Episode 7 – Ella Williams – Posh TeaTime Co
Summary of “Cosmos and Commerce” Podcast Episode with Ella Williams
Hosts: Michele Cook & Janis Francis
Guest: Ella Williams, Posh Teatime Co
Section 1: Introduction
- Introducing Ella Williams: Guest is an entrepreneur and founder of “Posh Teatime Co.”
- Background: Talked about her personal and business journey.
Section 2: Business Acumen
- Launching Posh Tea Time Co.: Ella shares her experiences and challenges in setting up her brand.
- Inspiration: The significance of tea in her culture and family.
- Business Expansion: Future plans about product development and expanding to a physical store.
Section 3: Goal Setting & Advice
- Goal Setting Process: Ella starts in January and plans quarterly, then breaks down tasks into achievable goals with target dates.
- Advice to Entrepreneurs:
- Understand and prioritize branding.
- Begin social media promotion before launching the business.
- Recognize and engage with the target market.
- Guiding Mantras: “Don’t be poor,” “Don’t stop,” and “It’s too late to turn back now.”
- Networking: Mentioned the significance of attending different networking events, highlighting Columbus, Pickerington, and Westerville Chambers.
- Relaxation: Discussed the importance of self-care, vacations, and pampering.
- Drink of Choice: Ella prefers mocktails, especially those with pineapple or mint.
Section 4: Closing & Contact Information
- Finding Ella Williams: Shared contact details:
- Website: Posh Teatime Co.
- Social Media: Instagram and Facebook under “Posh Teatime Co.”
- Email: info@poshteatime.com
- Appreciation: Both hosts and guest expressed gratitude for the engaging discussion.
- Closing Remarks: A call for potential guests to feature in upcoming episodes.
- Goodbye: A cheerful sign-off wishing listeners a great day.
Overall, the podcast episode provided insights into Ella’s business journey, her strategies, and the importance of branding, networking, and self-care in entrepreneurship.
Ella Williams Top 4 Takeaways
Top Takeaways from the Podcast with Ella of ‘Posh Tea Time Co.’ on Cosmos and Commerce:
- Goal-Setting Process:
- Plan yearly goals broken down by quarter.
- Visualize using tools like whiteboards.
- Translate big goals into bite-sized tasks with target dates.
- Branding Advice for Entrepreneurs:
- Understand and establish your brand before launching the business.
- Start social media early to gauge interest and secure brand names.
- Know your target market and communicate directly with them.
- Motivation and Mindset:
- Stay committed and remember why you started.
- Mantras like “Don’t be poor,” “Don’t stop,” and “It’s too late to turn back now” can be powerful motivators.
- Mental fortitude is essential; consider practices like prayer or meditation.
- Seek out a supportive community of entrepreneurs for emotional and practical support.
- Networking and Community:
- Engage in various events, even outside your immediate industry, to find unexpected connections.
- Chambers like Columbus, Pickerington, and Westerville are beneficial for networking.
- The value of diversity in networking events; sometimes the best contacts come from unexpected places.
Links
Posh Teatime Co
Facebook
Instagram
Comfort Photography
Jehan LLC Photography
The E Myth by Michael Gerber
Transcript
Ella Williams Posh Teatime Co
[00:00:00]
Welcome to Cosmos and commerce, the podcast that’s as refreshing as a perfectly mixed cocktail. I’m your host JanisFrancis with The Humble Crate Artisan Marketplace and RE MAX Connection. And I’m here with my co-host Michele Cook from Body Ache Escape Massage Center. And in every episode, we’re here to deliver the tastiest blend of business insights and entrepreneurial spirit.
Get ready to sip on valuable strategies, savor the wisdom from our guest and set yourself up to succeed in the world of commerce. So let’s raise our glasses to the perfect mix of innovation and inspiration. This is Cosmos and Commerce. Welcome Ella. Ella Williams is our guest today and she is from Posh Tea Time Co.
and Ella, can you start by telling us a little bit about yourself and how you got started with your mobile tea party business? Yeah . I have posh tea time code, which is a mobile tea room.
We launched in 2021 on April fools day. And I think. For us, we’re more than just a mobile team room. We’re a social enterprise. So a part of our business model is we partner with local nonprofits and state funded agencies, and we teach home economics, etiquette and life skill classes to at risk youth.
