SPEAKER_00
Welcome to the Jewelry Business Academy podcast. I'm your host Robin Clark and if you're a jewelry business owner looking to break through to the next level then my courses, coaching programs and podcast are for you. You'll learn how to overcome the biggest challenges in your business and build and scale your business with as much ease and simplicity as possible.

I'm here to inspire and guide you with weekly episodes with ambitious entrepreneurs but we chat about everything from marketing, mindset and sales to life as an entrepreneur and more. There'll be lots of actionable tips for you to level up your business, your mindset and your life and let's face it, you can apply all of these strategies to any product-based business. I'm so glad you're here, let's dive in.

Hello and thank you so much for being here today. I am having a really lovely day. It is very rainy outside today so I've been nice and cozy finishing some editing and recording this podcast.

So I'm really excited to bring this latest episode to you. I think it's really valuable for so many business owners especially if you're in the first couple of years of your business. The guest I had on the podcast this week was Alexandra Ribit and Karling Lisky who are the co-founders of Prairie Swim.

Now Prairie Swim is a luxury swimwear brand with consciously designed and comfortable swimwear and it is based in Toronto. I was really excited to have them on the podcast because I have been following Prairie Swim for about two years now and I've been really inspired to see how they have grown their business so successfully. Alexandra and Karling share how they relaunch their brand when they decided to partner together and they also share a lot more insights into how their business partnership has worked so successfully.

Over the years they have also worked with a lot of influencers so we chat a lot about influencer marketing in this episode. They've worked with influencers from Alessia Sculpt, Dominique Baker, Mike Henner, The Birds Papaya, The Fit for Tell and Sasha Exeter just to name a few and they share how these collaborations came about and their advice for any business owners who want to start incorporating influencer marketing into their business and how to nurture those relationships so they last in the long run. So we talked about a lot of different topics in this episode.

We look at how to build and manage a business while you're in a full-time career, partnering with friends in business successfully, influencer marketing and how to build long-term relationships with influencers, launching during a pandemic, what impact events have on establishing a new brand, pivoting your business and changing your business model, when to outsource tasks in your business, the key to keeping the momentum going in your business and how to prevent burnout and overwhelm. So I think you're going to really enjoy this episode. It's so interesting and they have such an incredible story and they share a lot of actionable tips that you can start implementing into your business right away.

I have left a little surprise for anyone who listens till the end but let's dive in and get started. Alexandra and Carling, it's so good to have you here today with me on the Dory Business Academy podcast. Thanks so much for being here.

Thanks for having us. Yeah, it's such a pleasure. So I'm really excited to have you both on the show today.

I've been following your brand Prairie Swim for a couple of years now and I'm really looking forward to learning more about your journey, building your brand. So for anyone who doesn't know who you are, do you want to go ahead and introduce yourself to our listeners and just share a little bit about your story and how you got to

SPEAKER_01
where you are today? Yeah, I'll go first. I'm Alexandra Rabbit and I'm a co-founder of Prairie Swim. My background is primarily in marketing, agency, world, communications, public relations, that kind of thing.

So having that skill set, I kind of wanted to have more opportunities to test my ideas and prove if I can build out a brand and that kind of thing. So from there, I decided to start Prairie Swim where I can kind of put all of my marketing skills to test. Oh, I love that.

SPEAKER_00
That's incredible. What's your story, Carling? So I'm Carling. I'm the editor-of-host founder of

SPEAKER_02
Prairie Swim and I come from also a business background. That's where I took it at university and then I have worked in actually the skincare aesthetics industry for years and years, so in sales. And so that's kind of my background post-university and when I joined Prairie Swim, so kind of as Alex mentioned, she had kind of wanted to create a brand and use her marketing background to see if she could bring that to life and then we'll kind of dig into the deeper, I'm sure, but there was a point when I joined on board and we almost kind of restarted the brand and hence the co-founders stage.

So I kind of lead the ops and more supply chain sort of side of things and then Alice has mentioned she takes care of our marketing. It's a little bit about us.

SPEAKER_00
Amazing. I love that. So it's the perfect business partnership.

You both have one half of the business taken care of with your skill sets, which is such a great combination. So when did Prairie Swim start? When did you officially launch it? The first time and the second time?

SPEAKER_01
That's a good question. When I initially launched it, I had obviously no idea what I was doing. I'm kind of the type of person who if I have an idea, I'll just go for it and figure it out as I go.

So I think I had launched that in 2017 as a totally different model. It was more like, can I sell things online? So it was drop shipping model, totally different, which is like, I'm not sure how familiar with drop shipping. Yeah, importing it directly to the consumer, which of course, when your background is in branding and marketing and that kind of thing, it has a lot of limitations.

