Melissa: If you are in need of a little inspiration, today's episode is just for you. Let's get real.

Melissa: If you're running a brick and mortar business, raising some kiddos and juggling all of life's offerings, let's be real and call you what you are. You my friend are a rebel woman, you've put your blood sweat and tears into creating a storefront that lights you up, serves your clients well and contributes significantly to the community you love. You are my hero. And I'm pretty sure we could sit down and talk shop for hours cause I get it! I have had a brick and mortar business myself for over 12 years, a handful of kids and a few passion projects that I love like this one. Hey there everybody. My name is Melissa Rose and I am your visibility coach for brick and mortar businesses who want more clients coming in their doors. I have a passion for helping and serving those who are also living life on the edge going for their dreams and creating a legacy through their kick-ass business. In this podcast, we're going to share the nitty-gritty of running a successful brick and mortar business. We're going to share stories we're going to talk strategy, and we're gonna learn practical tips that leave you inspired, empowered and equipped to create the life of your dreams. Are you ready? Let's get real.

Melissa: Hey there, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Brick and Mortar Visibility. How are you? How are you really? We are in February. We are maybe getting warmer. I laughed because this morning it was negative 15 deg. I was like, my bones are just cold, right? I do not like that. I do not like that. I am super excited for today though because we have a fabulous guest on the podcast. If you have ever thought that it's too late to go for something or you're too busy or name your excuse, I will say I can't hear you above your excuses because we have the beautiful Margie Schmidt on the podcast. If you are looking for some inspiration, you are in the right space today. I also encourage you to go back and check episode 72 with Kim Black. She is another badass that is defying all the odds and growing her business despite the timing of growing a business. So I just love these women and how they inspire me and encourage me and make me think bigger in all areas of my life.

Melissa: Before we dive into today's episode, I do want to welcome any of you that are brand new and thank you to those of you that are returning. It means the world to me. This is a labour of love in all ways. Good. It's good labour of love. I love doing this. And if you're brand new, I invite you to come on over to the Facebook group Rebel Woman Tribe. This is a Facebook group with other brick and mortar business owners, service-based business owners. And in this group, I come in every Tuesday to share a tip, tool or strategy that I'm learning in my brick and mortar business in real-time to help you in yours. And it is the nitty-gritty stuff you all. So come on over to the Facebook group. And if you haven't checked out any of my free resources, go to msmelissarose.com and check out the free resources I have there on my home page for you. So make sure you take advantage of that.

Melissa: I also want to share with you my Mastermind that's coming up in April. If you are looking for a small group of women to learn from, grow from, and hold yourself accountable to any goals that you have, I invite you to check out my Mastermind. Like I said, it's a 90-day program. We meet twice a month and you can get all the information at msmelissarose.com/mastermind. It's a great way to just dip your toe in the coaching world if you've never done that before and also meet some other amazing business owners. So please check that out, msmelissarose.com/mastermind. All right, guys, you are in for a treat with Margie Schmidt. She is a new business owner and she is going to share with you how she wakes up every day, joy-filled genuinely and how she does that. And she's going to give us some tools for that. And she's also going to give us her visibility strategy on what's working well for her and her business and how she does that effectively.

Melissa: Okay, that's enough talking for me. Right? Let's get on to the guests. Enjoy my beautiful conversation with the lovely Margie Schmidt. All right, Margie Schmidt, welcome to the Brick and Mortar Visibility Podcast. How are you?

Margie: I'm great, Melissa. Thank you so much. It's so awesome to be here talking to you.

Melissa: Yes, I am so excited about this. You guys, you're in for a treat. She is just a gift to the world and she looks beautiful. So make sure you check out our Instagram stories to see how she looks because she is just all dolled up and looks beautiful for a podcast interview.

Margie: It doesn't happen all the time.

Melissa: So tell everybody who you are, what you do and who you serve.

Margie: Absolutely. I am Margie Schmidt. I am a holistic nutrition coach. I own my own little micro-business. It's called Sprout Nutrition and Wellness Coaching, and it's a baby business. It's brand new. I serve a variety of people in the health and wellness world. My favourite ideal client would probably be the person who is really looking for a change with their health and their wellness, their nutrition that is going to give them longevity and a lifestyle of health and happiness. Something that is sustainable.

Melissa: Something that's sustainable. Yes. Tell a little bit about your story because you are newer in the business but not newer into life. You are going into a new season of life, which is very exciting to watch!

