Being a small business owner is great and all, but it means needing to find time for the big S.C. - self-care! Self-care is so monumentally important because being a small business owner often means being under a lot of pressure and sometimes even means sacrificing a lot, and that is exactly why self-care is so important even though it's often overlooked because of our busy schedules.

What does self-care even mean, though? We define it mainly as the practice of taking action to preserve or improve one's own health, especially during times of stress. We give some examples of ways that some people take care of themselves, such as journaling, exercising, having a cup of coffee, making food choices, and so forth. We also list off some ways that those of you who don't implement enough self-care into your days can start doing so, including being intentional about doing things that bring you joy (such as touching base with family and friends, taking a relaxing bath, meditating, and so forth).

We also talk about how important it is to be mindful of our health and listen to our bodies, especially as women business owners. Remember that if your car's check engine light is on, driving the car without getting that taken care of is not going to be good for your car and could even do irreversible damage, and our minds and bodies are no different. We also, however, need to figure out what our own version of self-care is and not allow other people to ridicule or dictate it. Make sure that self-care becomes a priority! Until next time, we appreciate you tuning in again and encourage you to reach out to us via the email address provided in the show notes if you have anything that you would like to share with us!

Time Stamps

[0:41] – Michele introduces the topic of self-care.

[2:37] – Karamel stresses the importance of self-care.

[4:05] – Karamel poses the question of what self-care means.

[4:29] – Michele offers insight about what self-care is.

[5:47] – Karamel admits that she needs more self-care in her life.

[8:05] – Michele compliments Karamel on how she has delegated an outsource.

[9:41] – We learn about a time when Karamel did treat herself.

[10:31] – Michele lists some things that Karamel can do to implement self-care.

[11:48] – Some of the benefits of exercise are shared with us.

[13:00] – Karamel stresses the importance of small steps over grandiose resolutions.

[15:12] – Michele argues that women business owners have to be especially mindful of their health.

[17:40] – Michele points to a rule that she set for herself when she first opened her agency.

[19:15] – Karamel and Michele clarify why rules about self-care are important.

[21:30] – Karamel sums up what she is getting out of this conversation.

[23:14] – Karamel discusses the importance of having people who support us.

[23:40] – We are encouraged to find what our own version of self-care is.

Resources

CEO Chronicles – Website

Email us: [email protected]

As a business owner, COVID-19 has been nothing short of frustrating. It keeps spiking and causing changes in policy and procedure, especially when the CDC and doctors aren't always in agreement over what they're saying. This has led us to think about policy, procedure, and practice and whether they should always be stringent or have exceptions.

Small business owners can't put the blame on someone above them when it comes to enforcing policy and procedure, and that sometimes means having to feel like the bad guy. We talk about how to enforce policy and procedure, if and when it's ever acceptable to make exceptions, the importance of making sure that you're legally allowed to enforce certain policies, whether or not you should base your policies on your values, thinking forward about unintended consequences, why you need to be consistent with policies, and so much more!

To sum up, we encourage you to make sure that you have simple policies that you keep updated and easy to read and that you stick to them! We hope that this conversation is helpful, and we appreciate you tuning in again and encourage you to reach out to us via the email address provided in the show notes if you have anything that you would like to share with us. We hope that you will tune in again next time!

Time Stamps

[0:36] – Michele opens by talking about COVID and how it has been wreaking havoc on policy and procedure.

[1:20] – Karamel offers a definition of policy vs. a definition of procedure.

[3:01] – Karamel reflects on a time when she had to be stringent about a policy.

[5:52] – Michele argues that sometimes compromise is needed.

[8:17] – Michele recommends getting an HR partner in small business.

[9:30] – Karamel adds that policies and procedures need to be in place even if you don't have employees.

[10:40] – We learn how and why Karamel has never lost a case.

[13:35] – Karamel emphasizes that exceptions need to be one time things.

[15:39] – Michele reminds us that we need to understand competitors' policies.

[17:58] – Michele offers an example of a scenario when biases came into play.

[19:40] – Modify policies that align with your values, Michele asserts.

[21:03] – Michele and Karamel make the case that we need to think about unintended consequences.

[23:53] – Michele argues that we should articulate the reasons for policies.

