Archives for June 2019

June
21, 2019

10 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

In 2007, Jeanine Blackwell stood at the gate, a “flight canceled” status flashing above her. “We can’t get you out for another three days,” the ticket agent said. Blackwell fought back tears as her world collapsed around her. A missed flight meant a missed school play, broken promises, and more time away from her children. As a mom to three daughters, she desperately needed to get home to New Orleans, but she couldn’t bargain with a Minnesota blizzard.

The cruel irony was Blackwell had built a successful consultancy helping Fortune 500 companies to afford her the freedom to be with her family. But the more her company grew, the more her time was consumed traveling to conferences and on-site meetings

After nights of sitting in a hotel room by herself, facetiming her kids and reading bedtime stories from miles away, the canceled flight felt like the last straw. “I will drive to another airport. I will pay for another ticket. I will do anything I need to do,” Blackwell insisted at the time.

Ultimately, the ticket agent realized Blackwell was not taking no for an answer and found her a seat on another airline. However, the flight home that day signified a much greater departure — one that would lead Blackwell to completely redesign her business model, quadruple her revenue, build a thriving online business, and create the life of true freedom she had always envisioned.

A full ride, then a lost scholarship.

“Finances were really tight in our family growing up,” explains Blackwell. When she won a full academic scholarship to a local university her senior year of high school, it was a game changer. “To my naive 17-year-old self, computers symbolized innovation and possibility.” She decided to major in computer science. A few weeks into programming classes, she was in trouble. “I quickly realized my brain doesn’t think in terms of black-and-white rules.”

Finances in Blackwell’s family were tight growing up. Winning a full academic scholarship presented a massive opportunity.

Image Credit: Courtesy of Jeanine Blackwell

The first semester, Blackwell didn’t earn the minimum GPA necessary to keep her scholarship. “I still remember the shame of sitting down at our kitchen table to tell my dad,” she shares. To pay the tuition, she opted to work full time in retail at The Limited. She loaded up on class hours to graduate early (which she did, with honors) and changed her major to marketing and business management. “I missed out on a lot of things working 40 to 50 hours a week and going to school full time, but it taught me to work hard and the importance of focusing on your strengths.”

With this hard-won wisdom, Blackwell went into sales, where she excelled. She started at the Neill Corporation and rose up the ladder until she landed the role of Chief Learning Officer. There, she honed her coaching ability, hosted events, and launched corporate universities, which offered marketing strategies and training to corporations. While she loved her job, Blackwell felt a strong pull that there was something more for her — that she was here to do something that helped other people achieve their dreams.

So, with her experience and contacts, Blackwell started her own consulting company helping corporations build learning experiences; yet it wouldn’t be until years later that she’d learn to run her business on her own terms and create the freedom she imagined.

Marketing her time and losing her freedom.

Flash forward a few years. Blackwell’s consulting business was booming. She was leading million-dollar course launches for Fortune 500 clients all over the world. While this was rewarding, she was traveling nonstop. “It felt like I was on a plane every week.”

What Blackwell thought she always wanted, leaving the corporate world to run her own business, had turned into a nightmare. “There’s no worse feeling than having to pry your kid’s fingers from your shirt so you can head to the airport again to go do something that you don’t really want to do. I began consulting because I wanted the freedom to manage my time and do meaningful work, but the way I structured the business created just the opposite. I had created a business that could only grow with more of me involved.”

Blackwell knew all too well the tragedy a lack of choices could bring. Her creative father had worked a job he hated most of his life, only to pass away from a heart attack a few years after retiring. Overcome by grief and believing there was no other way out of her pain, her mother took her own life shortly afterwards. 

“Watching my parents feel like they had no choice and seeing how that impacted our whole family shaped who I am. It’s a big driver behind my mission to help entrepreneurs create the business and the life they want.”

Blackwell wasn’t about to let a perceived lack of choices shape her own future. She didn’t know how she could earn enough to provide for her family without losing quality time with them, but knew she had to figure it out. “Every time the flight home was delayed, it was all I could do not to have a breakdown in the airport.” When Blackwell finally did, it would lead to a breakthrough.

