February 16, 2025 • 50 mins
Theresa Oschmann always possessed an entrepreneurial spirit. For over two decades, Theresa channeled that energy into a successful business known as The Mailbox Maven. Join me as I delve into another business owner episode on my #podcast,”TFTC with Bob Nebel,” where I speak with leaders like Theresa + artists, creators + more from across the globe!
Join us for an inspiring talk about how to reinvent yourself, find confidence in leading + growing!
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/tftc-with-bob-nebel--4703586/support.
Join us for an inspiring talk about how to reinvent yourself, find confidence in leading + growing!
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/tftc-with-bob-nebel--4703586/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, Hello, Hello, and thank you for joining me. It's
late February twenty twenty five. It's great to see you
here again. I'm going to do a little bit different
of a show today. I usually speak with musicians, creators,
artists of all stripes from all over the world. But
this is TFTC means we're in this corner, but we
can talk with just about anybody who we want to
(00:22):
talk with. And I really am trying to reach out
and go beyond the scope of just the arts. Even
though this is the arts, everything is an art when
you really really think about that. So today is no different.
I speak with the mailbox Maven and her name is
Teresa Ashman, and she's up in the Finger Lakes area
(00:43):
of New York, way up there in snowy New York
right now, and we just have a really great discussion
about what it takes to be an entrepreneur and to
do direct marketing campaigns. I know that could sound really
nice and dry and everything for a lot of people,
especially if you're to me speaking with people who are
(01:03):
connected with big music stars and stuff like that. I
haven't actually gotten the big music stars on here. That
has yet to happen although I have been working on it.
It's many years now. Actually we're well over one hundred
and fifty episodes in on my little podcast. But I
like to expand my horizons, and I actually think this
is pretty fascinating today to speak with somebody like Teresa
(01:27):
who really struck it out on her own doing something
like this, and you know what, the greatest thing is
she could do all this stuff from home, and it
really talks about how much spirits one can have. She
has a really cool story too, about growing up and
coming to the US, and really has many chapters in
(01:48):
her life. So it's just this is beyond even somebody
who's an entrepreneur, but somebody who really has just worked
it and has done so well for herself into all
that self improvement and business stuff. Really is a huge
fan of Tony Robbins and people like that. But listen
to our chat. I really encourage you and I'll talk
(02:11):
with you on the other side of this. I'm doing great.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
How are you good?
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Good? Thanks for thanks for joining me today.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Oh, you're welcome. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
I'm really curious. I've come across on your material through
your website and you're on this site called Alnable, and
I'm just like, it's just curiosity more so than anything.
My podcast really has like artists and creators, but I
like having business leaders and mix it up a little bit.
So I just you know, it's very much my curiosity
(02:44):
as to what somebody like you does. So I really
appreciate it. And you're taking the time out to speak
with me today.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Absolutely. I read your profile on the Linable as well,
and I love what you're doing and what the folks
that you're interviewing. I love your style, So thank you
for bringing that to the world.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Thanks. Yeah, And it's kind of like the service this happened.
My background is with this podcast is during the pandemic,
a lot of artists couldn't get out there, so they
were doing these you know, concerts on Facebook or whatnot. Sure,
so I felt like, you know, here's a format, here's
(03:29):
a way to help get their word out and to
really get their promote their material, especially their latest projects,
which they did a lot from home. Actually, you know,
they weren't going into recording studios. A lot of people
were doing stuff and sending files to each other and
mixing and all that, so fascinating stuff. So yeah. Anyhow,
(03:49):
so how did you get into all this? And how
long have you been in business? Now?
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Well, so loaded question. Yeah, and I'm going to give
away my age really quick. My career in over the
last twenty five years has been in higher education, sales
and marketing. And I actually built that business for someone
else and was bringing in about eight hundred thousand dollars
(04:16):
in sales annually for that company. Then some you know,
that rose over the years, and so the way I
was doing that was nurturing and building relationships. Back when
I first started, oh my gosh, it was the advent
of the internet. Many people may remember the you've got mail.
(04:38):
You know, there's dog myself and so you know everything.
All it was all the rage, and what I decided
to do was to, yeah, I'll use email and do
all those things. But when I met with a client
or a prospect, you know, they I renewed a campaign,
(05:01):
they signed a new contract, what have you, I would
actually send them a handwritten thank you card and arrived
in a real mailbox. I know the novelty right, talk
about vintage now, and so I would do that and
over the years it got to be a lot. So
(05:21):
think about the average sale was twelve to fifteen thousand dollars,
sometimes a little more. So you can imagine all the
thank you cards I was writing and had an experience
on a trip to Florida where I packed all my
note cards, my stamps, pen everything in this gallon sized
(05:46):
baggie in my suitcase. It goes, and of course my
suitcase got stuck in Fort Lauderdale they couldn't find it.
I finally arrived in Miami in my room and as
I was unpacking, I unpacked the ziploc bank got to
it and everything was melted together.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Oh could that heartbreaker?
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Terrible?
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Imagine. I was there Monday through Friday. I had at
least three or four meetings a day. At these meetings
there were at least two or three people at each,
so I would send them all thank you cards. So
now I had to come back to here in the
beautiful Finger Lakes region of upstate New York and write
all my thank you cards. That did not feel good.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Oh gosh, you're a hand must be.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Horrible. Oh my gosh. So I came across this technology
where you could do all that online and it still
would be personalized. You can customize you can do all
those things, and all the fulfillment was done for me
and they would mail it out and I was a
happy camper. So fast forward to about ten years ago,
(07:00):
the company that I was with, they decided to sell
off bits and pieces of the company and I continued
my work with in higher education because I joke and
take the girl out of higher ed, but you can't
take the higher ed out of the girl. So and
it was ten years ago that that opened the whole
(07:23):
door to entrepreneurship for me. And basically what happened was
people were asking me how did you you know, how
did you get all those sales? What were you doing?
You know, what were you doing differently? And blah blah blah,
because in the sandbox that I played in it was
very competitive. And I said, well, it's all direct mail
and this is how I did it. Well you teach
(07:45):
us how to do it. Wow, And I'm like, whoa, Okay,
I can do that. So basically that's that's where it
all started from. Was Wow, people really, you know, are
yearning to learn how to nurture those relationships, when to market,
(08:05):
when not to what's the you know, what's the secret sauce?
What are the ingredients right? How do I make this work?
And that's where it all came from, was just and
then evolving into wow, what could this be? So that's
when I launched the mailbox Maven?
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Yeah I love that name. How where does it any
inspiration for that name? Where it came from?
Speaker 2 (08:31):
Well, you know, in doing my research and you know
finding out well I know what a mailbox is? Okay,
but what is a maven?
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Right?
Speaker 2 (08:41):
But if you put the two together, mailbox maven, that
alludes to being an expert in direct direct mail marketing,
right mayven? The word itself really implies someone who knows
their stuff right, and not only knows their stuff, but
it's really passionate about sharing it and helping others succeed.
(09:03):
And bam that's where that was born.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Yeah, great name and then designing this and we could
find you on the internet. Yea mailboxmaven dot com dot
com just goes right to it. Really nice logo and design.
Are you into designer? You know the people you're a
man at finding people who help you out.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
I help Yeah, I have a concept and then I
have a couple of different graphic designer girlfriends and I'll
throw it out to them and go, what do y'all think?
And you know, you put out ten ten of those
and eleven come back. So anyway, that's it's a combination
(09:50):
of efforts that that came through, and the tagline direct
mail marketing for Director Door Success seemed to be a
really good fit because that's what it's all about.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
Yeah, it's good to have a team that really understands
what your needs are and your goals are and they
designed something like that for you. And I get so
depressed with the whole idea of AI figuring all that
stuff out. We're not there yet, but it just really
like puts me because I do some graphic stuff too,
in addition to all the other things that I'm into, video, editing,
all that stuff. So AI getting into it and like
(10:23):
doing it. I think it's a ways often I hope
it is like way after I retire, but you know,
I hope it's there to enhance instead of take over.
But we've seen, gosh, these technologies have just gone by
leaps and bounds. I mean, if you think about when
you first.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Started, right, so when I think about the Internet and
when I first started, I remember there were two salespeople
in the office, myself and a gentleman, and we would
have to I would have to go, Chip, I need
to use the internet. Can you unplug? Because it was
dial up?
Speaker 1 (10:55):
It was crazy. I know, you had to work for it.
That was the whole thing with with anything in that
just to get a connection, you had to work for
it to dial up. And it was just so slow
that the kids did have no idea what we went through.
We were fascinated at the time.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Oh. Absolutely, absolutely. It's come a long way. So AI
is now the new Internet, right if you think about it.
And I've had a lot of people who are really
embracing it. I know, they're embracing it and using it.
And then there are those people who are going like this,
not me, keep that thing away from me. And I said,
(11:31):
you've got to know the devil you're dancing with. Yeah,
you really do. You've got to know the devil you're
dancing with. And it could either make it look really
good or you could look like an absolute fool. And
you know, I've used it just to kind of brainstorm
ideas and content and things like that, and some of
(11:55):
the things it spits out. I'm like, if hosted that
or if I responded with that to someone I would
look like an absolute fool. Oh my god, do.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
You do that? And like emails like going back and
like it suggests how your reply should be and like
does it for you?
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Yeah, And I'm like, no, he can't say that. That
would be really bad. You know. I tried it with
my husband, who's a tool and die maker. So give
me an example, and let's ask it what you know,
ask it a challenge that you're having at ORC right
now or have had maybe.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
In the past.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
And he did, and we did, and it spit out
in within seconds, you know. And so I said to
my husband, I said, Mark, read this, and he did.
