Ever wonder how women land major deals, build powerful brands, and grow their businesses from scratch? In this episode, Kelly talks to Marty McDonald—founder of Boss Women Media and the Elle Olivia brand now featured in Target—about how to pitch yourself with confidence, define your personal brand, and make bold career moves.
They get real about what it actually takes to be an entrepreneur, how to use storytelling to grow your business, and why betting on yourself is the best investment you can make. Marty also shares exclusive insight into her upcoming book Audacious, and what’s next in her mission to empower women through strategy, community, and self-belief.
Visit the website: https://campsite.bio/bosswomen
Instagram: @martymcdonald & @bosswomenmedia
HOST: Kelly Henderson // @velvetsedge // velvetsedge.com
Follow Velvet's Edge on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/velvetsedge/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Conversations on life, style, beauty, and relationships. It's The Velvet's
Edge Podcast with Kelly Henderson.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
All Right, I'll know I love talking to women who
are doing the real work inner and outer. So today's
guest is someone who's built a business, a community, and
a movement. Marty McDonald is the founder of Boss Women
Media and the El Olivia brand, which is now in Target.
She's also a pitch expert and strategist, and she's here
to talk about betting on yourself, telling your story, and
(00:31):
what it looks like to build something big from scratch.
Hey Marty, Hey.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Kelly, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
We were just talking before. I had no idea you
were a Tennessee local.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Oh my goodness, girl born and Ray's roots is grounded
in Tennessee with the college in Tennessee. But then I
didn't stay there like as an adult, like I left.
It gave you what I needed it to give me. Yeah,
I would have gotten lost in the shuffle. I would
be who I am if I would have stayed.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
That's how I feel about Louisiana. There's something about spreading
your wings like I love being from Louisiana. That is
who I am. It is my roots, the same as
you're saying about Tennessee, and I needed to expand and
move forward for me to Nashville. You're in Dallas now,
and I actually this is a good starting place for us,
because I want to go back to the beginning, like
where you started and what sparked this fire in you
(01:25):
to create something like Boss Women Media. I feel like
that was just that had to be something really big
in you, because that's a bold move to create something
like that. Can you tell the listeners a little bit
about that?
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Yeah? Absolutely, So it didn't start at the beginning of
me even leaving my corporate career when I think about it,
because you just got me thinking about Tennessee. I've been
this curious, rebellious child at the very moment of my existence, right,
(01:59):
Thorie's my mom to tell me about myself when I
was really little as a baby, right, and then as
I continued elementary, middle school, high school, Right, Like, I
always had an opinion. I never wanted to take the
pathway of what someone gave me, Right, I always wanted
(02:19):
more for myself than others around me. When I was
in high school, I started this sorority called Alpha and Omega,
and it was a Christian sorority. The premise of it
was the beginning of the end. There were some other
sororities that our high school had, but there wasn't any
sorority that looked like me, right, and so I wanted
(02:42):
to create something that my peer group could be elevated
from just as much. So I was always the person
if I saw something and I saw that there was
a need for it to be elevated amongst the community
in which I was serving, I was going to explore
how to do right. And so when I think about
(03:02):
like the beginnings, it was all of these intricate moments
that happened that made me curious, that built upon my
curiosity and my courageous spirit. Right, It wasn't just this
one thing and then it catapulted into something. If that's
someone's story, I love that for them, because that's not
(03:25):
most folks story.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Right.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
You build up to something. And so then I went
to school. I went to college to study interior design
and architecture, got my degree in that, did a stint
in Atlanta for a second, knew that wasn't my vibe.
Was dating a guy who was like he's moving to
Dallas after he graduates. I'm like, well, we've invested a
lot of time together. I'm moving to Dallas because you're
(03:48):
going to be my husband, and this is what's going
to happen. Who's now my husband now of fifteen years?
Speaker 2 (03:55):
I'm glad he agreed.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
And then I found myself sitting in Corporate America like
many of us, thinking that this will be the American dream,
this will be the thing, these titles will be the
thing that will set me up for the success and
wealth transfer. And here's why that was so important to
me because I grew up in a very small town
(04:18):
in Tennessee and Murphy's thorough Tennessee. At that time it
was small. Now it's like the suburb of Nature.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
It's curtain clad a bit.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
But I didn't see what I was trying to be
sure growing up, right, And so when I got into
a Corporate America, I was like, how is this even
possible for me? The space that I'm going to have
to navigate feels so foreign? Right? Is this really what
I want for myself? And I found myself going from
(04:48):
interior design architecture. Then I went back to school, got
my NBA, and then I went into marketing and business,
and I still found myself struggling to find my lane
until one moment when I was sitting in Corporate America.
I remember going to a women's networking event and everything
was black, blue and gray, and I felt like I
(05:10):
couldn't really show up authentically as me because I had
to put on the costume that they told me was success.
And so I remember leaving their thinking, there's no way
I'm going to be able to do this. There's no
way I'm going to be able to stay in this race, right.
And so really I found myself trying to claw for
(05:35):
positions and spaces and to be seen, and I couldn't.
I couldn't fit in. So I made my exit in
twenty eighteen. December one, twenty seventeen, was my last day
working in Corporate America, and I said, you know what,
I'm going to go back on. Building a community of
women who get to see what's possible through the stories
(05:58):
of other women was the north star of which I
was building off of. If Kelly gets to see herself
through someone who may come from where Kelly came from,
or looked like Kelly, or has a story similar to Kelly,
that has made it, then maybe Kelly won't know it's
possible for herself. Right, That's what I was going to
(06:20):
go build because I was solving it for Marty, because
if Marty goes and finds these stories, then I'll get
to see what's possible for me to build. And so
that's what I set off to do. It was a
very small group of women when it first began, twenty
five women. We met at Nema Marcus Cafe in Dallas
(06:43):
and we talked about our more Do you want more
from your career? Do you want more from life?
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Right?
Speaker 3 (06:49):
This quest of more right? And I think that so
many of us can relate to what that looks like
and what that feels like. In that yearning and that
room felt so heavy and contain and it felt so full,
and I knew the end I got something. I got something,
and I got to figure out how to navigate my
something and build off of it.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
I love this idea and I resonate with this so much.
But where you're building something, or you have this desire
to build something, but because you're not seeing it anywhere else,
which is exciting on one hand, because you feel like, Okay,
I'm you know, it sounds like you have a very
entrepreneurial spirit and you always have and so it's like, oh,
I'm gonna go create this thing. It's also very scary
(07:31):
because it doesn't exist yet, so you don't have a map,
you don't know what it looks like. How do you
have the confidence in those moments to bet on yourself?
That's something you talk a lot about, is betting on yourself.
So how do we if we have these moments where
it's there's no map, there's nothing, We just know we
have this desire, But how do you lean in and
take to take the risk and bet on yourself.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
I think that we need alignment to courage, right, Okay?
And and when I think about what alignment to courage
looks like, it starts in the small moments. If when
I said it was a build up, right, and it
built up to this one moment when I was sitting
in Corporate America, something happened that kind of like pushed
(08:18):
me out. I was working on a project and long
story short, I ended up not proofreading something out correctly
that went out to the whole company, to several stores,
et cetera. And I remember thinking they just don't think
I'm smart enough to be here, right, and because they don't,
(08:39):
I'm never going to find my space. That gave me
the courage to leave. At that incident. Never had happened,
I would have probably stayed right at that moment. I
probably wouldn't have shifted some things around. But sometimes some
of what you think at the time feels like your
darkest moments are the things that give you your curve, right,
(09:01):
And so because that happened, I left the organization. I
remember my CMO was like, girl, what you about to
go do? And I was like, go live my best life.
