Fridays with Flea Style

After seven years working her way up at Mattel, Rosie O’Neill decided to follow her heart (and tummy) and started her own business that is now a multi-million dollar international company. Rosie chats with us about Sugarfina’s early days and what it takes to be an entrepreneur and find your company’s sweet spot today.

Tips and tricks

The quickest way to grow a company is through dedicated, smart people. Hire people for longterm growth in mind, not the now even if you only need temp work at the time.

Starting a business in an old school category — candy, flea markets, mattresses — can be smart if you know how to stand out and be different since the public is familiar with the product.

Come up with a marketing campaign or product that’s catchy for instant press to break through the marketing noise. Upon launching, Sugarfina released treats for the broken hearted instead of sweethearts on Valentine’s Day and landed in the pages of US Weekly.

Junk In The Trunk Vintage Market’s Coley Arnold and Lindsey Holt: The Power of Passion, Perspective — and Patina!

In 2011 Coley and Lindsey finally hosted a backyard shopping event selling vintage decor after ages of daydreaming about the idea. When 600 people showed up to the casual affair, they knew they were on to something and slowly started to grow the biz into the wildly popular Arizona and California junking pop up it is today. From their early start up days to real talk about work/life balance, #momlife and the difficulty of expansion, the women expose the good and bad about small business life.

Tips and Tricks

There’s no such thing as balance. It’s a total myth that we can juggle it all — all the time. Face that fact to relieve some of the pressure and guilt and move on to figure out your best version of “balance.”

To grow your social media channels and increase engagement, talk about things your audience craves. Don’t post a workout photo and caption if you’re business is junking. It won’t jive with your audience.

Babysitting is the best investment personally and professionally if you’re a working mom. You simply can’t run a household and business at the same time.

After high school, Kelly left her tiny Texas hometown for Dallas to attend fashion design school. A class project revealed that she actually loved photography and she started to slowly teach herself and take on small shutterbug jobs while working other 9-5 gigs. Today Kelly calls the shots at Kelly Christine Sutton Photo + Films taking on projects close to her heart from intimate family portraits to shooting her sister Kacey Musgraves’ album covers.

Tips and Tricks

When capturing images, it’s the moments in between posed shots that are often the most beautiful, engaging and frame-worthy.

Confidence is key as a creative. It’s often best to put blinders on when comparison creeps in to keep your morale and creativity high.

Find somebody to shoot you straight when valuing yourself. You don’t want to cheapen your skills or price yourself out of the market; lean on this person for two-cents.

Contracts are important! Use them to protect yourself and manage client expectations if you’re in a service industry.

Master Accountant Marie Kelly: Taxes, Budgeting and Valuing Your Brand by Flea Style

The former nightclub owner and model agency exec open up about following their heart to open a hip hideaway in Round Top, Texas. Today their lodging company includes retreats, workshops, an online shop and private hotel apothecary label. Learn how they’ve built their business with intention slowly over time for longterm success thanks to their passion and past work experiences.

Tips and tricks

Work for somebody — or some companies — for 5-10 years before starting your own to gain invaluable business advice, lessons and experience on their dollar.

Show me the money! You must understand your expenses, how to value yourself and your perfect price point to turn a sustainable profit to make it in business — period.

Pay for the best employees or help/freelance work you possibly can. You get what you pay for and it will grow your business quicker even though your pocketbook might suffer in the early days.

Lighting is everything from how you shoot a product to how somebody sees themself in your store or business. You can create a mood or feeling from the right lighting that will ignite sales and user experience.

We sit down with our go-to girlboss lawyer to get easy-to-digest answers to legal questions and scenarios budding business owners often face. From handling copycats to candid contract and trademark tips, she walks us through all the things to keep your business protected and on the right side of the law.

Tips and tricks

Write a contract to the best of your ability and send to a lawyer for them to tweak and fine tune to save on legal fees.

Registering your company entity (i.e. an LLC) not only makes you look more professional, but keeps your personal property protected.

Read through contracts! Ask lots of questions for clarity or seek legal advice before you sign something that doesn’t add up or smell right.

Five years ago Tori and her sister Desiree founded the personalized hand-stamped fashion accessories label to tell people’s stories. Today the company is in stores all over the country and has outfitted celebrities from Miranda Lambert to the Duck Dynasty ladies. Tori gets real — real fast — to talk about the good, bad and ugly sides of small business life and how to push through to find success, authentically.

Tips and Tricks

Create a dream list of influencers to talk about your company and then design personalized product for them, reach out to them via email or social media and send care packages to them directly.

Plan to pour every ounce of your self — and often your savings — into your dream to have a chance at success. You must spend money to make money.

Be prepared to do every single aspect of small biz life yourself for a long time and always be a student of your own company to grow.

The fashion blogger and YouTube star sits down with us to talk about growing her various small business platforms to create a full time job in the noisy influencer space. From her early blogging days in 2007 to pausing her biz to have children and now playing dress up for a living on social media YouTube, Beth Jones talks through all the highs and lows of the fashion world and how to carve out a corner that’s authentically you and pays the bills.

Tips and tricks

If you rely on social media for your business, don’t be afraid to put yourself out there and be candid with your audience. If you were a realtor, you’d be plastering your face all over town and talking to every person you could!

Sometimes you have to take a break and regroup. Beth reflected on her place and perspective in the influencer space while pregnant with her second child and came back refreshed and with a new business plan post-delivery.

Direct message, cold call and email people and companies you want to work with to start collaborating with brands and monetizing your company. Many influencers use agencies but Beth still uses the good old fashion forms of communication.

Have the right tech tools in your handbag always. Listen to the podcast for her specific gadgets that get the best photos and footage.

We sit down with this wildly smart (and sassy!) trio to talk all things small business from startup advice and stories to the beauty of drowning a bad day in a good brownie.

Tips and tricks:

Sweat equity is the name of the game in the early days. Direct message influencers, craft your own public relations campaigns and network tirelessly until you’re ready to pay for services and help.

Try lots of things while you’re young. Your 20s and 30s are a time to experiment various professions and fields to set you up with a wide range of skills for future success.

Support your company’s early adopters — neighbors, friends, social media followers — and shower them with info (and product if possible) to help spread the work authentically about your biz.

Taylor Madison is living the dream. The 29-year old has re-invented the old-school travel agent profession to own her own small business while traveling the world in style. But through her extensive treks she’s learned what’s important in life and imparts that advice on us all.

Tips and Takeaways

· Do not rely mostly (or solely!) on social media to build your company. Instead, think of it as a portfolio to showcase your work and focus on face-to-face interactions and human conversations (phone calls, emails) to build a lasting and longterm profitable book of business.

· Reflection, mediation, prayer – whatever helps you get centered and focused – is an important part of professional growth. Some of Taylor’s best biz deas came from time of pause and setting intentions.

· If you work from home it's essential to find ways to stay connected to people, build a healthy routine and keep motivated to be successful. For Taylor that ranges from working at local coffee shops weekly to limiting social media check-ins and setting a regular bedtime.

· Traveling teaches so many life lessons culturally, socially and personally. But most importantly it’s taught Taylor the importance of work/life balance and putting down roots near the ones you love.