That was an expensive “oh well.”

Yeah, exactly. That’s my point. I guess the thing is that for most of us who are in small businesses, we have to rely on the expertise of the people that we bring in as consultants and hope that they know what they’re doing and that we’re going to get some kind of measurable results. You have had experience working with, as you said, best of breed in a lot of these different areas that are now part of a whole new world of marketing that didn’t rely on printed materials so to speak … But it does in a way, but not necessarily in the traditional through the direct mail stuff.

Right.

How is it that what you’re doing, your business model, provides something more manageable than what the traditional approach has been?

That’s a great question, Lynn. And let me tell you, my approach is much different than other agencies or other marketers because I’m not necessarily tied to one solution. I’m not working for a marketing company that these are their only services. I have access to all of these resources, so as I’m diagnosing what someone’s challenge is/may be from a marketing perspective, that’s where I’m crafting and figuring out who the right resources are. And if the resource that I pull in happens to not be the right resource for any reason, then I resource other people, other talents because what we discover through our discovery process in identifying what the challenge might be within your organization… As we’re digging in, my goal is to try and dig in deep enough before I pull in the right resource. But sometimes through more intense questioning when I bring my partners in, we identify something that I didn’t have knowledge to before, and then we’re like, “Okay. Perhaps we shift gears a little bit.”

So I’m able to pivot with what the client’s needs are. When we talk about… I’m a huge, huge, huge fan of people having a plan.

Mm-hmm.

I kind of always do this metaphor that marketing is like a car. The outside of your car… And I promise I’ll get back to your question. If I look at the outside of your car: the look, the feel, your logo, your brand. The thing that attracts people to your company is the big shiny. I assume you have this outside of this car. But without an engine, it doesn’t have the capability to go anywhere.

Yeah.

And that engine is your strategy; it’s all the pieces, it’s all the magic that needs to take your car somewhere. But now that you have the outside of your car, which is your look and feel, and you have the strategy, you need to execute on that. And those are your drivers. And that’s the social media plan, that’s the execution… Social media planning, execution, SEO, the video content; all the other pieces to marketing. So my point being that all these pieces have to work together. And marketing is kind of this beast that needs to be said.

Mm-hmm.

It’s always about once you start marketing, you don’t stop. And once you have a plan in place, it’s critical as you’re moving forward with each piece that you’re refining. So when you’re telling me that you’ve had a plan and the marketing teams that you’re working with did all these great executions but nothing came of it, therein lies the challenge or the missed opportunity to refine because in this day and age, there are so much data available. There’s data available for everything: what site you went to, what site you were thinking of going to. It’s actually kind of crazy.

Yeah.

Our browser knows more about us. We’re giving up so much information. So all that data is being captured somewhere. How do we look at that data and make educated decisions and tweaks and revisions? We’re in a time where it was harder to extrapolate data a number of years ago, but here it’s about accessing it and putting the power… You know, doing something with it. When you were telling me about you had the plan, you loved the idea, and the execution fell flat, the missing piece there is the refinement; the constantly working and moving until you get it right. It’s a living and breathing entity and it’s always changing, and it’s always moving. And you have to be able to pivot with it. The technology curve. When I started back in the staffing industry, back in the nineteen hundreds…

Light years ago, right?

A couple of years ago. The technology curve, it would be every four or five years until the next version of something came out.

Yeah.

And now, it could be even every six months. But the market can’t take it. And it would actually be faster. Something new is always coming out.

Yeah.

And so, we always have to be refining and pivoting and feeding ourselves with the knowledge, which is exactly why I partner with best in breed companies because I get to take the burden of them having to do business development off their plate. So I do what I do best so that they can do what they do best. I partner with people, they have a thirst for knowledge; they’re always learning, they’re always evolving. Kind of like when I finally left the safety of my 18-and-a-half years at my former company, I was like, “Oh my gosh, I need an MBA. I need to know everything.” And then I realized, “I don’t need to have an MBA, I just need to partner with the people that do have them.”

Exactly. Exactly. If I understand what you’re saying here, I think the distinct advantage you have is that, in your business model, is that unlike the other agencies where they have people in-house who are employees and they have to use them, you don’t have to use them. You have the opportunity to go out and find whatever you need for the design for your client so that you’re not stuck with somebody who may be marginally productive. That’s a nice way of saying it, but…

That’s a really nice way. You’re really good at this, Lynn.

Okay. Marginally productive people. All right.

And it’s not even necessarily marginally productive, as much as having a knowledge in a particular niche.

