Latest / On Point With Jaclyn Jeffrey / On Point With Maggie Lord

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On Point With Maggie Lord · On Point With Jaclyn Jeffrey

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: This episode is sponsored by Rizzo Masonry and Landscaping.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: So welcome to Weston today's podcast on point.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: We are using the podcast as an opportunity to introduce our readers and our viewers and listeners to extraordinary people who have remarkable stories, who can change the way we think about the world and the way that we live our lives.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: And there's someone like that who's going to help us do that today for sure, which is Maggie Lorde, who's here right here in Fairfield County.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: You are recently named to Inc.'s 2026 Female Founders 500 and currently the chief product officer and co-founder of the Whisper Group.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I normally like to start at the very beginning, but I kind of like to start where we are and then we'll go back because you have such a cool story for where this all began for you back in the early 2000s.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: So you were recently named to Inc.'s uh 200, I'm sorry, 2026 Female Founders 500 list.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: So a couple of questions.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: One, what is that?
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: What's the recognition for?
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: And what has it meant to you to get that recognition?
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, good question.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: And thank you for having me.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, it was um actually a goal of mine for a long time to be on Inc.'s list of female founders 500, to be honored with other amazing female founders who are, you know, created their own companies and working to build and scale, and then just to be highlighted is just, you know, amazing.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: What it is is it really highlights female founders that have created some sort of business that is different, unique, or is changing something within um the landscape.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so this year there were many, many, many accomplished women, but my co-founder Carrie Carpet and I were lucky enough to be named to it, and it really was um a wonderful thing for us.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it sounds amazing.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what does it mean to you?
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you've had quite a transition, and we're going to talk about that in a moment from where this all started, where I don't think you ever imagined this is where you were going to be, not from the beginnings.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: So, what is all this recognition?
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: What does it mean to you?
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's lovely.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, it's it is part of the job of being an entrepreneur, right?
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: You need press and you need to be seen and you need to have your story out there.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: I will tell you though, being the mom of three boys, the same day that I got Inc.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: Female Founder 500, I told my kids and they said, but are we still having meatloaf for dinner?
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm very much I'm humbling.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: So um I'm, you know, from a founder and an entrepreneur standpoint, to be out there and to be recognized is important, right?
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: You need your business to really be um something that people are talking about.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I've done that over the years through press features and magazines and and talk shows and things.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it really is an important part of your business strategy is to be out there and to be seen.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so we're gonna start at the beginning in a minute, but before that, just give us a little teaser here.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: You're the uh co-founder of the Whisper Group.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: Just give us a little bit about like what this is, what it's for, and what your what your mission is.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: So the Whisper group, I co-founded with Carrie Kirpin.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: We both had our own exit separately from each other and both felt we were missing one thing, which was the advisory services of a female founder who had been through their own exit.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: So we are an MA advisory firm, and we also are the largest collective of exited female founders.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: So we have that network going, which is truly amazing.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not just domestic, correct?
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: You have clients internationally as well?
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: 100%.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 3:38
  unknown: Okay.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so now my favorite, I mean, I'm very interested in this, but my favorite part is to talk and listen to and have our viewers hear how this all started for you.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: So your path to becoming an entrepreneur was certainly not conventional, and I would imagine not necessarily what you anticipated back when you were a middle school teacher.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: And that evolved somehow from being a middle school teacher uh to founding Rustic Wedding Sheik, which I'm sure many of our viewers know about.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: How did that happen?
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: How did you go from being a teacher to founding this amazing company that you did?
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: So I um have always been very entrepreneurial.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: I've had lots of little small businesses from the time my first one I was five, and I had Maggie Shell shop, and I would go get shells at the beach, clean them up, repurpose them, and sell them.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: I had so I've always had that part of um who I am.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: I was teaching in Ridgefield, Connecticut.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: I was teaching middle school science and I was finishing my master's degree.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: And so that the schedule of teaching really allowed for me to be able to finish my master's degree.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: And although I loved teaching, it was very natural for me.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: It certainly was not my passion in life.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I got engaged.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: And at the same time that I got engaged, I was starting to struggle with.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: We were planning a wedding at our lake house, which is in Wisconsin, but we live here in Connecticut.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I wanted this very elaborate Connecticut-style wedding, but up at this tiny little lake town.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: And it was right at the transition, 2008, between magazines, right?
