Leslie Kuster 9:22
there’s like a crazy statistic that I’m still like going is this really true? And it goes like this, that only 10% of women entrepreneurs who are business owners do more than $100,000 a year in annual only 10%. That means 90% of all women, business owners do less than 100,000. So what is like going on there and it’s one of my passions is to help other women entrepreneurs, especially in the ecommerce space to change that. But there’s a lot of different mindset reasons for that, I believe. And yeah, and part of it is like, as you said, it’s been so like male dominated. I mean, when I first went to my first Amazon conference, I was like, I don’t know, I must have been like one of 10 women out of like, hundreds of men. So it can be really super intimidating, but it is it’s definitely changing. However, it is still definitely mostly male, especially in ecommerce, and especially like, the big people who are teaching Amazon or teaching ecommerce, it’s still very much male. So I think for women can be a little inhibited by that. But I think one of the reasons that women are not as successful financially, in business, it doesn’t even have to have to do with ecommerce or not, is because of their not being comfortable around money and making money. And it’s very common for women to say things like, I would do my business, even if I made no money, you know, or I’m not a money person, or not that important to me. And it’s really rare to hear guys say that, right? Yeah. It’s kind of common to hear a woman say that. And I think it’s a lot to do with a perception of how a female or how a woman is supposed to look or be or act or whatever, and saying things like, I want money, I love money, I’m making a million dollars, you know, this is what I’m into. I’m building up a big business, you know, it’s not considered very feminine, in terms of cultural, traditional ideas. And this is really hurting women a lot. And so I’m kind of on a mission, to give women the freedom to unlock the door to be able to like stand up and shout, I love money, and I want money and Goddamnit I’m building my business and I’m going to do a million dollars because it’s fun. So I think this is really what we need to talk about it more and give women the opportunity to be comfortable around money.
Joshua Chin 12:20
You know, this reminds me of a guest that we’ve had on the show Kara Kara Goldin from Hint Water. She Her story is exactly that. In her book, Undaunted cheat sheet, she talks about how she had to fight against the, the status quo and the cultural norms of it. So in a feat in the male dominated space of very, very male dominated space and FMCG beverage space in her, especially in the early days when she just got started and having to go through that. It’s incredible. I strongly recommend reading her book. mother’s story, but yeah, I mean, to to your point, Leslie, it’s, on one hand, I think it is getting better, I think more people are talking about about it. And I think ecommerce specifically in the line of business is leveling the playing field, especially with tools like Shopify and Amazon. Anyone can get started now. And now it’s less A I, in my opinion, less of a structural thing, and more a mindset and cultural thing. So tools are there. Now it’s just about learning how to get, you know, get the right sequence in place.
Leslie Kuster 13:44
Yes. And mindset is everything. And it really, you know, you have to first of all, you have to really want it. So listen, anytime you’re building a business, it’s not easy, okay? Anybody who tells you it’s easy to build a business is not really telling you the whole story. It’s, it’s not really easy, and you need to be really invested in doing it. And so this desire to want it to have like a burning desire to want to build something to want to create the wealth of money to want to bring something exciting out into the world. Or in my case, this burning desire not to go to the office not to go into an elevator not to do whatever it is, however way you want to approach it, that burning desire of wanting it has to be really, really strong. And that is one of the most important keys to success. And that’s something I talk about in my book, which is called Seven Keys to Seven Figures.
Joshua Chin 14:52
And that’s coming out in fall. Next year. Yeah, exactly. Fall 2022. Perfect. And so that’s what have you decided the title is going to be money and freedom, or is it gonna be so
Leslie Kuster 15:00
We’re going to be seven keys to seven figures, Money and Freedom for women entrepreneurs.
Joshua Chin 15:07
Beautiful. What can you share about the oh, what’s one key that you could share with us? Today?
