First To Arrive, Last to Leave

Being the first in an industry can be a blessing and a curse, and Cheyenne Smith, Founder of Blk Hive Media and Dakota Ridge has found herself mostly loving the challenge.

On this episode of First To Arrive Last To Leave, we dive into the world of entrepreneurship and the challenges of navigating finances, funding, and scaling a business. Cheyenne opens up about her personal journey of starting a business and the financial struggles they faced along the way.

We also discuss the importance of being financially aware, calculating true gross margins, and finding opportunities for more non-traditional financial support. Cheyenne talks about how she found a niche in paid advertising and was able to leverage her knowledge to create her own boots for kids at Dakota Ridge.

We also talk about her journey with the Goldman Sach's 10K program and how she went in with one business, but came out working on another business, and how it changed her thought process around funding.

Cheyenne also talks about juggling two businesses while raising a child to managing rapid growth.

To learn more about Cheyenne's company, visit:

https://shopdakotaridge.com/

Can you apply what you learned while playing sports to business?

Actually, the intersections are endless, and Jarvis Hill wrote a book helping kids to understand that everything they learn from playing sports can be applied to the business world once they graduate.

Jarvis joins Courtney and Erin on this episode of First To Arrive, Last to Leave to talk about his book, 'Sports Biz: There's More To Sports Than You Think,' and why he's so passionate about helping kids learn that focusing on becoming great at a sport can set them up for a lifetime of discipline and success.

To grab your copy of Jarvis' book, visit: https://www.amazon.com/Sports-Biz-Theres-More-Think/dp/B0C1J1H38Q

Before everyone was talking about data analytics, Robin Sturgis was already in the thick of it, helping venture capital firms make smart decisions through data.

When Robin was doing some data freelance work while also raising three teenage daughters, she found the opportunity for more and decided to hire and form her own company.

Since then infoFluency has grown, and Robin has used her own experience with numbers and trends to make the changes within her own business to scale and grow. She has since moved on to creating dashboards and helping specific industries understand the 360 view of their company through numbers and analytics.

Robin also shares how the Goldman Sachs 10K program helped her to see herself as a leader, and not just an entrepreneur, and how it helped her scale to that next level.

To learn more about Robin, visit: https://www.infofluency.net/

Who says you can't have your cake and eat it too?

Or in Nickquolette Barrett case, you can have your corporate job, a pension just around the corner, and a thriving business. Or as Nickquolette likes to call it, her Angel Investor.

Nickquolette Barrett is the Get Hired Strategiest, who first started helping people with their resumes so they could quickly climb the corporate ladder. As her clients continued to see more and more success, Nickquolette found herself in a bind where she had to figure out if she should leave her corporate job for her thriving business, or find a way to do both.

She learned how to leverage VA's to help her grow her business, and soon she found another business opportunity, and a way to continue to not lose her pension.

Nickquolette shares her amazing story with us today and offers some great advice on how you can grow your empire without burning out.

To learn more and connect with Nickquolette, visit: https://irockresumes.com

or follow her on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickquolettebarrett/.

How many times would you get knocked down before walking away from your company?

For many it's one to a few, but there aren't many people who will still be standing after several. However, that's the story of Jennifer Scott, who had just set out to say that quitting wasn't going to be an option.

Jennifer's story is incredible from finding out one of her business partners was arrested for embezzlement, to having several of her key employees leave to start their own company, to getting sued after she tried to take over a sinking company, plus so much more. Jennifer, with her husband, refused to give up and never wanted to let down those people who stayed with them and believed in them.

She is now a success story, employing 22 people, and hitting over 7 figures, and she also thanks the 10K SB Program for her success.

I love these stories of success when you know there are a few amount of people who could have endured this yet still continue to pursue their dream to get to the other side.

To find out more about Jennifer and HireEffect, visit: https://hireeffect.com/

No one will ever claim owning a business is easy, but when you also have mother nature against you, building through a disaster can be extremely difficult.

The great Josh Johnson joins us on this episode of First to Arrive, Last to Leave to discuss his journey into entrepreneurship, and how a combination of growing too fast along with Hurricane Katrina created an almost impossible situation to overcome.

Josh talks about what it was like second-guessing himself and feeling like he was about to lose everything, and what he did to come back even stronger.

He also discusses why he loves helping entrepreneurs see the forest through what can feel like an endless amount of trees, and what's next on the horizon for him.

We were truly honored to have him join us for this episode!

On this episode of First To Arrive Last To Leave, Courtney and Erin talk with Ari Krzyzek, CEO of Chykalophia, a creative and web agency. Ari shares her journey of building her company with her husband and how they continued to scale their business through various challenges.

She also shares how she had difficulty building a team and relinquishing control when hiring designers and the value of mentorship in navigating business basics and boundaries. Additionally, they discuss expanding networks and the importance of evaluating whether investing time into up-leveling your network is worth it.

We also discuss Ari's journey of doubling revenue and pivoting during the pandemic, along with what the Goldman Sach's 10K program did to help her grow her business.

To learn more about or connect with Ari, visit:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/arichykalophia/

Or visit her company at: https://chykalophia.com/

Just because you can do it, doesn't it mean you should do it.

That's often a hard lesson to learn for entrepreneurs, and many times as you're growing your business, you find yourself doing all of things. However, you then get a point where you've spread yourself so thin, that gaining momentum can be extremely difficult.

It's the story of Chris Botvidson, who built a marketing company and found him and his staff doing all of things, but found it was too much. It was then that he decided to just focus on video and content, and his business thrived.

Chris talks about making that hard decision and how he has focused on growing his business. He also discusses what happened when he had to split ways with a partnership. Plus, he talks about what the 10K program did for him.

If you'd like to learn more about Chris, you can visit his company at: https://www.fuelandspark.com/

To learn more about our hosts, visit:

Courtney at PurveyorsofFragrance.com

and Erin at PodGrowth.com

We can often feel that we're stuck in a career path, or in a business, but what would be like if you listened to that internal voice, higher voice, (whatever you want to label it), and went with what we were feeling called to do?

It may sound crazy, but it's the choice that Cheryl Polote Williamson has made time and time again and that has led her to a pretty incredible life. Cheryl's not just an entrepreneur, but a best-selling author (15x), a producer, playwright, magazine owner, speaker, and so much more.

She joins Courtney and Erin on this episode of First To Arrive, Last to Leave, to talk about her journey, why helping women is so important to her, and what's next on the horizon of her amazing career.

To find out more and connect with Cheryl, visit: https://cherylpwilliamson.com/

Many of us know we're supposed to be out in nature more, but many of us don't take the time to make this a reality. It's a mission for Tami Gilmore, founder of Wilderness Therapy Retreats, to help people reconnect with nature, and themselves to find more peace in their lives.

Whether it's a burned out mom, or a busy executive, our lives have lost enjoyment and connection because we're just trying to get through the days.

On this episode of First to Arrive, Last to Leave, Tami shares her journey from a therapist to launching her retreats because she saw so many great results from getting her clients out in nature.

She also talks about how just simply making changes and an effort for us to get out in nature, can have a huge impact to our daily lives.

For more information, visit: https://wilderness-retreats.com/.