What's up everyone. This is Niyi Adewole, Host of the Ekabo home financial freedom mastermind group. This group meets virtually every Wednesday at 7:00 PM Eastern and the members of this group are committed to achieving financial freedom. Well before the traditional retirement age. So in this podcast, you are going to get VIP access to the conversations we have about different forms of.
And creative ways to get your dollars working harder for you than you originally worked to obtain those dollars. Today, we are joined by an incredible individual that is achieving great things on multiple venues. Raven Hudson is an MBA educated business strategists at a fortune 500 med tech company. And she's also the CEO and founder of the shrewd. Raven, thank you for joining us tonight. Thank you. I look forward to this session, of course, of course.
And just looking through your background and also kind of the research that we did ahead of this, what you've been able to accomplish both on a corporate front and from an entrepreneurial front is truly amazing. And we really want to take time tonight to dive into both starting off with what you've done from a corporate practice. Now I want to take you back a little bit. All right.
I know you, are you a bell alum actually spent a good amount of time down in Louisville, Kentucky, and yes, it's Louisville. You gotta, you gotta drop all the bowels, but after graduation, I know that you started off in a pure legal office, which is completely different from what you're doing right now. How did you go from being in a paralegal office to having the mindset of wanting to get into healthcare and med. Yeah, definitely. Definitely. For sure. For sure.
I really stemmed in, I guess, even taking a step back before I became a paralegal, my bachelor's degree at U of L is actually in policy and law. So I was originally thinking about going to law school ended up getting a, a good job within that field. So I was like, Just test the waters first, before I jump in and start getting an internship.
So I ended up getting a legal internship at a law firm, becoming a paralegal, working underneath one of the senior paralegals, ended up doing a great job in that short time. And they're like, you know what we want to hire you full-time are you looking for a job? And of course, for me, when I graduated back in 2013, I didn't have anything lined up. Right. I had the internship. And so when they they mentioned that they would be interested in keeping me on. I was like, well, why not?
Because I'm trying to explore law anyway. So this will give me some time to think if I want to go to law school. Well, while I was in that position, I realized within the first year or so that, you know what, I don't think this is the long-term goal for me as far as a career. And I start to expand and look for other opportunities to be. So, you know, in law right there, they have a big focus on like advertisements.
So we had our marketing director in the group and she was super lean and didn't have a team. She was like, you know what, I'm looking for someone to help me get customer testimonials and work on advertisements. Would this be something you're interested in? So it was like, I mean, sure. It allowed me to expand my skillset. So I started to work on that and I started to figure out, you know, maybe marketing is for me. So I started doing a little bit more research.
Because I'm a Delta, there was a sore that I knew that owned a law firm, a slow-mo from Kentucky. And she was like, you know what? I need some help. I'm looking for someone to help with my branding and digital marketing within law. I thought that was perfect because I already had experience working on the advertising side. I now have experienced with a lot of. Why not. So I ended up doing like a short consulting project for her, ended up loving it.
So I was like, you know what marketing is for me. But when I started to look through everything, I was like, wait, like, what is the NBA? I have to have all these different skill sets. And I realized there was a gap that I had. So I ended up saying, you know what, I'm going to take a leap on faith. I'm going to apply to grad school, get my MBA in hopes of, of joining healthcare. And it pretty much the rest of this. That is amazing. I don't want to, you mentioned a lot here.
I really want to dive into a couple of things. One, we can't skip over the fact that you're a Delta. All right. We've got to give a shout out to all the deltas out there. But to what you mentioned earlier is what I talked to a lot of people about. There's so many people that are like, Hey, I don't know if this career's for me, whatever they're doing and they want to jump ship to something else.
And it's like, Hey, is there something within that career path where you can get paid to continue to learn. Right. And then be prepared to make that next job. So you mentioned two things that I want to dig into one the internships, right? How big has internships been for just discovering what your passions are within W2 world? Yeah. Yeah, a hundred, a hundred percent.
I would always recommend, especially for people that are currently in undergrads to explore internships, it, one gives you opportunity for you to get additional funding, but it also allows you to understand is a square for me, because what you don't want to do is make the mistake that a few people make they go into a function or they go into a role within the industry that they're not interested in. And then they're pivoting at a very late stage.