So in 2019 is when Carling came in and definitely helped with making a plan and restructuring the company and how we can design our own product. That brought us to our launch in 2020, right? Time for the pandemic.

SPEAKER_00
Oh goodness. So it's been eventful.

SPEAKER_02
Yeah, we were kind of in the space where we had been working with the manufacturer for just over a year at that point. And we had already the product in-house at our fulfillment center. And then we had kind of had intentions of launching in May and you're going to start of April, May of 2020.

We're kind of lining up our photo shoots and all that sort of stuff. And then of course, pandemic hit hard mid-March and the March. And we were kind of left with the choice like, what do we do here? Do we go for it anyways? Or do we kind of pause and see how it plays out over the next few months? And of course, like things were not changing.

So we had the product, we were ready to go like everything was designed, manufactured in-house. So we just sort of pivoted a little bit. And we, yeah, we went for it.

So yeah, and it's launched right from the pandemic.

SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I love that. I love that you just went ahead and launched it. And how's it been for you

SPEAKER_01
launching in a pandemic? Well, super interesting. And it's funny, like obviously, no one knew at the time. Like we thought it was going to be two weeks, which is of course so laughable.

Yeah. So we were like, you know, do we wait out this two weeks? Or do we just keep it on track if we were going to and just really pivot? So of course, we chose to really pivot. You know, we couldn't do photo, at that time, we couldn't do photo shoots.

We ended up getting like one warm day in, you know, early year. And we shot it all outside ourselves in our backyard. Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_00
I would never have guessed. Looking at your page, I would never have guessed.

SPEAKER_01
Well, this is two years ago now. Yeah, that's true. It's buried.

But it was, it was pretty creative, pretty like definitely put our skills to the test of like how we can pivot, how creative we can get, but given circumstances. So yeah, we went for it. Obviously came with like its limitations, like we couldn't, you know, have a lot of diversity in our first photo shoot, because it was just curling in the eyes.

So we didn't get to see it on a ton of different body types, or different skin tones, just all those types of little things that we didn't get to do right when we launched. But and obviously people couldn't travel. So we just had no idea what kind of season we were going into.

But definitely the community rallied behind us for our launch and it all went very well.

SPEAKER_00
I'm so glad to hear that. So I know, like over the past two years, you guys have worked with a lot of influences. Well, I don't know if you've worked with them or they've worn your pieces, but I'd love to chat a little bit more about that.

So I know you've worked with a couple. I think I found you originally through Alessia, Alessia's helped. But you've also worked with Dominique Baker, Mike Henner, the birds papaya, the Fit for Tell and Sasha Exeter, just to name a couple.

So can you share your sort of favorites, influencer that you've worked with so far, not your favorite, but one of your favorite stories? And do you have one to three tips that you would give to a listener who wants to branch into influencer marketing, but just isn't sure where to start and how to find

SPEAKER_02
the right fit for their brand? Yeah. I mean, yeah, well, I mean, you can, but you can both, you can both share. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Alessia and I, I'm sure, I mean, so just as far as we're friends from Winnipeg, like years and years and years ago, like we've gone way back. And when Alex moved back to Toronto, we kind of both were gotten to influencer marketing stuff ourselves.

I feel like that even just helps from like a network building space. But obviously, I'm sure I'll also mention this as well. But, you know, all of the ones we've worked with, where we've been very fortunate and, you know, very lucky to work with amazing women who posted about our brand.

But yeah, Alessia can kind of tell the story of our, of our first kind of really big win, we would say, like it was definitely one that we, we laughed and we cried about it. So we can kind of fill out filler. Well, I'm guessing you're talking about words for

SPEAKER_01
Faya. Yeah. It was pretty, pretty ridiculous, Sarah. So also, I'll just give some more like background to so yeah, Carling and I did our own influencer work quite a bit.

So we understood like the gifting component, the payment component and like what influencers are worth. We don't know how much work it is. Like we know it's a lot of work to shoot for friends and that kind of thing.

And one other layer of that is that I work with, I'm an influencer marketing world, a company called Tegger, which is like an influencer marketing software. So I had like a ton of like kind of data points and like one way that I thought I was going to do it. And what turned out was actually like just not what we thought.

I don't know. I thought it was going to be so structured like campaigns and you know, building it out that way. But instead it was like obviously us cold calling, cold DMing, all these influencers and Sarah, birds for Faya was so kind to me at a point she's even then she had over a million followers responded to us.

We were so shocked and we really wanted to make a good impression and show her that we were like local and that we were huge fans. So we got her address and we actually drove to her house. Oh wow.

Which is super creepy of us. We drove and you know, she answered the door and she was like who are you? Who are you? It was so weird of us. We were so excited and we were like so funny.

And she was so sweet and so we chatted with her for a bit, met her family. And yeah, so of course she became like an early poster right when we launched and she posted quite a few times.