Yeah.

A perfect example is one of my strategic partners that I give right of first refusal to on my projects, she’s got great nonprofit experience, great membership experience. But when I approached a college, they really wanted to have somebody who had university experience because of how deep entrenched and entangled all of their website properties were. Though my immediate go-to person didn’t have that experience, because of my networking and being connected in both New York and New Jersey, I happen to have a partner who did a very huge Ivy League school’s website.

Wow.

So I was able to pull in the person with the right experience.

Mm-hmm.

So instead of trying to fit our round company into a square opportunity, I’m able to find the right peg that fits exactly into the equation.

I think that’s brilliant, frankly. I do.

Well thank you.

I just think that makes so much sense. It just makes so much sense. And I think the opportunity for you to be successful is increased multiple-fold by the fact that you have access to all those resources.

In the NG that was definitely my thinking. And it’s playing out that way, so I really feel that I’m onto something and that this is possibilities. Because one of the things I thought about, the thing that kept me up at night, after leaving a corporate environment where I was there for so long, I was definitely stepping out of my comfort zone, but it was the thought of just selling one solution. By selling one solution, I know how long… Depending on what you’re selling, the sale cycle can be very, very long. And then, to get to that end of that, just because they didn’t like your design capability or your design style, or they didn’t like your choice of font. You know?

Yeah.

And that was something that I wholeheartedly had no control over because I’m not the designer.

Mm-hmm.

I have a good eye, I’ve been around marketing and creative services for over 20 years, but I don’t know how to do Photoshop. I’m bossy enough to be able to tell you what I like and what looks good, but I can’t do it. And that’s why I partner with people that do. What if you got to the end of after six months of chasing a client or chasing an opportunity, and then it’s you against another company and it was just one small thing that they didn’t like about it?

Yeah.

Here, I’m able to kind of pivot and really what I end up doing is bringing more opportunity to the marketplace because it’s not about me, it’s about our clients and… I get to be Yenta; I get to match everybody up.

Okay, Yenta. All right. Let me ask you something too about some other endeavors that you’re involved with. And I love the names of some of these, but you said in something that we exchanged before we had this interview that you’re the founder of a gourmet food line called Compleat Chef.

Yes.

And then there’s a whole bunch of other things: Nice & Naughty Nuts, Madam Marmalade. This one I like, Nice & Naughty Pecan Bourbon Barbecue Glaze. And The Sunday Morning After Flaps Waffle and Pancake Mix. I just love these names.

Well thank you.

But tell me about what’s Compleat Chef? What is that?

Compleat Chef. Both my husband and I are foodies; we just always enjoyed cooking, eating, being with friends and family. And really, once we started to have our kids… We have two boys; 12 and 9. And we really were not loving what was in prepared foods, and we weren’t loving what the options were out there. I was always a cook, but then I became ever more aware. And I’d rather make my kids food as much as I possibly can.

I’d be that person who, I make my own chicken stock. I make all these things. But I make them all, but it’s not hard. The whole idea was kind of trying to teach people and create a food lovers community, is what compleatchef.com was originally meant to be.

Mm-hmm.

And we started that this idea was born a couple years ago, I guess about five years ago, now. So our idea was to kind of create a platform where people met, talked about food, shared their recipes, and encouraged people to do a potluck dinner.

Yeah.

Dinner didn’t have to be complicated. If everybody just bought one thing, you would have a great dinner. And just kind of encourage people back to that old style of connecting, just really, really connecting. We were taking the idea of using the social platform to actually put people together in a room.

Mm-hmm.

So that was the idea of Compleat Chef. It never really came into fruition like that, and it was really kind of…turned out to be a site where people would share recipes. But there was something we really liked about the brand. And then, we eventually came up with the Nice & Naughty Nuts. And the product line started when … I happen to make these nuts. I’ve been making them for like 10 years, and people are like, “You need to sell these. You need to sell these.”

Mm-hmm.

And I finally was at a dinner party where it was a wine tasting, and the sommelier owned a liquor store; a beautiful wine store, actually, here in new Jersey. He owns two of them. And he tried them. And he was like, “These are amazing. I’ll take…get them in my store.”

A couple months pass, I did all the logo work and had my brand designed, and then lo and behold, we started selling them in a local store. And then, when I posted on Facebook that people really started to… I was like, “Look, we’re in a store. How exciting is this?”

Yeah.