Right. So I think timing is always super critical. I would say for me, And what worked well for me was when I ended up going to school for my MBA, I ended up getting an internship at a major fortune 500 company in medical devices as well. It was actually for a rotational development program. So I'm always a huge advocate of don't jump into something. If you don't feel like you're ready.
And one of the great benefits of working in corporate is they have these rotational programs where you usually rotate the different businesses. They can vary between two to four years and you're basically rotating and figuring out what is the best opportunity for me. And at the same time, you're adding value to every business that you're in. So I ended up getting an internship within a business.
They ended up liking what I performed in the project that I worked on, ended up getting an offer to come back full time. So by doing that and exceeding in my internship, it pretty much gave me my foot in the door into medical device that. That is amazing. And there's a reoccurring theme here that I hope everybody's getting in. Our listeners are getting you're testing the waters with the internships, especially when you're in college and kind of trying to make that next step.
And then you're excelling and going above and beyond to where you're getting that offer. And now you've got your foot in the door to where you graduate and you're moving on. And it brings me to a quote that I've seen written about you. And that you've said a couple of times, And it's that opportunity comes from calculated risks and good timing. Can you dive into that and kind of explain what. Yeah. Yeah, for sure.
So if you look at my story, it seems like I've jumped ship a lot, but there's actually a lot of a framework and thought that went into it. So when I first decided that I wanted to go back to business school was excellent in 2014. But I did end up going back until 2016. So there's definitely a two year gap there.
And the reason for that is I wanted to fully understand what I needed to do to succeed, because if I was jumping into a totally new industry or going back to school, I really wanted to make sure I was choosing the right academics, the right concentration as well as the right school for, for what I wanted to get into. So I'm really big on people doing the research and testing the waters.
For example for me, when I was going through the process of selecting an MBA program, I actually went and visited quite a few schools and I didn't really make a decision early on. I revisit them every year until I figured out like my top three or four schools that I was interested in. So I'm really big on people kind of taking a step back and saying, what do I want to do within my career? What am I lacking? And basically figuring out what are the.
Three or four or five different things I need to do to get there. So that's really what I meant when I said like calculated risk versus just kind of jumping ship. Sometimes it works for people sometimes are able to just relocate somewhere and it all works out. But I was just not one of those people when it came to assessing risk. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm not either, right. I think I've mentioned in a couple of the previous episodes.
I'm still working a full-time W2 while building up the real estate portfolio. And a lot of members that join this group are doing the same thing. We're all trying to figure out how to continue to build up that side hustle. So we can be financially free. That being said you shouldn't jump ship on what you've already built up until you have a strong runway. And so one of the other things that is very interesting about your background and we got to give you kudos again, is you've been a riser.
You've been. Consistently getting promoted and taking on larger tasks with more responsibility. And over the past five years, I'm just going to read a little bit of what you've done. You've been able to go from a leadership development program to marketing manager, to a global senior product specialist, to a senior strategic planning associate to now a strategy manager in five years. When typically it would take somebody at least.
Two years just to make one of those jumps two questions, one, how have you been able to successfully navigate that corporate world? And then I'll ask the other one after, but how are you successfully navigating this corporate world to make those moves up? Yeah, so I mentioned a big fact of taking calculated risk and. If you look at the landscape today, or at least back in the day, right?
You'll hear from your grandparents saying, you know, I worked at the same company for five years and I started out as an intern. I worked my way up. Well, a day and age people are actually moving companies and they're doing it quite frequently. I think on average right now it's every two or three years, people are moving for new opportunities. So I'm a huge advocate and I'm going to go into a quote by one of the people that I look up to her name is Carla Harris.
She always mentioned, you know, don't let fear get in the way of your success equation. So I've been able to kind of navigate my career because I'm not afraid to move. So if you also look up the locations of all those places, like you mentioned, I was in Kentucky, then I went to Chicago and now I'm on the, on the east coast, in the New York metropolitan area. I'm a really big advocate of if the opportunity.
