Full Transcript

Sari 0:04
I'm Sari Kimbell and I've done just about everything in the food industry. I have helped hundreds of packaged food business entrepreneurs and now I want to help you make your delicious dream a reality. Whether you want to be successful at farmer's markets, online, or wholesale on the store shelves, Food Business Success is your secret ingredient. I will show you how to avoid an expensive hobby, and instead run a profitable food business. Now let's jump.

Sari 0:38
Well hello and welcome back to another episode of the podcast. Today you get me. Just me. And I am excited to record this. I feel really inspired. And I know a lot of you guys are going to really love this, this topic called The Gap and I'm going to give you three, I'm going to give you two big steps and then three practical tips underneath those steps to close the gap, whatever that is in your life. But before I jump into talking about the gap and how you close it, I want to first read a review. And this is actually on the Food Business Success Facebook page. But Catarina I love Catarina, she has Havenly Baked Goods. And Catarina says "Sari has been an incredible support for my startup gluten free bakery Havenly Baked Goods. She has been an investment well worth the money and quickly helped me with strategy, financial models and other practical aspects like designing marketing materials. In addition, she is very pleasant to work with and brings great energy." Thank you so much, Catarina, for that great review. And it's been so fun to work with you again, we started back up some work to take Havenly to the next level. And I love it. She's such a great inspiration for so many of us. If you want to leave a review, I would love for you to go either to the Facebook page, if that's easier or go to the Apple podcasts if you have Apple, and leave a five star review and let me know who you are so I can read it on the podcast. I love giving you guys shout outs. I have a business coach, who I love and just highly, highly recommend having a business coach which for your food business, that would be me. I would love to be your business coach and your cheerleader and help you close the gap. And for me, my coach also has a podcast, his name is Dave Morano. Oh, in case you're interested, you can go check it out. It's called Entrepreneurs Only. And he did an episode this week called Closing the Gap. And it's super short and sweet. And it just like lit me up. It was like to the point, everything I needed to hear and everything I know you guys need to hear. So I asked him if I could basically just use the content and reshape it, put my own spin on it. And he's like, of course, everything I do is for you. And you can use it. So here we go.

Sari 3:25
So let's talk about the gap. First of all, let's define it. You might be like, What is she talking about the gap. This is not a clothing store that I frequented in the 90s. This is the space, the chasm, the valley, whatever you want to call it between where you are right now and where you want to go, right? It's your goals essentially. Or some of you may not have defined your goals very specifically. So it's just that like, you know, it's that far off place in the distance that you're like, yeah, I want to become an entrepreneur. Yeah, I can see people you know, this is that vision, that fantasy of you having your your products on the shelves of Whole Foods Market or Amazon or at a farmers market. You know, it's it's you envisioning the smile on people's faces when they buy your product and they light up and they get so much joy out of it. So you see where you want to go. But it's like way off in the distance and this there's this huge gap between where you are right now and where you want to be. And every day you get up and you think about that, that gap. You think about what's on the other side. And you spend a lot of time just thinking about why it's there. And oh poor me and Oh, I can't, I don't know how to get across the gap. And that seems so far away. And you think about all the reasons the gap was created to keep you from getting all the things you want. But the tricky part is that if we're just gonna stay on that side of the gap, right, on on this side that you're on right now. And you just keep putting yourself into a place of thinking, like, I'll never get there, it's too hard. I don't know where to start. Why is this gap so big? But if you actually just put every day you took two rocks, and you put them down, and you know, you did something and you put them into the gap, eventually that gap would fill up with the rocks, and you would be able to cross over. Or you could use the same metaphor with water, right? If eventually, you put enough water into that gap, you eventually can swim across it. Right? We can actually take small actions every day to fill up that gap. But so many of us want just that one, like quick, like, how do I go from here to there?

Sari 6:14
And that's not the way it works. So we walk around all day thinking poor us, I'll never get there. It's just too hard. Why? Why isn't this for me? I just want this right. Why? Why other people get it. Other people seem really happy. I'm never going to get it. But what if the gap is actually there to help you become the person that you need to be on the other side to to be successful in your business. So since this is a podcast about starting a food business, you could insert anything in here, you could insert relationships, weights, health, you know anything other than your business and making money. But because we're talking about Food Business Success, we're going to talk about your goals as an entrepreneur for a packaged food business.

