For the full show notes and access to resources mentioned in this episode visit https://www.easyscaling.com/blog/episode22
This episode is part of our mini-series all about failure. Tune in as we discuss how our guests approach failure, the biggest fails they’ve experienced, what they learned, the support they tap into to get through failure and more…
In this episode, we’re talking with Jen Hartmann. Jen is the CEO of NEAT Marketing, where she has worked with companies of all sizes – including startups and billion dollar companies— to launch new products, boost brand awareness and drive website traffic through innovative campaigns. She has worked with over 240 brands since launching NEAT in 2019! Jen and her team have helped their clients see wins such as a 127% increase in website traffic in just 60 days, rank top 20 in the podcast charts and even land a feature on the homepage of Bustle, a publication that saw 49 million website visitors in October alone.
Topics discussed:
What comes to mind when Jen hears the word failure:
Each time I fail, I come back a bit stronger. If you're not failing from time to time, you're not being risky enough!
Connect with Jordan Schanda King:
Connect with this week’s guest, Jen Hartmann:
Love what you heard? Reviews really help us out! As a thank you, you can get my 90-Day Planning Formula ($97 Value) by submitting a screenshot of your 5-star review at easyscaling.com/podcastreview
For the full show notes and access to resources mentioned in this episode visit https://www.easyscaling.com/blog/episode22
This episode is part of our mini-series all about failure. Tune in as we discuss how our guests approach failure, the biggest fails they’ve experienced, what they learned, the support they tap into to get through failure and more…
In this episode, we’re talking with Jen Hartmann. Jen is the CEO of NEAT Marketing, where she has worked with companies of all sizes – including startups and billion dollar companies— to launch new products, boost brand awareness and drive website traffic through innovative campaigns. She has worked with over 240 brands since launching NEAT in 2019! Jen and her team have helped their clients see wins such as a 127% increase in website traffic in just 60 days, rank top 20 in the podcast charts and even land a feature on the homepage of Bustle, a publication that saw 49 million website visitors in October alone.
Topics discussed:
What comes to mind when Jen hears the word failure:
Each time I fail, I come back a bit stronger. If you're not failing from time to time, you're not being risky enough!
Connect with Jordan Schanda King:
Connect with this week’s guest, Jen Hartmann:
Love what you heard? Reviews really help us out! As a thank you, you can get my 90-Day Planning Formula ($97 Value) by submitting a screenshot of your 5-star review at easyscaling.com/podcastreview
Ep#22 - Failure Taking rejection as redirection with Jen Hartmann
Jordan: Alrighty. In this episode we're chatting with Jen Hartman, the CEO of Neat Marketing. She has worked with companies of all sizes, from startups to billion dollar companies to launch new products, boost brand awareness, and drive traffic through innovative campaigns. She's worked with over 250 brands since launching NEAT in 2019, and Jen and her team have helped their clients see win such as a 127% increase in website traffic in just 60 days.
Rank top 20 in the podcast charts and even land a feature on the homepage of Bustle. Jen is fantastic. We have a really cool conversation about failure. She has multiple businesses, so she is no stranger to failure. We talk about how she was kind of raised that way, how I was raised very differently. We get sidetracked a couple of times with some cool topics around, in person networking, having besties, and also using LinkedIn to to network. But overall, this is a really cool conversation about failure and how to be supported through it and how to learn from it. So I hope you enjoy this conversation.
Welcome. Welcome everyone. Welcome Jen. I am very excited to have you here.
Jen: Hey Jordan. I am excited to be here.
Jordan: Yeah, this is gonna be fun. To talk about failure with you because you've got some cool, interesting, very different stories I think, than we've touched on on any of the other episodes. So this is gonna be great. why don't you start by telling us what comes to mind when you think about failure, kind of generally, but also if there's been like this biggest failure or a failure that sticks out to you, the.
Jen: Yeah, so I used to look at failure as something that was super embarrassing and something I should hide and not tell anybody about. But the further I get into entre entrepreneurship, the more I'm realizing how valuable failing is. I believe that now where I'm at. You should. Fail and you should fail very quickly because they're incredible wording opportunities.