He says, you know it's not bad yet here in
these particular sections that would not work.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When it comes to language, it has
a long way to go and get embarrass you.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Yeah, so you know, it's got a long ways to go.
And again I go back to you've got to know
the devil you're dancing with. And in my business when
I'm working with clients, it's been really helpful with well
what do I say in my cards? Or you know,
(13:22):
I'm like, okay, let's talk about that for a minute.
And so I said, now plug into AI, what would
you like to say? And they do. And it's been
really helpful for those sentiments to putting cards or for
people to design a postcard like a marketing postcard or
(13:43):
something like that. So again it's been really helpful for
things like that. But again, do not take it at
face value.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Yeah yeah, So with your business, do you have a
certain amount of clients that are in your roster? How
does that work? Or we say the old rolodex.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
No my role, yeah, my virtual rolodex. Now, so basically,
I partnered with a company that powers my brand, so
rather than my brand being that company, that's one of
the reasons I developed. The other reason I developed the
Mailbox Maven is not to brand myself to a particular company.
(14:22):
So if this company were to fold tomorrow, which it won't,
I still have my brand, the Mailbox Maven, and I
could go somewhere else for another technology another what have you?
So I partnered with a company called Mailbox Power. They
power my brand, the Mailbox Maven, And there are two
(14:43):
options there. It's a membership based platform and either I
could manage their account based on the membership they're on,
and I could do all that work. Our team can
do all that work for them, create their cards, send
them out, up their mailing list, upload their mailing list,
by them a mailing list. I mean, just it's endless,
(15:05):
right Or I can help them get going and they
take it from there. So if I share that with
ten people, let's just use that as an example. I
have ten people who sign up for a membership, Eight
or nine of them will wanted the creative types. They
(15:27):
want to take the bull by the horns and run
with it, which is awesome. The other one says, hmmm,
what are you going to charge me an hour to
help me do this?
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Yeah, right, And then we talk about what that would
look like and what they're looking at doing, what that
would you know, how many hours a week a month
that would involve? And eventually what ends up happening is
we work together for about five six months, maybe a
little bit more, and then they get really comfortable and
they have an admin or a graphic designer or some
(16:00):
body that are a virtual assistant that's these days, right,
So they have someone that doesn't and I'll on board
them and I'm there is you know, hey, I'll help you.
Just reach out text me, call me whatever you need.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
So, yeah, these gifting and direct mail campaigns have got
to be really unique in how they are developed, and
it must take a lot of thought process to really
go behind the scenes and figure out your goals with
every campaign.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Yeah, it's the back end work. Once you get that,
you know kind of all set to go. It's kind
of like set it and forget about it. It'll just
do it itself. Right. So a really good example is
a lot of my clients send birthday cards. That's the
big thing is birthday cards, right, Yeah, yeah, that's great.
(16:53):
And one of the things that I had advised some
of them and all of them, but some of them
take me up on it, some don't, that's okay, is
to put a QR code in their birthday card and
to take them to a birthday song on YouTube. You
pick a birthday song and then when they scan it,
(17:15):
you know, brings up that song. Right, whatever it is,
it doesn't matter. And the other thing, depending on my clients,
that QR code. This is how far technology has come. O. Lord,
with the system that I use mailbox power, you can
actually have a dynamic QR code. So when someone scans
your happy birthday song. You get a notification that you know,
(17:40):
Bob scans your scan the birthday card, right, so you
can set that up. Tell the system two weeks before
or whatever, how many mounted days, fourteen days, fift you
know whatever before this person's birthday, because it's already in
the CRM, send them a birthday card. The birthday marget
(18:01):
design still personalizes with their first name. The messaging is there,
the QR code is there.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Yeah, that's quite interesting. Yeah, it's just it's amazing how
marketing works these days.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
And birthday marketing is amazing people. It's really the one
of the least you underutilized marketing concepts there is out there. Now.
What would break that? What would make that really bad? Right?
What could make marketing birthday marketing really bad? And what
(18:37):
makes it really bad is if you include in your
birthday sentiment something other than a heartfelt birthday wish. And
what I mean by something other is simply this, Hey, Bob,
happy birthday. I hope you have a great year. Blah
(18:57):
blah blah. And by the way, if you bring this
card in the next time you eat at our restaurant,
you'll get twenty percent off your second.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Entrep yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
How was that happy birthday to me? When I have
to go buy something.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
Yeah, so that kind of idea of backfire. You think
you're roping them in with something really personal, but it's
kind of off putting. It was like, oh, here's.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
The catch, exactly exactly. I mean. The other thing is
holiday cards. Christmas cards. People are famous for doing this.
I actually did something. I did a Facebook live on
it where I had two holiday cards. They looked very similar.
It was a beautiful house, you know, all Christmas sea
blah blah blah. Right one, that's all I opened it up,
(19:47):
you know, that's all it was. Was a mess, a
really beautiful Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, blah blah. I
took the other one, and because I didn't want to
throw anybody under the bus, I just opened it and
stuff fell out of it, okay, and the stuff was
asking for a donation for an end of.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Yeah. Yeah, oh gosh, okay.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
That doesn't feel really good.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
You know, noah, not in that instance.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Yeah, it doesn't feel really good. So I, you know,
I really believe that business is built on relationships. So
I made it and make it my business to build
them that fallen out of the card stuff. Yeah, no,
we don't do that. I advise strongly against it. So
eighty percent of the time nurture and love on those people, right, yeah,
(20:39):
twenty percent of the time market never married the two ever.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
That makes sense. It really is off putting if you're
trying to do certain things like that. I could really
say that. So on your website, you have a lot
of interesting stuff and it's it links into mailbox Power.
That's a really and it goes to a video on YouTube.
It's really cool. I really like that. It really does
explain it.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
Yeah, it's you know, there are a lot of there
are several other companies like Mailbox Power. What sets them apart,
and the reason I decided to hitch my wagon to them,
if you will, is because they are not a personalized
greeting card and gifting company. There. They are a direct
(21:28):
mail marketing, sales and marketing platform. So it's built by
business for business. It just makes sense.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Yeah, it's it's really amazing. So going back through your history, sure,
where did you grow up in New York?
Speaker 2 (21:44):
I did not. I actually was born in what today
is known as Serbia.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Oh gosh, And when I.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Was four years old, my parents in the middle of
the night. And I have to remember it was communist
Yugoslavia at the time. My parents ordered a train in
the middle of the night and left my teddy bear,
a Dolly that I had in a green suitcase. I
(22:13):
still have the Dolly. I have the teddy bear and
the green suitcases behind me.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
It's a reminder to me of how brave my parents were.
My mom in her mid twenties, dad in his mid thirties,
and in the middle of the night we took off
and we landed in West Germany where my dad had
well it was his uncle, but not by like his
(22:41):
father or mother having a brother or what have you like.
They called him his uncle and he had a shoe store.
He and his wife had a shoe store, and they
got my parents' jobs at the local lace factory. I
went to kindergarten with the sisters of Notre Dame. Looked
those up for back late in the early six the
big hats and oh my god, yeah, the outfits they
(23:05):
were then. And we were there for about a year
and a half. Mom and Dad put in applications, immigration
applications to Canada, Australia and the United States and whichever
came in first, that's where they're going, right, And Canada
came in day one, Australia the second day, but they
(23:26):
made a deal whoever came in. So I grew up
in Toronto.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Interesting.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
I grew up in Toronto, went to you know, elementary
high school and college in Toronto. And then I got
married for the first time in nineteen eighty in nineteen
eighty and moved here to Rochester, New York. And yeah,
and three beautiful children, one of who's in heaven I
(23:55):
and then I got divorced remarried in twenty twelve, and
now I am an Oma, which is Dutch for grandmother.
My husband's Dutch. So we decided to go with Oma
and Nopa and a little boy who's thirteen months old.
Thankfully he lives only your twenty five minute drive away.
(24:17):
And a little girl and a little boy, well two
little girl sisters, Grace's ten, Eliza is five. But they
live in Stevenson, Alabama, which is for me.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
That's a little bit of a track.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
About a thousand miles on a good have.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
You driven that going down to Alabama?
Speaker 2 (24:36):
I do it on one day.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Yeah, you know, I'm originally from Cleveland, Ohio. I've been
in the Atlanta, Georgia area now thirty six years to
give that away, but I just recently, all these years,
this is you know, almost we're looking almost at forty
years now. I swear I think I've done the drive
three times, four times something like that over all these years.
(24:59):
It's it's just a twelve hour drive. It's quite a
journey for sure, but it's you know, it's really pretty.
I mean, this gorgeous country, like a lot of countries.
But yeah, well what a fascinating story. So yeah, you
were like early Cold War kid, like going way back
to that. That's Eastman crazy.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
It's crazy because my grandfather, my dad's dad, was military
police in World War Two and I vaguely remember him vaguely,
and he was part of the resistance. So when the
Nazis came through his town, they ended up making an
(25:41):
example of my grandfather and they beat him to a
hair of his life. Yeah, so you know, he was
and he knew about the Holocaust, he knew about all
the you know, all that going on, and he wasn't
you know, he wasn't going to play that dirty with
any that was wrong, and he fought for the resistance
(26:04):
and they made you know, they made an example of him.
One of the reasons my father we stayed in Yugoslavia
as long as we did, even though I was four
years old when we left, was until my grandpa passed away,
so that you know, he was able to take care
of him. But yeah, my family's rich in history and yeah,
(26:29):
in defiance.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
So that's how you get it. That's how you've become
a strong business owner and yeah, operating.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
I know, I know it's been you know, it's been
a whirlwind. I love what I do. I love when
I get a text message from someone that I've sent
a card to that I've forgotten that I send it.