So that’s a part of our mobile. And another part piece of that, we just bring all the vintage China, the crystal, the cutlery, all of that to give you a really opulent tea time experience. And I launched my business. I guess you could say it’s a COVID, baby, but not really. Really, I was actually inspired in my childhood by watching My Fair Lady.
It was one of my favorite musicals. And so watching, seeing a young flower girl, poor flower girl, be adopted by these, professor by a professor and then taught etiquette, how it could refine and change her life. [00:02:00] And then having these kind of these really signature T experiences in the library of the professors home.
I just thought that was really beautiful and it just always lingered with me. So I.
I started working at Zencha Tea Salon in 2002 or 2003. I worked there for about three, four years, and that’s located in the short north of Columbus. And I was their very first employee. So I got a lot of my tea time experience, how to steep teas, brew teas, how to taste, how to smell them.
I got a lot of that experience from there and then working in the hospitality industry. That’s where it started. And then once I moved into corporate, met my husband, who’s from Morocco, we began practicing Moroccan tea ceremonies at home quite a bit as well. And I just, I really always loved tea.
I began hosting tea parties in my home and that really. Was the catalyst for me to launch posh tea time. Co people, all my friends were like,, you need to turn this into a business. And then the fact that I began hoarding so many pieces of China, my husband was like, you need to do something with this.
And I was like, okay, so we, he’s either get rid of it or do something with it. I decided to do launch posh tea time. Go long story. No, it’s not. What was your very 1st job? Was it my 1st tee? My very, that was, I was their 1st employee. No, my 1st job at age 14 was at the Columbus zoo. Oh, fun. I’m always working , hospitality, your customer service.
Yeah. What I was 14, so I did whatever they told me to do. I would sell cotton candy. I
would like to work at the little fast food, little kiosks,
pretty much anything.
Your business has a distinctive brand identity. Could you share with us how you developed such a strong and recognizable brand for your mobile tea party service? Yeah that’s always a hard question for me to answer because I think at some point your [00:04:00] business just becomes who you are, right?
It just comes becomes a piece of you. So for I guess in regards to creating my brand. I knew from the beginning, I wanted my brand name to , reflect something opulent. I wanted people right away to know what we do. My daughter and I sat and we did brainstorming, she’s 15 now, but at that time she was 12 or 13 and I was like, let’s think of something that means elevation and it’s opulent.
And it also means tea time. And then we just wrote a list and cross things out. Finally, I was like. Who was always you don’t know. My daughter didn’t know at the time. People always thought she was stuck up with Posh Spice. And I was like, this is a very posh experience.
So let’s go with Posh. And that’s where the name came from. And then. I know, right? I don’t, this is the first time I’ve even told anybody that. I would have never known it was a Spice Girl. I know, right? Nobody’s ever known this. I know, the first time revealing this, I didn’t want to tell anybody that.
But yeah, that’s that’s where we got the name. Oh yeah, Posh Spice. But it’s very posh and, that’s something that’s very refined when you think about it. And then I just went from there. I knew that I decided To know, define what our brand colors were.
I’m very girly. I love florals. I love pastel colors, but I also love gold, black and white. So I wanted to tie those in. So that’s why our logo, it has some of the gold foil and we have the color scheme that we have. And then from there, it was just easy to, I think. For our marketing, people like to see people peopling people like to see people enjoying experiences.
And so it was really easy for me to just say I’ll make sure we capture all of that content. We’ll capture the videos will capture the photos. People see those things. Yeah, that’s I guess that was our strategy for our marketing. If you want to call it a strategy, tell me how often you get your photos done.
For your brand photos, so I [00:06:00] definitely believe in brand shoots. I love brand shoots. I definitely think for me, I love editorial I, I want when people look at our photos that it looks like a magazine or a glossy catalog. That’s what I would like for our brand. And so I would say we try.
If it was up to me, I would do photo shoots every quarter. So that’s four times a year. I would definitely do that. But right now as budgets go we’re doing anywhere from two to three times a year. Yeah. Two to three times a year. I think the pictures that you have taken are just amazing. Give a shout out to your photographer.
