From Side Hustle to Spotlight

WEBVTT - From Side Hustle to Spotlight Ruby. The views, information, and opinions expressed during this podcast are solely those of the individuals involved and do not represent those of Into It QuickBooks or any of its cornerstone brands or employees. This podcast does not constitute financial, legal, or other professional advice or services. No assurance is given that the information is comprehensive, accurate, or free of errors, and the information presented is for information purposes only.

Into It QuickBooks does not have any responsibility for updating or revising any information presented. Listeners should verify statements before relying on them. Hello and welcome to another episode of Mind the Business Small Business Success Stories, a podcast brought to you by Intuit QuickBooks and Ruby Studio from iHeartMedia. Y'all know me.

I'm Jinny's torres Here, author of Financially Lit, The Modern Latina's Guide to level up your de netto and become financially Polarosa and hosts of the podcast Jocquio di Netto and. I'm Austin Hankwitz, host of the Rich Habits podcast and co founder of Wits Ventures. I also make TikTok videos about personal finance and investing. Very excited, Jenise to dive into today's topic, Me.

Too, Austin. Today, we've got a fun one. We're actually gonna be talking about that transition from side hustle to spotlight. You know, it's that moment when that somewhat profitable hobby you start in your basement expands and actually becomes your career.

It is a beautiful thing if you can pull it off. It certainly is. And our guest is going to tell us her incredible story about how she did just that. But first, there's one thing you should always do when you start any kind of side hustle, and that is to treat it like your main job by keeping it organized.

Make sure that you're managing those books. If there is any money involved at all, you definitely want to keep it organized, no matter how small it might be, because when the day comes where it does eventually blow up, because we know it will because you listen to the show, you don't want to get caught scrambling to bring everything up to speed retroactively. No matter how small your hustle is when it starts, quick books can help you keep it organized and you can continue to use those services as you grow and when you get that big break and make it into the primetime and turn your passion into your main income.

You'll have everything you need right there. And then, Austin, I'm curious for you. What was that moment in the spotlight for you? When did you first realize ooh uh, I don't know if this is a side hustle anymore.

It was September twenty twenty one and I was on the cover of Bloomberg's website. It was a story that essentially said, these financial influencers are now making more money than Wall Street investment bankers. It was incredible and that was definitely the moment where I realized, wait a second, this side hustle is no longer just a little side hustle. This is a business, and I need to make sure I go all in on it.

What about you, What was that big break where you're like, yep, this is real. I need to go make sure this is my real, real career going forward. Yeah. So I actually got invited to do a virtual speaking engagement, and so I got reached out to by a really big company and they were like, can we pay you four thousand dollars for an hour long workshop?

And they wanted me to teach this like on a Thursday, you know, at two o'clock or something, and I'm still working full time at this point, so I'm like, absolutely, yes, where do I sign up? I took the day off, I took PTO to go and do this gig. And for me, I realized like I had made more money in that one hour than I would have made in like two weeks at work. And I said, I don't know what's happening, but I'm going to follow this and ride this train until the wheels fall off.

You know. One thing I didn't realize though, is I was actually creating a whole business that needed an infrastructure. So I wish that I had the tips that we're going to be sharing with y'all that we have pulled from a Quick Books blog entry where we're going to be talking about how to actually manage your side hustle finances. What's the first tip you have for us, Austin.

The first tip is to get a business bank account so you can separate your side hustle income from your personal finances. I promise you, when your business eventually blows up, being able to have that separation, specifically for taxes, is going to be incredibly important. Absolutely. I think a great next step is establishing your business budget.

You want to make sure you're tracking expenses and avoiding what happens to a lot of new entrepreneurs, which is that shiny object syndrome. Okay, you want to know where your money's going, especially in the beginning when every dollar counts. That takes us to our third tip, which is investing into that financial management in those business tools. Right.

It's one thing to see, Okay, I've got expenses here, I've got some revenue here. A completely other thing is making sure you're staying on top of those invoices. And last but not least, making sure that you are using invoicing tools to speed up payments. Right, I didn't think about how I wanted to get paid for that first speaking engagement until they asked me for an invoice.

So making sure that you have a system for getting paid and with QuickBooks payments, your customers have so many different ways to pay, so you can stop waiting for your money and get paid for your work. Like you said, Janie, I wish someone walked me through these four tips before I started my business. I feel like when you accidentally become a business owner, are just flying by the seat of your pants. Yeah.