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: The physical magazines that people would buy to the online publication side of things.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so there was a few, there was a handful of wedding, what they called blogs back in the day, where it was just ideas and pictures and images.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: And so I was struggling to communicate what I wanted with my vendors because I was like ripping things out of magazines and sending them blurry photos from my BlackBerry.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: Like it wasn't really working for me.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: And so I was like, what if I curated a look and feel that I found from other images, put them all in one place, and I could just communicate it that way.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: So it started as a very personal reason, a personal pain, you know, point that I was trying to fix.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and very quickly I was curating these beautiful looking uh weddings from all these photos I was finding.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I would have other brides who would email me and be like, How did you do that?
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: This is what I've been looking for.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: I where is where's this dress from?
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: And where is this venue?
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so I realized very quickly that I too could um play in the wedding space and that I could create a place that was a resource and it was educational, inspirational, and of course they could connect with all of vendors across the country in order to bring their day to life.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so ultimately, what exactly did that become?
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: What did that platform become?
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: So, from a very simple blog platform in the beginning, we scaled very quickly.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: We um really turned into more of a media company where we were selling advertising, we created a vendor directory.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I wrote six books to go along with what they were reading online.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: So we were online, offline.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: We had the wonderful opportunity to license our name to wedding products as well.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: So it became a very large business very fast that like I was pretty much running and chasing after.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I really didn't understand how big we could be until two really prominent things came into the space, which was Pinterest and Instagram.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: And when those two, because we were a visual platform, when those two other visual platforms came into the space, it really allowed couples to discover us faster and our readership just skyrocketed.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: Well, actually, you know, I mean, the fact that you did this before those things existed, you know, Instagram and Pinterest, uh, what and you mentioned pain points or at least your own pain points when you were going through this whole process.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: What do you think, whether you knew it then or just looking back, I mean, what do you think you knew or understood about your customer that allowed this to become so successful so quickly?
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I think, you know, mostly it was brides who were trying to curate the look of their wedding.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: And when you do before Pinterest, you didn't have a place to aggregate all these beautiful photos to kind of showcase what you wanted.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so I really like I was struggling trying to piece all that together.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: And then I also was struggling to find vendors.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: And what really was a magic blow that we had was that this was this time in the wedding market that rustic was everything.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: It meant farm, barn, backyard, garden, vineyard.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like it was this overarching term that we just dominated all of those spaces.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so I knew that the customer wanted inspiration and pretty ideas, but she also needed practical information in order to plan her wedding.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so what do you think?
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: And you may have alluded, you alluded to Pinterest and Instagram, but in terms of you and decisions that you made, um, what's one decision do you think you made during that whole transition from when it began to what it became that that really changed the trajectory of the business?
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, good question.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: I think when when we first started to monetize about three or four months into it being a business, we it purely ran on advertisers, right, who wanted to have either their wedding product or their wedding services showcased.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: When I decided two years later to build a full vendor directory for every state that had every rustic vendor that from you know venues to caterers to photographers, and it was a very curated list.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: They had to apply to be within our vendor directory.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: That was a huge shift because we became also a B2B business and not just a B2C anymore.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: And so that shift was gigantic for us, and it allowed us to speak to everybody in the wedding community, not just the couples planning their wedding, but we also became a huge resource for the wedding professionals.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: And one thing I was wondering, how long from the time you began, did you move away from teaching?
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: How long were you doing trying to do both?
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: I think it was six months, maybe.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: You were ready.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: I was, yeah, I was ready.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it was a good shift.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: I was ready.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: I I was smart enough to figure out the financial side of it is if I want to leave my job, can I do that?
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, both be able to create this the company that I wanted.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I was fortunate enough to do that.