That's the other thing. People expect that you'll comment when
(26:59):
or you'll read out when you get when you send
them a card, they'll reach out to you, you know.
And I'll tell you this one last story. I have
a financial advisor client and every year we meet and
we go over what we're going to do the following year. Right,
so what are we going to do? We probably meet
around things after Thanksgiving, so we're going to send birthday
(27:21):
We're going to continue with the birthday cards we're going
to do Mother's Day, we're going to do Thanksgiving, We're
going to do all those Okay, great. And he's sitting
across from me, and he's saying to me. He says, hey, tee,
you know, I'm really wondering I never get any comments
or anything about the birthday cards I sent are far
and few between, you know, of all the cards, and
(27:43):
he sends thousands. So and I sat there for a
minute and I thought, how am I going to be
eloquent about this because guess what on his windowsill behind him,
we're all the cards I ever sent him.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
Oh cool, okay, neat.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
So I said to him, said, hey, those cards behind
you that I sent. He goes, oh, yeah, I love them.
They're out there right. I go, yeah, how many times
did you tell me thank you or that you got them? Never?
Mm hmm no, And he looked at me, he goes, touche,
all right, I got you. So the other thing is
(28:24):
to be able to, you know, to send things out
without an expectation of anything else.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
Yeah. Yeah. I always like say, yeah, don't expect it,
because I think you'll really like kind of like depress
yourself if you're really expecting responses. Really with anything in life,
it's like it's nice to be surprised well rather than
like you're really expecting a response from something. And as
(28:50):
far as response goes, like with analytics, do you see
how many people are hitting your websites? Do you get
into that?
Speaker 2 (28:57):
We don't. We don't. I get it. The way that
I'm seeing if you know people are responding to anything
is in my cards. For the most part, I put
I put a PS, I go hey, I just want
to be sure the post office is not on a
long coffee break and that you got this card. Text
(29:17):
me let me know you received it. And I get
at least ten twelve text messages a day. Oh good,
we'll do respond, So I know that way. And then
the dynamic who R code has been an absolute It's
changed things up dramatically. And that's the other thing. When
(29:37):
someone scans the dynamic who R code, I get a
text message and it's also in my mailbox power back
office to you know how many scans I got? Who
did it? So I can see analytics that way.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
See your background's education with degrees? Do you have a
master's with that?
Speaker 2 (29:57):
I do not. I have a bachelor's.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Bachelors and sales and marketing. Did you study that very
much formally or you just basically.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
Not so my background, believe it or not, I was
a paralegal.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
Yeah, there you go. Yeah, you just yeah, I was
one thing leads to another.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
Yeah, yeah, so completely jumped chap And yeah, it was
a whole way out of my comfort zone.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
Yeah, yeah, that is, but it's very hard.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Yeah. But whoever coined the phrase, you know, all good
things happen outside of your comfort zone knew what they
were talking about, right, totally knew what they were talking about.
So yeah, it was quite the jump for me, and
I haven't looked back since.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
Yeah. Yeah, I mean so you must be a very
quick learner, being able to just get in there. Sales
and marketing. People will go and they study, they get
masters or whatever, and you know it is it's it's
like one of the many fields, or maybe all fields
learning on the job. You're constantly learning.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
Well, you know, yeah, and I think to be successful
in business or in life, really you have to be
a lifelong learner.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
I have tons of mentors. They don't even know they're
my mentors. Go to the books, you know, go online,
grab a book, Tony Robbins, John Maxwell, you know. I mean,
you can just go on and on aug Mandino. If
that man was still alive, I'd be stalking him. I'd
probably buy a house next door, you know. But all
those people, you know, I've been blessed to have training
(31:35):
from Dale Carnegie. I mean, you know the Dale Carnegie
training doctor Ivan Meisner who founded B and I. He
and I have been two feet apart from each other.
I've been learning from him. And there are so many
more that you know that don't even know who I
am or have never met me. But they're books, they're
(31:56):
podcasts now on YouTube, lifelong learning. Absolutely And people say
to me, well, you must be really good at sales,
and I tell them I haven't sold the thing in
my life. I've never sold a thing in my life.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Yeah, I provide solutions, but I don't sell anything.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Yeah, which is very very tough in and of itself,
as to say I'm in sales, it's yeah, that's really
tough to hustle and to be out there on your own.
And you know, you have different sets of issues, like
when you're working in a huge corporation, way different than
the headaches you do as an entrepreneur. I mean, I'm
sure you've got to deal with you know, your own paperwork,
(32:38):
your own stuff in taxes and things like that. I'm
sure it's a whole different ballgame.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
And I think when we have that, we need to
surround ourselves with people who know, I would never dream
of doing my own taxes, right, So my CPA is
worth his money. And it's just like you know, you
wouldn't go to a dental surgeon for brain surgery, right, right, right,
So you surround yourself with people who know what you
(33:09):
know what you need, and you know what you need,
you really do at the end of the day, and
you interview them, you do your due diligence, and off
you're off to the races.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
Yeah, And I really do believe that, like, micromanaging is
a bad thing. It's you know, you've got to trust
your team. You know, you got your your experts or
your mavens, your experts over here, and basically, yeah, you
got to put it in their hands and trust them
and let them thrive and they'll give so much more
back to you. I Micromanaging, I think is one of
the worst things.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
Anyway, terrible, It's terrible and you know, after being an
entrepreneur for so many years and you know, working from home,
I couldn't. I don't think I could ever go back
to corporate America.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
Yeah, it's true. You got that freedom too, and to
work from home, Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
It's wonderful. It was interesting during the pandemic because people
would say to me, well, you know, you've been working
from home forever and before that, you know, I was
working from home, that's what I did. And I said,
you're absolutely right. I've been working from home and I'm
used to working from home. What I'm not used to
(34:29):
is not being able to go out and have a
cup of coffee at this local car box or the Duncan, right,
or go out to Panera and have lunch with a
friend or a potential business partner. You know. That's where
things were very different during the pandemic.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
Yeah, yeah, that's true. And that took all that away,
that that part of the freedom. Yeah, it's crazy. I
mean the technology that came in and we discovered during
the pandemic, because I was doing a lot of video
production would have to go in all the time, and
then hey, we could do this all remotely and it
hasn't changed ever since five years on now.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
I know. I mean a year ago I was asked
to become the president of one of our local chambers there.
We've got about one hundred and fifty members, and I
took on the challenge. I've never been the president of anything,
let alone an organization of over one hundred and fifty people. Right,
So yet all our board meetings are committee meetings. They've
(35:34):
all moved to zoom.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
Yeah, yeah, that's how we live now, that's totally.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
Zoom and there's so many wonderful things about it. I
see these people, you know, from my board, from my
committees at events that we all go to now. But
my gosh, it's opened up the entire world. I had
a Zoom with somebody in India the other day.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
Amazing, how to set.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
You know, how does that even happen? And you know
in Australia. I now have friends and connections in US
all over Australia, in christ Church, New Zealand and you know,
so time zones are my kryptonite. Thank God for time
for scheduling technology. Oh yeah, but it's so funny because
(36:22):
people will say, oh, did you get the winning lottery numbers?
This is you don't understand. That's not how it works.
You know, they're a day ahead of us, but that's
not quite how it works.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
It's all right, amazing. Yeah, and on your website this
is interesting. So it says you have warehouse, equipment, team,
and software. Is that all encompasses that through your your
contacts here your Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
It's through mailbox power. So they have the wear, they
have the warehouse, they have the technology, they have the computers,
they have the printers, they have the people boxing up
the gifts and things like that and sending out, you know,
putting it all together. Whatever the way the post office
wants the mail sorted, I don't know. And they take
(37:08):
care of all that, which is a science in itself
sometimes I think. And so they take care of all that.
I can literally, I sat here this morning earlier and
I had five cards I had to send out, like
I knew, you know. These were all either celebrating someone,
(37:28):
saying thank you, staying in touch. Sadly, one of them
was a sympathy card. And I created it all from
the same laptop I'm talking to you from, and they're
going to fulfill it. So I did it today. It'll
go out tomorrow and these folks will receive it sometime
next week. And I didn't have to go to the
(37:50):
Hallmark store wherever people buy cards from anymore, go to
the post office, because god knows, you don't have stamps
at home, you're going to the post office. I don't
have to stand in line anyway. They take care of
all that and all daytime. Right, Oh my gosh. Yeah.
(38:11):
I mean my higher ed clients, I would send them
stuff as a thank you for their business, and I
would be able to put in I mean, I could
put in this beautiful, big black satin box with a
big black satin bow, and inside could be brownies that
have a label on it says thank you with their logo,
(38:34):
and mine, and candy and gourmet rice, Crispy treats and granola,
and the list just goes on. And the comments that
the feedback that I get, they're just always blown away.
And it doesn't take that much time. And people think, oh,
(38:54):
my gosh, got to be horribly expensive, and I'm like, absolutely,
it's not. It's not. And at the end of the day,
what is the client? What is your client value? It's
a lot easier to keep a client than to get
a new one and it's a lot less expensive.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
Oh yeah, for sure, it definitely is. Yeah. Yeah, And
it's interesting. The website shows, you know, all the swag,
all the brand swag there. That's really cool. That's that's
really I think, very meaningful when you do that. There's
something very special about that branded swag there is.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
And what's wonderful is that you don't have to order
hundreds of pairs of whatever, right, so it's there is
print on demand. That's the beauty of it.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
I mean I can buy one T shirt or I
can create one hundred T shirts, doesn't really matter, you know.
