E12- Dare to Dream, Dare to Build: The Entrepreneur's Odyssey

Angie Ruff, founder and CEO of Manufacturing Food Ninja, shares her journey as an entrepreneur. She overcame personal hardships and started her own business. Angie emphasizes the importance of planning and strategy in starting a successful business. She highlights the value of having core values aligned with one's business and seeking guidance from resources like the Small Business Development Council. Angie also discusses the traits she has developed as an entrepreneur, including transparency, communication, and actively listening to customers. She believes in involving clients in the decision-making process and working together to find solutions. Welcome to Coachnomics Presents Podcast, a part of the ECS Network. This is the art of leadership. I'm your host, Laura Perez Earhart. I'm a management consultant and executive coach, and I've been consulting and coaching executive leaders for over a couple of decades. My guest is Angie Ruff. She's the founder and CEO of Manufacturing Food Ninja. In an era of technological advances, globalization, dynamic market landscapes, the spirit of entrepreneurship has become an indispensable force driving innovation, economic growth, and societal transformation. Entrepreneurialism embodies the visionaries and trailblazers who dare to challenge the status quo, possess the audacity to dream big, and are determined to turn their visions into reality. It's a mindset that values creativity, adaptability, and a relentless pursuit of excellence. It's an approach that empowers individuals to take ownership of their destinies, harnessing their unique talents and ideas to create something remarkable. In this podcast, you'll learn how Angie, who triumphed over personal hardship, her relentless spirit, and her aim to carve her path to designing and building a thriving enterprise. You can connect with Angie at Angie, A-N-G-I-E, at instituteofbranding.com, or if you're launching a business and want a 20-minute project review, go to Angie's calendar and schedule time at www.instituteofbranding.com forward slash booking dash calendar. The starting of business is not for the meek at heart, nor is it easy. It takes perseverance, patience, and creativity. In addition to all that, you need to understand the business. So Angie, welcome to my show. Thank you so much for having me today. I'm really excited to be here. Yeah, absolutely. So you have such a compelling story. Talk about how you came to the fork in the road and why you decided to start your own company. I had been working at a business for 16 years, and the owners of the business decided to shut the business down. At the same time, I was deciding on if I was going to be continuing my marriage, which was riddled with challenges, including domestic violence. And with four children at home, ranging at the time of ages from 5 to 18, it was very difficult for me to decide what path I was going to take. But I've always had that entrepreneurial bug. And for me, it was something that was going to tell me that, you know what, I had the ability to shape my destiny. I had the ability to carve the path of where I was going to move forward to. And so I had the opportunity to start a business and work through some of the challenges of what that business was going to look like until a hurricane came through and ripped the roof off of my warehouse. And I had to go back to being an employee again for a period of time. And it was after two and a half years of working for that employer, realizing that I've made a lot of people a lot of money, and I deserve more, to really jump into true entrepreneurship and start the companies that I run today. That takes a lot of perseverance. And whatever people's story is out there for starting a new business, first of all, my hat's off to you. Major life lessons there, but takes a lot of determination. You have done such a stellar job turning your life around. But it's also some great life lessons for your own kids to see how their mom has taken charge. You're not letting those obstacles get in your way. I love it. Everyone knows that stories of companies that have began in the garage or a dorm room, but no matter how humble to start, such as yours, success requires planning and an ambitious strategy. Let's talk about that. How did you start your planning? What was your strategy? Strategy for me was truly how did I want my business to look? What were the core values that I wanted my business to have? Because without those values, really, you can't properly hire, fire, get the right clients, get the right vendors, get the right partners in your business. Wanting to make sure that the values for my business aligned very much with my own moral compass. Engage with business, coach actually through the Small Business Development Council and getting all of the help and free service from those individuals to know how to craft a business plan, how to create financial statements, what I wanted those to look like, what the budgets needed to be for all of those things. Not just saying, oh, I'm going to start a business today. I'm going to make this for a little while because it really is a marathon, not a sprint. So for me, that strategy piece really was working with others that have helped in the goals and those values and then forging that path forward. It's as simple as even trying to make sure that I chose the right location for where the business needed to be. Location, location, location. You mentioned using a local resource. I know that SCORE is one of them. Is that who you used? I did not use SCORE. So SCORE is also near where I am. There is the Small Business Development Council, which is part of the SBA. And there are local SBDCs all across the United States. I believe it's SBDC.org to get that information. And they have free coach business coaches and they have classes in various locations. Some of them have non-LCs and others are free. And they actually teach you all of the things of how to write a business plan. And of course, you could go to Google, but what better place than to have it right from the start if you ever plan to approach SBA for a loan. It takes money to make money and you have to demonstrate that you also have a small nest egg capital to be able to get a loan. But as you said, the SBDC.org or SBA or even SCORE, they do have folks there