Leslie Kuster 15:15
Yeah, I’m going to share key number two, which is, which is one of the biggest secrets to success. And that has to do with focus. And I’ll just, like, tell you my story and how I like experienced that. I was an entrepreneur for a really long time. But I wasn’t a successful entrepreneur for a really long time. Even though I actually had two businesses, I had my Back From Bali business, which is what I have now. And that’s the women’s clothing company, where I’m importing into the US. And I had another business called Girl Power, which is that I basically was in empowerment group for young girls, girls who were like seven to 13 years old. And so I would do the importing business, I would do Back From Bali. And what I would happen is I would focus on Back From Bali, and sales would go up and things would improve and things like that. And then Girl Power would start to go down. And then I would run over to Girl Power. And I would send out more emails, and I would create another course and I would do some networking and things like that. And that business started to go up. And guess what happened Back From Bali started to go down. And I ran these businesses like this for way too many years, okay. And because of that, neither business had a revenue of over 100,000, between both of them, they were between together, they were under 100,000 in revenue, because I wasn’t focused. And one day, and I really literally mean one day, I said enough is enough. And I want to make more money, and I want to be more successful. And I knew I had it in me to do it. And I realized in that moment, the mistake I was making was by not focusing. And it’s something that in particularly women believe that they have the ability to multitask. But the truth is humans can’t we literally, we cannot our brains do not function where we can think about this and think about something at the exact same time, even though we think we could do this and pick up this and do this. And this, the truth is we can’t. And so I made a decision in that moment that I was going to let go of one of the businesses and then it was a question, which one do I let go? Is it going to be the Back From Bali, or is it going to be the other and then came a huge struggle inside of me was Back From Bali is is you know, maybe greedy, and it’s just about me, and it’s you know, superficial, it’s just about women’s clothing, where the other is helping women and young girls and it’s much more, you know, supportive and all of that. And I just had a gut feeling to let go of Girl Power and focus on Back From Bali. And I that’s what I did. And literally I let it go within a few weeks, I closed it down, focused 100% on my one business. And within a year my revenue had doubled.
Joshua Chin 18:34
Amazing story, as in your, you know, in your experience of working with female entrepreneurs and women entrepreneurs, and consulting with entrepreneurs, what what has been the number one problem that that you see entrepreneurs face when, you know, as they embark on that scaling base, not as a founder focused, kind of founder, your niche or the business that you want to spend the majority of the time on? And you’re picking up speed? What’s next? And what’s that thing that blocking them from? Hitting that for seven, eight years,
Leslie Kuster 19:19
is the first one for sure is mindset and whether they think they can or can’t do it or whether they think they’re you know the type of person to do it or whether they came from a family that was successful or not. So it is 100% mindset about what you think you can or can’t do and that you’re not smart that you don’t know about ecommerce that you don’t know how to how to manage an Excel data sheet that you don’t know how to download Amazon reports and what they are that you know all you know, Amazon in particular, that’s my business, super data driven, right. And so you, you you start a business you started an Amazon business people have this idea, they put things up and things will sell, it doesn’t quite work that way, as you know. And so all of these mindset things start happening with someone starting a new business in that way of whether they’re smart enough, or they’re they’re technical enough, whether they, you know, they know those things. And, you know, in my own case, you know, I had no tech background whatsoever, at all. And so everything is learnable. And this is something I really want to tell women and women entrepreneurs who are considering starting their own business or considering going into ecommerce, everything is learnable. And actually, it’s not even that difficult. It’s just that you need to learn things, and you need to get the guidance of how to do it. And that is one of the other keys to success that’s in the book, which has to do with what I call becoming an unquenchable learner. And just as you were sharing with me, before we started recording how you really dove into learning and learning, you know, email marketing, and all kinds of things. This is what you need to do as an entrepreneur, you need to become humble. And realize you first of all, you don’t know what you don’t know, because how can you possibly know what you don’t know. And you need to really be like a humble servant that wow, and be open minded to learning all the time. So I’ve been in this business for a long time now, I’m always learning I’m always listening to podcasts, reading new books, I work I still to this day work with my own consultant, ecommerce consultants. So there’s constantly learning and growing, and that is absolutely one of the keys to success.
