The Mom Shuffle

Despite a nagging calling to pursue interior design in college, Lisa Palmer of Lisa Palmer Designs stayed committed to business school and pursued a successful career in business development after graduation. But her love for design never waivered and she was soon taking on home staging and interior design projects as a side gig part-time. After leaving her last development job, staying home for a few years with her girls, and serving in a super cool hosting role with QVC, Lisa was ready to return to the workforce full-time. This time she didn't miss a chance to design a career she loved as she went all-in on entrepreneurship.

What does it take to build a successful book of clients and then open your own law firm? To navigate the delicate balance between starting a new firm and thriving in family life? To be intentional about your career development, education, and community efforts? To be delightfully surprised by becoming a mom later in life and making big decisions for the benefit of your family? We asked Michelle Douglass of Burnham Douglass, and did this conversation ever deliver! Come along for the ride - you're sure to learn something and to enjoy Michelle's sense of humor as much as we did.

As entrepreneurs and executives, we are always thinking about our customers! But are we truly considering each customer's journey to us? Are we mapping out our interactions with our key market segments and being intentional about our touchpoints? Amanda Read is back with us to talk about how she leverages the marketing staircase and how you can too!

Andrea Merrill of Virtually Adventurous joins us for this month's business theme of Marketing Channels. Managing your customer POS can be overwhelming, but if you begin to understand human psychology behind buying behaviors, you can start to determine which channels are important for your business and deserve your time, effort and investment.

How can understanding your audience and narrowing in on key segments help you market and build your business? Holly Haynes of Crush the Rush joins us to talk about the benefits that refining your customer strategy can have on your productivity and ROI.

Branding expert Kelly Wittman is back to help us kickoff season 3! Listen in on our discussion about being intentional when building your personal brand.

What kind of content are we working on for Season 3? Listen in and find out!

Vicki Dunn Marshall started working as a crew member in a Little Caesars restaurant at the age of 15, working her way up to become one of the first female supervisors for Little Caesars’ corporate office, and the first female in franchise sales. Today she is the CEO of her own VDM Management Group, which operates 24 Little Caesars restaurants and 1 Dog Haus Biergarten throughout West Virginia, Kentucky, and Ohio. She provides jobs for more than 500 people in her stores and has even helped five of her former employees open their own stores, either by selling them a store or by sponsoring them through their application process with the brand. It's fair to say that she's built a big business, but her impact has been even bigger when you hear others share how committed she has been to making a charitable impact on her community,

One very direct impact has been on her own daughter, Carissa. Carissa and her siblings grew up with an enterprising mom, and a knowledge that hard work made all things possible. In considering the next steps in her career, she knew she wanted to build something that felt uniquely her own, while still benefitting from her mom's mentorship, so the two launched into partnership with another franchise brand, Dog Haus Biergarten. Signing a commitment to open three locations in the West Virginia market, the pair is introducing a new brand into a state that apparently has a long history of loving hot dogs! Listen in to hear our first mother-daughter pair on The Mom Shuffle podcast talk about how they do it all.

Chelsey Strand has made it her life's mission to make a positive impact. As a social worker, she supports children as they navigate their diagnoses, anxiety, and depression; as a co-founder of the nonprofit Box of Balloons in Fargo, North Dakota, she is fortunate to give back by helping children in need feel seen and loved on their birthday. Listen in to learn how Chelsey and her team make sure that every child they encounter feels supported and celebrated, and learn how you can take up the effort in your area.

Emily Jaime's passion for travel and discovering other cultures took her around the world before founding YIREH, an ethically sourced, socially conscious boutique, in Hawai'i. Today, Emily and her team of artisans aim to change the narrative of the industry and showcase that fashion can be a positive force for change. This is no fast fashion, this is "slow fashion" focused on thoughtful designs, and a commitment to responsible business practices like safe working conditions, fair wages, and more. Listen in to learn more in this week's episode of the podcast.

Have you ever worked a really long day and arrived home dreading the dinnertime to-dos? Yep, us too. Well, Kyla Hanaway-Quinlan and her team at Feast & Fettle are on a mission to make sure that you can unwind, relax and enjoy the dinnertime you deserve. Recognizing an opportunity to fill the gap and restore some fun to mealtime, they're hand-delivering high-quality meals that are locally prepared, nourishing families throughout New England each day.