I'm gonna figure it out, right. And then I went
to a conference called the Girl Boss Rally in LA
with Sophia Amroso as the founder. And at this conference,
(09:21):
everyone was talking about what they were building and it
was just such an energy that you wanted to be around.
And so that gave me confidence, and that gave me
courage hearing those stories of other women who were building
and doing incredible things, right, Like, I think that that's
a piece of it, right, Finding you a tribe who
(09:42):
also was courageous, right, and you can feed off of
their energy. And so I remember going into a breakout room.
At the breakout room, there were three influencers on the panel,
and one woman who was the CEO of a high
end confectionery company called sugar Fino. She talked about out
you know a sugarf You know we create taboo gummy bears.
(10:03):
Some of the gummy bears, we create our green juice
gummy or sometimes we create a whiskey gummy or sometimes
we create a champagne gummy bear. And I thought, man,
she should create a gummy bear called black girl magic.
And I had just read a Nielsen Dada report probably
two months before leaving my corporate job, and then Nielsen
(10:24):
data report basically was titled black Role Magic and it
talked about the buying power and behavior of black women,
and brands weren't really paying attention to it, and it
was like a misopportunity to build ROI long story short,
those little bits of moments that had happened along the
way gave me courage to go up to Mary and
(10:45):
I said, Hey, Mary, I'm Marty McDonald. You don't know me,
but have you ever heard of black girl Magic? And
she goes, can I say.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
That out loud?
Speaker 3 (10:54):
She's a woman who didn't look like me. She was
much older, different generation. And I said, black magic, it's
a buying power, it is a rallying call. It is
a bottom line that you should consider. You shtill let
me come into your stores at Sugar Fena and create
a tour called the Black Girl Magic Tour. We'll create
a gummy bear together that could be a rose gummy bear,
(11:17):
and I'll bring my community of women to your stores
and droves and you'll get to see the power. And
I saw the curiosity peek at her, but then I
saw who.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Are you throughout? From?
Speaker 3 (11:31):
What? Like?
Speaker 2 (11:32):
What? What? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (11:34):
And she goes send me an email contact at Sugar Fena. Well,
we all know where that email goes, suit, right, And
so I sent I got on that airplane back home.
I sent her a pitch deck. And that pitch deck
really transformed the trajectory of my business. And here's why
it did, because I showcase to her brand how she
(11:55):
could impact her bottom line. I never talked about me.
I never said, gird just quit by corporate job and
I'm out here trying to build a brand. I never
talked about any parts of my story. I talked about
where there were gaps for her and where she couldn't
make money and revenue for her business that she was
(12:15):
taken to the next level. It took her about six weeks,
but I got on a call with her and she
approved for me to come to five of her stores
and we created a Gummy Bear together called the Black
Girl Match at Gummy Bear, and we did pop ups
in her stores in LA and New York, in Atlanta
and Houston and in Dallas. And oh, by the way,
(12:37):
this girl who just started this little bitty brand in
Dallas now became a national brand. And I got lots
of media and attention from it, and it catapulted me.
And that was phase one of me building. And then
I took that and I used it as a beta case,
and I pitched it to a large financial partner and
(12:59):
I said, this came off of a five city tour
called Black Rol Matchic. Let me do a twenty five
city tour with you called Black Rol Magic, and we'll
pop up and we'll do this. And I had all
the data and all the information from me selling out
in all of those cities and they approved it. And
then that was my second phase of my story. And
that was my first sixth figure deal with a large brand,
(13:22):
and then we hit COVID and I'm about to go
on this tour and that doesn't happen, and I had
to bait and switch. We hit COVID and I had
to bait and switch, and what ended up happening was
(13:45):
instead of me going on a twenty five city tour,
I did one large virtual conference and we had over
twenty two thousand people registered in a ten And I
could have never done that with a footprint that holds
one hundred people in twenty five cities. I would have
maxed out at twenty five hundred people, right, And then
(14:07):
that was phase three of me building. Then I took
that as a case study, and I took it and
pitched it to Amazon, and I said, Amazon, you need
to show my programming on Amazon Prime and they agreed
to it. And then we stream Black Girl Magic for
a whole year on Amazon Prime of our conference that
(14:27):
any household could view. And then that was phase four
and it has built up on that. When I think
back on it, phase four could have never happened without
Phase one. So don't despise your small beginnings, because your
small beginnings are your moments that will take you to
the next phase, and that's how you build your courage
(14:50):
to bet on yourself.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
So much of your journey is in the pitch, and
I know the power of the pitch is like a
huge part of one of your skill sets, and I
want to get to that, But I have to ask
you first, because thiss dawned on me as you're speaking.
It all sounds like a dream, right, the stuff that
you're saying, it's the courageous move, It's the movie script
that we kind of all want to live out. I
(15:15):
feel like that is what I hear so much of you.
It's starting with the nothing and building the everything. What
happens though, because I know you're human just like the
rest of us, there has to be the moment of doubt, right,
like when COVID hits and and all of your plans
go out the window. I'm sure the doubt crept in.
So how do you overcome those moments when that doubt
(15:37):
kicks in and it can make us all want to quit? Right?
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Yes, I mean doubt is inevitable, and the bigger it gets,
the bigger the doubts. Sometimes, right, the whispers get louder, right,
like who do you think you are? What do you
think you could. You know, of course that happens, right,
But it's me against the doubt, right, And I think
that for me, as I have built, my life has changed.
(16:03):
When I first started postponing media, it was me and
my husband. Right now it's me and my three kids
and my husband and my second house. And you know, like,
and now there's so much more to this story, right,
So when you have more to lose, you fight harder, right,
and you're not gonna let it all crumble. But here's
(16:26):
the thing about it. At any moment, when I hear
that whisper it's time to walk away, I trust that voice.
I talk a lot about this in my new book
that's coming out in the fall. I share with people. Okay,
it takes vision, right, you gotta have vision. Vision is
your north star, right, You got to you gotta know
(16:47):
how to persuasively storytell right. I don't care if your
business owner, if you're sitting in corporate like, you got
to be able to position yourself right there there. You
gotta have a routine, you gotta have a consistent and
see right. But for me, you got to build your
network and all of those things. But for me, when
(17:07):
the doubt creeps in. I am grounded and anchored in
my higher power. It's God for me, right, and so
I believe that my journey is unique because from the perspective,
this is what God has ordained for me, just like
Kelly's journey is unique because that's what God has created
(17:28):
for Kelly.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Right.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
And in the moments when I believe that the doubt
feels so overwhelming, I step back. I don't use my power.
I don't do more right. I don't try to manipulate.
I don't try to call and run, I don't try
to cry it out. I don't try to work it off.
I stop and I surrender. I surrender to I've done
(17:54):
all that I could humanly possibly do in this moment,
and the deal not coming through. I don't know what's happening, right,
I'm getting no's all around.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
Then I stop and I give space for miracles to
happen from him because I'm not bigger than him. And
that's what has grounded me in this whole thing. Because
Kelly Girl, I got stories for days I got I
got stories of assigned folks that I knew that when
I walked in a boardroom that person was a sign
(18:26):
for me right and in a moment of time, And
I think we all do when we are aligned and
living in what our purpose is and we're obedient to
our to the vision that someone and someone is God
has given to me and I act upon that, then
I don't have all the resources to make it all happen.
(18:47):
And I'm okay with that as well.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
I love that idea of the pause. We talk about
that a lot on the podcast, Like, sometimes I feel
like when we're challenged, it was kind of what you're saying,
our instinct is to go fight, go manipulate, try to
control it, to make it work the way we want to.