Sometimes you have to break down to break through.

Now in her 40s, Blackwell decided to restructure her business completely. “The challenge of pivoting a successful business is figuring out how to reinvent the business model while maintaining the revenue level you need to meet all your financial obligations for your family and your team,” she says. Faced with a daunting task, Blackwell did what she does best: she looked at all the possibilities.

In an airport restaurant, Blackwell sketched out a plan on a napkin. Her idea? Flip her funnel around so that she was no longer delivering all her programs and consulting in person and on-site. Instead, she could take her experience as a performance-based learning expert, marketing strategist, and sales leader and create an online course that enabled her to live the life she’d imagined and build a scalable business.

In her 40s, Blackwell restructured her business completely.

Image Credit: Courtesy of Jeanine Blackwell

From her experience leading open-enrollment workshops, Blackwell already knew her ideal audience. “My favorite people to work with in these workshops were entrepreneurs sharing their expertise. There’s this sense they’re on a mission to get their work out in the world.” She decided to focus her course on helping other entrepreneurs share their expertise in a bigger way so they could live the lives they imagined.

Launching an online business in a few weeks.

Blackwell was racing against the clock. She turned down a large contract to focus on reinventing her business and needed to replace her revenue as soon as possible so that she didn’t let down her family or her team. In a matter of weeks, she built her first online course, applying the skills she’d acquired leading learning design and marketing launches for some of the best-known brands in the world.

The problem was, she didn’t have a massive audience of followers to sell it to. “I had no idea how we were going to fill the course,” she admits.

She’d already identified her audience, so she asked herself two questions: “Where are they hanging out online and how can I get in front of them?” She ran paid advertising on Facebook and other channels. “Any sales we made, we’d reinvest the next day into more paid traffic.”

In a matter of weeks, Blackwell had launched her first online course. “Enrollment closed at midnight, and I went to bed at about 9 p.m. I had a solid amount of students that were coming in, and I thought, ‘Wow, this is working. I can totally scale this moving forward.’”

What happened next was surreal. “I got up the next morning, sat in my favorite chair with my coffee, and opened my inbox. There was registration after registration after registration. I just kept scrolling,” shares Blackwell. At that moment, she knew everything had changed. “In just two weeks, I sold $90,000 of revenue in that course. It was a game changer because I realized I could do this over and over.”

Choosing option C.

Today, Blackwell runs a multiple seven-figure consulting business. More importantly, she’s found her freedom: she works in her zone of genius and doesn’t miss even one important moment with her family.

“Freedom means we can make choices in alignment with what is most important in our lives,” she says. “I’ve found my freedom. Now I’m on a mission to help others find theirs.”

With this intention in mind, Blackwell teaches her time-tried method to help entrepreneurs develop their own online courses, sell their expertise, and scale. She has helped hairdressers, artists, business coaches, psychologists, and other types of experts build multi six- and seven-figure businesses teaching what they know. For her work, Blackwell has been named one of the world’s top 40 business coaches by Warren Bennis’s Leadership Excellence magazine.

Finding her freedom, Blackwell is now on a mission to help others find theirs.

Image Credit: Courtesy of Jeanine Blackwell

Reflecting on her career path, Blackwell shares a particularly poignant moment that bookended her journey. “I was watching a video about one of my clients and realized her story mirrored my own. She was a school psychologist who used to spend all her off hours writing reports and meeting with private clients to supplement her income. All the while, she felt like she was missing out on her two little girls’ childhoods. Now she’s created a six-figure business helping other school psychologists — and she has time for her family. When I heard her story, I realized … that was me a few years ago. I was that woman.”

Blackwell could be called a champion of free will. Her greatest wish is for others to become aware of all their choices — even ones that seem off the table. “Take a hard look at your passions and natural strengths. What options do you have that you’re not even considering?” Blackwell insists there are more than you can imagine, and the best time to get started is now.

To learn more about Jeanine and her Expert Experience Method™, click here to read her book, The Expert Called You: How 8 Experts Built a Business and Life They Love, Sharing What They Know (and How You Can, Too).

