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 in.

Sari 0:37
Well, hello, and welcome back to the podcast. You guys have made it to a very special day, January 18th. I'm going to tell you more about why this is such an important day. If you are still hanging in there, if you are an entrepreneur wanting to start a packaged food business, wanting to grow your business. But first, I wanted to read a review that came in. And this is from Kristen and Teresa, they are co-founders of Flouwer Co. And Kristen says "Teresa and I have been working with Sari for a couple of months now, and she has definitely helped us move the needle. We cannot thank you enough Sari, and are looking forward to putting everything you've taught us into practice for continued success in 2022. Listen to her, she knows what she's talking about."

Sari 1:29
Thank you guys so much for the very kind review and it's such a perfect segue as we go into talking about why today, January 18th is such an important day if you are an entrepreneur and if you have big goals. And it's going to lead perfectly into today's topic about when is the perfect time? Is there ever a perfect time? And I will tell you that this myth of just waiting for the perfect time is so detrimental to all of you; and Teresa and Kristen, it was not the perfect time. There never is a perfect time to work with somebody like myself, but they knew they needed help. They knew they needed a guide and someone to take them to the next level of their business. And that's exactly what we're doing and I'm so proud of them. I'm so grateful for them and I'm so honored to be on their journey. And it's so fun to see the big changes that are happening as we get momentum.

Sari 2:36
So the topic of today's podcast is called The Perfect Time. And I know a lot of you struggle with this, right? Like you maybe made that kind of resolution at the beginning of the year, where you said, this is my time, I'm going to finally start my packaged food business. I'm going to launch this delicious dream. Or maybe you're thinking, this is the year I'm finally going to make a profit, I'm finally going to grow this, I'm finally going to hire help, right. Or I'm going to get into manufacturing. Something that's really fascinating about this day in particular, as this podcast airs January 18th. Studies show that January 17th is the day that most people give up on their resolution. That, you know, if you decided for instance, to lose weight, and you're going to go to the gym, and you go and you sign up, and you're all excited on January 1st and you sign up to join a gym. That by January 17th, that is probably the last day that you will go consistently if you have not set up systems and really made this a sustainable goal. So resolutions die on January 17th. So I love it that this podcast is coming out on January 18th because if you are one of those people who is truly committed to your dream, then this is your day. Congratulate yourself that you are still in it.

Sari 4:15
So I want to talk about this question that I sometimes get about, is this the time to actually start my business? Is this the time to grow my business? And I know sometimes it's so easy to focus on why now is not the time, right, to find all the obstacles. Of course, our brain is always designed to go to the negative. It's like you have that, you know, I did the podcast on the nudge, you have the nudge, you have that voice inside of you that's like, what if, maybe I could. Other people are doing it, what if this is possible for me? But if you don't take action within five seconds, your brain is going to give you all the reasons why you should not. I was messaging with somebody and she was talking about how she really wants to start this business. But she has a family business and there's no way that, you know, she could leave the family business. She has these obligations. That maybe you are worried that someone's going to tell you that you are just crazy, right? Or maybe you're thinking, but it's COVID! This is not the time, right? Why should I start a business in COVID? Things are crazy. Or work is crazy, or my family needs me. Or I started school or I lost my job, right? But I mean, I've talked with a lot of people that are in that situation. And so yes, we can easily find all the reasons why now is not the time. And I want to just honor that there are real barriers, I totally appreciate that, there are like perceived barriers, which are kind of all the things I just mentioned. And then there are real barriers to entry, like access to funding, like English is not your first language, like technology is challenging for you.