Sari 7:09
So if we just instantly got exactly what we wanted, right, we're like standing on one side, and we're like, I want to have an Amazon business where I'm making $50,000 a month in sales. Right? Like, that's where I want to be. And imagine you just instantly got that, like you thought about it, and it was there next week, you're like, yep. You would not be the person that you need to be to actually run that business successfully. It is in the journey, it is in the crossing of the gap, filling the gap that you become the next version, you evolve into the entrepreneur, badass boss, that you need to be to run that business. And it could be something, let's take it back, it was dial it way back. You want to have a farmers market business, you want to be at a farmers market this summer, and you want to be launched and you know, doing X number of farmers markets. Again, if you just got it immediately overnight, you would not go through the process of evolving and figuring things out and, and getting stronger and building your entrepreneurial muscle.

Sari 8:36
I really believe we are not just handed all of the things that we want overnight, we have to grow into them. We have to become the person who can have them, who can be them, who can be successful at them. Imagine if you woke up tomorrow and you did have that $50,000 a month Amazon account, you would have no idea. You would have no concept on how to manage inventory and all of your cost of goods sold and employees and shipping and all the things right? We have to work up to that. Can you even imagine how stressful that would actually be? But that's what we want. We think we just want that overnight, but you literally would not be prepared to keep that success.

Sari 9:24
And I think sometimes what happens we don't we make the gap such a problem. But it's not a problem. A gap should actually always be there to some extent. Now it doesn't mean that you're always like going after some giant huge goal. But as human beings we are always looking ahead. We we actually get a lot of fulfillment and achievement and satisfaction from from wherever we are right now and setting a goal and going after it- creating. That is what humans like to do. And so there should always be a gap. I achieved my goal last year. And then I set a new goal, something new to go after. I don't just sit back and go, yep, done. All right. Cool. I'm happy now. And that's part of the problem is that you guys put and myself, we all put such an emphasis on when I get to that point, when I get to the other side, I will be happy. And I was actually on a call yesterday with a woman who wanted to start, who wants to start a business. And she mentioned, she actually said it out loud and I caught it. And she said, Well, what happens at the end, like after we stopped, you know, I, we get the product and we get it, her ready to go. And she says, will I be happy? And I said no. Like your happiness will not be created by achieving or getting to the other side. I'm just going to tell you that right now. Like, if I can give you any kind of tough love and if you get anything from this podcast, which I think there's a lot to get but takeaway this, achieving your goal, getting to the other side will not make you happy. Wherever you go, there you are, you bring yourself and your happiness is determined from inside factor. It is up to you it is your thoughts that create your happiness, not whether you have a farmers market business. So if you're unhappy now you will be unhappy with your farmers market business, you will be unhappy, making $50,000 a month on Amazon. Life is 50/50. There's going to be sad emotions, anger emotions, happy emotions. And I can tell you that from 100% my own experience every time I reach a goal, believe me that does not bring my happiness. And this woman actually inspired a great metaphor I'm going to use for future calls. What I do, what we do together is like the pregnancy. It's the nine months or whatever time it takes us. But it is the that that period of time where we are creating the baby. But at the end of the nine months, now you have a baby. And a baby doesn't make you happy or sad. It just is. It's the next phase of your journey. And so once you have a business, now you got to go run a business, right? Or once you have the wholesale accounts, now you got to go get more or manage those accounts and never stops. That is part of being a business owner, you will always have problems, the problems just change. So reaching your goal on the other side of the gap is not your key to happiness. You are. Alright end of my rant, I will get back to closing the gap.

Sari 13:20
A gap is a good thing. Now I think sometimes when you're just starting out, when you're kind of just like finally awakening to your goal, your dream of starting a food business, it seems really really far out there. And you're probably not practiced in kind of some of these, these mindset pieces that we work on in Food Business Success that I think are so important. It's not just about the the tasks of creating a business. It's about the entrepreneurship mindset. So you're at the cliff, you're looking over the gap, you see where you want to go, you have a vision, how do we close the gap? We know it's not going to make us happy, but we know we want to go after it. Okay, so let's dive into the two things, the two ways that we really can close the gap. And then each one of these has like three pieces underneath it. So first, we need to find the gap. So that means the easiest, the simplest way is to know your numbers.

