 Our next guest, Julie Gordon-White, the CEO of the Well for Women Entrepreneurs. Welcome. Hi, Jeff, thanks for catching me here. Absolutely, well thanks for taking a few minutes. So you were a speaker this year. So what was your presentation for the folks at home that you made? Oh, absolutely, I had the pleasure of speaking about how to grow to a million. So I help entrepreneurs grow their businesses to a million and then some people sell for a million or more. So, next question, tips and tricks. What are some of the key things that people need to think about that they want to grow the business to a million? That's kind of that first big hurdle when you get to a million dollar revenue from a business. Right, right, it's challenging just to get to that first million. After that, you can really go. So I really encourage entrepreneurs to think about reoccurring revenue in their business because especially in the beginning, there's a lot of feast and famine of income coming in. You don't know when it's going to come in next. So if you can create reoccurring revenues like maintenance contracts or something that people consume every single month and you can fill it for them over and over. I sold a plant rental business one time. So there's amazing subscription. A plant rental business. Yeah, so people would go and take plants into a corporate office and they would maintain them and then they'd build them every single month or an online subscription-based business which is super hot right now. If you have a product, you can just drop, ship it over and over after people buy it. Even a box industry is really hot right now. Get a box of the month. Right, right, right. So finding a way to build reoccurring revenue in a business is gold-out. Now are most of your clients service businesses or product businesses? Both. So we have a lot of service companies including one or two people who have started it and then product companies also have a lot of food products and fashion lines and things like that. I work with a lot of women entrepreneurs so we tend to get on that side. Okay. So people are like, ah, you know they, what does it take to kind of get over the hump, you know, to kind of take that first thing? What do you tell people? Because I'm sure a lot of people, you know, make a cool food item that people are like, ah, you should make this. How do you help them kind of get over the hump? What does it take to get over the hump? That actually starts this. It started a great question, you know, everybody needs a business plan but I think sometimes when people think business plan, they think about 40, 15 page document to take to a bank. I teach women to start with a one-page plan. Really simple. Understand your vision. Why you're doing what you're doing. What is your big strategy? What are you going to use to make your business successful over time? What are the three objectives, you know, that are measurable? How much money are you going to make? How many contacts? You're going to have new clients, maybe things like that. So measurable objectives and then the action steps you need just to get started. You can do it just for a 90 day format. I actually teach a 21 day business plan to really go take a micro step forward but 90 days is great and a one-year one-page plan is fantastic. So that's a busy way to get started. And then what are the classic kind of pitfalls that you're going to call into this? You know, I want to build a business and I want to make it a food product or a food thing I sell. But, you know, I don't have a clue about it. I'm not going to keep track of my expenses beyond maybe my easy, you know, cost of good sold. What are some of the pitfalls that you're going to call into this? Well, that was one of the topics I talked about today in my talk, is that you've got to know your numbers. You have to understand the economic model of your business. You might make a really good thing, cookie, whatever it is, but is it profitable? Retail is a really difficult business to be profitable in. And you might love all the items in your store, but you might start not really enjoying your business if you're not making any money. So understand those numbers. I think in the beginning, which will help in the long run, you just have to think bigger, you know? I think people get nervous about when they start. But just think about a bigger business that you might want to build but start with a really small step. That's a great way to kind of get over that problem. I'm going to be anxious, but I've got something great here. That's why I'm starting it. But just think big and start small. Now, what about partnership? Because there's a lot of discussion about partnership. Partnership could be like a marriage, it could work, it could not work, but at the same time, when you're all by yourself, it can be really difficult. You've got the pressure of the product ads, you've got the pressure of the accounting, you've got the pressure of so many things, you know, suddenly permits and taxes and all kinds of stuff. Wouldn't you kind of advise around kind of the partnership question and also, you know, potentially having somebody who's got a different set of skills than they make for this person? There's kind of two approaches to that. I've sold a lot of businesses where the partnership thing didn't work out so well. It's hard to have two visions that come together. You can also build community. You don't have to give away technique to somebody else to have a partnership. I bring women together using technology online. So we create a community over video through Facebook, so you can create a community so you don't have to feel alone. I heard recently that about 20% of entrepreneurs report that they're lonely because they're starting at their kitchen table and you don't like to put here and into it. And it's hard. So you need to reach out and be a part of the community. And then if you feel like you would do better by having a second person or a third person as a partner, then be formal about it. Have that partnership agreement in place just in case things don't go right. And we say that this is a partnership. This is a partnership. It's on money, not love necessarily. So it's a little harder to get together. So plan ahead to do this. Okay. So another big thing that's changed is, and you mentioned that the community and the direct connection that you can now have with your customers. It's a quick series. You're gonna have that. Oh, that's great. Now via social media, Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, pick your favorite platform. You can connect directly with the customer. How does that change the kind of the total recognition? Level the playing field. Before it used to cost a lot of money to have all of that interaction and feedback tools with customers. Now you can go straight to your customers. I teach them. They're the fish where the fish are. So know where your customers are hanging out. And go there. Get involved, ask questions, serve them right where they are. And then you can really get all that rich information. And it's just so much less expensive to start and grow a good business than it used to be. So use those tools to get the information you need so you can serve what people really are with you. Because the other people are so hard to produce. No matter what you have, how do you get it into stores? How do you get people to get exposed to it? How do you get trial? But now with Amazon and all these other traditional methods, you're no longer gonna walk in there's a lot of ways that you can do this thing. It's just you need to get your stuff out of it. Absolutely. And I think there's a different challenge now because I'm really thinking about the best way to work out it. So you want to choose the one that's gonna get you where you want to go fastest probably. So being really confident about choosing a distribution where before it was just how do I do it? Now it's which challenge should I use? All right, so Julia, I'll give you the last word before we sign off. How can people learn more? They want to grow their business to a million. Sell it for maybe a little bit. Where should they go? Oh, I would love to help there. They can come to growethewill.com. Lots of free resources, courses. I do a 21 day business plan where they're able to stay at noon just so they can try it out and have fun. They can come grow at the well so you can grow to a million in some way self-worth. Self or more than a million? Come on, Julia. All right, Julie Gordon-White. I'm Jeff Frick. We're at the end to it. QuickBooks Connect 2015 at San Jose. San Jose, thank you California. Thanks for watching.