#16 Katelynn Chase: Cracking the funding code for a brick-and-mortar business

Learn from Katelynn Chase the challenges of launching and managing a chiropractic business, including financing issues, navigating small business loans, and the importance of financial planning. Katelynn shares the difficulties of securing loans without active income and the necessity of having a solid business plan — as well as her inspirational experience transitioning from Florida to Alaska to follow her dreams.

Nav Technologies, Inc. (“Nav”) makes no assurances or representations regarding the accuracy or sufficiency of the information included in this podcast. This podcast is for educational purposes only, and is not legal or financial advice. If you have questions, consult a trusted professional to help you make specific decisions about your business. The views, opinions, and statements expressed by the host and guests on this podcast are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Nav.

Follow us here:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/navsmb/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/navsmb/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/navsmb

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

Katelynn Chase (00:00)

There's things that I maybe wish had gone differently, but honestly, every experience we've had has built us and prepared us in so many ways that I don't know that I would change anything because it's all prepared us to be able to build the life of our dreams. So sure, there were things that sucked and there were things that were difficult. 

But that's how we grow. And so I wouldn't, I wouldn't wish that away because it's what taught me what I needed to be successful.

Tiffany (00:44)

Welcome to Main Street Makers, a bi-weekly podcast that features real local small business owners who have transformed their passions into profitable businesses. Learn from fellow small business owners on how they overcome challenges, find opportunities, and create thriving operations that make our neighborhoods more vibrant, connected places to live.

I'm Tiffany, and this podcast is brought to you by Nav, the business credit platform that believes every small business owner deserves the chance to succeed.

Now let's get to this week's show.

Tiffany (01:13)

Hi, and welcome to Main Street Makers. We are joined by Katelynn Chase, who has a lot of experience in the chiropractic industry and has a lot of really cool small business experience. So welcome. Yeah, so I wanted to start off with what was the hardest part of launching a chiropractic business? And you're also in a transition, so you can talk about that too.

Katelynn Chase (01:41)

Right.

Okay. I mean the hardest part I feel like for me, because a lot of the like website building and the buildout of the space and all of that is very fun. Cause I love that kind of stuff, but the hardest part, both, the first time we opened in 2019 and now we've just sold that location and we're moving from Florida to Alaska and opening new, just totally a different entity in Alaska.

And for both, the biggest struggle has been funding. Because if you're gonna start up a business in a physical location, you have to have quite a bit of funding to get started. mean, there's the build out of the space and all the equipment you need and the people you need to hire. 

There's just a lot of upfront costs versus if I were to start a business online, I need what I'm selling and a website, you know, and so funding has been an issue with both the first time because we had never run our own business before. And so we are having to prove ourselves to banks and here's our business plan. Here's what we want to do. And honestly, we never actually got a business loan. We ended up getting business credit cards and a loan from a family member.

That's how we got into our first space. Now the second space is more eligible for a business loan. But again, because we've sold our clinic and we don't have active income, banks are finicky with wanting to give loans, even given our previous experience. And so I feel like the most difficult part is hands down both times the funding because unless you have a million or more saved to just get it running, you have to have a way to finance opening a physical location like that.

Tiffany (03:43)

Yeah, can you walk us through that process of applying and then… I'm assuming you applied and then were denied?

Katelynn Chase (03:54)

Well, okay. The first in 2019, when we were opening in Florida, we talked to several banks and yeah, we just kept getting nos. And then there was one banker who trusted our business plan and she was very impressed with us. And so she wanted to help us the most. 

She ended up helping us get a business line of credit. So we got a business credit card through her bank that was helpful, but it wasn't, it was probably only half the amount we needed. And so we kind of felt stuck because we had already found a space but the space we had was not built out at all. Like it needed a full remodel. 

