075: Removing the Overwhelm in Big Goals

Michele (00:06) Cynthia Bleskachek is with us, today, to share a business challenge. She has been doing upholstery professionally since 2001, and is owner of the funky little chair, which focuses on hands on education for aspiring professionals. Cynthia's challenge today is around the organization of all the thoughts and ideas and actions necessary to bring her vision and long term strategy, which is to serve the upholstery trade to fruition. Listen in as we disect the challenge and then create some ways to remove the overwhelm and help her get things done.

Hey, Cynthia. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm so glad to have you back for a second time. 

Cynthia (01:21) Hey, good morning! It's good to see Michele. I'm really happy to be here.

Michele (01:24) Excellent. So Cynthia, you're here for part of our business challenge series - where you're going to throw out a business challenge you're having. We're going to talk about it and see if we can get you at least a couple of ideas or courses of action to take. But before we do that, remind our listeners now...Anybody wants to hear a lot of the story about the Funky Little Chair, which is your business along with, you know, some of the other details. We covered a lot of that in Episode 24 and I'll link it but for those that are jumping in for the first time, share just a little bit about you, your company, your story. So that they have the background before we deal with the challenge.

Cynthia (02:04) Sure. Okay. So I am the owner and creator of the Funky Little Chair is located in Minneapolis, Minnesota and focuses on hands on education for serious hobbyists and aspiring professionals. And that business for me is about three and a half years old. Now, before that, it was it was just kind of a Facebook group, but I moved into my own space about three and a half years ago. And since then, now, we started to lean into the professional end of trainings to see what we could do there, which has meant some just some rapid changes. I mean at present, I'm actually not even on the teaching schedule. For the most part. I have accepted two contract positions with work rooms - to look at providing more services and support actually in the workroom instead of the classroom. I have three local professionals teaching on the schedule. Which I'm providing all that background because I think that's really, really related to the struggles that we're hopefully going to talk about today. Just trying to navigate that transition from what I thought was really just a local army of one business to what is becoming to be more and I'm excited about that...But I'm also a little disoriented and unnerved and overwhelmed by all of it. So yeah.

Michele (03:26) Yeah, and then the last podcast, we talked a little bit about scaling and upholstery business and, and how it is so focused on time. It's super labor intensive. And we chatted about that a little bit and then about how we were also having a lack of education in that trade across the world, but of course, primarily in the United States. And part of your why, and part of your drive has been to educate and to bring those that are walking in the upholstery steps behind you up to speed quickly. We also talked about the fact that becoming great at upholstery takes years. It is not a class, therefore I'm a great upolster. It's like something that they used to work for 10 and 15 years in apprentice mode to be able to do at the highest of levels. And so it takes a while to really gain that skill set.

Cynthia (04:28) Yeah, I'd say that's absolutely true. And you know, what I kind of thought were issues unique to our local market have turned out to be pretty much national, if not, you know, beyond that. And there's just there's not a lot of shortcuts around creating a truly experienced, skilled professional and as we're losing people to retirement, we're losing our very top level people and you know, the ones we're just kind of starting in the pipeline are...You know, they're long way out and trying to identify what we can do for whom? Where in that in that sequence of learning is really quite overwhelming because if you name a part of that training sequence, it's underserved. You know, whether you're talking about the very first people, to the the more advanced learners, to the workrooms who want to hire to going across the board, there's just a need. And, you know, my why, and we looked at that partially as about, like, wanting to, like, achieve our full potential and see other people achieve their full potential. And I'm really, you know, that's incredibly difficult right now for myself and for anyone that we work with. And I'm just struggling kind of to kind of go...Okay, well, where do we fit in? And where do I invest my time and where do I invest my energy? Knowing that those are very limited commodities and you can't be everything to everybody and trying to be is a really spectacular way to burn out and fail across the board.

Michele (05:53) So the last time we spoke, I know you were at a kind of this junction where you were trying to, you still had your own upholstry business, creating localized hands on education. You were traveling to work with some other upholstery work rooms, and providing kind of a little bit of travel education that was more specialized like for the workroom conference and some things like that. But you also had this online component and you had these ideas. Not so much about letting me do it all...But how do I solve the problem the quickest, the fastest, and then the best way? It made you feel torn because there's still that need to create beautiful things in your area right now. Youhave to make money at all this too. This isn't...You know, you're not a hobbyist and you're certainly not out here playing. So that juncture of where does all this come together in a way that also feels balanced for your family?

Cynthia (06:49) Yeah, yeah. And that is definitely not in a place of like balance and success right now. Though, you know, we're working on it. We're aware of it and...but yes, all those things exactly, as you said, quite true.

Michele (07:06) So then what is the challenge that you want to present today that we're going to talk through and work through as you see it? I mean, I know you probably are like every other entrepreneur. You got 500 of them in front of you. But what is the one that we want to focus on today?

Cynthia (07:23) I guess I want to focus on...and I have done a lot of your goal setting things to kind of work through. It has been very helpful to get a clear picture on like, well, one and two years from now, this is kind of what I envision and where I'd like to be so that I can prioritize and navigate more effectively instead of just kind of grabbing the random fruit that's in front of me. That just continues to be the struggle for me...is prioritizing what to do now? You know, the actionable steps to take...Like right now the two workrooms that I work with and that's really super great because it has taken Client Services out of my queue. It's taken the hobbyist education out of my queue, but between those two, which is Bronze Upholstering, Minneapolis and Grant Trick Down in Birmingham, Alabama. But between those two, that's basically a full-time job, you know. What can I do beyond that to support the continuation of our education program? If I'm not physically the teacher, and like if I'm at a full time job already, there's a real limit...To what else I can pursue beyond that. So it can tell you...and you and I have talked a little bit about I did step back over the summer and sit and try to document and systematize our local classes, which you think well, it's just a local hands on workshop and then you start documenting all the things to do with it. You know, this is how we handle with cancellations and this is how we approach the communication. This is how we approach the scheduling and this is the instructor responsibility. So we started there to try and create a system...partially to for me to practice building a system with the idea that like, I intend to hand this off to somebody.So did that…

Michele (09:16) Let me back up a minute and say you're also in my Designers' Inner Circle Program.

