Samantha Varner  
We all start businesses for the most part, because we want more time freedom. We want financial flexibility. And often as entrepreneurs, we find out, we're not creating that right off the bat, we're working more hours, we're probably getting paid less. And so that's, that's where I kind of try and really help them focus on what is important to create that. I don't like life balance, right? That's a hard word. But I do like building the life that you're trying to do it and do it with intention. And so that's what we talk about a lot.

Jeff Ma  
Hello, and welcome to Love as a Business Strategy, a podcast that brings humanity to the workplace. We're here to talk about business, but we want to tackle topics that most business leaders shy away from, and we believe that humanity and love should be at the center of every successful business. I'm your host, Jeff Ma. And, as always, I'm here to have conversations and hear stories about how about how real people and real businesses operate. Without profit businesses just an expensive hobby. Sam Varner, founder of She Collective is on a mission to show business owners just how they can live full and robust lives, while building massively profitable businesses. Using her crush formula, Sam takes her 15 plus years of experience in public relations, sales and business development, to teach driven entrepreneurs how to create wealth through business ownership, from speaking on stage, hosting her podcast - She needs Grit, or mentoring at local universities. Sam is the profit coach for the driven entrepreneur. Sam, welcome to the show.

Samantha Varner  
Thank you, Jeff, I'm excited to be here.

Jeff Ma  
Now, Love as a Business Strategy is only a few words in the title. We focus on the love part a lot, we focus on the business part a lot. But everyone knows that business behind the word business is money is at the end of the day profit. And so I'm really excited to talk about that facet, more specifically, and also how that ties into love today with you. And before we dive in, though, I want to hear more about you as a person, what brings you to where you are today. And what drives you. What's your passion?

Samantha Varner  
Oh, such a good question. Um, my passion is, I mean, when it comes to business, its profit. That's pretty evident with what I do. But when it comes to kind of overarching it is treating and teaching people that wealth creation, allows them to do more, right allows them to, once they figure out how to do that, effectively, they can spend more time with their family, they can build the life that they're trying to build, they can donate money to the causes that are important to them, they have time to donate their actual time and their expertise and their knowledge and just their physical abilities to those causes. And I think we, at She Collective, I think our goal is to really have people understand that building your life, through business ownership is what we're trying to do not necessarily just creation of money for money's sake. Right? But what good can you do in the world with the money that you have available to you? So that's kind of the mission and the passion over on this side of the screen for sure.

Jeff Ma  
And just to build on that, I think just the kind of elephant in the room is profit and money. This is not intentional. But a lot of times when we talk about culture of love, and we talk about putting people first, it's almost inherent that people feel like that's opposite to profit, because profit is tied to thoughts of greed and in the abundance of wealth that is unnecessary. What is your take on on that negativity around that word-Profit?

Samantha Varner  
Yeah, I think I think it's a pervasive thought. It's a lot of money mindset that people have, right, the idea of we had a conversation the other day with some of my clients, and we were talking about what do you think about people that have a lot of money, like an abundance of money. And so often, in media, it's portrayed in reality, a lot of us are kind of coming from a background where it's like, if you have a lot of money that makes you potentially a terrible person, like there is a direct correlation that we seem to have internalized. And I think we see a lot of examples of that in Hollywood specifically, I think our we can see so many examples of the bad guy being the guy, the Daddy Warbucks, the guy with all the money, who has just treats people terribly. And I think that permeates a lot of our thought that somehow there's there's I don't know whether it's greater value is not the right word. but greater quality of a person, if they're in if they're struggling, or if they don't have a lot of money that somehow is a value of them, versus having a lot of money makes you a terrible person versus being poor makes you not a terrible person. And we all know, that's not true. There are terrible people in every category of wealth. And there are definitely terrible people at every category of poverty. Right. And so it's just a little bit of a, it feels like a little bit of a messaging thing that we have as a society internalized, as opposed to looking for those examples of wealth being an exceptional thing that has the ability to create so much value for so many people.

Jeff Ma  
Right. And I think we all want to amass wealth or build generational wealth at the end of the day. That's something that nobody would say, No, I don't, I don't want that. And I think a lot of times, it comes down to what we do with that wealth makes a big difference. Can you tell me a little bit about She collective? And in the view around that?