that are retired. A couple of decades ago when I was starting my own business, I did go through our local SCORE. And they had a robust team of professionals who, these were retired CEOs or people that own or ran a business. They lend their expertise. At that time, not a fee, but if I wanted to join specific programs, then they did start to, there were some minimal fees. But it was definitely worthwhile and it sounds like it worked, the SBDC worked really well for you. Absolutely, it did. And it's actually a relationship that I've maintained over the years. And our local SBDC has even launched an entrepreneurial program called the Elk Collective that is specifically for women entrepreneurs. And I sit on the board of that today to help other women entrepreneurs launch their businesses. Yeah, I love it. So as an executive consultant and having my own consulting and coaching firm, that's one of the areas that we do some mentoring, we do some brief reviews at no charge. And then any other programs thereafter, we start to charge. Again, there's so many different programs out there and affiliations that can help folks who are looking to step into starting their own business for the first time. So good information here. Thanks for sharing that, Angie. Absolutely. You know, speaking of self-starters, billionaire Mark Cuban, the owner of Dallas Mavericks. He's a TV personality on the Shark Tank and Atlantafest. He recently talked about effort as a competitive advantage. He stated that the one thing in life you can control is your effort. And I love that. Be willing to do so is a huge competitive advantage because most people don't. And he further stated that putting in effort means going beyond what's required to solve problems. Take the initiative and exhaust every possible option to find answers. Cuban also stated that this is a trait that folks should cultivate above all others to succeed in business. So Angie, I'm curious. What traits have you developed as an entrepreneur? And how do you stand out from your competitors? I believe that some of the traits that people learn as entrepreneurs, some of those you learn on the job, if you will, and transparency and communication, all those are traits that I already had. Fine-tuning those and learning how to meet your customers where they are and your employees where they are. And I think by doing that and having a very much like what you just mentioned with Mark Cuban with the effort, utilizing the transparency and the communication with a way to meet your customers where they are allows you to put forth the effort of that we are going to figure out the solution together. There is a solution out there and we're going to work on it together and making sure that we document every step of the way and that we have an open dialogue of this works or this doesn't work. And if you're not happy, please tell me why. If you're not happy, let me tell you why. And those traits, it's something that really has to be grown and cultivated as you continue to grow your business because you're going to have constant changes and challenges to face and how to just meet your customers, again, like I was saying, just where they are because they may be at their last wit on how they're going to make something work in their business. If you can just listen, active listening to them and really just hear what the root of the problem is, sometimes our most valuable trait is just being quiet. A hundred percent, most people have a hard time listening, just level one listening and picking up a cue, the emotional cues on what the individual is saying. But you're right. It does take effort and effort equals transparency and communication. But I also agree with you. People need to know that making the client a part of the process, even though we're the experts, you need to make the client a part of the process and give them a stake in the game. If we're guiding them and consulting them in some way, not only is it our opportunity to listen to them and listen to their pain points, but make them a part of the process to make the decision or course correct. Right, Angie? Absolutely. Completely agree. If you don't have the client's goals in mind, this is not going to work. By helping them through their own processes and helping them realize where their challenges are and how to get through them, that is a great relationship. That is fostering collaboration and great communication. When we start a business, also focusing on specific aspects that will bring in money, which is essential, right? We need funds to keep us going and help us sustain while growing the business. Talk about some areas or top three things you focused on when you started your business early on. Biggest would be cash is king. Got to know where it's going and where it's coming from. Without knowing those details, it can completely decimate your business. But there are really other items outside of cash that can... things that, while it may not be immediate cash dominated, it's definitely going to impact the cash at the end of the day. And that would be duplicity of function. And while it's great to have people that are cross-trained and know how to do other people's jobs, you don't need two people doing the job of one. Or you don't need to create processes where you have to place something in one folder and then you have to copy it and email it to another folder and then it has to get dialed and text-ed to another folder. Just really streamlining processes was really huge because I think in the early stages, you want to make sure that you have everything there and you can get overzealous and you find yourself duplicating effort. Finally, it was really checking in with my staff, getting their feedback, seeing if they could see things that maybe I couldn't see on how to improve the business because I very much wanted employees' buy-in on how they felt we could do things better, faster, more efficient, with better quality. I love it. So what I heard you say is, for efficiency purposes, stay away from duplicating efforts. However, the one effort that I do duplicate is I like cross-training staff. So, you know, I learned early on, Angie, and I don't know, maybe this is something that you do based on the role and responsibilities, but if I have a staff member that's going to be out, I can rely on another one to kind of pick up in that area while