So that's that's the great thing. I don't I don't
have to have inventory. I guess you'd call it at home.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
Yeah, it's very very nice. You don't have to worry
about that warehouse. I know somebody who's into that has
his own warehouse and goes to trade shows. It's like
you know that niche comic book type trade shows, and
it has all that different kind of swag and it's
a whole different world. It's quite busy, but wow, the
(40:18):
way you have to like haul things around and you
have to have a trailer.
Speaker 2 (40:23):
Yeah, I think I'll pass on that one. Mailbox Power
actually had to build a bigger warehouse because they added
on fulfillment for So let's say you are a let's
say you manufacture I don't know T shirts. We'll just
(40:45):
say that, and you can actually send it to them.
They will store it for you. And when you send
the shipment and you want to send a thank you
card with it as an example, they'll fulfill the thank
you card. They'll grab the tea shirt, package it all
up and send it out for you.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
MM. Incredible stuff. So yeah, that's really just yeah, it's
fascinating to be working with people like that. Yes, yeah,
So who would you give advice if somebody wish to
get into this? What kind of advice would you give
now that you've have all this experience behind you, what
(41:24):
would you say to somebody who's interested in doing this?
Speaker 2 (41:28):
I would say to them, find someone that you can
lock arms with, that you resonate with. And no matter
what business you go into or whatever it is that
you do, always work harder on yourself than you do
on your business.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
Yeah, yeah, admit of that's for sure. Yeah, and get
plenty of those Tony Robbins books and things like that.
Speaker 2 (41:52):
Oh it was yeah, Tony. I met Tony many years
ago in Toronto. He was doing a Oh I'm the
Power Within event and he'd run a contest where he
would pick three people and they could be backstage. He
paid for the whole thing, right, Yeah, he paid for
(42:12):
the I was one of the three people, oh that
he picked. It was so fun and I got to
do the firewalk and everything like that. And it's just
amazing how when you immerse yourself in experiences the opportunities
that open up for you, right, and how your perspective
(42:36):
as well. You can relate to this Bob challenges all
day long, right, you get them all day long. So
what do you do. Do you lean into them and
deal with it or do you cower right? Or do
you like step back and say somebody else can do this? Right?
Last month, I broke a tooth in the front.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
I mean not that just happened. So sorry, Hi, it's yeah,
things like that do happen.
Speaker 2 (43:06):
I guess what very bad timing I had my Chambers
Annual meeting. I had to speak for an hour and
a half. I had no.
Speaker 1 (43:13):
Tooth, oh gosh in the.
Speaker 2 (43:16):
Front, right, and I ended up posting about it because
it was quite the lesson for me, and I wanted
to run the other way, right one the other, not
walk run. I had face to face meetings that week.
I wanted to run, and I thought, what can we
what can I do? Do I cower and get somebody
(43:37):
else to do it? And I'm like, no, I'm not
going to do that. I'm going to have a little
fun with it. And when we got in, you know,
when we got into the meeting or into the annual meeting,
I said, you might notice a little difference in my
smile this time around. And I just want to let
you know that this year I've decided to prep for
(43:57):
my Pirate Halloween costume a little bitter.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
Yeah, it's taking a situation like that. I'm sure it's
a technique that somebody calls it, but like it turned
it in.
Speaker 2 (44:09):
Yeah. Yeah, So I think really just working hotter on yourself,
having a sense of humor, and not taking yourself so
dang seriously.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
Yeah, that's it. You just relax and focus. And I'm
sure there's all kinds of advice out there. I think
Tony Robbins is the guy who says you should take
a cold shower every morning.
Speaker 2 (44:30):
I don't I don't know.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
I don't know about that.
Speaker 2 (44:34):
Yeah, you've seen those, like people have these tubs now
where they hold plunge.
Speaker 1 (44:41):
Yeah, exactly, it's a thing you see yourself doing it.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
Lorgo was like.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
Just for my feet because that's where I have the
issues now, it's the damn feet. It's like that helps
when I do the cold therapy, but like the whole body,
that's gotta be Yeah, that's people get used to doing it.
Speaker 2 (44:59):
It's I guess, you know, I don't know. I mean,
I love my I love my hot bubble baths. I
can't imagine getting into my top filled with ice cubes.
Speaker 1 (45:09):
Okay, sorry, yeah, or doing the outside cold plunge is
what you know. You're up in the north there. I'm
sure you're here in the Finger Lakes area. That's I'm sure.
It's fascinating that people like you probably do that.
Speaker 2 (45:20):
Yeah, they do. They actually last weekend, so Lake Ontario, right,
we're Lake Ontario and they had the polar plunge last
weekend was horrific, horrific. It was brutal. It was snowing, sleeting,
it was windy, it was disgusting, it was below zero
(45:40):
and they were walking into the lake where in their
swimsuits coming.
Speaker 1 (45:44):
Oh gosh, well, I'm sure you're Yeah. We're recording this
in the winter of twenty twenty five, so I'm sure
you were looking forward to spring. We only have like
forty some days hopefully.
Speaker 2 (45:56):
One could you know? One can hope? I mean you're
in Atlanta, right.
Speaker 1 (45:59):
Yeah, yeah, we even got a little winter this year.
It's been like five years since we got something. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:05):
I love Atlanta. It's one of my favorite places. Is
oh six feet under still around the restaurant.
Speaker 1 (46:14):
Oh I don't think so. Oh no, I really yeah.
A lot of restaurants come and go here.
Speaker 2 (46:20):
Yeah, yeah, I was there. A friend of mine lived
in Atlanta, and I was there on business, and he
knows how much I love Gone with the Wind. And
Margaret Mitchell is buried right across the street in the
cemetery where six Feet Under was.
Speaker 1 (46:39):
Oh, okay, I'll have to look that up. It's been
a while since I've been down that way, but I
know I remember when they were restoring the Margaret Mitchell house.
Speaker 2 (46:47):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (46:48):
Yeah. Ironically she was killed by a driver, which happens
a lot here in Atlanta. The driving is so bad.
Speaker 2 (46:55):
The traffoc is horrendous.
Speaker 1 (46:57):
Oh my god, it's this awful. That's why I mean,
I work sometimes from home, so I'm like half and
half and right, oh, I dreaded. I mean, I go
two weeks at a time into the office, and at
the end of the two weeks, i'man like I've had enough.
I'm glad I could do it now.
Speaker 2 (47:13):
I don't know where I was driving and it's two
lanes and then it opens up and there's like eight Yeah, whoa,
what just happened here? And you better be in the
right one if you want it go where you're going.
Speaker 1 (47:27):
Oh, I know, see that was the whole thing. It's like,
why did they come up with this idea? It's like
a funnel in a way. It's like three three freeways
converge it once. Here in Atlanta, Georgia, four hundred, seventy
five and eighty five all converge it once, and they
call that the Downtown Connector. And I'm like, who came
up with this idea? Because they you know, everything was
(47:47):
built up already. You couldn't like route the freeways around
certain things. So that's why everything's combined all into downtown.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
It's crazy gosh. Well anyway, Yeah, I love Atlanta. I
remember being there one February and being up on the
roof of the hotel because it was so warm and
I was sitting out there.
Speaker 1 (48:11):
Yeah, it's weird. It goes up and down. We get
these spring previews, sure, which we did on Monday, was gorgeous.
I went for a run. I felt really good, and
like then it just went down, down, down. We're going
to go back up again. I think this weekend goes down.
We're going to get some rain. We got a lot
of rain yesterday. It's just yeah, it's a yo yo
effect in the wintertime, and then we just boil from
(48:33):
June all the way through almost mid October. It's just
stifling hot.
Speaker 2 (48:37):
Oh I remember, I'm like, oh my gosh, Like that's
why I don't go to Alabama once May hits. See yah, yeah,
unless I absolutely unless one of the grand kids has
something going on, or or you know, something family oriented
is happening, I'm not going down there.
Speaker 1 (48:55):
Yes, Alabama, of all places, it's just way different from
what you know, being in Toronto, so being in upstate
New York and places like.
Speaker 2 (49:02):
That, it's it's crazy, and you know, it's even crazier.
So being in Higher Ed right one of the campuses
I used to visit. I'm driving to my daughter and
daughter's house for the first time, going another route right,
and they're telling me, oh, mom, take this route because
(49:24):
it'll get you here three hours sooner. I'm like, really,
without speeding, seriously, Okay. So I'm driving along and I'm like,
wait a minute, this looks really familiar. Yeah, And I
look over and I'm like, oh my god, I've been
there that I've been to that college campus. I keep
(49:46):
driving and I was literally ten minutes from my daughter's house.
Oh wow, my life had come full circle.
Speaker 1 (49:54):
It does, doesn't that it's crazy. It's crazy, it really is.
Speaker 2 (50:00):
Well.
Speaker 1 (50:00):
I appreciate you stopping by. It's a lot of fun.
Speaker 2 (50:02):
Thank you for having me. Absolutely I enjoyed our time together.
And again, thank you for being flexible with your scheduling.
Speaker 1 (50:10):
Absolutely, take care and best wishes in business and in
life in general.
Speaker 2 (50:14):
You also take care, take care.