SPEAKER_02
Yeah, the first week I think we launched or the first two weeks we launched she had posted for us.

SPEAKER_01
So it was like amazing. Yeah, I can't believe but yeah, she was such a great ambassador from the get go. So that was like a huge win for us.

It really like it made it like validated us in a lot of ways. Just making that she responded and that she actually liked it. We just gave it to her and you know, she chose to wear it and post about it and stuff.

So that was like our huge win. But as far as like one, two, three, I have so many things to say about this topic. But because that was that was a huge first win.

But I also want to give obviously less scope such a shout out to Carling, Carling introduced me to and we've become really good friends since then. She has been such a strong ambassador for us. Because we have such a close relationship with us, I think that with her, it's like, I don't know, it's like a deeper relationship.

Like she like we really respect her opinions on the brand we use her for a lot of size referencing. And it's just like a really like mutually strong relationship, like we support her business a lot. So something to be said between like those long term, like deep influencer partnerships that you know, become friendships and that kind of thing.

So for any of you, you of course found out about us through Alessia Escalpe. So she's sort of been a long term, like really important ambassador to us. Which I guess kind of backs into like our one, two, three tips is that what I would that I would say is like, I'm sure Carling has some too.

So you filter these out as you see fit. But number number one would be like to just email cold call DM, be honest, like, don't be afraid to just like say who you are and like why you care about them and what it means to you to have them like consider you just like be authentic. And then number two, I guess, would be to build those friendships and relationships like even like the Sasha Exeter, like those types of people like we'll, you know, we have to make sure that we show them the same love that they've shown our brand and make sure that like we engage with them, we support, you know, when they have collaborations with like Joe Press or something that we support her brands as well.

So just really support your influencers. It's like nurture those relationships. Carling,

SPEAKER_02
do you have any more to add to that? From like an influencer perspective, I think, you know, from a brand who's maybe starting out with influencers, I think it is more challenging now to work with influencers from like an unpaid perspective. So like gifting perspective, I would say that you kind of have to go into it sometimes, you know, with like a fingers crossed kind of mentality. And I think, you know, now in today's day and age result, there is there are a lot of influencers, but there are also a lot of brands and they're kind of receiving a lot of different products.

So, you know, that's I think that's kind of important to know not to be like defeated by since you are doing like a lot of cold calls and all that sort of stuff as well too. I think, you know, some people will reply and some people are not going to reply. And that doesn't mean that your brand is not good.

It means that, you know, they have other things kind of going on. And it's just like a sale. It's basically just like a constant sale of your brand.

So I think that's really kind of important to note, especially for like new businesses who are kind of starting to get

SPEAKER_00
into that. Yeah, that is such great advice. Thank you for sharing.

And I totally agree. It's so important not to take things personally in your business. Like when somebody's not replying to you or they say no, it's not really got anything to do with your brand.

A lot of the times they have other commitments and all of that. And I love what you shared, Alexandra, about working with Alessia and having that long term partnership. And I remember watching her and it comes across really authentically, like she clearly loves your swan where she wears them all the time.

And it's so great to have found like somebody like that to partner with in your business for the long term. And she helps your business, you help her business, but it comes across so authentically, which is just, it's really lovely to see that. And I think customers feel that as well on social

SPEAKER_01
media. So yeah, I feel like there's, yeah, there can be so much inauthenticity in the space of influencer marketing. And you don't want, you know, people to just be feeling like they're forced to post about you.

And, you know, be posing like here's the thing that I have to put, like you really want it to be like, so it's kind of the benefit of gifting is that they do post genuinely, like, genuinely like, like in a sea of gifting that they get and curling and I have been, you know, in the influencer space, not obviously not very big, but even as like a micro influencer, I can't believe how many brands reach out to daily trying to send you stuff. It is insane. So in a sea of free gifting and product that you get for someone to pick you and choose you is like such is like mean so much to us and it comes off like a little bit more authentic.

Because I feel like they chose to wear us. And, you know, I think that's another kind of tip that I would give people who are starting out is that like, it's just so hard to be a creator these days, that like if you were sending things reflect these really high expectations of like, I need a real a tip talk, I need like, you know, laundry list of things. Just to not do that.

Because they have such limited time and they have to pay their bills and just like respect that and they do choose you great, but you know, just like manage your expectations when it comes to influencers, like they don't know you

SPEAKER_00
anything. That is that is really good advice and it's good to have the perspective from the influencer side because we get a lot of business, the side from a business owner reaching out to the influencers, but I haven't had any influences on the podcast yet. So it's really good to have that perspective.

And it's really important to keep that in mind when you are a small business and you're reaching out to influencers. So I love that you two have been friends for so many years and that you started this business kind of while Carlin you kind of joined a couple of years in. And you obviously have a really good partnership and really great dynamic working together.