An early adopter of Etsy before pivoting into a brick-and-mortar business and opening KIN, a modern mystical shop to Des Moines, Heather Ann Roe has followed her dreams, taken some risks, and encountered her fair share of challenges on her entrepreneurship journey. Listen in to learn how she built a business that invites people into the experiential and sets her shop apart through sourcing, pop-up partnerships, and more!

Susan Wos has spent nearly three decades working in various capacities in the salon world. From senior hair stylist, salon owner and manager, to independent stylist and consultant— her personal experiences, challenges and successes fueled her passion for revolutionizing employment for businesses in the industry with the launch of Enlightened Hire. Founded with a connective spirit and a lofty goal: to offer tremendous value to owners and licensed professionals in the salon, spa and barber industry by providing insight into what works best for them on a personal level when considering workplace opportunities, Enlightened Hire is taking it to the next level as the matchmaker of salon, spa and barber industry hiring.

How is Dr. Miranda Lawrence leaning into her medical training and her personal health experiences to build the future of functional medicine? Listen in on this week's episode to learn how she has expanded her Flourish Hormone Replacement & Wellness Centers practice to three locations across the Eastern US, focusing on bio-identical hormone replacement and vitamin supplementation to aid in prevention and addressing the root cause of illness. 

Single mothers and their children experience the highest rates of poverty among families in Wyoming. That's why Molly Kruger and her team spend their days helping single mothers with low income achieve self-sufficiency through career training and placement. As the COO at Climb Wyoming, a nonprofit founded in 1986 which operates in six locations across the state today, Molly operationalizes a comprehensive program model that is driven by relationship-based direct services to move struggling families to self-sufficiency. Listen in to learn how investing in moms makes a impact on everyone from their own household to the state economy.  

Heather and Brian Byers started Great Plains Nursery in Weston, NE with a passion for growing and planting native trees and shrubs and educating others on the importance of native plants for the ecosystem. Fifteen years later, they feel a stronger sense of stewardship than ever and take pride in being ecologically responsible in their contributions to the environment. Today their nursery serves both landowners and municipalities with everything from retail trees and shrubs, to planting and maintenance contracts, to consultations on conservation efforts. Learn more about Heather's expertise and their ecological approach to horticulture in this week's episode.

When Nikki Guerrero moved from the dry southwest desert to the rich green soils of the Pacific Northwest, she searched everywhere for the flavors of home and realized that there was a real need for the fresh Mexican flavors that she grew up with. Leaning into her grandmother's recipes, an opportunity to score shelf space in a local market, and a partnership for production space, Hot Mama Salsa was born. Twenty-three years later, Nikki and her team remain hands-on, working with local farms to craft the best ingredients to bring farm fresh flavors without any preservatives, fillers, or artificial ingredients to tables in Portland and beyond. Deliciosa!

Remember when you were a new mom and you were tired, and overwhelmed, and searching for your village to give you a break, to lift you up, to remind you that someday everyone will sleep again? Those early days are hard, but the days following can be too. To support new moms and empower them with skills to strengthen themselves and their families, Kai Forsley and her team at Many Mothers in Santa Fe, New Mexico are surrounding them with access to programs and resources in a model I think we can all agree, is needed nationwide!

Born and raised in Mumbai, India before spending time in Canada and eventually making her home in the US, Cherie Scott could never find a simmer sauce that replicated the flavors of her early years. Reflecting back on the scent of the sauce, the combination of spices, the nostalgia of cooking with family, Cherie saw an opportunity to honor her family’s immigrant journey and to create an absolutely delicious offering that introduced a whole new market, and new generations, to the flavors of India. Join us as we travel from Mumbai to Maine.

In this week's episode, Maria Gus of Visit Bartlesville is serving up tips for building local tourism and sharing ideas for fun family adventures. She's also filling us in on her career journey, talking about her favorite side gigs, and spilling the tea on what happens when Hollywood comes to town to make movies! Join us for a lighthearted adventure, Oklahoma style.