You're listening to cubicle to CEO episode 222. I've always felt work life balance is an unrealistic expectation to strive for, because different seasons require different priorities. So I usually opt for the goal of work life harmony instead. Today's guest shares that same sentiment. Tina Wells, founder of RLVNT media and WNDRLN, launched a successful market research company at age 16, has published more than 15 books over the course of the last two decades, and has been recognized and Fast Company's 100 most creative people in business and Essence's 40 under 40. Her acclaimed Elevation Approach a framework for finding work life harmony Tina developed while confronting her own burnout expanded with a book and corresponding product line available at Target stores nationwide. And today's case study Tina takes us through how she's applied the four phases of her elevation approach to six extra revenue in two years, while cutting her daily work hours in half, and how you can apply it to your life seasonally, monthly, weekly and daily.
Welcome to cubicle to CEO the podcast. I'm your host, Ellen Yin. I quit my job without a backup plan and bootstrapped my first $300 freelance project into $2 million in revenue by age 28. On the show, you'll hear weekly case study interviews with leading entrepreneurs and CEOs who share one specific strategy that successfully grew their business revenue. Skip the expensive and time consuming learning curve of testing everything yourself by borrowing what actually works from the best and brightest mentors. You'll also get a front row seat to my founders journey through transparent income reports and behind the business solo episodes, subscribe now so we can grow together every Monday.
Hey, friends, I have a new friend that I made this year, Tina Wells who I was so honored to get to be on a panel with at Create & Cultivate Future Summit in Austin earlier this year. And Tina is I mean, what is Tina not is maybe a better is a better word, which if you heard the intro, you already know I mean, she's so accomplished. He's done so many things in different fields. And if you want to Google or listen to her founder story, it's definitely worth the research. But as you know, on this show, we are focused on asking founders, the business questions you can't google. So Tina, I would love for you to share with our listeners who are meeting you for the first time your cubicle to CEO story, the catalyst that really launched you into entrepreneurship. But this is just one small piece of Tina's story. So really, I do encourage all of you to go Google and listen to many of her other wonderful podcast interviews after this. So Tina, take the floor.
I heard that I was reflecting on your title. I was like, I haven't spent that much time in the cubicle, right. Like I, I started in business when I was 15. The quick story is I wanted to be a fashion writer, you know, at 15 years old saw a job ad in the back of 17. magazine to be a writer for a new newspaper for girls I applied got a writing gig. And that really catapulted me into a career in market research. And I'm sure you're like, how do you go from writing to research? Well, I was a product review editor. And so I got to try products and tell people what I thought and literally spent 20 plus years doing that. And I think about what I get to do today. And I'm like, I'm still in a place of trying product and now building product and hoping that people will love it.
And so I would say my quick story is really about being curious about bleeding into things that I was passionate about. Maybe not really understanding everything, but just kind of trusting my gut and putting one foot in front of the other and saying, I'm just going to try this new thing. And then that led to, as you said, a multifaceted career. And I love all the different things I get to do. But when I think about what grounds me and all of it, it's really the idea of using the skills that I'm best at which is really being a builder, right Brand Builder, or visionary in different areas coming up with product that I think serves different communities. I'm really creating the game plan and the marketing and the comms in between. And that's what I love to do and hope to do forever.
That's amazing. Well, you are an incredibly gifted storyteller as any may have ever read Tina's books or read them to your kids maybe would know and I think you're such a great connector of dots and speaking of all of the multi hyphenate things you do huge congratulations are in order your brand new product line WNDRLN just rolled out in Target stores this week. I know that's a huge deal. And I actually before we even get into the case study I just out of curiosity speaking of curiosity, I feel like I have to ask your company RLVNT media and multimedia content venture also is spelled without vowels and then WNDRLN also is missing the unintentional branding play. What's the story behind that?
I do like, I mean, in my company that does business with target is called RLVNT products, right? And I, I like the thing, it's it's the, I think the nod to the marketer in me, right, that always wants to come up with the cheeky thing, right that it's making you think a little bit more. And so I'm always going to be a marketer. And you know, with WNDRLN, one, I think owning IP, especially for all the women, all your listeners, it's so important to be able to own your brands and to really own your stories. And so when I'm coming up with things I think a lot about what can I create that then makes it really easy for me to own that in the market. So there's a part of that, but also, just the play on words, I think will always be a nod to my start in marketing.
Absolutely. And I feel like in a way, it almost makes your brain easier to remember. And it's funny, you know, like, psychologists have shown that our brain will fill in the gaps with words. So even if you take the vowels out, like we know exactly what that word is supposed to be. So I personally think it makes your brand's memorable. So kudos on that. And your case study today is all about how you 6Xed your revenue in two years while maintaining work life harmony, through the Elevation Approach, business framework that you've developed, you've actually even written a book on this. I love by the way that you wrote it as work life harmony. So many times entrepreneurs are chasing work life balance, I also choose to substitute the word balance for harmony when possible. But I'm curious your take on it, like why use that word harmony? What does that mean? Or signify to you differently than balance?