And then, we really started getting momentum. Two hundred people on my Facebook feed were like, “Well how do I do this? How do I get these? These sound delicious.” So I told my husband, I’m like, “Paul, we need to do something.” And then, I contacted one of my programmers and said, “Tim, we need to do something.” And we were trying to think. Do we resurrect the site, blah blah blah? We were kind of going back and forth. And he was like, “It’s easy. Let’s just do a Facebook store.” So we started a Facebook store selling our nuts.

Mm-hmm.

And then, the rest of… And I had the idea of all these other food products with the Madam Marmalade, which is tart cherries with a boozy splash of Grand Marnier. They’re all a little cheeky.

Oh yeah.

And they’re all so fun.

Yeah.

There’s other nut items out there, but mine are particularly delicious. There’s other marmalade out there, but we kind of like… A brand attracts, right?

Yeah.

As I said earlier, it’s like the outside of my car. But let me tell you, the stuff that’s inside is amazing. And I really feel confident about it, so we’re doing…having a marketing company and being a parent is one thing. But on the weekends, we become…food makers.

That’s what I was just going to say. Are you still making all this stuff at home on the weekends?

Right now we are. We’re small enough where we… We’re getting to the point where we need to scale into a commercial kitchen.

Yeah.

How do I start two businesses at the same time? But you know what they say, Lynn, if you want something done…

Yes, ask a busy person.

Exactly.

I know. I know. I know. But I think it’s wonderful that you’re doing that. Where is it that… What’s the liquor store in New Jersey where you’re selling those?

It’s the Berkeley Wine Company in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey.

Okay.

And then, it’s going to be sold in their Bernardsville store, which is also called the Berkeley Wine Company. And then, they can be found on Facebook if you search Nice & Naughty Nuts.

Is that Nice “and” Naughty, or Nice “&” Naughty?

It’s Nice “&” Naughty.

Okay. Very good. Well that’s great.

And there, we have our product. It’s very simple. It’s actually free shipping also.

Yay.

Yay. I know. Let me tell you, I learned a lot about the postal service.

I’ll bet you did.

The irony is both my parents worked for the post office. And I have forever had a negative reaction to the post office: going to the post office, buying stamps. Those were not things that I did.

Yes. Well, you had the inside track on things, so I guess that either helped or hurt. I’m not sure which.

It was definitely quite illuminating.

Yeah. Let’s switch this conversation over to some of the questions that I asked you. Well, I didn’t ask you, I sent to you ahead of this. Because I’m really curious now, with all of what you’re doing and especially how you left the comfort of a 17-year-career and decided to go out and do something on your own, how your perception of money impacted all of this. So let me ask the first question. What was your family like when you were growing up?

Well, that’s a very colorful question.

Okay.

I’m the last of five.

Okay.

My parents divorced when I was young. And they both worked for the post office. So what that meant, essentially, is that we were raised by a single mother who worked for the post office, and there were five of us.

Okay.

I think creative financing might be the best broad stroke concept that I learned at an early age. You know, robbing Peter to pay Paul was really kind of just what I saw my mother had to do. And watching her… When I grew up and really thought, how terrifying to have five children on a scheduled postal worker’s salaries, which I ensure you was laughable in the ’70s. It’s just sad to think that this woman raised five children on her own with… What you probably spend a year on paper products. It’s terrible.

Yeah.

I was always amazed. My mother worked at night so that she could make more money.

Mm-hmm.

She just got shift differential, so she worked at night. So I was often left to my own devices, and fortunately I had a good moral compass.

Mm-hmm.

Money was tight. Let’s put it this way, we had a lot of ketchup and mustard in the refrigerator, but nothing to put on it.

Oh. That’s a good way. That’s very colorful. I like that. I get it.

My mother went food shopping twice a month, when she got paid. That was it.

Yeah.

It’s not like how I go to three stores every weekend and I get… I’ve turned into a bit of a food hoarder because growing up since we didn’t really have a lot of food, that’s probably where part of my passion for food came because I’m like, “If I’m gonna have it, I’m going to have a lot of it.”

Yeah. Yeah, that’s probably true. What was your first memory around money?

Not having any.

Yeah. No, that’s very common, not having any. When you needed something that required you to have some money, how did you get the money?

Well, I started working when I was 13. So as soon as I could start working, I did. And the irony is, is from the moment I was probably six, seven, eight, people were always saying, “You should be a salesperson. You’re a natural salesperson.” Then I spent my whole life trying to avoid being a salesperson.

Really?