And so it kind of, we felt stuck and I mean, we are religious people. We don’t rely on God to answer all of life's problems. But we were kind of at a point where it was like, we're working on a prayer here. And then a family member just at the last second was like, that's how much you need. I have that. I'll lend it to you. Because they had it in savings. it was just so that was kind of 

I don't know what we would have done honestly, that first time because initially, you have a business plan, have your like a couple years of projected income and you take that to the bank and say, look, here's my marketing plan. Here's how I'm going to open and we're going to go to these events and we're going to be booking patients a few months out and we're going to open with 120 people already on our books and here's our projected income from that. And here's what we expect to do in our first two years. And so it's very detailed as far as here's the market we're working in.

And here is our overall business plan. Here's how we're going to charge patients. And here's what we expect to bring in that first month, second month. And so they want to see that for 24 months. so we took that to banks. And because we are so green, I guess, in the business world, like we are very new, it's a risk for banks because they don't know if we are going to hit our projections or not. And we were partnered with some very solid chiropractic business mentors and coaches who help people open clinics and have a track record of those that they coach in their opening clinic hit certain numbers their first year. And so we had all of that for the banks. And because of our lack of experience, like my husband is the chiropractor and I was

kind of handling everything else as far as setting up and operating and all of that. And he had been working as a chiropractor for four years, but we had never owned anything. And so it just was too much of a risk for a lot of banks. And that's why in the end, we just kind of had to settle on business credit cards to get us started. And then luckily had a family member who said,

I have $40,000 I can lend you. The second time around, now we have more experience and we have a proven track record and we can give our projections and compare them against our projections that we had in Florida and say, look how much we exceeded our projections. We can show them our numbers and then the risk is okay, but this is a different market than busy Florida. You're now going to small town Alaska.

And so we still have a similar, you know, business plan and projections, but because of our previous experience, banks are more willing to consider us. And also we found a local bank and the local bank wants to see their local businesses thrive. And so they're a little bit more willing to take our previous experience into account. and so yeah, that's kind of been the biggest thing because now too

We know how to run the clinic. Like we've done this before. We just need the funding to be able to get into the space and then we're golden, you know? So yeah, that's been the process and this time around, hopefully we can get a business loan because then if not, you fall back on having to have something like a co-signer or, but they're not really gonna want a co-signer.

From someone who doesn't have experience in this field. it's tricky working with banks because it's not like it used to be where they were just excited to lend. Now they are considering their risks from every possible point of view. It doesn't matter that we have the money that we just sold our clinic for a good chunk of change. And it’s sitting in our bank account. 

That's not enough for them because they want to see active income. And because we've sold, honestly, if we did this again, what we've been told is if we could have purchased this space while we still owned our previous clinic, we would have gotten the loan like that. And then we could have sold our clinic the day after and it wouldn't have mattered, but the bank wants to see active income. So if we had purchased the space in Alaska and then closed on our business, we wouldn't have had any problems at all.

Tiffany (09:31)

That is really crazy. It does make sense, the active income thing, but it's also, yeah, that's just, that's wild. So for the first time, was there anything you could have done differently? Cause it feels like a chicken and egg situation where you need money to get experience, but then you need experience to get money.

Katelynn Chase (09:39)

Right.

Right. Honestly, the first time...

It's hard to say because...

I mean, we could have spent those four years saving more, but my husband as a chiropractor fresh out of school, no one was paying him that much. And we had, we already had three kids when he graduated. And so it's not like we had a lot of room to just be saving for a rainy day. so honestly, I don't know what we could have done differently the first time around.

other than potentially start looking for and building up some, like business credit cards sooner. And so that we had more available. but looking back as we, obviously we're reviewing that a lot as now we're opening a new, new space and it's, it's hard if you don't have the experience. don't know unless you can find somebody to partner with who trusts you. It's hard when you're fresh because people want to see that you have experience and if you don't, you got to find someone who's willing to give you a chance.