Yeah, thank you. It's a great question. I think I'm part of that generation of the like, work hard play hard generation. And what that really meant when you thought about the idea of balance is the more work you did the more play right, and then all you're doing is adding more things to the scale. And when I started to think about what harmony felt like, for me, I like to describe it as like, a plate of your favorite meal, right? Only, you know, all the ingredients that make it just right. And you know, when you add something or you add a spice or something, and it's not right, right, and you're like, Nope, that's gotta go. Don't like that flavor. But it's the idea of you want the plate that's just perfect, you don't want to keep stacking things.
Because there are seasons where we have to work really hard, right, I'm in a season now where I'm working really hard. And so maybe the main piece on my dish right now, or my plate is my work. But those side dishes are going to be the things I need to balance it out. Right. And that, to me is what makes it really harmonious. Instead of the idea of balance being about stacking things, it's like, well, maybe that is a little bit antiquated. And what we really want is harmony, and we want all the flavors and all the things working together. Even if it looks a little messy to other people.
Who that way, I'm such a, just a sucker for analogies. That's how my brain learns. And so I really love this visual of, to your point, when you're stacking things, if you add more work, you have to add more of the other thing or vice versa, right to make the scale even out. But I love this idea of like creating your own plate making sure the flavors come together in this beautiful way that satisfies and fulfills you. And that's personal, like you said, so that is such a great, I feel like introduction into your elevation framework. I know there's four pieces to this right preparation, inspiration, recreation transformation, I would love first for you to high level walk us through the process of what each of these things mean. And then we'll kind of delve a little bit deeper into how they're actually applied into your own business.
Sure. So as I talked about, in my book, I was a 27 year old burnout, right. And I, at that point, had been running my company for 11 years, and just kind of got to the place where it's like all the guests had left the tank, right. And I'm like, Well, why is that happening? I feel like I have a good system, right. And many of us founders, especially young founders were like We nailed the system early. And what I realized was, I was in a perpetual loop of preparation, inspiration. And what that means when we're talking about these phases is preparation is where you do all that work to help you figure out if an idea is feasible, right? So you're doing the numbers. And you're really just saying like getting curious about the idea, you're getting organized. And you're like, okay, whatever the thing is, I want to open a retail store, I want to open a digital, you know, first company, whatever it is, you're doing the things in preparation. Inspiration is when you actually go and socialize that big idea to people who can really help you achieve it. Right.
So it's not talking to your friends about opening a bakery, right? It's talking to bakers, who own bakeries about what it would be like for you to do that. Right. So you're in a sense, getting serious. And what I found was, I would be really prepared, I go into these conversations and get even more excited. And then I go right back into prepping again. Right and that was the loop I was in and it wasn't until I discovered recreation. And you know, there's some fun stories in the book that talk about how I discovered that but the idea of really disconnecting taking a break. And that can mean a lot of different things based on where you are as a founder, right? It can mean a five minute Break, it can mean 15 minutes, it can mean two weeks. Or it can be what happened to me four years ago, which was a six month sabbatical. And it looks very different for everyone. And once I really hooked into what recreation could do, I realized I was actually bringing more ideas to life, right.
So all the things I'm doing right now, it's not a heavy lift. And I know it sounds crazy, because one would think it is a heavy lift. But it was when I gave myself time, and really looked at recreation is that season of recharging to bring things together, that was the game changer for me. And so that is really now how I live my life. And I talk about this from a seasonal approach all the way down to how I live my day, right? Like, I'm right now I'm in the inspiration part of my day, where I'm way more social, I'm gonna have some recreation after this, and then transformation, I'm gonna have to bring my day together. And so I figured out the formula that would work for me that would help me achieve the things I wanted to achieve without sacrificing myself, right. And I think as founders, you know, it would be such a sad thing to finally get to the top of the mountain, right, but we're physically unhealthy. We barely made it, our personal relationships aren't intact. And so the goal of the elevation approach is to help you achieve work life harmony, without giving up on yourself or sacrificing parts of yourself to get there.
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that, that visual of like climbing a mountain and getting to the top, like, you want to be proud of yourself, but you also want to look around and see the people that helped you get there celebrating with you, right? It's lonely if you're there at the top. So, again, love the analogies, I want to dig into kind of each of these on a more granular level. First of all, the preparation, the ideation phase, I guess, if you will, we are coming up with all of these new ideas, and you're getting excited. I feel like and I'm sure you can relate to this as a multi passionate and multi hyphenate that as entrepreneurs, sometimes this is like the easiest part for many of us, right? We're like a tank, there's no shortage of new ideas that pop into our heads at all times of day, especially when we're trying to fall asleep. So I'm just curious for yourself, when you found yourself in that cyclical loop of only toggling between preparation and inspiration. How did you learn? Or how did you filter the ideas that didn't need your attention? Right then and there? How did you finally decide, okay, if I'm in this preparation phase, and then I go socialize this idea to people, I can move to that third stage, I don't need to go back to preparation, like walk us through what happened there?