Sari 14:27
You guys do not like to know your numbers. I know this because when I start asking you to do a weekly cash flow in your current business, or I ask you to go and look at how much money do you have to invest? And I tell you how much money it's going to be to do this. That's too real. But the thing is, if we keep things too vague, we're never going to get there. We have no not nothing we're aiming for, right? How can you ever get to your goal if you don't know what it is? So knowing your numbers is the first thing, it's so important. How much do you have here on one side? And how much do you need? How much do you want? What happens is if you don't define it, then you're just on a hamster wheel. You just keep spinning. And it's never never, never, never, never enough, right? If you don't define it, then you are perpetually on the hamster wheel. Because no matter how much you create, no matter how much money you create in your business, it will never ever be enough. So we need to say, here's where we are now. So if you already have a business, this is why I love you doing a weekly cash flow exercise where every week you are looking at your bank balances, you're looking at what has gone through, and what is coming up. And this is all based on that goal of where we want to be. I do have a very inexpensive course if you just want to do the Cash Flow Course, go and check that out. This is going to be a really important tool for you. I'll put the link to that in the show notes. It could be I have zero wholesale accounts, and I want to get 10 or that I don't have a business and I want to have a business. Money is required. A business functions on the exchange of dollars and so you do need to have a level of investment, some skin in the game in your business. It could also be numbers, like how many followers do you have on social media? What are your email open rates? The other space that I think we need to define beyond just money, because money is a really important piece of business and getting our metrics, but also time. And a lot of you guys tell me that you want to do this business, but you work a full time job, you have kids, but a business will take time. So where are you going to find that? Right now you're over on one side of the gap and you're saying this is how much time I have or lack of time. And this is how much time I need. And part of defining and getting to the other side of the gap is how do we solve for that? And how do we create some time in your schedule to work on your business? Again, I think so many of us and myself included want to hide from those numbers, we want to like, you know, be like I don't know, I don't see you. If I don't see you you're not there. Well, that bank account is always there. It's not a problem. Just know your numbers. Let's take the drama out of it. If you're at if you have $1,000. And then I tell you your business, your type of product, and where you want to go is going to take $5,000 then there's a gap. Now we know what the gap is. Now we can solve for the gap. And then the next piece under finding the gap is understand where you are and why. This isn't about beating yourself up. You guys love to beat yourself up, you're so hard on yourselves about why you're not where you want to be. But understanding you do create your reality. This exact moment is created by you, by your thoughts, by the actions that you have taken in the past. Just recognizing I think taking responsibility and just understanding that things are not happening to you. There are circumstances of being a parent, being a spouse, being a child and having parents to help your work, your obligations, right? Those are all circumstances. You are responsible. So taking action, taking self responsibility.

Sari 19:00
And then acknowledging and setting, where do you want to go and why? It has to be big enough, right? Where do you want to go? I want to have a farmers market business. I want to launch on my own website and grow my sales to $5,000 a month. I want to launch my new product on Amazon. I want to get into X number of stores, right? Whatever your goal is, wherever you want to go is it big enough? Is it fueled by enough passion? And it's hard why and go back and listen to the episode I'll link it in the show notes about why you need a hard why. But it has to be big enough. It has to be something that's going to really motivate you right to get out of your comfort zone. To do things that you're not gonna love to do all the time. Picking up rocks is still work, right, to put it in the gap. But we can break it down into smaller pieces, but it's still work. So really think about why you want this business to either launch or to grow into the next level of your business. I was actually talking with someone who we've talked along his journey a number of times, and we stay in touch, and he started his business, and he's doing a great job. But he's looking across, you know, at the, what he wants, and he's feeling pretty unsure about it. And I really asked him that you got to go back and say, what is your Why? Why are you doing this? Because doing a business is really hard. This is the hardest thing most of us will ever do is start a business. Maybe, maybe have a kid and, and start a business. Those are probably in the top two. So is there enough, hard enough why because it can't just be, I'm going to have all this freedom as an entrepreneur. And I'll be, you know, super wealthy, and I'll never have to worry about money. I don't recommend making a goal so that you stop worrying about money. Especially if you're starting a business. You will always have to be conscious of your money, there will never be a time where you're like, I just never think about money, you're in business. If you sell your business and you make $100 million, and you choose to then, you know, sit on a beach somewhere that's one thing. But while you are an entrepreneur in business, you will always be thinking about money. So to me, that's not a good enough reason. Really spend some time locking into your why. I often use the metaphor of a road map, right? So we know now we're figuring out where we are on the map. You are here. And we're creating the the path right? Now we know where we're at, we've identified we know which ways North we've, we know our numbers, we understand how we got here, without any drama or blaming.

