Michigan Tribe Podcast

Kellie Clark and Jeanne Loveland spent decades building two completely separate small businesses in the same small town, but this conversation is really about what it took to raise two future entrepreneurs while building those businesses from scratch.

Kellie's dance school started almost by accident. She signed up for a tap class at Lansing Community College just because she loved to move to music, and before long she was dancing up to eight hours a day. A friend suggested she open her own studio, so she took a class on how to run one, talked her parents into letting her use the rec room of an old Grass Lake schoolhouse rent free, and spent $600 on a newspaper ad for opening day. Then the phone number listed on that ad turned out to be disconnected, and she started her first year with just 40 students split between four teachers.

Jeanne's path started the same year, from a different direction entirely. She was hired as a restaurant host at 20 years old with no job experience beyond raking hay on the family farm. When the restaurant moved locations in 1993, she was asked to step into management, and over the next decade she taught herself to build systems and structure where none existed, including teaching herself to cook eggs to order when the kitchen fell apart around her. She bought out her business partner in 2003 and went on to own that restaurant for 12 years.

Then there's the piece about raising two kids inside all of it. Amanda and Alex grew up immersed in small business and farm family life, watching their parents work for themselves instead of for someone else, and they worked in both businesses growing up, from hostessing and waitressing to helping run choreography and costume changes backstage at recitals. We talk about what it took to manage completely different kinds of people, the pressure of having your name on the business, and how you're hard on your kids as employees while still raising them at home.

In this episode:

• How a tap class taken just for fun turned into a full dance studio
• What it took to keep a business running after your opening day phone number gets disconnected
• How Jeanne worked her way from restaurant host to owner over more than a decade
• Teaching yourself to cook under pressure when the kitchen falls apart
• Why building trust and structure matters when your team is full of different personalities
• Growing up working in both businesses, from hostessing to backstage costume changes
• How farm family work ethic and watching your parents work for themselves shapes you
• What it actually takes to raise two future entrepreneurs while building your own business
• Being hard on your kids as employees while still raising them at home

Chrissy Siders and Sarah Ermatinger have decades of experience in banking and leadership, but this conversation is really about what it takes to build an organization, lead through change, and actually show up for the community you're part of.

As President and CEO, Chrissy stepped into an organization with a long history, established culture, and plenty of leaders before her. She and Sarah talk about how long meaningful organizational change actually takes, why the work is never really "done," and how you balance two things that can feel like opposites: being a stable organization while staying agile enough to change when you need to.

Then there's the community piece. Their bank is everywhere. They show up at the events, support local organizations, know the people they're serving, and sometimes help in ways that have absolutely nothing to do with banking. They were also one of the first organizations to take a chance on Michigan Tribe and simply say, "We believe in what you're doing." So we talk about why they did, how they decide where to invest in their community, and what it means to be genuinely accessible to the people you serve.

Along the way, we get into different leadership personalities, playing the long game when you're building something, and how Chrissy has learned to actually recharge while leading an organization that requires so much presence.

In this episode:

• How to create change without sacrificing stability
• Why building the organization you want takes years, not months
• What it means to play the long game as a leader
• Leading an established organization while still making it your own
• How different personalities and leadership styles can work together
• Why Chrissy is surprisingly good at recharging and protecting her energy
• What it looks like to actually show up for your community
• How they decide which people, nonprofits, and ideas to take a chance on
• Why they were one of the first organizations to believe in Michigan Tribe

Welcome back to the Michigan Tribe podcast. This episode is all about one story: the tale behind $200,000 given away, straight from the source. Our guest Roxy — who we're officially crowning "the donator" — rushed over to join us in person and walk through the details of how it all went down.

The conversation is candid, a little chaotic, and full of laughs, with Roxy keeping us guessing right up until the sign-off — joking about disappearing into "a black hole in Jackson" until we manage to pull her back out for a possible season two.

If you like real conversations with real people doing big, unexpected things right here in Michigan, this one's for you.

Subscribe to Michigan Tribe on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Music so you don't miss the next episode — and maybe the next big story like this one.

What does it take to turn a "recipe" into a cult-favorite candle brand? That's the question running through this episode with Amy and Madison, the friends and business owners behind their fast-growing candle line, who join Alex and Amanda for a conversation that's part business breakdown, part chaotic hangout.

