TIFFANY: And so my boss told me, she said, if

any point anyone wants to talk to your boss, you're

going to know better than I am and say you're

talking to her. You're going to handle this 1000%

better than I can. And she just said, I trust

you.

DANA: Welcome to Hustle and Gab Other, a podcast about inspiring the

everyday entrepreneur to take the leap. I'm Dana.

COURTNEY: And I'm Courtney.

DANA: And we are two sisters who have started

multiple businesses together. And yes, it is as

messy as you think because we know that starting

a business isn't easy.

COURTNEY: I mean, we've done it four times. And

on this show we talk about the ups and downs of

the hustle and the reward at the end of the journey.

DANA: And this year we're talking with our guests

about three important topics in our entrepreneurial

journey like team building, work, life balance

and how to recover from tragedy both in business

and in life.

COURTNEY: But up first is team building because

we know that as business owners, we're only as

strong as our weakest link. We'll be talking about

how to build, motivate and empower your team.

DANA: And today we're learning from Tiffany Welton,

founder of RBF Champagne Bar and Carrie, as we

are recording this episode. RBF is not yet open

and we're excited to talk with Tiffany about the

process of beginning her business and what she's

looking for while hiring staff for her new venture.

COURTNEY: Well, welcome.

TIFFANY: Thank you.

DANA: Thanks for coming today.

TIFFANY: Of course.

DANA: Appreciate it. I love your business name,

by the way.

TIFFANY: Thank you. I appreciate that.

DANA: Where did it come from?

TIFFANY: So there's a couple of stories that got us to RBF. Trust me, bitch face. So the first

one, because I had been kind of tootling with what I would do in

an entrepreneurial sense and I had a couple of

ideas, but I wasn't sure which direction I was

going to go. I was in a corporate job. I was miserable. I'd done

the thing. I had gone to grad school. I had kept

growing in jobs, got to the leadership role. This

is where I was like, this is where the magic is

going to happen. And the magic was not happening.

And I just realized I needed to do something else

and I needed to make a change in a different way.

But the idea of the name came from me just having

a kind of moment in a trader Joe's. I was just

in that consumed place. You know when you're running

an errand and you're just thinking of everything

and you're just trying to survive and you're thinking

and all the things are going through your mind

and I'm walking through and I'm probably just

I'm probably thinking of, like, fourth grade like

an embarrassing moment that happened in fourth

grade along with the irritation of my boss. All

these things. And a man stops me totally in my

tracks with I think there was something like a

bottle of champagne and a block of cheese in my

cart. Because that makes sense. Always it made

sense. And he's like, Honey, you would be so much

prettier if you smiled. What? And I don't know

what and it wasn't the first time it happened.

I walk around with kind of like the weight of

the world. It's not that I'm walking around mad.

That's just my face sometimes. And he said that,

and all I kept thinking was nobody would ever

go up to him and say that. No one would ever go

up to a dude and say, like, you know what? You'd

be much more handsome if you just put that pretty

little smile on your face. It's like, you know

what you could do could be a little more perky

and a little more positive. Why are we taking

that on? And so I really started to dig into it,

and I was thinking back to my previous jobs and

just like the reviews that I would have, and it

was like, everything's great. Your numbers are

good, your team's happy, but you could be a little

bit more perky or a little more positive. And

none of that ever made sense to me. But then I

would talk to girlfriends that were like, they

are typically more bubbly and smiley and happy,

and their bosses would tell them, no one's going

to take you seriously. You look stupid. Be more

serious. So which one is it?

DANA: Yeah, which one is it?

TIFFANY: Which one is it? And I think the answer

is none of them. I think it's always trying to

put us into a box and trying to make us work in

a place that's not us. And it's always saying

that we're not enough. And so I really thought

through that and thought about just so many different

pieces of my life and my experience and how that

really worked into it, how it came to RBF, the

Champagne Bar. It was just the idea that came

with it. But it really is more than just what

that is. It's really just that whole encompassing

piece of what we, so many of us experience in

work and our families and in society. So just

really wanted to kind of have something to encapsulate

that.

DANA: Yeah, it's kind of taking a stand against

it.

COURTNEY: Like calling it out, for sure. So everyone's

welcome whether you're like the bubbly perky or the resting bitch face.

TIFFANY: Yeah.

COURTNEY: And you're somebody where everyone finds

a friend's. Cheers. Or the new Cheers.

TIFFANY: Exactly. It's like, even someone who

doesn't walk around with a mean mug like I do,

that's their RBF. And that's cool. That's okay.

DANA: Great. What made you decide? Where was the

pivot point? You obviously worked in corporate

and then you decided to open the Champagne Bar.

Where'd that leap come from?

COURTNEY: I know we were just talking about this

a second ago, that you were in something with vaccine management and totally.

TIFFANY: Related I started with this company.