Cynthia (09:21) I am and bless it. Oh my goodness. I'm in there constantly, like on fire bugging everybody. I hope it will make everyone crazy because I feel like I'm always the one in there like panicking about…

Michele (09:34) No, no, it's good. But I love it, and I'm saying that because when you are alluding and referring to here's the work I've done, I just want people to know what the work is. And so you started with the first module, which is the Solid Foundation Builder and that's where we work through your why, your mission, your vision, which started to give you some clarity...If I can't have my mission and vision to all be to do 17 jobs at one time, like I can't. I can't do it all by myself. So what is it that then becomes more important? You work through the mindset piece. And then when you were mentioning the goal setting piece, that's where you started kind of narrowing it down. What are the next couple of goals to get me to my longer term goals? Right? So just hear "some of the work I've done"...just wanting them to know what is the work that you've done. So that's kind of the way that you've been going through it. We also spent some time in the program with you determining what is it that you really love to do the most? So you like to do all these things, but what is it that brings you...you enjoy it all, but what is it that brings you the most joy and makes you feel the most fulfilled? And where do you think you fit into the industry in the biggest way. Meaning to make the biggest impact the fastest.

Cynthia (10:54) Absolutely, and that was incredibly helpful with what I definitely figured out looking at that was you know...If I want to help people really achieve their full potential, and I really want to like, like work with people who are just ready to go full tilt...then I can't be hanging out with the people who are doing their first cushion in their first chair, in spite of the fact that somebody should be. That doesn't need to be you. It doesn't need to be me. And that person is, in fact, a long way. So it's, you know, it's just a mismatch. It's a frustration, and I was doing that. I was working with students and I was pushing so hard and wanting so much for them to just be further and faster than they were. So that "why" was really tremendously helpful to go "Oh, well, if you go down to and work with Grant Trick and Birmingham...I promise you he is full tilt is as anybody. There is no leaning back.

Michele (11:40) That's right. That's right.

Cynthia (11:41) Everything is forward and ready to you know, ready to max out.

Michele (11:45) So pushes you and gives you other opportunities to learn.

Cynthia (11:52) Yeah, so a lot of fun to be a little later in that learning trajectory or that growing trajectory with the work room. So I guess I'm trying to explain where that fits like...because some days, I feel like I took a step back from education. And really, it's sort of like...Way down here, there's need later in the pipeline, and I love being at that later stage where we really can go, okay, a lot of the pieces are in place, like let's do this, like, what are we going…

Michele (12:19) So really what we kind of determined...was that your "why" was was better served. Educating at a more advanced level than at a beginner level. There is definitely a need at the beginner level.

Cynthia (12:36) Absolutely.

Michele (12:37) To be truthful. There are more opportunities for defined teachers at the beginning level than there are at a more advanced level. That's actually where it's more difficult to find instructors. And so why not fill that need at that level, with people that can that can handle that. So that this more long-term, maybe higher level need, which is even more underserved, could be filled by somebody who's there who would be better served themselves and which is the way that you're looking at.

Cynthia (13:14) Yeah, yeah. I realized, when I started doing that work that like, okay, I had never really built anything with with good foundation of going...Okay, well, first I'm going to teach this class and I'm going to figure it out and then I'm going to pass it to somebody else. I'm going to teach another class, when I figured it out I would have passed to some somebody else.

Michele (13:32) Right. I love that though. Because you couldn't keep holding on to everything.

Michele (13:36) I certainly couldn't. I didn't necessarily want those things to go away because I do think there's value there and there is need and that they're serving are serving an important role but yeah, at some point, it's like boy what what do I set down here? I gotta set something down. So anyway, so that's been the work over the summer is kind of backing up a little bit and going...Okay, start thinking about this more from a from a place of delegation and growth, then just like...make something and move on, make something move on and make something move on.

Cynthia (14:08) So what's happening now...And I think I think you saw a little bit about this. What's happening now, one of my goals for this quarter was that I have started outlining a self-guided curriculum document. And this is, you know, had people coming like advanced learners and people wanting a professional route and you're just banging your head against it and banging her head against it. You're like, we can't put up that program. Like it just it doesn't work anymore. We don't have the funding of a university and I don't expect that we ever will. Our local market is 95% hobbyists and 5%, maybe, professionals, so it just is.

So after kind of wrestling with that for several years, I just thought you know what it makes sense to create. Here's a self-guided curriculum version so that our students that we're seeing touch and go touch and go here and there, whatever, so that they at least have a pathway to understand. If you would had a degree program it might have look something like this. Here are simple projects, intermediate projects, advanced projects, you know, you also need to get some experience. You need to whatever. So this document is intended to be a resource, not only for our students, but really anybody that cares to look at. It's fine with me, but then also a little bit of a framework for me and for the Funky Little Chair to go okay, well, if this is the framework, then that helps me focus on in our limited time let's build this kind of class and this kind of class. Rather than, you know, cause constantly we get emails. "Hey, do you have a class on dressmaker skirt? Hey, do you have a class on horizontal channels? Hey, do you have a class on...?" I mean, it's endless. It's endless. And we can't put it all up there. I know that for sure. But so as I was creating this document, I started to just kind of feel underwater with what do I do with this information? like where do I put it, and how do I tie it to components that we've already built and I just went off the cliff. I went off the cliff looking at what I think we need which is sort of a big a big picture guiding document but then to try and pluck out the little pieces or tie together because we do have sort of a history...I have sort of a history of randomly going "Oh ,you know what we need? We need like a cushion video. Let's make that...Oh, you know what we need? We need a packet on biscuit tufting." And so I have so many random things made that aren't really meaningfully organized or available or searchable. It's just stuff. I constantly make stuff.

Michele (16:37) You're making the pieces and parts. We need to tie it together with the bow.

Cynthia (16:41) Yes ma'am. There you go. Yes. Many pieces and parts and I'm is you may have picked up not a super organized person. So I have parts laying all over the floor.

Michele (16:56) Okay, so what I'm hearing is that your challenge - you want to be able to have a comprehensive plan to, let's say, self educate, as far as the idea of these are the types of things you need to know. And then to be able to have a plan that as education comes out of the Funky Little Chair, that it comes out as part of an overall roadmap, not as sporadic pieces that you don't know where they fit.

Cynthia (17:31) Yeah, I mean, and does that seem like a reasonable direction to be moving in? I mean...it does.

Michele (17:38) It absolutely does, especially when it feeds your "why" of creating education and creating it so that it is education that can be built upon? Right? That's important too.

Cynthia (17:50) And I think students who are struggling right now looking for things that aren't ther... I mean, I hope it will help them just achieve more success in their learning journey. Without, you know a lot of the tools and resources and programs and things that we wish were there but simply are not.

Michele (18:08) Okay. So a couple of things. And of course, we've got to keep all of this in mind that you literally have the equivalent of a full time job. Contracting out services to others. Okay. So the challenge then if I were to just recap it...Limited time and resources for you as the brain trust, right? Time and money to actually create all of the education that we would think would need to be made to be a master upholster. Pieces and parts that have already been created, that maybe don't have a flow together, from one to the other to fit this roadmap of how to get from beginner upholsterer to another upholsterer. Like, how do I get there? And here are pieces and parts. But there are two classes that are elementary, two classes that are beginner, plus two classes at intermediate and one over here like, well, what what do I do with that? Right? Figuring out how to fill in those blanks and a very well thought out planned way. But also in a repeatable process so that you don't have to be the one teaching everyone.