I have never learned anything from my success. I've only learned from my moments of failure, so I think as an entrepreneur, failure is so incredibly valuable and you shouldn't run from it. You should really embrace it. My biggest failure to date, And this is, this happened more recently. I have a second business, so I meet marketing, which is my primary business.
We're a PR and marketing agency. We've been around since 2019, but I have another business. It's an apparel brand for crazy dog moms. In our first six months, we did incredibly well and we actually got the attention of one of the biggest online retailers in the. , I will not say their name , but just know that it rhymes with gooey and they focus primarily on pets.
So I'm sure some of you guys can put that one together. But they're a multi-billion no retailer, and we landed a vendor agreement with them, which is huge, especially in your first expensive business. . And of course I started to tell people about this on interviews. We had a digital and print feature come out.
It was kind of like my coming out party to the Louisville business community, and it was a big deal. A couple of months later, they ended our agreement, , so I had already talked about this, talked it up, and then going into the recession, they ended our agreement. And then it gets more interesting. We got an email shortly after, like, I'm gonna say a week or two after we got that initial, like, Hey, we're terminating your agreement effective immediately due to the recession.
Shortly after we got another email saying that, oh, actually we're gonna reon board you. and I was like, like started to tell people that we were going back, like things were good. Emailed them back to get an updated agreement and they said, oh, we accidentally emailed you. Just kidding. They had accidentally included like a bunch of vendors in that like email blast that they should not have included.
Oh. So it was like, my gosh. Yeah, it was like this rollercoaster ride of like emotions, like being a part of this experience, but ultimately at the end of the day, I. Wait a second, like how many 28 year olds can say that they were dropped by a billion dollar retailer? I'm like, that's pretty dang cool that I was even a part of this to begin with.
I learned a lot throughout the process. I still have a lot of great connections at that company and I know that with business number three we will be back there. But yeah, I at, at first I was like, oh, this is a little bit embarrassing. I'm kind of upset. Ultimately, like I learned from that experience, it was a powerful wording lesson and I don't regret any of
Jordan: it.
Yeah. I love this because this feels bigger than some of the other like failures that we've talked about, in this miniseries and on the podcast generally, because like my definition of failure goes all the way down to making a typo in an email, right? So like there is a big range of what we can talk about when we're talking about failure and this.
This feels much bigger. And I have also experienced much bigger failures than, than typos and emails. Is that business still running? Yeah,
Jen: business is still steady. We're still going strong and ultimately that agreement ending did not really affect us at the end of the day.
Jordan: See, that's crazy cuz on the face of it, it, it almost, it sounds like it could have been like a business ending.
Situation like. Like, I mean, do you agree?
Jen: It could have, but we were so lucky to have such a strong community. We've really spent the time to engage with our followers and we have a lot of repeat customers for that business. And it's grown a lot just through like word of mouth marketing and influencer marketing.
So like one vendor agreement being canceled doesn't make or break us at this point. And I would say, 75 or 80% of our business is actually direct to consumer anyways. We don't do a whole lot of like wholesale business, so mm-hmm. totally fine. At the end of the day, we're fine. It's all fine. And ultimately I believe that everything happens for a reason.
So, yeah, I know that I, I trust that we're in a good place and, and things happened for a reason.
Jordan: Yeah. I love that perspective and I have definitely found that, that typically when there's some type of failure, You end up looking back and being like, oh my gosh, I'm so glad that we didn't do that. Or like, I'm so glad that that actually didn't work out because X, Y, Z or like, now we're doing this, and that wouldn't even have worked if we had done that.
You know? So I, I personally love that perspective on failure. What other kinds of failures or other things do you wanna mention on that story? Or do you wanna tell us about some type of other failures that you've experienced? Ooh,
Jen: I think that, that. Is the story. I think. I don't know if I can approach that from any other angles, but I have failed a lot in the last couple of years.