Tiffany (11:01)

Yeah, that makes sense. we hear a lot that business owners took loans from people that they know because of this exact situation. So it's very common. how do you manage? currently, or I guess with your previous one and your current plan, but how do you manage the recurring costs of running rent, equipment, staffing?

Katelynn Chase (11:07)

Mm-hmm.

Right.

So that's a good question. And probably the most stressful part of owning a brick and mortar business is that you do have set recurring costs every month that you have to hit. Otherwise, how are you going to pay your employees? And so I think you just have to be very smart with your budgeting.

We knew exactly what we have to hit to be able to pay our overhead. And that's like the bare minimum. And so from there, we can plan. We know we have to have X number of new patients a month, and we have to have X number of recurring patients a month.

With that, you just have to plan and plan your marketing. And anytime we saw our marketing start to dip kind of, cause we did a lot of in-person marketing to start. In-person marketing is very hit or miss. Cause we would go to like weekend fairs and events and you know, try and teach people about what we're doing and that line, Hey, you know what we're doing here today? 

That you get every time you pass the cell phone provider in Costco, it gets exhausting, you know, because I want to, I'm here to help people with their health. I'm not a sales person, but you have to be if you're a business owner. And so we just slowly refine our marketing and what was working as far as online marketing.

Facebook is kind of a joke, but Google was great for us. And then as you build, your internal referrals grow. And so that helps. And so we just kind of got to a point where we knew a baseline that we consistently were hitting month to month and it was over our overhead. And then you have to be smart with what you exceed on your overhead because if you have a down month, you can't just have spent all the extra already, right? 

And so we have a phenomenal CPA that is like a mentor, business coach, just as much as he's our CPA. And he helped us figure out how to plan with our extra income and how much to put down towards our business debt versus sit in the account in case we have a down month. And so you just kind of have to always be thinking.

And planning ahead because you never know like when COVID hit, we had been open nine months when COVID hit, cause we opened April of 2019 and then 2020 COVID, nobody knew that was coming, right? And we actually surpassed in a large way in 2020 what we made in 2019, but you couldn't have, there was no way to foresee that. 

And I feel like a lot of the coaching that we had in place and the mentors that we were relying on were able to help us navigate that situation. We could continue to stay open as a health facility. And so we never had to close. But you just had to be very mindful about how you're running and how you are, you know, using your finances so that you're accidentally running yourself into the ground.

Tiffany (14:55)

Yeah. Do you do your own bookkeeping? You have a CPA that does the accounting, right? Do you have a bookkeeper or do you do that yourself?

Katelynn Chase (15:04)

Our CPA does that. So we have a QuickBooks online account and our CPA is connected to all of our accounts through that. so he sends us monthly financial reports and that way whenever we have questions for him, he just pulls them up and looks at where we're at and then gives us guidance from there.

Tiffany (15:26)

That's so helpful because I know a lot of people do that themselves and It's so tricky. It's so hard.

Katelynn Chase (15:31)

I know, and you know, it's expensive to have someone really good and valuable, but our CPA and the mentors that we were paying to help us with the business coaching, there's no way we would have ever hit the markers we hit without them. So it's like, sure, I'm investing this monthly expense that, I mean, it varies according to who you're working with. 

But what I'm getting back from that monthly expense is probably five times what I'm investing. And so it feels like a risk to say, no, that's a huge chunk to just add to my budget. But at the end of the day, we're going now to Alaska and we know exactly which expenses we need to keep and which we don't from our previous experience. And our CPA is one that we will never let go of.

It's just a given. Even if he's expensive, like we're paying for his top tier services now. We don't even have a location currently, but we would never let that go because we know what the return is. And so, I mean, as far as that, it's like, you have your mandatory things like rent and payroll and equipment. That kind of stuff, our CPA is definitely on that mandatory list or marketing too, obviously.