Cynthia (19:32) Yeah, I think you got a ball. Yeah. Very good assessment of the situation.

Michele (19:37) Just a clarifying question. Are you working with others to create this roadmap and to ultimately help create some of the education? Or are you single threading it all through Funky Little Chair?

Cynthia (19:55) So the roadmap I have...as far as I've gotten right now is I have a reached out to a handful of peers just for peer feedback. So, I have done that.

Michele (20:08) You're still creating it, but you're having peer input on that.

Cynthia (20:12) Yes. Oh most definitely. And as far as creating the, the required content at present, I am single tracking that, you know, this particular document certainly encourages people to go use any resource you can get your hands on, truly. But for our purposes, you are looking at creating events and we do need, what we've definitely discovered is that, if we are going to teach content, we need all our money to really match. In spite of the fact that I think upholstery is really not super standardized in the US. If we want people to use a video to support their hands on experience, and if I want to train a trainer to teach it, like all those things have to match - which makes it just a lot more sense to go. "Okay, the we're going to create it, how we like to do it"...which sort of puts us in a spot of having to create the…

Michele (21:11) Standard document and everything else. Yep. When we taught at Custom Home Furnishings Academy there were three or four of us that taught some of the courses from "Intro to Sewing", to "Window Treatments One", "Window Treatments Two" and I taught the "How to Buy and Sell Window Treatments" and all that okay...Which meant we had to use standard phrases and words to describe things. We just couldn't call it courting we had to call it either well cord or something, or because people that were brand new, didn't understand if we started substituting words. We had to agree that a top down method or bottom up method, we were going to do it this way. Doesn't mean we don't know how to do it two or three different ways in our work room. But for the sake of explanation, we had to have some cohesiveness. So they went from class to class to class, there was a thread that tied it all together and they didn't kind of feel like they were getting whiplash. Right as they were. And that's the same kind of thing that you're having to do when you're creating these courses. Okay. Alright, so I think we've identified the challenge. What would you like to see happen in a perfect world?

Cynthia (22:31) In a perfect world, I would like to see some low residency training events happened through the Funky Little Chair in the next year...that I had very little to do with.  Frankly... 

Michele (22:45) Explain what you mean by low residency so that we all can...

Cynthia (22:49) Oh, yes, yes, I've been swimming in education research in the past year. So low residency basically means you are not a local student.  So events designed for People who are traveling to train with us, which caught us off guard a little bit. But and so that's where that comes into things like will have some will have some vocab here. So low residency means the physical in-person component is small and intended for the traveling student. And a lot of masters programs and things are doing that right now in art and writing and all kinds of things. And then, along with that, two terms, I like our blended which means yes, that your video component matches your in person component. And a flipped model, which means you use that video model first and explore the content and then when you're in person, you're revisiting material and refining your knowledge instead of seeing it for the first time, which is usually just a crash course and very low, low retention sort of experience. So I would really like us to be able to offer some well designed events for non-local students and that I have both the structures in place and the instructors in place for that to be a high quality, consistent, repeatable offering.

Michele (24:11) Okay? Make sense? All right, in the perfect world, where would you find these other educators?

Cynthia (24:18) Well, I have three I'm pretty psyched about right now, actually. So on our local schedule, we have Lindsay Warwick from a Chick and a Chair, we have Sarah Santa from Everafter Upholstery and then Isaac Pawlik just joined us. He's in the Bronze Workroom with me. So we have those three, which feels a little light and I love them all and they're doing great by us. Just like you can't rush the experience thing. It feels like a little bit of a house of cards to me that I'm looking for a very particular kind of instructor. I'm asking them to take time out of a workroom to teach. I'm asking them to teach content as I've created it, not necessarily how they're doing it. So definitely a concern for me.  I can have the materials but if I don't have people to deliver it, then it will not happen because I just at this point, I just cannot be the one who's teaching all the classes. Yeah. So it's a tricky tiny pool of ideal candidates for instructors that I would imagine.

Michele (25:19) Okay. And so what have you done already to prepare for this? So we know that you've created this roadmap.  We know that you've been thinking about the goals and thinking about the outline of how it's going to come together. You also have started doing some teaching, what else have you been doing?

Cynthia (25:39) Well, so creating some of the framework and systems for our local instructors...That was a big one for me to try and build on. I have communicated with my instructors about kind of the direction that I'm wanting to go. We do have a lot of small form. I don't even want to say classes because they wouldn't be full classes but units, let's say skill units that we created last year with funding from fabric supply, which are like a YouTube video for free, a packet that most people have not seen...because that's just an internal document right now and then hands on events. So we have started building similar, similar sort of kits, I guess I don't know what I'd call them...units. And then I am talking to I've already spoken with him on the schedule with the workroom channel to do an online course over the winter that will become our first full fledged blended, kind of low residency. And what's neat is that that online class will be available whether you want to travel to us or not. It's meant to be like it's a standalone thing, but also it's literally the textbook for the events that we have scheduled. So I have started the work of creating that first and here's a place where I'm stuck...because it's filming the course, it's creating the Instructor Resources to teach it.  It's training the teacher. And it's like, oh, by the way, I guess we have to market it and fill it and communicate what on earth we're up to. Like, it's just, it's so many pieces.  

Michele (27:10) Welcome to my world.

Cynthia (27:13) Yes, this is why this is why I need you, man. 

Michele (27:17) So, alright, so let's break that apart a little bit.  When we have this idea that we want to not only create education, but we want to also create educators for that education. We first have to create the education and then we have to create the training manual. And then you have to train the trainer. Right? We train the trainer. One of the things that I keep thinking about throughout our conversation, Cynthia, is the book "eMyth Revisited". 

Cynthia (27:53) It's in my stack. I have not read it yet.

Michele (27:56) Okay. So here's why I want you to look at this...because it's talking about building a franchise model, and it really prompts you through the processes and procedures so that it can be picked up and duplicated, picked up and duplicated. With the same results. With the same feeling.  With the same customer interaction, all those things. And really what you're doing is building an educational franchise model. If you were to even take each little piece and look at it individually.  I'm creating "How to tear down this chair" and that one course, we're going to franchise it. So we're going to have multiple teachers teaching that one course.

Cynthia (28:37) Yes.