• 10:08
  unknown: Okay.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: But I did, I bootstrapped the whole company in the beginning with$1,400.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I had to invest in the tools that I needed, and that's what I started with.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: I just these are just the best stories.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: I I love them personally, and also for what we all can learn uh from what you've done, what you did and what you're doing now.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: So, in I believe in 2020, you sold Rustic Wedding Sheik to David's Bridal.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know if it's true, but from what I've read and what I've seen online, the way that happened uh is you cold, emailed the CEO and said you should buy my company.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: So how how true is that?
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: And how did the whole thing actually happen?
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: That is 100% accurate.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: I, the year before, had had um an offer from a large media company out of San Francisco, and that ultimately did not go through that sale.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: Once that sale did not go through, that was the um fall and winter of 2019.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: I had said to myself, I'm gonna reset for the month of December.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: I was devastated that this deal did not go through.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: They had a lot of lifestyle publications, and I was gonna be one of them, and it was a great fit.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: And as these things happen, you get down to the wire and the, you know, it just didn't go through.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, okay, but in in January of 2020, of course, no one, none of us knew what was coming in 2020, but I said, I'm going to put together a handful of people that I want to talk to that I think could be a good fit for a sale.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: And then I'll talk to them.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: And after I talk to those, if they're not interested, then I'll put it on the bigger market, right?
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: I had never explored like working with a broker or an investment banker because the first offer had just come about very naturally.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: And so I was like, well, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna reach out to a handful of like hand-selected people.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: I did not know the CEO of David's Bridal, but I did, I had worked with their social team a few times.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: And so I knew their email format.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I was speaking to some of his competitors as well, and I was like, well, he too should be listening to my pitch.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I emailed and explained why I thought we're gonna go on the market and I'd like to talk to him first before it's public knowledge, and why I thought it would be a good fit.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I got an email asking if I could meet in Manhattan uh on March 6th.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so what happened at the meeting?
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: It it was it was great.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: I I walked into that meeting feeling very confident, right?
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: I had done my work to that the business was in great shape.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: I knew my job at that meeting was just to convey the passion that I had for the business, but also what our how much our reader loves us.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: I was able to do that.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: I met with it, it was their entire C-suite, right?
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: And then just me.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: So it was it was a big, it was a big meeting.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: I was all by myself, didn't bring anybody else with me.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: And we spoke a lot about the bridal industry.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: I know it very well.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: I I know it from the psychological standpoint of the bride and how she plans.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, David's bridal was reinventing themselves and they're making beautiful dresses, and the store experience was completely different than it ever had been.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: And the team that they had assembled was really bringing to life the new David's bridal.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought that was exciting and I wanted to be part of it.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I shared a lot of my ideas and they said, Great, thanks.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, maybe next steps you could come down to our home office in outside Philly and we'll chat more.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I left that meeting and I called my husband.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: I was getting ready to take the train back, and I said, Um, I totally sold the company today.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, No, you did not.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, 100%, I know I did.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I never got to go down to the home office because a week later the world shut down for COVID.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: So we continued negotiations, um, you know, back and forth.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: We eventually got it done.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: And what they asked me at one point, well, what are you gonna do?
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Well, I don't have a job.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: You just bought my company.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and they said, Well, there's actually some openings on our executive leadership team if you'd like to think about it.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I had never worked in corporate America, but since it was COVID, we didn't have to move.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: And so I said, Okay, and I signed the papers and um went over as a vice president for David's and was there for two and a half years um and learned a lot and enjoyed the experience, but I learned very quickly taking an entrepreneur and putting her in corporate America was not going to be the easiest.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: No, not easy as someone I've tried that, that's very hard to do.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, you talked about conveying your passion when you met with them.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm wondering, um, how did it feel, like personally, how did it feel to sell something and give something up in a sense that had begun as an act of passion?
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: And it I created the company before I was married, before I had children.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_01: So a lot of people would say to me, it's gotta be like your first baby, right?