Tiffany (17:00)

Yeah, that's great. Yeah, mentors are something that's across the board. Everyone we've talked to is like, you have to have a mentor because nobody, most small business owners didn't go to business school. And even if you did, still need somebody to help you. So as far as marketing, can you walk me through that? So you said that Facebook was useless. How did you find that out? And do you pay for ads or what does your marketing plan look like?

Katelynn Chase (17:28)

So in the beginning we did a lot of in-person marketing at events and I want to say maybe a year in actually it was probably when COVID hit that our financial advisor was like, you should do some online marketing because we couldn't do, there were no in-person events. 

And he said, I know it's expensive because realistically, if you're paying for Facebook and Google marketing, your probably base fee is something like $1,000, $1,500 a month. And then you have to pay for ads on top of that. So you're looking $2,000 to $3,000 a month for Facebook advertising alone. And then if you want to add Google, you're probably another $1,500 a month. And so for us to be a new business and it's like, what, you want me to now devote, you know, $4,000 $5,000 a month to online advertising? 

And he was like, trust me, because he works with a ton of chiropractic offices who work with our same mentors. He's like, I've seen this work over and over again. So we trusted him and dove in and it really helped bump up our collections. 

However, Facebook specifically, I want to say we ran Facebook for two years and what we found with Facebook is we got a lot of leads, like a ton. We probably were seeing 30 new patients a month. However, with Facebook, it was like a lot of people clicking for this really good deal. But then when they came in, they didn't want to pay for services. So it was like you would get, you'd be processing so many new patients and doing all this paperwork to process them. And only 30 % would actually convert to be a long-term patient. 

So it was a ton of work on our team and my husband was exhausted. Like we were constantly processing all these new people only for none of them to stick around. And so you were having to start over every month. And so that was rough with Facebook where we finally just started to get burnt out. Like sure the 30 % that converted paid for the Facebook marketing and then some, but it was just exhausting to have to see so many people with so low conversion versus Google, at least where we were at in SEO and Google ad guide that we were paying, our conversion was something closer, like 60 to 70%. And so it was way more worthwhile to see fewer new patients come in, but a lot more of them converted over to care. 

It was less exhausting on our team. So even though we dropped down to, you know, between 15 to 20 new patients a month, our collections doubled, you know? And so Facebook, we eventually just dropped. We tried multiple companies that were like, no, no, no, we, we do it different. You're going to have a different experience with us. 

And every new company sure would give us a burst in new patients, but it was always the same — between 25% and 30% conversion for Facebook versus Google never dipped below 50%. I don't think. And so we dropped Facebook and we just have never gone back to Facebook because it was so exhausting and frustrating. And then once you build to a point where you can rely on internal referrals, then it was just, you know, half and half internal referrals and Google.

That's what worked best for us in the, you know, it's a healthcare facility. It's a little bit different than like if you're selling, if you're a store and you're selling hard, you know, physical goods or whatever, but that's what we found.

Tiffany (21:24)

Yeah that makes a lot of sense. How did you find the people that you worked with? So they would make the ads? Was it like companies that would make the ads for you and track them?

Katelynn Chase (21:36)

Yeah, a lot of that was from word of mouth referrals from other chiropractors that, you know, because we were in these chiropractic mentoring groups and, and so people would say, here's who I'm using and I'm seeing a lot of success. And so we would try those people. And then the last one we used was an actual chiropractor who ⁓ has multiple clinics and does his own ads. And so it was like, okay, he's part of our group and he knows what he's doing, but we still saw the same.

Quality of leads coming in no matter what it was just something with Facebook. It was always such a low conversion rate and we had we honestly at the peak of Facebook We had to have four team members to process everything now. We only have two team members because We're not processing a bunch of new patients that we're not seeing long term two team members could do everything with just Google and referrals.

Tiffany (22:36)

Wow, that makes a big difference. And that's also an expense if you have to hire more people to process. Speaking of hiring, when did you make your first hire? ⁓

Katelynn Chase (22:39)

Yeah. yeah.