Amy and Madison pull back the curtain on how their candles actually get made: weeks of scent testing, a "mastermind" candlemaker who treats every fragrance like a science experiment, and the discipline to scrap a recipe entirely if it doesn't perform. They talk through the split that makes the business work, one partner obsessing over the product, the other running marketing and the kickass personality out front, and why finding that kind of complementary partnership is rare. Along the way: new store hours, a lake house update, and a conversation that veers happily off the rails into menopause, mistaken identities, and the kind of bloopers that never make it to the final cut.

In this episode:

• How a “recipe” becomes a candle: weeks of scent and wick testing before anything gets made
• Why a bad batch never makes it to shelves, no matter how good it smells
• The mastermind behind the product paired with the marketer out front, and why that split works
• Updated store hours and what's driving the change
• Life on Cranberry Lake and running a business out of a home studio
• The friendship, the laughs, and the very real bloopers behind the scenes

What happens when comfort gets ripped away and you're forced to choose between wallowing or grabbing the opportunity in front of you? That's the question at the heart of Devon Roof's story. In this episode, Alex and Amanda sit down with Devon, the entrepreneur behind Belle Row Boutique and Epic Blue Marketing, to talk about building a portfolio of businesses while real life keeps throwing curveballs. From a tanning salon that taught her how to run a brick and mortar, to a corporate job that landed her in the tiny curated boutiques of SoHa and lit the spark for Belle Row, this conversation is equal parts inspiring, honest, and surprisingly tender. 

Deven opens up about running two tracks at once, never losing sight of the dream while still paying the bills, and the moment everything caught fire and pushed her back to her hometown to start over. Digging into the improv rule of "yes, and," the discipline of focusing only on what you can control, and why learning to be comfortable in uncomfortable things might be the most valuable skill an entrepreneur can have. And because grief and very real life don't pause for business, Devon shares how the hard seasons shaped the way she shows up today. 

In this episode: 

• The two-track strategy: chasing the dream while still paying the bills
• How a tanning salon and a corporate job secretly trained her to be a business owner
• The SoHa boutiques that sparked the idea for Belle Row
• When life goes up in flames, and why that might be a good thing
• The improv rule of "yes, and" applied to entrepreneurship and curveballs
• Focusing only on what you can control, and getting comfortable being uncomfortable
• Building and running multiple businesses through grief and real life

What happens when a single Facebook post leads to 37 family members pouring through a door in Detroit just two hours later? That's exactly what happened to Alicia Williams the day she finally learned who she really was. In this episode, Alex and Amanda sit down with Alicia to talk about the kind of life story nobody could make up if they tried. 

From being placed for adoption against her birth mother's will, to growing up under a name that wasn't her own, to uncovering a family secret that took 97 years to unravel -- this conversation is equal parts jaw-dropping, emotional, and refreshingly honest. 

Alicia opens up about the DNA discovery that left geneticists doing a double-take, the long and complicated road to forgiveness with the mother who held it all in, what it meant to hold her in her final moments, and how reconnecting with siblings scattered across separate lives changed everything. And because Alicia is nothing if not multi-passionate, she's also juggling several businesses (plus a few sides roles that'll surprise you) -- making this episode just a teaser for everything she does. 

In this episode: 

• The adoption story that rewrote everything Alicia thought she knew about herself
• One Facebook post, 37 family members, and a reunion two hours in the making
• The 97-year family secret and the DNA twist that stumped the experts
• Anger, grace, and forgiveness -- making peace with her birth mother before she passed
• Siblings kept apart, and what it meant to finally bring them together
• Being a multi-passionate entrepreneur with more businesses (and stories) than one episode can hold

What happens when a pandemic eliminates both of your jobs on the same day — and your response is to launch a catering business? That's exactly what Elise Houston and her wife Allison did when March 2020 turned their carefully laid plans upside down. In this episode, Alex and Amanda sit down with Elise, co-owner of Sylvia's Catering in Napoleon, to talk about the kind of entrepreneurship story nobody puts in a brochure.