Yeah, I think what I realized was, I was so privileged to have access to some of the greatest thinkers, right, and friends who were becoming people becoming friends with me, who were just these brilliant minds that I'm like, am I giving all their great advice time to actually sink in? Or am I off to the next thing, right? And that's when I start to say, okay, it was almost a gratitude thing for me, right? Like, I just got an hour of this really great person's time. And they really said some really important things. I need to take a moment, right. And I started to realize that I would take a moment, I would do things differently, and the outcome would look different, right? And I'm still I always say, recreation was the hardest thing for me to do. And I am a numbers person, I, my background is research, I actually started measuring the efficacy of it in my own life, right? Like I had no time to waste on things that weren't going to make sense. And I'm like, wow, when I like have this really important conversation, and then I take a beat. And I actually don't go right into doing something more things start to happen, right.
So I think it's a noticing and I had a friend recently say to me, you really noticed yourself like she's like I was talking about something. I was like, well, this happened to my dad. And then that happened. And she's like, you really are like observing. I'm like, Well, I'm a researcher, right? So I need the aura ring and all the things. But that's what it was, I think. So often, we're moving and moving and moving. And we need to take a beat. And we need to take a pause, right? And whatever that looks like to just let all the things we're doing right. Again, it's that cooking analogy, right? Sometimes the simmering is great for flavors, right? When everything has time, right? You don't want to just cook it and then it's like, give all the flavors time to just start to you know, spend more time in the pot and stir it and take some time versus moving through things very fast.
Yeah, absolutely. I can see that. And as someone who is naturally impatient, I probably could use a lot more simmer a lot more taking a beat a lot more recreation in my life. I see you nodding so good. Good to know, we're not alone in that boat. Could you provide, I guess, like a real life example of you mentioned a conversation, let's say you could run with that. Or if there's something else that comes to mind. Could you give us like a real life example of what you did in that taking a beat, like what activity or lack of activity was happening during that recreation phase of taking a beat that allowed these other things to come through that wouldn't have if you had just kept moving forward?
And again, I think a lot of these things are like happy accidents. I think many of us stumble upon big ideas that are happy accidents, right? And I remember We're having this like really important conversation and going right into a slow flow class, right? So this is not me going into like, a hit workout or anything, right? It's like we're into like my spinning class, right? This is me literally going in, like with a friend like, Hey, we're gonna go do this decompressing thing. And I just had this conversation and then immediately went into a whole other way of thinking and being an actor, I was like, Oh, I just came up with an idea to solve a problem I didn't even know I had. And that was an aha moment. I was like, I didn't go from that call, to writing down takeaways, and all the things I would normally do, right?
Because I just didn't have I just was like, Alright, I already booked this thing, I'm gonna go into this thing. And I was like, notice how I felt. Notice how it felt to not be able to react immediately to it, and like, get to action like I normally would. And I was like, I like that. But again, I didn't think it was a strategy. I was like, maybe that was a fluke, right? I'm gonna test it with this type of thing. And every single time, it really was getting better than the time before. And I was just so it was, like, shocking to me, because I just didn't think that that would be the outcome, to be honest. I thought it was, you know, and this is at a time when everyone was talking about the hustler and the female Hustler, you gotta hustle, you got it. So I was, I think there's a feeling of guilt, right when we're taking a pause, that we're not working hard or hustling, but the work I was producing was so much better. And it felt so much more intentional and grounded, because I was doing things that were really bringing me to a place of grind of being able to really ground myself.
So what I'm hearing is, in this example, that if you have a really productive conversation, or a really inspiring conversation, or you just did something that required a lot of, I guess, active attention, that if you then move into something that is a little bit more about like releasing thoughts, not just immediately, you know, writing down all of your takeaways and whatnot, and like you said, going to a slow flow, yoga class, and just letting yourself be that you have found that to be a good way to practice that phase of recreation.
Yeah. And then also, I'll say, another example, when my niece was younger, you know, kids require our full attention so much, and I love that about them, right. And they kids, I talk a lot about this in my book, they're masters at play, and just being in the moment. And so I would find to their, you know, the way my work life is, I would have moments of like, I'm gonna go grab her from school for my sister, and I'm just finishing up a call, right? And what happens after that call, I can't go back into work mode, I'm picking up my knees, I go into this play mode. And then later, same thing happened, like, Oh, I'm really absorbing more of what's happening. And I was also very present in that play activity.
So I think when you think about recreation, it is this idea of play and also being present, right? So you're not just doing it to say you're doing something, that's why I talk about exercise is really being part of preparation, right? It's the thing that gets us able to do all the other things, right? Very different than this type of recreation, it could be cooking, it could be anything that makes you use a different set of skills. So for me, where I had to be to play with my niece, right, or focus on the conversations with her is a very different place where I am, it's like CEO, entrepreneur, right? So anything that can get you out of that safe zone is really important.
That's a great way to think about it. I completely understand what you're saying about like flexing a different side of your, of not only your brain, but I feel like your personality, like Aunt Tina is probably different than CEO Tina, like you said, so I really liked that example that you gave. Speaking of exercises to help you come up with the idea. So we talked about recreation, that first phase though, preparation, when you're focusing on the feasibility of your idea, and also coming up with these ideas. What is your favorite? Do you have a go to way of sourcing inspiration? Or, and or testing, like you said, the feasibility of these ideas?
