527: Marketing, Team Growth & Scaling Smarter: Our Answers with Dan & Nicole Culver, & Founder Emily

speaker-0: Focusing more on doing less. And that is extremely hard for me. Having a team and having systems, I've had to adapt and change because what I do affects five or six other people. speaker-1: ⁓ Really owning that what I have done is a big deal.

Often our greatest gift, like what comes easiest to us, is like the thing we think isn't a big deal. Not that growing a business has been easy because it's been work, it's had challenges, but I'm just like the queen of it's not that big of a deal. If you speaker-2: Could not live in the state of New York, where would you live? Do you guys disagree on business things?

So who gets the final say? Do you guys ever fight? And by fight I mean argue. I'm not saying like yell at each other.

If you had 100K to invest in your business today, it's extra. It just arrives in your bank account, but you must invest it. Where are you putting it? What are you most looking forward to for that new era for your family?

Besides Dan's talking. speaker-1: So we are at Icon Live and last night at our VIP dinner, Emily was giving us rapid fire questions. And I was like, This is so fun. Do you want to do these and record us?

So Emily came up with rapid fire questions. We have no idea what she's gonna ask, but she's gonna lay it on us. So do you introduce yourself, tell us who you are, who you help, and where they can find you, and then like speaker-2: Okay. I love it.

I'm Emily. I'm a business strategist. And you can find me on Instagram at founder Emily. I love stuff like this.

So let's see what we uncover. All right. Okay, so this is gonna be for both of you. Okay.

If the internet but each of you have to answer separately. You're not starting a business together. No. Okay.

if the internet died tomorrow, how would you make money? speaker-1: I love it. ⁓ okay. If the internet died tomorrow, I would start a baked goods brand.

It would be local, but I would build an entire you've I've thought about this before. She's got some I would build an entire world and brand around the baked good like identity. It would probably be called granola girl. And it would be it's kind of like an homage to our first granola company.

But I would make it way more profitable and way more viral. And it would be like a granola company, a media, like a local media brand. And it would also be like events, merch. It would be like a whole physical location.

Physical location. speaker-2: Okay, Dan, what would you do? speaker-0: So I would I would do real estate. I w I would I would Residential Residential.

I ⁓ yeah. So just kinda going back to my roots, I started out in real estate, always thought I wanna wanna be a real estate developer. So I would go back to develop real estate, residential real estate. speaker-2: Commercial or Okay, you also can't answer this question together.

If you could not live in the state of New York, where would you live? speaker-1: ⁓ it would be on that's a really good question. One I have not thought about so much. It would still it would have to be like New York adjacent in terms of it would have to be like close to a city, close to very close to the beach.

⁓ no, I know. That's why I mean maybe it would be like Rhode Island or it would be I mean, I would then go maybe to Florida. speaker-2: You can't say New Jersey either. See my head!

I was gonna guess you were gonna say Florida, but what about you? speaker-0: I I would say Florida. I'm not going further north. Yeah.

So speaker-2: ⁓ yeah. Okay, ⁓ do you guys disagree on business things? And if so, what? speaker-0: Disagree in the sense that we have different opinions?

Yes. Disagree that we like fight and yell at each other about it? No. So I think I mean we are constantly in a discussion around different opinions in terms of like the first thing that comes to mind is ad spend.

Like speaker-2: ⁓ tell us more. We're getting the juice. speaker-0: Nicole's favorite words are spend more on ads. No, no.

I I am very like I'm conservative with ad spend. Like I want to make like I'm all about ROI. She's like, give me all the leads, I'll make money with them. So that's like a a back and forth.

speaker-2: Wait, I was gonna guess the opposite. Well you're also into world building. So you're like give me the people like give me more speaker-0: People to world. I'm the traditional ads manager where I want to see like the traffic, the leads, the sales all clean.

And she's like, No, no, no, no, it's cool. It's all gonna work out. We're just gonna make a bunch of money and I'm like, Well, yeah. speaker-2: So who gets the final say?

speaker-1: We usually meet in the middle, honestly. It's because I would like to spend more, but we also are like intuitive and very strategic. It's kind of both. speaker-0: That's all that's also why the data, like we we ⁓ yeah, like we trust her intuition and we needed data.

So like even recently we've been drastically increasing our ad spend every single week. And we we were monitoring not only our return on ad spend but also our cash flow. Like how much new cash are we creating? ⁓ and we weren't creating enough new cash.

So we were like, okay, we need to download that like decrease the the ad spend and we need to increase our prices, increase our deposits, increase that kind of stuff, right? speaker-2: Okay, do you guys ever fight? And by fight I mean argue. I'm not saying like yell at each other.