Margie: Right! Yeah. So about me. So I was born and raised in Stillwater and 33 years ago moved to Omaha, Nebraska with my then-husband, had a wonderful career. I was an elementary teacher, and then I became a supervisor. And the last 20 years of my career, I was an elementary principal. Ever since I was a little girl. That's all I wanted to do. I just wanted to teach. I loved teaching. And the last twelve years of my career, I was at a dual language and global and international studies magnet centre. And it was just a beautiful community. I loved what I did. But at the same time, there was so much red tape and there were so many rules and so many things that started to really not jive with my philosophy about what I thought about teaching and learning. And at the same time, my sweet Mama, who is here in Stillwater, was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. And my sweet daughter, who lives in St.Paul, was having her first baby. And so in OPS, if your age and your years of experience are equal to 85, you could retire and start to draw on your pension. So my husband and I talked a lot about it and we decided, yeah, let's retire and move home. And so we were so lucky to be able to do that. And when I first moved home, it felt like an extended vacation. Just like, oh, my gosh, I can do whatever I want. I can go for long walks. I can do this. I can spend time with mom. I can spend time with family. And during those long walks, I just kept getting this nagging little message in my habit. Just kept saying, your book is not yet complete. There is another chapter out there. You need to figure out what it is. And I started to listen to lots and lots of podcasts on health and wellness, probably because of mom's Alzheimer's, also because it's something I've always been passionate about. And that little whisper started to turn into an audible shout, just screaming, you need to do something with nutrition and wellness. So I got certified, right as a pandemic hit. I did it all online, got certified and kind of went from there.

Melissa: Okay. I love it. When are you most excited about?

Margie: What am I most excited about with my business?

Melissa: With your business. Yeah.

Margie: I guess what I'm most excited about is what I've learned about nutrition. Let me back up and tell you about my why, why I thought it was so important to go into nutrition. And I think about my parents. My father, who is my hero, died at the age of 44 of a massive heart attack. And every male on that side of the family died very early of a heart attack. My sweet Mama is 83 years old, not on a single medication, but has Alzheimer's and can't remember what she was five minutes ago. And so I thought, here I have my genetic deck is stacked against me. What's it going to be like for me. And the more I learned in nutrition, the more I learned like, you know what? Genetics, that's just a small part. Genetics loads the gun, but it's your environment, your lifestyle, your diet that pulls that trigger. And so in learning that for myself, I just thought I wanted to just climb on every mountaintop and just scream that to everybody, just like, hey, people, no, it doesn't have to be that way. And on the Enneagram, I'm a two. I am a helper. I love to help. And I'm an educator. I am a lifetime educator. And so I can take my love of and passion for nutrition, my experience of education, and I can help people. And that's what makes me so excited is that I've been able to help people. I've been able to see really actionable changes in people's lives that I know that they can continue for the rest of their lives.

Melissa: I love that. I like the analogy of stacking it against you. And that doesn't have to be what pulls the trigger. Yeah. Love it. All right, so you are newer in business. We're going to talk a little business here. As you are growing and learning and doing in your business, what is one moment that you can recall right now that you go, all right, I can do this. You had the success, you had something happen that you're like, I can do anything. If I can do that, I can do anything.

Margie: Yeah. And I was a late bloomer with that belief about myself. I mean, I really believed during my entire career, I was a career educator. That's all I was ever going to do, a teacher. And then there was something else. I think it was just working with some clients that had some experiences that I haven't had. It's been really easy for me to work with clients who have experiences that I've had, clients who really struggle with weight loss or with cravings. But when I started working with someone who had SIBO and just really trying to find what can I do to really help her, just that confidence of finding those things, it was like, okay, yeah, I can do this. Even though I don't have experience with that. I can find the tools because they're there. And I love to geek out on nutrition research. I'd love to just get in and get nitty, gritty with just finding more research and finding what helps. And at that moment, I thought, yeah, nothing is really too big. I can find the research. A nutritionist is really just a library of information to share. I don't make up this research. I find it, and I find what's best for each person. And when I go back to the Gallup Strength Finder. Have you done the Gallup Strength Finder?

Melissa: Turns out I haven't, because I just recently tried to find my results and I have not done that.

Margie: Yeah. So my number one strength is individualization. And so that's worked really well for me in my career and it works really well for me in my business because I can see the individual traits that people bring and the individual struggles. And so I think I am way off topic here with what you asked!

Melissa: No, that's what I do. But finding that person or realizing that you can help people that didn't have your past experience, that is empowering. Okay. I do have tools. I do have things in my back pocket to help and serve others and that just helps your confidence moving forward in your business. So as you're going through the nitty gritty of growing a business and getting people to learn about you and getting yourself out there, this is a Visibility podcast. So what is one visibility strategy that has been really successful for you?

Margie: I think the biggest success thing for me is just been networking. It's been showing up and just that's when you meet people and I would love to tell the story about how I met you.

Melissa: Well, by all means.