Joshua Chin 21:52
I love that. Let’s talk a little bit about key number seven. I’m personally interested in I leave that empty time. Yeah, empty time empty, because a little bit more about what that means.
Leslie Kuster 22:09
So I have been going to a retreat center in the in the hills of New Mexico for we’re talking about 30 years where I take summers off for the most part, anywhere between five to eight weeks. And I go to a retreat where they do yoga, and meditation. Healthy Eating is all vegetarian. We live super simply have a tent and a little cabin. And what I noticed that is that while I was really building this business in particular, in the last 10 years, I didn’t stop doing this, and I didn’t stop going to the retreat. And I didn’t stop taking time off. And I would work while I was at the retreat, I would say I would work for around about five to maybe seven hours a week, okay, not a day, a week. And I noticed that even though I was doing that, my business was still growing and growing and growing and growing and growing. And I believe that it continues to grow and did grow all these years, because of be taking this what I call empty time. So I think what happens is when we don’t take downtime, downtime, empty time, quiet time, whatever you want to call it, then we’re always following our to do lists, right, we’re always following our goal, our to do list and what we have to do next, next, next, next next. And the trouble with that is we don’t get in touch with what we really want and what is really really important because every you’re just too busy doing the stuff and checking off your your things you need to do. You have no time at all to reflect on what it is you really want to feel in your life. What it is you what kind of what do you want your business to look at look like. And unless you take empty time, and downtime, you don’t ever hear what’s going on inside of yourself. And when you have the time to get quiet. And to go for a walk or journal or go on retreats like like I do, then you get really clear on what is important to you, how you want to live your life, what kind of business you want to build, how much money you want to be making, how much vacation time you want, how many hours you want to work a week, all of those things start to become really clear instead of running after your To Do lists all the time. So I really believe that it is from stopping that we become more successful.
Joshua Chin 24:59
So Leslie, tell tell me a little bit more about your your experience at the retreat. So do you let go of everything that’s happening in your business? And you kind of take that five, eight weeks off completely? Or are you still? No, I’m still
Leslie Kuster 25:15
I’m working about five to maybe seven, eight hours a week, you know, so there’s one like an hour a day, so an hour a day. Yeah, that I’m that I’m working, checking in with email and making sure you know, my VA is doing whatever they’re supposed to be doing. But other than that, I am spending time there, we’re doing minutes meditation, we do a lot of almost like Tai Chi movements with breath. So there’s a lot of movement with breath, dancing, and living very, very simply living pretty much in the forest. And just having like that simplicity, where you’re not getting dressed up and putting on makeup all the time, and you know, running to a restaurant and meeting with your friends and all those kind of things, puts you in a state where you connect with your higher self. And it puts you in a state where you connect with the, the, the precious pearl inside of you, that can give you guidance. And the only way to find that precious pearl is to be quiet, it doesn’t you can’t hear it, when it’s there’s too much noise.
Joshua Chin 26:28
The monkey brain inside of me is telling me and I believe this this resonates with a lot of I suppose, for lack of better a type A personality types kinder, I suppose anxious all the time. And I was talking to you about this before you hit record, but people whose minds are never at rest, right? How do you help? How do you stop? You know, it’s, it’s one thing to be like, to be quiet and to be present and to listen. But it’s another to be to be able to step away from your business and to stop the worrying. And that that chatter in your mind. How you think about that, what’s your philosophy,
Leslie Kuster 27:18
you have to get in a place where you feel bliss, that’s what it is. So you need to identify the things in your life that make you feel happy, simply happy, okay? Whatever it is, whether it’s like drinking like a great cup of tea, or holding an animal or staring at a tree, or smelling a flower, or writing or whatever these things are, there’s something in your life that makes you feel blissful. There’s in everybody’s life, they can access a feeling of bliss. And the key is to experience a feeling of bliss and happiness. And when you do that, even if it’s for 10 seconds, the monkey mind, as you said, will slow down and you’ll be like, Oh, I actually felt good for 10 seconds. Do you see?