Absolutely, And I think you know today's guest is going to be an incredible teacher for a lot of folks because she is going to be talking about her own journey from side hustle to spotlight. How about this, okay? Going from a basement to six point five million in yearly sales and an appearance on Shark Tank. As a student at the University of Illinois or Bona Champaigne and a cycle instructor and competitive bodybuilder, Charlotte Treecarton was very busy, and she also knew how important hydration was and carried her water bottle with her at all times.

And that's what sparked her multimillion dollar idea. In the fall of twenty twenty, she had a spontaneous thought that she would like to be able to hang her hair tie on her water bottle instead of having to put it around her wrist or in her pocket. This inspired Charlotte to start creating. Over the next year, Charlotte designed her product, navigated the patent process, and found a mentor to show her the ropes of starting a business.

Then, in September of twenty twenty one, Charcharms made its very first sale. It turns out Charlotte wasn't the only one who thought water bottle accessories were a necessity. Her sales grew slowly and steadily, and she joined another mentorship program in twenty twenty two and started sharing her story on TikTok and built a following. She started landing more retailers and evolved her products with market trends.

By the fall of twenty twenty three, she landed a deal with Dick's Sporting Goods, which finally forced Charchcharms to outgrow the basement and get into a warehouse. Recently, Charlotte had an appearance on the TV show Shark Tank, where she pitched a deal to the Sharks, went toe to toe with them as they had a counter offer, and ultimately walked away and left them in the dust. Charcharms continues to grow and expand to this very day. It's a very fun product with a great story behind it.

So everyone, please welcome Charlotte Treecarton to the show. Hi, it's great to be here, Charlotte. This is going to be so much fun. Thank you so much for joining us.

I'm really excited, Charlotte, your journey has been pretty quick by entrepreneurial standards, right, So you went from an idea in twenty twenty to launch age a massive retailer about three years later, which is I think a credit obviously to what you've created. Can you talk about that hustle part of the side hustle? Absolutely. I look for opportunities everywhere I go, and my intention is to continue to build a bigger business.

So I think from the start that was what I had my heart set on, was like, we are going to grow at any means possible. And really when we started, it was this small stick on hooks with charms that I was handmaking. And when we had the opportunity to launch in a retailer and a buyer said hey, can you do these other products? Immediately I said yes, And I had no idea how we were going to do it and how we would ship those products and make those products.

But I think everything inside of me as an entrepreneur is like say yes, figured it out later, and that's how we've landed where we are. What do you think that tenacity and that like buy any means necessary attitude comes from for you? I think it's really the fact that like, I, as an entrepreneur, want to be the best that I can at it. And so when you think about whatever job you're in, whether it is entrepreneurship or finance, you want to be the best.

And so when it comes to entrepreneurship, the only way to do that is to produce more sales and revenue. That's my number one job and my number one goal. And so it just comes from let's do this to the best of our capacity and more sales and that that really is like, look looking for more opportunities, and when a buyer offers you, hey, can you do these, You're going to do it. I love that.

So let's talk about your journey starting from the basement and going to the warehouse, which is a journey A lot of entrepreneurs that see a lot of success do how quickly did you outgrow the basements and then realize, wait a second, I need to go get a warehouse. This stuff is really taking up some space. Yeah, you make it sound like it was a fast transition. It wasn't.

And everything that I think I tell a lot of entrepreneurs like, it takes so much longer than you think. Even just hitting one hundred thousand followers on our Instagram. Took so long, like embarrassingly long, it feels like. And so even those first two and a half years in the basement felt like, oh my god, we've been here for so long, Like will we ever, you know, make the change to be able to grow.

So we started in twenty twenty one in my dad's basement, and so I had this idea of what if we launched you know, hydration accessories. And it's so funny because he had his ping pong table down there, we had the pool table down there, and he was adamant that we're not moving the ping pong table. And I'm like, Dad, this is the one spot where I really really want to have my business, Like it's the perfect location in the house. I can like have people here to like work with me.

He's like no, And so one day he leaves for our lake house and he's there for like two weeks, and I'm like, all right, packing up the ping pong table, like we're gonna make this happen. I don't care what he says. Better to ask for forgiveness than permission exactly exactly. And so by the time he got back, we had like fully set up shop.