Sari 6:25
And I want to honor that those are real barriers but they can also be overcome. If your commitment is strong enough, those can also be overcome. You guys have maybe heard me talk about Marie Forleo, I love her book, Everything is Figureoutable, which is a great book, I would highly recommend it if you are thinking about resources and lack of skills and things like that. But she has a quote that I love, that says, you can have reasons or results. So do you want to spend your time in all the reasons why now is not the time? Or do you want to spend your time actually taking action to get results? I mean, what is worse, sitting in a life of stagnation, of like, gentle kind of lingering discomfort because you're not really living, you're not doing what you feel like you're meant to do? You're not living your purpose. You know, so many of us are always looking like, what's my purpose? What's my purpose? But if we don't take action, if we just sit in it, even when we have a spark, right? I think that's, whether you believe in God or the universe or spirit like those sparks, that nudge, that is your, that's your answer. Your desires are the destiny, the map to your destiny. So what's worse, just sitting in a life that's like, it's comfortable and like in that you know what to expect. It may not be very pleasant, frankly, there's a lot of times we live in kind of unpleasant situations but like we know what to expect. Or would you rather take a risk and feel truly alive? Feel the passion? Feel the excitement? I mean, it's kind of like going on a roller coaster, right? That's living now whether you like roller coasters or not, I'm not a huge fan. You guys, I did that episode. I did some. I got on a roller coaster last summer. And then I did some more of those fall, which I am not a roller coaster person, but I just embraced it for the experience of uncertainty because that is what being an entrepreneur is all about. And we do, we have to accept the uncertainty. We have to decide that we are going to feel discomfort on purpose. And that is why the Entrepreneurship Club is relatively small because most people won't make that decision, right? Who wants to choose discomfort on purpose? Who wants to choose feeling terrible some of the time on purpose? But think about it, you're already feeling terrible. As a human being we're going to experience negative emotion. So when do you want to feel terrible on going after the thing that you are excited about, going after the thing that lights you up and brings up your passion? By leaning purposefully into uncertainty. That is where the zing is, right. That's where the energy and the excitement. You know, sometimes people are like, I'm really nervous. I'm really nervous. Being nervous and being excited, think about it, that energy is actually really similar. And so you get to decide, instead of being afraid and nervous about starting your business and going after your dream, maybe you can just be excited.

Sari 10:18
And I want you to think about all the times that you did kind of a risky thing without any guarantee of success. You have done this in your life, I promise you. Think about if you are married, that is the craziest one. Marriage and kids, I think are the two craziest ones. Where you date a person and then you look at them and say, yeah, I think we're gonna do this for life, right? There is zero guarantee of success. And yet, we are willing, as a culture. And if you got married, you are willing to take a leap of faith with this other person. And then kids, oh my gosh, right, like, talk about complete uncertainty, right? Like you just never know what you're going to get and yet people have kids all the time, right. Or maybe it's starting college or starting a brand new job, maybe it's moving to a whole new place for a job. Maybe it's buying a house, right? There's so many things that we do in our life with kind of this, like, we turn our face a little bit to the uncertainty. And somehow we can like, rationalize it away. But really, if you look at it on paper, you're like, that's kind of crazy that I did that, right. That I had these kids or I made that move.

Sari 11:53
I know a lot of you, I work with a lot of people inside Food Business Success, whom English is not their first language. And they were not born in the US, right. So I think about you guys moving, right, emigrating from another country. I think I maybe said that wrong, immigrating into the United States or emigrating from your country. Like, that's risky stuff, there is no guarantee of success. And yet, here you are, you're listening to this podcast. And you have an idea, right, for this food business. So there are so many times in our life when we do take pretty life changing massive risks. And yet, when it comes to sort of this, like this business, like this, it feels like somehow you can manage your way out of the risk. And I'm just here to tell you that it's just simply not possible. So if you're waiting around, for you to stop feeling afraid. If you're just kind of waiting for like this wave of, I feel amazing about this, and it feels so good, and everything's gonna be amazing and I'm so inspired. You're gonna be waiting a long time at that bus stop. I think especially as we get older, we fall into this trap. It's a little bit of entitlement, like, things should just come easily now. Like we did all the risky stuff in our 20s, right. All that stuff maybe I just mentioned and then you're like, but it should just be easy. And somehow we think that there shouldn't be discomfort. But we know that people on their deathbeds, their biggest regret is the chances that they did not take. That's it. That is what they regret the most. And I promise you, when you start practicing, living a little on the edge, doing a little bit riskier things, stepping into uncertainty, you actually start to weirdly enjoy it. You're kind of like, I don't know what's gonna happen and I know that there's probably gonna be some, some really bad things and some, you know, some amazing things, right, the roller coaster, we are in for the highs and in for the lows. That you come alive. I know, I have for me as a business owner, as I jumped into entrepreneurship six years ago, and I watched my clients do it too. Like there's this transformation where they like, it's like they've woken up out of this stagnation, this coma of life. I watched The Matrix, the newest one the other day, so it's been on my mind. It's kind of like this awakening, right, where you awaken you're like, oh my gosh, that was my life. Like it's so boring. Okay, it's less risky but it's kind of boring. Where's the excitement, like there's this whole other life on the other side of entrepreneurship and being in it. But yeah, it's scary as hell sometimes. And you're going to feel worse than you've ever felt in your life. And you are going to experience the highest of highs and the most joy and the most excitement.