And sometimes if we can stop, that's when the true
gifts come in and the bigger things, the things we
could never even imagine in our wildest dreams. But I
(19:11):
do want to circle back to the pitch part, because
even hearing how you had the confidence to go up
to these women and say you should let me do this, like,
here's here's how I'm going to solve the problem that
I see in your business for you. So I'm assuming
that is a big part of the power of pitching
is telling them how you're going to solve the problem.
Is that what you would say is the biggest thing
(19:32):
to sell someone on? Or is that where we start
when we have an idea, is how are we solving
the problem for the consumer?
Speaker 3 (19:39):
That's absolutely where you start.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
You never start about you, right, never say I have
a podcast and my podcast. You always lead with data
and no emotion.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
And so when I when I read that Nielsen data report,
black girl magic is real. It talked about by twenty
twenty two, women would be the highest spending consumer. They
had a one point five trillion dollar spin. When I
wrote that pitch deck back then, my first page in
deck was you want a piece of a one point
five trillion dollar spin. That's not emotion, that is data.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
It's a fact.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
Yeah, right, And so you have to act off of facts.
Either you act in the manner that propels you or
keeps you stuck. Right. And so when I'm pitching, I
never lead with what I and my brand can do
from the perspective of look at me. I always ask
(20:38):
this one question, Can you tell me what goals and
objectives do you have for this year? Right? And so
Kelly tells me my goal is to have one hundred
thousand podcasts download. Okay, Kelly, well, I love that goal
for you, right, and here's how I can help you.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Solve for that goal, right. Okay, it's not me.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
Guessing, it's you telling me, and then me taking the
information that you've shared with me and showcasing how the
brand that I've built can help you solve for them.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Okay, so you're solving the problem. I always hear that
that people talk about even when you're creating a business
as an entrepreneur, and I'm sure you can resonate with
this as well, but that the business itself should solve
a problem for someone. And that's the most successful business
as we see out there, are the ones that are
solving the problems. They take the guesswork out for people.
They just say, here's how we can help you do this,
(21:34):
period the end. Basically, that's it. Okay, so we've got
the pitch. But I know so much is also in
the storytelling. Just we hear the term personal brand a
lot nowadays, So do you can you say, like, what
do you think that even means? A personal brand?
Speaker 3 (21:51):
You know, I think that people people have taken personal
branding to like these these like very content creator levels, right,
But I think that it's not necessarily about personal brain.
It's about allowing someone to see the human in you.
So on me and you got on the on and
(22:12):
I and you intro and I I wanted to find
a connective point between me and you, right, And that's
all it is. So now I know Kelly lives in Tennessee.
Kelly now knows I'm from Murphy'sboro. That's a connective point. Right.
It's allowing you to see the human in me. Because, oh,
by the way, you could have had a bad day.
You could have been like, all right, I've been doing
(22:33):
podcast back to back. I just want to get this
done so I can check this off. But I allowed
you to have a moment to say, okay, I see her,
Oh okay, like she I know where she could be from.
Type of thing. Right, it's finding the human in each other. Right.
We live in a world right now where everything is divided.
(22:57):
You're a Democrat, you're a Republican, you're black, you're from here,
you're not right, it's so much divide. At the end
of the day, we're all humans. There's so much relatability
and oh, by the way, you know what imposture syndrome
feels like absolutely, it doesn't matter what you look like,
it doesn't matter your color of your skin. You know
(23:17):
what it feels like to be in an environment where
you've not been accepted. Oh, I got stories for days
for that. If we connect on the moments and are
the moments of time that have happened to us, that
allows it to be connective tissue versus from a space
of things that divide us. And I think that that's
(23:39):
how you effectively storytell. When someone gets to see themselves
and you, you don't have to look like them for
them to see themselves in you. You can have the
same experiences, right, you could be building on the same
pathway right, And I think that you have to pause
(24:01):
for a second to know and to be able to
see that. And now people resonate with that. I had
a friend who was like, I was working on a
brand deal and she was at one company and then
she left and went to the next company and she
wrote me a check. I said, because brands don't write checks.
People write checks, Like, you can have a brand deal
(24:21):
with AT and T, or you can have a brand
deal with Verizon. But if the people that are working
there are not back behind it. It doesn't really matter.
It's people who write checks, not brands. Brands don't write checks,
and so when we in order for you to get
the people to write the checks, there has to be
something that they resonate in you. How you can solve
(24:44):
a problem for them. Do they enjoy even working with you? Right?
Are you responsive? Right? Do you show up right all
of the things that how you build a relationship.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
Yeah, I really relate and believe and the idea that
we are all connected. And I love that you're talking
about that because it is such a time of division
and it feels like we're constantly trying to find even
more ways that we're divided versus the opposite, which is
actually more true to me, is how we're connected. So
if someone is listening and they're thinking, okay, that I
(25:19):
believe in that. I believe we're all connected, and I
believe I want to find that one piece of connection
with my audience. Do you have suggestions on how they
would maybe define the moments or the things about them
in their story that could be the connectors? Like how
do we pick those things those specific things? Is it
just getting real with ourselves? And like the moments of
(25:39):
crash like you talked about, are the moments where we
took a risk on ourselves? Like is that the moment
to pick? Like, how do you know what moment is?
Speaker 3 (25:54):
I think vulnerability is the strategic pathway forward? Right, Yeah,
I could say motherhood. Right, I'm a mom. There's so
many other moms out there. Right, I'm a mom of
a four year old and twins that are twenty months.
It's ghetto over here in my mouth all the time, right,
I'm not screaming. Someone's fingerprints are on the wall that
(26:17):
I just clean, like all the things I'm constantly like, no,
don't stop. But another mom can see herself in me.
Our experiences don't have to be the same. But we're
sharing at the same time. How do we breathe and
keep going? How are you getting sleep?
Speaker 1 (26:35):
Like?
Speaker 3 (26:35):
You know what I mean? Like that's our connective tissue, right,
vulnerability not making everything seem so perfect it's not. Life
is life and for everyone right now? Right, But if
you're not vulnerable and you don't share, and I don't know, right,
then how.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Do I connect?
Speaker 3 (26:58):
You know? I think shame, I think imposture syndrome. I
think those are everybody's experienced that before, right of course,
or not feeling wanted, right, Like, you can connect to
those types of in some ways have been strategies or
traumas for people. Right, we can all connect together from
(27:19):
that viewpoint of not being accepted to understanding, Hey, the
whole world fields like that at some point, let's allow
that to be our through line of me understanding you
a little bit better.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Well, you mentioned being a mom, and I know another
business you have is called El Olivia, which is now
in Target, which is huge, but that was created from
a situation with your daughter. Can you tell the listeners
a little bit about that, because I feel like it's
the exact example of what you just described, like being raw,
being real. You've created this brand because of a hardship
that you guys were facing, and now you're in places
(27:55):
like Target, which is huge. So I think everyone would
love to hear the story.
Speaker 3 (27:59):
So I got pregnant with my first daughter in twenty twenty.
Me and my husband had been having a hard time
staying pregnant. I had a couple of miscarriages, and long
story short, when I got pregnant finally, and we're like,
all right, it's gonna stick. My first daughter was born
with something called congenital diaphragtic hernia, which basically meant that
(28:22):
her spleen and her liver and her intestines were in
her chests and when she would be born, we would
have to have a surgery to move everything in its
right place. And because it happened, her lungs weren't able
to fully develop because it was being covered up by
her other organs, and so I knew that I would
(28:43):
have to have a nick you experience. We didn't know
what it was going to look like. It's such a
rare thing. It happens one out of thirty thousand people.
