It was like, I'm smart. And I can do something even bigger than this. Yeah. I left creative growth for sales and marketing, and here we are to this day. Like, supported other brands getting into Walmart for years.
And then as Amazon entered the scene in a really big way, I saw it as a really amazing potential an opportunity so that I could use it to launch clients online and then pull them into Walmart stores when they got big enough. So we've used them as a launch pad for years. And then a Shopify entered the scene. I'm realizing the customer is really shopping online in a much different way than they have in the past. We all see it. We know what D2C Right? So DSC is the future. We're here.
We're already in it. And so we started offering Shopify Services, marketing services, anything we can do to get right in front of the customer right where they are or doing TikTok stuff. It's insane. Never would have thought we would be here. I love it. I love not only just the journey because it's so different, but it's the exact same as all of us. Right? Like, we have those moments. I love those moments that you're talking about.
So good to hear, somebody who tripled their salary who was just as crazy as I was because that's really what happened to me too. Here I am making all this money. No. Let me put that aside and see if I can go do my own thing. This sounds awesome and Chaz. But you also look back where you're at right now. And how much money you have made over the years. And you look at people still in corporate, and you're like, you have no idea what's possible. Literally.
The amount of money that someone's telling you that you are worth versus the amount of money you could go out and literally create for self that's unlimited, it will blow your mind. Yeah. Yeah. And I liked what you said even earlier for the folks that maybe aren't entrepreneurial. Who aren't gonna go do their own thing. We, as disruptors, can still find great people, bring them into a system that'll enable life to be lived in a different way than just the cubicle.
And so even though they're maybe not at the head of a business and charging the hill, they can be part of team charging the hill, but in a completely different way, which I love that aspect. Just like it sounds like you do as Wolfe, because you're loving what you can do for your people. Anything you wanna add there? My favorite thing. Yeah, is growing up my team to be even more.
For example, my director of marketing, her name's Christina, and she came from Walmart, took her out of Walmart, And You encouraged her to live a different life. Clopder in here. Yeah. I was like, do you wanna come do this? She was like, I wouldn't be a nomad in on the road. And I was like, let's do it. We'll figure it out. So they live in Baja, Mexico and an RB. Wow. Living their best life right on the ocean, and they work for me. Her and her partner both worked for me.
And that's been a really amazing thing. But to encourage her, she came to me one day, and she said, I would I really love marketing. At this point, she was running Amazon accounts for us. And she said, this is really boring. I really wanna do marketing. Here's what I've been doing with my own Instagram account. We have the Snomads account. We travel the world. We take these amazing pictures. I'm learning hashtags like we're growing our account like crazy. What if we offered this to our clients?
At this point, we had no marketing services. And I got to develop the role for her. And I was like, oh my god. This is the deliciousness of being a Yeah. Where you get to your person doesn't have to leave. Just develop a new space for them and then give them the space and the tools and set the container like we about the beginning of the podcast said the container for them so that they feel like they can step into something that's bigger and they can create something even within the company.
And then we just work on compensation structures that makes them be in big win. And then I also get to be in big win too because she's using my clients. Right? Yep. Exactly. Yeah. I the phrase of using setting the container, setting the space, giving them support structure, I think what you just said, I'm gonna hit it home one more time for the listener, and then we'll move on.
But because I've done this exact same thing multiple times in in different companies of mine where you have a performer. You have someone who is unique in skill set or in drive, whatever it is. And because the owner usually is limited in their thinking, or they come from a place of scarcity, it they hold things tight. Right? And then eventually, the other person then is either not seen, not heard. There's no opportunity. And so they then they leave.
And then they either become the competition or they go work for the competition and go blow it up over there, whatever whatever it is. And so the reality here is that if you can be open handed, like Jennifer talked about, not so tight with your thinking, but then also the way that you run your business, you can create a new space for this person. If you're in alignment, and there's obviously some things that need to be there. It's not like she just started for you 2 weeks before.
Like, she had been with you, and there's a history here, but you created a brand new space. It's maybe this is not happening in every $400,000 business, but it it could end potentially the listeners missing the opportunities, and that person is going and working for somebody else. And then now they have a constant revolving door of employees, and now it's a bad culture and costing. All these other frustrating things. Right? And it makes us more money. Right?
Because they open up a new income stream, and they're bringing something new to the table that you can offer. This was so nice and broad it was easy to go back to all of my clients and say, do you need marketing services? We just did an audit and here's what's happening with your Instagram. You're daily showing up. You're posting things, but no one's seeing them. Have you thought about reels? Yep. Exactly.