[25:53] – Michele explains why consistency is important.

[28:04] – We are encouraged to keep policy simple and updated.

Resources

CEO Chronicles – Website

Email us: [email protected]

We are talking all things diversity, equity, and inclusion today on CEO Chronicles – real diversity, equity, and inclusion! We discuss the peak wage between men and women and the gap that is still there and address how there are only five or six black CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. We reflect on some of our past experiences such as feeling like an employee vs. an intrapreneur, how motherhood can affect a woman's work life, the extra responsibility of having to build a reputation, how important that it is to surround ourselves with people who support us, and how we need to lean in to conversations.

We also call attention to Karamel having gotten a fractional CFO (despite having said in a recent episode that she doesn't need a CFO), the fact that white men generally have the privilege of being able to share thoughts and ideas without apologizing and how that leads to Michele making use of what she calls her inner white man, why it's important not to apologize for knowing your worth and asking for what you feel that you deserve, and so much more!

At the end of the day, we encourage you not to allow glass ceilings to cloud your judgment. Break them, and shatter them! We hope that this conversation is insightful to you! We really appreciate you tuning in again and encourage you to reach out to us via the email address provided in the show notes if you have anything that you would like to share with us. We hope that you will tune in again next time!

Time Stamps

[0:40] – Michele has been thinking about how much she has going on in her life right now at her age.

[2:19] – Karamel clarifies that women often peak financially at around $66,000 whereas it's more like $100,000 for men.

[3:53] – Michele gets into diversity, equity, and inclusion.

[6:08] – Learn what an intrapreneur is.

[8:32] – Michele reflects on how she built a reputation with the Minority Business Council.

[10:06] – Karamel shares a story about having been at a United WE town hall meeting.

[11:20] – Michele returns to the conversation about the earning potential of women at the said peak age.

[13:00] – Michele pauses to call attention to Karamel having gotten a fractional CFO.

[15:08] – Karamel expresses that she has never wanted to be sixty years old, feeling regretful that she didn't do everything that she wanted to do.

[18:27] – Michele encourages us to surround ourselves with supportive people.

[19:13] – We learn about what Michele calls her inner white man.

[22:07] – Michele reveals what she does now when she enters a room and someone interrupts.

[23:47] – Michele gives advice to minorities who want to go above and beyond.

[25:45] – We are advised not to apologize for knowing our worth.

[28:30] – Learn about countries that give employees much longer maternity leaves.

Resources

CEO Chronicles – Website

Email us: [email protected]

Sheryl Sandberg - Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead

Cashflow is a hot topic when it comes to the world of business, and we're here in our second week of CEO Chronicles to tackle it! When you are cashflow positive, how do you know when to spend it and what to spend it on? How should you monitor cashflow, and how often should you do cashflow statements? We help you answer these questions and so many more!

Cashflow, which we define for you as the balance of cash moving into and out of a business at any given time, is so important that, as we speculate today, not being significantly cashflow positive is very likely why so many businesses, especially small businesses, went under during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many businesses were running paycheck to paycheck and only had enough cashflow to cover a month or so once so much shut down due to the pandemic. We talk about planning your next five moves but being reasonable and prudent about it, how to know when to cut your losses and what you can do about it, how to increase your cashflow, and so much more hopefully helpful insight and information about cashflow!

Staying in positive cashflow is not easy, which is why even major corporations such as Netflix are sometimes in negative cashflow. That's why we hope that this insight is helpful to you if you're in business and that it gives you some things to think about. We appreciate you tuning in again and encourage you to reach out to us via the email address provided in the show notes if you have anything that you would like to share with us. We hope to see you next time!

Time Stamps

[1:18] – Michele has been thinking about cashflow.

[3:32] – Karamel asks important rhetorical questions about spending cashflow.

[4:14] – Michele speculates as to why some businesses went under during the COVID-19 pandemic.

[6:54] – Learn why Netflix wasn't worried when they were cashflow negative.

[8:23] – Michele discusses the book that she is currently reading, Your Next Five Moves.

[10:47] – Karamel stresses the importance of bookkeeping.

[12:33] – Michele points to a famous quote to demonstrate the difference between revenue, profit, and cash.