Like a lot, a lot, , I have. Hired the wrong people. I've kept them on board for way too long and wasted thousands of dollars on people. fired people in, probably not the most eloquent of ways I have taken on the wrong clients and kept them on for a little bit too long. I know that you've talked about like red flag clients before too, or you had somebody on the show who talked.
and I think we all have to do that at some point to like learn our lessons. You know what I mean? Like I think if you never have a bad client or never have a bad hire, You're never gonna learn anything. So ultimately I'm very grateful for like the bad hires and the bad clients because now I appreciate the good hires and the good clients.
And even with like bad hires, like it's taught me how to ask better questions during interviews instead of just being like, oh. You sound great. Sounds like you're professional. Like come on board, . Yeah, now we really do our due diligence and we have more of an interview process here at Neat Marketing. And again, without hiring the wrong people, we probably would've never gotten to this point.
So I'm very, very grateful for those, those hires and grateful that they're gone. And I also learned too, throughout those failures, especially with, I would say bad hires, learning how to communicate more effectively. instead of just being like, oh, they'll figure it out, or, oh, like things will come together eventually they'll come up to speed.
Absolutely not. If you don't say anything to team members, they never are going to figure it out. Like hoping and praying Jesus take the wheel like that doesn't work for team members. Like you really have to communicate your expectations and like hold people to those expectations. That's part of being a manager and I think that earlier on in my business.
I didn't know how to be a manager. I didn't wanna be a manager. I was so used to doing all the things in my business that it felt so foreign to me to take a step back and really delegate and do a good job of delegating. But now, after a couple of years under my belt, I feel like I've really refined that process.
Jordan: Mm mm-hmm. . Yeah, totally. You don't know what you don't know, and then you in bad situations, definitely learn , which again, perks of failure. Failure is a good thing that is the moral of this whole series. Right. So, Talk to us about how you actually deal with failure. People are gonna like think that I'm a hot mess because I think I mentioned this like on every episode, even if it's not about failure, but like my reaction to failure typically is like spiral in the short term and then like get support and then find my way out of it and then look objectively and learn the lesson and then move on and do things differently.
So like that is the journey that I typically go on. What does the journey usually look like for you when a failure does happen and then like the specific points on that journey, like exactly what you do. Let's hear it. Yes. So
Jen: I handle it in a very healthy way by pouring myself a glass of bourbon , sometimes a couple of glasses and I work through, I'm just kidding.
Sometimes I do that.
I, uh, no, after that point, I do make a. And on this list, it's like a T chart. On the left hand side of the page, I put my feelings, and then on the right hand side of the page, I put the facts. And after I do this full brain dump, I cover up the left hand side of the page where my feelings are, and I really hone in on the facts of the situation.
And it's almost like when I focus on the facts, I am not so worked up over whatever just happened. I try to find a learning opportunity in every single failure too. And I think that if you fail and you don't learn anything, like it was a waste of a fail, like you better take something away from that failure so you can figure out what you can do next time and move on.
The other thing I do too is I talk to people about it. Like I'm not afraid to go to like my biz besties and be like, Hey, like I really ed up here. Like this is what happened. Like, do you have any advice for me or I don't want advice, just let me vent. And I have more than enough people in my network in my circle who let me do that.
And that that's really nice too. Just getting something off my chest and then coming back in a little bit and being like, okay, now we can approach this from a more logical perspective. I think is really, really good. But yeah, bourbon gets me through a lot of my failures. ,
Jordan: yes. Okay. I freaking love this. I I love both of these things and there's, I wanna underscore a couple things that I think are super, super important that you mentioned.
And I'm gonna channel my inner Julia here. so. What you mentioned about this, like this list that you make and you cover up the feelings. What's interesting is that on the face of that, it kind of feels like, oh, well she's ignoring the feelings or blocking the feelings. But actually what you have done with the first step of listing the feelings is you've like acknowledged and validated the feelings, which is like the critical thing that Julia always forces me to do because I also like to take a really logical approach to failure.
The part that I skip is acknowledging the feelings part. Like I'm just like straight to like, I don't know why I'm upset about this. That's stupid. Let's figure it out, . But you very intentionally acknowledge the feelings, which is really, really cool. and then, Move to the logic piece. So that is a really cool exercise and a very tangible exercise that hopefully people will be able to use and implement like the next time that this happens, because failure's coming for you, everyone.
so the other thing that you mentioned that's really cool is talking about it, and that is also my approach. I don't make a list. I'm gonna try that. My first thing that I do hands down every time there's ever an issue in my business or a failure is I v her Julia. Like, I'm like, Julia, what the hell is going on?