Margie: And how showing up just turned into a great visibility strategy. So when I first met Melissa, I was brand new in my business. I went to the first Women's Business Bridge meeting and it was the first time that they were all meeting live. And so these women were a close-knit group. They had all known each other. It was a beautiful summer day. I drove up and it was a park in Stillwater. I drove up and I saw all of these women laughing and hugging and I immediately had that feeling of the chubby girl in the junior high with my tray and my braces. And like, oh, where am I going to sit? Who's going to like me? And I actually told myself, you can go home. Nobody knows. You can turn around and go home. You don't have to do this. And then I said, no, you're going to do this. And so I walk up and there's this beautiful woman at the signing table with this gorgeous head of hair and she turns and she looks at me and she says, Are you new? And I said, yeah. And she's like, oh my gosh, so am I. And then it was just like, wow, okay, that's all it took. And from that first meeting, I've been able to network through WBB, but then also just through other areas. And I find that that is the best visibility strategy for me is to go to the networking meetings, to go to the cofees, to go to the lead groups, even if you don't really feel like it. Although I usually feel like it because I'm totally an extrovert and I love people. So I get my energy from people. But I would say that's my biggest visibility strategy.

Melissa: Because I'm kind of analytical at times I have to make sure I do that because it's very easy to slip back into old habits of, oh, you don't have to show up or you can just email them or you can just message them. Do you have like a goal of meeting a certain number of people per week or getting out per month, or how does that work for you? Or do you just go?

Margie: Typically I just go, but I've been trying to have more goals with that. And so this week I think I counted I've got six between coffees and just networking opportunities. And that's not even including the clients that I'm meeting with. And so in six months, probably the most that I've had. I want to try to get a couple a week, definitely, I get in at least two or three a month. And but I have to also be intentional about it. Even though I am an extrovert and I love people, I do need to be intentional about it because sometimes at 07:45 a.m., it's just a little bit more comfy to just sit and do my work at my laptop and not have to fix my hair or do make-up for the meeting. It is that intentionality!

Melissa: Absolutely. I'm glad you're seeing success with that, because it is that face to face meeting, and it's not necessarily about that person that you're meeting with, like to become a client or anything. It's their network and just getting to know them and who you could possibly connect them with. That's what I love. It's like, oh, who are you looking for? Because I've grown a Rolodex of people, too, that I've learned and gotten to know over the past few years. And it's awesome when you can refer somebody or say, you know what? I think you guys should connect. You have similar interests that aren't in the same field and all that. I just love that. So fun, So good!

Margie: You're so good at that. But that's really what it's all about, those marketing or the networking. It's not about marketing yourself. It's about connecting and right now, people are starving for connections because of the pandemic, and they're starving to make those connections. And so I think all we can do to do that in business and in life.

Melissa: Okay, so you mentioned that you're doing a lot of, so you're building a business, and then you have your mom with Alzheimer's and then with your daughter and family. So just juggling all the things as we all do. What advice would you give to somebody who might be starting out or somebody in your season of life that wants to maybe do something? How do you have the discipline after being in work and maybe a job for a while and then you want to start your own business? It takes discipline of time management to run a business, especially when you're at a point when you don't really have to work. What drives you? Can you give us a practical tip to keep you, that keeps you going and keeps you managing your time well?

Margie: I'm really fortunate that I wake up every morning, and the first thought in my head is it's usually like, today is the day that I get to, you know 'fill in the black with whatever it is'. And I wake up with purpose and joy. And I think that you have to find your purpose. You have to know what is your purpose in life. That's where you go. That's what drives you. And if you're not finding joy in what you're doing, maybe that's not your purpose. And the fact that I love to just get up and sit and research on nutrition and the gut microbiome and mitochondria. And it's like I never thought that would have been me. When I was in my career, I didn't have the time to do those kinds of things. So that's really what drives me. And so I'm blessed with that kind of an attitude and blessed with a lot of energy. But what I've really learned about myself is that I have to belong to myself first, and I have to make sure that I'm showing up for myself first. That's how I show up for my business. That's how I show up for my family. That's how I show up for my clients. And for me, exercise is a huge part of that. That's a non-negotiable. Yoga and meditation are big parts of that, too. So once again, Melissa, I have probably gone way off the topic!

Melissa: The self-care and taking care of yourself first. And you've been very intentional about living your purpose. So that way you get to wake up and you get to say, oh, my goodness, I love my day. But you've been intentional about that. You've been intentional about this is what lights me up. I'm going to dive into that area, and I'm not going to do other things. And we can all do that, no matter what age or stage of life we're in because I genuinely want everybody to wake up and say, I get to do this today. I get to interview Margie today. I get to go have lunch with Dr Jen today. And I love it!