From delivering individually packaged dinners by pontoon boat during lockdown, to naming their business after a grandmother who ran a restaurant for 50 years, to navigating the beautifully complicated reality of working alongside your spouse every single day — this conversation is equal parts inspiring, hilarious, and refreshingly honest.

Elise opens up about the real financial pressures of running a food business right now (hello, skyrocketing food costs), why saying no to business is sometimes the smartest move you can make, the surprising joy of launching a lesbian coloring book on Amazon, and what it's actually been like building a life and a thriving business as a same-sex couple in Jackson, Michigan.

In this episode:

• Launching a catering company in the middle of a pandemic (yes, really)
• The Sylvia's story — honoring a 50-year legacy and the signs that keep showing up
• What it's actually like to run a business with your spouse (and how a hallway saves marriages)
• Pivoting, knowing your numbers, and learning when to say no
• Planning rest into your business before burnout plans it for you
• Finding your community and building a business that fuels your whole life

What separates the businesses that make it from the ones that don't? In this episode, Alex and Amanda sit down with Shawn Preissle -- a retired business consultant with over a decade of experience and roughly 2,500 entrepreneurs under her belt -- to get real about what it actually takes to survive (and thrive) in business ownership. 

Shawn breaks down the common thread she saw in successful entrepreneurs: they came in prepared, knew their numbers, and -- most importantly -- they stayed connected to support even after launch. She shares why so many business owners wait too long to ask for help, what your financials are actually trying to tell you, and how to build a simple "scorecard" that tracks the health of your business in a way that actually makes sense to you. 

Whether you're a spreadsheet lover or someone who breaks out in a cold sweat at the sight of a balance sheet, this episode is packed with practical wisdom that meets you where you are. Plus, the ladies get candid about leaning on your people, knowing your gaps, and why the Jackson County business ecosystem means you truly don't have to go it alone. 

In this episode:

• Why preparation (not passion) is the #1 predictor of success
• The financial benchmarks every business owner should know 
• How to build a business scorecard that works for you
• Why staying connected to your consultant after launch is everything 
• The real cost of waiting too long to ask for help

She walks into the room and people notice. Not because she's trying to make a statement -- but because she already made history. 

This episode, Alex and Amanda sit down with Kelsey Guernsey, the first female prosecuting attorney in Jackson County. Let that land for a second. The. First. In a role that has existed for generations, Kelsey is the women who broke the ceiling -- and she's here to talk about what that actually looks like from the inside. 

This isn't a fluff piece. Kelsey gets into what it means to carry that "first" title every single day, what it costs, and what it feels like to walk into rooms that weren't built with you in mind -- and command them anyway. She talks about the cases that stay with you, the pressure of being watched, and why she keeps showing up even when the weight of it is real. 

This episode is for every woman who has ever been the only one in the room. The first one. The one people are watching to see if she'll fail. Kelsey's story is proof that not only do you belong there -- you might just be the one who changes everything. 

What we cover: 

• What it means to be the first female prosecuting attorney in Jackson County. 
• How Kelsey navigated a male-dominated field without losing herself. 
• The reality of prosecuting cases in a community you live in. 
• What she wishes more people understood about the criminal justice system. 
• The "first" pressure -- what it feels like and how she carries it. 
• Her message to women who are walking into spaces that weren't made for them. 

Every movement has an origin story. Ours involves a cult -- and honestly, we wouldn't have it any other way. 

In this debut episode, Michigan Tribe co-founders Alex and Amanda sit down together for the first time on the mic to pull back the curtain on how this whole thing started. Spoiler: it wasn't a perfectly crafted business plan. It was a weird, wild, slightly unhinged moment that turned into something none of us could have predicted. 

They're getting into the real story -- the messy middle, the cult that accidentally became the blueprint, and the moment they looked at each other and decided to stop playing it safe and build something that actually meant something to women in Jackson. 

This is the episode where you meet your hosts and fall a little bit in love with the chaos that built Michigan Tribe. Welcome to the Michigan Tribe. We saved you a seat. 

What we cover: 

• How Michigan Tribe actually started (no sugar coating). 
• The cult story you've probably never heard before. 
• What it means to build a brand rooted in real community. 
• Why Alex and Amanda said "screw it" and went all in. 
• The moment Michigan Tribe stopped being an idea and became a movement.