We made our first hires prior to ever even opening. We found a few people, one was a friend of mine. Well, we were in the same homeschool co-op. She was the director of the homeschool co-op. At that point, it's not like we were super close friends, but we knew each other because we had been, our kids had been going to the same group for a while.

She came to us originally because she needed chiropractic care. She had a health concern that we were helping her work through. And then she mentioned, want to go back to work, but I can't work on Fridays because that's my kids' homeschool co-op day. And Fridays, we weren't open. We were like a Monday through Thursday. And I was like, my gosh, we're going to be starting a business. And so you could work for us. So she was our first hire. And then from there,

I was going to a lot of like business to business type groups where you would meet for lunches and get to know each other's businesses and chamber of commerce events to get to know other business members. And so through those events, I met a couple other people that were looking to get back into the workforce. And so we hired two English speaking and one Spanish speaking, cause my husband's fluent in Spanish. And so we knew we would be seeing us.

Spanish patient base. And that's how we met our initial. From there, the original one I hired, the friend from the home school club is the only one who stayed with us the entire, she's still there managing the office. Hiiring is… it's interesting because then as we went, you know, we would use what's the app that everyone looks for jobs on.

Tiffany (24:36)

Indeed.

Katelynn Chase (24:37)

Yes, thank you. We would use Indeed to post these ads and we would get a lot of interest. And we always did a very specific, we got to have someone who can follow directions. And so we would put very specific instructions. If you're interested, you need to email this email and here's what you need to attach. If they couldn't do that, it was like, well, you're out.

And then once they follow directions, they would come in for a first interview. And if that went well, we would, cause we have a bunch of like scripts. need our team to memorize as far as patient education. And so if they did well on the first interview, we would give them a script to memorize and have them come back for a second interview just to see how they did with it.

It was hard because feels like they expect a lot for what they haven't earned. And so we had a lot of people coming in expecting manager status pay when they had no experience. And then they would ghost us. They would go through the whole process and not even show up for their first day of work.

And it was extremely frustrating because we would get a lot of entitled people. had someone who did incredible in her interviews. And then when we invited her back for a second interview and our starting pay at the time, this was a few years ago, was higher than most. It was higher than minimum wage. And we had a process where you could raise in your first six months by checking off certain boxes. Like you need to learn this, this and this in the first six months.

You could be raised another $2 an hour. And then after that, there's opportunities for continual raises. Like, but you have to come in and do the work and learn. And I don't care if you have no experience in chiropractic. Like this is our process. Well, this person's resume, she hadn't held a consistent job more than six months for the past two years. But because one of them was in a chiropractic office, she felt very qualified. And when we told her our starting pay, she was like,

Well, if you find a position that's more suited to my resume, then talk to me because you're not paying enough. And I was like, it just, we hit that was like time and time and again, and we finally found quality hire in our current patient base. Like we had a woman whose husband came in and, honestly, my husband saved this guy's life, just his overall health, his mental health, everything. And so she saw what we did.

and bought into our mission entirely and loved it. And so when she knew we were hiring, she was like, hire me. And the most success we've had honestly is with people older than 30 and who understand our mission and have already had experience, they know how to work hard. And so she and my friend are the two that are still there today. 

Other than that, it's like we would hire and the turnaround was just crazy. They would come in and work, but now we want to be off onto the next best thing. Hiring is difficult, especially with a brick and mortar location. You only have so many miles that you can be looking within, you know? And so depending on your location, that affects the quality of candidates you have.

Tiffany (28:17)

Yeah, it's funny that you say that because I was so entitled when I got my first office job, I was like, I deserve to be a manager instantly. And I was like, I don't really know anything. Yeah, no, I that makes a lot of sense. But it's good that you found you did find good people. And so I'm guessing one of the things that you're looking for is somebody who can interact with patients.