So absolutely. First thing on the list, right? So you know, there are four phases to the elevation approach. And each phase has three principles of instant elevation, the very first principle of instant elevation is to declutter your space. And I go into talking about how it's not just your physical space, right? It's digital, it's emotional. That is always how I start something new. I look at where do I need to open space? You know, if I'm in a moment of feeling anxious or overwhelmed, I immediately say, I need to declutter some space. I don't know what it is yet, but it's gonna become apparent, right? So I might look around and say, kitchen island is looking a bit cramped, I gotta get on that, or my closet needs some organizing, or I have too many emails in my inbox, or combination of all of those. And it inevitably opens up space, right?
And then the next thing is to get curious and then know your numbers, right? So we're talking about curiosity. You need space, you need space to invite in these new ideas, these new thoughts and if everything feels cramped, then you're not in a pod. serve, receiving and saying, Okay, I've made space for you now big idea, there's a place for you to come. Because if those ideas are coming, you don't have buckets or ways to, you know, or a space to spend five minutes or take the call, what are you doing it for? Right? And so, always start at the place of decluttering. Whatever space, you need to declutter, if you want to welcome in that inspiration, for sure.
I like that. And it's funny, after you said that, I kind of had this internal realization to that even if I'm not actively staring at a mess, whether it is that physical or digital clutter, probably somewhere in my subconscious, there's a part of my brain that is thinking about it, which makes it hard, right to receive and to focus, like you said, and maybe just to bring this down to an even more tactical level. Like if we pull in what's happening in real time in your life right now, that product line that you just launched in Target wondering, you create carry on suitcases and amazing travel accessories, I'm so excited to go check it out on my local Target, because I travel all the time. So very excited about that. If we relate that to the preparation phase, how did that idea come to life in your head? Like, first of all, if you can remember that day, what did you declutter before it happened? And then and then what sparked that idea?
Yeah, so it's fun, I built the whole collection at my kitchen islands. So there was definitely there was a time I remember when I decided I needed to get a studio space that was like, my entire, like, island kitchen island, and my dining room is full of product, I still have product samples in here for future collections. So there was a decluttering really to physically make space to look at different product samples and everything I had to do to build the line. And then I got curious, you know, and I really looked at what is happening in the market, what's working, what's not, what's the open space, and that is how I look at every product I'm making, whether it's a book, or something like a luggage and travel accessories, it's what's the open space.
And then I did you know, my old school marketer, perceptual mapping, where I literally mapped out where the brand would fit versus competition, I looked at competition on the dollar side versus collections that tend to target you know, women, only men and women, like I looked across the board at many different things. So lots of time to get curious, right? And then immediately from get curious to knowing my numbers, how big is the market? What are the diverse brands in the market? You know, I really had to get to know this business and understand my numbers. And then the other numbers part was, what do I want to sell it for? Right, a big part of doing business with target, it's less about colors and patterns. And one would think and much more about understanding the numbers and how the business actually works. And, you know, I build end caps, which means I have to account for revenue for the entire line of products, such as a product I get to introduce this line has 13 products in the first collection, right? So it's a lot more math and numbers. And so, you know, you can see how that's a pretty tedious preparation phase. Absolutely.
And the idea of kind of zooming way, way, way out and looking at the market share in general, for a specific space, like luggage, like travel accessories. This is actually something interesting that I don't think we've had a guest on who specifically has ever referenced this. So I do want to take this opportunity to have you expand on that. I think for someone like myself, for example, who comes from a digital first business where I kind of like fell into this by accident, really with freelancing for marketing clients. And then you know, my business has evolved to education, and now media, and I never really had that first analysis phase where I was looking at the market and saying, okay, like, what is the market share for a company like mine? And so, for someone like you, who has a lot of experience doing that, how do you relate something that can feel so zoomed out, like, Oh, this is a $6 billion market? Right? How do you relate that to what you specifically are actually building?
Yeah, so um, you know, I have the elevation approach for business course. And in that course, I teach in a module about knowing the total and target market, that's incredibly important for every founder, you want to know what the entire market looks like, and then exactly what the market you're targeting looks like. And those can be very, very different numbers. And, you know, I am in a niche of, I've really carved out a niche for WNDRLN of saying, Listen, I'm a black female founder of a luggage and travel accessories company. And those don't really exist, right? And so I want to really own this niche instead of going big and saying, I want to be the biggest new innovation and no, I understand that there's a community that's incredibly underserved by this industry. And I want to own that niche.
And I think I understand how big the market is in total, and I understand how small my personal target market is, and knowing that was two things was incredibly important. It's the boundaries. And it really helps bookend the business. But I know how big we can get I know the key players I know, you know, if you want to get acquired, you have to know who are you going to go to, you know, who are the players that are looking and you want to carve out something that's so special that it makes sense for someone to say, I see where this could really fit. Right. And I think that's part of what we're all looking for is what's our legacy plan? How do we want to exit this particular business? And I, for me, my personal way of doing things is to think about all those things at the beginning. So I'm not scrambling in the middle or at the end to build that storyline. Right.