Speaker 1 (50:16):
Bye bye bye. Isn't that fascinating? I'm sorry, but it
really really is. It's just it's really interesting to talk
with somebody who is not in the field of the
arts and somebody who's on the other side of things,
and in is in business. I really do get fascinated
with that. And she's not the first one who I've
spoken with on this podcast that's outside of the realm
(50:37):
of arts. So but but it is an art. It
is an art. Entrepreneurship is an art, So this is
a pretty broad term. Anyway. I'll have a new episode
pretty a new episode out pretty soon and talk with
y'all later
Hello, Hello, Hello, and thank you for joining me. It's
late February twenty twenty five. It's great to see you
here again. I'm going to do a little bit different
of a show today. I usually speak with musicians, creators,
artists of all stripes from all over the world. But
this is TFTC means we're in this corner, but we
can talk with just about anybody who we want to
(00:22):
talk with. And I really am trying to reach out
and go beyond the scope of just the arts. Even
though this is the arts, everything is an art when
you really really think about that. So today is no different.
I speak with the mailbox Maven and her name is
Teresa Ashman, and she's up in the Finger Lakes area
(00:43):
of New York, way up there in snowy New York
right now, and we just have a really great discussion
about what it takes to be an entrepreneur and to
do direct marketing campaigns. I know that could sound really
nice and dry and everything for a lot of people,
especially if you're to me speaking with people who are
(01:03):
connected with big music stars and stuff like that. I
haven't actually gotten the big music stars on here. That
has yet to happen although I have been working on it.
It's many years now. Actually we're well over one hundred
and fifty episodes in on my little podcast. But I
like to expand my horizons, and I actually think this
is pretty fascinating today to speak with somebody like Teresa
(01:27):
who really struck it out on her own doing something
like this, and you know what, the greatest thing is
she could do all this stuff from home, and it
really talks about how much spirits one can have. She
has a really cool story too, about growing up and
coming to the US, and really has many chapters in
(01:48):
her life. So it's just this is beyond even somebody
who's an entrepreneur, but somebody who really has just worked
it and has done so well for herself into all
that self improvement and business stuff. Really is a huge
fan of Tony Robbins and people like that. But listen
to our chat. I really encourage you and I'll talk
(02:11):
with you on the other side of this. I'm doing great.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
How are you good?
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Good? Thanks for thanks for joining me today.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Oh, you're welcome. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
I'm really curious. I've come across on your material through
your website and you're on this site called Alnable, and
I'm just like, it's just curiosity more so than anything.
My podcast really has like artists and creators, but I
like having business leaders and mix it up a little bit.
So I just you know, it's very much my curiosity
(02:44):
as to what somebody like you does. So I really
appreciate it. And you're taking the time out to speak
with me today.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Absolutely. I read your profile on the Linable as well,
and I love what you're doing and what the folks
that you're interviewing. I love your style, So thank you
for bringing that to the world.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Thanks. Yeah, And it's kind of like the service this happened.
My background is with this podcast is during the pandemic,
a lot of artists couldn't get out there, so they
were doing these you know, concerts on Facebook or whatnot. Sure,
so I felt like, you know, here's a format, here's
(03:29):
a way to help get their word out and to
really get their promote their material, especially their latest projects,
which they did a lot from home. Actually, you know,
they weren't going into recording studios. A lot of people
were doing stuff and sending files to each other and
mixing and all that, so fascinating stuff. So yeah. Anyhow,
(03:49):
so how did you get into all this? And how
long have you been in business? Now?
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Well, so loaded question. Yeah, and I'm going to give
away my age really quick. My career in over the
last twenty five years has been in higher education, sales
and marketing. And I actually built that business for someone
else and was bringing in about eight hundred thousand dollars
(04:16):
in sales annually for that company. Then some you know,
that rose over the years, and so the way I
was doing that was nurturing and building relationships. Back when
I first started, oh my gosh, it was the advent
of the internet. Many people may remember the you've got mail.
(04:38):
You know, there's dog myself and so you know everything.
All it was all the rage, and what I decided
to do was to, yeah, I'll use email and do
all those things. But when I met with a client
or a prospect, you know, they I renewed a campaign,
(05:01):
they signed a new contract, what have you, I would
actually send them a handwritten thank you card and arrived
in a real mailbox. I know the novelty right, talk
about vintage now, and so I would do that and
over the years it got to be a lot. So
(05:21):
think about the average sale was twelve to fifteen thousand dollars,
sometimes a little more. So you can imagine all the
thank you cards I was writing and had an experience
on a trip to Florida where I packed all my
note cards, my stamps, pen everything in this gallon sized
(05:46):
baggie in my suitcase. It goes, and of course my
suitcase got stuck in Fort Lauderdale they couldn't find it.
I finally arrived in Miami in my room and as
I was unpacking, I unpacked the ziploc bank got to
it and everything was melted together.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Oh could that heartbreaker?
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Terrible?
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Imagine. I was there Monday through Friday. I had at
least three or four meetings a day. At these meetings
there were at least two or three people at each,
so I would send them all thank you cards. So
now I had to come back to here in the
beautiful Finger Lakes region of upstate New York and write
all my thank you cards. That did not feel good.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Oh gosh, you're a hand must be.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Horrible. Oh my gosh. So I came across this technology
where you could do all that online and it still
would be personalized. You can customize you can do all
those things, and all the fulfillment was done for me
and they would mail it out and I was a
happy camper. So fast forward to about ten years ago,
(07:00):
the company that I was with, they decided to sell
off bits and pieces of the company and I continued
my work with in higher education because I joke and
take the girl out of higher ed, but you can't
take the higher ed out of the girl. So and
it was ten years ago that that opened the whole
(07:23):
door to entrepreneurship for me. And basically what happened was
people were asking me how did you you know, how
did you get all those sales? What were you doing?
You know, what were you doing differently? And blah blah blah,
because in the sandbox that I played in it was
very competitive. And I said, well, it's all direct mail
and this is how I did it. Well you teach
(07:45):
us how to do it. Wow, And I'm like, whoa, Okay,
I can do that. So basically that's that's where it
all started from. Was Wow, people really, you know, are
yearning to learn how to nurture those relationships, when to market,
(08:05):
when not to what's the you know, what's the secret sauce?
What are the ingredients right? How do I make this work?
And that's where it all came from, was just and
then evolving into wow, what could this be? So that's
when I launched the mailbox Maven?
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Yeah I love that name. How where does it any
inspiration for that name? Where it came from?
Speaker 2 (08:31):
Well, you know, in doing my research and you know
finding out well I know what a mailbox is? Okay,
but what is a maven?
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Right?
Speaker 2 (08:41):
But if you put the two together, mailbox maven, that
alludes to being an expert in direct direct mail marketing,
right mayven? The word itself really implies someone who knows
their stuff right, and not only knows their stuff, but
it's really passionate about sharing it and helping others succeed.
(09:03):
And bam that's where that was born.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Yeah, great name and then designing this and we could
find you on the internet. Yea mailboxmaven dot com dot
com just goes right to it. Really nice logo and design.
Are you into designer? You know the people you're a
man at finding people who help you out.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
I help Yeah, I have a concept and then I
have a couple of different graphic designer girlfriends and I'll
throw it out to them and go, what do y'all think?
And you know, you put out ten ten of those
and eleven come back. So anyway, that's it's a combination
(09:50):
of efforts that that came through, and the tagline direct
mail marketing for Director Door Success seemed to be a
really good fit because that's what it's all about.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
Yeah, it's good to have a team that really understands
what your needs are and your goals are and they
designed something like that for you. And I get so
depressed with the whole idea of AI figuring all that
stuff out. We're not there yet, but it just really
like puts me because I do some graphic stuff too,
in addition to all the other things that I'm into, video, editing,
all that stuff. So AI getting into it and like
(10:23):
doing it. I think it's a ways often I hope
it is like way after I retire, but you know,
I hope it's there to enhance instead of take over.
But we've seen, gosh, these technologies have just gone by
leaps and bounds. I mean, if you think about when
you first.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Started, right, so when I think about the Internet and
when I first started, I remember there were two salespeople
in the office, myself and a gentleman, and we would
have to I would have to go, Chip, I need
to use the internet. Can you unplug? Because it was
dial up?
Speaker 1 (10:55):
It was crazy. I know, you had to work for it.
That was the whole thing with with anything in that
just to get a connection, you had to work for
it to dial up. And it was just so slow
that the kids did have no idea what we went through.
We were fascinated at the time.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Oh. Absolutely, absolutely. It's come a long way. So AI
is now the new Internet, right if you think about it.
And I've had a lot of people who are really
embracing it. I know, they're embracing it and using it.
And then there are those people who are going like this,
not me, keep that thing away from me. And I said,
(11:31):
you've got to know the devil you're dancing with. Yeah,
you really do. You've got to know the devil you're
dancing with. And it could either make it look really
good or you could look like an absolute fool. And
you know, I've used it just to kind of brainstorm
ideas and content and things like that, and some of
(11:55):
the things it spits out. I'm like, if hosted that
or if I responded with that to someone I would
look like an absolute fool. Oh my god, do.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
You do that? And like emails like going back and
like it suggests how your reply should be and like
does it for you?
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Yeah, And I'm like, no, he can't say that. That
would be really bad. You know. I tried it with
my husband, who's a tool and die maker. So give
me an example, and let's ask it what you know,
ask it a challenge that you're having at ORC right
now or have had maybe.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
In the past.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
And he did, and we did, and it spit out
in within seconds, you know. And so I said to
my husband, I said, Mark, read this, and he did.
He says, you know it's not bad yet here in
these particular sections that would not work.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When it comes to language, it has
a long way to go and get embarrass you.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Yeah, so you know, it's got a long ways to go.