But luckily, when Elle was born, she cried, which meant
that her lung actually working. That was the big tail tale.
(29:03):
And so three days after she was born, we had
the surgery and then we say in the nick you
for thirty five days. There are a lot of systematic
issues that happen in hospitals that people just don't talk
about enough. But one of the biggest things for me
was I had to find my space of voice for
(29:24):
her as her mom in that NICKU. Because they can
treat your child just like every other child if you
allow it to be, and it can be a box
that's being checked right, or if you show up as
a parent, they show up differently. So I showed up
every single day for thirty five days after I just
delivered this baby. I slept in a hospital chair because
(29:47):
it was COVID. Me and my husband couldn't be there
at the same time. There's a lot of rules in place.
It was crazy time, and I went to every round.
I asked all the questions. I made a lot of
decisions right, took a lot of liberties, and when I
left that nick You experience, I thought, what tools do
(30:07):
I need to give my daughter to be successful in
this world? Because that took a lot out of me
as a new mom. That nick you experience. If there
are any moms out here whoever been in the nick
you that it is rough and tough. It makes you
so strong and resilient because it's none of it's in
your control or power. And so I left that Nicku knowing, man,
(30:32):
I gotta teach my daughter how to advocate for herself,
because I was pulling up and advocating for her every
single day, and it felt like I was losing breath
from doing so. Because I didn't really know anything about
the healthcare system, and that was where I was feeling
like I was navigating waters that felt foreign to me. Sure,
And then my second was hen nobody looked like me
(30:55):
and my family at this hospital that was in leadership,
and that threw me right that there wasn't a familiarity
from that perspective, and I thought, my daughter has to
know that anything is possible for her, She has to
know that she can be anything, and not in a
cliche way. But then I got to do my part
and expose her to all that is possible. So I
(31:18):
left that nick you knowing that was my north star.
Eight months later, I go into Target and I was
looking for something that had a character, something that showcased
her in a way that she could see herself. And
I did not find it there, and I left her,
and I am I love shopping at Target. That was
my place, my jam, my place of refuge. Yeah, And
(31:43):
I didn't find it, and so I left there and
I was like, man, it was literally an out of
body experience. It felt like the Sugar fin a Lady
story all over again. It felt like the moment when
I went into the Financial Institute and pitched my first
six figure deal. I left Target that day. I video
recorded myself and I said, I'm about to start a
(32:04):
children's brand. I didn't know manufacturing. I didn't know how
much it costs. I didn't know anything about what a
factor looked like. I didn't know anything about retail. None
of that was my experience, never worked in that industry.
But I just knew that there was some gaps on
the floor. And if I was a mom who was
looking for these things, I knew there had to been
(32:24):
other moms looking to shop with intentionality for their child
at a young age, and so I did. Six months later,
I launched the brand. I made a huge investment from
my own personal savings to launch the brand, and from
that investment, I hired influencers. I did advertising on a
(32:45):
billboard like I put the gammet out and then I
sent a cold pitch email to Target and I said, Hey, Target,
you guys got some gaps on your floor. Created this
children's brand. This is what it is, this is what
we do. But I led with you guys have some
(33:05):
gaps on your floor.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
That's their problem that you're about to solve for.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
Them, And I'm about to solve something for them for
a three hundred billion dollar market of moms who are
shopping to seek intentionality for their kids, and we were
off to the races. It really was. It was no
long drawn out thing. They gave me four hundred store
(33:30):
to launch with and we did four different seasons with them.
We did an everyday collection of a pajama lin We
did a Christmas collection. I mean celebrities were in it, Jenny,
my daughter, Tianna, Taylor's daughters. There were so many people
in it that we were like, we would have never
had this type of visibility right they were buying it
(33:53):
from Target. We did Spring in a summer collection with them,
and it was really how we were able mistake Well.
We created one hundred and thirty thousand scus for them
and we sold one hundred thousand of those scues. Wow
as a brand new brand. Yeah, And so we're two
and a half years and now and we're still really new.
(34:15):
We're working on a collection right now with the WNBA
that will drop in the next couple of months, and
we're making sure that little girls get to see themselves
at a young age, because I believe that if a
toddler who's four gets to see herself, and she knows
her worth, and she knows what's available to her and
(34:36):
the access, and she knows that anything is possible for her.
I don't need my media company, Boston Media, that's affirming
a thirty five year old woman. I've taught her at
a really young age what's possible for herself. And there's
a ton of data in that talks about how a
little girl loses her confidence by the age of nine.
(34:58):
She stops raising her hand in the classroom because boys
naturally will raise their hand. They're going to be right.
They know that they're smart. They're taught a different script
than a little girl is taught. It's taught to be quiet,
be prim but proper right, And so I'm shifting the
narrative on how a little girl gets to see themselves
(35:20):
at a young age.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Yeah. I love that idea of starting at young so
you don't have to solve you don't have to solve
the problem later because it never exists.
Speaker 3 (35:28):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
Well, we've mentioned two of your businesses and now you
are about to become an author, which isn't amazing. I
actually think the title of this book, now that I've
talked to you as long as we have is so
fitting for you and so perfect. It's called audacious. Can
you tell the listeners a little bit about the book
and what inspired you to write this?
Speaker 3 (35:46):
Oh my god, it's the book that I needed ten
years ago, right if I had to start it with
this book. It is, I believe, going to be the
twenty twenty five version of You Are a Badass. It
is all of the stories of me building business. It's
the blueprint and how I've built both of my businesses.
(36:08):
I share how I storytell how I pitch, I give frameworks,
I share how you start with your vision and you
map that out. And then I grabbed the book and
anchor the book in the last chapter with this concept
of surrendering and how you surrender and how surrendering is
a part of everyone's story and once you master that
(36:31):
piece of it, anything as possible for your life. So
I cannot wait for the book to come out and
for everyone to read the words and to apply them
to their life.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
I just love that you're tying surrender into all of
this powerful movement. I just think because to me, they
work so hand in hand, but it's not spoken about.
That connection is never made and so I love that.
What would you say? What do you hope women take
away from your store?
Speaker 3 (37:01):
I want them to know that anything is possible. Because, Oh,
by the way, Marty grew up in a first college
generation household, I am the first to go to college.
I grew up in the system. I grew up knowing
exactly what it felt like to be on welfare. I
knew exactly what it felt like to not have someone
(37:22):
in front of me that was going ahead of me.
And I still did it. And because I still did it,
it can happen for anyone. I'm not magic. I'm literally
someone who wakes up every single day and say I'm
going to continue on. And because I haven't stopped is
(37:43):
why it continues to work. And I just want other
women and men to know that it's possible for them
if they stay consistent, if they show up for themselves,
if they believe it more than the person that doesn't
believe it for.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
Them, if they show up for themselves. I love that. Marty,
Thank you so much for sharing with us. If people
want to keep up with your story, I know we
did mention the book comes out in October, but where
would they keep up with everything? And go pre order
the book.
Speaker 3 (38:14):
Yes, please, pre orders are so important. I am claiming
New York Times Bestseller and New York Times Bestseller happened
on pre orders are strong, So you can pre order
the book Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Target, Walmart, and you
can keep up with me all things social Marty Team McDonald,
Boston and Media and on Instagram as well shop El Olivia.
(38:37):
But Marty Team McDonald is where you get to see
all the insights and the crazy of my life.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
Okay, I will put all of that in the description
of this podcast for you guys. Marty, thank you so
much again for being here with us and good luck
with everything with the book. Thank you for looking for
you on the New York Times bestseller list.