Michele (28:38) Outside of what you do. I mean, if we were to really kind of narrow it down kind of micro. And so I really think that book will be good for you. But here's the thing. If you were the one who created the course and we're the only one who taught the course...In the book, he talks about the technician, the manager and the entrepreneur. You would be stuck in the technician role. What you're doing is getting in the mind of the technician enough to build it, and then moving up to the managerial and the entrepreneurial role. Bringing the next technician to teach the class. Right? Ultimately, we may end up in your model, having you as an entrepreneur, and then having a manager of all of this and then the technicians under it.

Cynthia (29:25) Yeah, okay.

Michele (29:27) Because I, I think you would struggle to run your own full time jobs, and be the entrepreneur of this education endeavor, and be the manager over every bit of it and be the technician. Like there's no way

Cynthia (29:42) No, there's no way.

Michele (29:44) And I know that was something that you had to grapple with a little bit Was that you...You're going to have to create it and then there's got to be trust built because then you gotta let it go a little bit.

Cynthia (29:54) Yeah, and it's it's such a strange like that shift from the person making the widgets to the person And like helping other people make the widgets like I haven't I haven't fully embraced that change yet where I feel like, you know, once I create something I sort of want to like real....I want to release ownership of it. You know what I mean? I just want to be...well, what is your role if you're the person who physically in there delivering the goods or making the goods? I don't know. I mean, is that making sense? Like, I'm just not as comfortable in those shoes yet. But nonetheless...

Michele (30:26) But I would, I would push back on that. I don't say you've been hanging out a lot and the entrepreneurial shoes. Because you're the one looking forward, you're the one making a future plan. You're the one seeing the possibilities of what could happen. All of that is the entrepreneur that is not the technician. It's not even the manager. You've been sitting in those shoes, you just may not be used to the title.

Cynthia (30:51) Yeah, I'm not used to the title and I'm not sure how to wrangle that I'm not sure how to...I think historically, the first couple years like I was sort of the entrepreneur off the clock and then I'd run back to my business and make enough widgets to keep things in the black. 

Michele (31:04) And that's exactly what I'm doing right now to some degree. You're playing it. We all do.  Think about this. As a designer, we're the ones that are knee deep in design and all that. And then we're running around and trying to plan for our firm out 10 years.  Workroom...doing the same thing. We're all doing it. Right? There's got to be this balancing act. That's why when any type of business or firm grows, you're not going to be the one answering the initial phone calls that are coming in. We got to move you up. 

Cynthia (31:31) Yeah. 

Michele (31:32) Away from that work.  Which means if we were to look at this hierarchy of the work that needs to be done, just on the education side...so up here, it's fully done. The entrepreneurs thinking of how, how can we make it better? Where can we go? What can we do with it? The technicians are the ones down here, they're teaching the classes. There's somebody in the middle, this manager who's scheduling it and managing the instructors. While you may be out there as if you're the entrepreneur...Where's the next place we can go? What's the next course we're going to teach? What's the next this? Then you may throw on a technician hat to jump down and create it. Or then later, you may get to a point where you even released the fact that you need to be the one to create the course. You may call one of these other people and say, "Here's the next course, on the roadmap, can you create the course? Making sure that it aligns with, we have enough data out here already created for this educational platform, make it match. 

Cynthia (32:28) Okay. 

Michele (32:28) Then you step in with oversight to see how it's being done. That's when you're stepping in as the manager. Now let me watch the course.  Let me see the written materials. Tweak, tweak, tweak this.  You give it back to the technician, they go rework it, and it comes back. But ultimately, every course doesn't have to be created or taught by you either. So the more you embrace this entrepreneurial role, the more you may have other well suited technicians doing the technician work which would be creating the education.

Okay.

It doesn't have to be you. How does that feel? Does that feel scary to you?

Cynthia (33:08) Um, it feels unfamiliar and messy to me. It's just just a lot of moving parts like...because then I start like the first thing I think when you say that is "Well, if I'm no longer the technician or manager...like if somebody else...and I and I totally hear what you're saying...

Michele (33:26) Well, you're not gonna just jump out of those two roles until you have someone who's been well groomed to be in those roles. Like I'm not telling you not to be the technician and not be the manager because all of a sudden you put on entrepreneurial hat.  I'm saying at some point, you have to work yourself out of the technician role to be able to the management and more of the entrepreneur. Then when the technician role grows so big that the management role has to be filled, that moves you out again.  And I'm not removing oversight. I am just saying you cannot build...we cannot build these huge firms by ourselves. And the only way to create massive movement towards a huge goal is to get help. Right? And most of the time, if you have this ability to entrepreneurially dream that's the role you need to take.  You're the one who's casting the vision. They're not as many people coming along, Cynthia, casting the vision. But you are. But people will absolutely get on board to help implement the vision that they believe in. That's the whole "Start with Why" by Simon Sinek.  Have your "Why".  Put it out there and people will get on board to help support your "why".

Cynthia (34:41) Well maybe that's my driver of that. And I feel stuck because like you know, we are the people we are maybe we imagined that everyone else is kind of the same.  When I look at like starting to move up out of roles and surrendering some of those things. It's not even there like I don't want to it's that I think like well, why would you create you know...Why would you be a technician in my queue, instead of just going to be a technician on your own.  Like any class that we're kind of running, like, why, wouldn't people just run off and teach it themselves? 

Michele (35:12) This isn't about teaching it.  This is about creating the education. Two different things. Okay. So let's break it down. You've got the person who was actually educating. You've got the person who is creating the education. You have the person who is managing the educators and managing the teachers. Yep. And then you've got the person who is casting the dream. Right? 

Cynthia (35:40) Yes. 

Michele (35:42) So you get dreamer, manager of people, manager of processes. The person building these educational processes and these people that are actually teaching the program. Some of them may be some of the same people, but not necessarily. I know people that could come in and pick up a primarily created curriculum and teach it like crazy. If I gave them a blank sheet of paper and said go create a curriculum, they could not do it.

Cynthia (36:12) Yeah, that's fair.

Michele (36:14) So that's a skill set difference. There are people that can create education all day long. But they don't want to keep teaching the same education over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over. They'd rather create education, because that's the way they think.  Move over and create another piece of education. They'd rather create it, teach you how to do it, fine tune it, and they want to move on to create the next thing. That's the way they work. Some people are more let me just teach it just don't make me build it. Finding the right people for the task at hand. Some may do both. Some may say, "I'd like to create this and then I'd like to teach it for a while. And then when I get bored, I'll teach one or two other people how to teach it. I'll go do something else." 

Cynthia (36:59) Okay.

Michele (37:00) All right?

