21: Monica Pittenger

Chris Suarez: [00:00:00]  [00:00:00]Welcome back to the experience growth podcast, where the collective mission of our community is to build big experiential businesses and more importantly, big experiential lives. Now we do that ultimately by learning leaders are our learners and whether we're leading ourselves, leading our families, leading small businesses or leading massive companies being on the forefront of leading of movement toward experiential living is our goal here.

I'm your host, Chris Suarez. And today we will introduce you to an authentic human being a co-founder of now multiple companies and incredible mom perhaps even more so an incredible sister as you'll hear her story. We are talking today to Monica. Pittenger co-founder of busy, beauty's a skin and hair care line.

And actually on the day that we recorded this podcast, I'm also the co-founder of a second business that you'll hear about right here. Recently their company and the partnership has teamed up with Kevin Harrington, the original shark from shark tank, and now their products have been seen on hallmark channel lifetime movie network, TV land E in, in probably and hopefully on your shelf.

Now the reason why we're having this conversation with Monica is because she chose a life built around their best selves. And I have that conversation with her the day that her and her sister-in-laws their three sisters right. Created this company. They launched a business around a complicated problem while literally looking to solve it in the simplest way.

Something we love around here. Taking complex problems and finding simple solutions. And ultimately, I love that their business is built on a mission of wanting to spend more time with each other. So as we dive in, look for those key points look for an entrepreneur, a driven woman, an incredible mom, a real sister that built her business around some of our key pillars of an experiential life relationships, personal growth health is at the forefront of their entire line.

Looking forward to sharing this conversation with you. Now I'll let you jump in.

   monica first and foremost, thanks for spending some time with me and our entire community. As you know, the mission of our community is to get people really focused on the fact that we can build.

Really big businesses were nonprofits or just massive things while also living these awesome experiential lives and thus the name of our podcast experience growth, which you've done in, in, in so many levels are our sort of pillars that we talk about. A lot around here, Monica are the pillars of what we believe build experiential lives.

It's career. You clearly have that relationships. I love the fact that your entire business is built on these really key relationships personal growth. You've had a lot of that wealth health, which actually ties into your product incredibly well, and then spirituality as well as one of our pillars. But maybe start by just telling us a little bit about who you are, what do you do what's your business.

And then we'll get into sort of the Genesis story of the business itself. Okay, 

Monica Pittenger: [00:03:25] that sounds good. Thanks, Chris. I was a seventh grade, middle school math teacher, cheer coach at home. Had three babies, three beautiful boys that occupied my entire time. And after I had my second, I decided to stay home and then I raised them and they're in school and it became a almost like, alright, well what's next.

What's happening next? I mean, I was happy with raising them, but they're at school all day long and we fell into a really nice routine and I just sat back and said what's next. The cool thing about that is like my sisters. I have an older sister, Julia and a younger sister, Katie same chapter of our lives.

We had babies around the same time. The difference between me and them though is my little sister, Katie. She's a doctor full time, OB GYN, my older sister, Julie, she at the time was the youngest executive for ExxonMobil. And the three of us together were sitting around at Christmas and we're all like, I'm just, we're just in a funk.

And they were having careers as well. So we talked about like how we get out of this funk and what we want to do next with their lives. And my older sister said, I would just love. To be in business with y'all that's just a dream of mine. I'm like I'm game. So the same Christmas we had been complaining about, we had the kids running around and just how there's no me time.

Like we want something else in life, but yet there's still no me time. And we just had to make the me time easier like the, we, so my older sister, Julie, she has Houston who Madden like the frizz hair and humidity in Houston. And so that's just what you're talking about. It she's like, I can just contain this hair and have a style that lasts for a few days.

She said then I can [00:05:00] get more me time. I could be better at the office and this. And so we started looking at different products and different formulas and we were mixing things together to try to get the. Consistency to make our hair not so frizzy and Houston. Cause there was nothing out there.

And a year later we revisited the same conversation. And sh we had a year had passed and we had been mixing our own formulas for beauty products. And she's like, this is the company. This is it. This is what we need to do. And I'm like, I think you're right, because by then we were mixing them for our friends.