Speaker 3 (38:54):
Yes, thank you so much. I appreciate you.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
Of course. Thank you guys for listening.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
Thanks for listening to the Velvet's Edge podcast with Kelly Henderson,
where we believe everyone has a little velvet in a
little edge. Subscribe for more conversations on life, style, beauty
and relationships. Search Velvet's Edge wherever you get your podcasts.
Conversations on life, style, beauty, and relationships. It's The Velvet's
Edge Podcast with Kelly Henderson.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
All Right, I'll know I love talking to women who
are doing the real work inner and outer. So today's
guest is someone who's built a business, a community, and
a movement. Marty McDonald is the founder of Boss Women
Media and the El Olivia brand, which is now in Target.
She's also a pitch expert and strategist, and she's here
to talk about betting on yourself, telling your story, and
(00:31):
what it looks like to build something big from scratch.
Hey Marty, Hey.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Kelly, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
We were just talking before. I had no idea you
were a Tennessee local.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Oh my goodness, girl born and Ray's roots is grounded
in Tennessee with the college in Tennessee. But then I
didn't stay there like as an adult, like I left.
It gave you what I needed it to give me. Yeah,
I would have gotten lost in the shuffle. I would
be who I am if I would have stayed.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
That's how I feel about Louisiana. There's something about spreading
your wings like I love being from Louisiana. That is
who I am. It is my roots, the same as
you're saying about Tennessee, and I needed to expand and
move forward for me to Nashville. You're in Dallas now,
and I actually this is a good starting place for us,
because I want to go back to the beginning, like
where you started and what sparked this fire in you
(01:25):
to create something like Boss Women Media. I feel like
that was just that had to be something really big
in you, because that's a bold move to create something
like that. Can you tell the listeners a little bit
about that?
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Yeah? Absolutely, So it didn't start at the beginning of
me even leaving my corporate career when I think about it,
because you just got me thinking about Tennessee. I've been
this curious, rebellious child at the very moment of my existence, right,
(01:59):
Thorie's my mom to tell me about myself when I
was really little as a baby, right, and then as
I continued elementary, middle school, high school, Right, Like, I
always had an opinion. I never wanted to take the
pathway of what someone gave me, Right, I always wanted
(02:19):
more for myself than others around me. When I was
in high school, I started this sorority called Alpha and Omega,
and it was a Christian sorority. The premise of it
was the beginning of the end. There were some other
sororities that our high school had, but there wasn't any
sorority that looked like me, right, and so I wanted
(02:42):
to create something that my peer group could be elevated
from just as much. So I was always the person
if I saw something and I saw that there was
a need for it to be elevated amongst the community
in which I was serving, I was going to explore
how to do right. And so when I think about
(03:02):
like the beginnings, it was all of these intricate moments
that happened that made me curious, that built upon my
curiosity and my courageous spirit. Right, It wasn't just this
one thing and then it catapulted into something. If that's
someone's story, I love that for them, because that's not
(03:25):
most folks story.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Right.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
You build up to something. And so then I went
to school. I went to college to study interior design
and architecture, got my degree in that, did a stint
in Atlanta for a second, knew that wasn't my vibe.
Was dating a guy who was like he's moving to
Dallas after he graduates. I'm like, well, we've invested a
lot of time together. I'm moving to Dallas because you're
(03:48):
going to be my husband, and this is what's going
to happen. Who's now my husband now of fifteen years?
Speaker 2 (03:55):
I'm glad he agreed.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
And then I found myself sitting in Corporate America like
many of us, thinking that this will be the American dream,
this will be the thing, these titles will be the
thing that will set me up for the success and
wealth transfer. And here's why that was so important to
me because I grew up in a very small town
(04:18):
in Tennessee and Murphy's thorough Tennessee. At that time it
was small. Now it's like the suburb of Nature.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
It's curtain clad a bit.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
But I didn't see what I was trying to be
sure growing up, right, And so when I got into
a Corporate America, I was like, how is this even
possible for me? The space that I'm going to have
to navigate feels so foreign? Right? Is this really what
I want for myself? And I found myself going from
(04:48):
interior design architecture. Then I went back to school, got
my NBA, and then I went into marketing and business,
and I still found myself struggling to find my lane
until one moment when I was sitting in Corporate America.
I remember going to a women's networking event and everything
was black, blue and gray, and I felt like I
(05:10):
couldn't really show up authentically as me because I had
to put on the costume that they told me was success.
And so I remember leaving their thinking, there's no way
I'm going to be able to do this. There's no
way I'm going to be able to stay in this race, right.
And so really I found myself trying to claw for
(05:35):
positions and spaces and to be seen, and I couldn't.
I couldn't fit in. So I made my exit in
twenty eighteen. December one, twenty seventeen, was my last day
working in Corporate America, and I said, you know what,
I'm going to go back on. Building a community of
women who get to see what's possible through the stories
(05:58):
of other women was the north star of which I
was building off of. If Kelly gets to see herself
through someone who may come from where Kelly came from,
or looked like Kelly, or has a story similar to Kelly,
that has made it, then maybe Kelly won't know it's
possible for herself. Right, That's what I was going to
(06:20):
go build because I was solving it for Marty, because
if Marty goes and finds these stories, then I'll get
to see what's possible for me to build. And so
that's what I set off to do. It was a
very small group of women when it first began, twenty
five women. We met at Nema Marcus Cafe in Dallas
(06:43):
and we talked about our more Do you want more
from your career? Do you want more from life?
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Right?
Speaker 3 (06:49):
This quest of more right? And I think that so
many of us can relate to what that looks like
and what that feels like. In that yearning and that
room felt so heavy and contain and it felt so full,
and I knew the end I got something. I got something,
and I got to figure out how to navigate my
something and build off of it.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
I love this idea and I resonate with this so much.
But where you're building something, or you have this desire
to build something, but because you're not seeing it anywhere else,
which is exciting on one hand, because you feel like, Okay,
I'm you know, it sounds like you have a very
entrepreneurial spirit and you always have and so it's like, oh,
I'm gonna go create this thing. It's also very scary
(07:31):
because it doesn't exist yet, so you don't have a map,
you don't know what it looks like. How do you
have the confidence in those moments to bet on yourself?
That's something you talk a lot about, is betting on yourself.
So how do we if we have these moments where
it's there's no map, there's nothing, We just know we
have this desire, But how do you lean in and
take to take the risk and bet on yourself.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
I think that we need alignment to courage, right, Okay?
And and when I think about what alignment to courage
looks like, it starts in the small moments. If when
I said it was a build up, right, and it
built up to this one moment when I was sitting
in Corporate America, something happened that kind of like pushed
(08:18):
me out. I was working on a project and long
story short, I ended up not proofreading something out correctly
that went out to the whole company, to several stores,
et cetera. And I remember thinking they just don't think
I'm smart enough to be here, right, and because they don't,
(08:39):
I'm never going to find my space. That gave me
the courage to leave. At that incident. Never had happened,
I would have probably stayed right at that moment. I
probably wouldn't have shifted some things around. But sometimes some
of what you think at the time feels like your
darkest moments are the things that give you your curve, right,
(09:01):
And so because that happened, I left the organization. I
remember my CMO was like, girl, what you about to
go do? And I was like, go live my best life.
I'm gonna figure it out, right. And then I went
to a conference called the Girl Boss Rally in LA
with Sophia Amroso as the founder. And at this conference,
(09:21):
everyone was talking about what they were building and it
was just such an energy that you wanted to be around.