Jordan: This is my garbage day. Let me tell you about it.
What I think is really cool is that when you are talking to your bi besties about it, or when you're talking to whoever you're talking to about this, you're clarifying.
Do you want to vent or do you want solutions? And that's something that I think people forget to do because people don't always know if you're going to them and you're talking to them and you're venting about these situations. Most people, I think when they're receiving that go straight to solutions to try to help you like figure out, okay, well like let's, you know, talk about what you're gonna do.
But that's not always what you need. Sometimes you just need someone to like listen and no their head and be like, yeah, that's total bullshit. I can't believe that person did that to you. You
Jen: know? Yes. Like sometimes I just want people to like join me on my pity party. Like, yes, join me in the depths of despair, and then if I want advice, I'll let you know, but like, I just want you to cry with me.
Like be empathetic .
Jordan: Yeah. Yeah. This is something I've, I've been actually thinking about recently. I should ask Julia about this, because Julia is very good at this in. She's always like, yeah, you're right. Yeah, you're right. That was really shitty of that person. Like every time I'm like, I know I can just like count on her to like, she's got my back.
Even if I was actually in the wrong and sometimes I come around to and I'm like, okay, here's what I probably could have done better. But like the initial thing I think is so important to have someone just like hear you out. At least for me personally, I mean, other people may approach failure differently, but for me personally, I love to have someone just like validate for me that, you know, I was like, I don't know.
Harmed in the
Jen: situation. Yeah. Well, it like makes your ego feel really good to you. Like you don't wanna like be in a moment where you're feeling very like vulnerable and sharing about where you failed or where you messed up. And then having somebody be like, oh yeah, you did mess up. Here's what I would do next time.
Like, that doesn't feel good. Like, I wanna feel like I was right. You know what I mean? Like struck my ego a little bit when I'm down. Yes,
Jordan: yes. Yeah, I'm, I'm fine to admit that. How do you, this is random, but how do you find your bi besties? Where did they come from?
Jen: Oh, that is a really good question. So some I have here locally, which has been great.
I live in Louisville, Kentucky, and we have a lot of female founders here and like, oh, that's cool. Louisville, Kentucky people here are just so dang nice. I'm not from here originally. I'm from the north and like down here, people just like wanna meet for coffee and drinks and dinner and they wanna get to know you.
Yeah, like it's just such a welcoming space for female founders and I'm so incredibly lucky we have a community like that. So I've met a lot of people here locally, which has been good. And of course like when you meet people here, they wanna introduce you to their friends. And I've just really, I've, I've grown my network so much here on a local level.
But when it comes to the online business space, I've been in different masterminds where I've met some really great friends. and then also some of my old clients, like Lauren's an old client of mine, but like now we're really good friends and like anytime I have something pop up in business, I'm like, yo, Lauren, like, have you dealt with this?
Like, what did you do? Like, am I right? Am I wrong? Like, what's going on here? I need advice. So, yeah, masterminds being on Instagram, being on LinkedIn, meeting people for coffee in person, that's really been a big part of it. And I think that part of finding your besties is like you have to be willing to have conversations without it resulting in a sale.
I think so many people like only have conversations with other business owners when they think that it's going to result in making the money right away, and that's not really the way to approach relationships. If you take the time to cultivate really great re relationships. Yes. Like you will make money from that person.
They will send you business, but that's not how you should approach a conversation.
Jordan: Yeah, I love this. And I think that's actually what's really cool about local connections. and like local networking and meeting people that way because I like, I don't know about you, but like all of my businesses online, right?
So like when I go to local things, I'm not looking for a sale typically, because most of the time my ideal clients aren't there. Like every once in a while. Yeah, totally. But that's just my, my mind is in a totally different place. so I think that that's really cool. Specifically in how you can tap into local and find cool people to physically surround yourself with and get support from because it is different meaning for happy hour than like doing a Zoom coffee chat, even though like I love that too.