So what do you attribute the success of your business partnership to? And what do you think is one of the keys to successfully partnering with friends in business? I know we do have a lot of listeners who are in partnerships with friends or family in their business or they want to go into business with a friend. And what would be one piece of advice that you would give them to make

SPEAKER_02
sure that is a success? I think like on my end, what's like we've been fortunate with is obviously we do have similar skillset, but also like a different skillset and like desires I suppose or what we like to be working on. So naturally I'm going to let Alex lead or I'm going to trust what she has planned or what she wants to do from like a creative branding perspective. And I think she trusts me from an operational kind of perspective or sales perspective.

And I think that really creates a lot of harmony like between us. You can get stuck at things a lot. And I think if you're kind of both have the same ideas about particular things or you're both working on the same thing.

And I think we've been fortunate in that it kind of started off that way, but we've really created these sort of like lanes for ourselves. And she makes calls on things and I make calls on things. And I think it's like it's just ensuring that you have like a mutual respect for each other's opinions, differences and also for each other's strengths and weaknesses.

So I think that's really important when you're selecting or if you're going to work with a friend or worth a friend or selecting a partner is that either you bring somebody on board that does have some different strengths than you like than the two of you, you know, you bring a third person in or something like that. Or you just kind of ensure that you're going to be able to to move you because you want to move things forward. You don't want to get stuck on trying to like go back and forth the same

SPEAKER_00
thing. I think that's been a big thing. Yeah, that is such good advice.

And yeah, it's important to work with someone where you can get that momentum going and you have that trust that they are doing they're making decisions for the for your business. Yeah. And with the best intentions behind them. And you have to trust them even if sometimes you don't understand maybe why.

Yeah. So I love that.

SPEAKER_02
Totally. Yeah. Yeah. And I think you have to be willing to, you know, when it's not stacked down per se, we always like to say this, but like, well, if we're coming up against something, you know, someone's gonna like, if it's if it kind of falls into here or one of the other, like one of us will kind of, okay, we'll take a step back because it is for the greater good of the business. And it's like, okay, that's what you know, if you're really passionate about that.

And I don't, you know, it's not something that I'm, you know, I have the same passion, like we're gonna you're gonna we're gonna go for it and I'm vice versa. I think that's really like he is knowing like when to take your ego out of it and like when someone's gonna do it for

SPEAKER_00
like a better the business. That is such good advice. Did you want to add anything, Alexandra?

SPEAKER_01
No, I was just gonna say, I love that you added the ego part at the end, because I feel like that's, I mean, we're both Leo's, we always go for that. So we both have egos that are strong and it can be hard. Like if something, yeah, like you have to be able to identify what word in your ego is getting in the way of something.

And I think the curling now that it's like comes out to trust and like having the same end goal. And it's like, if you have the same end goal, then you have to trust that whatever someone else is doing is like for the greater good. And, you know, we're on the same team, like we want to win more than anything.

So, yeah, really just like trusting each other to play to their skill set. And I think that comes down to like hiring in general too, like any, any way that you bring on, like, you know, bring people on that are better at their jobs, then you can do it. So trust them to do that.

SPEAKER_00
So I think that's like a huge, huge part of it. I love that. So do you guys have a team? Do you have people that work with you in the business yet? Or do you just outsource some of the tasks?

SPEAKER_02
Well, we work with like a, we've, we don't have like sort of like a team team in house. Yeah, in house team, we do work with a handful of kind of like third party operations that help us from fulfillment to finances to design to creative to, you know, pipeline generation, like there's, we have like, we have, you know, people that are, that work closely with us, that I like to, you know, consider them part of our team since they work so closely with us. And we do try to ensure that, you know, there are some investment into the brand, that sort of thing.

But no, no, no, no,

SPEAKER_00
no, we're all partners. But I actually love that because you know what, I think a lot of small businesses are doing that more and more is outsourcing rather than bringing in team members too early on, because there's so much more responsibility when you actually bring on in house team members than when you're outsourcing. So I know that you guys are also still in your full time careers.

And I think this sort of ties in really nicely together. Can you share a little bit about how you are balancing building this business and this brand and keeping your full time careers going at the same time and how like outsourcing has helped support you in that. Can you sort of speak around that for our listeners?

SPEAKER_01
I feel like there's always the disclaimer with this question that hopefully we haven't been fired up at the time it could be.

SPEAKER_00
If you're not allowed to talk about it, that's okay.

SPEAKER_01
No, and honestly, I think it's such an important topic because it's just not that easy. Like when you have a full time job and you have benefits and you know where your income is coming from and you're trying to plan for the future, it is really hard to give all that up. So I think that's where we found it to be difficult is like we're growing this business and at what point you know, do you, like what's the analogy with like the boat and the harbor, something like that.