Sari 22:17
So we know where we are. And we know where we want to go. And now we need to close the gap. So I have three pieces under closing the gap. First thing is to set three mile markers. This is not getting to the whole goal, right? This is like again, if you're on the, I think about a map. I like hiking so I can picture like a hiking map in my mind, I can say you know, if something's 10 miles away, I can say let me just get to like the first mile. Oh, and then there's this cool spot by the lake that's a mile one and a half. And then oh, there's this next spot and this is where I'm going to eat lunch. And then I'm going to see if I want to actually keep going into mile 10. That'd be really long hike for me. I probably would not do, let's say four miles, that's probably more reasonable.

Sari 23:10
In any case, setting three mile markers along the way. So if you're just starting out, that could be that you're going to apply and join Food Business Success. It could be that you're going to get all of your you're going to find a kitchen or a manufacturer and you're going to get all your licenses turned in. And that you are going to start figuring out your packaging and your sourcing, and you're finding a graphic artist. Alright, so those could be three mile markers along the way. If it's to grow your wholesale accounts, it might be that you are going to review your plan, you're going to identify 100 possible retailers in your area, and you're going to send out you know, 30 emails and find the buyers and then you're going to visit so many stores. These are things in your control, right? We don't have any control over whether a buyer actually accepts our product. We don't have any control over whether a customer actually buys our product at a farmers market. But we do have control of how of these mile markers right and how we get there. And when you reach those mile markers, then you need to celebrate. Go back to listen to the podcast about celebrating your small wins. But you may just do a little high five and that's fine or a little happy dance or a little fist pumping. But you may want to set yourself up to reward yourself even bigger, right? So when I get my licenses turned in and paid for I'm going to treat myself to a pedicure, or go pick up that delicious coffee beverage that you love or go out to lunch with a friend. Do something. Attach a reward to it. My coach like to say you unlock a win. It's almost like a game right? Where you Oh, I hit that, you know, I got to that place and I unlock a win.

Sari 25:25
And if you think about it like that, you're not going to get so discouraged by the fails along the way, because failure is part of being an entrepreneur. And so you don't look at it as like a negative thing. You're just like, oh, okay, I just need to try something different till I get to my milestone. Because this is exhausting work. It's tiring beating yourself up, telling yourself you're not good enough, things don't ever happen and the time that they're meant to. Why can't you ever figure it out? Why is this taking so long? That's exhausting. You're never going to motivate yourself to success through those kind of beating yourself up and looking at the negative. But we have to retrain our brain to celebrate those wins. So setting that up ahead of time to treat yourself and to celebrate. I love this third one. I really started thinking about my own goals through this lens after I heard my coach talking about it: create an action plan, not a timeline.

Sari 26:34
Timelines represent overwhelm expectations, doubt stress, which ultimately leads to quitting. And it leads to this vicious cycle that so many of you are in where you start, and you stop, and you start and you stop. And I really think that this is the key. This is like, the yeah, the secret weapon, the secret key to your success. Creating an action plan, but removing the timeline. And think about it in a different scenario. Let's say you want to lose 30 pounds. And you say, okay, I want to lose 30 pounds, I'm going to take, here's all the actions I'm going to take, I'm gonna cut out sugar and flour, I'm going to exercise 20 minutes or 40 minutes every day. I'm going to, you know, do yoga. I'm gonna do XYZ, right? So you have an action plan. And then and it feels pretty good. Like, yeah, that's all doable. And if I make some mistakes along the way, that's fine. I'm not going to set myself up for failure; I'm not going to beat myself up; I'm going to create milestones along the way and celebrate those. But the second, we say I want to lose 30 pounds by June, now we lock up and I can feel it, even when I just say it, I'm like. So so many of you guys come to me and say I want to launch this business in three months. Or I want to, you know, be it x sales with wholesale accounts in, you know, in three months. And the reality is, it always takes longer than you think it will. Always, always always, almost always. I can't even think of somebody I've worked with. And it's been hundreds of people I've worked with, who actually met like a short deadline.