Just in general. speaker-0: About the business? No Yeah. But I don't think like yell at each other.

speaker-2: Yeah, no I'm taking yell let's just take yelling out of it. Just argue. What do you guys argue about? speaker-1: The heat.

Temperature in the house. speaker-2: ⁓ that's relatable. Wait, who's on which side? speaker-1: ⁓ temperature in the house.

speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: I would like to sleep like around sixty eight seventy and ⁓ during the summer he would do it at like seventy six. ⁓ no. speaker-2: No.

⁓ no, Dan. Yeah. speaker-0: You have to defeat what's the point? You're supposed to be no speaker-1: Yeah.

⁓ speaker-2: ⁓ ⁓ sorry. Sorry. speaker-1: No no that's a right or wrong and we're right. speaker-2: Yeah.

⁓ my gosh. ⁓ okay. If you had a hundred K to invest in your business today, it's extra. It just arrives in your bank account, but you must invest it.

Where are you putting it? speaker-1: This is what we answered the exact same last night and the maybe the breakdown would be different, but it would be ads and media, like doing more like this and getting it more in front of the right people. speaker-0: Yeah, exact and I mean what was your number? What was your speaker-1: Didn't have a split.

⁓ speaker-2: That was cheating a little bit because I did ask that last night, but I think the answer was so interesting that I wanted to ask it again. Okay. This is specifically for Nicole with a little adjacent to Dan. When did you get into energetics?

Like have you always been interested in energy and mindset and speaker-1: Think I've always been a an intuitive person and didn't know it. So I ⁓ I mean, energy my whole life, but not knowing it. You know, I've always I can feel people's energy and I've always been like that. But I didn't when I think like I wanna say twenty eighteen.

I wanna say like my first foray into that was around twenty eighteen. But I remember in college. ⁓ my friend was like, This new book and movie, The Secret. And we watched it then, but it was very like, ⁓ is this like real?

Like, okay, like parking lot spot, but we'll find a spot at the park, you know, when we're going for parking. So I would say like that's the first time I heard of it, but I really started diving in twenty eighteen. speaker-2: Okay, and then how is that for you? speaker-1: It was the opposite, actually.

He Dan ⁓ Tim Ferris. He was Dan was very into like Tim Ferris and he was like, I'm gonna start meditating and I was like, I don't think you should. I think that is too woo-woo. speaker-2: Interesting.

speaker-0: It's it's interesting to me, it's like it's kind of been back and forth because I feel like I I was the first one to meditate. And then she was like, I don't want to see it, I don't want to be a part of it, do it on your own time. Yeah. ⁓ and then and I think we found Abraham Hicks.

I don't know the exact order, but the other thing we like the other energetic piece of it is we were pretty heavy into strategy of like do this marketing, and people wouldn't do the strategy. Yeah. And we were like, why? Don't you want to do the strategy?

And we realized there was mindset involved. And that's where Nicole really stepped in and was like, There's a problem here where our strategies clearly work, but only if you do the strategy. So we need to bring in the mindset so that they'll actually recognize that they should be doing this work and speaker-2: Yeah, that makes sense. ⁓ okay, just whatever comes to mind first.

This is for both of you. So this could be a big thing, a small thing, I don't care. What is one shift you have made over the last year that has changed the most for you? speaker-0: I think inside our business, I'm focusing more on doing less.

And that is extremely hard for me. So, and allowing the system that we built to manage me a little bit in terms of how many sales calls I do, how many client calls I do. If a client reaches out to me, I have to redirect them to Jess and be like, no, you have to run this through Jess. Like even yesterday, Katie Sawyer and I were brainstorming about making some changes to the content this afternoon.

And I and we were both like, ⁓ we have to talk to Katie Widger. We have to we have to like talk to her and make sure there's approval. It like when when it was just Nicole and I, we could fly by the seat of her pants and I could do whatever I wanted. Set like sell anything, do anything, whatever.

Having a team and having systems, I've had to adapt and change because what I do affects five or six other people. Yeah. Right. And so, and there's also a level of respect there and a level of I don't know what they're also working on.

And so I can't. do things without checking with Katie or Jess or Nicole and being like, hey, how's it fizz in it fit in the schedule? And so it that is very hard for me to not just kind of like throw throw getting us a wall and like kind of freelance it. So that's I think that's the biggest thing.

speaker-1: For me, really owning that what I have done is a big deal. I am like the biggest. ⁓ it's just this. It's not a big deal.