Sari 15:18
And so you actually do get to this point where like, I'm going on this ride on purpose, right? Instead of like forcing myself to go on the roller coaster. I'm like, yeah, let's do it. I'm choosing this, even though I still kind of hate them. So instead of focusing on why this isn't the time, I want to offer why this is the perfect time. Okay, let's just talk about COVID. Of course, like, it's January, things are a little crazy with omicron. We're in you know, you're going into year three of those things. Yeah, I get it. But here's why it's the perfect time. There's actually a lot of reasons why COVID has created the perfect time. COVID has uprooted this myth of security that every day we are going to wake up and know what's going to happen in our life. I mean, that is a complete and total myth. You have no idea when you go to bed that you will actually wake up in the morning. Or that your job will still be there, or you know that your house will still be there. I mean, change is always happening. And to protect ourselves, it's totally natural, right? Like we would be walking around terrified all the time. If we were like, this next second is my time to go, I could go to the next hour, right? But it did, it kind of shook that loose a little. And that life is precious but we do have a limited amount of time on this planet to really live our lives to the fullest of what's available to us, to step into our best selves. And so, it kind of shook us a little bit, at least it did for me and a lot of people I know, where you kind of reevaluate your priorities. And you say, is this really how I want to be living my life? I know, that's what happened for me, after 9 11. And I'll just tell the story quick. I actually, like 9 11 was a huge turning point in my life. I was living in Los Angeles and I was living a pretty miserable life, I was very unhappy. I was making very poor choices. And I was in my kind of late 20s and I went to New York with my best friend at the time. We just chose a random day, random week in September. And we had a great trip and then we flew home on September 10th. And we took the early morning flight from New York to San Francisco. And then I took San Francisco to L.A. The next day, she's calling me at you know, 6am. And it was, you know, obviously 9 11, everything happening was crazy. And then we realized that was the exact flight that we were on 24 hours earlier.

Sari 18:30
So not only was like just 9 11 in general happening but I was having a very personal, very personal reevaluation of my life because 24 hours literally separated, like getting a little choked up, right, a little chills. Twenty four hours literally separated me from going into a building or landing safely in San Francisco. And so I changed everything. I reevaluate my priorities. And I moved back to Colorado at that time and I finished school at CSU and my life went on a completely different trajectory, right? So these times, I mean, I've never lived through a worldwide pandemic. It definitely shakes us up, right, and it forces us to reevaluate and look at what we're doing in our life.