And having that amount of I think foresight and just a long term vision is also something that can be difficult for founders who haven't experienced an exit or who haven't experienced building something up to the scale, where the conversation of an exit would even make sense. I would love to know for you understanding that you wanted to own being a black female founded, you know, luggage and travel accessory brand and having that be your defined target market. You mentioned, this is an underserved community. And you wanted to own that niche. What is one specific thing that you built into your product that you feel uniquely serves that community?
I definitely think that color story, and I think the patterns, right, and our tribal pattern is so important to me. colors that look great against all different skin tones really important, right? You know, I felt like when I was really thinking about the diverse customer, and really thinking about black women in general, we love style, we love fashion, I'll tell you one of the best moments yesterday was on Instagram, someone tagged me in a post, where she said her Louis Vuitton bag strap broke, and she went and grabbed my fashion strap from Target. And I was like, in the best case scenario, that is what I would want to happen, because that's how I mix and match. And I felt very seen like you get that I made this for you, right. And so for that fashion conscious customer. But if you're looking at the colors, and you're looking at the textures and patterns, it's clear that I'm speaking to an audience that normally doesn't get spoken to when we're talking about travel. And also, you tend to see a lot of like the black and the gray suitcase. I'm like, I want something more joyful, I want something definitely more vibrant and more elevated.
And then you go into like my packing cubes come they come with a cosmetic organizer. That was definitely a nod to you know, more of the female customer saying, let's organize some things like the travel bottles and the different colors, right? So there are a lot of little nods I have in there saying I see you I remember when I was in sampling, I showed a suitcase to my hairstylist at the time. And she said, Oh my goodness, I love that this color looks so great against my skin tone, you know, and I was like, that's such a moment, right? I never thought about my suitcase needing to have that pop. But, you know, those kinds of reinforcements.
But I think what I'm really saying is for any of you out there who are building something, I had an idea of the customer in my head, and every single decision I made was for her. Right? And I knew every am I choosing more in line with what she wants or less in line with what she wants I'm writing copy, is it more in line, even down to the advertising and having like a vintage Mercedes and the I mean, these are products that all cost under $150. Right. So one would argue like you went way up scale with the campaign, but it was all of us staying together, we know who she is. And we know that she is both shopping at Louis Vuitton, and also going to Target and I kept saying my customer is going to literally want to run out of the store with this product because they think they're getting such a steal, right that they're gonna want to get out. And like I gotta get all these things now because there's no way this is the price. That is the feeling I really wanted to create. And having that idea of who that customer was the entire time was so helpful.
So so helpful to hear that as a filter. And I feel like that moves us kind of right into inspiration. I know for our listeners, we're going a little bit out of order, we covered recreation more in depth, which is that third phase, and then we just covered preparation, that first phase. But the second phase inspiration, once you have this very clear idea of let's just continue on with this example. You know that women that you could see buying this luggage and being really excited about it. When you talk about socializing it to the right people in this use case. Who would that be? And when you say socialize, is it a mirror? Presentation of an idea and the validation from them that yes, they think this is a good thing to continue with? Or are you asking very specific questions or looking for specific markers to give yourself the greenlight to keep going.
Yeah, so I, I spent my career retail adjacent as a marketer, mostly in CPG, which is consumer packaged goods, right. So working for very, very large companies that sell hundreds of products to big retailers including target, but I had never myself sold directly to retail. And so when I talked about like really socializing, I went to friends who I knew had specific experience not only with retail but with retailers I was talking to because I wanted to understand what business was going to look like with them, you know, and how I was going to need and things like, what are the things you wish you knew, and so many of those conversations saved me from some pretty painful things that could have happened, you know, and things that, you know, inevitably retail is a very up and down thing, right. And we are at the mercy of the big retailers. And so whatever is going on in their world, absolutely is going on in our world, and just getting advice about how to deal and how to navigate. But what was so helpful was understanding what to do, and how to really set up the business and my own business, and that it's so critical in inspiration.
And I can't say this enough, this is not the time to talk to your cheerleaders. And if you've read the book, you know about the different types of people you need in your life. This is not where you go for cheerleaders who say you're so awesome, go launch the cafe go do this. It is where you go to people who have done previously, what you were trying to do. And you tell them your idea, and you hear from them, what is good, what's bad pitfalls, things they wish they had known. And then you have a very sobering conversation with yourself, do I want to do this is the right thing, right? Because what happens most of us aren't successful, because we go to the cheerleaders who say you can do anything? You're amazing. And then you're like, how did no one tell me this is a terrible idea, because you just weren't talking to the right people who had the right information to look at what you were presenting, and then tell you if it was good ornot. Right?
Absolutely. And I know you have over your many years as an entrepreneur built up a very rich and robust network of individuals who come from very different backgrounds have many different lived experiences in different types of businesses. For some of our listeners, who maybe haven't quite built that network yet, or if they're trying to venture off into a completely different space that they have no contacts in, how would you suggest that they get in contact with someone who has done what they've done and approach that conversation in a way that would actually make that expert, so to speak, want to give them the time of day and to lend them their expertise? instead of it just feeling like an icky? Hey, can I pick your brain for free type of ask, you know?