my staff member is gone for a day or even a week. Life happens. We know that, right? So we need to prepare for it. Absolutely. Yeah. Feedback is crucial. We don't know it all. We don't always have the answers. And as leaders, it's not our job to have all the answers, and that's when we lean into our staff members. They're the ones doing the tasks, right? They know firsthand what's going on. A lot of times, we aren't able to work in the business as we should be working on our business to a certain extent, and so we have to get that feedback. Absolutely. Absolutely. Weighing in when we have meetings, depending on what's going on, we have an open session where everybody just lays out what's going on in their area, things that, you know, obstacles maybe that they've hit, frustrations, and it just helps to clear the air, but it also helps me take the temperature of the team so I'm not blindsided when things come up. And I do encourage them, and I think you do this too, Angie, is encourage them to come to you when an issue surfaces because the sooner you know about it, the quicker you're going to be able to respond and help them out. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. And as far as leaders and leading a company, building it, our focus is, you know, that long-term and sometimes short-term vision, but it can be lonely at the top. Who did you lean into and who do you continue to lean into today while you're planning, leading your own company? Do you work with trusted advisors, a coach, a business partner? Who do you lean into? ♪ I've changed over the period of time that I've been in business. When I first started in business, it was leaning into a few individuals that I outsourced, such as an HR partner, someone that could really help me navigate all of the ins and outs because people were very much a focus of how I wanted the business to be. I really wanted my employees to feel valued, and so that was a huge part for me. Shortly after I started the business, I also went into a peer coaching group that had the addition of a business coach as well, and if we would bring the challenges in our business and move those along as, you know, share thrills and challenges and ups and downs and all those kind of things, and those were great, and I made some lifelong friends in that organization. Much like a lot of people during COVID, I had to reduce some expenses, and so that, unfortunately, was one of those that needed to go away. I did bring in a business partner for a short period of time, which allowed me to lean on that person and then outside of that, then I just really leaned and tried to create like a mastermind group of individuals that are like-minded, have businesses where perhaps we don't do the exact same thing as far as industry goes, but our mission and vision are the same for our customers regardless of the service we provide. So I continued to have one-on-ones with those types of individuals or reach out to peers from my peer coaching group, and then, of course, I still have the SBDC in my back pocket if I ever needed to reach out to my original business coach because she's an amazing person and will always take my calls. Yeah, absolutely. I just think that having trusted advisors, it's like when we were younger and we were developing our career path, having some good mentors or even when we're developing our business, having those trusted advisors is really important because these are folks that we know that we can trust to that'll give us feedback and be truthful with us and hold us accountable. As a seasoned professional and having my own consulting firm, there are folks like you, Angie, that I continue to involve in my business processes or just thinking through issues or even if I'm going to involve the business itself, I ask for weigh-in and feedback, and that's always been very helpful to me. Let's talk about your business adaptation. It's about recognizing the need to change, implementing it, and managing change as it comes or even if the unexpected happens within the company. How do you manage your business if sales drop, for example? Are there other markets or areas you tap into to increase sales? And if so, what are they, if you're willing to share? It's actually happened to me, so it's definitely something that I can be more than willing to share. Business adaptation and making those changes, it's difficult. No one likes change, not even in our personal lives. We like what we have and we want it to just keep going, of course. But you have to recognize that if that elephant's too big, then let's eat something smaller, right? Let's have a nice little piece of cheesecake instead. Absolutely. Yeah, so with regards to sales dropped, it happened to us. We had, unfortunately, a significant client that we lost. And so rather, because our sales process is sometimes rather long, it can take anywhere from four weeks to two years to get a client, depending on the type of client. We really had to pivot and look at the market and say, okay, what can we capture today? Being that I am in dry food manufacturing and being that we have the ability to bake very bespoke recipes and we have a recipe book of over 20,000 recipes, we decided to take that as our whole motto of being a small batch handcrafted manufacturer to take it down to even the smallest of levels. And the market that we decided to tap into at that time was actually corporate gifts where we were able to engage with, because it was coming close to Christmas time, we were able to engage with local businesses that ordinarily we would not even utilize those people as customers. And we were able to create and craft very beautiful bespoke gifts that they were able to give to their customers. An example would be there is a local company that does emergency cleanup. So like if someone were to have a flood or perhaps a pipe burst or something like that and they go in and they do the cleanup for those types of companies, well they've got customers. And so we created a very cute Christmas hot chocolate for them that had their logo on it, had their, filled people's names on it and we were able to craft that in such a small quantity for them they would be able to have something that you just can't go on the internet and buy. It was really something that we could take and even design their graphics more rather than just picking whatever happened