I know. Yes. I have two photographers that I work with. Yes. One is Jahann Doherty. She did the last shoot with the Duchess tea cart and the balloons. She did that shoot. She was amazing with that. And then Comfort Photography
Comfort Witcher. She’s amazing as well. She did my first shoot. She knocked it out the ballpark.
I said, I was going for it. For a, Alice in Wonderland, but mixed with a , black Martha Stewart, and she like knocked it out the park. So yeah. Shout out to those ladies. Yeah. I love your pictures. Do you think that’s a key element that is contributing to your success?
Successful branding, the photography. Yeah, I think so. I I definitely will tell people to invest in your marketing and investing your photography right off the bat. It was something that I wish I would have done sooner, honestly. I think that was probably the biggest mistake that I didn’t do was do that immediately once I decided to launch my business, because honestly, I didn’t really get a lot of bookings until people started seeing the photos and the marketing, and then that kind of just legitimized our brand, honestly.
Yeah. We’re asking for quite a bit of money for tea parties. So I want people to feel comfortable with that. Yeah. Yeah. See what they’re going to get before they sign up. Yes, exactly. Can you walk us through the process of turning your concept of a mobile tea party business into reality?
What were [00:08:00] some of the challenges you faced and how did you overcome them? Yeah I think some of the challenges you face as a entrepreneur are going to I think this is for most people, whether you have anxiety or not, I don’t have anxiety, but I think most people will suffer from some sort of analysis paralysis.
I’m very. Analytical error, I try to be very conscientious of the decisions that I’m going to make and really thoughtful and intentional about those decisions that I’m going to make in the commitments I’m going to make. And so for me, I spent before I launched my business, I spent 6 to 8 months actually.
Crafting a detailed business plan that was , 45 pages long. That included detailed everything. I made sure I had all my licenses in place. I made sure I had my food handling license in place. I was just very detailed. I think that also is attributed to me working in corporate. So I work a corporate day job.
You have to do those things very by the book and because illegal and often you have those involved So I really just knew from the beginning I wanted to hit the ground running But I wanted to have everything in place So I would say you
have a find a balance because at some point you have to just do It execute and I think you know, yeah, it was great that I had did all of that work But I probably wouldn’t have spent six to eight months on that.
I probably should have just Did maybe 4 months, 3 months, cut that time down and just launched into my business and that would have been helpful because you really learn the most by making mistakes.
Yeah, I can get stuck in analysis paralysis to sometimes. Yeah. Were there any specific strategies you employed to ensure your business stood out and appeal to your target audience? Any others besides the photos? Yeah, I definitely utilize I think because I had conversations with you, Michelle, I started leveraging Instagram marketing.
So really looking at meta really when I had that first kind of touch base with you, actually, I was like, oh, crap. I need to look at my SEO. Oh, I haven’t even thought about that. And I really started narrowing it down. It’s sometimes it’s not [00:10:00] about you not knowing how to do something.
It’s really maybe someone just needs to speak to you about it or remind you that, hey, you need to do this. And so having you remind me, and I was like I’m confident in these areas. I can do it. Is it do I have the time and capacity to do it? Not really, but I can be strategic about it. So really going in, creating my categories, narrowing my customer market, my target market in meta for Instagram and Facebook, that’s been really helpful.
So I literally target, most of my clientele are 95% women. So I really target client are in my age range just between 28 to 65 ages, 28 to 20, 65, they usually make over six figures. They usually I have an avatar for her. Her name is Celine. And she, she likes also supporting businesses that have causes.
And so I really made sure I created an avatar. I really made sure that I niched down to even what they watch, what type of television shows they watch, what type of purses they buy, where they shop, where they live, those things really understanding who your target clientele is so key.
That’s really been helpful when it comes to our marketing. Yeah, that is a great point. Yeah. So thank you for that. Oh, I’m glad I could help. Yeah, Michelle’s good at stuff like that. Ella, what are some of your winning habits? What sets you up for success? Oh my God.
I always feel like I am not the person to give people business advice. Cause I feel like I’ve just been open just a short while. I would say probably consistency. That’s going to be the. The habit cause I will say also showing up because I will show up to a lot of things, even if it’s just one time, just to see what the vibe is or the atmosphere is and if it’s worth something for me, I tell people just show up.