And so that gave me confidence, and that gave me
courage hearing those stories of other women who were building
and doing incredible things, right, Like, I think that that's
a piece of it, right, Finding you a tribe who
(09:42):
also was courageous, right, and you can feed off of
their energy. And so I remember going into a breakout room.
At the breakout room, there were three influencers on the panel,
and one woman who was the CEO of a high
end confectionery company called sugar Fino. She talked about out
you know a sugarf You know we create taboo gummy bears.
(10:03):
Some of the gummy bears, we create our green juice
gummy or sometimes we create a whiskey gummy or sometimes
we create a champagne gummy bear. And I thought, man,
she should create a gummy bear called black girl magic.
And I had just read a Nielsen Dada report probably
two months before leaving my corporate job, and then Nielsen
(10:24):
data report basically was titled black Role Magic and it
talked about the buying power and behavior of black women,
and brands weren't really paying attention to it, and it
was like a misopportunity to build ROI long story short,
those little bits of moments that had happened along the
way gave me courage to go up to Mary and
(10:45):
I said, Hey, Mary, I'm Marty McDonald. You don't know me,
but have you ever heard of black girl Magic? And
she goes, can I say.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
That out loud?
Speaker 3 (10:54):
She's a woman who didn't look like me. She was
much older, different generation. And I said, black magic, it's
a buying power, it is a rallying call. It is
a bottom line that you should consider. You shtill let
me come into your stores at Sugar Fena and create
a tour called the Black Girl Magic Tour. We'll create
a gummy bear together that could be a rose gummy bear,
(11:17):
and I'll bring my community of women to your stores
and droves and you'll get to see the power. And
I saw the curiosity peek at her, but then I
saw who.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Are you throughout? From?
Speaker 3 (11:31):
What? Like?
Speaker 2 (11:32):
What? What? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (11:34):
And she goes send me an email contact at Sugar Fena. Well,
we all know where that email goes, suit, right, And
so I sent I got on that airplane back home.
I sent her a pitch deck. And that pitch deck
really transformed the trajectory of my business. And here's why
it did, because I showcase to her brand how she
(11:55):
could impact her bottom line. I never talked about me.
I never said, gird just quit by corporate job and
I'm out here trying to build a brand. I never
talked about any parts of my story. I talked about
where there were gaps for her and where she couldn't
make money and revenue for her business that she was
(12:15):
taken to the next level. It took her about six weeks,
but I got on a call with her and she
approved for me to come to five of her stores
and we created a Gummy Bear together called the Black
Girl Match at Gummy Bear, and we did pop ups
in her stores in LA and New York, in Atlanta
and Houston and in Dallas. And oh, by the way,
(12:37):
this girl who just started this little bitty brand in
Dallas now became a national brand. And I got lots
of media and attention from it, and it catapulted me.
And that was phase one of me building. And then
I took that and I used it as a beta case,
and I pitched it to a large financial partner and
(12:59):
I said, this came off of a five city tour
called Black Rol Matchic. Let me do a twenty five
city tour with you called Black Rol Magic, and we'll
pop up and we'll do this. And I had all
the data and all the information from me selling out
in all of those cities and they approved it. And
then that was my second phase of my story. And
that was my first sixth figure deal with a large brand,
(13:22):
and then we hit COVID and I'm about to go
on this tour and that doesn't happen, and I had
to bait and switch. We hit COVID and I had
to bait and switch, and what ended up happening was
(13:45):
instead of me going on a twenty five city tour,
I did one large virtual conference and we had over
twenty two thousand people registered in a ten And I
could have never done that with a footprint that holds
one hundred people in twenty five cities. I would have
maxed out at twenty five hundred people, right, And then
(14:07):
that was phase three of me building. Then I took
that as a case study, and I took it and
pitched it to Amazon, and I said, Amazon, you need
to show my programming on Amazon Prime and they agreed
to it. And then we stream Black Girl Magic for
a whole year on Amazon Prime of our conference that
(14:27):
any household could view. And then that was phase four
and it has built up on that. When I think
back on it, phase four could have never happened without
Phase one. So don't despise your small beginnings, because your
small beginnings are your moments that will take you to
the next phase, and that's how you build your courage
(14:50):
to bet on yourself.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
So much of your journey is in the pitch, and
I know the power of the pitch is like a
huge part of one of your skill sets, and I
want to get to that, But I have to ask
you first, because thiss dawned on me as you're speaking.
It all sounds like a dream, right, the stuff that
you're saying, it's the courageous move, It's the movie script
that we kind of all want to live out. I
(15:15):
feel like that is what I hear so much of you.
It's starting with the nothing and building the everything. What
happens though, because I know you're human just like the
rest of us, there has to be the moment of doubt, right,
like when COVID hits and and all of your plans
go out the window. I'm sure the doubt crept in.
So how do you overcome those moments when that doubt
(15:37):
kicks in and it can make us all want to quit? Right?
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Yes, I mean doubt is inevitable, and the bigger it gets,
the bigger the doubts. Sometimes, right, the whispers get louder, right,
like who do you think you are? What do you
think you could. You know, of course that happens, right,
But it's me against the doubt, right, And I think
that for me, as I have built, my life has changed.
(16:03):
When I first started postponing media, it was me and
my husband. Right now it's me and my three kids
and my husband and my second house. And you know, like,
and now there's so much more to this story, right,
So when you have more to lose, you fight harder, right,
and you're not gonna let it all crumble. But here's
(16:26):
the thing about it. At any moment, when I hear
that whisper it's time to walk away, I trust that voice.
I talk a lot about this in my new book
that's coming out in the fall. I share with people. Okay,
it takes vision, right, you gotta have vision. Vision is
your north star, right, You got to you gotta know
(16:47):
how to persuasively storytell right. I don't care if your
business owner, if you're sitting in corporate like, you got
to be able to position yourself right there there. You
gotta have a routine, you gotta have a consistent and
see right. But for me, you got to build your
network and all of those things. But for me, when
(17:07):
the doubt creeps in. I am grounded and anchored in
my higher power. It's God for me, right, and so
I believe that my journey is unique because from the perspective,
this is what God has ordained for me, just like
Kelly's journey is unique because that's what God has created
(17:28):
for Kelly.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Right.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
And in the moments when I believe that the doubt
feels so overwhelming, I step back. I don't use my power.
I don't do more right. I don't try to manipulate.
I don't try to call and run, I don't try
to cry it out. I don't try to work it off.
I stop and I surrender. I surrender to I've done
(17:54):
all that I could humanly possibly do in this moment,
and the deal not coming through. I don't know what's happening, right,
I'm getting no's all around.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
Then I stop and I give space for miracles to
happen from him because I'm not bigger than him. And
that's what has grounded me in this whole thing. Because
Kelly Girl, I got stories for days I got I
got stories of assigned folks that I knew that when
I walked in a boardroom that person was a sign
(18:26):
for me right and in a moment of time, And
I think we all do when we are aligned and
living in what our purpose is and we're obedient to
our to the vision that someone and someone is God
has given to me and I act upon that, then
I don't have all the resources to make it all happen.
(18:47):
And I'm okay with that as well.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
I love that idea of the pause. We talk about
that a lot on the podcast, Like, sometimes I feel
like when we're challenged, it was kind of what you're saying,
our instinct is to go fight, go manipulate, try to
control it, to make it work the way we want to.
And sometimes if we can stop, that's when the true
gifts come in and the bigger things, the things we
could never even imagine in our wildest dreams. But I
(19:11):
do want to circle back to the pitch part, because
even hearing how you had the confidence to go up
to these women and say you should let me do this, like,
here's here's how I'm going to solve the problem that
I see in your business for you. So I'm assuming
that is a big part of the power of pitching
is telling them how you're going to solve the problem.