Sari 28:35
We always, always, always overestimate what we can achieve in a short period of time. And part of that is going back to that first thing like finding the gap, like both money and time, right? When you really write it down. you'll really see like, Oh, can I really do that in three months, right when you started actually mapping it out. So when we put a timeline on it, that's when we invite doubt, and overwhelm and stress into our lives. And a year from now, if you're sitting around a year from now, you're like, Hey, I created a farmers market business or, Hey, I got 20 wholesale accounts, are you going to care that it took you three months versus nine months? No, you're not. You're me like I did it. So I really want to encourage you to remove the timeline and just focus on actions, those daily rocks that you're putting to close the gap. Or if you want to take the hiking metaphor, right, those daily steps that you're taking towards your goal. We don't just get to Mile Marker 10 without going through all 10 miles and taking all the steps and I wouldn't want it any other way for you. The journey is fun. It can be so fun, and I want to help you make it more fun.

Sari 29:59
Whether you're going to start a business, you're going to have a different action plan. Whether you're going to grow to 20 wholesale accounts, you're going to have a different action plan. Whether you want to launch on to Amazon, and grow big sales over there, you're going to have a different action plan. That's what I help you with, I help you with the action plan. I love doing this work. And I would love to help you with your action plan. But let's take the stress that that crippling stress that gets our shoulders up by our ears. Let's take a breath. And let's release the timeline. I can't even tell I think every client, almost every client, we always go in with a shorter timeline. And then life happens. But we get there. We always get there. If they want, right, if they choose to keep going. They never give up. So give yourself a little break, take a breath, you're doing it perfectly. Release the timeline, and just say, I'm going to have a farmers market business that's successful, that's making X amount of dollars. Here's where I am now, here's where I want to go. I'm going to grow into distribution and have 20 wholesale accounts, let's take off the in six months, because we have no control over that we only have control over our actions, our daily actions that we're going to take and it just frees you up to enjoy the journey to enjoy becoming the person you need to be to get to the other side of the gap.

Sari 30:58
Oh my gosh, I hope you guys got so much value out of this, that is my mission to provide you with with value. That is my why. Whether you ever work with me or you work with somebody else, or you do it on your own, it can be a lot more fun with me. I'm pretty fun. We laugh a lot. It doesn't matter, I just want you to be successful. I want you to get to the other side of your gap, and then set a new gap. Okay, here's the steps one last time. You need to find the gap. Okay, know where you're not know your numbers, where you are now where you want to go.

Sari 32:21
Really define it, understand where you are and why take self responsibility. And then define where you want to go and why. Make your why deep enough, big enough that's going to sustain you through that slog right of the the hike or through the picking up of the rocks to put in the gap. If it's not strong enough, you won't do it. You won't, it has to be stronger than the discomfort that you are going to experience along this journey. And then we're going to close the gap. So you're going to set three mile markers that are not the whole goal. They're just three little progress markers along the way. And you're going to reward yourself for hitting each of those markers. When you treat yourself and celebrate and pat yourself on the back. Being an entrepreneur can be a lonely business. So go share your win inside the private Facebook group. And then you rinse and repeat. Keep setting another three milestones and celebrating your wins along the way. And then lastly, you're going to create an action plan, not a timeline. You're going to remove the time frame and say what is it I need to do to accomplish to get to the other side? And then you're going to start taking action.

Sari 33:56
I would love to hear more about your journey. Go head over to the private Facebook group. Introduce yourself and let us know how we can support you. And next week we have a really amazing podcast. You guys this filled me up. I interviewed three of my Food Business Success clients, three businesses and four women. Four amazing women doing amazing things. Starting, launching their food business or growing their food business. And their stories are so inspiring. And they were so generous with their time and their words and you guys are gonna love love love next week's podcast. So until then, have an amazing week.

Sari 34:47
Are you ready to start that delicious idea that you make in your home kitchen or grow your existing packaged food business and take it to the next level? The most successful food business entrepreneurs have support, guidance, focus and accountability to help them make it happen quickly without wasting time or money. Plus, I think starting your packaged food business should actually be fun. Food Business Success is your secret ingredient to creating your food business dream. Please don't go this alone. Check out the private free Food Business Success Facebook group to connect with other foodprenuers, get your questions answered quickly, share your wins and receive special training and tools I only share inside the private community. Just search for Food Business Success on Facebook, or get the link in the show notes. Curious about how Food Business Success can help you? Head over to FoodBizSuccess.com and fill out the application to see if you're a great fit for the program. Together let's make your food business dream a reality.