Do that you owe it to yourself, you owe it to your brand, you owe it to your business show up to events. You never know who you’re going to meet. You never know who is actually looking for your service, [00:12:00] but has never heard of you. And really people really love. To buy from people and I can tell you so many of my clients are just word of mouth referrals.
So be consistent and show up. Yeah. Yeah. Do you have any books or is there a book that you’ve given as a gift, or do you have any books that have greatly influenced your life? As a reader, I am more of a fiction Person, I love fiction and I love romance too, because it’s a quick, easy read and it’s a quick escape, but for business right now, I’m reading the E Myth.
So I just started that a couple of weeks ago and so far, that’s been really good.
What is the fiction 1. That you would pick. So I love fantasy novels as well. So I would say Maya by Richard Adams. It’s from the 1980s.
Yeah, that’s a really good book and it’s really long. Okay. And I like it a lot if you’re into fantasy. Yes. Okay. We’ll check it out, . Thanks. Ella, what’s your most worthwhile investment? I would say the most worthwhile investment, I would say our cart. I feel like our Duchess Tea Cart, that was really a great investment. It cost me a few thousand bucks and I made a have a great contractor who was able to go off some designs that I gave him and was able to customize it.
And I feel like people really also took me more seriously when I, they saw me investing in my brand. So I would say the cart and then also my investment in a bookkeeper, cause it just makes things a lot easier. Oh yeah. Yeah, for sure. I remember when you got your first cart, that was when we were doing a pop up here at the shop.
When you first had it and we couldn’t get it in the front door because it was too big. It’s huge. It’s huge. And the guy that made it was like we can take it apart
and I was like, no, don’t take it apart. Oh my goodness. But it’s [00:14:00] awesome. Nick For those of
you who don’t know, Ella is a vendor inside of Janice’s shop, The Humble Crate. Yes. Loose leaf teas, they’re awesome. Ella, do you have a skill that you would like to master? Yes, I am right now. We, because we do teach etiquette classes to at risk youth right now, I’m actually working on hopefully signing up for a class, either this fall or in the spring, hopefully this fall, if I can get the time off of work that I would actually go to the UK and study in London at the oldest at the world’s oldest Protocol school and charm school.
So I would actually get my consultation license and actually be certified to teach etiquette international etiquette. And children said, I love that. I love that. That is really excited about that. So I can’t wait. Oh, wow. What’s your proudest accomplishment. I’m one of those people that doesn’t really sit in the accomplishments.
I just move on to the next thing because I’m like, thank you. And I’m just, I’m always shocked when I win something, always shocked. And I’m always, I was never a big crier, but I feel like the last 2 years since I’ve launched this business, every time I get something or am recognized, I start crying.
. I would probably say it’s going to be a tie between being recognized at in the Pickerington chamber. Being recognized that was , crazy and insane to me for me to be so new and for them to recognize the work that we’re doing as a social enterprise. And so that was the Athena award, and I would also say the recognition that I received most recently from winning the pitch competition, winning 1st place in the women’s CEO pitch competition.
Still shocking. I’m just I don’t know why people sometimes I just I’m really shocked how I win some of these things. I’m like, okay, but because the people that I’m always , in categories [00:16:00] with are , so incredible. And it’s just shocking.
I watched your pitch and you did an excellent job. . And the fact that you are showing up it’s all very well deserved. Thank you. It’s a lot of sacrifice. People don’t see the sacrifice. They don’t understand that I’m not home with my kids.
And when I want to be home with my kids or my four year old, be like, you’re not leaving again. Are you or yeah. And my husband works second shift, so it
gets really. Hard balancing all of these things and working, but I know at the end of the day, it’s going to help position us in a place where we can expand and scale.
Yeah, congratulations on that pitch prize. You won 15, 000. How did you prepare for the pitch? And what do you think set you up your presentation apart from your. How did I prepare? The 1st step is procrastination. Crying
Stress eating a lot. Those are the things , Oh my God, why do I have to do this? It was really crazy because I, as I’m very wordy and I can talk all day. So the fact that I had to condense everything into three minutes. Was bananas for me. It had to be between three and four minutes.
So four minutes was the max call and the fact that I was able to do that was crazy So honestly, I do if anything i’m guilty of always asking people for advice So I had 10 people listen to my pitch Rewrote my pitch six times because I got the feedback and then re so a lot of iteration, a lot of, okay, let me get your feedback.