Margie: Right? Yeah. And that is a choice. It's about intentionality. It's about making that choice. And yes, one can look at me and say, okay, it's easier for you. Your business is your dream, it's your passion. And life hasn't always been easy for me. It's never been without struggles. But I choose joy. I choose to follow my purpose, and I think everybody can.
Melissa: Awesome. All right, so you have a couple of things. How can people work with you? Or you have some offers or workshops coming up. Tell us about that. Tell us a little bit about what you're doing.

Margie: Yeah! So one of the things I love to do is coaching, is my that's the thing I love the best, the one-on-one and meeting with people individually. But I also do a number of workshops, and I do some independent contracting in Stillwater. I'm working with Ashley LaBore at Align Optimal Wellness, and so I'm doing some workshops once a month. I've got a spring series coming up. February is all on self-love and just I'm partnering with the amazing Brooke Gavin. Brooke is the massage therapist there. She does massage and healing. And so we're doing one just on self-love. I'll bring in some of the nutrition and some of the lifestyle tips. And Brooke will bring in the touch part. That's at a line on February 12. And you can sign up, just go to the Align website and you can just go to Workshops and you can sign up for any of the workshops. They're all on there. They're great. It's such a great community to just meet in person and do these workshops and share. The other thing is I am offering a February special through my coaching packages. And I have two different coaching packages. One coaching package is a four-week package that is just coaching. So we just do an initial consultation, and then we wait for four weeks after that. You choose your goals, you choose what it is that you want to work on. And then I do some coaching, a lot of coaching around that. And I'm offering a February special! That usually goes for $250 within the initial consultation. But my February specials for 200. And if you mentioned the Rebel Women Tribe, you can get an additional 10% off that.

Melissa: Awesome, Very cool!

Margie: And the other coaching package I offer is one that is much more detailed. It's the four weeks of coaching and the initial consultation, but then also four weeks of meal plans where I write out a meal plan based on what it is that you need. It comes with a meal plan, a shopping list, all of the recipes and the coaching, the encouragement of accountability, all of that. And again, $50 off of that. So that's usually a $425 package. I'm offering that for my February specials at $375. And then you can mention Melissa's podcast and you get another 10% off of that. So, some good deals.

Melissa: Very good deals. Very generous. And I will make sure we put your email in our show notes and tag you in all our posts so that you guys can find her and get directed right to her and talk to her that way. One last question before we leave. I just appreciate your time so much, Margie, and sharing your gift to the world. I want you to share what is lighting you up right now in life. Personally, or professionally.

Margie: There are so many things that just light me up, and I think it goes back to what we were talking about before. It's just that intentionally finding joy in my day every single day. And that might be walking my dog every day. I'm totally amazed at how watching the little feet just go down the street brings me so much joy. I am so blessed I get to babysit my grandbabies. They're one and a half and two and a half. I have six grandchildren. I get to spend time with those two a couple of days a week. And I cannot tell you how much joy, how much they light me up. When you're in the presence of a two and a half-year-old. And as grandma, I don't have to worry about all the things that mom has to worry about so I can play, I can dance, I can do all those things that bring me so much joy, that lights me up every day. Like I said before, geeking out about nutrition research, brings me joy. And I've been doing a lot of volunteering. I volunteer at Croidale, where my mom is, and when I see mom laughing and we laugh together, just lights me up and volunteering with an organization called 21 roots farm. They do all of their programmings for children and adults with disabilities, and I do cooking lessons with them. And, oh, my gosh, I come home just blown up with joy and love. I absolutely love it. So they're on a little break, and I'll start cooking with them again in February. And I always bring the nutrition piece in, and then we Cook together. And I found those things that bring me joy, and that's what lights me up.

Melissa: Such good things. You're out there. You're volunteering, you're sharing your life, you're educating, you're connecting. Your business is going to blow up. It just has to because you're doing all the right things.

Margie: And it feels so incredible. Sometimes I have to pinch myself. That this passion that I love so much, this nutrition, it is my business, and I'm my boss. I don't have to send in test scores to the state. I don't have to do all the things I was doing before. I'm my boss.

Melissa: Well done. Thank you so much, Margie. And best of luck to you. I just think the world of you. So thank you so much for being on the Brick And Mortar Visibility podcast.

Margie: Right back at you. Thank you.

Melissa: Oh, my gosh, you're still here. You are such a rebel woman. I have to meet you. Come on over to the Rebel Women Tribe on Facebook created for Brick and Mortar business owners just like you. In this group, we empower, encourage, and support each other. And every week I come in and share with you a tip, tool or strategy that I'm learning in my brick and mortar business to help you and yours. And you guys, this is the real stuff, the nitty-gritty in real-time of what's going on. So come on over to the rebel women tribe on Facebook. I can't wait to meet you.