Episode 54: Unlocking Opportunities: The Power of Asking "What If" When Building a Business

Ever wondered how a simple question could change the course of your career or business? Discover the immense power of just asking for what you want, inspired by Sarah Blakely’s journey with Spanx. Join me, Vicki Kotris, as I share captivating stories and real-life examples of how taking initiative and challenging assumptions can open doors you never even knew existed. From negotiating subscription fees to launching a successful food truck business, this episode is filled with actionable insights and strategies to help you rewrite your own narrative.

Embrace the "what if" mindset and see rejection not as a dead-end but as a pathway to new opportunities. Learn how focusing on potential and selling the dream can unlock creativity, innovation, and expansive growth in your entrepreneurial journey. This conversation is designed to fuel your ambitions with positive energy and a hopeful outlook, whether you’re a business owner, a creative soul, or someone simply looking to add more sparkle to your day. Get ready to be inspired and empowered to take bold steps toward achieving unexpected outcomes!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hello and welcome to the Vicki Kotris podcast.
I am your host, none other thanVicki Kotris.
I'm a retired corporate girly,two-time six-figure founder
who's obsessed with brandbuilding, sales generating and
digital marketing.
My mission with this podcast isto share the lessons I've
learned, to help you make moremagic and money with your own
marketing efforts, and to feelinspired to continue on your own

(00:28):
journey as a creator andentrepreneur.
Here I'll share real lifestrategies, marketing tips and
mindset shifts that have helpedme go from cubicle to creator.
This podcast is for businessowners, creatives or those just
looking for a little moresparkle in their day, so let's
kick off this week's episode.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
Hello and thank you for tuning in to another episode
.
I think that I am going tolovingly reframe these
conversations or these episodesand just call them telesodes,
since I'm driving in myTelluride and I am currently
stuck in rush hour traffic, so Iwas just thinking about

(01:09):
something that I wanted to getrecorded because I think that it
is such a powerful.
It is such a powerful principlein business and marketing that
is so often overlooked andovercomplicated and over

(01:29):
explained and there's a lot offear that goes into it, and so
what I inspired me, whatinspired me for this podcast, is
that I have seen this clip ofSarah Blakely.
If you've listened to thepodcast before, you know that I
am a Blakely head.

(01:51):
She was the CEO of Spanx.
She ended up selling it toBlackRock.
She just launched a newbusiness called Sneaks, which
are heels on sneakers, and Istill don't know how I feel
about them, but she is abillionaire.
She is so inspirational.
She talks a lot about buildinga business and using energy and

(02:17):
manifestation and all of thesethings that I believe really
strongly in and building ourbusiness, which is a
feminine-based business,something that is often forgot
in this kind of male-dominatedthinking or in just our economy
and she was interviewed once andshe said that she got Spanx

(02:43):
into Neiman Marcus, like when itwas very early on and if you
don't know her story, shefounded Spanx and I believe it
was the next year she got onOprah's favorite things list,
the one that everyone buys overChristmas.
I mean that is huge.
Like that is a guaranteedsellout strategy and being

(03:04):
selected for that, or even beingon a radar for something like
that, I mean that can changelives.
That can change the wholetrajectory of your business.
So she was talking about howshe got into Neiman Marcus and
someone asked her like oh mygosh, how did you get into
Neiman Marcus?
They are so selective, liketheir buyers are famously known

(03:30):
for not taking meetings with newfounders or with new products.
Like they are a verytraditional, rooted brand and
that's just the way that it'salways been and she goes.
You know what I told them justthe way that it's always been
and she goes.
You know what I told them.
You know what I told them thosepeople who asked about how I

(03:50):
talked to the buyers she said Ijust asked.
I just asked them what it wouldtake to get Spanx on the
shelves, how many units I neededto sell to make an impact, and
when they were available, for me, to drop off my samples.
That is it.
That is so simple, and I seethis happen all the time.

(04:17):
I am the biggest advocate to.
Everything in life isnegotiable, and I have
negotiated everything fromserious radio to medical bills,
to phone plans, to anything thatyou can imagine.
I have negotiated own plans toanything that you can imagine I

(04:39):
have negotiated, and the reasonbeing is because so many things
are changing so quickly,especially in larger
organizations, that they don'teven from the top down, like
they don't even know whatthey're charging.
It's just like a littleincrease here and you don't pay
attention, and then we're justpaying automatically, like we
are on autopilot.
We're not paying attention tothese things, and so I find it

(05:01):
really powerful that when youask the question, you might
assume the answer is no, butit's not always, and that
possibility of not always isenough to get me going.
That's enough to inspire me toa new outcome, redirect my path,
get my juices flowing forsomething new and ready to

(05:24):
receive something that I didn'teven know existed before I asked
the question, and that'sexactly what Sarah did.
She didn't know.
I mean even Marcus could havetold her to go shove it and said
take this to Kmart, lady, ourbuyers are not going to buy
underwear with the feet cut out,are you stupid?