Katelynn Chase (28:48)

Right. Yeah. Well, and you want someone who can, yes, has great people skills and can interact well with patients. They have to have a certain level of computer skills because everything we do now is so computerized. the other biggest thing for us is they just have to be on board with our mission because our mission statement is like really helping people.

A lot of people think of chiropractic is it's just pain-based if you're in a car accident you need to see a chiropractor well true chiropractic as it was founded is like total wellness because your spine your nervous system controls your entire function of your body

And so it was important to us that our team members understood that mission because that's what we are trying to communicate to every patient who walks in our door is our hope for them and their life and our ability to help them thrive.

And if we had a team member who was like, what? No, that doesn't sound accurate. Well, they're not going to be a good fit because they're not going to be converting anyone to care if they don't believe in our mission. So yeah, they have to have people skills and computer skills, but those things, I mean, people skills is harder to teach than computer skills. Computer skills can be taught. but you can't fake.

you're just going to come across very inauthentic if you don't believe in the mission. So you have to have people skills and you have to believe in who you're working for and finding people who are willing to be part of that mission versus just look for a paycheck can be tricky.

Tiffany (30:29)

Yes, yeah that was one thing another interviewer said that it was hard to get people to sort of fight for your cause, whereas it's easy for you, but it's harder to get other people to fight for your cause.

Katelynn Chase (30:38)

For sure. And I feel like for us too, that was a big part of, you know, we want to treat our team like our family because they're going to fight for you if you're fighting for them. So our team came before our patients. We treat our team well, we give our team good benefits, and hopefully then they now can, you know, in turn take that to the patients.

Tiffany (31:06)

Yeah, that's lovely. So I'm really curious why Alaska. That's very different than Florida.

Katelynn Chase (31:15)

It's funny because when I was pregnant with my youngest who's about to turn eight and I was pregnant with her when we were working in Tampa my husband after chiropractic school I had a chiropractor who had given him a job offer before he ever even finished school. So we just defaulted and came here and this chiropractor had promised a lot and then

I promised a lot of mentoring and none of it happened. So we were kind of in this point where we were stuck. Like he wasn't making enough money. He wasn't growing like, and we were at this other guy's mercy almost, you know? And so I, I don't know why, but one random day I was like, you know what? Canada. Canada sounds exciting. And I texted my husband and was like, what if we just went to Canada? And he had never told me because he knew I hated the cold. 

He was like, actually, I've always wanted to live in Alaska and that was the first time he told me, but he had wanted that since he was a teen. And for whatever reason at that moment, it was like, oh my gosh, that sounds like an adventure. And so we flew out to Anchorage and he took a job interview and we loved it. We love like the lifestyle. I mean, I feel like I'm living in an ant hill in a busy suburban, you know, it's like, there's just people everywhere and everyone is, it's a rat race.

No one has time for each other because everyone's just working, you know, and we want to like a community and we want to be able to do more. Like in Alaska, there's hiking and hunting and fishing. There's just so much you can do outside. Our kids love outdoor adventures. We love outdoor adventures. So when we went there, we were stoked. Like this is what we want. Like I felt like I could breathe, you know, and then he accepted that job offer.

And the doctor never responded for three months. And by the time he responded and I was like, I'm so excited to have you on board. My husband had already accepted a different job and we had, you know, put an offer on a house and we had moved on. So at that time was like, well, that sucks. Like weird timing. And then a year later, another opportunity came for him to go to Alaska with a friend to open a clinic.

And when a friend called, we had just signed a lease on our clinic space. And so it was like, oh, well not again. I guess we're not going to go because we're stuck. And then a year and a half ago, I don't even know why, because now we're established. Our business is thriving. Our kids are thriving. Like they're all on swim team and loving it and they have good friends. And it was like, we started talking about it and it was like, that would be so funny. 