We were giving away on the side. We were learning about what to put in your hair and not to in your skin to make it better. There's so much stuff on the market. So bad for you. And they're so popular that we thought, Hey, if we can just sit back and be real, like everything about us is real from the subscriptions.

If you want one, you don't want one. You want to quit tomorrow. There's no, lock-in everything about our company made in America, actually made in Texas is real. We just wanted to be, we want it to be who we wanted to buy from. And so we started our company out of the need for having good products that we weren't finding.

And out of the love that we wanted to do something together. So that's our little backstory, a little bit of it. There's so much more to it, but that's the short little elevator part. 

Chris Suarez: [00:06:15] We're probably going to get into a little bit more of it. Let me ask you a couple of questions because I hear two things I hear it started because you had clearly deep relationships with your sisters and how to individual careers and lives and a lot going on.

Whether executive doctor, teacher now full-time mom with, I can't imagine three boys, right? There's a lot going on. You're sitting around and saying, There that isn't exactly what we want. Like how much of it, yeah. That played into this drive to build something big outside of a job, like you're entrepreneurs clearly.

How much of it was just the desire to get out of a life that maybe was formed for you or you fell into. 

Monica Pittenger: [00:07:05] If that was a big part of it. I think we all live in three different cities in Texas and we just missed each other. I think we're authentic self somewhere altogether comfortable as you can be.

And I need to clear something up. I keep saying my little sister she's actually my brother's wife. So she's actually my sister-in-law, but they, she married him the day. She became my sister, but yeah, we just we really enjoy each other's company. And so we thought my sister, Julie was traveling. She was in China more than she was in America.

Katie 24 hour shifts at the hospital. And we had our best time and we are our best selves and we were better moms when we were together. So we just missed each other, I think, a little bit that, that was definitely a big part of why. And to be honest, it scared me to death because I knew I was going to be the one running it.

I knew that I didn't want to let them down. I D they had so much faith in me that I could pull this off. And it's, it scared me, but because of them, my sister and the formula is she was like, Nope, don't put that ingredient yet. Put that one in. They all have, we all have our special roles that we could work together, that it was less scary as the days went on.

But it scared me the first few weeks when I'm like, all right. Yeah, I'll do this. And then I went home. I couldn't sleep. 

 Chris Suarez: [00:08:21] It seems like a wild undertaking, right? Not your skillset. Not your knowledge base, but it came from, and I actually love that it came from, Hey we're our best selves when we're together.

And how do we stay more? Like how does more of our life. Stay in our best self zone. And the answer to that was well, like we're business people. We want to create something we're builders. Why don't we, why don't we do that while being our best selves together? Now, the second part of that conversation is actually the technical part of your business, where you realize that.

Like, Hey, this is a neat, it was a local looked at it. You're like, Hey, that's the bigger need? There's a bigger addressable market here. And so the product then was built. , how does someone go about that?  You said we were missing mixing. , how does that work? 

Monica Pittenger: [00:09:14] , it started with the hair. We have a whole skincare and haircare line now, but it started with coming up with one product that would make our lives easier. That could fight for his add shine. Work in humidity was our big one and overall health of the hair. The Dr. Katie was like, the stuff's gotta be good.

So we would w what you call, this is an actual interesting concept. If the first few ingredients on every. Product they're called like workhorses. They're the main ones in the product are the ones that will do the difference and change in your hair. Like when you start getting down the bottom. So those are just little itty-bitty conservatives or some we're just marketing claims at 0.0, zero 1%.

They don't even matter. So we were looking we're like, we need a good conditioner. Well, let's try this. Well, we need a good first control. Well, let's try this. Well, what's got to protect for heat protectors. Let's put this in it. So we're getting like top in tight [00:10:00] bottles, big ones that we could buy.

And we were mixing like a fourth, the fourth, or  third, just trying to figure out what worked best. And we started by doing that just for our own sanity, not for the company, just to find out what worked, just to find, just to make. The busy, hectic schedule a little bit easier.