Good. And I think I can add value and I think you're going to help me get to where I want to win a career. I'm going to take the leap and I'm going to relocate to move there. What also became a key component? Never be afraid to lean in and solve a problem. So in you, you know, this road in corporate America, there's a lot of work to do and most likely not enough people. So if you find the need within the business where people either don't have the bandwidth. Or perhaps that position is open.
Don't be afraid to raise your hand and say, Hey, you know, I noticed right now there's a need for this. I would love to work on this for a couple of months just to build my skillset and help the business. And then if it ends up working out, I can either transition it to the person that's going to take it over. Or maybe I can just finish it. So always feel free to raise your hand.
Okay. When it comes down to promotions, they're going to look down a list of all the people within the business going to be like, you know what, Raven, she's a problem solver. She goes after needs in the business and she goes kinda above, beyond her role. And I think that's, what's really allowed me to kind of navigate the process in the past five years. Huge, huge.
And what you mentioned is not only true in the corporate world, but in the entrepreneurial world at the end of the day there's problems in the way. Both in corporate and just an entrepreneurial world that you need to solve. And if you're able to help solve that issue for somebody else, you can advance quickly. And it does give you some negotiating power, right?
When you're starting to talk about things around salary, and I know you've got some tips for negotiating salary, would you mind sharing that with the people on the line, in the. Yeah. So the first one is document document, document. I have an email list right now. Let's say I can do something small, like help someone with the presentation or help walk someone through a problem that they're having within the business.
If they write you, especially if it's a senior leader and they're saying, Hey, Great value to me, or this is the impact that you made save that because when it comes down to your annual review or your mid-year review, you're able to pull up and say, Hey, just to let you know, you know, senior director of XYZ shared with me, this is the impact I made on the business. So definitely document and hold on to things because you want to keep I call it a purse of all the good things you've worked on.
The key to getting promoted. It's not always the time you've been in the role, but it's also the impact you made on other people. So. Always feel free if you're not getting that feedback to just reach out to the person you helped in saying, Hey, I noticed I helped you on that project. Can you just kind of walk me through what happened?
Do you think I did a good job is any feedback you can provide because you can bring that into your conversation with your manager and you can start to talk about salary. So that's one of the really key components that I would recommend that people do. It's just really making sure you're documenting all the great work. And you're constantly asking for feedback, especially if they may be more senior than you in the. Absolutely.
And these are solid tips that I actually utilized throughout my career. I actually have a folder. If you look at my, my my inbox one is for external feedback. One's internal feedback. Any time something good comes through, I'll just plug it away. And then when I go to an interview process, a lot of people send an email to you and say, Hey, can you write me a recommendation? You don't know what the relationship's going to be like at that time.
Or if that person even has the time to do it in your, in time for you to have the interview. And so I like looking at those folders, pulling a piece and using those as my recommendation. So I love the advice and it's, it's helped me out as well. And we could spend the rest of this time talking about your corporate journey and these major tips that you've. But what we like talking about on this financial freedom mastermind podcast is success within your W2.
But what you're doing outside of that, to ensure that you have legacy and that you're able to build up, you know, income so that you're not tied to it. And so true closet is something that you launched literally in the middle of a pending. Right in, in may, whereas things were uncertain. We don't know what's going on in the world. Are we going to be able to recover?
You launched shrewd closet and I really want to understand what was your inspiration around that and why did you think we needed this right now? Yeah. Yeah. One thing that changed when the road kind of shut down, as people started to get a lot more free time, you didn't have to commute the one or two hours back and forth in order to get to work. You could literally get up, you know, within 40 minutes for your next call and jump onto your next meeting.
So I really took advantage of the time for the positive, but something negative that happened and something I realized just across the globe. Right. Companies really started to downsize and cut costs. And I saw a lot of people in all different parts of businesses lose their jobs. Not because they weren't great, people are doing great work, but because of just the circumstances of the economy. So that's when I kind of realized in the back of my head, I'm like, you know what?
I know I'm doing a good job. I'm not, I'm exceeding corporate America, but I really can't put all my eggs in one basket. So I started to think about all these key things, all these ideas that I had in the past, but I've always kind of pushed them off and said, oh, you don't have the time to start a business. I'm trying to become, you know, this corporate executive. But when the pandemic happened, I just realized, you know, Take the leap on faith, figure it out. You know, as I said, take a risk.