Samantha Varner  
Yeah, I am. I come from a family of I had an entrepreneurial dad, he's not entrepreneurial anymore. He's retired. And I grew up the oldest of five kids and watching him create that business, right. So it was very much I got to sit in the office, and I got to see him be the boss. And I thought that was cool. But what I also saw was a mom, who for the most part didn't work while we were kids didn't go back to work kind of after having kids. And from the female perspective of that, as a business owner now, who really deals with a lot of female entrepreneurs, having that conversation around. Being able to generate wealth on your own as a woman in the world is super critical. So I think there's the generational wealth just in general that we all want to bestow on our kids that we talk about it She Collective, but even more, so I talk a lot to female entrepreneurs and talking through that slight difference there, I think between women earning money staying in the workforce, continuing to be the creator of generational wealth, which hasn't always traditionally been the case, it's often been kind of the male role. And there's been a lot of there's a lot of shame and a lot of concern about financial knowledge on on women in the market. And this, of course, does not apply to every woman by any stretch, or every man for that matter. But traditionally, it's been that situation. And so looking at generational wealth for us, as a company has been talking to women about how making big money in their lives is A)possible for women in business, and B) what does it do that matters to them, which is generational wealth and showing their kids what is possible, be it their little boys or their little girls?

Jeff Ma  
That's awesome. I love that mission. I'm curious about what it means to you to be a profit coach, I guess you're a self proclaimed Profit Coach, what does that entail? What is a Profit coach?

Samantha Varner  
Okay, so to begin with profit coach was very much for me with my background in PR and marketing, it was me trying to decide how do I differentiate myself in the market. So it is I am a business coach that has a fancy name that she gave herself because she's trying to differentiate herself. So that's how that's how I came up with profit coach. But what it has morphed into is a focus on profit being the primary goal, to create the life that you're looking to create. So that's where my entrepreneurs come to me is they are not making enough money in their business that is allowing them to create that life that they want to do.

Jeff Ma  
So there's an element of your coaching that spans across business and personal though,

Samantha Varner  
for sure, for sure, because it's it's that we start. So my CRUSH formula is kind of how I walk people through and the first part of that I talk about the Core. So your mission, your vision, your values, and how that relates to building your business and making sure that it's profitable.

Jeff Ma  
Well, let's talk about the CRUSH formula a little bit. Well, what is the crush formula?

Samantha Varner  
So it's basically the entire basis of how I do coaching. So whether you're in She profit school, or whether you're one on one coaching with me, it doesn't really matter. But we're talking about these five areas where, if you, you work on them, and it's something that you come back to as an entrepreneur all the time, we know that it's not a one and done if only it were that easy, but I go through and we talk about the core we talk about Revenue so everything financial learning, getting comfortable, being really just really comfortable and intimate with the numbers in your business means you can make better decisions and figure out where your next steps are and kind of building on that. I talk about Utility in the middle which is automation and delegation and getting to that point of needing help to build your business beyond, you know, a one woman, one man show, and also learning how to become a boss. Most entrepreneurs don't start out necessarily with those skills and abilities to have staff to create culture to build a business, that is something that they're really proud of, from a staffing standpoint. So we talked about that. Then I talked about sales and promotion, which has to be the cornerstone in what is necessary. So you need to understand your numbers. But you also need to be willing to sell your business and Sell yourself and do it in a way that doesn't feel icky and sleazy, which is where most people come in the door. To me, they're like, I hate selling, I don't want to do it. I don't want people to feel gross when I approach them with what I'm serving them with. And then the end of the crush formula, and really all the way through is the Headspace. So focusing on what is your mindset? What is that doing in terms of each piece of that puzzle? Each piece of your business? How is that impacting what your results are?

Jeff Ma  
Awesome, I love a good acronym, whenever I find one, when it comes to so So is it fair to say you you work primarily with entrepreneurs? Is that correct?

Samantha Varner  
Yeah, almost exclusively. Now, when I started my business, I was doing money coaching, so personal money coaching, dealing with budgets and that sort of thing, helping people with their debt management. And I found most people that came to me had businesses and so it became very clear that working on let's figure out how to make more money in your business versus let's figure out how to cut and budget and scrimp and save, it's a lot more fun to make more money in the business. So that's where I, that's where I headed. And that was kind of the pivoting point to profit coaching versus money coaching.