Cynthia (37:01) And that as a person who's worked in other work rooms, and one of the struggles that's going on in upholster right now...I just, you know, looking at this kind of pyramid and this and I just very cognizant of, I really value our instructors, they're tremendous...They're tremendously important part of the funky little chair and anything that's built and anybody that's involved with it, I want to be cognizant that it is good and healthy and, that it supports all the individual people in those layers and doesn't inhibit sort of their potential for growth and self advancement. And...

Michele (37:36) Exactly! So here's the thing, though.  Not everybody wants to own their own company.  Contrary to prior belief, hard pressed to believe since we do, not everybody wants to own their own company. Not everybody wants to take the risk that we are willing to take as entrepreneurs. There are plenty of people that are more than willing to come in and work under a predefined structure...as long as they're being paid appropriately for what they do. Right?

Cynthia (38:04) Yeah. 

Michele (38:05) Then there has been a fair exchange. Now that's a whole different challenge we can talk about in different time is what does pay fairly look like. But I am saying if you work that out, for the sake of this conversation, there should be no animosity. I can write a fair day's work to do a fair day's job - moving on to the next day.

Cynthia (38:29) Well, that may be one of those underlying things for me is trusting myself to build a business that...and I you know, this is good. I agree. But trusting myself to be smart enough about the money as the person on the top of the pyramid...to build a business that can afford to pay people they're worth...I mean, a your Profit First coach.  That was a huge barrier to opening my own business was getting comfortable going it has to it has to be profitable.

Michele (39:03) Right. And there are multiple ways to pay people, right? It doesn't have to be paid of 100% up front. But here's what we would not expect. I would not expect to create my own education and then go teach it for you and not get paid fairly. 

Cynthia (39:21) Yeah, yeah. Right!

Michele (39:22) If you paid me to build curriculum on your behalf, that you own, that you copyright, that you trademark...that you do whatever you need to do that you own it, then I would expect to be paid to create that for you to own.

Cynthia (39:37) Yes!

Michele (39:38) It happens all the time. That happens all the time. It just is an agreement that says "I am creating this for you to own." That's what we do as employees all day long. There are these ideas, believe it or not, if you're an employee, for a company, anything that you create while you're under their employment that has to do with the basis of your work the company owns...Not you.

Cynthia (40:01) Right!

Michele (40:03) Right. So it's that same kind of thing. There are ways to do that in a contract environment, as well.  You are contracting them to build something on your behalf that you will own. There's also a split payment method model, which is I'll pay you up front X amount, and then you get revenues every time it's taught. You know?  So there's more than one way to handle the pricing and the payment of it. But I don't want you to think that because other people might not do it that it's not something to consider.

Cynthia (40:35) Well, yeah, no, I appreciate that. When I look at like other industry models, and like, I it's totally there, it's completely there. I was a fitness instructor. I taught pre-formatted stuff all day long and loved it and paid for it. And, you know, I mean, I see all the moms are there, and it feels so intimate when you're a teeny business and you're dealing with friends and you're...It's just an uncomfortable...

Michele (40:59) Think about Profit First.  I'm a Profit First certified coach. I had a similar method. I didn't have that exact method. How did I learn that method and get certified in that method? I paid to join that organization to learn that method so I could teach it and coach in it. I am the person. I own my own company. All the money that I make, I make...but I still pay them to stay updated with my education and updated with my certification. That's the way most of us do. But I get to use the information once I've learned it and owned it and attained it...in whatever way I want to do.

Cynthia (41:39) I know that like, you know, if I can get comfortable with that, and if I can start to understand and pursue some of these things like...that just makes that original goal of making education and resources and everything healthier, more available. And it just serves...rather than just going "Well, I'm uncomfortable with that. We're just not going to...like we're just going to keep it real internal and small."  I don't want to do that. I do want to take the path that leads to write a bigger...

Michele (42:06) You can even have a certified instructors for...

Cynthia (42:11) I would love that.  I would love that. My two year goal actually was like I would love to have a team of branded instructors that like you knew if it was a Funky Little Chair course whoever was teaching it, it was going to be consistent. It was going to be high quality.  It was going to fit under the umbrella of these kind of positive, welcoming...Yes, absolutely. Because otherwise, we're stuck. Otherwise, we're done. You know?

Michele (42:34) And that's what allows it to go out wider and deeper. And to create a revenue model for those.

Cynthia (42:40) Oh my god, I'm like every time I....Woooo.  Wooooo! My comfort zone is about 20 times bigger than it was two years ago. It's just keeps...EEEEEeeeeee! Everyday scary.

Michele (42:53) When you're ready for that though, I'll coach you through how to create that model. You don't have to worry about it now. Just know that It is possible.

Cynthia (43:01) Okay, I can do that. And then what do I worry about right now? Am I worrying about the right...

Michele (43:07) To worry about the right things.

Cynthia (43:09) Yes. 

Michele (43:09) Okay. So one of the things that I would love to have you do is to really flush out this vision of what could it be? Here's what it could be. Right? It would be that, that...and you don't have to give names of people. You don't have to be super detailed in positions, but it could be that we have an outline, if you will...This roadmapto help upholsterers become master upholsterers. Like our goal is to move you from no upholstery experience to master upholsterer. Here's the course outline. Here are the things we think you need to learn and to do. Start by taking the pieces and parts that you already have, so that we can see what works has been done.  If or thought about to some degree, either 100%, complete, 70% complete, whatever, but it's already in the works. Slot it within your roadmap. So now we can visually stand back and we can go, these pieces are 100% done. These pieces are 50 to 70% done.  These pieces have been started. These pieces we haven't touched them. 

Cynthia (44:22) Okay. 

Michele (44:23) Then we can go back and look and say,  "In each area, could we wrap up the pieces we've already gone 75% down the road on?" What would it take for that? So then what we're doing is instead of jumping back into three pieces, that are brand new, why not see about wrapping up the pieces that we've already done? 

Cynthia (44:45) Okay. 

Michele (44:46) Okay, that's one piece. The next thing I would think about is the creation and the delivery standards. 

Cynthia (44:52) Yeah. 

Michele (44:53) Not just the roadmap. I would then want to start thinking about if we were to create some...Let's say creation standards. That should come out of the work that you've already done from those pieces. Like they all have an intro. They all have this. We're using a flipped model. We're doing this. We're doing that. That's kind of the standard of how to build. Okay?

Cynthia (45:17) Okay. 

Michele (45:17) Write down the standards of how you would like to build, because then you can also go back and look at any pieces and parts that you've already created. Maybe they were created before you came up with this outline standard or model. You can go back and update them a little bit. 

Cynthia (45:33) Okay, yeah. Yes.