We had all of the folding tables out. I mean, we had like a little like production area going where I had high school kids coming over and hand making these beads and hand making these resin hooks. Everything was handmade. We packed everything, and so we had walls of just like product.

We had so many skews at that time, I would say we had almost like three hundred skews. It was wild of just different charms, and so I really enjoyed it. There was a lot of growth in it. Every time we grew and we had a new opportunity, I leaned into the community near me and I would ask, you know, local neighbors to see if they had kids that wanted to help out.

Things were just changing at such a fast pace. But still it wasn't big enough to where I could say, like, we need a warehouse, and so it doesn't make sense to go to a warehouse. And so in twenty twenty three, Urban Outfitters came to us and they asked us to do like a small order for their online store. And I'm like, how are we going to package this for retail?

So I hand made our like, you know, our cards that these products hung on. So that they were retail packed. We hand put the stickers onto everything, and again you just learned so much of like how to even ship products out through the urban outfitters back end to make sure that it gets to their distribution center. We were still in the basement.

We had our first Dick Sporting Goods test order. I think it was to seventy stores. And that was the first palette that I shipped out. And it was a baby palette, maybe like two layers of boxes on this and so I had like buy a pallette from Facebook marketplace.

I went and drove to pick it up. I brought it into our garage and I packed this pallette there of all the products, again, everything was handmade for this order. And the closest store was at you know, in the Urbana Champagne area, which about three hours south from where I live in Chicago, and so I went down there, I visited. I'm like, wow, this is just the beginning.

And that was the holiday season that Stanley like they had more sales at every store than like any other products combined. It was like crazy. So of course our accessory did well. And then leading into twenty twenty four was when I decided to leave our basement and move into the warehouse.

And that decision was purely based off the fact that we got a nationwide Dick sporting goods order, and I was really careful about how I chose a warehouse. There was a shared warehouse space called war space, so I went to one of those. I got four hundred square feet. I think I was paying maybe one thousand bucks a month, nothing crazy.

And that was where we grew for pretty much the next full year. And I had to find real people that would come and produce product that weren't high school kids anymore. Now we were actually finding, you know, people that I think could have come, you know, for six hour shifts and eight hour shifts to make product. So I think because we grew so slowly, it allowed me to learn every step of the way and I didn't have to I think I made less mistakes because of that.

Charlotte, listening to your story is just the definition of resourcefulness, right, Like you mentioned this in the beginning of the episode, which is say yes, then figure it out later, like take a really big bite, thigure out how to chew it, and you are just the epitome of that period. That's stuff of an entrepreneur you are, and so I'm curious for the operation side of it. Tell me more about what happened behind the scenes going from the basement to the warehouse. Did you have to start using different software?

You mentioned you hired a warehouse manager, Like, what was sort of the operational advice you can give to someone listening right now who is making that transition themselves. Yeah. Absolutely. I think the biggest transition actually happened from four hundred square feet to ten thousand square feet to where we are now, and that was once we launched into target and when we got our first target order, things really changed.

It was kind of that like oh shit, moment of oh my god, we're not just shipping twenty pallets totally, this is this is one hundred pallets and it's I mean everything else was legit, but now it was like legit legit. It was multimillions of dollars we were talking about, I mean, hundreds of thousands of units. And so that was a moment where I look back on those couple of weeks during our first target order when we were fulfilling that with such fond memories. I was working from like six am to ten pm I had four shifts of warehouse workers working six hours.

I had over seventy people coming in and out of that first we had ten thousand square feet at the time, and that was a system that was not built thoughtfully. It was just like, we need to make this happen, and we need to shift this out as fast as we can and make sure that it goes out on time. And truly, you are selling confidence to the buyers that you're going to deliver on time in full quality products. As long as you can do that as a vendor, you will continue to have more business with them.

So yeah, that's really how we've grown. But it's taken four and a half years together, and I still think that there's a lot of opportunity for growth. Okay, So I think the best ideas that entrepreneurs come up with our ideas that are rooted in a problem that you're personally experiencing. Right, So, you created this product because it's something that you wanted.

What did your knowledge about your own market and the connection to the community who would be your ideal buyer tell you about how marketable this product would be. It's a really good question. I actually did not need water bottle accessory. I mean, no one needs these things, but like people love personalization.

I think that's just like a key human instinct to like make your little mark on something totally. Uh, personalization, of course is important, and that's really that's our like, that's our brand ethos now is like make life fun and as long as we create products within that sphere where we're kind of like in aligned with what the Charcharms brand is or any other brands that I launch. So when we started, and I was posting on TikTok, this is where community really helps me understand what people actually wanted.