Jeff Ma  
I found that, in my experience, there's so many lessons that the organizational leader in a larger business can learn from the mindset and approach of entrepreneurship. It's not all the same, and being an entrepreneur requires an extra, not a minor thing, but a very, very additional part of you and drive and etc. But I also find that, you know, really strong leaders, really successful leaders share a lot in common with good entrepreneurs. And I'm curious, diving right into, I guess, the love element of our conversation, when it comes to entrepreneurs, and I've spoken to many and you know, it's it's unique, the opportunity entrepreneurs have in their hands, where you're creating something from the ground up. And importantly, you're creating your culture from the ground up, which many people don't have the opportunity tunity to do. What is I guess, where does culture and and you don't have to use the word love, but essentially love fit into this coaching or the CRUSH formula? or wherever, you know, you you play with that?

Samantha Varner  
Yeah, I think it I think it falls into two places, I think it falls into the utility of of First off, knowing that loving yourself as a human being in your business is really critical for an entrepreneur and we end up often working ourselves right to burnout all the time. So I do think, recognizing when you're at capacity, or honestly, I try and teach my clients to do it before capacity before they get to the point where they're scrambling and hiring people. Or finding software's and automation systems either way, but hiring people is a very, it can be very challenging when you are doing it for the first time when you've never managed people when your entire management experience that you've had has actually been as the person being managed in a corporate job primarily beforehand. And I think when you're building a culture and trying to create an environment where if your vision is going to be a five people team, or it's going to be a 50 people team, it doesn't really matter. But it is treating people, you have the opportunity to treat people exceptionally well right from the beginning. And if you are planning for that, especially on the financial side, but just on the on the how you treat a human being that gets to work with you, and what does that look like in terms of expectations, communication is absolutely critical. And that's a piece that needs to be worked on. Probably all of us need to do better at communication in every facet of our lives. But if you can figure out how to communicate with people and how to read what their needs are, and what your needs are for communication as a culture in a business makes a massive difference. I think that's probably the number one thing that that has an impact as well as at the very base of things you pay people for their efforts. reasonably and well, right. And I have so many people in my life business owners that their goal is I want to create 10 Women in my business that make $100,000? Because that's a big number, depending on what their role is. But it's like, what does that do to the families? How does that impact their trickle down at their house, to be able to pay people exceptionally well. And so making more money lets you do that.

Jeff Ma  
I find in my line of work, which is kind of, like we mentioned it up front, almost like perceived as the opposite end of profit coaching, it's almost it's so it's almost like the nonprofit coaching, anti profit. We we get into these places where people find it very people who buy into Love as a business strategy and buy into, you know, and I think a lot of people agree in, in general, that good culture is important in business. But in practice, you find that a lot of that part is is comfortable, a lot of it's easy to do being nice to people. That's just that that's just the surface level. Yeah. And as we dive into it, we find that love is actually hard, you actually have to have tough conversations and hold people accountable. And at the very kind of deepest part of that is money conversations. As soon as you start talking about money, the love is just sucked out of the room. however you define it, you just start you have the conversation. It's almost like let's talk about salaries. And it's all of a sudden, like, Oh, we got to put our suit and tie on. We got to we got all of a sudden button up, we have to follow rules, like it gets very stuffy. Immediately. How do we how do we overcome that? Or how do we kind of take the two sides and find the middle ground? In those conversations?

Samantha Varner  
I think part of it is, I think part of it is again, that communication thing where it is opening the door to those conversations and having it not be taboo. I do think that so many corporations have that philosophy of like, we don't talk money, and you certainly don't talk to your colleagues about money, right there is that like, somehow this is deep and dark and secretive, that I pay you $52,000 and I pay you $55,000 or whatever it is. And it is opening the door to be having those conversations, opening the door to teaching staff that you negotiation is the thing you do in business, right you negotiate for most people don't negotiate for their salaries, right, in a corporate setting. Most people are very nervous to do so because they don't know exactly what that's going to be does it retract the offer altogether, it puts a lot of pressure on that conversation. And I think if things could be a little bit more transparent in terms of this is the cost of doing business. This is the cost of providing X service or x product that we create here. This is the overhead of running a business, I think more people having an understanding then would understand why salaries are where they are, or why the negotiation room is only X amount, right? But people don't want to do that. And I think the joy of being an entrepreneur means you're a baby, you can make all the decisions you want. There's no rules, you can set it out and say like, I'm going to pull back this curtain a little bit. What's the downside of letting somebody know, this is what the profit margin is. And this is what our goal is to increase the profit margin, which would increase the money I have to play with for all of the growth of this company. Of course, that being human capital hugely in there. If you have those conversations, and people feel like they understand the math, and they can see where they fit into that role. And they can see the value of increasing their sales or doing better at their job on this part, which increases overall their negotiation power to