And you see this in like all across my life from like having 30 people over for Easter. And like, I just do it very easily. Like it just comes easy to me. And often our greatest gift, like what comes easiest to us, is like the thing we think isn't a big deal.

Not that Growing a business hasn't has been easy because it's been, you know, it's been work, it's had challenges, but I'm just like the queen of it's not that big of a deal. So really actually owning and celebrating my success and like closing the loop on the success and being like, this is a big deal. I am the best. I am special and unique.

And actually, not just I'm a big like check things off the list person. So actually, like feeling it and owning it, and really like we have a wins channel for all our clients, and it goes off every single day. speaker-2: Internal theme. speaker-1: And just reading it and just like because I'm always like, ⁓ my gosh, that's amazing for them but just like this is part of what I have created.

So that to me has been the biggest thing. speaker-2: That's cool. I like that a lot. Okay, number one non negotiable daily.

speaker-1: Waking up before everyone else. speaker-2: How much earlier? What time do you wake up? Okay, what do you do when you wake up and when does everyone else wake up?

speaker-1: Four forty five. I what do I do? First thing I do, well, like actually first thing I do is like energy clearing. It's like seven minutes.

I do that before I get out of bed, brush my teeth, come downstairs, lemon water, I sit, I do a little more meditation. Yes, I am. I am a data and then speaker-2: Are you still meditating? speaker-1: I just have like a practice where I then I go through my list of like what I'm grateful for, what am I acknowledging myself for, what am I validating myself for?

⁓ why is what I have created the best? And then I go lift, or if it's not a lifting day, but I go do my movement. I work out at home, tonal, I have a treadmill and I use the Peloton app for walks. I love it.

And then, you know, kids. speaker-2: And you work out at home. speaker-1: They our oldest wakes up around six thirty, six forty five, and then the other two get up anywhere between seven thirty and eight. ⁓ between nine and ten.

speaker-2: What time do go to bed? Okay, what's your non negotiable daily? Could even be coffee. speaker-0: ⁓ well, yeah, definitely coffee.

That's more of an addiction than a non negotiable. yeah, yeah. I think some type of movement, you know, like I I enjoy working out or walking or playing basketball or something, I think that has the biggest impact on my mindset. You know, like even like five, ten, fifteen years ago when I wasn't working out consistently, I noticed on days I didn't work out, my mindset was worse.

You know, so I think that's a definite non negotiable. ⁓ Yeah, and I I I wake up usually around five depending on the day and and things, but work ⁓ I usually go for a walk and then I'll do some mindset stuff and then I'll speaker-1: Like I woke up at four this morning. Event morning. speaker-2: ⁓ you're just like 'cause you make yourself or cause you're up.

speaker-1: N no, I make myself, but I'm also like, Yes, let's go. speaker-0: Ns Nicole's the only person in the world who wakes up before her alarm and is like, Yes, great start to my day. Like I wake up before my alarm, I'm like, what was the point of that? Like sleep until you're dragged out.

speaker-2: Cold though, because then you're awake and you're like, I feel refreshed. Okay. ⁓ sorry, Dan. Sorry, Dan.

Next question. This is a big one. You are when are you moving into your house? We don't know the exact date.

Yeah. speaker-1: Next yeah, six months, say. speaker-2: Okay, so within the next six months you're moving into your house. What are you most looking forward to for that new era for your family?

Besides Dan talking on calls. We're not even speaker-1: And I would say like expansion and up level, obviously that's really broad, but I don't know if you feel like this whenever you've come up against a new change. It's like things bubble up to the surface. So it's just I'm excited for our our business to have a space to grow.

And that's like we're gonna have a studio space in the basement. We're gonna have an office. ⁓ wow. Sound like that's like more insulated.

So it's like soundproofing and it feels like Our business our business has grown up. It's gone from like baby to like teenage like be even beyond teenager, obviously, but it gets to grow up and up level even more. And that has been our perspective with this is like we don't have an office space. So like we're taking this really seriously with the house.

And also Our kids are ready for more of their own spaces. Yeah. Like two of our kids share a room and they're growing up and they're growing into the people that they are and they want they want more room and space for themselves and we want to give that to them. Yeah.

speaker-0: I mean, I I I would agree. I I think the whole house building process has been challenged it was a challenge that we knew was gonna happen. And it was one of those things that we were like, this is gonna be hard. It would be easier not to build a house.

Yeah. And so we went into it with our eyes open and we said, this is gonna challenge us in different ways. Some visibly, like this is a new house that we are building. Everyone in the town sees it and talks about it.