And so when I started the Charcharms, I thought this would be very functional. I thought this item and the product itself would be like you can hang your keys and your AirPods and it actually that really wasn't I think that was a smaller con then I thought it would be really what the consumers we're telling me. It was like, we want a charm for book lovers. Do you have a charm for the softball player?

Mom? Like do you have? It was very specific niche interest that people were looking for, and so it really and this was truly just from like reading people's comments. I was seeing what people were commenting and asking us for.

So I think there's just so much that we can get from our community. And you know, there's a great quote out there where it's talked to one hundred customers and you'll see how to become better than your competitors, and so that's that's what we do, and I think we lean into that, but that's the best way to do it. Yeah, I love that advice. And I will challenge you to say, you know, what's a huge problem everybody's water bottle looking the same because everybody's buying the same brand of water bottle.

I'm a fitness instructor, so I see a lot of water bottles being lost out there in the world and being able to personally identify yours after you spent all that money. I think that's a really important problem that you're solving, so totally. I'll take it. Yeah, all right, So can you tell me how much of the demand that you had was organic versus created?

And what I mean by that is how many customers actually just inherently wanted this product versus how many people realized that these products would be convenient once they actually knew and experienced the chart arms brand. I think everything was created. No one was really searching for water bottle accessories until they saw it on TikTok and they're like, oh, I didn't even know that existed, and then they wanted it. So I think everything was created from us to kind of build up that demand.

You know what. I think this is a great reminder of Austin those folks that say like, there's no new businesses to create because everybody's already invented something. I challenge you now, based on this episode, to rethink that strategy in that frame of mind. Yes, no, I agree with that, And every time someone says that, I'm like, well, I kind of did create a new product, absolutely one percent.

I think what's really interesting about this too is I think collectibles are starting to make a comeback here in the twenty twenties, and so I feel like you're also operating in that, like call it secular growth trend, which is really really interesting. Definitely. You mentioned earlier in the conversation that your mentor is the founder of Gibbets, which are sort of you know, the charms for crocs, Right, how important is it to have a mentor everything? Oh my gosh, And so He's just one of my mentors.

The founder of pop Sockets is another one. The founder of Simple Modern is another one. I seek out founders that have built brands that I think are really interesting and are similar to mine or different, but have experience that I want to learn from. So mentors have played a huge part in my story.

I found a seminar for IP and patenting, and so I entered into this seminar and at the end of the seminar and it was free. At the end of it, they say, hey, you know, this is sponsored by the SBDC here in Chicago, and if you're looking for free mentorship, you know, reach out to us because we also do free mentorship. So I reached out to the SBDC and this was the thirty six Square location, and I connected with a guy named Andrew Fogerdi and he was my first business mentor. And so really how I looked at that relationship was I am going to tell you as I work on things, and if you can point me in a certain direction, or give me any piece of advice or connect me with anyone that you think would be useful.

That was really how I utilized that. And so then he actually introduced me to an incubator, and that incubator had mentors that they provided and so then in January twenty twenty two, so just a couple months later, I got paired with a mentor through the incubator and his name was Bob Easter, and Bob was I was on a weekly call with him, which is that's pretty frequent for a mentor to have a weekly call. But that was the most beneficial. I mean, all my mentors were like crazy helpful to me.

I could not have done without them. And so I was at a event in Chicago. It's called m Hub. They're like a manufacturing facility for startups, and I met my next mentor, Chetta Satia from the SBDC again the Small Business Development Center, and I talked to him and he said, I've retail experience.

I can help you. And I said, phenomenal, because I'm trying to launch in retail and I had never launched in retail. And so over the course of the first couple of months of working with him, he helped me put together my first line sheets, and he helped me think through pricing, wholesale pricing and how would I do that. He helped me think through what I would be pitching to retailers my retail packaging.

He said, go into the stores and see what will your product look like there? And so I met with him. I think it was more like every other week, a couple times a month, but I worked with him for probably a solid year and a half as we launched from Urban Outfitters to Dicks to Target. And he was such a support on the retail journey because he had built his own company in retail and now is mentoring people for free.