But there's definitely a different vibe to like sitting down with someone and drinking wine for four hours. For sure.
Jen: And I also find that I build relationships so much quicker in person. Not to like toot my own horn, but when people, like when people meet me in person, they like me and they like me very quickly.
whereas with online, I feel like I don't really get that across in the same way. So meeting people in person is such a game changer. . Mm-hmm. .
Jordan: Yeah, totally. I've been really feeling like the draw to build more of a lo local network, which has been difficult because my husband and I have lived in like five states in the last three years or something.
Like a ridiculous statistic like that, and so it, we haven't. We've just been in like a different phase of our life where we've been moving a lot and like having lots of babies and so it's been tough to like go out and meet people in real life, but it is on the priority list for sure. In the next like year.
Let's be real. It's not gonna be in the next couple of months, but in the next year that's on the priority list. So I'm glad this came up. I was just, Asking that selfishly, do you find them at like networking events or like how do you do that? ? Yeah.
Jen: How do I do that? a lot of it is LinkedIn, actually. I'm a big LinkedIn girl.
Yeah, so I would say like if I had to pick a social platform, it would be LinkedIn, like all day, every day. I just, I love LinkedIn for meeting people, so that's how I've made a lot of like in person connections. also going to networking events, asking like my friends here to introduce me to their friends, or like if in conversation they're like, oh yeah, like.
My client here is doing X, Y, and Z. I'll be like, can you introduce me to a client? Like I'm not afraid to ask people for that introduction, and that's how my network has grown too.
Jordan: Mm. That's really cool. Okay. LinkedIn, how, like how do you deal with the spam messages? Like for me, LinkedIn is worse than Facebook when it comes to the.
Spam solicitations on somebody's got a new legion strategy or
Jen: something. We just delete. I mean, we get a lot of like cold messages on Instagram as well, so I wouldn't say that LinkedIn is any worse for us from that perspective. So we just like delete or like we are careful who we accept invitations from.
Mm-hmm. , like if I see that you're sending me an invite and you're like, Growth, hacker marketer, salesperson, business development, unicorn. I'm like, no, I'm connecting with you. Yeah. I'm like, we're good. So like I just don't even accept it. I typically will only accept invites from people who live locally.
Jordan: Hmm. Okay. That's cool. I've been neglecting my LinkedIn for. Years and years. So maybe I'll get back into
Jen: that. Yes, update your LinkedIn profile and get out there. I just feel like LinkedIn has helped us so much from both, from like a personal relationship standpoint, but also from a business standpoint as well.
That's
Jordan: so interesting. Are you just like, I know this isn't an episode about LinkedIn, but I I have to ask while I've got you here, are you like posting regularly or are you just like interacting with people or
Jen: both? Yeah, we do. So we post probably once a day on LinkedIn, if not like every other day. We're recycling content over to LinkedIn from like our blog and our podcast episodes.
And we do a lot of interactions on LinkedIn where like we're not necessarily like. You know how on Instagram, like the way to build a relationship is to like DM people all the time and like warm them up and nurture them and do all the things. Not
Jordan: over here. Mm-hmm. Yeah. We aren't doing that. You know, ? No, no, no.
We don't D dm anybody. .
Jen: I love it. Okay, so on LinkedIn, like the way to really build relationships is through what? Thoughtfully interacting with people's content. So weaving like a compliment and asking a question. Is a great way to start to get on people's radar because people like actually read through their comments on LinkedIn, unlike Instagram.
Yeah. It's not spammy at all. I really like doing that and it's worked out well for us and eventually just sending people a message, being like, Hey, I've, I've been loving your content. I feel like we kind of vibe. I'd love to buy you coffee next week. What's your availability? And our success rate is pretty high
Jordan: for that.
That's cr, I mean, you're clearly an extra.
Jen: Yeah, for, well, okay. What's funny is like I, during the week, I am, I would say like I love going to coffee dates. I love like getting drinks. Like I'm out and about like Monday through like Friday, but then like on the weekends I like to just kind of chill. Like sometimes I'll pets around town by myself.