Is that what you would say is the biggest thing
(19:32):
to sell someone on? Or is that where we start
when we have an idea, is how are we solving
the problem for the consumer?
Speaker 3 (19:39):
That's absolutely where you start.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
You never start about you, right, never say I have
a podcast and my podcast. You always lead with data
and no emotion.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
And so when I when I read that Nielsen data report,
black girl magic is real. It talked about by twenty
twenty two, women would be the highest spending consumer. They
had a one point five trillion dollar spin. When I
wrote that pitch deck back then, my first page in
deck was you want a piece of a one point
five trillion dollar spin. That's not emotion, that is data.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
It's a fact.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
Yeah, right, And so you have to act off of facts.
Either you act in the manner that propels you or
keeps you stuck. Right. And so when I'm pitching, I
never lead with what I and my brand can do
from the perspective of look at me. I always ask
(20:38):
this one question, Can you tell me what goals and
objectives do you have for this year? Right? And so
Kelly tells me my goal is to have one hundred
thousand podcasts download. Okay, Kelly, well, I love that goal
for you, right, and here's how I can help you.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Solve for that goal, right. Okay, it's not me.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
Guessing, it's you telling me, and then me taking the
information that you've shared with me and showcasing how the
brand that I've built can help you solve for them.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Okay, so you're solving the problem. I always hear that
that people talk about even when you're creating a business
as an entrepreneur, and I'm sure you can resonate with
this as well, but that the business itself should solve
a problem for someone. And that's the most successful business
as we see out there, are the ones that are
solving the problems. They take the guesswork out for people.
They just say, here's how we can help you do this,
(21:34):
period the end. Basically, that's it. Okay, so we've got
the pitch. But I know so much is also in
the storytelling. Just we hear the term personal brand a
lot nowadays, So do you can you say, like, what
do you think that even means? A personal brand?
Speaker 3 (21:51):
You know, I think that people people have taken personal
branding to like these these like very content creator levels, right,
But I think that it's not necessarily about personal brain.
It's about allowing someone to see the human in you.
So on me and you got on the on and
(22:12):
I and you intro and I I wanted to find
a connective point between me and you, right, And that's
all it is. So now I know Kelly lives in Tennessee.
Kelly now knows I'm from Murphy'sboro. That's a connective point. Right.
It's allowing you to see the human in me. Because, oh,
by the way, you could have had a bad day.
You could have been like, all right, I've been doing
(22:33):
podcast back to back. I just want to get this
done so I can check this off. But I allowed
you to have a moment to say, okay, I see her,
Oh okay, like she I know where she could be from.
Type of thing. Right, it's finding the human in each other. Right.
We live in a world right now where everything is divided.
(22:57):
You're a Democrat, you're a Republican, you're black, you're from here,
you're not right, it's so much divide. At the end
of the day, we're all humans. There's so much relatability
and oh, by the way, you know what imposture syndrome
feels like absolutely, it doesn't matter what you look like,
it doesn't matter your color of your skin. You know
(23:17):
what it feels like to be in an environment where
you've not been accepted. Oh, I got stories for days
for that. If we connect on the moments and are
the moments of time that have happened to us, that
allows it to be connective tissue versus from a space
of things that divide us. And I think that that's
(23:39):
how you effectively storytell. When someone gets to see themselves
and you, you don't have to look like them for
them to see themselves in you. You can have the
same experiences, right, you could be building on the same
pathway right, And I think that you have to pause
(24:01):
for a second to know and to be able to
see that. And now people resonate with that. I had
a friend who was like, I was working on a
brand deal and she was at one company and then
she left and went to the next company and she
wrote me a check. I said, because brands don't write checks.
People write checks, Like, you can have a brand deal
(24:21):
with AT and T, or you can have a brand
deal with Verizon. But if the people that are working
there are not back behind it. It doesn't really matter.
It's people who write checks, not brands. Brands don't write checks,
and so when we in order for you to get
the people to write the checks, there has to be
something that they resonate in you. How you can solve
(24:44):
a problem for them. Do they enjoy even working with you? Right?
Are you responsive? Right? Do you show up right all
of the things that how you build a relationship.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
Yeah, I really relate and believe and the idea that
we are all connected. And I love that you're talking
about that because it is such a time of division
and it feels like we're constantly trying to find even
more ways that we're divided versus the opposite, which is
actually more true to me, is how we're connected. So
if someone is listening and they're thinking, okay, that I
(25:19):
believe in that. I believe we're all connected, and I
believe I want to find that one piece of connection
with my audience. Do you have suggestions on how they
would maybe define the moments or the things about them
in their story that could be the connectors? Like how
do we pick those things those specific things? Is it
just getting real with ourselves? And like the moments of
(25:39):
crash like you talked about, are the moments where we
took a risk on ourselves? Like is that the moment
to pick? Like, how do you know what moment is?
Speaker 3 (25:54):
I think vulnerability is the strategic pathway forward? Right, Yeah,
I could say motherhood. Right, I'm a mom. There's so
many other moms out there. Right, I'm a mom of
a four year old and twins that are twenty months.
It's ghetto over here in my mouth all the time, right,
I'm not screaming. Someone's fingerprints are on the wall that
(26:17):
I just clean, like all the things I'm constantly like, no,
don't stop. But another mom can see herself in me.
Our experiences don't have to be the same. But we're
sharing at the same time. How do we breathe and
keep going? How are you getting sleep?
Speaker 1 (26:35):
Like?
Speaker 3 (26:35):
You know what I mean? Like that's our connective tissue, right,
vulnerability not making everything seem so perfect it's not. Life
is life and for everyone right now? Right, But if
you're not vulnerable and you don't share, and I don't know, right,
then how.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Do I connect?
Speaker 3 (26:58):
You know? I think shame, I think imposture syndrome. I
think those are everybody's experienced that before, right of course,
or not feeling wanted, right, Like, you can connect to
those types of in some ways have been strategies or
traumas for people. Right, we can all connect together from
(27:19):
that viewpoint of not being accepted to understanding, Hey, the
whole world fields like that at some point, let's allow
that to be our through line of me understanding you
a little bit better.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Well, you mentioned being a mom, and I know another
business you have is called El Olivia, which is now
in Target, which is huge, but that was created from
a situation with your daughter. Can you tell the listeners
a little bit about that, because I feel like it's
the exact example of what you just described, like being raw,
being real. You've created this brand because of a hardship
that you guys were facing, and now you're in places
(27:55):
like Target, which is huge. So I think everyone would
love to hear the story.
Speaker 3 (27:59):
So I got pregnant with my first daughter in twenty twenty.
Me and my husband had been having a hard time
staying pregnant. I had a couple of miscarriages, and long
story short, when I got pregnant finally, and we're like,
all right, it's gonna stick. My first daughter was born
with something called congenital diaphragtic hernia, which basically meant that
(28:22):
her spleen and her liver and her intestines were in
her chests and when she would be born, we would
have to have a surgery to move everything in its
right place. And because it happened, her lungs weren't able
to fully develop because it was being covered up by
her other organs, and so I knew that I would
(28:43):
have to have a nick you experience. We didn't know
what it was going to look like. It's such a
rare thing. It happens one out of thirty thousand people.
But luckily, when Elle was born, she cried, which meant
that her lung actually working. That was the big tail tale.