And we did it. We bottled up this one little bottle and that's all you have to use after you wash and condition your hair. You put it in and blow dry style and it lasts for days, weeks. The style does. And so we did that and we were so proud of ourselves and we continued from there. But if I back up a little bit, We even have the ingredients we wanted in a list and things we refused.

And we went to different labs around Texas and we're like, produce this for us. And they would give us samples and we're like Nope. It took us an entire year from having our ingredients list to getting our actual final sample that we approved of because we were that picky. It had to be good and refused to put any of those questionable preservatives in 

Chris Suarez: [00:10:58] it.

Got it. A piece that I don't want people to miss is the sort of underlying mission and actually you named your company around it as well. And the name of the company. Cause he beauties like when you take a step back, it was because you had so many things that you needed to use.

Yes, top of it, or probably more of it was not even healthy for you. It was terrible, but it was to save time, save the time and give it back to you as a healer. Yep. And I think that's important for people to hear. Like we, we believe that that the world is filled with complex problems and sometimes we don't even realize how complex they are, whether you knowingly or unknowingly did it.

You woke up one day and said, Hey, we need a simple solution to this complex problem. Let's just be the creator of it. And you had faith and confidence that if you did create a simple solution, people would gravitate toward it. So what does that look like today? Let's jump forward and then we're going to come back.

But what is, what does the business look like today? 

Monica Pittenger: [00:12:00] We've been, it's been two years. We filmed the commercial with Kevin Harrington, the original shark from shark tank. Actually, I was really excited when I got on my, I tagged him in something yesterday and I got on my messenger and he liked it and was like, yes, he's still one of our biggest fans.

We have grown, we actually just approved another product today. It's a hand cream and before we approved it, we brought it to all the ERs around where their hands are, all drive the doctors and the medical staff and have them try it out. So we're pretty excited about that. It's still a baby, but it's surprising us every day we survived COVID we didn't even survive, but we grew during COVID.

We're just at a really good spot right now that we actually launched another company this year, too. 

Chris Suarez: [00:12:40] We're not actually, we're gonna get to the need you filled in that company. I think it's awesome. Built the business on relationships, a pillar of an experiential life. Those relationships have to be happened to be your sisters and sister-in-law, but let's just say sisters cause, cause you show up that way by the way.

And I've watched enough of the videos that really like you see that loud. So it's real. It's real. How have those relationships evolved since forming the business together? Like I'm in business with lots of partners as well. And I know how that goes. And sometimes having the distance of having it be third-party relationship is easier than working with a sister, a brother, a mom, a dad, many of our listeners are our family run businesses too.

How have those relationships grown evolved changed? 

Monica Pittenger: [00:13:25] I would say at the beginning it was a lot more stressful because we all didn't know our roles and what hats and how we were going to how, you know, whose job was it. And maybe I felt as if I know they had a full-time job, but I need a little more help or I don't know how to do this or I needed an answer more of a timely matter.

I get you're on a plane to China, but this is time sensitive. So I think at the beginning it was a lot more challenging. But, and when we got together, we only would start talking business and reboot the kids running around. So we had agree that on Christmases and family events, there's no business. Like there's none of it.

If it comes up a little bit organically or a quick question, that's good. But we would, we were together. So we were excited and we would block out like half the day to work and that's, it made Christmas working and it made Thanksgiving working and that didn't work for us. So we had to adjust. Honestly it wasn't perfect, but as our relationships went like.

It's grown times 10. I talked to them more than I ever had in the past. And it's funny cause we get on the phone cause I have an important question. And then I start saying, Oh, how was Nicholas's game last night? Or how was, and then I'm like, Oh wait, how you know, you have to go back to LA. I actually called I talked to them every single day, so I don't know how I.

I don't know how I would get through this chapter of life without them. And to be honest, after I gained confidence and I no longer needed Katie to proofread my email before I sent it out or Julie's approval to order something, I gained competence in my role, our relationship Scott, a lot better as well.