And again I go back to you've got to know
the devil you're dancing with. And in my business when
I'm working with clients, it's been really helpful with well
what do I say in my cards? Or you know,
(13:22):
I'm like, okay, let's talk about that for a minute.
And so I said, now plug into AI, what would
you like to say? And they do. And it's been
really helpful for those sentiments to putting cards or for
people to design a postcard like a marketing postcard or
(13:43):
something like that. So again it's been really helpful for
things like that. But again, do not take it at
face value.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Yeah yeah, So with your business, do you have a
certain amount of clients that are in your roster? How
does that work? Or we say the old rolodex.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
No my role, yeah, my virtual rolodex. Now, so basically,
I partnered with a company that powers my brand, so
rather than my brand being that company, that's one of
the reasons I developed. The other reason I developed the
Mailbox Maven is not to brand myself to a particular company.
(14:22):
So if this company were to fold tomorrow, which it won't,
I still have my brand, the Mailbox Maven, and I
could go somewhere else for another technology another what have you?
So I partnered with a company called Mailbox Power. They
power my brand, the Mailbox Maven, And there are two
(14:43):
options there. It's a membership based platform and either I
could manage their account based on the membership they're on,
and I could do all that work. Our team can
do all that work for them, create their cards, send
them out, up their mailing list, upload their mailing list,
by them a mailing list. I mean, just it's endless,
(15:05):
right Or I can help them get going and they
take it from there. So if I share that with
ten people, let's just use that as an example. I
have ten people who sign up for a membership, Eight
or nine of them will wanted the creative types. They
(15:27):
want to take the bull by the horns and run
with it, which is awesome. The other one says, hmmm,
what are you going to charge me an hour to
help me do this?
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Yeah, right, And then we talk about what that would
look like and what they're looking at doing, what that
would you know, how many hours a week a month
that would involve? And eventually what ends up happening is
we work together for about five six months, maybe a
little bit more, and then they get really comfortable and
they have an admin or a graphic designer or some
(16:00):
body that are a virtual assistant that's these days, right,
So they have someone that doesn't and I'll on board
them and I'm there is you know, hey, I'll help you.
Just reach out text me, call me whatever you need.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
So, yeah, these gifting and direct mail campaigns have got
to be really unique in how they are developed, and
it must take a lot of thought process to really
go behind the scenes and figure out your goals with
every campaign.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Yeah, it's the back end work. Once you get that,
you know kind of all set to go. It's kind
of like set it and forget about it. It'll just
do it itself. Right. So a really good example is
a lot of my clients send birthday cards. That's the
big thing is birthday cards, right, Yeah, yeah, that's great.
(16:53):
And one of the things that I had advised some
of them and all of them, but some of them
take me up on it, some don't, that's okay, is
to put a QR code in their birthday card and
to take them to a birthday song on YouTube. You
pick a birthday song and then when they scan it,
(17:15):
you know, brings up that song. Right, whatever it is,
it doesn't matter. And the other thing, depending on my clients,
that QR code. This is how far technology has come. O. Lord,
with the system that I use mailbox power, you can
actually have a dynamic QR code. So when someone scans
your happy birthday song. You get a notification that you know,
(17:40):
Bob scans your scan the birthday card, right, so you
can set that up. Tell the system two weeks before
or whatever, how many mounted days, fourteen days, fift you
know whatever before this person's birthday, because it's already in
the CRM, send them a birthday card. The birthday marget
(18:01):
design still personalizes with their first name. The messaging is there,
the QR code is there.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Yeah, that's quite interesting. Yeah, it's just it's amazing how
marketing works these days.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
And birthday marketing is amazing people. It's really the one
of the least you underutilized marketing concepts there is out there. Now.
What would break that? What would make that really bad? Right?
What could make marketing birthday marketing really bad? And what
(18:37):
makes it really bad is if you include in your
birthday sentiment something other than a heartfelt birthday wish. And
what I mean by something other is simply this, Hey, Bob,
happy birthday. I hope you have a great year. Blah
(18:57):
blah blah. And by the way, if you bring this
card in the next time you eat at our restaurant,
you'll get twenty percent off your second.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Entrep yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
How was that happy birthday to me? When I have
to go buy something.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
Yeah, so that kind of idea of backfire. You think
you're roping them in with something really personal, but it's
kind of off putting. It was like, oh, here's.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
The catch, exactly exactly. I mean. The other thing is
holiday cards. Christmas cards. People are famous for doing this.
I actually did something. I did a Facebook live on
it where I had two holiday cards. They looked very similar.
It was a beautiful house, you know, all Christmas sea
blah blah blah. Right one, that's all I opened it up,
(19:47):
you know, that's all it was. Was a mess, a
really beautiful Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, blah blah. I
took the other one, and because I didn't want to
throw anybody under the bus, I just opened it and
stuff fell out of it, okay, and the stuff was
asking for a donation for an end of.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Yeah. Yeah, oh gosh, okay.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
That doesn't feel really good.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
You know, noah, not in that instance.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Yeah, it doesn't feel really good. So I, you know,
I really believe that business is built on relationships. So
I made it and make it my business to build
them that fallen out of the card stuff. Yeah, no,
we don't do that. I advise strongly against it. So
eighty percent of the time nurture and love on those people, right, yeah,
(20:39):
twenty percent of the time market never married the two ever.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
That makes sense. It really is off putting if you're
trying to do certain things like that. I could really
say that. So on your website, you have a lot
of interesting stuff and it's it links into mailbox Power.
That's a really and it goes to a video on YouTube.
It's really cool. I really like that. It really does
explain it.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
Yeah, it's you know, there are a lot of there
are several other companies like Mailbox Power. What sets them apart,
and the reason I decided to hitch my wagon to them,
if you will, is because they are not a personalized
greeting card and gifting company. There. They are a direct
(21:28):
mail marketing, sales and marketing platform. So it's built by
business for business. It just makes sense.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Yeah, it's it's really amazing. So going back through your history, sure,
where did you grow up in New York?
Speaker 2 (21:44):
I did not. I actually was born in what today
is known as Serbia.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Oh gosh, And when I.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Was four years old, my parents in the middle of
the night. And I have to remember it was communist
Yugoslavia at the time. My parents ordered a train in
the middle of the night and left my teddy bear,
a Dolly that I had in a green suitcase. I
(22:13):
still have the Dolly. I have the teddy bear and
the green suitcases behind me.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
It's a reminder to me of how brave my parents were.
My mom in her mid twenties, dad in his mid thirties,
and in the middle of the night we took off
and we landed in West Germany where my dad had
well it was his uncle, but not by like his
(22:41):
father or mother having a brother or what have you like.
They called him his uncle and he had a shoe store.
He and his wife had a shoe store, and they
got my parents' jobs at the local lace factory. I
went to kindergarten with the sisters of Notre Dame. Looked
those up for back late in the early six the
big hats and oh my god, yeah, the outfits they
(23:05):
were then. And we were there for about a year
and a half. Mom and Dad put in applications, immigration
applications to Canada, Australia and the United States and whichever
came in first, that's where they're going, right, And Canada
came in day one, Australia the second day, but they
(23:26):
made a deal whoever came in. So I grew up
in Toronto.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Interesting.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
I grew up in Toronto, went to you know, elementary
high school and college in Toronto. And then I got
married for the first time in nineteen eighty in nineteen
eighty and moved here to Rochester, New York. And yeah,
and three beautiful children, one of who's in heaven I
(23:55):
and then I got divorced remarried in twenty twelve, and
now I am an Oma, which is Dutch for grandmother.
My husband's Dutch. So we decided to go with Oma
and Nopa and a little boy who's thirteen months old.
Thankfully he lives only your twenty five minute drive away.
(24:17):
And a little girl and a little boy, well two
little girl sisters, Grace's ten, Eliza is five. But they
live in Stevenson, Alabama, which is for me.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
That's a little bit of a track.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
About a thousand miles on a good have.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
You driven that going down to Alabama?
Speaker 2 (24:36):
I do it on one day.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Yeah, you know, I'm originally from Cleveland, Ohio. I've been
in the Atlanta, Georgia area now thirty six years to
give that away, but I just recently, all these years,
this is you know, almost we're looking almost at forty
years now. I swear I think I've done the drive
three times, four times something like that over all these years.
(24:59):
It's it's just a twelve hour drive. It's quite a
journey for sure, but it's you know, it's really pretty.
I mean, this gorgeous country, like a lot of countries.
But yeah, well what a fascinating story. So yeah, you
were like early Cold War kid, like going way back
to that. That's Eastman crazy.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
It's crazy because my grandfather, my dad's dad, was military
police in World War Two and I vaguely remember him vaguely,
and he was part of the resistance. So when the
Nazis came through his town, they ended up making an
(25:41):
example of my grandfather and they beat him to a
hair of his life. Yeah, so you know, he was
and he knew about the Holocaust, he knew about all
the you know, all that going on, and he wasn't
you know, he wasn't going to play that dirty with
any that was wrong, and he fought for the resistance
(26:04):
and they made you know, they made an example of him.
One of the reasons my father we stayed in Yugoslavia
as long as we did, even though I was four
years old when we left, was until my grandpa passed away,
so that you know, he was able to take care
of him. But yeah, my family's rich in history and yeah,
(26:29):
in defiance.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
So that's how you get it. That's how you've become
a strong business owner and yeah, operating.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
I know, I know it's been you know, it's been
a whirlwind. I love what I do. I love when
I get a text message from someone that I've sent
a card to that I've forgotten that I send it.
That's the other thing. People expect that you'll comment when
(26:59):
or you'll read out when you get when you send
them a card, they'll reach out to you, you know.
