What's the first thing you think of when I say Badunkachunk? Is it cookies? If not, it soon will be!

Meet our guest for show number 148, Mrs. Bridget Throneberry. Bridget is the lovely and talented Chief Cookie Officer at Badunkachunk, a cookie company about to take over the world. Ok I just made up her title, but her cookie company is rocking and rolling. They are based in San Diego, but ship around the globe.

And Bridget is here to share with us the secrets in her recipe to success. On this episode of The Solopreneur Hour we talk about Bridget's background, how it influenced her cookie business, and the mindset that has brought her success in all she does.

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Bridget grew up in the South with fond memories of her German grandmother's cookies, cakes and candies during the holiday season. Her love affair with food wasn't the only thing she inherited from her grandmother. Always decked out in matching red lipstick and nails, Bridget's grandmother also showed Bridget importance of presenting yourself in the world and the impact it can make on others.

That lesson was further driven home when Bridget went the traditional Southern route of pageantry. Coming from a family without a lot of money, Bridget was determined to pay for her college education herself and pageants provided a means to do so. Through pageant participation, Bridget learned how to articulate herself, communicate and interact with others (she is an only child), and how to present herself appropriately. She never won, but she consistently finished in the top five which gave her enough money to pay for college.

Having earned enough money to attend and having been accepted into college, Bridget chose the path of marketing with an emphasis on management. Always one to stay ahead of her competition, Bridget wanted to do whatever she could to get a leg up on her classmates.

So she decided to find a job in her chosen field, while still in school. She landed a telemarketing job in a corporate office selling fixed loans to people with adjustable rate loans. It certainly was a product she believed in, and that helped her persevere through all the "no"s. She never let a rejection stop her, like any good solopreneur worth their salt, she kept on til she got another yes.

She became so good at this work that she was promoted to warm leads after a year then after a year with warm leads she was promoted to management. Her management position was during her senior year of college, she was well ahead of the curve exactly as she had planned.

You'll also discover things like:

* Where did she get the name of her company?

* How important branding is to her success.

* How to tell if someone is right-brained or left-brained with one question.

* What makes a sales letter great?

* True or false: she was an aerobics instructor while in high school.

* And lots more!

After college, her first gig was an outside sales job. It was pretty cushy: paid car, paid phone, paid laptop and she could work from home according to her own schedule.

But she faced a hurdle that first year: she had to learn to sell face to face, not something she had done before. And she struggled, she didn't grow her territory one iota that first year. It was uncharacteristic of Bridget not to reach her goals and she knew she had to do something to create a shift. So she began learning micro expressions, reading books like Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People. With the help of her new tools and her expanded understanding of people, Bridget was now able to succeed in her role.

By the time she had taken on her fourth sales position, she was excelling at what she did. She truly was an exceptional sales person, and she was miserable. It was time for something new.

Through a stroke of good fortune and savvy business acumen,