Because I leaned on them. I felt like we had to approve everything together before we did anything at the beginning. [00:15:00] And they would, they finally just run with it, just do it. And when I had that approval and of course I check them on the big things, it became, it made everything. Worthwhile. And I keep telling my boys, like I have learned.

So what's your favorite part? I've learned so much. I have learned so much like about me and about business. I had a business degree, but I never used it like this, 

 Chris Suarez: [00:15:22] I think that just speaks to the value. Of personal development as well. And in that early in those early chapters you had mentioned earlier figuring out roles like for right.

If we're going to start a business and we have partners or there's people in our world understanding what is my role and how do I take it and run with it and who do I need to be? And what do I need to develop within myself? That's a really, that's a really great story, but also it's an important part of.

Experiential living right personal development. Now those relationships continue. Like you're a relationship person clearly at you credit relationships to a big part of your business's success early even today. Tell us a little bit about how relationships really began to build and help the company grow.

Monica Pittenger: [00:16:08] It's funny because you can tell who are your real friends and are behind you to support you when you come up with a crazy idea. And you're actually the story that comes to my mind was I have two stories. I'm gonna start with the positive one. The positive one that comes to my mind was I was sitting in the backseat of the car in broken bow and we were on a couples trip and I had all my college best friends with me and there's four of us.

There was four of them. There's five of us total, and we've been friends for 25 years and they knew that I'd been thinking about starting a new company. They knew a little bit about it. They have heard me. Bits and pieces and some conversations on the phone with my sisters, but I wasn't at the point that I was ready to just sit down and tell them everything about it.

And it was because of my own insecurities. I didn't want them to be like, who do you think you are at open and own company and, or to ask questions that I couldn't answer. So I kept this a little bit of a secret while we were formulating. And it seems so far away. I mean, it took us a year to formulate this thing.

So it seems so far away and even just a possibility. So I remember sitting in the back of the car, broken bow, and these were my best friends and they were like, can you tell us about the company? And I try to get out of it. And they're like no. Tell us about the company. Like we've been dying to know we've respected.

You tell us. So I told him, I just said, this is my idea. This is what I know. This is what I don't know. This is what I have questioned with. I don't know if it's going to work. I'm excited about it. And they were like, all right, time out. They went around the car and they each said what they could do to help, to bring to the table when my friend's in PR.

And she's like, I've got all my contacts, I've set up an interview with you tomorrow. I've got this. They went around the car, they have bought everything that I've ever done. They re things, parties, they flip almost all my stories. They share it. They've been my biggest supporter from before I'd even started before day one.

So it was really cool to watch them believe in me when they started believing me. I believed in myself too. Like I was excited to share the story then after that. So it was, that was the positive aspect. Of it all was my relationships that were good, got stronger. But then I remember having the confidence after that.

So this was the negative story. I remember having the confidence after that to share what I was doing. And I was sitting around a group of a couple of girls and we, all of our kids played sports together and they were like, I heard you think about going back to work and you're doing something I'm like, yeah.

So I opened up a little more than I normally would have. I remember a mom sitting there as like at me, she's like, so you're basically wanting to sell shampoo. I don't, I'm just kinda thinking no, and she laughed on her breath and walked away. I'm like, no, wait, no, wait, no, come back.

And I realized, I didn't explain it properly. And she wasn't in my corner. And so there's those two. And she's probably you know, that's a long shot. That's not going to work. And maybe she thought she was helping me, but she kind of did. Cause I was like, watch me. So yeah, the relationships play a huge part and.

Like I've told everyone I have three boys. I can't fail. And if I do feel I better learn something from it. So they can't see me failing because I'm not trying, they can see me failing because I've done everything, but they can't see me failing. Cause I'm sitting on the couch watching a show.

Chris Suarez: [00:19:16] You know what, one of the things that I like most about just the creation of the business and now the growth of the business is how you consistently tie it back to your voice. It means a lot to me, as a father, as a champion of children and empowering children and growing them the right way.