What do you think that you think this represents my brand, literally getting the feedback, tweaking it, throwing away the feedback didn’t really matter to me. And then really implementing everything to try to get a solid pitch and to give what I thought the audience would want to hear. I would say I spent about 40 hours on my pitch because I redid it several times.
Yeah, I know you missed a big concert. I did. I gave up Beyonce. I had tickets to go see Beyonce in Chicago. And [00:18:00] I knew that if I did that, it would like sidetrack me and I wouldn’t be focused. So I just completely, I gave the ticket away to somebody in Chicago and like literally just. Practice all weekend, reading off my note cards and practicing clicking through my slides.
That’s how focused I was, but I just get hyper intense because I don’t want to look stupid in front of people. So I was like, I don’t even if I don’t win, I just don’t want to look stupid. That is a big motivator. What do you plan to do with your prize money to further enhance your business?
I’m planning on using that money to go to the UK and take those classes so I can have my official certification. So that would pay for that. The certification is 10, 000. To get that certification is very pricey. So yeah, so we’ll go towards that trip and getting the certification and then hopefully with those new credentials,
I’ll be able to get some more clients that want to book with us.
Yeah Janice and I want to know if you believe in the power of manifestation and feel like manifestation might have played a part in you winning. I definitely believe in manifestation. I believe in manifestation prayer. I believe in, you have to execute it is more than just manifestation. You really have to execute it sometimes I would imagine myself winning, but it would be shocking i’m not always good at that part.
So I would Imagine what it would be like to win and then I would just say you know what? Let me just keep doing the best that I can and at least I know I can be the best Version of myself and I just kept visualizing that And then practicing really just the practicing and committing to it and then committing to getting the feedback and really implementing that.
That was important. And then prayer because I have to pray you guys. I say, please God, please let everything works out even on the day of the pitch, we took the cart there and we were loading the cart in our truck and the wheel broke on the cart on the Dutchess car. broke off, snapped off, and it was two hours before the event.
So my husband had to [00:20:00] drive an hour to Grove City where my contractor was to get him to fix the wheel and then come back and then I had to get dressed. So it was a hot mess that day. But , at least I had taken that time and I had already prepared in practice. So everything worked out in the end.
Yes, and you wouldn’t have known it because your pitch was flawless. Thank you. You did great. Thank you. Yeah, you did great. We already talked a little bit about your niche marketing. Can you expand on that a little bit? How do you approach the marketing to ensure that you’re effectively reaching and engaging with your target customer?
Yeah, I think for us what we’re trying to do is get better at that. We’ve actually started using survey monkey, and actually we are starting to use clavio for our newsletters as well as some communications to our our existing clients. What we’re doing is we’re going to be implementing this next quarter, follow up emails to any of our clients that have booked with us.
We’re going to follow up and ask how their experience was get more details about how they heard about us and if they would refer us. But a lot of times
when people call us, the way that we know that our marketing is working is that when they inquire with us, we actually go through the consultation call and then we put together the proposal.
We actually inquire at that time how they heard about us. And so oftentimes people will tell you Oh, I saw you on Google, or I saw found you on Instagram or someone tagged you and LinkedIn. And that’s how we’re able to hear if our marketing strategy is really effective. A lot of times I find that just being active and commenting on other people’s posts and resharing those things has also really given us some visibility to.
Sometimes it’s more of a 3rd degree that you’re marketing. It may not be a direct reflection of your marketing . I always tell people our Instagram and our Facebook sometimes are more of a portfolio. And so when people are looking at that, they’re more looking to see what we are, who we are, what our photos look like, what our brand does.
And that again, our actual activity and engagement, really our engagement on social media that helps us [00:22:00] to get clients unless we do some paid advertising when we do paid advertising. We know the way that we can see that work is people will tell us. They’ll say, oh, I saw your ad on Instagram or Facebook.
Yeah, do you have a marketing an example of a marketing campaign or strategy that particularly resonated with your audience? I do. When I look at my Instagram, there are a few that, stick out. That’ll say, Oh my God, you’ve gotten the most likes a lot of times, which is really weird to me but a lot of the comments and the likes and the support and the visibility that we’ll get.