Michele (45:34) Okay? All right. Then the thing I would want you to think is how do we want to vet trainers and how do we what model do we want to bring them in? We are starting at the top and we're walking down. So you're casting the vision.  We have a roadmap. What pieces to the roadmap do we have? What is the standard to build the other pieces in the roadmap or to make sure they all fit?  Now, how do we vet teachers? How do we train teachers? Like, what is it that we're looking for at each different level? And how would we want to train them? Would we want to train them on the flip model? Would we want to bring them into a workshop? What would that look like? 

Cynthia (46:12) Okay. 

Michele (46:12) Then we can take the next step down to now how do we go find people to fill these workshops? If the workshops are not done...if they're not standardized, they're not made...The rest of it's not going to matter.  It  is going to be sporadic and twisted anyway. Right? 

Cynthia (46:30) Okay. Okay. 

Michele (46:31) So let's start with what we know. The identify what we don't know. Identify where we need standard practices or procedures. That way, like you said a minute ago...That way, all the curriculum looks the same. All of the phrases are the same. All of the terminology is the same. Do we need to build a listing of terminology? Have we been building terminology words in each of the courses and we need to pull it together into one terminology document? What if we gave it to them at the earliest entry point? So the people who didn't know all the words, they had it early on, and then the words are explained and all the different courses as we go through. That's what starts to pull all of this together. 

Cynthia (47:13) Okay.

Michele (47:14) Does that make sense? 

Cynthia (47:16) Yeah, then that actually makes me feel better because that is sort of the work I'd started doing. And then I felt like I was getting...Like I was just trying to focus on this big giant thing instead of something actionable, but that is, in fact, like...

Michele (47:30) It all has to be done. And it's going to be a lot of work. But if you've got this roadmap and you've got a plan, then we get down to just plugging in pieces. And it's not so bad.  Because now I know how to find an instructor, how to hire instructor and if they're writing versus I'm writing - we have a set of standards. We have a set of vocabulary. We have an outline of this is what we do and how we present. And so they've got the ability to step in. Then what we can do is start looking at revenue models. Not so much from the students, but how to, like, what is the investment from the instructors to be able to be certified instructors? Because they're being given the information to teach. 

Cynthia (48:14) Yeah, yeah. 

Michele (48:16) Not requiring them to go spend the month that you're spending or whoever spending building it.

Cynthia (48:22) Yeah, and it is an incredible amount of time and I tend to sort of write that time off. And I don't know, whatever. But no, but this is this is good. This is very clarifying. And I'm wondering, give myself a little bit of grace and patience with with sort of thinking...trying to navigate like, "Okay, well, how do we move from Cynthia doing everything to Cynthia, you know, doing part of the local thing to going learning to build it for delegation.

Michele (48:59) So here's the Another thing that that I've been thinking about. So let's say that you've sat down and you've got your roadmap that says, courses one through six is in the beginner level. Seven through fourteens, at Pier 15, through 20, is at Pier 21. You know what I mean?  And then let's say that you take the courses that you have already written these units and modules that you're talking about, and you start slotting them so that you see what's open. What you may also do is realize there's a thing called single thread, right? Which means what? Everything is going through your hands. So if you're the one who's writing and touching and creating everything, I want you to tell me how long it's going to take you to do... All the way up that pyramid from the bottom. A long, long time.

Cynthia (49:49) Yeah. Yes.

Michele (49:50) However, if you were to look at what's already been created, and you were to think about it as levels of ability. Right? Like we had said a minute ago, there are some people that can teach beginners. There are some people that are more points to teach intermediate. Some that are at a skill that they can teach advanced. Okay? Now what you've got this whole thing laid out, and you know that if it's all got a single thread through Cynthia, this could be a 10 year process. In 10 years, we're in trouble with our upholsters. 

Cynthia (50:24) Right. Yeah, we are, right. 

Michele (50:25) We're already facing a shortage. We're really in trouble. Okay. How do we shorten that time frame? The way we shorten that time frame is unless you're taking off and not working with Grant and everybody else. You're only sitting down doing this. That's the only way that's going to happen. 

Cynthia (50:42) Yeah. 

Michele (50:42) The other option is that we then search out content creators for each level. So then you may have a content creator for the beginning phase. Here's some pieces that are done. Here's the outline. Here is the standard procedures. Here's the vocabulary. I want you, assuming that you've chosen the right people...You write the beginning category courses. You, you're the intermediate writer. You, you're way past that intermediate skill...Can you write the intermediate courses? You,  can you write the advanced courses. And maybe Cynthia you step in and do the master courses. 

Cynthia (51:22) Okay.  

Michele (51:23) Just because they wrote them doesn't mean they're the only teachers of them, but then they would be the ones that we train the trainers under them. So it's not so single focused. Everything cannot touch your hands. 

Cynthia (51:36) Yeah. Yeah. 

Michele (51:37) You would have oversight. You would check it off. You would agree that it's ready to go. But you may have five different instructors...three right now, let's say you had five, four or five different levels. They're the ones writing the courses. They're the ones writing the instructor manual. They're the ones training the trainer's under them, and then it just starts multiplying out.

Cynthia (51:58) Okay, yeah. Yeah, that definitely makes sense. I think one of the one of the tough things right now that I'm looking at is ...You're right there are people who can teach the beginners. Absolutely. When we get to the intermediate and advanced, that gets tougher because there's just less people there. I'm really not opposed to bringing our own instructors in and cultivating them, but then when you it takes so long to build that kind of trust in the market that people perceive you as an intermediate and advanced and master and capable of delivering those things. I'm definitely kind of looking at...I'm concerned and maybe I'm making it up, but a little bit of a staffing hurdle there. And we were working on that this year, too, for me to try to pass any market credibility that I have on to our instructor who are less...

Michele (52:50) That certification piece. They are certified that they can do it by the Funky Little Chair. So what they're doing is they are borrowing your trust.  

Cynthia (53:02) And you think that that will transfer? Like it's more transferable than I'm thinking...that's great news.

Michele (53:07) Well, when we had the the school that's what we did. We made sure that the people that came in could do that work and then they trained that work.

Cynthia (53:19) You're right. And it was the entity that sort of had the the trust of...

Michele (53:22) It was the entity that they trusted and they trusted the instructor because they trusted the entity. 

Cynthia (53:28) Yeah, okay. 

Michele (53:29) And the entity did its work to make sure that we had the right instructors in the right place, teaching the right things.

Cynthia (53:35) And that is important to me, because it takes so long to create trust. And it's very quick to, you know, if you're not doing your due diligence...

Michele (53:43) But we've got to be pulling each other up all the time. If it's single threaded, you're going to only be able to touch a handful of people.

Cynthia (53:51) Right, right. And I mean, I'm past that max.