Like it's, it speaks to so many of us, because our experiential life creates experiences for our kids. And it's just how generally generationally we changed the world. Part of the creation of the business was to leave these busy lives and careers that were controlling your schedule on someone else's right on center.

Someone else's timeframe that how has the business impacted the family? Like where do you [00:20:00] see let's talk about the positives. Like where do you see that helping as you can come down this path? 

Monica Pittenger: [00:20:06] Well, it's pretty cool. They, the boys have chores like most families and one of their chores is to fold the boxes, the shipping boxes, or to help me restock or do inventory because I need their help and I rely on them and I want them to see that it's not just the social media posts that I do, that it's, there's a lot of knit and grit behind the scenes that take place.

And I feel like if they can see what it takes to start a company from the start, from the. Bottom start with just an idea. They can do anything. And I also hope that one day, this is successful enough for them to be like a real family business. If they chose to go this path, they can be part of the marketing aspect or the scheme, whatever they want to do of the business.

If it's full-time or part-time, I want to have something that I can pass down. From generation to generation. Now we're just on year two, but I can see I as the growth happens and the need that. I need help. I can see that happening. So I think that my favorite part of the entire company is to watch when I'm picking the boys up.

And they're like, is your mom, does your mom work? And they're like, Oh, she owns her own company. I'm like, yeah, I do. I like their pride in their faces when they say it. And I also like when they I have a teacher gift or a party and they're like, Hey, can I give her some of your stuff? Can I give her this?

I'm like, yeah, sure. So they're proud of it to show their teachers as well. So I really like how they look at me in the light. She works hard and she does 

Chris Suarez: [00:21:35] a good job. Yeah. I think  one of the things that you had mentioned was Your boys look at you different, or you perceive them as looking at you different than perhaps even in the past.

And the lessons that you're teaching them. It's interesting because sales is the fun part, right? You mentioned social media and even Hey, let me get that product out for you. Let me give it to someone, but bringing it all the way back and saying, Hey, sales only happens if all this hard work, all the work that went into it. Sort of culminated into a product that you can be proud of. But I think people are that way too. As they look at now, mom is an entrepreneur. Mom is a business owner. They see all the hard work and the change and the development that, that you've gone through as a leader of a company as well.

It's invaluable. 

Monica Pittenger: [00:22:24] Yeah, it's it makes me really proud. That's my, that is honestly not doing taxes right now. That's not fun, but watching their little faces that's fun. 

Chris Suarez: [00:22:33] Yeah. One of the one of the things that I hope our listeners will experience by going and checking out the company and watching some of your videos, by the way whether there are videos that were shot in a studio or where the most of them are shot is in a bathroom in the morning while getting ready, like you're you and your sisters and the company show up.

Incredibly authentic. I use in our organizations, I always say that I'm always going to be congruent. I'm going to be like, what do I, what I say? And what I do, how I show up is going to be congruent with who I am. You guys show up that way. How important do you think authenticity and connection between authenticity and brand is when launching a company and building a company.

And then after having some, I don't, I almost said immediate and that's false, like after having some success, not immediate success, but after having some success based on hard work, how important is authenticity? 

Monica Pittenger: [00:23:31] It's extremely important. One of our labs went up on some of the prices, just like products went up and we didn't want to raise the prices to the customers.

We could get it in China for a 15th of the price, but we refused to do that. We have to remember why we started it and what we want out of it and what we want to be proud of. So it's extremely important to always go back to our core values. I think something super cool to show this the core value.

So this is our little logo, it's busy bees and the bees that are tied in there's cause our maiden name is writing with the bees. So we wanted to have that in our actual logo to remind us that this is our family company, all in tied together. And then inside the lid, we have one of our favorite quotes and I had it hanging in my classroom as a teacher.

And I know it's hard to see, so I'll read it to you. It says the difference between ordinary and extraordinary is a little extra. So it's a play on the words. If you add extra to ordinary, you get extraordinary. And that's been our, we don't want to be ordinary. There's a lot of that out there.