And longer picture, bigger picture, you're providing a more value, not only for her, but for the clients, she's providing value to you. You're providing value to her. Like, it's just a win. And so why wouldn't we? But that's thinking that's open minded. So It's feminine too. Right? And feminine. I I was waiting for you to plug that. That's okay. I'm okay saying that. I was raised by a single mom. It was my mom, my Mister, my grandma, my aunt, her 3 girls, our female cats, female dogs. It was me.
I met my dad when I was 24. He didn't know existed. And, had no idea that he was my dad. So it has been a journey on that piece, you know, not to say that I know women because I don't even try to I had no better. But I've been around a lot of them. Okay? I've got a couple tendencies. Alright. So I wanna know a good decision that you made. Early on, not at the $1,000,000 mark yet. Something that the listener can take away.
Hands down, hired a mentor, an expensive mentor, one that could fill in the gaps where I knew I had them fill in that white space, and that was and make me wanna throw up multiple times. Explain what that means. I will. It feels like a quotable thing too. It is. Oh, yeah. My Wolfe make you Produce is already on it. Oh my god. So she would challenge me in so many ways to do things differently, to think differently, to ask for more.
She was very feminine minded, but also very masculine in how see me set structure with my team, create contractor agreements. I did all the things she wanted me to do that were like, hate this masculine stuff. But the okay. So for example, a man, it has been a journey to get here. Let me tell you. I have had so many experiences where I've worked for other people. And for some reason, they've just decided not to pay me.
Like, I'm usually the business development person, so I'll bring in a ton of clients and then they'll say, oh, that was great. Thanks. Have a great life. We'll see you later. Thank you for doing all this work for us. And so multiple times, she had me come back and ask for more. Come back and ask for what I deserved.
Stop and do the, again, masculine thing of writing out, like, here the clients I've created, what the percentages that we agreed on that I was gonna make for you, and then and then demand payment So I've had to involve lawyers and arbitration and all of that stuff is the step that for me is sticky. And makes me wanna throw up. It's that confrontation that I think a lot of women and probably a lot of men, but I know a lot of women shy away from.
Yeah. And so I learned that as I the more times I wanted to throw up, the more times I knew I was learning and I was getting stronger and I was accomplishing something I could check off and say, okay. I've got that one figured out. I've got that one figured out. Vintage was amazing. That was another big ticket expensive item that I said yes to. I think it was $17,000 a year, and I had that plus another coach.
I think Wolfe of your questions was how much do you spend a year on coaching and education and training and before COVID was over 20,000 a year, but the men would help me get really angry because I didn't have clients paying me And I was just like, oh, it's okay. One day. They'll pay me or I'll write it off. And the men would say, Jennifer, they are stealing from your children. You should be so effing angry right now. Why are you not angry? And I'd be like, okay. I can get angry.
So it was, like, those moments where, again, like, it's that stepping up. It's that, like, you're climbing that mountain of learning all these skills that you're not born with. Help you be a good leader and help you run a successful business Yeah. That makes me feel a little queasy, but I don't feel that feeling anymore. You've owned that that portion of you who you are or who you needed to be.
Yeah. Yeah. I love the just the back and forth here because it's not just about feminine or masculine or No. Structure or loving. I think there's just so much to be said about being genuine being, like, actually seeing people even in that process of seeing people and, oh, they'll pay me one day. It's who I'm seeing. Now I need to change my gaze to I see my children. And no user are gonna pay me because I see my children.
So it it's funny how sometimes the gaze or who we're seeing can change the energy there, so I love that. What about a bad choice? Bad decision early on? What was it? Oh, I made a bad decision last year. One question for me, I was like, I can admit still making bad decisions, but learning from them. So I found that all bad decisions for me tend to cost me money. Usually, tens of 1000 of dollars. And a lot of energy.
And so last fall, we were approached by a potential client, and they said, We understand that what you're doing with Amazon and we understand that you've had a lot of hundreds of clients over the And we are just starting out, and we'd like for someone to come in and build the structure for us, hire sales team, train a sales team, help bring on clients, build, put them on our Shopify side, manage them fully. Can you do this for me? And I was like, oh my god, team.