Michele (53:55) A handful of people with a tiny bit of knowledge and it's going to take years to even get it out there. So what we have to do...Listen, when you if you've ever had to teach something that even that you knew, but you needed to hone your skills, you are so dialed in to learn it and to practice it and to do it before you have to teach it - you become an expert at it very quickly. 

Cynthia (54:20) Yes, that's true. 

Michele (54:21) Most people that are cautious and careful, will not stand up and teach what they don't know. And so, you're going to have some people that are going to advance more quickly because of the opportunity to teach.

Cynthia (54:34) Yeah...Yeah, that's a fact. Okay, you know, I had one more thought that I jotted down that I just want to run past you. When you're talking about...because you're right, we have you know, I have started to fill in the documents of like, you know, as we've identified projects that we think people should move through creating the content for people to do those, but you know, some of it is going to be online paid course, EULA and just simple stuff that is on YouTube (but for free) and I don't really ever envision some of those little things ever being a full fledged course. They just don't need to be. So I mean, do you think it's confusing or unmanageable for us to have if this is our full pathway? I mean, we're not going to build a full four day course for everything. Is it confusing to people? How do I communicate to kind of go "Okay, way down here we have three or four different kinds of slip seat projects that you should do. But you're never going to see a course for that one specific skill. It's online. There's a downloadable. One with a teacher, an open workshop is where you need to go."  Like how do we... 

Michele (55:39) That is just a communication. So in this roadmap, you can have courses, skills, workshops, and then you get to choose which things are courses, which things are skills. You can also...I mean we can even talk about this in a bigger way. You could have a membership platform where they pay to come in and then they have full access to all of these videos and skills and other things. You can have certain things that are not behind the gate that they automatically get for free. There's so many ways that you can do that. I don't think anybody has an expectation, nor did they have time to do to a four six day class for every single thing only. They don't. I mean, even in the workroom world, and the design world and all of these other places...there are some things that we need to go to a course on and there are other things that we can gather from information online, pull it right down, and start, you know, practicing it and using it. So that hybrid learning style is really more of what we're going to. Nobody expects a long travel course for everything they're doing. They couldn't afford that either in time or money.

Cynthia (56:52) No, it would be really ineffective and...

Michele (56:57) So it's really just like saying, here are the skills that we think we can teach you quickly. Here are the things that we think we can teach you by video or, you know, just with the PDF document. Here are the things that we really think you need to come in and do some hands on with. Right? And so they're just is multiple delivery methods.

Cynthia (57:17) And who do...how on earth do I learn that?  Like, what kind of a person do I seek to figure out like, well, okay, I have this framework and all this content and we know how it's supposed to be used. How do we make sure that other people understand how it's supposed to be used?

Michele (57:32) That's going to be in your marketing and in your graphics. So it's making sure that you have a good marketing team and a good graphics team who laid this out and truthfully dropped breadcrumbs down the trail to lead us down that trail. 

Cynthia (57:45) Okay, okay. I have someone doing my my graphic design for me for the first time ever, and it's wonderful. I haven't sought out any...I haven't focused on marketing at all, just because it seemed like I wasn't sure what the heck I wanted to market yet. Anyway.  

Michele (57:58) Right, right. We'll get there. I think you got a little bit more to do. But I think that when you have this kind of laid out, and you have some pieces and parts that you can start engaging people in, then you can start the marketing on it. The marketing, right now, is marketing for the idea to find the teachers and the content creators. Okay, then we market to the masses to actually partake of the work that you've created. 

Cynthia (58:22) Okay.

Michele (58:22) So let me recap a couple of things, because there are other people listening to the podcast and they're going well, that wasn't my exact problem. And I certainly don't expect them to have your same exact problem. But notice what we did. We took all these moving pieces and parts, we all can have businesses that feel like they have multiple moving pieces and parts. And we start looking at it and trying to break things down, put like things together, and then look at the difference between what are my people needs? What are my process needs? Maybe what am my online needs? That's where you are now asking, "What are my marketing needs?"  Then we can start layering these things together. Then we need to start thinking about what are some standardizations we can do? What are some things that we can do that are repeatable? Again, we talked about E-Myth. That then starts to break it down. And we start to see similarities between things, so that we're not doing everything differently. Then we start looking at what do we know? And what do we already have in place? What do we not know? And what are we missing from this plan? Then, what do we think will make the next big impact and that's where we start focusing. So this is really just a layer. I'm sorry, I know you're looking at me crazy. It's just the way my brain works. But it's this layering process. Because if you stop and let your brain ping pong around, all that needs to be done, which is what you're great at doing.

Cynthia (59:52) Yeah. Oh, yeah!

Michele (59:54) It feels like you're pulled in 5,000 directions. You're really not. All of this is moving in one direction.  It's just all moving at one time and at different rates of speed. And so what we have to do is to find the one direction, and then move everything that way. But we don't really need to worry at this exact moment, how to get your clients in the door. If we don't even, like you said, know what we're getting them in the door for. Let's define what we are getting them in the door for. Let's define how far along we are to know when to ask them to walk through the door. Then when we got that figured out, we can start to ask them how to walk through the door. But we don't want to sell something before we're even ready to know what it is or be deliberate. Because we will not meet client expectations that way. 

Cynthia (1:00:42) Right.  

Michele (1:00:44) Doesn't mean it shouldn't be part of the path and the planning right? For your example. This should be in person this can be on YouTube, it should be free content. This can be a downloadable. It doesn't mean we shouldn't think about how we're going to engage with them. We just shouldn't be worrying about marketing to them. Or that marketing way until we even know what it is that we're marketing?

Cynthia (1:01:05) Yeah, yeah. And I guess, you know, I just have to trust myself that when the time is right, then that will be that...

Michele (1:01:13) We'll find resources and we'll do it. 

Cynthia (1:01:15) Just not right now.

Michele (1:01:17) Another thing that I touched on, but I do want you to think about as you are mapping out your plan is what would be your ideal for timeline. Because again, if you're talking 10 years, we can single thread this thing. But if you're talking, "I'd like to have some piece, some part up in one year...in two years...in three years," then that gives us a little more idea of who does what and when they do it and how to do it and how the people play together. It would be like us calling a designer and saying I want my whole house done by Christmas and it's all empty. They're going to tell us that's not possible. But they might tell us they could get a plan together for the house by Christmas and then we would start working on, you know, downstairs at this point. Upstairs at this point. Our bedrooms here. They're going to stage it out for us. But there's no way they're going to come in and fill up our completely empty house between now and Christmas when it's late fall, when we're having a conversation. It's not happening for what you're trying to deliver. We can't give it an unreasonable timeframe. So we really need to think of what could be done when, and is that fast enough? Or is it too slow? And if it's too slow, then what what other options do we have?