And if it means we have to sometimes scrape off the profit a little bit to keep our true, authentic self. That's what we're doing. We want this to be different. We don't want, you know, as much as you get a product and love it. And then three months later, you get it again. And it's not the same.

Yeah. We're not doing that. We're not doing that. 

Chris Suarez: [00:24:51] How about where do you see who you are as a person and a sister's showing up in the company and how did that help you grow [00:25:00] even. 

Monica Pittenger: [00:25:00] When we show up in the company I think we are all in so much odd each other that it makes, I can't do what Julie does and I can't do what Katie does and they can't do what I do.

So we have our own identities in it. And it's funny when I'll visit this again, when I tell you about the new company, we started the partner we added in. He just thought it was hilarious with our dynamics because. Katie's amazing. She does the website. She does all the behind the things seems, coupon codes, anything we need, that's her role.

And she shows up and she it's perfect for her because she can have a night shift and have no patients for two hours and just work away or be at home for a quiet hour and work at her own time. She doesn't have a timeline. I do the orders face of the company, social media the daily task. That's my role.

And then my sister's role is the formula development making sure nothing's on any crazy list out there. Big picture. She's used to growing things to a mass scale. So she's always checking on net sales numbers. So we have our roles, but there are a few items that we always talk about. That none of us like doing, and that's when we hire out, when we realized we can't do it, we make a list.

And anything that scares us as an accounting or a Basadur is for a new company contracts. There's always someone there that can help and you can hire for those odd jobs that are out of your comfort zone. So I had to remember that. I used to think when I started the company that I had to do it all, like I'd make up a contract for this or.

Or I had to reach out and find the ambassadors, or I had to be the one and I don't, I can actually, I don't have to enter everything in the spreadsheet anymore. I can have an account and do that. So I write down what scared me. We took our different roles and that none of us were expertise in. We hired out.

And we're lucky we gonna have to hire out the website cause just disrupt that 

Chris Suarez: [00:26:48] the it's a lesson for scale, right? It's a lesson for any owner to, to continue to scale. But also when we're, when we stay in this space of doing what we don't love, it actually impacts our experience of that day or that week or while we're working on that and our experience, even with ourselves in the company.

Especially on this idea of experiential living. Now, you said you, you mentioned just in passing. The launching of a new company, right? Is it's a truly separate company. Why did you do it? 

Monica Pittenger: [00:27:17] It started as a need. We have these amazing products in my mouth 14.

He was 13 at the time. Your old son. Was breaking out from all his athletics and sports. He's almost six foot, big old kid and plays every sport you can think of and doesn't take care of him. So I gave him all the, all of our products because I trust what's in them. And I don't trust. What's been some of the other stuff and he comes down and he's like, mom, it's not working.

What do you doing? It's not working. I go up there. Isn't used any. It's just, it was not convenient enough for him. So I really like put it in his bag before school and like use this at school and I take a look the next day and it's not used, after athletics, I'm like Keller, like what? He's like, mom, it says beauty on it.

And I'm like, all right, I do get that. That's embarrassing for a middle school kid and all, but it works. If we put another container, he's like, no, just give me a white I'm like, I don't like what's in that stuff. I don't want you to put that on your. Open poured skin after a workout, it's going to make it worse and those chemicals and he was he, we went back and forth for a while and I was complaining to my trainer.

Who's a good friend of mine at the gym that he, I was trying to find out what athletes used because I wanted to get him whatever it was. And my trainer at the gym was like, my athletes have this exact same problem. He said now, especially with COVID so that my trainer at the gym, it's a quiet gym and prosper that they train a lot of the, most of the professional athletes in the area.

And he was saying that their chin straps break them out. That with COVID restrictions, they can't shower. Sometimes after practices, they just have to go straight home. And by the time they're home and the shower they've been breaking out more and that they've been having the exact same issues. I said, you know what?

We just knew. It was like a huge oversize. Body wipe that with good ingredients, like Alovera that they can just cool refresh wiped down and get clean until I can shower again. And that won't irritate their skin that will just give a good, clean feeling. He's like, let's do it. It's like, you really want to do it.