And we had just remodeled our house because we were sure this is our forever home and our dream home. I was like, how funny would that be if now is the time we go when we're established? And it just, was funny because the minute we started talking about it, one thing after another fell into place. We weren't going to go unless our kids wanted to go. We took them and they loved it. And they, they said, we feel like we're leaving home, not going home. When it came time to leave, they just wanted to stay and everything we're going to.

Southeast on an island in Southeast Alaska and everything we love like swimming art and music because I am a music therapist and I'm in the process of getting a a master's dual masters in music therapy and counseling and So we want to add mental health into our clinic like everything that we're about is with music and the arts is huge where we're moving and so it just felt like this is where we're supposed to be, you know.

And so we're just very excited and it's just a better fit for us because now we've had the experience here of opening and running a business. We know how to do that. It finally was like, this isn't our dream place to live. We know we can do this anywhere. If we can find a buyer for our office, why don't we just go to our dream place and build it there? And we found a buyer and everything fell into place.

Tiffany (35:24)

Wow, I got chills. That is so sweet. I love that your kids are so excited. That's awesome. Oh my gosh. Well, I have confidence that it's going to be a really good move for you guys. Yeah, I will. So OK, so if you had to start over, this is my sort of like final words of wisdom. If you had to start over and do everything all over again, what would you do differently?

Katelynn Chase (35:26)

What would I do differently?

Honestly, it's...

As much as it's funny because my husband I are like what if we had just gone to Alaska at first what if we could just You know all of that I Would say a tricky thing about having a brick-and-mortar business is that you're kind of locked in to where you decide to open it like It's not like you can just up and move and we've learned now with your experience that that's tricky.

However, I will say, if we had gone to Alaska first, I don't think we would have lasted there. I think we would have left. And so it's hard because there's things that I maybe wish had gone differently, but honestly, every experience we've had has built us and prepared us in so many ways that I don't know that I would change anything because it's all prepared us to be able to build the life of our dreams. 

So sure, there were things that sucked and there were things that were difficult, but that's how we grow. And so I wouldn't, I wouldn't wish that away because it's what taught me what I needed to be successful. And so if I went back and redid anything, I think the only thing I would have done differently is connect with the chiropractic mentoring groups sooner and start out of the gate with our own business instead of working for someone else.

But again, I almost feel like you think of a slingshot where it's like this power when it's pulled back — working for someone else was where it was pulled back. And that's what gave us momentum to like take off. And so I don't know if we would have been as successful with our own business if we didn't have that experience. And so honestly, I don't know that I would change any of it because all of it has built us to what we are and all of it is necessary, even if it's not fun. 

So I think you focus on today and you focus on what you have in front of you and what you feel led to do today. And even if that changes, it can change 10 years from now, whatever you choose today isn't locking you in permanently. Like I went back to school for a music therapy degree in my thirties and I already had a degree in piano performance. This life isn't like you choose at 20 and now you're stuck, you know, you can always change. 

So whatever you feel led to do today, follow it because even if it doesn't end up successful, it's going to teach you something. It's going to prepare you for something better later. So I think you just has to trust your gut, trust your intuition and you chase whatever opportunities are in front of you. Those opportunities might change down the road, but it'll ultimately lead you to what's going to be best in the end.

Tiffany (38:47)

That's my favorite words of wisdom so far. That was so good. Yeah, that's fantastic. And now I'm going to go run out and start my own business. Well, thank you so much. This has been such a pleasure. We really appreciate all of the advice that you gave. And I think it's going to be really helpful for people, even if they're not in brick and mortar, but especially if they are. So yeah, thank you so much for joining us.

Katelynn Chase (38:50)

Thank you.

Perfect.

All

Yeah, thanks for having me. I was really happy to be on the podcast. I appreciate you having me.

Tiffany (39:20)

Yeah.

Tiffany (39:22)

Thank you to our guests for sharing their story and thank you for listening today. Keep in mind that every small business is unique and there is no such thing as one size fits all advice, so take only what you find helpful. We look forward to next time.