Jeff Ma  
absolutely, I feel like the analogy I use all the time is entrepreneurship and startups. Because whenever you're trying to understand a larger organizational thing that helps to start with the smallest sample size, and it's almost like, okay, if I'm an entrepreneur, and I bring you on Sam as my first employee, very easy to show a, here's our business model. Here's how much we make per sale, here's how much we make. And here's how much profit and here's how much we're trying to build a business with. And so I'm able to pay this amount and that could be literally anything and you'd be like, Okay, that seems like it makes sense if you want this business to survive. That's how much I have to take. Why do you think that's lost? Or that gets lost as businesses grow larger?

Samantha Varner  
I think in some ways, I think sometimes the reality is people don't have nearly the grip on the financial numbers in their business as they should. So having those conversations really openly is hard because they don't know. Right either I have a lot of a lot of business owners that come to me that don't know their numbers or aren't comfortable enough to have those conversations. So I think there's that. I think there continues to be a level of shame around money, and around our expertise or lack of expertise when it comes to money. And nobody likes admitting that right? Nobody likes admitting, yeah, the profit margins are 2%. And this is ridiculous. And I'm this close to going under nobody wants to have that conversation. Despite the fact opening those doors to those conversations, perhaps somebody in the room has an idea that would be different, right, or has a different perspective on how it could be fixed. So I think it's it gets that our egos as humans get in the way, all the time. And you can pretend with your navy blue suit, and like, you can look the part without knowing the back end stuff. And I think people are afraid of that, you know, they feel like an imposter. They feel like they don't know, they feel like they can't justify why they only have 3% profit, or why things are going down the tubes, they don't want to share that with the employees, probably for two reasons. One, they care about the employees. And they don't want to create stress about what is my you know, security here in this job. But also partially it is to protect their own ego. And to try and fix it, fix it real quick on the back end for nobody knows what's going on. I think that's a huge part of it.

Jeff Ma  
The first one so big, I think a lot of leaders get stuck in a place where they maybe do understand their numbers quite well. But they're looking at them. And they're in a room by themselves or you know, in a very small room, looking at these numbers and thinking about the scenarios, and entrepreneurs have to do these things and make hard decisions and be in really tight places. And they just feel this pressure and stress that they don't either don't want to put on other people or afraid that if exposed, others will leave. And you get kind of handcuffed in a space where I have to keep increasing salaries, people are not content. But I know the reality of the of what that really means I only have so many levers I can pull. And here we are. Because the employees see that lack of transparency as Oh, they're just being greedy, or they're making tons of money. I just made tons of sales, and somehow I'm still not making more money has, How's this possible? And that that link is is missing? How do you how do you think entrepreneurs and leaders alike? Should be strategically approaching that situations? I think it's a very real thing to be like, Oh, if I tell them, This is all I can pay them, because then I show them all the numbers, they're gonna like, well, this business is failing, and I'm out of here.

Samantha Varner  
Yeah. And that's, that's definitely a risk you take, right, like it's a risk any sort of transparency in any sort of relationship, you run the risk of the person being like, Oh, dear, that's a disaster I'm out of here. But I also think what it creates the potential for is massive loyalty and understanding and motivation for the individuals that are working for you to pull towards a betterment of that business. So whether it's just an acceptance that, yeah, we're currently in this growth stage, there is no more money for any of us. And, you know, we'd love for you to be on board and stick with it. Like a startup does. I mean, there's a lot of people that work for absolute peanuts, in startup companies, with the theory that they believe in the mission, they think there's there's value there long term, and they're willing to stick it out, to begin with. And I think most people are like that most people are in jobs, as long as it's a job that they reasonably enjoy, that they're willing to understand those things, if given the opportunity, because our default is that thought of it's greed. Right? They are just taking home all the money, and I'm working for nothing. And they're just getting rich off of my labor off of my work. And while that is true in a lot of businesses, that does happen, we know what happens. I think the vast majority of business owners are doing their very best to fairly compensate, while also fairly compensating themselves. Most business owners I know. Especially in the early, you know, under five or eight years of business, the owners getting paid very little, often less than the employees and I think even just disclosing that as, hey, this is how I'm running the business and I'm not running it to bankroll my own personal, fun life in the background. People will respect that. I think if we give them the opportunity to see it. I think we have to trust that people are not terrible on either side of the spectrum more often. Yeah.