He was like, yeah. I was like, let's do it. So I called it, my sisters that were be on excited about it. And we took about six months. We've gotten better at the development process, about six months to develop these wipes and they're individually packed. So we can just take one to school or the athletes can put one in their bag.

And when you open them up, they're a big size, like a hand towel and pretty thick. But you can clean. It's called Washio self. Cause I felt like I've been saying that to my kid all day, go wash yourself so they can just wipe down their face, their body and throw it away and be done with it. And mom's happy kids, happy athletes are happy and it's in production.

And it's being shipped today. So I just got an email confirmation. So [00:30:00] we're launching that, but what we're doing different on that, we took everything that we learned from busy beauties. Cause we're just starting with one product and of trying to sell seven or eight at a time. We're starting with one product.

And we have ambassadors. So a lot of the professional athletes in the area get a percentage of all the sales, if they use a code. So they each have an individual code and if they use, so I have a sales team almost, they get paid, we get paid, they get paid the same as we do. So they're, they feel as part of the company and they are, cause we couldn't do this without them or grow as quickly without them.

And we have a fantastic team of ambassadors. Their contracts are slowly. Coming in my email right now, and they're going to sell with us for us. And so the company is owned by my good friend, Timothy Cook, and my three sisters. So we wanted it to have a whole nother entity, a whole nother company that way, nothing crossed over and he owns a good successful gym.

We didn't want that to get in the way. So we just started a whole new 

Chris Suarez: [00:30:58] entity. It's interesting. Monica is as you built any mission-based organization, Creates opportunities for those that you meet along the way, or the relationships that you've built for years people will plug into that mission, right?

If it's a mission that they can get behind and in need, that you can fill with that mission yeah. It might be two different companies but think about it, like it's the same mission, right? It's the same mission. Feeling two different, two different needs of two, very different.

Personality types potentially. But I love that's created opportunity, not just for a good friend of yours at the gym, but now it's created opportunities for the ambassadors as well. And that's what truly scales an awesome company. 

Monica Pittenger: [00:31:40] Yeah. And the fact, most of them are pro athletes, but we have a handful in there.

That are not pro athletes. They might've cheered and they might be married to a pro athlete now, and they're at home with the kids and they want something to do on their own or they might just be a friend of ours is the chiropractor. That's really sweet. So when he wanted to do it and we said, sure.

So it's really cool because it's. And again, we use the same mission with this company because we wanted it to be different. We didn't want them to say you have to post five times this you have there's none of that. That's all they have. The only reason there's a contract is to protect us and them, the fact that we can use their pictures and they can quit at any time.

So they get a percentage of the sales and if they want to quit tomorrow, then cool would be activate the code and give him the last paycheck. There's no strings attached. There's no minimum posts. We there's too much stress already on just everyday life that we. We don't want to add it to them. We wanted this to be fun.

They sell, they make money. We make money. They don't, they move on. It's not that big of a deal. I don't understand all these loopholes that a lot of the big companies try to make people jump through because I think it just. So turn off. 

Chris Suarez: [00:32:41] It goes back to our earlier conversation of figuring out why you're doing what you're doing and then authentically staying true to the purpose of the company.

But the companies are led, right? This company is led by three people that want that for themselves and then want that for those around them. I have one more question for you. And I super enjoyed our conversation. Appreciate your time. I know you're super busy. Like you've you've in our 30 minute conversation, I think you've mentioned two massive wins for your, like this very day, like new products being shipped like so it's been a busy day and there's good.

And there's good business. Which actually leads me to this. I love asking entrepreneurs, especially those that jumped into something brand new which was all three of you. A lot of people have ideas. There are people sitting home right now with ideas and all right, they're there, they're doing one thing, but they're thinking about something else or they're in one city they're experiencing life one way and wanting to experience life a different way.