Sari 19:22
I also think that COVID specifically has created this really unique market that is cooking a lot more at home and is more interested in cooking but also having like fast meals or interesting flavors, interesting things going on to mix up the routine since we can't do our normal kind of things we used to do pre-COVID. And so, I am finding that first of all, people went into their kitchens especially when we were under lockdown in COVID and doing a lot of experimenting. A lot of people started food businesses out of that, I work with a lot of people who didn't necessarily think that they were doing anything in this area. And then because of COVID, they were home playing around and said, oh my gosh, you know, I discovered the most amazing gluten free pancake mix or whatever it is. So a lot of inspiration came out of that. But also there are just more people who are cooking at home but also looking for indulgences, and also looking for ways to kind of spice up their daily eating habits, right. Also, why this is the perfect time is that this is the lowest cost barrier to entry ever for a packaged food business. I mean, the fact that depending on your product, you could start at home under cottage food, that there are commissary kitchens widely available. That it really can be fairly low cost now, it all kind of depends on your product a little bit, it also depends on your outcome where you want to go with your product. But relatively speaking, this is the lowest cost to entry that I've ever seen in this industry. And the fact that we have so much more accessibility to reach our customers, that we no longer have to go to a grocery store, that is one strategy. But ecommerce is here to stay and people are becoming more comfortable, thanks to COVID, ordering food online. It's so easy to set up a great website on Shopify, it's relatively very low cost. And you can start making sales today. Plus, we have all these other marketplaces, including Amazon, which again is relatively low cost, somewhat, you know, fairly easy, although I do recommend getting some help to do it right. But Amazon is there as well as other marketplaces that are devoted to food. So we are so fortunate to have this, just accessibility to places to sell. You know, I think about some of the people who have paved your way, right, like Justin's or Lara Bars. Like, there was nobody like myself. There were no guides out there. They were just fumbling around in the dark. And I love listening to their stories on like how I built this and other places. But there were no access to people in this industry and now there's all of these guides, like myself, Alli Ball, there's organizations like Naturally Boulder, Naturally Chicago, Colorado Food Works, Naturally Bay Area, there's, I mean, there's so many more resources available to you guys than ever. There's so many ways to form community and to be inside community to go farther, to go faster, and to get a guide and really speed things up. So that is like another reason why that this is the time.

Sari 23:24
And I kind of already talked about this a little bit with, you know, I think people are eating more at home. But if you take off the COVID piece, then we also just have, we have a population coming up with like millennials and even younger generations who are very interested in doing more with their dollar. So even just if it's supporting local, right, that they are still getting their popsicle, but can they get the popsicle from a local producer? And then even better, like, does that local producer use local products right? Or do they give back in some way to other organizations? So there's this whole population, this whole group of people who are really, really interested in that. And so I think that's an area as a small package food producer that you can capitalize on. And in addition, then there's also the same people are also very, they are looking for adventurous food, they're looking for new flavors, new ways of doing things. They are very, very open to their eating being an experience and being something more than just consuming. So those are just some of the reasons why I do think it is a great time. And finally, I know I talked about resources in terms of guides and community, but there is more resources available partly because of COVID and partly because of Black Lives Matter. And some of these grants and things that have come up around BIPOC or Women Owned Businesses. But there are more resources for finding money than ever, not going to tell you, it's going to be the easiest thing. There's no like, Angel just giving you money without you putting in some work on your end. But money is available if you're willing to do the work. I promise you, it is an obstacle that can be surmounted. And sometimes that might mean you're going to have to, you know, do a side hustle or get a second job or, you know, do Instacart or Uber or things like that. But I promise you, if you are all in, if you're committed, you will find a way to get the money. I see it happen all the time. So the perfect time to start anything is a complete and total myth. And I will tell you that the perfect time is not necessarily on January 1st. Because if we make that resolution, like I said, 17 days later, most people have quit. But you have not because you're listening on January 18th, which means you are one of the warriors, you're one of the gladiators that's going to fight it through, who's going to stay in the ring with me and build your business. Stop waiting around for the fear to go away. It never ever will. We commit, and then we find our courage, and then we take action. We jump, right, we jump all in. Stop waiting around for inspiration, stop waiting around to feel motivated, stop waiting around to feel good. You know, you know if this is the thing that you should be doing. So just freaking do it. Stop waiting around, stop living in excuses. It's never going to happen, it's actually going to feel terrible. And then you will start to get some relief when you actually start taking action. And I know that training, coaching, accountability, and community is an epic combination to go after your goals, to help you get there faster with more ease, having some fun. And I'm so excited to let you know that today, Food Business Success is now open for enrollment. You can come join us. You get access right away to all the online program, to all the materials, and you get access right away to come join us in the group calls where you will get to meet this amazing tribe of other foodpreneurs doing exactly what you're doing. This is your time, January 18th, to start your packaged food business dream to make that delicious dream a reality. But do not wait too long because the doors will close soon, it is only open for a short period of time. So head over the website. Go hit Apply. And then I will see you inside www.foodbizsuccess.com. And until next time, have an amazing week!

Sari 28:35
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 foodpreneurs. 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 shownotes. Curious about how Food Business Success can help you? Head over to www.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.