We're gonna learn how to do Shopify. We're gonna learn all these new skills we've never Chaz, and we're gonna get paid a lot of money to do it. We're gonna do this. Everybody's on board. And I hired all these people And I jumped fully in with my heart, like, knowing that it was gonna be okay, and we were all gonna learn it. And there was another company that they had hired a marketing So we were the structure and the sales support.
They were the marketing side of it, and I watched them be very careful. They didn't hire new people. They put really good boundaries on this client and said, this is what we're willing to do. This is how much things will cost. This is what we can give you this week based on our own availability with our own clients that we have, and they set the structure that way. It was like anything you want. As long as you have money, I'll created for you.
What I didn't realize is that their money ran out, and I was continuing to pay my people and continuing to support that structure until the day the money ran out, and I was out 60, $70,801,000 last year that took a little bit to recover from. I had hired on people that I had to let go, and I hate that feeling. I never wanna do that. The good thing that came out of the situation is that we did really learn Shop 5. We did learn how to wrangle 100 of clients.
We did we learned a lot of things that didn't make us throw up, but that did cause a lot of frustration and sometimes headaches. And sometimes we had to work late when our kids were at home and go back to work. It was a growing experience for everyone, but that's probably the hardest thing that I've gone through in my whole entire Yeah. What is there a vetting process up front or maybe more structure or What would you say, I mean, to you back last fall before you sign that contract?
Yeah. Absolutely. Yep. And I would have them pay a month up front every single time. I would make sure that we were compensated before we did the work, which is a normal practice for me on our Amazon side. Walmart's different. We make commissions, which is normal in the brokerage firm world and Chaz but I don't have a problem with those clients, but this was something that was new and it was something very high dollar.
Like, it would cost tens of 1000 of dollars just in payroll just to do the work. And then when the money ran out and I still had to cover and I the dip into savings to pay all these people, it took half a year to get back on track. Yeah. It was a very expensive and hard lesson to learn. Yeah. And now you get to leverage that 80,000 into all these new Shopify clients that are gonna get to pay you for years years years. That's exactly what's happened. We already made the money up and more.
We let our creative director have a position, create new offerings, And that's really you know, it's hilarious is when I when I look at our P and L and I look and see how much does it cost to run each client account and I look and see what's really bringing in the most profit. It's our marketing services that we just added this year. Interesting. So it was painful. But, yes, it's absolutely already paid off.
Yeah. And, yeah, the so I guess my next question, the kind of a follow-up to that is Yeah. If there's, like, a discipline or maybe, like, a process, and I know you're maybe anti process. No. Or not anti process. What is the discipline maybe around making the decisions now. Since that had just happened so recently, we're always a work in progress. Like, we're not perfect. But what are you thinking now going into a new decision this year Great question.
So I would say for this particular business of mine with retail, we're not planning on adding anything else new. But if I was, yes, I would have some sort of a vetting system. I would absolutely trust my gut more So last fall, I knew it was risky. I told the team it was risky and everyone I hired, I said I want you to know this is high risk. You may not have a job in a month, so do not quit your job to come work for me. Like, this is a side gig.
So maybe I would be a little bit more protective And then I think the other piece of structure would be absolutely to say we bill a month in advance, even if it's a minimum retainer of 10, 20, 50, a 100 1000, whatever that might be, knowing what the total cost could be about. To me protecting myself financially Wolfe have made it a lot less painful. Totally. Yeah. I think that would be what I would do moving forward because everything else has structure.
Like, going back to Vistage where I had clients that weren't paying for me, they helped me go, Jen, use an ACH form. Go ACH all your clients. So I've moved everyone on to ACH, or I've eliminated clients that just don't pay on time. I've even had conversations with clients like, I I have one that I had for Walmart and every month, he'd be late. He'd pay a month or 2 late every time. And I'd say, I finally said to him, like, What's this about, really? Cause I know you're making money.
I know Walmart's paying you. What why is it so hard to release the funds? To me. Yeah. Yeah. And we had a heart to heart about it. And it was a childhood wounding thing, and he was doing it to everybody, not just me. Oh. The light bill and the utility and the Yeah. So it's interesting, you know, when Chaz you like those pattern disruptors and identifying them. Yep. And I do love processes. Yeah. I do now. I try to be flowy they're definitely there and they're needed.
I it what's better to be flowy inside of a process? Okay. So I'm hearing you probably the number one thing for the listener Whether they're in a marketing business, whether they're working with clients, or they're in a trade, their home services, collecting money upfront, or at least a portion, enough to tech yourself. That's what I'm hearing. Yep. Of course, vetting. I think we're always gonna get better at that.