And I'll tell you this one last story. I have
a financial advisor client and every year we meet and
we go over what we're going to do the following year. Right,
so what are we going to do? We probably meet
around things after Thanksgiving, so we're going to send birthday
(27:21):
We're going to continue with the birthday cards we're going
to do Mother's Day, we're going to do Thanksgiving, We're
going to do all those Okay, great. And he's sitting
across from me, and he's saying to me. He says, hey, tee,
you know, I'm really wondering I never get any comments
or anything about the birthday cards I sent are far
and few between, you know, of all the cards, and
(27:43):
he sends thousands. So and I sat there for a
minute and I thought, how am I going to be
eloquent about this because guess what on his windowsill behind him,
we're all the cards I ever sent him.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
Oh cool, okay, neat.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
So I said to him, said, hey, those cards behind
you that I sent. He goes, oh, yeah, I love them.
They're out there right. I go, yeah, how many times
did you tell me thank you or that you got them? Never?
Mm hmm no, And he looked at me, he goes, touche,
all right, I got you. So the other thing is
(28:24):
to be able to, you know, to send things out
without an expectation of anything else.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
Yeah. Yeah. I always like say, yeah, don't expect it,
because I think you'll really like kind of like depress
yourself if you're really expecting responses. Really with anything in life,
it's like it's nice to be surprised well rather than
like you're really expecting a response from something. And as
(28:50):
far as response goes, like with analytics, do you see
how many people are hitting your websites? Do you get
into that?
Speaker 2 (28:57):
We don't. We don't. I get it. The way that
I'm seeing if you know people are responding to anything
is in my cards. For the most part, I put
I put a PS, I go hey, I just want
to be sure the post office is not on a
long coffee break and that you got this card. Text
(29:17):
me let me know you received it. And I get
at least ten twelve text messages a day. Oh good,
we'll do respond, So I know that way. And then
the dynamic who R code has been an absolute It's
changed things up dramatically. And that's the other thing. When
(29:37):
someone scans the dynamic who R code, I get a
text message and it's also in my mailbox power back
office to you know how many scans I got? Who
did it? So I can see analytics that way.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
See your background's education with degrees? Do you have a
master's with that?
Speaker 2 (29:57):
I do not. I have a bachelor's.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Bachelors and sales and marketing. Did you study that very
much formally or you just basically.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
Not so my background, believe it or not, I was
a paralegal.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
Yeah, there you go. Yeah, you just yeah, I was
one thing leads to another.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
Yeah, yeah, so completely jumped chap And yeah, it was
a whole way out of my comfort zone.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
Yeah, yeah, that is, but it's very hard.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Yeah. But whoever coined the phrase, you know, all good
things happen outside of your comfort zone knew what they
were talking about, right, totally knew what they were talking about.
So yeah, it was quite the jump for me, and
I haven't looked back since.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
Yeah. Yeah, I mean so you must be a very
quick learner, being able to just get in there. Sales
and marketing. People will go and they study, they get
masters or whatever, and you know it is it's it's
like one of the many fields, or maybe all fields
learning on the job. You're constantly learning.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
Well, you know, yeah, and I think to be successful
in business or in life, really you have to be
a lifelong learner.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
I have tons of mentors. They don't even know they're
my mentors. Go to the books, you know, go online,
grab a book, Tony Robbins, John Maxwell, you know. I mean,
you can just go on and on aug Mandino. If
that man was still alive, I'd be stalking him. I'd
probably buy a house next door, you know. But all
those people, you know, I've been blessed to have training
(31:35):
from Dale Carnegie. I mean, you know the Dale Carnegie
training doctor Ivan Meisner who founded B and I. He
and I have been two feet apart from each other.
I've been learning from him. And there are so many
more that you know that don't even know who I
am or have never met me. But they're books, they're
(31:56):
podcasts now on YouTube, lifelong learning. Absolutely And people say
to me, well, you must be really good at sales,
and I tell them I haven't sold the thing in
my life. I've never sold a thing in my life.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Yeah, I provide solutions, but I don't sell anything.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Yeah, which is very very tough in and of itself,
as to say I'm in sales, it's yeah, that's really
tough to hustle and to be out there on your own.
And you know, you have different sets of issues, like
when you're working in a huge corporation, way different than
the headaches you do as an entrepreneur. I mean, I'm
sure you've got to deal with you know, your own paperwork,
(32:38):
your own stuff in taxes and things like that. I'm
sure it's a whole different ballgame.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
And I think when we have that, we need to
surround ourselves with people who know, I would never dream
of doing my own taxes, right, So my CPA is
worth his money. And it's just like you know, you
wouldn't go to a dental surgeon for brain surgery, right, right, right,
So you surround yourself with people who know what you
(33:09):
know what you need, and you know what you need,
you really do at the end of the day, and
you interview them, you do your due diligence, and off
you're off to the races.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
Yeah, And I really do believe that, like, micromanaging is
a bad thing. It's you know, you've got to trust
your team. You know, you got your your experts or
your mavens, your experts over here, and basically, yeah, you
got to put it in their hands and trust them
and let them thrive and they'll give so much more
back to you. I Micromanaging, I think is one of
the worst things.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
Anyway, terrible, It's terrible and you know, after being an
entrepreneur for so many years and you know, working from home,
I couldn't. I don't think I could ever go back
to corporate America.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
Yeah, it's true. You got that freedom too, and to
work from home, Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
It's wonderful. It was interesting during the pandemic because people
would say to me, well, you know, you've been working
from home forever and before that, you know, I was
working from home, that's what I did. And I said,
you're absolutely right. I've been working from home and I'm
used to working from home. What I'm not used to
(34:29):
is not being able to go out and have a
cup of coffee at this local car box or the Duncan, right,
or go out to Panera and have lunch with a
friend or a potential business partner. You know. That's where
things were very different during the pandemic.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
Yeah, yeah, that's true. And that took all that away,
that that part of the freedom. Yeah, it's crazy. I
mean the technology that came in and we discovered during
the pandemic, because I was doing a lot of video
production would have to go in all the time, and
then hey, we could do this all remotely and it
hasn't changed ever since five years on now.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
I know. I mean a year ago I was asked
to become the president of one of our local chambers there.
We've got about one hundred and fifty members, and I
took on the challenge. I've never been the president of anything,
let alone an organization of over one hundred and fifty people. Right,
So yet all our board meetings are committee meetings. They've
(35:34):
all moved to zoom.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
Yeah, yeah, that's how we live now, that's totally.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
Zoom and there's so many wonderful things about it. I
see these people, you know, from my board, from my
committees at events that we all go to now. But
my gosh, it's opened up the entire world. I had
a Zoom with somebody in India the other day.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
Amazing, how to set.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
You know, how does that even happen? And you know
in Australia. I now have friends and connections in US
all over Australia, in christ Church, New Zealand and you know,
so time zones are my kryptonite. Thank God for time
for scheduling technology. Oh yeah, but it's so funny because
(36:22):
people will say, oh, did you get the winning lottery numbers?
This is you don't understand. That's not how it works.
You know, they're a day ahead of us, but that's
not quite how it works.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
It's all right, amazing. Yeah, and on your website this
is interesting. So it says you have warehouse, equipment, team,
and software. Is that all encompasses that through your your
contacts here your Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
It's through mailbox power. So they have the wear, they
have the warehouse, they have the technology, they have the computers,
they have the printers, they have the people boxing up
the gifts and things like that and sending out, you know,
putting it all together. Whatever the way the post office
wants the mail sorted, I don't know. And they take
(37:08):
care of all that, which is a science in itself
sometimes I think. And so they take care of all that.
I can literally, I sat here this morning earlier and
I had five cards I had to send out, like
I knew, you know. These were all either celebrating someone,
(37:28):
saying thank you, staying in touch. Sadly, one of them
was a sympathy card. And I created it all from
the same laptop I'm talking to you from, and they're
going to fulfill it. So I did it today. It'll
go out tomorrow and these folks will receive it sometime
next week. And I didn't have to go to the
(37:50):
Hallmark store wherever people buy cards from anymore, go to
the post office, because god knows, you don't have stamps
at home, you're going to the post office. I don't
have to stand in line anyway. They take care of
all that and all daytime. Right, Oh my gosh. Yeah.
(38:11):
I mean my higher ed clients, I would send them
stuff as a thank you for their business, and I
would be able to put in I mean, I could
put in this beautiful, big black satin box with a
big black satin bow, and inside could be brownies that
have a label on it says thank you with their logo,
(38:34):
and mine, and candy and gourmet rice, Crispy treats and granola,
and the list just goes on. And the comments that
the feedback that I get, they're just always blown away.
And it doesn't take that much time. And people think, oh,
(38:54):
my gosh, got to be horribly expensive, and I'm like, absolutely,
it's not. It's not. And at the end of the day,
what is the client? What is your client value? It's
a lot easier to keep a client than to get
a new one and it's a lot less expensive.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
Oh yeah, for sure, it definitely is. Yeah. Yeah, And
it's interesting. The website shows, you know, all the swag,
all the brand swag there. That's really cool. That's that's
really I think, very meaningful when you do that. There's
something very special about that branded swag there is.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
And what's wonderful is that you don't have to order
hundreds of pairs of whatever, right, so it's there is
print on demand. That's the beauty of it.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
I mean I can buy one T shirt or I
can create one hundred T shirts, doesn't really matter, you know.