Like at what point do you sail away and we're still trying to figure that out. It's a lot to balance. And there are aspects that really help us, I think, like when it comes to, especially for me, like I work for an influencer software company.

So they're really supportive of the fact that I have a business on the side and that's I think like a good relationship because you know I can help them say, you know, here's as a business owner, here's how this tool impacts me, and they can kind of use me as a store owner and say, like how does this technology work in your Shopify store. And like, so it kind of works out in that regard so there are benefits to like having a job that helps benefit and you know, educates you on the skills that you need for your business so I think as long as you're in something that's like in the same real house that can be really beneficial but it's still really difficult just to like manage the time. And that is probably a key reason why we outsource so many things is because like our time is limited and yeah it's just a better fit to bring someone on who can give it more attention and we can.

SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I love that. Did you want to add something calling.

SPEAKER_02
I think like it also yeah just echoing what Alex said but it would be a little bit different I would say if you didn't you know I love the industry that I'm in also full time, you know I think obviously Alex does to her own. And so I think that plays into a big, you know, part of it as well too if it was a little bit of a different story. And, you know, you were working in a job that you actually despise, then I think it would, you know, it probably would be like a easier switch per se.

But yeah I do think like there could be a little bit of like glamorization around entrepreneurship or business owning and you know I come from like a family of entrepreneurs. I saw how hard everybody works it's like very, you know, very time consuming and thought consuming everything. And so I think it is important to have like a plan in place, when you are going to be making that transition.

You know, unless you do have support from family and you know spouses or whomever you know and that sort of thing, but I think. Otherwise, you know, you make it work until it doesn't work. And so we work like we'll touch base like I talked to Alex first thing in the morning and when I before what a bad kind of thing and it's like work time.

If I'm not talking to her and talking to manufacturer at those hours like those like we're working in the mornings working in the evening working on the weekends working on lunch break, you know taking calls from the phone call like, you know from the car that sort of thing so I think it's like really it is a lot a lot. Yeah, so I think like if you go into it, you know, most people don't go into it knowing that, but some a management perspective. You just kind of like I said make it work until until you can't.

SPEAKER_01
And we're also like both in sales to so like, if you like there's so many skills like that you get in your full time job that you can kind of learn the hard way like you can learn but with with leadership and you can learn like so many different ways like how to sell and like that of course carries through into what we do a very long time and you can actually learn from your full time job until you're ready to make that leap.

SPEAKER_00
I love that you shared that because yeah I had a similar experience my years in the corporate world, like all those skills that you learn are all transferable to entrepreneurship like every single one and you think this is like useless and it's not going to be like you have like a jewelry business but no you use every single skill pretty much. So it's really interesting. And I think you have shed a really good perspective because I think it's easy for people to glamourize on chop and your ship for sure.

And it is not easy it is not an easy transition. And I think it's important to see your job that you're in and be grateful for it and and remember why you'd love it. While you're building the brand that you love as well, like to not start resenting it or be wanting to jump the ship too soon.

So, yeah, that you shared that perspective.

SPEAKER_01
I think it's really important for this and his to remember that. Yeah, yeah, and I think and like just, oh, just go ahead, like, we're all so like this for background, we're both 32 years old so like, living at home right now is just not an option for us and like I feel like it's like, I feel like, oh, I didn't have to pay rent or like, there's always other things where I'm like, well, that's not everyone is in that position. And so I feel like if you are in that position where you do have those pay and like, you can't just like not be paid for the year, or you don't have savings, you might have student debt, something like that.

But like, yeah, if you do do what we're doing, it does take time and you know we've been at it for a couple years now doing both and it's definitely an uphill battle.

SPEAKER_00
No, I totally understand. So I want to chat a little bit more about events because I know you've done quite a few events and pop ups over the years, even during the pandemic, because I wanted to come visit one of your events and can you chat a little bit around about how important do you feel these events were to your success, do you find value in meeting your potential customers face to face. And would you recommend that entrepreneurs who are starting out in their journey, participate in these in person events I know everyone wants to just go straight online and just do the online thing.

But how important have these in person events been for you and your brand.

SPEAKER_01
I'm glad you asked that I feel like events don't get the love that they need lately for us it was like our first. I don't know if I'd call it an event our first pop up which is kind of like an event in and of itself but that like being able to see our customers in swimsuits was like life changing it was like, it was like this is why we do this like to see people happy like coming out of fitting rooms and like oh my gosh my boots look great and it was like so exciting to see how happy people were and you just don't get that experience when you're only online. So, because it was the pandemic.