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: And well, yes, I mean, it kind of felt that way.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: But I got to the point where I knew that I wanted to sell because I had this aha moment that I was like, oh my gosh, this is the company is like the child who lives in your basement and isn't doesn't go to college.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: Like I'm stifling it.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: Like I need to be the one to actually say, you need to go live under a bigger roof with more resources.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like I'm actually holding us back, being this small, big company, small team.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I had gone through, you know, giving birth three times, taking zero maternity leaves.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: My longest one was two weeks.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I just was like, this company has outgrown me, and I have to be the bigger person and acknowledge that.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's when I explained that to them, they were like, that's extremely a natural stage to be in.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's 12 years.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: You've you've scaled it to a massive growth.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: It can't just continue to live under the same roof.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: So you did that, you sold it, you stayed on for about two and two, two plus years in in their C suite.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: When you realized this was not really a good fit for you, uh was there a well, what am I gonna do now moment?
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: Or was it an easy decision?
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: What was that like for you at that moment where you knew you were not in the right place anymore?
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: I think for the first time I felt very scared because owning your own business, you know, for the most part, you have a lot of safety, right?
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like even in the years that it's challenging, like you still have a job.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: And that this was the first time I didn't own my company and I wasn't gonna be working for anyone.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so it was a very scary moment, but it felt very natural to me, like back in the old days, where I was like, am I gonna do this?
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: Am I gonna take this leap?
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, it's gonna be hard.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: And it was the first time in all of my years from starting rustic wedding cheek.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: We went on a family vacation and I didn't have a laptop, I didn't have meetings.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there was times I uh during rustic wedding cheek, I gave an interview to the Wall Street Journal in the middle of Disney World, hiding behind the Aladdin ride.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, so for me, I was like, okay, this is both scary, but also very liberating.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I was very much ready for the next chapter.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: So even though at the time I didn't know exactly what it was gonna be, the next chapter was important to me.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I had had so many women reach out to me and say, How did you do this?
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: Because I did it on my own.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't use brokers or investment bankers.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: I mastermind the whole thing.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, you know what?
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: I want to help these other women.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: I want them to build valuable businesses and then sell them for a lot or a little or whatever it is for them.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: But there is an exit gap.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: Women are not selling their businesses at the same rate as men.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: And so only 1% of all businesses that get acquired are fully female founded.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: I know.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: So it became, I got this passion the same way I did when I started Rustic Wedding Cheek all these years later.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I want to, I'm gonna, I'm not even gonna try to summarize this.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: I took this right from your website about you and about the company.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to read it because it really like stopped me in my tracks when I read it.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, this is a quote that you said on your website.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: You said, I left that experience with more than a successful exit.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: For the first time, I had a clear-eyed understanding of what female founders are up against.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: Women are building valuable business assets with no idea what they're selling or what they're sitting on, no one telling them their business is sellable or that they have a choice about when and how to walk away.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: Wealth left on the table, not because their business wasn't worth more, but because they did not have an unbiased advocate in their corner.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: And then it goes on to say uh women deserve a partner in that process who has been in their position, an advisor who built, sold, and lived through the identity evolution that happens on the other side.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: So when you say identity, that that really struck me when I read that.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: What do you mean by that?
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: So, for a lot of women, when they create their own company, what happens is that company really does become, being the founder of that becomes part of our identity.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_01: Just the same way we have an identity as being a mom, being a wife, right?
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: All of these things.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of times you don't realize until it's taken away that you you didn't even know how important that was to you.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: Like for me, I was Maggie founder and editor, CEO of Rustic Wedding Chic from the time I was 26, right, to 38.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: And that was very, it was just up there in line with mom of three boys and you know, wife and lives in Fairfield.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's just very much who we are.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: So when that goes away, you have to go, who am I now?
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like I'm still a mom and I'm still a wife, but like, what is that other thing that defines me?
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I hate Pilates.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna go to Pilates every day, right?
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what is that other piece that defines who I am?
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_01: And what when I started to talk about it, other women were saying, oh my gosh, I grieved after my exit or after I sold my business or my practice because I didn't know who I was anymore.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: And so some of that deep work should happen before we actually sell our businesses.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to talk more about exactly what it is you do at the Whisper Group, but uh, one quick question first is there a difference, or what is the difference, I should say, between building a successful build uh business and building a successful business that is ultimately one that can be sold?