The sooner we get or the moment that we get really good at vetting, we start, like, almost turning things away, and we don't wanna do that either. And so there's this back and forth on that. So the protection of money, I think, is a huge takeaway. I think that everybody can grow there. I wanna transition to the speed round. Different angles questions here coming at you. I want you to take that this marketing conglomerate that you have now. Want you to dwindle it down into one trackable metric.
If you'd only pick 1 to track forever and ever, what would it be? Profit. K. And why? It's the only thing that matters. And that was a hard lesson for me because I would always say, like, to my accountant, like, how do we add another 1,000,000, or how do we add another half 1,000,000, or how can we get me there? And finally, I sat down with recently within the last year or so and he would say it doesn't matter how much you make if you don't have anything at the end of the day.
It's how much you keep. It doesn't matter. Exactly. It matters how much you keep. He was like, you're working too freaking hard. To not be completely debt free. You're working too freaking hard to not have your retirement already saved up. You're working too freaking hard to not be able play with investments in stock markets and all these other things. Like, you're you're working for all of the people that you support. Yeah. And that's who's really making money. It's not you.
And so that's where I've really gotten good. And, also, he helps hold me accountable. So every quarter we have a meeting and we go through everything, and that's where I make adjustments. And he says, Your payroll's too high. What are you gonna do about it? What kind of activity can you bring in that will offset that unbalanced? Can you let someone go? Chaz you scale down hours? And so I've had to make some difficult conversations with that.
I've had to talk to the team and be bendy and say you're gonna have less hours. And I'm gonna I'm gonna also do my part and say no and cut things off that maybe I'm overspending on. And Right. But, yeah, profit for me is the only important thing when you're a business owner because if not, this is a hobby and it's too freaking hard for it to be a hobby. Go fishing or something.
I want the listener to really you didn't give an answer that hasn't been given before, but I the impact of you, particularly you, who's been this very open book this entire time, very open to culture, very open to people, very open to the open hand and loving and caring your answer was profit, and it's not because you don't love and it's not because you're not feminine. What you just said is that it's a business. It's not a hobby. It's a business.
And in fact, if there is no profit, then you then the business actually it folds on itself. And then the people that you love have to go somewhere else, and it's the wrong duty if you're only concerned with that. Some people feel weird about saying, it's about the money or it's about profit. Right? What would you say to that person who's I love money. I love making it. I love spending it. It's very energetic for me. I used to work at a bank, and I'd fill the ATMs up with money.
I'd carry 40 grand around as a college kid. 40 grand every it's like 1,000,000 and 1,000,000,000 of dollars. And I remember it just feeling like it was just energy. Yes. It was money, but it's not my money. So it's it was, carrying around a can of coke. So I still view that way about my money. Even sometimes, like, I look in I look at a bank account, or I look at my quick book statements, and I'm oh, they're zeros.
So I don't know because I know everyone feels differently about money, and I feel like I have a very healthy relationship with it. I love it. It loves me. Abundance is easy for me, and it always has been in this lifetime. And so I'm always pushing myself like How can I bring in something more? And is it if it's not many, is it a thing, or is it a person? Is it people? Is it friends? Love that. It's a bonus mindset for sure in all figures.
What would you recommend as far as a book goes for a 6 figure business owner specifically? Yeah. So this may I hope this isn't dumb, but for me, I was thinking back to all the books I've read through my master's degrees and I don't read a ton of business books anymore because they're so boring, but the one that impacted me, so if you're listening and you're like, I really wanna understand feminine flow and feminine business leadership in the multi millions.
Girl wash your face by Rachel Hollis and Girl stop apologizing is a total mindset for you. They'll read all the Rachel Hollis books. That is what changed me from feeling like I'm the one that should bring cookies to the me. 1, the fucking business owner, why am I bringing cookies the meeting to, like, really stepping it up and really paying attention to my P and L and really hiring the right people and really taking the hat off and giving it to someone else.
I think she wrote too that are business specific. Go check those out. Yeah. Love Chaz. You've already mentioned a Vistage, but what's your initial thought, or what would you say in response to networking and or master mining with other entrepreneurs? How's that been a benefit over the years, it's been a huge benefit for me because especially as a solo printer, you feel very lonely.
So I have found that coaches really helped masterminds absolutely help being even I created a group for suppliers to go network up here in Northwest Arkansas because the supplier world didn't play very well with each other. It didn't play well with people within Walmart. And just knowing other people in your industry is always super helpful. So I would place high importance on it.