And so throughout this whole journey, I mean, every single mentor really played its part. And when I decided to go on Shark Tank and I walked away from a deal, I really thought to myself, like why did I even go on Shark Tank, And it was because I was looking for my next mentor of like someone who will believe in me and someone who will, you know, give me some ideas or question my ideas. And so that was when I called up Like Beckham, founder of Simple Modern, and I said, Hey, Mike, you know, I really want a mentor that is in the space, understands hydration and can meet with me on a monthly basis.

And so he said yes, and I work with him now. And I have plenty of other mentors like I've mentioned, but he's the one that has really kind of just like helped me think through how do I become a business? How do I grow a business that is a one hundred million dollar company, and how do we really ten x again. So that's that's how my mentors have grown.

And I mean, I would recommend a mentor to every business owner out there. Two big takeaways from that. The first one is it is so encouraging to see how many free resources that are out there for small business owners. Right you mentioned you're in Chicago, You're taking advantage of local meetup, dot com stuff, You're taking advantage of the Small Business Development Center, So like you're leaning into these free resources that are around you, and I'm sure a lot of people have around them as well.

So that is it's so exciting. And when it comes to mentors is I feel like sometimes a small business owners, we like to think we got it figured out, We like to think that we know more than we really do, and so sometimes we feel weird about going to people who might be a little bit further along in their journeys and asking for help. So I think what's really powerful about having a mentor is you can leave your ego at the door. You can ask real, honest questions, you can get that honest feedback, and you can just really learn from someone who's done it just a little bit longer than you.

Totally. Yeah, And you can only grow your business as much as you grow yourself. And I'm sotware there we go. You can only grow your business as much as you can grow yourself.

Yeah. Yeah, And so if you can't level yourself up, you will never be able to level your business up. So, like I've hired a business coach this year and that was a really big investment that I made in myself. And that's more like the leadership side of things.

But again, it's like, how are you going to grow a team if you can't actually be a leader and give feedback and positive and negative and go through hr difficulties and give a vision to the team. So leadership has been something that I'm really working on now this year. For everyone listening right now, what advice do you have for them who might not be as you know? You can call up the founder of Simple Modern, someone who hasn't been yet on shark Tank, what advice do you have for them for finding their first mentor?

Yeah, well, I mean the free rank resources that we mentioned is probably your best bet. They will mentor you. And it doesn't matter if you've made zero dollars or ten million dollars. You can find mentors through the SBDC, through Score, through local incubators.

I also think like if you had really good relationships with any college professors, that's a great place to reach back out to your university and see if you can find mentoring. So I think the best bet, especially while you're early on, is find someone who's volunteering their time, who works for the government and is like paid to do mentoring services or through the university, and I think you can get really far with that. That's amazing. I think that is such underrated resource as far as you know, because I'm familiar with SCORE as well, and I think people just underestimate the amount of free information that's out there too.

You know. Another great example do is QuickBooks Blog. There's like so much useful information on there, y'all, SOO make sure that you're checking that out as well, especially if you want to become more proficient in using QuickBooks. All right, so the spotlight comes fast, and for you, Charlotte, I think it came at lightning speed.

So how did you feel when you were first spotlighted? Like, was was there a moment? Was it when you started gaining traction on TikTok? Was it landing your first retailer?

Like, how did you know? Oh wow, like the moment has arrived. I think it was Forbes thirty under thirty. That was a really big goal of mine.

That'll do it. Yeah, And if people ask me, like what's cooler, Shark Tank or Forbes third under thirty, and it's probably Shark Tank, but Forbes felt really like I felt really accomplished with Forbes thirty and thirty, And so both of those happening within the course of a month was wild because we got on the Forbes thirty and thirty list and then one month later our Shark Tank episode aired, and so I was like riding a high. I'm like, oh my god, is this like the pinnacle of my life?

Like? Am I gonna go downhill from here? Have I peaked? Was a question I really asked.

I said, Oh my gosh, that's funny. Of course, you know, I'm optimistic. I think we'll continue to go up from where we're at. But that was a time in my life.

I'm like, oh my god, I feel like I just did like everything I wanted to do, and I really was like, what's the next goal. You mentioned about that first huge order with it, was it. Dix or yeah, Dix and then Target? Yeah, So I'm curious, like, did you have enough inventory at the moment that you signed that deal or was it like a Matt dash in the background to be like, yeah, we can do that, sure when.