June
20, 2019

2 min read

The top-selling liquid egg in natural grocery stores is now made of plants, according to data shared by Just, the maker of plant-based mayonnaise, dressings and cookie dough.

According to SPINS data shared by the company, Just Egg made up for 40 percent of all dollars generated and 30 percent of all units sold in the natural channel’s liquid egg category. It’s also the second best-selling egg substitute in conventional grocery stores (Egg Beaters takes all the other spots at the top), according to IRI data.

Related: How Just’s Co-Founder Got More Than $200 Million From Investors (Podcast)

“This is happening because everyday consumers who don’t want to eat perfectly but want to eat a little better and a little healthier are buying Just Egg at their local grocery store or ordering it at their favorite restaurant,” the company’s co-founder and CEO, Josh Tetrick, told Entrepreneur. “That’s where the growth is, that’s where the impact is and that’s why I’m so humbled to see Just Egg taking off in such a short time.”

The company’s Just Egg, a convincing plant-based egg substitute made of mung beans, became available nationwide in Sprouts in March and Whole Foods in April.

The company, which was founded in 2011 by Tetrick and Josh Balk and has raised $220 million from investors to date, said that the amount of its product sold so far is comparable to 8.2 million chicken eggs. This week, the company was awarded a patent for Just Egg.

“The idea of finding a plant that scrambles like an egg was conjured up on a couch seven years ago,” Tetrick said. “To see where we are today — what my team has built — and to see that over 8 million of these plant-based equivalents have been sold already makes me incredibly proud.”

June
17, 2019

11 min read

This story originally appeared on shutupnhustle.com

Unlike other startup founders, Brandon Stump, CEO of Charlie’s Chalk Dust, a pioneering brand in the vapor market, didn’t work his way through normal 9-to-5 jobs before, one day, proclaiming that he had had enough with corporate America. That’s because, for Stump, rather than being addicted to an office, he was addicted to heroin, injecting himself daily to get a high that he couldn’t get elsewhere.

Somewhere along the way, Stump found himself at a crossroads: continue to live a life that would, ultimately, kill him — which, technically, it did, as he clinically died an incredible 15 times — or go down a different path and find something deep in himself to turn his life around. He chose the latter, refusing to let addiction be his ultimate fate, and becoming an entrepreneur with one hell of a journey so far.

Now, this is usually the time where, as a storyteller, there’s supposed to be some sort of glorified “holy shit” moment. When I sensationalize the story by leaving out details that suggest that what Brandon Stump did can be done by everyone. Don’t fool yourself, because that’s not the case. You’re about to read an ugly, authentic and raw history of his life.

Rather than sit here and attempt to retell Stump’s story, for fear of leaving any fine detail out, keep reading to see how the CEO of Charlie’s Chalk Dust overcame his addiction to heroin. What began by making the decision to go to an AA meeting to get a free cup of coffee and a cigarette, Stump’s journey led him down an unknown path towards a company that’s disrupting an entire industry. Here it is in his own words…

The root of powerlessness

I never woke up and said to myself, “You know, today’s the day I’m gonna do heroin for the first time.”

Even before high school, I liked to drink on the weekends and smoke and just sort of enjoy life. I liked being rebellious and breaking the rules, and figure out ways to have fun. From partying on the weekend, it turned into showing up to school with orange juice bottles filled with vodka and drinking them in class. And progressed to all kind of drugs.

Related: The Opioid Crisis Is Forcing Open Minds About the Lifesaving Potential of Medical Marijuana 

I barely graduated high school and got into an open enrollment university; where you can basically get in with any grades you want. And I showed up to college already taking Percocets on a daily basis, and, from there, I got into Oxycontin, which is the natural progression. You know, you can only take so many Percocets to get that opioid high before you need something stronger.

When I ran out of Oxycontin, somebody had heroin, and, sure, I was scared to try it, but I said “fuck it” and decided to do it anyway. I snorted it.

After that first time, I thought I would never touch heroin again. Man, I was throwing up for hours; I did too much. And I didn’t touch it for like two months. But then I found myself in a room with a guy who was shooting it up, I gave him my arm and said “fuck it,” just go ahead and do it. So I turned my head, gave him my arm and he shot me up.