So that's that's the great thing. I don't I don't
have to have inventory. I guess you'd call it at home.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
Yeah, it's very very nice. You don't have to worry
about that warehouse. I know somebody who's into that has
his own warehouse and goes to trade shows. It's like
you know that niche comic book type trade shows, and
it has all that different kind of swag and it's
a whole different world. It's quite busy, but wow, the
(40:18):
way you have to like haul things around and you
have to have a trailer.
Speaker 2 (40:23):
Yeah, I think I'll pass on that one. Mailbox Power
actually had to build a bigger warehouse because they added
on fulfillment for So let's say you are a let's
say you manufacture I don't know T shirts. We'll just
(40:45):
say that, and you can actually send it to them.
They will store it for you. And when you send
the shipment and you want to send a thank you
card with it as an example, they'll fulfill the thank
you card. They'll grab the tea shirt, package it all
up and send it out for you.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
MM. Incredible stuff. So yeah, that's really just yeah, it's
fascinating to be working with people like that. Yes, yeah,
So who would you give advice if somebody wish to
get into this? What kind of advice would you give
now that you've have all this experience behind you, what
(41:24):
would you say to somebody who's interested in doing this?
Speaker 2 (41:28):
I would say to them, find someone that you can
lock arms with, that you resonate with. And no matter
what business you go into or whatever it is that
you do, always work harder on yourself than you do
on your business.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
Yeah, yeah, admit of that's for sure. Yeah, and get
plenty of those Tony Robbins books and things like that.
Speaker 2 (41:52):
Oh it was yeah, Tony. I met Tony many years
ago in Toronto. He was doing a Oh I'm the
Power Within event and he'd run a contest where he
would pick three people and they could be backstage. He
paid for the whole thing, right, Yeah, he paid for
(42:12):
the I was one of the three people, oh that
he picked. It was so fun and I got to
do the firewalk and everything like that. And it's just
amazing how when you immerse yourself in experiences the opportunities
that open up for you, right, and how your perspective
(42:36):
as well. You can relate to this Bob challenges all
day long, right, you get them all day long. So
what do you do. Do you lean into them and
deal with it or do you cower right? Or do
you like step back and say somebody else can do this? Right?
Last month, I broke a tooth in the front.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
I mean not that just happened. So sorry, Hi, it's yeah,
things like that do happen.
Speaker 2 (43:06):
I guess what very bad timing I had my Chambers
Annual meeting. I had to speak for an hour and
a half. I had no.
Speaker 1 (43:13):
Tooth, oh gosh in the.
Speaker 2 (43:16):
Front, right, and I ended up posting about it because
it was quite the lesson for me, and I wanted
to run the other way, right one the other, not
walk run. I had face to face meetings that week.
I wanted to run, and I thought, what can we
what can I do? Do I cower and get somebody
(43:37):
else to do it? And I'm like, no, I'm not
going to do that. I'm going to have a little
fun with it. And when we got in, you know,
when we got into the meeting or into the annual meeting,
I said, you might notice a little difference in my
smile this time around. And I just want to let
you know that this year I've decided to prep for
(43:57):
my Pirate Halloween costume a little bitter.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
Yeah, it's taking a situation like that. I'm sure it's
a technique that somebody calls it, but like it turned
it in.
Speaker 2 (44:09):
Yeah. Yeah, So I think really just working hotter on yourself,
having a sense of humor, and not taking yourself so
dang seriously.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
Yeah, that's it. You just relax and focus. And I'm
sure there's all kinds of advice out there. I think
Tony Robbins is the guy who says you should take
a cold shower every morning.
Speaker 2 (44:30):
I don't I don't know.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
I don't know about that.
Speaker 2 (44:34):
Yeah, you've seen those, like people have these tubs now
where they hold plunge.
Speaker 1 (44:41):
Yeah, exactly, it's a thing you see yourself doing it.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
Lorgo was like.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
Just for my feet because that's where I have the
issues now, it's the damn feet. It's like that helps
when I do the cold therapy, but like the whole body,
that's gotta be Yeah, that's people get used to doing it.
Speaker 2 (44:59):
It's I guess, you know, I don't know. I mean,
I love my I love my hot bubble baths. I
can't imagine getting into my top filled with ice cubes.
Speaker 1 (45:09):
Okay, sorry, yeah, or doing the outside cold plunge is
what you know. You're up in the north there. I'm
sure you're here in the Finger Lakes area. That's I'm sure.
It's fascinating that people like you probably do that.
Speaker 2 (45:20):
Yeah, they do. They actually last weekend, so Lake Ontario, right,
we're Lake Ontario and they had the polar plunge last
weekend was horrific, horrific. It was brutal. It was snowing, sleeting,
it was windy, it was disgusting, it was below zero
(45:40):
and they were walking into the lake where in their
swimsuits coming.
Speaker 1 (45:44):
Oh gosh, well, I'm sure you're Yeah. We're recording this
in the winter of twenty twenty five, so I'm sure
you were looking forward to spring. We only have like
forty some days hopefully.
Speaker 2 (45:56):
One could you know? One can hope? I mean you're
in Atlanta, right.
Speaker 1 (45:59):
Yeah, yeah, we even got a little winter this year.
It's been like five years since we got something. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:05):
I love Atlanta. It's one of my favorite places. Is
oh six feet under still around the restaurant.
Speaker 1 (46:14):
Oh I don't think so. Oh no, I really yeah.
A lot of restaurants come and go here.
Speaker 2 (46:20):
Yeah, yeah, I was there. A friend of mine lived
in Atlanta, and I was there on business, and he
knows how much I love Gone with the Wind. And
Margaret Mitchell is buried right across the street in the
cemetery where six Feet Under was.
Speaker 1 (46:39):
Oh, okay, I'll have to look that up. It's been
a while since I've been down that way, but I
know I remember when they were restoring the Margaret Mitchell house.
Speaker 2 (46:47):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (46:48):
Yeah. Ironically she was killed by a driver, which happens
a lot here in Atlanta. The driving is so bad.
Speaker 2 (46:55):
The traffoc is horrendous.
Speaker 1 (46:57):
Oh my god, it's this awful. That's why I mean,
I work sometimes from home, so I'm like half and
half and right, oh, I dreaded. I mean, I go
two weeks at a time into the office, and at
the end of the two weeks, i'man like I've had enough.
I'm glad I could do it now.
Speaker 2 (47:13):
I don't know where I was driving and it's two
lanes and then it opens up and there's like eight Yeah, whoa,
what just happened here? And you better be in the
right one if you want it go where you're going.
Speaker 1 (47:27):
Oh, I know, see that was the whole thing. It's like,
why did they come up with this idea? It's like
a funnel in a way. It's like three three freeways
converge it once. Here in Atlanta, Georgia, four hundred, seventy
five and eighty five all converge it once, and they
call that the Downtown Connector. And I'm like, who came
up with this idea? Because they you know, everything was
(47:47):
built up already. You couldn't like route the freeways around
certain things. So that's why everything's combined all into downtown.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
It's crazy gosh. Well anyway, Yeah, I love Atlanta. I
remember being there one February and being up on the
roof of the hotel because it was so warm and
I was sitting out there.
Speaker 1 (48:11):
Yeah, it's weird. It goes up and down. We get
these spring previews, sure, which we did on Monday, was gorgeous.
I went for a run. I felt really good, and
like then it just went down, down, down. We're going
to go back up again. I think this weekend goes down.
We're going to get some rain. We got a lot
of rain yesterday. It's just yeah, it's a yo yo
effect in the wintertime, and then we just boil from
(48:33):
June all the way through almost mid October. It's just
stifling hot.
Speaker 2 (48:37):
Oh I remember, I'm like, oh my gosh, Like that's
why I don't go to Alabama once May hits. See yah, yeah,
unless I absolutely unless one of the grand kids has
something going on, or or you know, something family oriented
is happening, I'm not going down there.
Speaker 1 (48:55):
Yes, Alabama, of all places, it's just way different from
what you know, being in Toronto, so being in upstate
New York and places like.
Speaker 2 (49:02):
That, it's it's crazy, and you know, it's even crazier.
So being in Higher Ed right one of the campuses
I used to visit. I'm driving to my daughter and
daughter's house for the first time, going another route right,
and they're telling me, oh, mom, take this route because
(49:24):
it'll get you here three hours sooner. I'm like, really,
without speeding, seriously, Okay. So I'm driving along and I'm like,
wait a minute, this looks really familiar. Yeah, And I
look over and I'm like, oh my god, I've been
there that I've been to that college campus. I keep
(49:46):
driving and I was literally ten minutes from my daughter's house.
Oh wow, my life had come full circle.
Speaker 1 (49:54):
It does, doesn't that it's crazy. It's crazy, it really is.
Speaker 2 (50:00):
Well.
Speaker 1 (50:00):
I appreciate you stopping by. It's a lot of fun.
Speaker 2 (50:02):
Thank you for having me. Absolutely I enjoyed our time together.
And again, thank you for being flexible with your scheduling.
Speaker 1 (50:10):
Absolutely, take care and best wishes in business and in
life in general.
Speaker 2 (50:14):
You also take care, take care.
Speaker 1 (50:16):
Bye bye bye. Isn't that fascinating? I'm sorry, but it
really really is. It's just it's really interesting to talk
with somebody who is not in the field of the
arts and somebody who's on the other side of things,
and in is in business. I really do get fascinated
with that. And she's not the first one who I've
spoken with on this podcast that's outside of the realm
(50:37):
of arts. So but but it is an art. It
is an art. Entrepreneurship is an art, So this is
a pretty broad term. Anyway. I'll have a new episode
pretty a new episode out pretty soon and talk with
y'all later
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