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, what's the difference?
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so two very important things.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: One is a lot of times women, we we build businesses, whether they're small, big, but we don't build with an exit lens in mind because there are things you need to do in order to make sure that business is transferable.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: So for me, when I had this aha moment seven years in, where I said, Oh my God, if I got hit by a bus, this company would go away immediately.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: The revenue would stop for my family.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: No one would know, like my junior employees know how to do their job, but no one knows how to do my job.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so I realized it was too founder dependent.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: Everything lived in my head.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: There was no systems and processes.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_01: And after I started to think about that, I was like, okay, now that I have all of these things in place, this is a business that somebody else could step in and run that isn't dependent on me and that isn't dependent on me being the secret sauce.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we always say that the CEO should be the glitter, not the glue.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you're keeping, if you're the glue of the business, right?
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: And you have to leave for 30 days or more, that's trouble.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: So when you you have to build years in advance looking at your business as a sellable asset, I say it's very much like a house.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: Like you're not, if you paint the walls the week before you put on the market, that's great.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: But it's the work you did five years before when you updated the kitchen and you know, you did all that sort of good work.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: So tell us, I mean, you do many things at the Whisper Group.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: Uh just talk to us about the I mean, we know we understand the overall mission, but in terms of execution, what what are the different services?
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: You provide, how do you help women either who haven't even given a moment's thought to the fact that they could sell their company to ones that are thinking about it or in the process?
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: What kind of help?
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: What do you do?
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: So good question.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: And we work with women who have across all industries and across all sizes.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: So everything from$500,000 to$30,000,$40 million a year revenue companies.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: And the first thing that we do mostly is we help these women.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: We do a Whisper report because Whisper stands for your why, your how, your income, secret sauce, profit, executive team, and your roar factor.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: The seven tenants that we believe you need to have a solid foundation in order to have a transferable business.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: So we most women, we start with a whisper report, which is a 360 view of your business.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: It looks at how sellable it is today, your valuation, and then a full action steps that you can do in order to make this business more scalable and then eventually sell it.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: We also work with women who come to us and say, I want to sell.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: I'm ready to do this.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: And we advise them through the entire deal.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: And the reason why we're unbiased is because we're retainer-based and we are not, we don't take a percentage of their exit.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: So we are the one person at their table.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: So a broker takes a percentage of their exit and we're the ones saying, maybe this isn't the right deal.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: You can back out at any time, right?
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: And so having that unbiased opinion is very important.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: And then a big part of our business is that we have acquired, not retired, which is the largest collective of exited female founders.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: And do they provide services as well to your clients?
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: They do.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: That is who we source as our advisors for the clients.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: So if someone were to come to you and want to engage your services along the spectrum of wherever they are, would they be working with someone that had been in that industry or that vertical or correct?
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: So we try to match on a couple of things.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_01: Industry is very important.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like we just had a beauty makeup brand that we were working with.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_01: Their advisor was someone who'd sold a very large makeup brand.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: The nuance of that, of what they know is so important.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_01: It also can be dependent on size.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: So if there's a company that their valuation is 20 million, we're gonna have them work with an advisor who had a very large public exit.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so they know that that side of it as well.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so what do you hope by the all the different services that you provide?
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: What do you hope that that will change for female founders?
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: So, of course, the overarching mission of trying to close the exit gap.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: But I for me, it's that women know that their business can be sellable.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_01: Some women just want to run their business and keep it forever.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: That's great too.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: But to have something that is a sellable asset at any time that you change your mind or you know, your lifestyle changes and you say, Oh, okay, I I don't I don't want to have this anymore.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it's knowledge and information and easy things that you can do is so to make sure that that is a business that you can sell at any point along the journey.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, I was gonna ask you, um, is this something that you think female founders should be thinking about, even if they have no thought in mind or no desire in mind to ever sell their business?