So I talk a lot about I'm like, over mentors, I think friend tours are incredibly important. I also think that there's so many overlook things that are incredibly important, like joining associations, right? Not very sexy, super important. If you want to understand trends in your industry, if you want access to the best minds and speakers, join, pay the money for the association, right, it's going to be cheaper than anything else, you're probably gonna have to pay for go to the events, again, not sexy, but the people you're trying to get access to actually participate in all of those things, right. And so you go to the events, you go to the conferences, you meet people, the great thing is you're going to meet peers, right. So you'll be able to get that friend touring is super important. But then at those events, you will get access to those speakers. I mean, for any woman, female founded business, WBENC is critical, right? If you look at the WBENC events, and what you get access to and who you get access to, it's incredible, you know, the big retailers are showing up there, they're going to zooms and guess what, there aren't as many people as you think that are taking advantage of these things, you know, and they're incredible opportunities to meet the people you're trying to meet.
You know, for me, there's a national minority Supplier Diversity Council is super important to my business at Target, you know, and understanding their events. And when I saw the kind of workshops and events and things they were doing, and who they were actually giving us access to, it's incredible, you know, but you've got to do that legwork. So I think it's a little bit easier than we think it just maybe isn't as sexy as going on LinkedIn and doing the thing and writing the impact. Don't do that, know that there are these big organizations who are already getting those speakers to come. And they really want you to fill those rooms. And then there are opportunities to go in and talk go to those trade shows that don't seem really interesting, because super senior people are going there. And they're there and looking. And that's the time to have those conversations. And then if it goes well to say, do you mind if I follow up with you, but at least you're doing that in person, right? Where you can get to know and you're learning about your industry, you're getting data about where the industry is going. And so it's kind of serving multiple purposes too
Such great advice if I could like double, triple, quadruple like that, everything you just said I would it is so true, by the way about the trade shows, like I have met some really incredible contacts inside Expo halls, I often will go to events, not even to hear who's speaking on stage, but actually to walk the expo halls and to make that face to face contact. It's so so key for developing relationships. And we have examples of so many great things that have come out of our business from doing things like that. But like you said, Tina, it's not super exciting or sexy and it does require you to you know, show up and actually, you know, put in the time and the research but it is absolutely worth it. And WBENC by the way, such a great organization we're planning to I think they have that certification process, right. We're planning to go through that or ourselves. So if you've never heard of that organization before, it's it's like an acronym. So it's it's pronounced we bank. It's not spelled like baNK. But we'll put all of that info below in the show notes, if you want to click through and check out what Tina just recommended. So thank you love that.
Final question, I'll ask you about inspiration. Has there ever been a time that you can think of where during the socialization process, someone said something to you, that actually did deter you from going down that path at all? So exactly what you said, that's not a cheerleader, it's someone who, who had that experience and said, You know, I think this is a bad idea and you listened.
Definitely, I think, when it came to how I was going to build the team for relevant products, I had someone telling me a story that I won't share again, but it was a sobering story about what can happen with retail, and I think it made me really be thoughtful about how do I want to build this team, you know, I'm all in for taking the risk. But I have to be thoughtful about who I'm allowing to take that risk with me and what that looks like. And it was really instrumental in how I built the company. And, you know, the nimbleness that I needed and how I was going to partner with other partners, all of those things are super intentional and very important.
And I think that's why you go to people who have done what you haven't done, right? If I had gone to appear, I might have said, that's just their opinion, though they haven't really done right, you kind of give yourself an out, when you're not going to the people who have done what you're trying to do. It's like, that's just their opinion, they haven't done it. So I don't have to worry, I was talking to someone who had done the thing, right, big time that I was trying to do and said, Here's all the things you need to think about. And so it's that qualifying opinion that is so important, because it will make you pause and think about how you're going to launch something.
Right? Absolutely. And that transformation piece, that final element of this formula, right? We talked about preparation, inspiration, recreation transformation, this is what you call where everything comes together. What does that mean? In a practical sense, again, if you want to use wander lane as as the continued example, or if you have another one of your businesses or products that you can give kind of paint the picture of what transformation might look like, or the things that you're doing during this phase of the elevation framework?
Yeah, I think it's when you launch the thing, right. So whatever it is that you're trying to do, this is where it happens. And I would say, the most important part in this space is not actually your launch, the principle I have in there around letting go of what doesn't serve you. That is what allows you to then kind of keep thriving and to live and work life harmony, right? It's not a state that you arrive at, right? That's why we talk about it being phases in the cycle, and you're constantly moving around in this cycle, right? And that part in transformation, where you're like, locked, both launching the thing and also saying anything that doesn't fit anything that doesn't work, I gotta let that go. Right. So it's like, you might make the main dish, you might get it done. And you're like, actually, that side, it was good the first time I made it, but it kind of I'm gonna replace it with something. It's that freedom. And I think that is what maintains the work life harmony for you. It's not just getting to a place of being like, yeah, I launched it. It's saying and what keeps it good, right?