That high that I got that day was something that I chased every day until the day I ultimately got sober in 2010. And I never got that high again during my chase for five, six, seven, eight years, however long it was. Once you get addicted to heroin … it’s got you, and it dictates all of your decisions and actions.

Heroin’s impact on his family

Once drug addiction took hold of me and took a grip on my life, my family was affected big time. I mean, complete disarray, where I was a nightmare to be around and wouldn’t show up for days or weeks. My mom and dad told me they used to stay up at night and wonder when I was going to die. My brother and sisters didn’t have an older brother to lean on. I remember the third or fourth time I went to treatment, there was a family weekend and I asked my brother how my heroin addiction affected him. His response was pretty clear: “It’s destroying our family. If you ever use heroin again, I’ll never talk to you.”

Related: Mental Illness: The Silent Destroyer

Image credit: Charlie’s Chalk Dust

The inspiration to get clean came from a simple cup of coffee

That conversation was in 2007. I didn’t get sober until the end of 2010. So, for another three years, I kept at it. The inspiration to finally get off heroin and clean was a combination of my actions. I wrote down my thoughts on a notepad in my car about how much my life sucked: nobody called me for my birthday, I was living in a car, I was in and out of hospitals for overdoses — I had clinically died 15 times. I lost my faith and was looking for an answer because I thought I was going to die.

In the hotel parking lot where I used to park my car, I went into the hotel to get a cup of coffee and they asked me for $2, and I told them to charge it to room 235. They told me they didn’t do that, and, at that moment, I realized that I was defeated. All the hustling and lies to feed my addiction; it hit a low point when I couldn’t even afford a cup of coffee.

I walked out of the hotel in a pair of sweatpants, got in my car and thought that I could get a free cup of coffee and a cigarette if I went to an AA meeting.

So I drove my car to this AA meeting and, before I got out of my car, I pulled the rearview mirror down, looked myself in the eyes and said, “Brandon, let’s do something different today and let’s try to stay sober for just one day.” And I got out of that car and I’ve never had a drink or done drugs since.

What happened that day was that my faith was restored. I focused on one day of sobriety, and that was my answer. I did everything in my power that day to stay sober. As hard as it was, I fell asleep sober. And then I did it again and again and again. I started to reach out for help, and I started to have this restored faith, which led me to try and help other people.

Image credit: Charlie’s Chalk Dust

Building ‘Ohio House’, a sober environment for men

The light was back in my eyes and I wanted to help others. I founded the Ohio House after a couple of guys from Ohio had asked for help. I told them to come out to California. I brought them into my house and showed them what I was doing and how I was doing it.

It wasn’t originally called the Ohio House, but people jokingly called it that after a few months because these guys were hosting sober barbecues and stuff like that. People who needed help started calling me asking if they could come to the Ohio House and, next thing I knew, I just started moving strangers in. I was having fun, helping a lot of guys and I had a passion for it. I just kind of organically grew it into two houses and then three houses and, eventually, I was able to quit my job in aviation to pursue this full-time — but I wasn’t making money at the time, I was just paying my bills and helping other guys.

I called my pops up and told him I was focusing on the Ohio House full time, and he told me I better make it work. I asked him if I could borrow $20,000 since I only had $1,200 in my account, and he said no. But I was able to hustle and make it work, and, with just $1,200, grew it to four and five houses … but I needed some help.

Related: How Gerard Adams Escaped Drugs and Bad Influences to Become The Millennial Mentor

That’s why I reached out to my brother, Ryan, and, after he worked in medical sales for about a year and a half, I kept pulling on him to come work in this sober living house with me. He kept saying, “Yeah right.” But, finally, I hit him up one day and asked him how much he had saved in his account after working the job he had. He told me he had $12,000. At that time, the Ohio House had $12,000 in the account. So, with everything I had in the account, I told him I’d give him everything I had if he came out and helped me. Within two hours, he was packing up his car and driving across the country from D.C. to California.

That’s when the Ohio House really started to take shape, because we now had two brothers together to grow this thing, and we really started to help a lot more people.