Like I spend a lot of time by myself on the weekends to recover from the week. So I think I'm. a combo. Extrovert, introvert.
Jordan: Mm-hmm. . Yeah. I'm right there with you. I'm right there with you. I've actually been having a little bit of an identity crisis around this for the last couple of months because I have identified as an introvert for so long, and then my husband is always like, you're an extrovert.
I'm like, no, I'm not. He's like, you literally talk all day. That's all you do. I'm like, huh. Okay. Yeah, that's interesting. I do like to talk a lot , but I don't think that necessarily makes me an extrovert. But the thought of responding to on people's posts with comments, I just, I don't know. I just don't think it's in me.
I don't know. I'm not a content consumer though, so like this is kind of my problem. like I don't follow anyone on Instagram, so I don't get on Instagram. I don't get on social media to read content. I just don't like consuming content generally. Okay. So some of those engagement strategies are kind of tough for me.
I don't know. Maybe I'm making excuses. That's why I just like to show up on my podcast and have conversations with
Jen: people. You need like an assistant to, you have an assistant, don't you? Yeah. Many . Yes. Okay. You need one of your many assistants to like up your LinkedIn strategy.
Jordan: Okay. I'm gonna put it on the list.
Add it to the list. I'm gonna add it to the list. We'll see where it falls cuz there's a bunch on the list. But it has been, it has been on the brain for sure. Okay. Well that was a quite a detour. Hopefully that was helpful for folks, for, it was helpful for me. let's get back to failure. What else should we talk about when it comes to failure?
Anything else on your mind?
Jen: Uh, what else on failure? What else have I, I know like the whole thing with like the vendor agreement, that was like most recent. man, I feel like I fail every day. Oh yeah. Like that's what's hard is like every day I'm failing at something.
Jordan: what are, how do you deal with some of those, like smaller failures?
Have those just gotten generally easier? I find that they've just gotten generally easier to deal with the more that I do them. Yeah. The
Jen: small things like how you had mentioned making a typo or if I. , just say something that's like incorrect on a client call and I have to backtrack and go do my research and come back with a new answer.
Like things like that I don't even like get embarrassed about anymore because it happens so often and I think that the more you fail, especially on a daily basis, like the thicker your skin gets and it's, it's so hard for me to feel like, oh God, that sucked. I'm so embarrassed. That was such a failure.
Like it takes a lot for me to feel that way. And I think it's because I've been like building up my thick skin of failure since like 2019.
Jordan: I love it. Yeah. Yeah. It's, I think I, I talk about this every time, but like there is, there really is no like shortcut to getting better at it other than to just like keep doing it.
Like, as cliche as that is, it's just that I don't know, unless somebody listening is like, no, I know the like, secret to like getting through failure by not having to ever experience failure. I would love to know what that is. But yeah, for me it's, it's just been. there's like a phrase here on like, it's like you become desensitized to it, I think is what I was trying the word I was trying to find.
Like, you just have to become desensitized.
Jen: Yeah. And it just, it takes time and multiple failures to get there. I think the other thing too, now that I'm like thinking through things like I've kind of been failing my whole life. I had a really hard time in school, so I just kinda like, you know, didn't get good grades starting from like grade one.
So I got some practice in school failing. I also raced bmx. I was a nationally ranked BMX racer for 20 years, and there's the saying in BMX racing, if you're not falling, you're not riding hard enough. So I just fell a lot. So I got really good at just like not being a good BMX racer, not being a great student like, I got used to failing.
Jordan: Oh my gosh. I am like kind of jealous of this actually. And do you have kids? no kids. Okay. Okay. So I think a lot about failure when I think about how we are raising our kids, because I actually don't feel like I was, I love my family. Like caveat, if you're listening, I love you all, but I was not raised.
Like in a way that I was encouraged to fail. Like I was definitely raised more, like I was raised in a way that they like encouraged me to do well and there was really high standards, which obviously great things come from that too. But, I wasn't really encouraged to fail a lot and so I didn't have a.
Experience with failure until I was like an adult. I, I got my first B in college and I had a mental breakdown if that, like, that here, like this is clearly a very different experience than you had. Right? So, I'm a little jealous of that and I think I think about that a lot and I think about that in how we're raising our kids in that.