We just didn't get a lot of like face time with a lot of our customers so being able to actually see it on them like see how happy they were to interact learn with you for work like that is just, you know, you can get as much data as you want and it just doesn't compare to the like the experience of meeting them. And it really, I think the more you can do that, the more the brand and the community grows. And like the way you want it to like it for us it's not all about just like scale and like be as big as possible it's like making sure that people like, you know, love our brand enough to come back every time we're to put it on and feel good about it.

You know, mixing and matching stuff like that. It's not just like a number of skin for us it really is about making sure people feel their past that we get their feedback in real time. All those things are like, you can automate things to a point but that real life experience like doesn't get enough credit honestly.

SPEAKER_00
I love that you shared that. Did you want to add something calling.

SPEAKER_02
I completely agree. I think it's a little bit could be can be daunting to do. I think like we were, we did.

I think like a two week we were like a fellow we were on like a road show situation. And at the end of it, we're again, we're exhausted but we're have we're have lots. I mean, you're probably sure some of them for this upcoming summer.

But it's a lot of lot of work but it, it's definitely rewarding. Like I think like I said like it really does make you realize and you know what this is why we're doing this and it was so nice to see people who had heard about us come come by specifically and we were going to be there and then also to me below that had never heard about us and you know then all of a sudden their friends would come and say oh my friend just came by and she told us pull me to come by here and so it was like really great for that so definitely I think if you can secure spaces and you can be creative with pop up spaces and events and things like that like we were fortunate to work with some different partners and popped up within their spaces. So it's not always like about having to make like this huge, huge thing spend a bunch of money get a big you know booze out of trade shows sort of thing like you can really make them still intimate and it's still a great way to just get your name out there and also to meet people people want to see who's behind the brand.

SPEAKER_00
That makes a big difference. Yeah, I totally agree people love meeting the owners of the brand and the founders and talking to them and hearing the real story and like giving their feedback. And it makes such a difference.

So do you guys have any upcoming events so anyone listening who's close to Toronto can can come visit you in the summer. Do you have any book chat.

SPEAKER_02
Yeah, we're going to be we're working actually with the latest scoop. So we are going to be popping up in the latest scoop from May 12 until June 12 in Oddington at the Oddington location in Toronto, and then also in Kit Bono Beach, as well too so we're doing our one month pop up there. And then we're going to be back up in the skokka in the summer at the US and then we'll should also be back up at the beach and hopefully some other fun events in between everything.

SPEAKER_00
Community event. That is an exciting summer. Oh my goodness.

Wow. That's quite an achievement to get into the Goop, Goop stores as well. So that's so exciting.

Yeah, so anyone listening, go visit. I'm going to probably come visit one of them for sure. Toronto or Muskoka.

Yeah, so I'd love to chat a little bit more about mindset and balancing everything and I know as entrepreneurs and you guys also have your full time careers but you've put so much of your heart and soul into prairie swim and building it into what it is today. So have you experienced any form of like rejection or negative feedback or comments since starting your brand and if you have how did you sort of disassociate from that and not take it personally. When you got that feedback.

What, how did you sort of handle that and what advice do you have for listeners experiencing something similar.

SPEAKER_01
That's a good question. I feel like I don't know the answer to how to not take it personally. It's so hard.

I would like to ask someone to reply. Oh my gosh, so true. That's actually a really good point is like, we found, we did find someone who's helping us with like some of our customer service just because like sometimes he like getting emails with feedback when we're in the middle of something can be like, really really hard to, to, you know, disassociate from yeah process is associated from.

So we have brought someone to help us with that. Obviously, like most of it's good but sometimes we do get comments that like, really, you know, it's not like it like hurt our feelings but it's like, it makes you question what you're doing and what you're doing isn't enough like. I think what's so hard is like, when you are making an effort to do the right thing and then you're getting told that it's not good enough.

Like, that's so, so frustrating because you're like, I am trying. But like the world is like, you know, it holds people accountable to everything and which is good. But, you know, sometimes it's really hard to like live up to people's expectations of, you know, what brands should be doing when it comes to like a variety of things so I think it's a good call is like outsource things that you don't need to see every day and don't ever like respond to things when you're emotional.

I actually like initially, I interned twice out of university or in the government, whereas dealing with like a lot of like social media accounts for politicians, and that was like rule number and rule number, I never engage like, you're gonna get so much negativity thrown at you and like the second because I just want you they want you to engage and I feel like I, I try to take that advice like into my, you know, career with pretty swim is like, don't ever respond to trolls don't, or don't be the trolls and like just don't respond to when you're angry or emotional about it at all.

SPEAKER_02
Well, I'll see you and Alice deals with it would see it more than I would more from like from a social perspective, since she managed their socials. So I don't see it as much. But I think, I think like at the end of the day as you're growing as well as you know, you're not we're not you're not going to be for everybody.