Joshua Chin 28:17
Yeah. And now even more of that.
Leslie Kuster 28:21
Yeah. And then you do more of it. So it’s really not a question of, okay, I’m going to be a meditator now. And I’m going to sit down for a half hour every morning and my brain is going to not do anything, because that doesn’t work. Actually, you’ve been meditating for 30 years, and I still struggle with thoughts in my head. So that doesn’t always work. And for many people, that never works, actually. But what does work is, is knowing who you are, and knowing what it is that makes you feel joyful, simple, simple, joyful, whatever it is playing or you know, playing ball or whatever it is that you do you like to dance, you like to ski you like to do whatever it is that you love to do. And it’s connecting with more joy in your life. And when you connect with more joy in your life, you will notice that you don’t feel such anxiety and your mind will not be going like what do I have to do next? And I have to you know, in the start to kind of get into that whole downward spiral. Yeah, you’ll stop downward spiraling. So the so the key is to first of all, nobody knows that you like No, brings you a sense of peace and bliss. And then make sure that you do some of that each day.
Joshua Chin 29:39
Know that knowing Alright, is where where I’m struggling at now at the risk of diving super deep into the rabbit hole, but I think it’s important. How do you know when you’re happy or don’t know even happy but how do you identify joy or blissfulness make sense?
Leslie Kuster 30:02
If you can have like an A memory, if there’s any memory that you’ve had in your entire life that made you feel blissful, or joyful? Like, was there a vacation you went on? Was there a moment as a kid? Was there? Was there a Sunday that you did something and you and you felt happy? About?
Joshua Chin 30:32
Yeah.
Leslie Kuster 30:34
What were what so you try to pick up a memory. And feel when you do the open a memory, it’s going to actually bring up an emotion. Yeah, and the motion is going to be contentment, and it’s going to be, happiness is going to be joy is going to be it’s going to feel light, it’s not going to feel dark, it’s gonna feel kind of peaceful. And so you want to kind of remember moments in your life, where you have access this and when you access this happiness, okay, just simple happiness, simple joyfulness simple that and you start to remember, oh, yeah, I felt that, you know, last week, or I felt that last year, I felt that when I was five years old, or whatever it is, and you start to bring up that memory again, then it will remind you, and it will give you that emotion again.
Joshua Chin 31:34
Does that make sense? That makes sense. Yeah, that that helps. That makes sense. And I think that, you know, on top of that, it might be not not just from a spiritual point of view, but just the practice of mindfulness. And meditation, could help. I just kind of this is just a reminder to myself, in a way of, of just being a little more aware of how I’m holding out how I’m experiencing life, versus what life is happening to me, if that makes sense.
Leslie Kuster 32:15
Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, if you can, I, if you can connect with yourself. So what does that mean? Connecting with yourself, connecting with yourself means having a relationship with you, okay with you, not with someone else, or not with your computer or not with your phone and not with another person, but having relationship with you. And if you can have a moment in the day, where you have a relationship with yourself, I’m feeling anxious, or I’m feeling happy, or I’m feeling nervous, or I’m feeling hungry, or I’m feeling whatever it is, you start to create a relationship with yourself. And when you start to have a relationship with yourself, then that continues, it kind of grows, when you don’t have any relationship with yourself, then it’s really hard to find one, right? I mean, it’s just like having relationship with it with like, a boyfriend or a girlfriend or whoever it is, when you put time into that relationship, something happens with it, you know, often can go in a good direction, or can go in a bad direction, but is going in the direction. And the same thing with yourself when you put effort and time into a relationship with yourself. And that means spending time with yourself. You’re eating, thinking, being alone, going for a walk, it always has to do with being alone. It’s never with others at all. It’s always inside yourself. And when you start to have that relationship with yourself, then that starts to open up kind of a positive relationship that this is a self person, this person that you that you walk around with all the time actually has wisdom inside. And you start to connect with that wisdom and maybe that wisdom says things like you know, go outside and breathe some fresh air and you know, breathe in five breaths, you know, maybe that wisdom says put the computer away for this moment. You know, you it’s not connecting isn’t you’re having a hard time Wi Fi is not working? Is it? Okay, shut the screen down and open up the window and just breathe. So that’s all connecting with yourself. You’re listening to these signals.