You know what, Lynn, you can’t fight the tide.

Yes. I get it.

I wasn’t necessarily a saver. I think I always tried to soothe what I felt like I didn’t have by getting it when I could. If that made sense?

Yeah. Yeah, it does.

I probably had less healthy money habits as a kid. You know what, I wanted a rabbit, I saved for it. I did all these things. I knew the basics, but once you start getting exposed to the world, you’re like, “Wow. There’s so much to want and covet.”

Yeah. Exactly. Yeah, there’s a lot of ways that… A lot of things are screaming at you to spend your money.

Right. And when I first got a credit card, I was like, “Wow. I don’t have to give money to get something. I could walk out of the store with something.” So that was a lesson. I definitely, at some point in my early 20s got myself into a little bit of credit card debt. But then, I realized I didn’t want to be that way.

Yeah.

There was a shift for me that said I didn’t want any debt.

Mm-hmm.

And from the moment that button clicked in me, that switch went off, I paid off all my credit card debt. To this day, I hate to have credit card debt, and I’ve never had credit card debt since I was probably 25.

Wow. Good for you. That’s great.

Well, when you start to see that it could take 97 years for you to pay off a couch, you were like, “I am not doing that.”

Yeah. Exactly.

And that 1,000-dollar item turns out to be $87,000 dollars when you’re done paying it off.

That’s right. And I love the fact that now the credit card statements show you that.

Right.

Because they didn’t have to do that before, but consumer pressure made people realize that now you have to tell somebody if they only pay the minimum every month, this is how much it’s going to actually cost you for that item over the next 20 years, or something like that. It’s a great example.

Let me ask you this question, what’s been the most threatening to your financial security?

Well definitely not getting a paycheck anymore.

Yeah.

That was the step that… I took the summer off last year. I resigned in June, I took the summer off to be with my kids. It sounded like a great idea, but I was so nervous because a paycheck meant stability for me.

Mm-hmm.

And a paycheck meant… I always had a paycheck. I was always bringing in money. I was always an equal partner to my husband.

Mm-hmm.

It was funny. I recognize that my mom always had to rob Peter to pay Paul, and she’d be paycheck to paycheck. And I said to myself, “I will never be like this.” And not in disrespect to her, it was actually an homage to her, to honor how hard she worked. I just really didn’t want to live paycheck to paycheck because I saw how much stress it put in her life. That’s probably where I switched and changed to freeing myself from credit card debt.

I always felt like I needed to be an equal partner. So I was talking to my brother one time, and I said, “I will never be in debt. I will always have money.” And he said, “Well, you probably… ” He goes, “I don’t doubt that.” He goes, “But you’ll probably marry that.”

What?

Yes. And don’t get me wrong, my brother’s an amazing person.

Yeah.

He’s really not what that statement sounds like.

What did he mean though, when he said you will marry that? What’s the that?

He thought that I would marry money.

Oh, that you would marry money. Okay.

Right. That I would marry money. And that turned a fire in my belly to go and be successful.

Yeah.

And I look at that as definitely … That was a point to me where I was like, “I don’t want to marry … Yeah, it’d be nice to marry it, that’s great.” But I want to be successful. I want to contribute. I want to feel that I am an equal partner to anyone. And I’m not saying that women who choose not to work. Because if you stay home to raise your children, that is the hardest job that I can’t even wrap my head around that and I have two children.

Yeah.

But it really put a fire in my belly. And I will never forget the time… My first huge paycheck, I could not wait to show my brother.

And what was his reaction?

He could not believe it.

Oh great.

He could not believe it. In three months, I had made what he made in a year.

Oh, wow. That’s good. That’s really good.

I will tell you, another place where my thoughts of money really changed is my first job in the city was working on the trading floor, an institutional trading floor, at a brokerage firm.

Wow.

A job right now that I know people, MBA’s, would be fighting over my horrible little working girl job.

Yeah. Oh my gosh.

I used to think, “Wow. If I could make 50,000 dollars a year, I would be set.” I was sitting with people that were making 50,000 dollars a week. And we would be delivering their paychecks to them. And yet, they’d always ask us to go pick up coffee for them, which I always laughed. I was like, “Why do rich people have no money on them?”

Yeah. Wow.

That was really an enlightening experience between the world of not having anything to put your ketchup on, and then seeing just this… We’d go out with the traders after work, and the bar bill would be $1,100. And you’re just like, “I don’t even understand.” I couldn’t even wrap my head around it. I was like, “You’re blowing $1,100 on a bunch of drinks and snacks for the crew, and I was making that a month.”