The higher that I get, the less I feel like I need that just because I feel like for me, I know it's best to run my business, and it's inside of me. And if I'll just stop and listen and stop looking for new things to consume, sometimes the answers are right there. But at the beginning, absolutely, I was consuming everything and attending all the things. Exactly. Okay. Last question. If you lost it all, just of her. What would you do? So I've always said, I'm just gonna go sell pillows at Pier 1.
That Pier 1 got bankrupt. So I don't know where I would go sell pillows, but I feel like a true Not Walmart? Maybe. I don't think so, but maybe. That was always my default, because it's been fun for me to go work like a bath and body works and to still be in the retail space. However, I'm a serial entrepreneur, so I would just start the thing. Yeah. You have what? Do you have an an inkling of what the next thing? Do you have a do you have a hidden business idea? You've already started it?
Nothing to do with retail. So I woke up this year, and I've had so much space in my life. I was talking a little bit before when we got together Chaz I've I live like I'm retired already. Chaz amazing, and I'm 38. And I get bored. There's only so much books you can do in hammock reading and paying out taking naps. And so I created another company, and I have decided that I'm gonna be a sex coach. So I'm, like, diving into that area.
I start training and set September, and it's just been invigorating to have something different that doesn't define me as a business owner in the retail Like, this is a piece of me that can be personal. It's a piece of me that can continue to help people. And to feel that fire again, you know, when you first start a business like, oh, it's so exciting. Like, you just can't wait to get out of bed. Oh, yeah.
I still feel that for the business I've created with retail, but this new thing is really lighting me up. It. Yeah. Which what I have found and probably more of an obsession than anything is the excitement from that new thing then reinvigorate or refuels, even the other thing. Because you're right. It's not like you lose passion for the other thing. It just we have a little bit of, I mean, another challenge, another process, another mountain to climb or another people to help or whatever it is.
And so it's something like sometimes I can be distracting, but I love what you've done there where you've but full systems in place, you've got great people. And out of the place of capacity, now you can go, okay. I can give more in this area over here. So Chaz the best way to to look on to the next thing. I would encourage most listeners right now to dial in. Don't get distracted. Listen to guys like me that have multiple companies even like Jennifer, she's talking about starting something new.
It's fantastic. It looks great from a perspective, but it's a lot. And if you're not careful, it'll kill the thing that you think is your business right now. I'm so excited for you on that. Thank you. How can the listener connect with you? You've given them actually several different ways. Maybe it's retail. Maybe they need a sex coach. I don't know. How can they find you? That's a great question. I mentioned Rachel Hollis earlier.
And the reason I did and what I think is important is that as humans, we show up as all of us. Right? We're not just retail people, but we have families and we have partners and we have. Right? So if you want to know all of me, I am Jennifer Kaley Ruskin at Jennifer Kaley Ruskin. I'm sure Chaz will put stuff in the links Yep. Everywhere, but be aware that there's sexy stuff on there. So that's not my retail stuff.
If you want anything retail related that does not have lingerie Chaz pictures of May, go to growth spurt sales and marketing. You can Google growth spurt sales and marketing and find me there. We can also put some links in the show notes that lead directly to my retail stuff And there you go. That's how you can find me. I've got a podcast. I do weekly blogs. I do weekly email blasts. All over the internet every single day on social media. Yep. Easy to find me. Yep. You'll find her.
And, and she's exciting to talk to you as you can see, or as you can hear, rather. Thank you for being here. This has been a blast. I my cheeks actually hurt from smiling the whole time. Me and my masculine beard and what'd you say before we started the Viking energy? I can look. Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't smile a whole lot. Usually, I'm pretty focused, but you've got me you've got me hurting over here with all my smiles. I appreciate the time. Thank you for being here. Thank you for having me.
Thanks for listening to Gathering the Kings. We hope you got a ton of value today and learned a thing or 2 about taking your business to 7 figures and beyond. If you desire more and want a community around you to help you get there, but want you to go to Gathering the Kings dotcom. That's Gathering the Kings dot com and I want you to apply for our next becoming a king 90 day intensive.
We are extremely exclusive by nature as a group What that means that we're really wanting only the entrepreneurs who take their business and targets super serious to apply. So if that's you, you think you got what it takes to level up your business, a to go to gatheringthekings.com and apply. And we will see you on the other side.