And there's going to be something to be said from somebody and you know, again, we're all human and we obviously all make mistakes and errors and we try our best to to take responsibility for for that if we've you know done something that ends up to somebody or and whatnot but I think, you know, you can take people's feedback but and like, you know, think on it and and and make decisions moving forward like based on that. But at the end of the day, like, you know, you still have to kind of stay focused and keep going and people people who are going to that are going to, you know,

SPEAKER_00
to the brand or support you they're going to be the ones like kind of like carrying you along. So it's going to be the couple of that are trying to take you down. Yeah, that is, that is very true.

And I love that you shared that people hold brands to a very high standard and what I've seen is that people hold small start businesses to an incredible standard that they don't hold any other brands they don't ask, they don't walk into Lulemon and demand where is this made. They don't walk into like full foods and demand to know who made this how much does it cost all these questions I have seen it all. And I am shocked at the standard and the, yeah, the level that they expect small businesses to handle everything.

And even with the social media movements which we had a couple in the last two years. If you didn't respond within a certain timeline in the exact right way you were like slaughtered online. And small businesses don't have a whole team who knows how to legally deal with these situations like I was I was shocked with with how the world holds small businesses to that level.

SPEAKER_01
And I think it was the last two years like, it was honestly it blows my mind like how I think you nailed it like it is shocking. And when it comes to everything like sustainability, like obviously a big one and like so important to us but it's like, it's just, you know, where's the Amazon like, call them. Yeah, you know, like I don't think we're, we're the problem.

I totally respect like, you know, asking us questions and holding brands accountable but it's like, yeah, I agree it's very hard to know like what to say what not to say when to say it.

SPEAKER_00
And it's like the goal of, you know, not getting canceled. Oh yeah, that's that's a whole other episode. But it's a whole other one.

So, I mean, you guys have a lot going on every day and I'm really impressed how you manage your careers and your business and everything so can you walk us through like how do you do all of this without burning out. Like what is your secrets to managing everything and staying on top of it and and not burning out.

SPEAKER_02
I don't know if like anyone's not burning out here. But I would say, you know, you get into like a little rhythm we've been we've been at it for a few years now. And I kind of know when like it's absent blows right like with anything in life and obviously, I think like the power of having a partnership is, is you know, if I'm off feeling off like then I can lean on Alice or out you know, and you know, she will either be there to lift me back up or find me like what we're doing this and things like that and take on some additional like workload or vice versa.

And I think that what has worked well for us is we do like our weekly meetings on Mondays and we really map out what our Mondays or a high priority activity is for the week and and that's kind of what we have our you know, five to seven tasks, those things get done for the week, you know, or the goal to get them done for the week and we really kind of just try to focus only on those. And that kind of helps keep you focused when there are a million things to be doing like of course we would love to be doing a million things but because we work full time, we cannot. So I find that just like has been really helpful from an organization standpoint, and just to keep each accountable.

And so we know like who's leading what. And then I think the same thing like you know, I'm like a balancing perspective I find that's like the easiest way from like a bit for like a startup or smaller business to kind of manage things a bit

SPEAKER_01
is kind of my tactics. Yeah, I would I would just like add to that but like just when it comes down to like time management and how not to get overwhelmed, which I think being overwhelmed is what leads to burnout in a lot of cases it's like not so much of a burnout, it's like the note like the fear of how much you have on your plate. And I think that like to Carling credit for sure is like just being disciplined and like she's really brought that into very swim and like the discipline when it comes to keeping those five HP is what we call them like high priority activities just like keeping those top of mind.

And just knowing that that's a bite sized thing that I that's what I have to get done this week. That's like, to me, I find it like a lot less stressful because if we get. And we started out like this like we would be like, Oh my gosh, we have this to do and that's do and I could just terrifying once you start going down that rabbit hole of all the things you have to do.

So just like focusing on those like five to seven tasks every week. And of course just like taking care of yourself and your mental health like Carling and I both are pretty active I think that's kind of like our, you know, downtime and a lot of ways and just making sure that like you're taking care of your mind your body it's, you know, it's cliche but like you have to like actually just take care of yourself first and you know I think that helps with keeping the momentum going.

SPEAKER_00
Thank you for sharing that. And I love that you focus on the high priority tasks each week because as on top and years, we will always have an insane to do list and that list never dies down and just growing. It just grows day on day so you have to really just keep your focus and always know that you're focusing on a handful of tasks each week that are going to generate revenue in your business and keep it moving forward and not all the like fluff to do list items because there's a lot of those as well.

I love that approach. So I can't believe how quickly our time together has gone I do have a quick, two quick more to two more quick questions for you. What is one book that you would recommend all on Chopin years read if they could only read one has it been one that is ready impacted your journey so far.

SPEAKER_02
So I think that's a good question. I do a lot of. Yeah, I do a lot of reading but I don't.