Two financially, three time-wise, four, we built a whole nother team. Like we have a whole construction team now. You know what mean? Yeah.

So it was really, it was a challenge in a number of different ways. And I just really appreciate how we both have shown up. And like we love our business team, but we also love our construction team. And I don't think many people say that, you know.

So we've taken a lot of what we've done for business and applied it to that. and it's given us like a lot of really cool people to work with. Like we hired an Hier designer, we hired an architect, and they they were all like the best of the best, you know, and it was just ⁓ so cool. To experience people's craft from a client perspective of like I'm paying you for this.

How does that feel? And how does it feel to be treated like that or taken care of like that or thought through? And like there's still times like we I walk into the house as they're building it, I'm like, Nicole, they thought of this. Like they had to measure this.

Like this was on the plans. Like it's it seems so speaker-2: Something interesting I wanna call out here because I know a lot of people who've built homes. Everyone always complains about the people that are building their homes. So like that perspective alone is so speaker-0: ⁓ I grew up in real estate being the person you complained about.

Like I like our our businesses, like the businesses I work were were not run that well. So I went into this with a lot of like fear and and I had to really work on that. Be like, no, no, no, we can do this differently. This doesn't have to be as it was.

speaker-2: So building I have a question about in a minute why you decided to build a house, but it sounds like building a house has been its own growth experience beyond just like we're building. speaker-1: ⁓ my gosh. Yes, because it really does expand you. All of a sudden, like, you know, we went from a really comfortable, just like honestly, even like the mortgage that we pay on our current house is like teeny tiny.

And this one's more. So like that obviously alone. But when we were going into it, just like we say with our team, like we love working with them. They're so fun to work with.

That's what We wanted this experience to be like with our construction team. And it it really has. It really has been such a fun process. And how could we like we just went into it?

Like, how can we be the most grateful and just be in awe of every step of the process through the hard? And we will drive by and our construction manager is there. And we're just like, he's, ⁓ my gosh, no one even told us. Like he's just there, like working, like meeting someone, and we don't even know.

Like, Thank you so much. So it really has been a process of just enjoying the process, being grateful and letting expand you. But we've had many conversations where, you know, it it has been hard or we have been like, ⁓ my gosh, like the cost of this. And we've had to say, like, this is a line in the sand.

I believe that this house wants us more than we want it. So are we going to do this or are we going to not? And We've chosen it over and over. Why?

speaker-2: Why did you decide to build instead of just buying something? speaker-1: Because we have really high standards and there we wanted it personalized to us because we did construction in 2019 and we built our current house to the family we were then. Yeah. And for us to move out of this like comfortable house, it had to be like exact specs for us.

So we built it exactly how we wanted it. And it just again, it's it was standards. speaker-0: I I think it's also interesting is that when we met our construction manager, we walked him through the house. We were going to buy and we were like, we want to renovate this.

And he's like, No, you do not. ⁓ and so immediately my trust went way up with him. Because he's like, This is you guys say you want a basement, this basement doesn't work. You guys say you want a kitchen, this kitchen doesn't work.

You like everything that we wanted, he listened and he's like, This thing that you're telling me you're gonna do. speaker-2: And he's who you hired. speaker-0: Yes, yes. So it was just it's ⁓ again, it's just like so interesting to see it from this perspective.

But like I went in as a client with my own beliefs of like, ⁓ no, it's a renovation. And he went in as the expert and was like, This is not a renovation. ⁓ so that's it was r really interesting to see it. speaker-1: What you have one more fast one?

speaker-2: like a weird fast way. Okay. You can only have one condiment for the rest of your life. What is it?

speaker-1: ⁓ cond. I'm not really a con like I I use avocado as a condiment. speaker-2: There's only one answer. But like what did you put on your salad?

Do you like olive oil? speaker-1: ⁓ yes, yeah. Balsamic, olive oil. That counts.

⁓ okay. That counts. ⁓ okay. Like a dressing.

speaker-2: I think you could do a a mix. Okay. I also think like salsa is not a bad idea because you could use like it could be mayonnaise if you love mayonnaise. speaker-1: Olive oil, hands down like mayonnaise.

speaker-0: ⁓ I was gonna say primal kitchen mayonnaise, but I can't say that Chipotle mayo. ⁓ I can eat that with a speaker-2: No, I was just saying it doesn't have to be like One. Okay, wait, one more really fast. Okay.

I n Nicole's answer I think is obvious. But you can only eat one ethnicity of food for the rest of your life. ⁓ Italian New Year's. speaker-1: Yeah.

Great. Yeah. Thank you so much. This was so fun.