More than likely will be from our posts. It’ll be our Instagram posts. We will get quite a bit of feedback. When I’ve either won something or I’ve gotten some type of recognition or news collaborations. When I collaborate with other small businesses, those tend to get a lot more visibility and engagement on those posts.
And I will say. Probably some of the posts that we get the least amount of engagement would probably be our recipes. Sometimes we’ll post different tea recipes so we don’t get as much engagement on those posts as we do others. Do you do all your social media yourself? I do it myself. I do have high school interns and I’ve trained them to post so and I’ve trained them to edit our
photos and post.
So they’ve on break for summer. So that’s me. And then they’ll pick up back in the fall and I’ll train them and they’ll pick up and they’ll start scheduling.
Nice. Building a strong customer base is essential. How do you create memorable experiences for your customers during your tea parties? And how has this contributed to repeat business and referrals? Yeah, I think for us, we really pride ourselves on having attention to detail.
That’s really important for us. So we make sure that we. Even from the consultation call, we ask what their favorite colors are. We ask them what they want the experience to be. Is this a birthday celebration? This is an anniversary. T we ask them that and then we [00:24:00] customize each party based on the information we’ve gotten from our clients.
So we really want to make sure that it’s a unique experience for them. And then when we go in, we’re taking care of everything from set up to tear down. So they literally, all they have to do is have a table in the space and that’s it. And we take every. Take care of everything. So we come in, we set up we’re pretty silent about it.
We will play classical music while we’re setting it up. So we’re already getting the ambience kind of created for them. And then we also always give our hosts a little signature T I T gift bag swag bag from us as well. And , a personalized thank you card. So that’s, those are just some of the ways that we make sure we give a really unique and custom experience.
I love it. Can you highlight the role of customer feedback and word of mouth and growing your business? I think it’s important to get customer feedback. So we, a few months ago, we sent out a survey monkey to all of our existing. The clients and we posted on linkedin. We posted all of our social media.
I think getting client, whether their existing clients or potential client feedback is very important because you get to get so many perspectives. So we got feedback on as having a brick and mortar, and so we were able to get a lot of feedback of. Where people would like us to be, where they would like us to be located, what type of things they would like us to offer.
What’s the price point they’re willing to pay at a brick and mortar
establishment for our team. And so we were able to get a lot of insights about our existing and potential clients. And I think that’s just really helpful and making sure that we deliver what people want and not what I think people want.
I think that’s very important.
So we’re going to talk about scaling and your future plans. Okay. As your business gains popularity, what are your thoughts on scaling it while maintaining the personalized touch that your customers love? I think, eventually our goal is to scale and expand. We want to grow. And so the next step for us would be to do a smaller brick and mortar.
We already have the T trailer. So we have a mobile tea trailer. That’s more of a add on feature that we use for different pop up events [00:26:00] and we can do different farmers markets with, which is great. But our goal is to ultimately get into our own brick and mortar location and be able to offer this experience that people can come to as well, while still offering the option for the catering option at their home.
Yeah, so we’re hoping within the next. three to four years that we would be able to have that brick and mortar space and that we can, either be in the Westerville, Worthington, we would love to be in Pickerington, but our surveys have not been, that feedback has been great in Pickerington.
What is your goal setting process? So the goal setting process, I’m like, really, I’m not bad at it, but I am lazy with it. So what I do is at the beginning of the year in January I will get in a room usually at a coworking space, we’ll use the whiteboard and we’ll actually plan out all of our goals for all 4 quarters.
So what I’ll do is I plan that out, Literally each quarter, what we’re going to do, whether it’s going to be a brand shoot event, whether it’s going to be a new product launch drop, we literally plan that out for the entire year. So I had already planned the cart. I’d already planned the trailer. Those things had already been planned out.
And then I break those data to bite size. Okay. When can I get those done feasibly? And then have some target dates attached to those. That’s great. Based on your journey and successes. What advice would you give to other entrepreneurs, especially those looking to establish a strong brand like you?
I would definitely say know your brand. Don’t sleep on your brand. I think sometimes people will just want to launch a brand. Business and not have a brand established, I would say the 1st thing to do is probably start your social media before you’ve actually launched your business. So you can already make sure that you have your social media handle that reflects your brand name.