[14:35] – We discover what cashflow is and what the difference is between positive cashflow and negative cashflow.

[17:16] – Michele points out the difference between cash managing and cashflowing.

[19:54] – Michele gives an example of a form of cashflow.

[22:29] – We learn why we need to be prepared to cut spending where it's necessary.

[23:13] – We learn about net 90 vs. net 15.

[25:50] – Karamel emphasizes an important basic business principle.

[28:22] – Michele and Karamel call attention to a helpful book, The Entrepreneur Mind.

[30:05] – Learn why reading to and listening to resources is important when you're in business.

[31:44] – Discover how to contact Michele and Karamel.

Resources

CEO Chronicles – Website

Email us: [email protected]

CNBC - “Netflix will consider buybacks as it returns to positive cash flow after 2021”

Patrick Bet-David - Your Next Five Moves: Master the Art of Business Strategy

Kevin D. Johnson - The Entrepreneur Mind: 100 Essential Beliefs, Characteristics, and Habits of Elite Entrepreneurs

Forbes - Website

Welcome to CEO Chronicles, hosted by us, Michele and Karamel! We are so excited to bring this podcast to you and share with you who we are and what we do! We met in radio and have been friends for more than fifteen years, and throughout this journey, we have evolved so much and have each started our own businesses at around the same time.

In our first episode, we discuss the three different types of people talked about in Michael Gerber's The E-Myth books and how that links to small businesses, remote working vs. in-person working, why so many people nowadays seem to want to have their own businesses and what their driving factors tend to be (and what ours were), how failures are actually just lessons, and why you need to determine early on what your endgame is.

We also debate about lean startups vs. capital, share with you how our businesses differ in how we operate, how we got through the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, and so much more! We are so appreciative of you for tuning in and giving us a listen and hope that you will continue this journey with us! We don't claim to be experts and are just giving our opinions, but we hope that sharing our experiences and what we have learned from them will be useful for you from here on out. See you next time!

Time Stamps

[0:25] – Michele and Karamel share their backgrounds and how they met.

[2:22] – Karamel discusses the three different types of people outlined in Michael Gerber's The E-Myth books.

[4:31] – Michele shares her opinion on what the word entrepreneur means.

[6:27] – Karamel explains how brick and mortar businesses differ from side businesses.

[8:18] – Michele links working remotely with mental health.

[9:55] – Michele wonders why so many people nowadays want to have their own businesses.

[10:52] – We learn about what Karamel's mindset was during the COVID-19 pandemic.

[13:25] – Michele talks about how much easier it is to open a business today than it was in the '90s.

[15:02] – We discover what Karamel's driving factor was for starting her own business.

[16:50] – Michele and Karamel enthuse on Karamel's early 2000s project involving all-natural lip balm.

[19:30] – Karamel debate over lean startups vs. capital.

[22:23] – Michele explains why capital is needed with a brick and mortar.

[24:38] – Michele advises business owners to pay people to do things so that their time is freed up.

[27:21] – Karamel and Michele agree that business owners sometimes have to switch roles.

[29:44] – Michele shares a story giving an example of how normalized online shopping has become.

[32:28] – Karamel enthuses about how so many of her employees live scattered around the country.

[34:45] – Karamel argues that you need to determine whether or not you want to move forward with a business.

[36:56] – Michele points out that you need to make a decision on whether or not something is a side hustle.

[38:45] – Michele sums up the difference between a side hustle and a gig.

[40:16] – We learn how the idea of the podcast came to be.

[42:51] – Michele gives an example of something that she learned from the COVID-19 pandemic.

[44:00] – Karamel and Michele have a conversation about chasing an endgame.

[46:27] – Michele provides us an example of how you sometimes have to work up to a brick and mortar.

[48:53] – We are asked whether or not we would still do what we do in times when we don't get paid.

[51:34] – Michele asserts that we need to find ways to get us through hard times with our businesses.

[53:45] – Karamel and Michele end with a story about Karamel having lent money to Michele.

Resources

Michael Gerber – The E-Myth

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09MG1K9X2

Brian Moran – The 12 Week Year: Get More Done in 12 Weeks than Others Do in 12 Months

https://www.amazon.com/12-Week-Year-Others-Months/dp/1118509234/