You do you need it buy, Yeah, it was the second we had nothing. But that's actually that's actually now how we run our operations, so we don't hold inventory for the most part. We will take a retail order and it's you know, sixteen to twenty weeks lead time, and then we place our orders with our factories and then we bring everything and then ship it. So that's just how our business model works, and it works really well for us.

I also don't think it's that uncommon to do that. I think a lot of other companies do that as well, as long as they can see ship it and produce it fast enough. But in that first order, that was like, wow, I have never dealt with needing. We were airshipping everything, which is so expensive.

I think there was a lot of things that when you have those opportunities, you'll do whatever it takes. Like I would have broke even on those first orders just to be able to get into Dicks and just be able to get into Target. It's kind of like any means necessary because then it's like you can build off of that, and there's so much traction that you can get from that. So we would have done it no matter what.

How did you keep up on the book keeping side? Right? Were you operating as a large business even before you were from like a process logistics standpoint, or did you formalize things once everything started to take off. Yeah, so we had QuickBooks set up in the back, but like that was it.

So it was set up. It was really like it'll just process the numbers as it goes and I'm not going to go in and change anything or tag anything. Now we have a finance manager part time who like manages things and like does the numbers and like looks the books at a monthly basis. Since's you know, it looks at our AR and AP reports.

But in the first couple of years that was not a thing, and I think I like honestly guessed what our revenue was at the end of the first two years of our business. Yeah, I mean, I think that's the great part about QuickBooks in all of the automations that you can just kind of set and forget right. And then now that you have your team has more structure to manage things on a more granular level, that definitely has to be able to help you be more nimble now in the business, right you have like this ready to go accessible financial data that can help you forecast or you know, plan for inventory and things like that.

I'm curious for you, what's the one thing that you would attribute has been like the key to your success, especially in this growth period. I think the key to my success has been that my job is the job of solving problems, and as long as I'm in problem solving mode all the time, I can succeed even more. I also, as I mentioned in the beginning, like I will take every opportunity that I can for growth. I seek opportunities everywhere I go, and it might not be the most traditional approach, but I look at founders that I find inspiring.

I see what they did and I try to mimic it. All right, So you have clearly transitioned from side hustle to spotlight. Is there anything that you wish you knew when you first started? Hmmm.

The one piece of advice that I really tell all my founder friends that are younger and that are growing their business is to save their money as you're building your business. I'm glad I did, because there were things that happened in our company as we grew that I could have never seen happening. And I'm really glad that that first year that I had a million dollars in my account that I didn't go buy the Range Rover I really wanted because I could have, but I didn't, And I saved our money and it saved us when we were like when things were like kind of rocky, Like don't spend crazily in those first couple of years.

Every dollar that you make, you know, put it an account, either invested back into your company, or save it. And I'm really blessed that I made that decision, and now I do. I'm really cautious with the finances of our company and making sure that we have enough runway and if something God forbid happens, you know that I can take care of my team for a year and make sure that we can like get ourselves back up onto the mountain. So I think that's my biggest piece of advice when it comes to being a founder, because the money can overwhelming when you start making a lot of it, but it's not always up into the right.

There's ups and downs, and so you have to be prepared for that. There absolutely are. And I love that advice because it's advice that I follow myself. I think as small business owners, sometimes when you see that money start to come in as revenue, you might conflate it with profits, and then it's also the pre tax, right, so you got to think about all of this stuff as a small business owner.

I love that advice, Charlotte. So let's talk about success. What are some moments that you're like super proud of that feel like incredible moments of accomplishment and maybe also some serious moments where you had to respond to pressure and you're proud of like how you showed up in that moment. Totally.

The biggest success moment for us, I think is building our team. I'm really proud of the team that we've built and team building. We have six full time employees, we have a handful of contractors and part time team members, and every single one of them just the passion that they share for Charchcharms and what we're building is so incredible. And so that's the one thing that I know, as I look back on this journey, like every team member that has been here, that has gone, that has stayed, that has not worked out, and has worked out, like all of them have been so important to our journey, and like I am always just so grateful for them.

I think some moments that have been really hard for us. I mean, the one that sticks out is when we had that first target order. I really thought I was going to have to say no because I didn't have the money. I needed a couple hundred thousand dollars for the cost of goods and I didn't have it, and so it was a really stressful time I was.