We constantly are like, Nope. You figure it out, like you can do it. Yeah, you're probably gonna fall. You'll be okay. Like, just figure it out. I'm not gonna help you. Like, you got this. You know, like it's just a different, it's a really different approach and I think there's a lot of, there's a lot of benefit that comes from that.
I mean, clearly just hearing you talk about it. so thanks for reinforcing that for me. I needed to hear that again. Yeah,
Jen: of course. I think. Failure builds character. And I think that when you are comfortable failing, you're gonna try a lot of stuff, right? Because yes, I mean, my, my, I'm starting a third business right now.
I'm literally in the process of getting my patent and working with manufacturers. I don't know anything about anything, and I'm like, well, like my take is like, well, I failed a lot. So like, what? So what if a third business fails? Mm-hmm. ,
Jordan: what's, what's the worst that could happen? Right.
Jen: Yeah. I'm like, what's the worst that could happen?
I mess up, I fail. The Kickstarter doesn't do well. Oh well, it's fine.
Jordan: Yeah. Yeah. I love it. I love it. I love it. I mean, it's just, it's such a great perspective to have on. On it and not even like, that's a good perspective to have. It's like a required perspective to have, I think, to really be successful in business and to get past some of these, like more just comfy plateaus that I think are really easy to hit for a lot of people in this space is a.
You know, there's certain, like financial milestones or like, whatever it is, it can be really easy to plateau and be like, eh, I don't really wanna like rock the boat here. Like, I'm just gonna stay here comfy. but to really, I think be successful, you've gotta, you've got, oh man, you've just, you've gotta be willing to just pretty much risk it all, all the time.
you know? Yeah. Oh man. Mm. Yeah. ? I don't know. I don't know. It, it's a fine balance I guess. There's, there's definitely some, but as I think about like where my head is at for the next year in business, we're definitely starting to put more of an emphasis on stability and on, just like optimizing what we've already done because.
surprisingly or not, I don't know. Like I do probably tend more to like the risky side and like the doing and the messy action and all of that, which I think has really benefited me. but at some point you do have to balance it for sure with like, okay, now we have, you know, half a dozen employees and, and looking to continue to grow that.
And I've gotta probably take their livelihoods into considerations before, into consideration, before I do anything too risky. So it is a balance. I guess I'm gonna walk back what I said earlier, you don't have to risk at all, all. .
Jen: Yeah, no, I agree with you. Especially when you have other people to like take care of.
I think that you tend to not be as risky. Like I would say for me, I'm not as risky as I used to be because I have nine people on the team that I just, I have to watch out for. Like they're depending on me and the business to take care of them, but like for doggy issues and then for my third business, I'm like, I'll do anything like, yeah,
Jordan: That's awesome. Do you have a mix of employees and contractors?
Jen: Yes, we do right now, and it's worked out really well. And I actually heard you mention this on another episode, but like we always bring people on for 90 days as contractors,
Jordan: as like a child. Yeah, we always do contractors. I think we've only ever hired one employee straight off as an employee.
Everyone else, like we've got a 20 person team, everyone starts as. Contractors.
Jen: It's so smart because like if it's not a good fit on either end, it's easier to just part ways and be like, well, it was just, you know, 90 days together, lesson learned. Whereas with an employee, it's so much more difficult.
Jordan: Yeah, it's a lot of, it's a lot of work to have employees.
Okay. We're gonna table this because I know we're gonna have you back to talk about team. W I mean, we could talk for another 30 minutes to an hour or more probably about team stuff cuz I know you, that stuff gets you excited. It gets me really excited too. So we'll have your information in the show notes, all the things where people can find you, all of that.
Anything else you wanna leave us with on failure?
Jen: Oh man. I guess the last thing, I've kind of already mentioned it, but like, don't be afraid to try stuff. It's okay to fail. It's okay to mess up. If you're not failing, you're not trying hard enough.
Jordan: Nice. Yes. Love it. Perfect way to end. That's what we're trying to do here.
Normalize failure. Love it. Thank you so much. This was great. Thanks
Jen: Jordan.