(05:44):
But instead she said this is myproduct.
I think it's pretty cool, thinkyour buyers would like it?
Sure, yeah, let's give it oneskew, one shelf a couple months.
See how it does Sell out.
I mean, that's how she became abillionaire.
She just asked if there was anyopportunity to promote or sell

(06:05):
her product.
I mean I pay $5 a month forSirius Radio and I renegotiate
it every six months until Inotice that my credit card bill
it goes back to $30 a monthbecause I didn't ask, because I
let it lapse.
But you know what?
I go through my rounds, I havemy conversations, I ask if

(06:27):
they'll give me that beginnerrate again and I'm going to tell
you what they have never saidno, I spend time.
So when we're not paying withour checkbooks, we are paying
with our time, and that is a bigdelineation.
I will spend the time to pay alittle bit less.
It's not every situation, but Ido with those kinds of things

(06:48):
because it matters to me.
Subscriptions matter to me.
They compound over time.
You don't realize how much youspend and that's why I make
those changes.
But I ask and the same thinggoes with in business when I
started my first business, whichis a food truck and catering
company and you know I had neverhad a business before, I never

(07:14):
really worked in a smallbusiness before, especially like
food and beverage I worked in abar.
That was my only experience.
So if you were to ask me then,vicki, how are you going to get
people interested in yourcompany?
How are they going to even findout about you?
I did what I knew how.
I just went back to basics.
I thought, well, I did what Iknew how.
I just went back to basics.
I thought, well, samples workand you know what else works

(07:38):
really good Things that are alittle taboo.
And at the time I had a friendof a friend who owned a really
popular brewery in Cleveland andthey were known for having a
really funky take onmicrobrewing.
They had so many different funflavors and they were winning

(08:00):
awards.
They were growing really fast,just such a fun, fresh take on
the sometimes snobbymicrobrewing.
And I showed up there one dayand I said I brought a bunch of
samples, like here's all of ourcookie dough and ice cream
treats and I just wanted you totry them.

(08:22):
And he's like cool, okay.
So I mean, what do you thinkLike, what do you need?
I said I have this idea and Ithink it would be really fun to
do a cookie dough and beerpairing.
He was like yes, yes, yes, ofcourse let's do that.
And I thought it was so funnybecause I have told many people

(08:44):
about this over the years andlike that is so weird, like that
makes no sense at all.
We don't understand, we do notget it.
This isn't milk and cookies,this is beer and cookie dough.
And help this make sense.
And I couldn't, I had no reason.
And the funniest thing is thatwhen we launched the tickets for

(09:05):
this event, the one thing Iknew how to do was to sing
something from the rooftops, wasto tell everyone that I knew,
was to promote it on socialmedia, was to make really fun
graphics, was to just make itfun, you know, infuse that
energy into it.
And so we launch our tickets.

(09:26):
They sell out in an hour.
They call back and say thebrewery calls back and says do
you guys want to add anotherslot that sells out in an hour.
Do you want to add a third slotthat sells out in an hour?
I actually do think that onetook like a day to sell out, but
the point is that we did thisevery other month for 18 months.

(09:50):
Anytime there was a fun holidayValentine's Day or Halloween or
any Christmas we found everymicrobrewery in that area and a
few wine bars and we did theexact same thing.
And then you know what happenedis we started a buzz for
ourselves and people still sevenyears later come up to us and

(10:12):
say we, we tried your cookiedough for the first time at
platform brew and it was soawesome, that was so fun.
Like we wish that.
We wish you could do that again.
You know, like what a funmemory we had.
And I came up with somethingthat was so silly and otherwise
dumb and I just asked hey, wouldyou be willing to do this?

(10:35):
Would you partner with us onthis?
It could be really stupid andit could blow up in our faces,
but who cares, it could bereally fun, it could be really
cool.
And the latter is what happened.
So I'm such a big proponent ofwhatever fear or embarrassment

(10:56):
that just intertwine themselvesin the fear of hearing no or
receiving some kind of objection, is to change the lens through
which we look.
Which is what if the oppositewere true?
What if, instead of the no, wehear the yes?
It creates this amazingredirection into something

(11:20):
wonderful and new and expansiveand full of new positive energy
wonderful and new and expansiveand full of new positive energy.
I really really love thatoutcome a lot more.
I don't know about you, but thatfeels a lot more warm and gushy
to me, and when I'm building abusiness, I'm about the
possibility.
I'm selling the dream.
I'm not talking about what is.

(11:42):
I'm asking what if, and that issomething that keeps me going.
I hope that helps you today.
I hope that it inspires you toask what if?
Ask the question, take one stepforward, try something new
today and I will see you backnext week.