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, because we have had women come to us who say, I wanted to run this business for the next 15 years.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not burnt out.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: I had someone approach me and now I'm thinking about this, and I have not planned for what that looked like.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, the best are when someone starts three, five years ahead of time before they think they want to sell.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: The hardest is when someone comes to us and they're like, I'm gonna be 60 next year and I want to sell my PR company.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_01: And we're like, well, we should have done some of the deep work a couple of years before.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: But a lot of times women, they love their businesses.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: They don't want to sell because they're burnt out or it the industry's not working for them.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of it is lifestyle change.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_01: They want to retire, or they just had their third baby and now it's too much.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: Or they simply have read, they've they've outgrown their business and they're on to something else.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I was very much in that boat.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_01: When I started, I was unmarried, 26, obsessed with what weddings were.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: When I sold at 38, I was like, I'm a mom of three, and I am over everyone else.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, as someone who started several businesses myself, I mean, I can really see how that thought might never enter your mind about selling.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_01: And also because we see the really big exits online and you see it on the news, the majority of exits that are happening are anywhere between a hundred thousand to two million, right?
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: So somewhat small.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yet if you build a business and you're ready to move on to your next chapter and someone offers you half a million dollars, like that is a successful exit, right?
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and you should be ready.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: Because the the value of what it is changes for everyone.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_01: I had a woman come to me and she said, I would sell for a hundred grand.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: I'm ready to move on.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_01: I've got my next idea.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: 100 grand would be the best because it would give me the runway for my new company that I'm so passionate about.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, okay.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you you've got such a unique part of the market, you know, and and it builds off of your unique experience.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's just a really amazing thing that you've done.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, what would you say, just sort of wrapping up your, you know, personal reflection, uh, when you think back so far to everything you've done and how you've gotten to where you are today, what would you say is one key thing that really stands out for you?
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: A mistake you made, something you wish you had done differently that you think would have made you a better entrepreneur sooner?
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think I was very determined.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: I am a very determined person.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: Like we can do this, we will find a way.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: But I think there was a couple of times when I think I should have hired, and I was it was a young company.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_01: And the idea of hiring and bringing on people and being responsible for their livelihoods was very scary to me.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, at least if this fails, or if I can't make payroll, I'm the only one affected, right?
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I can figure that out.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_01: Someone said to me, you know, you've kind of missed the window to make those first early hires.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, I'm too scared.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: So I counsel women today.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, you actually should hire earlier than you think you should when you're trying to grow and expand.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: And those are the scary moments because you are you have to make payroll and they're dependent on you.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: And but it's also what really drives you to make sure that you're growing and continuing to grow because you are responsible for these people.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: And that sort of leads into the the next question somewhat.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: So, given that and the sort of a change in mindset that that would require, um, to what extent would you say your definition of success is the same or different today than it might have been at the beginning?
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_01: I at the beginning at 26 told my then fiance, I just if I can make$100,000 a year, it will feel like a million dollars a year to me.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_01: If the business can make not my personal income, if the business can make$100,000, that was mind-blowing to me.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_01: And very quickly we did.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_01: And then I was like, I gotta set the bar higher.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_01: We got to make$500K or like, but to me, it just success was not just about the financial side.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: It was that I was a CEO and no one had to sign off on that.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_01: I created this company.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I didn't have to ask permission, I didn't have to, you know, get a loan from a bank.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: No one had to say yes.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: To me, success was that I stood up a business completely on my own.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: So you created one business, then you sold that business, now you've created another business.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, where does the for you personally, where does the drive and motivation come from to build?
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_01: I when I'm passionate about something, like I said, and determined, I'm very much want to get it done.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_01: And so I felt so alone while trying to sell and navigate.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_01: Like I might I had a great lawyer, but like he was just looking at the legal side and I had a great tax strategist, but like they didn't really care what my emotions were, you know?