Like my favorite thing to make this holiday season. I make really good apple pie. Like I figured it out. Like I I hacked the recipe and I'm like, I'm gonna make the pie the best pie ever, right? And every year, I'm like, There's one little thing that I'm like, Okay, do I like this spice? Do I want to do this? Remember, I was an Amish market and they had this like, apple pie spice. And I was like, this is the new thing this year, right? So there's always like a little, little bit of improvement where I'm not just sitting there, like, I know how to make a pie. The pie is there, right? We're just constantly improving. And so you know, when you get to transformation, it is okay, and you really should be letting go of things that aren't working anymore. And that should be whether you do it seasonally, right?
It's no different than the closet clean outs, like there should always be a time of purging and saying, This doesn't work anymore. These activities I committed to I don't like them anymore. You know, every season I personally changed my skincare routine every season because I'm like what I need for summer skin in the Northeast is not what I need for winter skin in the northeast, right. So things have to change. And so that part of transformation I really identify with because sometimes it's very hard. I'm you know, loyal by nature, it's hard for me to quit a thing, you know, and so I need that principle in there to remind me that it's okay to let go of things sometimes.
What is something you have recently let go in business that you could share?
Oh, that's really interesting. I think what's interesting is, you know, I do as we said earlier, I'm a multi hyphenate. I do a lot of different things. And I think there are times when I've written middle grade for a really long time, right? I'm on my 20th book. And that's something where I've said I'm going to pause on that for a minute and I'm going to try a different direction in my writing, right I really Like writing for an adult audience? I'm going to try that. Right. So I think sometimes the letting go is also a pause, right? It's something you can come back to. But I'm saying I can't hold both things in this season, right? I can't hold my middle grade writing and wanting to do you know, a novel, right? Those are two things that for me right now can't coexist. And so I had to make space, right? Like, it was sad. I love writing for young readers. But there's something I'm working on now that I'm like, I really, really like where this is going, and I want to pursue it. And it's a new muscle for me, if you will, something new. And so that's been hard, because it's sometimes we have to let go of things we really love to go to season and that that part is really hard.
Yes, that that part really resonates with me, because I feel like almost every time I've pivoted in my business, to a similar vein, it's not because something wasn't working well, it was actually working really well. And choosing to go a different direction, in spite of something working really well, I think is sometimes harder, actually than letting go of something that isn't filling your cup or isn't working out the way that you hoped it would. So I totally, totally resonate with that. And you mentioned earlier, you alluded earlier in our conversation that this approach, right, all four phases, you apply not only on a more macro scale, like for a product launch, or for you know, writing books, but also on a more micro everyday like what you're doing today, your day to day schedule, your week to week schedule. Could you quickly walk us through? How, like even taking today, for example, I know you kind of mentioned it a little bit, but like, what does that look like starting with your morning? If you're applying these four phases, throughout your day?
Yes. So there's actually a really great exercise in the elevation approach workbook that will actually show you how to live your day and the elevation approach. But for me, my mornings are spent in preparation, right, I really am doing that's all the emails, all the things like think about all the information that's feeding you, I do that top of my day. And then I take a few hours and inspiration. That's where I'm most social, where I am most outward and just my natural energy. And I've taken in the information, I'm like, ready to go. And that's the time when I'm doing interviews and doing phone calls and doing zooms and out in meetings, seeing people it's that part of the day. And then I find that I need recreation, actually, towards the end of my work day, right? I need that four o'clock. You know, that's when I'm like, okay, my energy is fading, like, I can feel it, you know, I feel when I'm like, Okay, I need to do a little something to get the energy back up.
And you know transformation is evening. And it's funny in the last two years of my life, that timing has become really important because I actually have a team that works with me out of Hong Kong, right. So our days are flipped. So at eight o'clock, they're just coming in. And so imagine if I couldn't maintain like a couple more hours of energy. So I found that taking that downtime, you know, late afternoon, early evening, whether I'm cooking, doing different things, doing a slow flow class like that 4:30 to six o'clock timeframe, is really important to just give me the boosts that I need energetically to make sure that you know, I can bring it over the finish line. And so that's really my daily approach.
I can relate to that second wind, totally, I feel like I'm more of a night owl anyways. And so sometimes my best work comes through between the hours of like seven to 9pm. I totally get that. That was really helpful. Thank you, Tina, speaking of, you know, how you structure your your schedule to I know, one thing that you had shared in preparation for this interview is that you used to work 16 hours a day. Without this, this approach now you've been able to really cut that down to more of an average of six hours. What did you find in the severe reduction of your working time? What were those biggest time sucks previously that were causing your schedule to bloat out to 16 hours? And how did you remove them? Did you replace them with anything? Or how did you condense? I guess that that volume of work into so many less hours?
Yeah, I think the key for me was understanding the power of batching. Right? So errands batching things, certain times when all the things have to happen. And like if I'm at a day or time where I'm recording for camera, that's the day that's the time where I'm knocking out a bunch of things, right versus trying to find time every day to do things. It's like the lightnings right? This is right, just do it all this time. But that comes from being intentional. And that comes from actually understanding how you're spending your time, right. You can't batch things if you're not being honest about where the time is going back. You know, I started that back when I had my agency and you would argue my time wasn't even my own. But I realized, Oh, if I just don't take meetings, Mondays and Fridays, and I meet in person, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and that was more like zoom meetings right? And I was going to New York City quite often. So I'm like, I just make Wednesday, everyone zoom in the city, I was able to then get a lot more work done.