It's going to work if you put a lot of work into it. So I ended up creating something called true closet stuff. Repeat that. I don't know what true means. It really just means you're, you're smart. You're intelligent. A lot of times it's used to describe a business person rather than nature, but I created it because I saw a need within the market when it came to. Attire for women when it comes to corporate America. I'm a big advocate on being unique even within the office.
So I'm a big person that likes to have, you know, powerful blazers maybe powerful pins. That's something that's too loud, but something that just makes me stand out and it's kind of like a reputation that I started to even get at work or even working remote is that, you know, always dress different, but always nice. So I started to test the waters. I did a little market research with a small group of ladies that I knew, and I was like, Hey, here's some styles.
And I'm thinking about, do you see a need when you're working at work to kind of dress nice, but at the same time, It's unique. It makes you feel comfortable. And they were like, yes, go for it. We want to buy it today. So I was like, okay, cool. I did some research. I ended up buying a website building that up from the ground up and you know, the rest is pretty much, um, And, and that's amazing, right.
To be able to take all that was negative in the world and only be, oh, and focus in on the positive piece, which is that, Hey, you're working from home now. You don't have that commute. You can use some of that creative energy and really looking ahead to say what I want my life to look like 20 years down the road. Do I want to have a little more control or do I want to have, you know, still be tied to at the end of the day? A business decision.
And one thing that you've mentioned in the past, and then I want to dig into kind of how you're acquiring clients and customers. But one thing that you've mentioned in the past, that's a different perspective is you view your W2, not as a burden, but more like a business partner. And that's a really interesting perspective. I know a lot of people that are like, Hey, I can't wait till I quit this job and jump full time into something, but you're like, Hey, it's a business partner.
Can you explain your mindset around? Yeah. Yeah. So I am proud to say I've been able to kind of cash fund my business. So when I say that I see as my corporate job or my nine to five as my business partner is I'm taking the additional funds that I have left over that I might ended up back in the day, buying a new purse or something else. Nice. I'm now putting it into my business, into advertising in the marketing collateral or inventory.
So. I'm always a huge advocate of don't quit your job until you feel like you've made as much money as what you would make with your nine to five, at least because you want to be able to cover it, cover your bills, live the life that you've always lived. So I'm always really big on just making sure that you Juggle both at the same time. I would say for me, I'm a huge advocate of still navigating through corporate America.
So I don't necessarily kind of ever see myself fully converting away, but I do see myself building a business where I can start hiring staff. Right. So I've been starting to research. What does it mean when I hire a contractor versus bringing someone on payroll? And what does that mean? Because I would love to have someone help me, especially when it comes to the marketing aspects, because. You know, but social media things move so fast.
If you're not online all the time, you're going to miss out on some trends. And if you're working corporate or nine to five, we don't really have time to be on the internet as much because you have to deal with your, your daily duties. So I'm a really big advocate of, you know, leveraging your nine to five or your day job to fund your side business until you feel like one.
You want to take that leap and be a hundred percent entrepreneur or two, you want to be dual and you just kind of want to run both and eventually build a team, or you could still be that CEO, but then you have a lot of other people working, you know, working for you. I love that. I love that. And it's, it's really just like you said, working both until you have to make a decision, right. Build it up enough to where it's like. I can't keep doing both. I've got to choose one.
And in the T and the age that we live today, there's so much technology that you can leverage in other people that eventually you could, as you said, become that CEO and really have other people handling the different aspects of the business. The one thing. That you talked about a little bit. I went and I want to dive into is the marketing aspect. So you did some market research early on, but after you launched now, it's, it's real right. You're putting money. Money's going out.
You're spending on ads, things of that nature. How are you marketing and how are you getting the word out to new customers about. Yeah. So I am proud to say that, although we are based out in Connecticut so far, I've had customers and about 15 states in the us and a big factor for that is actually leveraging social media primarily with advertisements.
So it did take me a while to understand how to navigate Facebook ads, but I think there are a huge opportunity that you can touch base with people that. You wouldn't normally see if you were stationed in, in one particular state and one particular city. And what I like about Facebook advertisements is that just for $5 a day, you can touch numerous customers. Right? Well, what I would want to say, and, and a lot of people think that if I just throw money at something, it solves the problem.