Joshua Chin 34:38
I love that. That’s great advice. Um, Leslie, aside from Seven Keys to some figures, your book, what are some? What are some other books or material that you advice entrepreneurs read, especially going into 2022 and beyond?
Leslie Kuster 34:59
Yeah, I’d love to read so I one of my favorite books I read recently is called Playing Big by Tara Mohr, MOHR, great book for women entrepreneurs, talks a lot about mindset and actually talks about creating in I think she calls it an inner mentor. So like what we were just talking about in terms of getting some guidance from inside she calls it an inner mentor and actually creating a relationship with yourself and your own inner mentor. So I love that book. The other I’ll just share two more books. The other book that I love is a classic which is Think and Grow Rich from Napoleon Hill. Have you ever read it? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I mean that that’s just the classic mindset book that absolutely everybody should read. And then the third book that really changed my business is called Profit First by Mike Michalowicz and private Profit First is a it’s a financial book and it’s it’s teaches you basically creating different buckets so that you’re always paying yourself first. So this was a game changer for me. So you’re you basically are always paying yourself first you are then have the money left over to pay your operations and things like that. So it is it has a great story I’ll just briefly say he Mike McCalla wits had big businesses, he was doing multiple million 10s of millions in, in revenue, and he had no money, okay, he made no money. And he had to tell his wife and his nine year old daughter this during dinner one day that he literally was broke, even though he had multiple, you know, seven figure businesses actually at the time. And his daughter went upstairs to her room, and she brought her piggy bank down to him and said, Here, Daddy, you can have my money. And he said, this was like, such a humbling moment for him. And he realized he needed to do something different. And he started to really dive into the the money, the finances, the profitability because we all talk about top line revenue. But the truth is, it’s our net revenue, though the money that you actually are making that actually makes the difference in our lives. And he started to just focus on that number and two, he created a program called Profit First, and I implemented that in my business many years ago. absolute game changer. And that’s another book I really recommend. I love it.
Joshua Chin 37:49
And he Mike’s the one who wrote the Pumpkin Plan.
Leslie Kuster 37:52
Right? Exactly, exactly. He’s written several business books.
Joshua Chin 37:57
And what I love about his books is that it’s not it’s not a long read. It’s, it’s concise. It’s like just the right amount of information and the right stories to get a point across. Great recommendation. Leslie, for people listening are interested in connecting with you and learn more about your consulting business and your new book. Where’s the best place to connect to you?
Leslie Kuster 38:24
Definitely go to my website, which is Lesliekuster.com. I have a free ebook there called seven mistakes most women entrepreneurs make and what to do instead. So definitely check that out. And of course, you can find me also on Instagram too at Leslie Kuster official. I would love to hear from any of your listeners, and I’m here to really help other women be successful to
Joshua Chin 38:51
love it. Thank you so much, Leslie. And as usual, links are going to be the show notes below. You can go to Chronos.agency/podcast, our show notes. Leslie. Thank you so much for being the show.
Leslie Kuster 39:02
Thank you.
Outro 39:06
Thanks for listening to the eCommerce Profits Podcast. We’ll see you again next time and be sure to click Subscribe to get notified of future episodes.