And I know most people are like, well, I don't control my schedule. How do I know someone's gonna say guests on how I framed it and really saying to my clients at the time, I really like to spend my Mondays and Fridays doing strategy work for you. So do you mind if we set our weekly call on Tuesday, people felt so taken care of, they felt like not only was I taking care of myself, I was taking care of their work and making time out to really do their work. And so I would say, for anyone trying to find more time, just, you know, keep track my schedule, it used to be this explosion of insanity, you know, and then I was like, Well, what do I really need to do? And one thing you and I talk about, right? We met at Creighton cultivate at South by Southwest. So I started to realize instead of spending hours and hours trying to set up a 30 minute phone call with a certain person who was just as busy as I was, what if I just looked at the events that we're naturally going to attend together? Right, so our life hack there. We're both going to South by let's get breakfast this day. We're both going to be at Sundance, let's make sure we do this friends that you're like, I don't get to see you enough. I need girl time, hey, I'm going to this female founders retreat. You know, I just did that last week, I said, I'm going to female founders retreat. Let's go together.
There's a girlfriend. I never could have spent that much. I mean, we tried to get together in Atlanta and spend an hour together. We had three full days together. And it was so fun, you know, but that's what I mean about the taking a minute decluttering. Right, looking, getting curious, where am I spending my time know your numbers, I can tell you back then how many hours I was spending on the phone and phone calls and different things versus what that looks like now. And so it's noticing your patterns and noticing your trends, right. And then what I was able to do is say, I still have nailed that, like, you know, interaction I needed with my friends and my work colleagues. And then it's like, okay, what am I missing? Now? It's like, okay, I need more family time. I need more of this. And I actually had the time to add it.
I love this approach of It almost reminds me of that book, about habit stacking, you know, it's kind of like you're doing habit stacking, but with like, interpersonal relationships, like what you said, like, Oh, we're both going to be at this event. Let's just tack on coffee in the morning or dinner in the evening after the event wraps. I think that's so smart. And it really ties back in with this whole theme of you need to get in the right rooms, right? Like, like everything that you shared about joining the associations making time to do the research on those relationships. If you really want to get face time with someone maybe thinking and asking or researching, like, where are they speaking? Where are they going? How can I put myself in that same room? I think that's such a great like, tangential takeaway that I want to make sure our listeners really soak in.
And Tina to wrap up our case study together today, in addition to obviously applying this Elevation Approach, was there anything else in specific that you felt really was influential in the 6x increase in your revenue over these last two years? So besides applying this approach? Did you change anything else? Did you increase pricing on something? Did you have a larger volume of customers? Did you up your marketing spend? Like what else do you feel like really played a big factor in six times in your revenue?
Oh, my goodness, as you're talking, I'm like, I did less of all of those things.
Okay, I love that. Yeah,
I'd had to, you know, the 8020 rule, it's really 20% of what we do that generates the other 80 Like, and from a revenue perspective. That's true, too. Right. And I, I really don't think I believe that until I saw it manifests in my own life, where I'm like, Okay, again, I was doing a lot of stuff. And this is the agency, right? I'm the agency person. I done this for 24 years. So I think it's really important for your listeners to realize, when I decided to pivot from agency, that was no small decision to make, right, I had become so synonymous with that agency. And I'm like, Well, this is how I make money. This is how business comes to me. And when I decided to stop that that was huge. And to think that the first year I made more money than I did running my agency, I thought that was a fluke.
And then the second year, I was like, Okay, this is not a fluke, right? Um, what it really helped me realize was, there are all these different things we're doing that we think are generating revenue that really are not. And the most important skills and most important things we're doing right that create value and that are therefore give us the opportunity to create wealth. Sometimes we don't know what those things are, because again, we have not intentionally pause to say, what are those things we haven't gone and ask people what those things are. I would also if I could point to one thing that I think is a constant. That's important. I would say I talk a lot in my book about accountability, but I think accountability with a coach with however you see that coming forth in your life based on whatever you can afford at the time, right? Whether it's group coaching, whether it's peer groups, whether it's private coaching, be accountable to someone be clear on These are my visions, these are my dreams. This is what I want to accomplish and have someone who has the capacity to coach you into that.
That's really great advice. And I will say for myself too, mentorship has played such a huge role. I think in the growth of my business. It's exactly like what you said before in the socialization aspect of the inspiration phase. Like you have to talk to people who have done what you've done like it's impossible, the blind leading the blind is not really productive use of time. That is a great note to end on. Tina, if our listeners want to continue to explore all the things you're up to, where can they connect with you next
Tinawells.com. And I do a free weekly newsletter and I include business tips and all kinds of things. So Tinawells.com is the hub.
Awesome. Thank you so much, Tina, for your time.
Thanks, Ellen.
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