It really doesn't. So when you do advertisements, you really have to understand what are the customers that you want to target and find that niche segments. You see a lot of different people that do very well finding that niche and then expanding. So for example, for food closet I'm targeting women that work either in or out of the office that have to dress semi-professional or post happy hour, right?
I'm not targeting a large base of just any type of clothes I'm really segmented and I'm building on that niche. So a lot of my content is centered around. The working woman where they're working inside or outside the office, whether they're nine to five or entrepreneurship. And that is my focus.
So all of my advertisements, I'm thinking about what challenges are working women going through, where they want to be able to transition their wardrobe from work to the next meeting that they may have after. Like that's really figuring out what is the value prop for your niche customer base, and really just diving deep on that before. That is huge, right? The riches are in the niches and I'm more real estate focused, but anybody that's getting started.
And when I got started, I was highly focused on small multi-family. This is what I'm going to go after. And after a while, you start to have almost a sixth sense on what would work. That customer base or what that clientele would look like. And so it kind of helps you continue to grow, which is, which is awesome. And I love the tips on the Facebook marketing. Now around inventory, I know what businesses like this, right? You have to manage sometimes a large supply of inventory.
How are you handling that and getting product to customers while you're working a full-time job? Yeah, I would say this is definitely something I'm still learning. And I've, I've started to do a lot of brief YouTube searches for people that I've worked in retail. So I don't have retail experience and I feel like that is probably an area that I really want to double click on because we see it today. If you go inside a store, you may see something full price. You come back.
A month later, it's 15% you come back two months later, it's 50%. Well, what they're doing is really fleshing out inventory because this day and age people will always going after what's new. So I'm learning more and more that it's all about new drops. So moving forward, instead of dropping a full collection of 10 items, what I might do is say, Hey, every month or every two weeks, I'm going to drop a new piece. People like to just buy what's new and they want to buy it immediately.
Being able to kind of understand the trends in either if you've worked in retail or you may have a family member that worked in retail, I encourage you to sit down and just talk with them about how do people go about switching for the seasons? You'll see, quite frankly, with the lot of, you know, fashion businesses, there'll be winter and they're already starting to work on spring, but that's because they got to get in front of you so it can be ready to purchase, but for that time comes so.
Being up to date on the trends is probably what has helped me with inventory. But it's still, it's still a challenge. You gotta be able to get rid of it quick and not be afraid of discounted is probably a huge thing that I've learned over the years is, you know, you just gotta, you gotta sell it. You gotta get rid of it. You gotta discount it. And don't be afraid to take that margin cut because you can use that revenue to buy, you know, new pieces for your collection. Absolutely. Absolutely.
And this. You know, game-changing advice because we do have people on the call right now that are looking to get into similar businesses. And so I know when we do kick it to the group, they're going to have questions and we'll do that in a little bit, but I have just a few more that one to go through. One I've seen in some of your posts that you mentioned this thing debt-free by 33. What are you talking about there and why is this important to you? Yes, yes.
And I created that hashtag because it motivates me every, every day. So. Like everyone else in the world. I do have student loan debts. A lot of it was gathered from my graduate degree. But instead of me, this kind of loading in it and saying, you know what, forget the student loans. I'm never paying those. I was like, you know, I'm going to address it head on. So I started to use a lot of 'em like that free calculators. You can literally Google some and they would pop up.
And I was like, Hey, if I'm trying to pay off my student loans by five years, what does that plan really look like? And I started to really back into it because here's, what's critical for me. And, and, and what are, um, some people understand it. Some people don't. I want to get to the point in life where I'm not working because I have debt, I'm working, whatever job, because I want to, it's a different type of prep.
It's a different type of freedom when you can leave a job because you like, you know what? I don't have any debt. I don't have to stay here because I have. You know, a high mortgage or high student loan debt, I can leave and go do something else. That may be less money, but it's my passion. So for me, I created debt free by 33, which I've actually been working on for about four years now, but my goal was to be debt free by the age of 33. And right now I am on track.