to be on the web page. It gave us just enough boost going this route to get us over the hump and give us the time and buy us the time that we needed for our other sales efforts to happen while we waited on that sales cycle to complete. And I am a huge firm believer in that, you know, just look around at what you have and figure out another way to do that. And we were able to do that in such a small quantity for them that they were able to do that and figure out another way to use it. Absolutely, it's improvising but it's also constantly looking at different ways to boost your business. There's so many different aspects whether it's consulting, food manufacturing, looking around to see what is it that we do really well and I think you zeroed in on that. And also Richard Branson I think we all know who he is. He's quite the entrepreneur. He's the CEO and founder of Virgin Group. He stated that emotional quotient is more important than IQ for success. And science suggests that he's right. Don't let less than stellar academic performance hold you back from your dreams and that's a statement that he made a while back ago. And this is a bit of trivia and I love this. He flunked out of high school at age 16 and never returned. But he still managed to amass a net worth of several billions of dollars and he earned a knighthood of all things and that's what intelligence plays in part of how you lead your team and build meaningful relationships. I would say it's the number one thing that plays a part in any communication and relationship that we have. And it's the number one thing that plays a part in any relationship that we have. It goes back to what I was stating I think earlier on in our conversation when I said you really have to meet people wherever they are. When you have an employee that comes in and they're giving you attitude. Why are they giving you attitude? Because they're going to ask you how was your weekend? A great leader will know what you did this weekend. So really just having that empathy, having the patience and the willingness to really be in your place. I don't want them to come to you with anything. If someone comes to me and says I messed up I don't want them to fear me so much that they won't tell me anything and then I find out after the fact. I would much rather have someone to help me. And being available and vulnerable myself showing my staff when I make mistakes or owning up and showing them how I want them to respond is incredibly important because those are the people that they are going to continue to follow you. They follow you because they see that you have a good level of EQ but also you have a good level of self awareness and confidence in yourself. Making sure that staff members trust us. They feel comfortable and confident that if they come to us and there's an issue that they can address it with us we're not going to lose it or go overboard. We may be upset and clearly say I'm pretty confident that I'm engaged and motivated and ensure that everyone is working towards that common goal. Angie, what approaches let's talk about some approaches that you use in tactics to achieve those goals with the team. We also review how we did. We don't wait months on end and go wow why didn't we make money that month. We are making sure that at the end of the month we can do things better. It's really just appreciating our people saying thank you and being genuine with that. We also celebrate birthdays every month and even if they are not born. We also do a floating holiday for all of our employees that is meant to be taken 30 days before or after their birthday. We think it's important to check in with them. I know that seems super easy but it is important. I ask questions like when was the last time you had a conversation with someone about their birthday. Giving recognition where it's due. It doesn't need to be anything major. It could be something small that one of our staff members accomplished or helped with. It's important. Just saying thank you is a golden word and just appreciating our staff members is everything. I love that you guys even recognize having birthdays when there's no actual birthday to celebrate. There's always an occasion to be heard. Absolutely. During the times of, you know, we're running businesses, we're trying to balance everything out, making sure that the company's running, our staff is happy, they're healthy, we're running a healthy organization. You know, of course no one likes to admit their failures, but that's part of the process. You have to, you just don't have to stay there, right? You have to just bounce back and move forward. But for me, I, early on, one of the biggest failures that I had was that I trusted you quickly and I did not have the right processes in place to hold people accountable. And while there were some amazing people that were on my team that spoke a good game and I trusted, I did not go back behind and for those, that biggest lesson was to, you know, always check to see what's going on and put processes in place that include accountability from the start and making sure that I follow those appropriately. You know, how do, how do you bounce back from any of the failures? And I don't know how many you can encounter at all and really I just didn't give up. I knew there was always going to be a way and even though there were days where I just was super down on myself and couldn't believe I let that happen, it was really just reaching on for my business where what I really aligned with those, reviewing that alignment and then putting a plan in place to get back on track and following that plan and taking action, not just living in the failure and letting it take over for me, really just pushing forward. So the message that I'm hearing is never take your hands off the wheel. That would be correct. We get blindsided and we fail, we bounce back, we fail, lessons learned. One of the biggest lessons just like you, Angie, is never take your hands off the wheel. Things will fail so quickly and go down so fast if we're not paying attention. Communicate, communicate, communicate. Your way of bouncing back was lessons learned, you persevered, you kept pushing forward despite the failure. Failure is just an event, right, Angie? It is, yes, it is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. 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