They don't have anything that rings off and like a. I, the one I mean I love podcasts I love like how I built this. Loveless things about podcasts.

I love the skinny confidential podcast specifically when they are talking about like business owners or business owners are on there. That's a great podcast in general. But I think it's also important to not get information overload.

So, you know, I think you're going to be selected may pick a couple pieces of material to listen to. Yeah, that's true. And then, yeah, because otherwise there's a lot of information out there.

SPEAKER_00
There is so much you could spend all day every day consuming and not doing. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I would say there's so many I would say like Gary and greatly by Brené Brown, I really helped with like the perception of like this vulnerability and you know how to put yourself out there and that a whole like you know, the arena analogy of like when you're the one in the arena like you just can't listen to the naysayers and the people challenging you because like they're not the ones doing it. I think like her mindset and like, you know, vulnerability and when what it takes to be happy and really impactful. But just like also echo curling's point about love podcast but also I love listening to like authors of books that I like on different podcasts.

So like like Brené Brown on like, she's always on them and like, yeah, the skinny confidential. She'll usually just like interview kind of business authors and stuff like that. And I think that's a really good approach.

If people don't have time to read books or, you know, buy them or something like that, to search the author and see all the podcasts they've been on. I feel like that's such a good way to absorb an author's knowledge without having to like read all of their books kind of thing. Yeah. I love that approach. Yeah, I'm going to do that.

SPEAKER_00
And we will link the book in the show notes as well. Did you want to add something, Carling? No. Okay. Well, thank you so much for being here guys. I have one last question for you.

What would you say has been the biggest lesson that you've learned in your entrepreneurial journey so far?

SPEAKER_01
Biggest lesson.

SPEAKER_02
There's so many lessons. I feel like if you're, you know, if you're not constantly learning lessons, then what are you doing? But I mean, my probably biggest lesson or learning I suppose would maybe just be like the magnitude of work of being like an entrepreneur. I think it's so easy to be like, to go into it so naively.

And you have to be like, you know, so passionate. And you have to really love, like, love it and be willing to give up and sacrifice and a lot of things. But I think also like for that, it's also like been so rewarding.

So I feel like it's one of those, it's like, it's kind of like everything I thought it would be, but more and so many other aspects. So it's like you're learning like so much about yourself, you know, and, you know, even like believing in your own self, can you do this and whatnot? Like you're learning how to trust other people. You're learning how to put yourself out there.

You're, you're, you know, you're learning everything that it takes to kind of keep moving forward. And you can see why people enter it really easily, but people exit really quickly to enter easily enter like exit quickly. And I really think that's like the biggest kind of learning and eye opening experience I've had.

So it's not really something specific per se. I think just the whole journey itself is, I mean, I think it's really important to make sure you're being present in the journey and I think sometimes you get so caught up with what's next. And, you know, it's important to kind of look around and make sure you're celebrating your wins and at the same time too.

So that's been pretty amazing.

SPEAKER_00
I love that. And that's so true on Chopinia ship is just like a huge personal growth and personal development journey just takes it to a whole other level. Yeah. Did you want to add anything Alex.

SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I would say the biggest thing is like, this is something we say all the time like, you don't lose you learn and like anything that doesn't go right. It's a learning, and you're going to go wrong like a million times. And you're going to do so many stupid things, but like, you're just going to learn like even if, you know, everything's learning like if you spend money on an ad that didn't work, you learn not to do that kind of ad again like if you were wasting money on something that you weren't using or you know, overpaying for something like you learn not to do that again like there's so many like just when it comes down to like money and testing like you just always have to try and you either win or you learn.

So I think that's made it we kind of say repeatedly.

SPEAKER_00
Always learning. I love that that is that is such a good reminder and I think every entrepreneur should write that down, because it's, it's something that you need to remember every time you experience those little losses or big losses sometimes in your journey. So, thank you so much for being here today Alexandra and calling it has been so wonderful chatting to you and learning more about prairie swim.

And I know that your journey is going to inspire so many of our listeners so for anyone who is feeling inspired and wants to connect with you and wants to follow along on your journey and wants to come visit you at your events, where can they find you and how can I listen to support you.

SPEAKER_01
So, in our Instagram is at prairie swim, our website is very swim calm. We always post events everything first story mail subscribers to definitely sign up for emails. We're on TikTok run all the main channels, but definitely Instagram at our website or the best place to get new information.

Amazing. And when's the next launch.

SPEAKER_00
Very soon. Very soon. Yeah, okay.

Like no matter. Thanks so much for being here today. It's been so wonderful chatting and so wonderful connecting.

And I am. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day. Thanks so much for having us.

This has been great. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I did and that it shifted your mindset and inspired you to take action to get your business to the next level.

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