I don't have any consumer debt. All of my debt right now is just, um, That is awesome. Congrats. We are rooting for you and just from the sounds of it, I have no doubt that you're going to reach that and it's true. It's, there's a different kind of freedom that comes when you're able to go into the workplace and really even be able to speak your mind. Right.
Because if you do have to depend on what some would call the quote, unquote golden handcuffs, that salary it, it kind of restricts even what you would say. In a setting, right? You may pull back and not give a full opinion because you're like, Hey, let's keep working this thing along. But once you get financially free, then you're truly able to be free, which is awesome. And the last two things that I wanted to get to before kicking it over to the group. Is this year.
I know you've mostly been doing with true fruit closet, physical products, right. But in 2022, you actually expanded the line into digital products. Would you mind talking about what you launched earlier than. Yeah. Yeah. So as I've been navigating my career some questions that I always get from people is like, Raven, you know, what books do you read? Arabian. How did you navigate career? Do you have any. On how you can do XYZ.
And I was like, Hey, maybe there is a need here for some form of digital education. And what I really like about digital education, it's not tangible. Right. I can spend time allocate a couple of hours, create one document or one file, and that can be shared. You know infinity versus if I have 10 blazers after those 10 blazers, I'm going to have to re up and buy some more. So, so I expanded it.
It was more of like a pilot to see if I could get people interested and digital services, but it's basically a book list. So Every year, I try to make one particular goal for myself. And I told myself for 22, I wanted to level up and level up is not just from a career perspective, but it's, it's personal, it's relationships. It's personal branding.
So what I ultimately did on my own, it was like, you know, I'm going to every month, I'm going to read a book and it's going to be centered on leveling up whatever those key areas are. And as I started shared this with like my friends and I posted on social media, they were like, well, what books are you reading? And I was like, Hmm, maybe I should start compiling a list. And it just a light bulb kind of went off and I was like, Hey. I can just create a digital book list, super cheap.
It's only a dollar, right. But I really want other people that feel like they can level up their career to, and, and be able to leverage and read and educate. And maybe perhaps we can see. Talking about it. So maybe I can start doing like lives on kind of what we've learned in the book. Maybe we can do different types of like book clubs. So I started to create a digital ebook list called 22 books, the level up in 2022. And it's basically a book list.
22 books across all the areas that just shared and just, you know, helps people elevate themselves. My target base is women, but definitely for the fellas I say book has no gender. If you can get good tips as a woman, you can get it as a man as well. So, well, on that line, in the future, I know maybe not right now, but you're expanding other products. Is there going to be a shrewd men's line in the future? And can I get some of the, the early. Let's do some market research.
You could be one of my one-on-one interviews to figure out what your needs are. Fair enough. Fair enough. Last question from me before kicking it to the group. What can this mastermind group and or the listeners do for you in 2022? What are some goals that we could help you with in this year? Hold me accountable, right? I say Sam, I'm going to be debt debt-free by 33. That means I have a target in my head of what I have to pay off.
So, you know, continuously, I guess all motivating each other with. Goals are from a financial perspective and feel free to share feedback, right? So the people on this call and those that may view it definitely feel free to add comments for other things they may want to see. You may want to hear it. And I look forward to, you know, hopefully coming back and sharing, Absolutely Raven again, we thank you. And now I want to open it up to anybody who's on the line.
Please feel free to ask any questions you may have for Raven. Hey Raven, this is a hearsay. So thank you for sharing your story. I was listening to you and even my best friend texts me. She was like, she sounds like you. And because I was hearing myself as you're speaking, like even down to. Business that you created and how you view your corporate job, you know, as pretty much a funnel to, you know, that's your investment to your business.
And I'm kinda in the same boat as you and I just kind of wanted to get your thoughts. So like I have a travel business. And I create a parallel. So I do t-shirts and mugs and all kinds of stuff, but, you know, and I've pretty much started the one of the businesses with the t-shirts during the pandemic. Cause you know, with the extra time and it was helping me with my self care and all of that and people start saying, oh, I like that. I want that.