(29:03):
And so three days after she was born, we had
the surgery and then we say in the nick you
for thirty five days. There are a lot of systematic
issues that happen in hospitals that people just don't talk
about enough. But one of the biggest things for me
was I had to find my space of voice for
(29:24):
her as her mom in that NICKU. Because they can
treat your child just like every other child if you
allow it to be, and it can be a box
that's being checked right, or if you show up as
a parent, they show up differently. So I showed up
every single day for thirty five days after I just
delivered this baby. I slept in a hospital chair because
(29:47):
it was COVID. Me and my husband couldn't be there
at the same time. There's a lot of rules in place.
It was crazy time, and I went to every round.
I asked all the questions. I made a lot of
decisions right, took a lot of liberties, and when I
left that nick You experience, I thought, what tools do
(30:07):
I need to give my daughter to be successful in
this world? Because that took a lot out of me
as a new mom. That nick you experience. If there
are any moms out here whoever been in the nick
you that it is rough and tough. It makes you
so strong and resilient because it's none of it's in
your control or power. And so I left that Nicku knowing, man,
(30:32):
I gotta teach my daughter how to advocate for herself,
because I was pulling up and advocating for her every
single day, and it felt like I was losing breath
from doing so. Because I didn't really know anything about
the healthcare system, and that was where I was feeling
like I was navigating waters that felt foreign to me. Sure,
And then my second was hen nobody looked like me
(30:55):
and my family at this hospital that was in leadership,
and that threw me right that there wasn't a familiarity
from that perspective, and I thought, my daughter has to
know that anything is possible for her, She has to
know that she can be anything, and not in a
cliche way. But then I got to do my part
and expose her to all that is possible. So I
(31:18):
left that nick you knowing that was my north star.
Eight months later, I go into Target and I was
looking for something that had a character, something that showcased
her in a way that she could see herself. And
I did not find it there, and I left her,
and I am I love shopping at Target. That was
my place, my jam, my place of refuge. Yeah, And
(31:43):
I didn't find it, and so I left there and
I was like, man, it was literally an out of
body experience. It felt like the Sugar fin a Lady
story all over again. It felt like the moment when
I went into the Financial Institute and pitched my first
six figure deal. I left Target that day. I video
recorded myself and I said, I'm about to start a
(32:04):
children's brand. I didn't know manufacturing. I didn't know how
much it costs. I didn't know anything about what a
factor looked like. I didn't know anything about retail. None
of that was my experience, never worked in that industry.
But I just knew that there was some gaps on
the floor. And if I was a mom who was
looking for these things, I knew there had to been
(32:24):
other moms looking to shop with intentionality for their child
at a young age, and so I did. Six months later,
I launched the brand. I made a huge investment from
my own personal savings to launch the brand, and from
that investment, I hired influencers. I did advertising on a
(32:45):
billboard like I put the gammet out and then I
sent a cold pitch email to Target and I said, Hey, Target,
you guys got some gaps on your floor. Created this
children's brand. This is what it is, this is what
we do. But I led with you guys have some
(33:05):
gaps on your floor.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
That's their problem that you're about to solve for.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
Them, And I'm about to solve something for them for
a three hundred billion dollar market of moms who are
shopping to seek intentionality for their kids, and we were
off to the races. It really was. It was no
long drawn out thing. They gave me four hundred store
(33:30):
to launch with and we did four different seasons with them.
We did an everyday collection of a pajama lin We
did a Christmas collection. I mean celebrities were in it, Jenny,
my daughter, Tianna, Taylor's daughters. There were so many people
in it that we were like, we would have never
had this type of visibility right they were buying it
(33:53):
from Target. We did Spring in a summer collection with them,
and it was really how we were able mistake Well.
We created one hundred and thirty thousand scus for them
and we sold one hundred thousand of those scues. Wow
as a brand new brand. Yeah, And so we're two
and a half years and now and we're still really new.
(34:15):
We're working on a collection right now with the WNBA
that will drop in the next couple of months, and
we're making sure that little girls get to see themselves
at a young age, because I believe that if a
toddler who's four gets to see herself, and she knows
her worth, and she knows what's available to her and
(34:36):
the access, and she knows that anything is possible for her.
I don't need my media company, Boston Media, that's affirming
a thirty five year old woman. I've taught her at
a really young age what's possible for herself. And there's
a ton of data in that talks about how a
little girl loses her confidence by the age of nine.
(34:58):
She stops raising her hand in the classroom because boys
naturally will raise their hand. They're going to be right.
They know that they're smart. They're taught a different script
than a little girl is taught. It's taught to be quiet,
be prim but proper right, And so I'm shifting the
narrative on how a little girl gets to see themselves
(35:20):
at a young age.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Yeah. I love that idea of starting at young so
you don't have to solve you don't have to solve
the problem later because it never exists.
Speaker 3 (35:28):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
Well, we've mentioned two of your businesses and now you
are about to become an author, which isn't amazing. I
actually think the title of this book, now that I've
talked to you as long as we have is so
fitting for you and so perfect. It's called audacious. Can
you tell the listeners a little bit about the book
and what inspired you to write this?
Speaker 3 (35:46):
Oh my god, it's the book that I needed ten
years ago, right if I had to start it with
this book. It is, I believe, going to be the
twenty twenty five version of You Are a Badass. It
is all of the stories of me building business. It's
the blueprint and how I've built both of my businesses.
(36:08):
I share how I storytell how I pitch, I give frameworks,
I share how you start with your vision and you
map that out. And then I grabbed the book and
anchor the book in the last chapter with this concept
of surrendering and how you surrender and how surrendering is
a part of everyone's story and once you master that
(36:31):
piece of it, anything as possible for your life. So
I cannot wait for the book to come out and
for everyone to read the words and to apply them
to their life.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
I just love that you're tying surrender into all of
this powerful movement. I just think because to me, they
work so hand in hand, but it's not spoken about.
That connection is never made and so I love that.
What would you say? What do you hope women take
away from your store?
Speaker 3 (37:01):
I want them to know that anything is possible. Because, Oh,
by the way, Marty grew up in a first college
generation household, I am the first to go to college.
I grew up in the system. I grew up knowing
exactly what it felt like to be on welfare. I
knew exactly what it felt like to not have someone
(37:22):
in front of me that was going ahead of me.
And I still did it. And because I still did it,
it can happen for anyone. I'm not magic. I'm literally
someone who wakes up every single day and say I'm
going to continue on. And because I haven't stopped is
(37:43):
why it continues to work. And I just want other
women and men to know that it's possible for them
if they stay consistent, if they show up for themselves,
if they believe it more than the person that doesn't
believe it for.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
Them, if they show up for themselves. I love that. Marty,
Thank you so much for sharing with us. If people
want to keep up with your story, I know we
did mention the book comes out in October, but where
would they keep up with everything? And go pre order
the book.
Speaker 3 (38:14):
Yes, please, pre orders are so important. I am claiming
New York Times Bestseller and New York Times Bestseller happened
on pre orders are strong, So you can pre order
the book Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Target, Walmart, and you
can keep up with me all things social Marty Team McDonald,
Boston and Media and on Instagram as well shop El Olivia.
(38:37):
But Marty Team McDonald is where you get to see
all the insights and the crazy of my life.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
Okay, I will put all of that in the description
of this podcast for you guys. Marty, thank you so
much again for being here with us and good luck
with everything with the book. Thank you for looking for
you on the New York Times bestseller list.
Speaker 3 (38:54):
Yes, thank you so much. I appreciate you.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
Of course. Thank you guys for listening.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
Thanks for listening to the Velvet's Edge podcast with Kelly Henderson,
where we believe everyone has a little velvet in a
little edge. Subscribe for more conversations on life, style, beauty
and relationships. Search Velvet's Edge wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Kelly Henderson
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