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: And so for me, this business is that I'm I'm fulfilling something that I personally didn't have, and that just fuels me every day.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_01: I and I am passionate, I love working with a small team.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_01: I love working with a co-founder this time, and I didn't have that before.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's like a marriage on the good days you help each other out, and on the bad days you pick each other up, you know.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: So, but for me, it is um, I'm extremely passionate about the work, and then we've just scaled incredibly fast in this process.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so for the people, someone out there who's listening or watching this, who's had this idea and they thought about it and they've thought about it some more, and then again and again, but they haven't done it yet because they're afraid to try.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: What would you recommend?
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_01: I think it is all about one foot in front of the other.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I say when you're starting a business, do something, one thing, right?
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: Think of the name.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_01: The next day you think of uh the the monetary, how you can monetize it or the business strategy.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like one thing at a time, really you can't build something big in one day.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_01: So as long as you're moving the ball forward every day with something, it's building this big business.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_01: When someone goes, okay, I think I want to exit, I think about the fact that you we probably should have started yesterday.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not too early.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_01: Let's get our ducks in a row and let's get everything ready so that you can sell this business if and when.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: And the flip side though, too, for someone who's coming in and maybe they should have thought about this a while ago, it's it's not too late either, correct?
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, I I mean there were things that if I had identified a couple of years earlier that I personally thought I was gonna sell the business, I would have done some things differently for sure.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_01: I would have changed them.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, buyers love diversification when it comes to revenue, so that's not all sitting on one thing.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_01: And we had two very strong revenue sources, but I probably would have created a third arm to the business somehow, right?
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so there's things like that.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: The systems and processes, do you have your operating systems?
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh for me, like I said, even the font we used and the colors that we used were living in my head for a very, very long time.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so there's stuff like that that is important, making sure that the business can run without you.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_01: But it's never too late to figure out how and when you should sell and what you can do now in order to make it the best sale at the end.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: And not too late and never too early either to be thinking about that.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's such, I mean, it's such a different way and an important way, you know, to be thinking about your business, whether, and you're right, because when you read about these sales in the paper, you think, oh my gosh, if I'm not 20 million, why would I even who'd be interested?
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: But and a lot of times they're lifestyle businesses where like I had an interior designer, she goes, I never thought I would sell my business.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: I had a larger interior design firm want to buy me because they're buying smaller local design firms.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like it had never, she just thought she'd run the business till she retired, right?
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_01: And she was like, This is crazy.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_01: Like, and I said, But that happens all the time, right?
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_01: Like it isn't just food and beverage that you see the sales, it's in all different industries.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: Well, before we wrap up, just one quick question for you.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: You've shared a lot of information and insights.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, any final thoughts that you'd offer uh for the women who either use your services or fit the profile of someone who someday might or should?
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_01: I think that we're not exit curious enough.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: We think, okay, I've got to be those big numbers and I got to go meet with some big broker in New York, and then then I'll be a sellable asset.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_01: There are you're a sellable asset today, if your company is set up the right way to be transferred.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: So how do people find you?
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: Where do people find you?
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I also wanted you to talk, if you could, a moment about the wonderful podcast that you have, or that you, I think it's your your partner that's doing that.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: Wonderful stories.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's amazing.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: So just talk a little bit about where to find you and about your podcast or her podcast.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_01: So um you can find us at we are the whispergroup.com and the same for all of our social handles.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, my co-founder, who when we founded the business together, it was based on the fact that she loves social and she wanted to do a podcast and be out there and front-facing.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I had done that for 12 years, and I was like, I will not be doing that.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_01: So she has a podcast called The Exit Whisper, where we interview all women who have uh built and scaled and sold their businesses.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_01: And it is beautiful journeys from amazing unicorn exits to you know crazy all equity and crazy PE stories and everything in between.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, it's all over.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's it's it's wonderful because you can you can't not find something that aligns with what we are doing.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: So it's really, really well done.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: Well, listen, number one, congratulations on everything you're doing.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: Congratulations on the recognition from Inc.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_00: 500.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_00: You're doing amazing work, and we thank you for your time and wish you the absolute best.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate it.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, take care, Maggie.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: Bye-bye.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you to Rizzo Masonry and Landscaping for sponsoring this episode.