Today, we have an outpatient facility called the Buckeye Recovery Network, and we have a female center called the Chadwick House. We’re known as the gold standard throughout the country for aftercare. We help those who come out of rehab and achieve long-term sobriety, and we’re really good at it.

Image credit: Charlie’s Chalk Dust

The itch to sell led to Charlie’s Chalk Dust 

In about 2014, I was still smoking about a pack of cigarettes each day. One of the guys who went through the Ohio House program said he knew how to make vaping products. At that time, vaping was getting really popular. I didn’t really see anything that I liked in the market, so I went into the vaping industry as a way to help me quit smoking. I spent about $2,000 to get some materials to start making stuff at home in my kitchen late at night, and ended up quitting smoking.

I started handing some of the products out to a few guys in the Ohio House, and people really liked them. One of the guys took it into a local vape shop, and they contacted me because they liked it so much.

I went down with no business card, no website, no samples, no product, no price guide. And he asked me what my MOQ was. I had no idea that meant minimum order quantity, but I pulled out a number from my head that made sense for me to go back and make: 300 bottles. The guy laughed at me, telling me that the MOQ in this industry was 100 bottles. I told him, “Not today. If you want this product, you’re going to have to buy 300 bottles.”

I ended up selling him 300 bottles, and I went back to my office, and I was fired up. I had been in sales my entire life; I think it’s the greatest job on planet Earth. The Ohio House was great, but that salesman inside of me was dormant for three years. During those three years, I was building who I was as a human being; my character, my integrity and my professionalism. When I sold those 300 bottles that day, I told my brother that I was starting a vape company and asked if he wanted in and he said yeah.

I took $40,000 to put into Charlie’s Chalk Dust, and within weeks it paid back. And now, we just closed out 2018 with over $21 million worth of sales.

Learning from mistakes

I wouldn’t trade my life experiences for anything. The mistakes that I made in the past have given me the opportunities to become the man that I am today.

I get choked up and inspired when I tell my story because I don’t often do it. But when I get a chance to share with others, I get to look at myself and think about how bad I really was. Like, that’s my story? And to see what it all led to now? That’s fucking cool.

June
14, 2019

5 min read

This story originally appeared on Glassdoor

Earlier this month at Women Deliver, one of the world’s largest conferences on gender equality and women’s rights, I was part of a team that made an announcement. The topic: paternity leave.

To some, that may seem surprising. Why talk about dads at a conference for women? The answer is simple. Supporting men as caregivers is a necessity for gender equality.

In the not too distant past, businesses were built on a Mad Men model. The presumption was that women will stay home and do all the caregiving, while men stay at work. That way of thinking helps explain why the United States still has no national paid maternity leave. The thought process behind it is that the man will make the money, while the woman stays home. (For more on this, see my opening remarks at a U.N. event.)

Unfortunately, the structures that keep those old ways in place, including workplace policies and cultures, still haven’t been rectified.

Today, most businesses have some paid maternity leave, usually covered as disability leave following a birth. But despite some progress in recent years, only 29 percent of U.S. businesses offer paid paternity leave.

And while unlike the United States, virtually all other countries offer some paid maternity leave, fewer than half offer any paid paternity leave.

It gets worse. Even when paternity leave is available, numerous forces prevent men from being able to use it in its entirety.

Related: Companies Offering Generous Paternity Leave & Hiring Now

This brings us to the Women Deliver conference, which took place in Vancouver. Dove Men+Care — a company I partner with on this issue — and Promundo released the State of the World’s Fathers report, packed with data from interviews with more than 11,000 men and women. The findings show just how big a problem this is.

The overwhelming majority (85%) of fathers across seven countries want more time at home to care for their new children. But paternity leave often pays only a fraction of what men make at work — and after welcoming a new child, families are particularly strapped financially. Forty percent of parents say financial barriers are the biggest impediment to paternity leave.

The stigmas against taking it are also powerful. Majorities of women and men say attitudes among colleagues and managers often leave dads feeling unable to take their paternity leave. This is a topic I covered in depth in my book, All In. Men have been fired, demoted or lost job opportunities for taking paternity leave or requesting a flexible schedule.