Cynthia (1:02:36) Okay.  I can definitely give that some thought and I am anxious to you know...because I do like to get kind of wound up and try and do too much at once. But I do want to have a timeline that is ambitious - it's fine, but that doesn't compromise the quality of the product and the service and the instructor team. And I just think some of those things are just going to take the time that they...

Michele (1:03:04) That they did.

Cynthia (1:03:05) Yeah.

Michele (1:03:07) The other thing, too, Cynthia is let your planning start on a high level and then come down to a medium level and unti... Like don't get fixated on a tiny detail on something that you still haven't planned everything around it. Let's get some big frameworks and then narrow it in and narrow it in and narrow it in until it's the proper time to focus on every tiny detail. 

Cynthia (1:03:30) Okay. Well, I can definitely do that. I love looking at the big framework, but then I have trouble kind of not  wanting...

Michele (1:03:37) To get caught with all the little details and then that gets overwhelming, because there are too many details.  

Cynthia (1:03:43) Oh, yeah. 

Michele (1:03:44) Start with and make sure that you've covered all the pieces that you can give them the big framework, and then just kind of take a step in. What's the next level of it and then take a step in and it will automatically pull you down into the right detail at the right time.

Cynthia (1:03:58) Okay, okay.

Michele (1:04:02) Does that help?

Cynthia (1:04:03) Oh, that really helps a lot. Yeah. I was a little worried about this call because I felt so all over the place right now. But...

Michele (1:04:10) Again, it's the ping pong, right? There's so many great ideas, we need to harness them. One of the things I like to do is, like, I'll get great big white poster board and write the topic of what I want to talk about. And then I write all my details on sticky notes. Like a post it note. And then I can move them from board to board and from the top to the bottom and wherever I want. It gives me this visual mapping. Yeah, well, so you can try different things like that. Write the idea out and write it down. And let's say you thought it needed to go to phase one, if it's on a sticky and you put it in phase four, you can just pick it up and move it. 

Cynthia (1:04:11) Yes. 

Michele (1:04:12) So you're not stuck by where you put it the first time. When I'm in this type of brainstorming mode, that's the way I like to do it is write everything else sticky note so I can move it around. And as I'm learning more through the discovery process, I can reorganize while I'm going.

Cynthia (1:05:10) Okay. Yeah, I'm a big fan of post-its.  I enjoyed the post-its.

Michele (1:05:14) I've got lots of colors and lots of things, but you, you can use all of that so that you can allow...it's kind of like creating a mind map, right? You're creating a mind map, but you can reorganize it as you go. Just because it's the first time you write it down, doesn't mean it has to stay that way. 

Cynthia (1:05:29) Okay. 

Michele (1:05:29) Not at this point in the process.  There will be a point the process where we kind of have to solidify it, but you're not there yet. Okay?

Michele (1:05:39) Yes, yes.

Michele (1:05:40) Awesome. Alright. So you're going to go tackle some of it, right? 

Cynthia (1:05:44) Yes. Yeah, some. That's going to really actually help me.  I was feeling a little stuck on our self-guided curriculum, you know, but I'm feeling pretty good about jumping back into that and trying to make it a little bit more of a an action guiding document for us and not just a...using that to really figure out what to focus on next. 

Michele (1:06:09) Yeah, the one other thing...I know I keep giving you one other thing, one other thing...I'm going overwhelm you with my "one other things."  Also think about the time that you think it will take a person to get from beginning to end. And it may be that instead of starting at the beginning, that you literally start at the end. Meaning, I start with the more advanced classes first, so that I got a more advanced pool to pull from and then I go down to the intermediary to bring them up. Because the more I've got up here, the more they can help bring the people up down here. So where our natural inclination would be start with those that know nothing and bring them up to the first level. It may actually work better to at least investigate bringing up those in the middle and higher, bring them up to the highest level. While we still have time with for bringing the others up, because then we have the pull from to go down. 

Cynthia (1:07:07) Yeah, andI completely agree and I think there are a lot of people floating around who have bumbled their way through kind of the the beginning and intermediate stages and I like those people but it does it make it a little tricky instructionally that you just...people are always coming in with popery for 100. But no, there's I'm really anxious to...Yeah, yeah, I don't see any problem really, with focusing on the more advanced stuff right now and kind of catch up with people. I like the people who have figured out a lot of stuff through their own kind of research and ingenuity and and grit. So...

Michele (1:07:38) Right, rolling up the sleeves and on the job training. I'm just saying that sometimes our initial thought would be, I need art at the bottom and get you up to here and start working your way up. This may be a model where number one we're in need. So instead of starting at the bottom, starting at those who...We used to have people that came to the school all the time that had taught themselves. And a lot of times they came just to be reassured that what they taught themselves was right. 

Cynthia (1:08:08) Yep.

Michele (1:08:09) And those people moved much quicker and much faster, because all they needed was confirmation that what they were doing was okay. A couple of tweaks here and there for things they had not picked up. And, man, they just zoomed to the top fast. And so if you can zoom some people to the top fast, you now have more people to jump down to the bottom to create content to teach.

Cynthia (1:08:29) Yeah.

Michele (1:08:31) You see what I mean? Serve the middle enough and then let them come down and help you serve the bottom as far as ability. 

Cynthia (1:08:38) Okay.

Michele (1:08:39) Just a thought. 

Cynthia (1:08:41) I like that thought. And I'll move the E-Myth to the top of my reading. Yay!

Michele (1:08:47) It's a "hard one" but you're going to love it.

Well, Cynthia, thank you so much for sharing the challenge of how to have a really big why and a really big goal and a really big plan, but a lot moving pieces and parts. And again, while not everybody may have the same challenge as far as building curriculum and education for the upholstery industry....They certainly have a big goal with lots of moving pieces. And where do I start? And how do I break that down? So, I appreciate you sharing that challenge and letting us dig in some today.

Cynthia (1:09:22) Well, I always appreciate a conversation with you. It's it's every time very clarifying and helpful. So thank you.

Michele (1:09:29) And drinking out of a fire hydrant at the same time, I'm sure.  Well, thanks again, and have a great day. 

Cynthia (1:09:36) Thanks. You too, Michelle. 

Michele (1:09:38) Thank you, Cynthia, for sharing your challenge. I know I've had really big ideas that felt like they were spinning out of control and needed a little order to be brought to the chaos. And sometimes it's easy to feel that overwhelmed just in our day to day of running a business. And so like with Cynthia, I help my Designers' Inner Circle clients to do this all the time. If you want to talk about removing your overwhelm check out the Designers' Inner Circle, by going to ScarletThreadConsulting.com. There's profitability and making a plan and it doesn't happen by accident.