I look at you and your sisters and you not only set you not only said, okay, let's do this. But then you found yourself doing things you've never done before. Things that you only hear on other podcasts. And there's you found yourself in labs and you went to consumer packaged goods and you learn how to market, both online, offline, and you and you thought, well, gosh, I have this business degree but a degree doesn't really tell me how to grow and start a company. Like what advice do you have for those that that have that idea or see their future? They have a different preferred future than the one that they're headed towards.

Monica Pittenger: [00:34:18] I would say age, just do it, but B most importantly, don't step into it blindly, because that would be really overwhelming. I would tell, and I've told this to many friends, it's my go-to advice as to make a list. Like everything you need to do. From day one to get your company off the ground and let's go back to our hair cream, let's say we needed a formula.

So we need to find a lab. We needed packaging, we needed shipping, we needed a logo we needed. And so we just kept writing everything down on that list. You add to it every day, but you also scratch off every day. And then this is the big, the thing that I think is the biggest, because I think someone will see something on a list and it scares them.

And I that's what my whole thing is. It is [00:35:00] scary. Yes. But that doesn't stop. You it's say see something on the list and it scares them. Highlight it. That's fine. It's there. It's going to stay there and. Hire someone ask around, send a post, ask for advice and figure out how to do it or someone to do it for you because you don't have to do everything on the list yourself, but everything on the list does need to get done.

So that's my big advice is just to not stop on that highlight part and see I can't do this anymore. Actually start your day with that highlighted part. The th the thing that you want to do least, and your day, you start your day with, and it's done and you feel so good about it and you can move on.

So you go to that highlighted thing. And for me, for this new company, it was, how do I get these contracts with these ambassadors? They got big time lawyers and I don't want to mess anybody up. And, I got to get a good one. And then how do I pay them on a timely matter? 

I had to go to a really good accountant, a really good lawyer. They did the contract. I sent it to my accountant. She makes sure that they will get paid at that time. And now I'm good, but that was the thing that scared me the most. Cause I knew I didn't know how to do it. So what forms they need? Now I know I can tell you then you have w nine at the beginning and it's a nine, nine at the end.

But at the beginning I had no idea. 

Chris Suarez: [00:36:13] It's a, it's so simple things that are just outside of our comfort zones or wheelhouse today. One of my big takeaways though is don't underestimate that people want to help you as fast. Interestingly enough, if you're a good human being and you have a good mission and a good reason to do what you're doing.

Think back to that car ride. And there are women around ensure they're your friends ensure they like you but we all have people that want to see us succeed. We also have people that maybe don't care if we need we'll figure that out real quick, but those that do will want to help. And say, Hey, I know this person do this, talk to this person.

We need to put ourselves out there like you did. And grow into that. But that's why I think almost every business story is less a business story and more, a personal growth story. And your company and organization now, multiple companies. Is very much that it's three human being saying, Hey, this is what we know.

This is what we do. If we're willing to to hit that button and say, we're willing to grow personally. And if we do, we're going to, we're going to be going down a different trajectory for where we're in our where we want our life to be like, where we feel like you use the term, our best self.

Things will things always work out because we're on the path to our best self. So I love your story. And you've been awesome for me to get, to spend some time with you and great for our audience to get to know you. Where can people go to learn about your products? 

And 

Monica Pittenger: [00:37:41] I've got two places to point I'm. One of them is behind the scenes. It's on Instagram. It's called three crazy sister. So it's the number three crazy sisters. And what that's just our behind the scenes. Sometimes we post bloopers. We mainly posting the stories, what we're doing that day. That's to get to know us, but to buy the products or check out the products or learn about our Redarc ingredients.

Cause we're really proud of it. You would go to our website and that would be www dot busy hyphen beauties, I s.com. And I thought it'd be a special treat that if they use the toad Grove, G R O w that they get 33% off the entire site. So it's a special code and we thought 33 would be fun cause it's the three of us and we haven't used that code in awhile.

Chris Suarez: [00:38:26] I had no idea. So that is a big win. We'll get that out there. We'll get your Instagram as well as that website in the show notes for our audience too, and as much as anything. Thank you for being a great example of building a business. Yes. A big business. But really focusing on.

Really experiencing growth and living experientially with people that you love.