I explored this in the wake of my own battle for fair parental leave. When my wife was pregnant with our third child, we determined that I’d be needed at home for caregiving after the birth. The policies I was under at CNN, part of Time Warner, allowed any parent 10 paid weeks after having a child — except a biological father who had his baby the old fashioned way.

I challenged this internally. After our daughter was born prematurely in an emergency and work refused me the 10 paid weeks, I took legal action. Ultimately, the company revolutionized its policy, in a win-win for parents and for the company itself.

Businesses benefit from making paternity leave a reality — not just officially in policy, but through a culture of supporting men in taking the leave. It’s proven to attract and retain employees and increase gender equality in an organization. After all, as long as men are prevented from caregiving roles, those responsibilities will fall more on the shoulders of women. They’re pushed to stay home more, while men are pushed to stay at work more, and the sexist cycle continues.

To help paternity leave become a norm at businesses everywhere, Dove Men+Care has partnered with Deloitte, Women Deliver and Promundo to create a Paternity Leave Global Task Force. Its aim is “to identify and promote solutions that will result in improved access and uptake of paternity leave for all men.”

Announcing this plan at the conference, Women Deliver President and CEO Katja Iversen called the effort a “no brainer.” Alan Jope, CEO of Unilever (Dove Men+Care’s parent company) said the commitment to paternity leave is so important because “everybody wins — moms win, dads win and the kids win.”

It’s time to put the Mad Men era behind us once and for all. For that to happen, businesses must embrace modern fatherhood. Today’s dads are as committed to caregiving as moms are. Let’s make sure they get a chance to be there, from day one.

By Josh Levs

June
13, 2019

3 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

One of the nicer things we see in the cannabis community is the eagerness to team up with other worthy causes when opportunities present themselves. In this spirit, several cannabis companies are embracing LGBTQ+ community during Pride Month. 

Related: Cannabis Companies Are Thinking Ahead and Tackling Big Social Issues

Pride Pack

Through a partnership with GLAAD, Lowell Herb Co. is collaborating with artist Gina Rodriguez of Letter Shoppe on a piece of art that comes free with any purchase of the Lowell Pride Pack during the month of June. “Lowell wanted to go a step beyond monetary donation to GLAAD by personally supporting someone within the LGBTQ community,” says Libby Dolan, Lowell Communications Coordinator. “Dina is an entrepreneurial, cannabis-positive illustrator who also identifies as LGBTQ, and we’re grateful we could support her small business and uplift the LGBTQ community by utilizing and highlighting her talent.”

It’s the first time that GLAAD has worked with a cannabis company, and Dolan sees a kindred spirit. “Cannabis use is still considered deviant. We say this not to compare or minimize others’ struggles, but as we push to normalize our industry within society, we want to help other groups do the same,” she says.

Related: These Social Justice Weed Warriors Are Making a Difference

Image Credit: Mr. Moxey’s

Pride Pastilles

Cannabis brand, Mr. Moxey’s are celebrating Pride with their Proud Peppermint PRIDE Pastilles,100mg CBD + 50mg THC mints, in a rainbow tin. Mr. Moxey’s is donating $1 per tin sold and matching partnerships with participating dispensaries. Every dollar raised goes directly to programs that support the community.

“The limited edition Pride tin is rooted in our belief that, just as so many people helped us in our fight to legalize cannabis, it is our responsibility to embrace and support other movements that seek to gain equality and improve lives in the world, says Tim Moxey, co-founder, Mr. Moxey’ Mints.

#PassforPride

California dispensary Blüm is teaming with goodbrands to produce #PassforPride and BlumProudly ad campaign featuring an all LGBTQ+ cast of talent and photographers. “If I see cannabis ads that do not reflect me, I’m not going to spend my money there,” says Javier Mayer, Talent Acquisition Specialist at Canndescent/goodbrands.  “As an industry, we can be scared of looking ‘weird,’ but we can’t ignore our drag queens, our transgendered and non-binary activists. They helped us get to where we are now.”