And so that's how we got bigger with that, but I feel that. I know I can be bigger with my business, but I feel like I'm keeping it tight in a box because I have, I don't know if it's fear, it's not fear, but I am to a certain extent, very meticulous about things that I don't want to under deliver to someone. So if I get 12 orders, I want to be able to have a good SLA to say, you know, you're going to have it within five to seven days, but if I get too many. I don't know what I would do.
So, you know, I keep telling myself, I need an assistant or I need a, even if it's a virtual assistant to help balance orders. So how do you do, like, what are you doing with that? Like when it comes to you receiving orders, are you managing it all yourself? Or how do you delegate some of those tasks? Yeah. Yeah. I definitely resonate with you when it comes to like, you know, it's, it's my baby, I've had it for so long. Like I don't know exactly what I need to be doing.
And, and one of the big tips that I would give you don't have it already is develop like an operating agreement. Right? So if you have a certain way that you ship the orders where you have like a thank you card, or you wrap it in this type of paper, document that. So if you were to hire. There is someone from your family or someone, you know, externally that at least they have like this playbook of, Hey, this is how she likes her packages wrapped.
So I'm going to wrap them just like she would wrap them herself. So that'd be the first thing that I would recommend. And I'm working on that myself. From a marketing perspective. I would say till this day, I'm still the one that's shipping my orders, but I kinda like it. Like, I don't know. I kinda like printing it off and, and packaging it still. But I would just figure it out. What are the areas of your business, which you a hundred percent don't want anyone else to control.
And what are the other things which you would say, you know what, I wouldn't mind someone taking this over, but maybe I just need to train them. And once you identify those figure out either, do I want to hire someone externally? Do we want to leverage some type of third party to do it for me? For example for me I've started to outsource some of my marketing. So I use Facebook advertisements. Right. I create the ad, but then it just runs without me even having to you know, touch it.
I'll look at my analytics and see if I'm still getting a good return on my investment. But I leverage that I've also started to leverage influencers. So I started to find micro influencers online. Some of them they'll work for money or they'll work for free clothes, whatever their agreements may be. But I would say, you know, Full comfortable given some control, but knowing that you're going to train them to do the exact same thing that you would do as your business.
I know it's going to take some time because it's very close knit to you, but that will probably be the best tips that I would give. So you have like your sanity and you're not working, you know, all day trying to ship orders and do marketing and email people back. If they have questions about the orders, like figure out all those things that you can delegate and then kind of work towards how you. Perfect. Thank you, Raven. Thanks so much for sharing today has been very helpful.
So I'm in a similar boat where actually last year I launched the clothing retail line and this year was supposed to be my goal last year. And I got everything is now stuck in supply chain issues because I went through time by manufacturing. And as of this week, there was set down for 20 days. So I'm still. So I just want to know, have you had any challenges and kind of, how are you going about, um, dealing with some of the manufacturing. Yeah. Tell me about it. Definitely.
I'm experiencing somebody challenges, you know, at work and, and in, uh, business too. One big thing that I would recommend you do is diversify your suppliers. So I have suppliers that are based in the us, and then I have suppliers that are based on China. Of course, my Chinese suppliers extreme. But I have certain distributors and vendors that I use within LA that I'm able to get my, my shipment. So I would just recommend diversify when you can.
I know it is super expensive, especially within the U S with buying goods, but I think that's how I've been able to kind of stay afloat is during the pandemic it's supply challenges, you know, I tend to depend a little bit more on my us distributors, and then I kind of wait for my, . Asian distributors to So that's kind of how I've been managing those. And that's actually where I was.
Would you be open to even activists, if you would share just some of the LA distributors that you had good luck with? I'm actually flying out there to do the same and I'd love it if you've had great experiences with yeah, for sure. Yep. Yep. For free. Thank you. Any other questions or comments for Raven. And I'll ask you, I guess the last one is what you're wearing right now. A part of a future line for shoe. Yeah, the blazer is, yeah. Perfect. Perfect.
We talked about it a little bit beforehand. Raven is definitely an innovator in this space, and again, we truly appreciate you coming on to this podcast, as well as sharing some of your knowledge with us, Raven. Everybody. I hope you have an awesome rest of the evening. Thank you. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Cabo home financial freedom mastermind podcast. If you found this content valuable, please go ahead and hit that like button.
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