I would also make sure that you’re posting things and getting people excited about what’s to come. I think that’s so important and it really just understanding your target market and really. Talking to them, everyone is not going to be your target market, but really understanding who’s in your target market and what they like.
That’s so important. Yeah. [00:28:00] Is there a particular mantra or guiding principle that has helped you stay motivated and focus throughout your business journey? Yes. Don’t be poor. And
You can’t give up. Don’t stop. Those are the days. I constantly run through my head. It’s too late to turn back now. Those are the things that are , always in my head because some days are harder than others. And so it’s just really important that. You understand that it’s not going to always be easy, especially if you’re working a full time job and you have family and kids and things like that, really, you have to build the mental fortitude.
And if you don’t pray, if you don’t meditate, start. Do that because you’re going to need that. If you don’t have a good circle of friends, if you don’t have other entrepreneurs that you can talk to, and you can cry to, you need to find them 1st. Because it’s going to get hard and you’re going to need that support.
Yeah. Earlier you said that you go to events. All the time just to see what the vibe is like a lot of times. So where have you found the best vibe for you? What’s your favorite groups? Yeah. For networking, I absolutely love the I would say the Columbus chamber is the biggest one and they have more events, so I like when you have a diversity in events, I would say the Columbus one is one of the biggest, largest one.
And then I would say. Pickerington and Westerville Chambers, both are really great to start with. The Westerville Chamber has so many activities sometimes it’s overwhelming. There is so much to do. And I like Pickerington because it is where I live and it’s small and I feel connected to my community.
So I really do I wish I could attend more of those. They just always seem to conflict with my day job. There’s always a meeting that I’m in. So I’m just like, okay, whoever Jeff is, he’s scheduling these on purpose. He’s working at looking at my work calendar. But yeah, I would say all 3 of those are really good.
There’s a few other networking groups that I’m in part of as well. Which is great. I don’t always get to go to those [00:30:00] events as well. But I say, find a group that has. Activities and networking, if it’s that appeal to you, because it did have some diversity as well, because going into those other events, I’ve been to logistic meetings and I’m not in the trucking or logistics.
At all, but I’ve met great people and I’ve been able to make connections in regards to sourcing materials for my business, those types of things that you don’t even think. Just go to some things, even if it may not, you may not think it may necessarily mesh with you. Just go to it because you never know there might be something there for you.
I can just imagine you sitting with a bunch of truckers with your little fascinator on. And my friend and I, we were there. She’s in the photo booth industry. We’re like, what are we doing here? But next thing we’re striking up conversations. So yeah, I love it. That’s great.
It’s important to cut loose and regroup sometimes. What do you do for fun? Just for enjoyment. I’m guilty of that. Like not doing that. Yeah. So for two years into my business, I, we I stopped vacations and doing anything self care wise. But most recently this summer, I was like, okay, I have to put a stop to that because it’s taking a toll on myself.
It’s taking a toll on my family. Everybody’s getting grumpy. We’ve actually vacation, my family’s love language is vacations. They love them. And so we’ve been doing more of that. We went to San Diego and recently and went to Miami. With my husband for his birthday so I would definitely say vacations and then I definitely want to do more pampering, getting my hair done, do that.
I just need to make time for it. So I’m hoping that once I hire someone and assist me that I can have more time to do those things. Yeah, so are my final question is, what is your drink of choice since we’re called cosmos and commerce? What’s your drink of choice? I don’t drink alcohol. I am Muslim, so I don’t drink, [00:32:00] but I do like a good mocktail.
Anything that has pineapple or mint in it is really good.
Before we wrap up I just want to ask, how can our listeners find you, Ella? Oh, they can find us at our website they can find us on Instagram, Facebook, threads at Posh Tea Time Co.
So that’s Posh. T. E. A. T. I. M. E. C. O. Yeah, and you can also give us a call or email us at info at posh tea time dot com.
Awesome. Thank you so much for joining us. Ella. It was a pleasure talking to you. It was amazing talking to you ladies as well as always.
Thank you all for listening to cosmos and commerce sip saver and succeed. If you would like to be a guest. Email us at guest at cosmos and commerce.
com. We will see you next time. See ya. Have a great day.