Jeff Ma  
So I'm, I'm my business is off the ground. It's rocking and rolling. I'm profitable. I'm doing great. What does love look like with this? With this capital I have with all this success and all these options of what I can do with that money? What does love, in your opinion kind of look like? What is the right way to kind of connect that profit? You know, there's the greed route, where it's just, you know, I just increase my pay and all these other things, the reasons why people kind of see profit as a negative thing is because a lot of times that goes to line pockets. What is kind of your mindset around profit once you have it?

Samantha Varner  
Yeah, I think it goes back to the beginning of the crush formula, it goes back to the core, those mission, those vision, the values, I think, most entrepreneurs, when you talk to them, most business owners have some thing dear to their heart, whether it's something that's a direct relation to the business that they're doing, or just something they're passionate about on the side, right, and we're seeing more and more corporations are doing this. And small businesses are doing this where it's like, we are going to set up an ability to have a scholarship program, or we're going to set up an ability for additional like, we're going to do a whole staff day, and they're all going to be at this nonprofit that is super close to our mission of our business, or just the mission that we have is a culture of the business. And that sort of thing can go such a long way for I think the loyalty of employees to feel like wow, we're not just saying we donate to I don't know, like, let's say it's the SPCA. We love pets, we all love pets, we've decided as a corporation as a culture that that's who we want to support. But the idea that there is time spent where I'm going to pay you as my employee, you're going to go down there, you're going to volunteer at the SPCA, for one day, a month, or whatever that is, that's putting your money where your mouth is when it comes to taking profits and growing things. So that's very much like a non. It's a donation side of things. And I think that that can go a long way to building the culture and having people believe that you stand behind those things. And it could be any facet of that. I also think I'm giving people bonuses. I think the reality is there's a lot of corporate stuff that gets done to generate culture, like pizza parties, and bowling and big money spent on Christmas party staff Christmas parties in particular. And I think the reality is most individuals would prefer a bonus check. Even if it's a little bonus check, but it happens regularly, right? Doesn't have to be a huge amount of money. But I do think there's something that humans are intrinsically used to seeing a financial reward. Like I've worked really hard, and then being renumerated, a Christmas party or pizza party does not have that same connection for most people. Right? So I think looking at it differently, and being like, what do my individual employees, see as value? See, is me really saying, Hey, I appreciate everything you do. You've gone above and beyond, we're in a great financial position. And here's how I would like to reward you for that. Because you're the reason we're here.

Jeff Ma  
Makes sense, Sam, I think I've had a lot of good perspective changes in this conversation, I think, when it comes to that dichotomy of profit versus care and love, I'm starting to see a lot of elements of that trust, that vulnerability and that transparency, really helping to bridge that gap. So really appreciate kind of the insights you've shared in the short time we've had together. Before you go, can you talk a little bit about your podcast and other ways that people might be able to reach you or hear more from you?

Samantha Varner  
For sure. So my podcast is She needs Grit, it is all about how to be more profitable in your business, and all the little micro details on what you need to do to make that happen. So if this has intrigued you a little bit today, it's a good place to start and just listen in over there and hear more of what I'm talking about as well. The other places come see me on Instagram, it's She Collective.biz, at Instagram, slide into my DMs if this today this conversations created a question for you that you want answered. I'm in my DMs I will personally answer you. I'm always really happy to have those conversations. So don't hesitate to just reach out and let's have a chat.

Jeff Ma  
That's awesome. I love it. With that, Sam, thank you for the time you've spent today and the insights you've given to our listeners. Thank you so much for your time. Please be sure to continue checking out if you haven't Love as a Business Strategy, our book and if you haven't yet, subscribe and rate this podcast on whatever platform you're listening to. And so with that, we'll see you next week. Thank you