That’s amazing.

Yeah. Seeing the different worlds made me realize again there’s stuff for the taking, but I wanted to earn it. I didn’t want to have it given to me.

Well, were you raised in the city?

No. I was raised in central New Jersey.

Okay. All right. So what made you decide that you wanted to go into the city for your jobs?

I am not a small town girl. I kind of felt the world was calling for me. I needed to get out.

Yeah.

We moved around a lot when I was a kid. We moved three times, which during your elementary years, those are tough times to move because that’s where everybody was planting their seeds for their roots. You know?

Yeah.

And I moved around a lot, so by the time we had gotten to the final place when I was nine, which is where I stayed for most of my rearing, I wasn’t attached to where I grew up at all. And I knew that there was something else out there. I needed more than just local stuff; I wanted to taste, I wanted to travel, I wanted to see and experience. The world called me, and I answered.

And it was funny because if I had… My mother, she was horrified when I went to go work in the city, but I was just like, “You got to go. You got to go do. You got to go. It’s not going to happen here for me.”

Well, were you living at home at the time you were working in the city?

I was. I was living at home. The funny thing is… Yeah, I commuted into the city from Central Jersey. And so began my 22-and-a-half years of working in the city.

Yeah.

And it really becomes a way of life; you don’t even realize what you’re doing until… In June when I stopped and I couldn’t believe that I did that for that long.

Yeah. I think that you take the train in every day, right?

Yeah.

Used to take the train in. Yeah. That’s clearly a way of life.

I used to get up at 4:50 in the morning to run.

Yeah.

Because you can’t love food as much as I do and not run or do some sort of exercise, because I would clearly… Yeah.

That’s great. One last question I want to ask, do you ever see yourself being retired?

I would love to be retired at one point in my life, but my retirement would… That’s really where I would love to be servant leadership, be involved in some charities… I can’t even see myself retiring to a chair, ever. I will be on the go, I will be a docent in a museum, I will go work with kids, I will volunteer my time when I get there.

Mm-hmm.

But I’m a little ways off from there right now.

Oh, I would hope so. If you’re just starting a new business here, you want to keep going.

Well, then when we’re on my Nice & Naughty yacht…

That’s a fabulous name for a yacht. I love it. So do you have a picture of it somewhere on your vision board?

You know, I’m looking at my vision board right now, and I don’t have a yacht because I’ll tell you, the one thing I do know is that the best boat is your friends.

Okay.

But I do, on my vision board, have a private airplane.

Okay.

A Porsche.

All right. I love it. This is great.

Keys to success made out of diamonds.

Oh nice. And what else?

Let’s see. I do, actually, have a yacht. It’s a cruise ship though.

Oh no. That doesn’t count.

No, that doesn’t count. But I do have, actually, a picture of somebody that I consider my mom…

Okay.

…With a big number under it. Because one day… And she does not know this … One day, I would love to just give her a big check and just help her.

Yes.

I never have told her this, but that to me is a goal because she really… And I don’t think she even realizes how much I do appreciate all the sacrifices that she has made, and I would love to… A big sum of money, that I would help her manage, would just alleviate so many of her problems. And I would love to be able to do that for her.

That sounds great.

Well, my thanks to my guest, Vicki Harte, who is the founder and creative concierge at Harte Marketing Cooperative. And to all of you in my Power Of The Purse community, I hope today’s podcast was helpful in enriching your understanding of money and how it can help you achieve your life goals. If you’d like to spend 15 minute on a call with me and ask me questions about your personal finances, please go to my website, powerofthepursepodcast.com, and select the “contact” tab. And there, you’ll find some times that might work for you.

Thanks again, Vicki Harte, for sharing your time and knowledge. And please tell everybody how they can reach you.

Thank you so much, Lynn, for having me. This has been an amazing experience. And the best way to reach me would be my email, which is vicki@hartemarketingcoop.com. So that’s vicki@hartemarketingcoop.com. Or alternatively, I can be reached at my office, which is 973-387-0404. If anybody felt moved or had some questions, I would be happy to spend some time with you.

Wonderful. Thanks again, Vicki, for sharing your time and knowledge. And until the next time, thanks for listening. And remember, money is not the enemy; your ignorance of it is. Goodbye.

How to contact Vicki:

• Email: vicki@hartemarketingcoop.com
• Website: www.hartemarketingcoop.com
• Twitter: @HarteMarketing