I got that order, and I was reaching out to financing companies. That time, I was actually traveling to visit a friend down in Charlotte, North Carolina, and I remember sleeping on her couch and I cried myself to sleep on a weekend that was supposed to be like a really fun weekend, and I just was so stressed out about getting financing. I decided, like, I'm going to have to tell Target I can't do this deal if they don't give me an extension. I hopped on the call with our Target team, and I mean god, there was just this pit in my stomach of like, oh my God, like I'm gonna have to give up this multimillion dollar deal.

And so I get on I'm like, hey, girl, like I need an extension, not a cancy this and she's like, oh, six weeks, like no problem, Like Jesus Christ, I was so stressed out. I was so stressed out. She said yes, and it was like the best thing ever, and so luckily I was able to get the financing. I really thought that I was going to have to say no to an order that I really really wanted and there was nothing I could do except for ask, and she said yes, and I was like, I bless her heart because I was so thankful for that.

You know, I'm not a particularly like woo person, but I do firmly believe that what is meant for you will wait for you until you are ready to receive that, and I think this is a prime example of just like you were ready, Okay, you were ready, a challenge accepted and you absolutely executed. So, I mean, Charlotte, your story is so inspiring. I know people are going to want to know where does Charge Charms go from here? What's next for you?

So much, there's so many places that it's gonna go. Twenty twenty six is going to be a year of expansion for us, so you'll be seeing us in new categories, which I'm really excited about. And so you can find me talking about all of the things that I'm doing. I just posted an Instagram post about how I've hired over sixty interns over the last four years, and so I write a substack weekly about you know, all these tips and tricks of everything that I'm learning or how to's, and so the most recent one is on interns.

But yeah, so that's where what I'm up to. And there's gonna be a lot of growth from my personal brand this year too. You know, I definitely see you in a boardroom one day getting pitches of your own. So I'm super excited for that next era of your entrepreneurial Journey.

Charlotte, I want to thank you for your time, for being here, and for really giving us the encouragement that there are still plenty of money to be made and still plenty of brilliant ideas to go and pursue. Definitely, yeah, go, go, get after it, find the opportunities, and remember the only job that you have is to sell the product. Nothing else matters if you can't sell the product, So focus on that, and if you can make that happen, you'll find success. Thank you so much for being here.

Thanks Charlotte, thank you for having me by Wow. I mean that was a masterclass in like finding opportunities and really capitalizing on them, wouldn't you say, Austin. I certainly would. And her advice about making sure that you hold onto your money is so important.

As you grow your business, you want to spend more money, you want to invest in other things, but keeping the belt real tight on that business when disaster sometimes strikes is a very important strategy to have. Absolutely, I feel like you know, Charlotte's book would be called from Basement Bawling. From Basement to Bawling, I love it. And Charlotte's Journey is so fun to talk about, and she's got great insight into preparing yourself for those big opportunities when they finally come your way.

Absolutely, you have to be ready to dance when the spotlight finds you. And Charlotte definitely was speaking of which let's get our audience's feet tapping. Charlotte, Well, let's get some dance and go and here we go. All right, listeners, So this week we want you to try to evaluate your social media presence.

How big is your marketing footprint, how many followers do you have? And what can you do to begin attracting more? What's your posting schedule like, can you post more frequently? Look at your current numbers and orders or clients or whatever revenue generation applies to your business, and utilize quick books to create mock invoices or fake orders and see how that impacts your workflow.

Can you handle that increase in demand? Try different drills with incremental increases in the amount of demand, and if not, what can you do to be ready for an increase like that? And finally, determine what legal or paperwork logistics you would need if your business suddenly became very popular on a larger scale like Charlotte's. Would you need to turn your LLC into an escort?

Are your finances in order for the national or global stage? And if anything needs to be changed or fixed before a major expansion, think about doing it right now or at least having a plan to do it when it's needed. And with that, that's it for today's episode, y'all. You can find me on social media at joquierronnetto podcast, and.

You can find me at Austin Hankwitz. You can follow Into It QuickBooks on all social media at QuickBooks. To get the tools you need to start, run, and grow your business, head to QuickBooks dot com slash mtb today. Don't forget to follow the show wherever you listen to podcasts so you can stay up to date on future episodes.

We also want to hear from you, so be sure to leave us a rating and a review. See you next time. This podcast is a production of iHeartRadio's Ruby Studio and Into It QuickBooks. Our executive producers are James Foster and Ryan Martz.

Our supervising producer is Meredith Barnes Our writer is Eric Leeja, and our bixing engineer is Eric Zeiler.