So I had been in organ and tissue donation, whole

body donation, for probably around 1213 years

and doing all the business development, public

relations within that. And so went to grad school, did the thing, decide, found myself on a leadership team

and hopefully we'll never get sued. But it was

a company that provided help towards public sector

and private sector, and they were immunization

programs. And I started about a month prior to

the Pandemic, and it was wild. I'm sure it was

not what I had envisioned and it wasn't even just

the work and obviously the circumstance of what

was happening with the Pandemic. I joined the

company because it was a mostly female executive

team. And I was like, yes, this is where I can

come in, really help really create that new table,

bring more chairs to the table, really start mentoring

my team and have them understand their market

value, what they can bring to the table, how to

bring more people to those seats. And very quickly

I learned that it was a little bit more of, I

think, an old school group. And this is why I would say it's not all men, it's

not all women, but it was women that weren't ever

willing to help people get to their place. They

wanted to keep everybody smaller so they could

stay where they were. And it was obviously very

patriarchal system in regards to that. And it's

almost like they didn't know better. We've all

lived in those places where there was one seat

for one woman and you had to keep it. We're beyond

that. And it didn't ever feel right. It was always

trying to make everybody around them feel little

and not worthy. And I think that was when I came

to the realization of it's not just about being on an executive team to make the change, you

kind of have to throw out the book, throw out the

old table and build your own one. And so that's

really what I knew I needed to do. I need to build

the damn table and add the damn chairs.

DANA: Yeah, I love that.

TIFFANY: Thank you.

DANA: That's really awesome. And I think that's

so true, because I think that there is this misconception

especially you almost get you have this sense

of safety when you're in a group full of women,

because you're like, of course you want to promote

each other, and they're going to hold out their

hand and they're going to pull you up with them.

And then a lot of times you're met with a, well,

I work ten, I've done X amount, and I did this.

And you have to follow that same painstakingly,

terrible path to deserve the seat that I'm at.

And why did you do it then, if it's not to make the next person's path easier?

TIFFANY: Right, absolutely. And my boss and I

will say, I'm not sure if you two are how I Met Your mother people. Okay. Yes. At the very end when Ted's

like, the last person you date before you find

the person you marry really tests you. The last

job I had before starting my own business really

tested me, and it really put everything in perspective

for me as to how I wanted to lead, what I really

wanted to stand for. And this this boss she had

done the role, she had been in it for years. I

mean, she would be like, you have to go to this

team member and you have to chew them out. They

were wrong. You have to absolutely bring them

to their knees. You need to make them cry. I obviously

wasn't doing that. But then that same team member

would go to her and say, oh, my gosh, Tiffany

had this horrible conversation with me. She's

like, oh, that wasn't right. She should never

have done and she would do the same thing with

the clients. So she would always look like she

was saving the day. And it's like, how it's horrible,

but it was now being able to look back on it for

a long time. She stole my voice. She stole it.

I sat on zoom calls. I couldn't say anything because I was afraid of her calling me and screaming

at me and yelling at me, and she would send slack

messages to our entire leadership team and bashing

me. You take those moments, it's like, now I can

look back almost two years later and be like,

what a beautiful, horrible lesson, but I know

how I want to lead and what I want to do. And

she gave me that really shitty gift, but it was

a gift. I take that experience, and I always want

to hold it and hold on to it and remember it,

because that's what's driven me to do this.

COURTNEY: Sometimes it's easier to identify what

you don't want than it is to identify what you

do totes yeah.

DANA: Well, I think the Segue is really great

into our next section, which we're going to be

talking about this whole season, we've been talking

about teams and different types of teams and hiring

fails and hiring successes, and you are just hiring

a team, right. You're kind of a new team, so we

want to talk about that process because a lot of people we talk to have established teams, and I

think there's something really scary about building

your first team, for sure. Right.

TIFFANY: It's definitely been you have to pay

for yeah.

COURTNEY: It's going to be all your decisions

what make or signing their paycheck.

TIFFANY: Right. 1000%. There's no one you can

blame on to be like, wow, what a shitty hire.

Like, you need to work on that. So luckily, I

did have a stint in my early part of my career

in recruiting, and I think with business development,

too, because I have about 20 years of business

development within different jobs. You just learn

to read a lot, you can dig between the lines quite

a bit and also with resumes, there's a story behind

it and it's kind of digging through that story

as well. So I think it has helped me in a lot

of ways. But I went into this knowing I wanted

to hire differently. And it's funny to me that

I find myself in service because I've always thought,

like, I hate service and it feels very toxic.

And I didn't know if that I can't believe I'm

actually part of this, but I think there's a lot

that comes in with the service industry and people

starting at restaurants where you're making a

minimum wage. There are lifers, there's people

that have been there forever. They're not here

to train you and help you, they're going to throw

you to the wolves. There's an initiation period,

you just have to freaking deal with it. And I

did not want to start out that way. And I think

from the beginning part of this and knowing what

I wanted to do, I knew off the bat I wanted to

do a living wage. I think it's for me and being in the

business that I've been prior to, yes, I've self

funded this whole thing. It's my capital, my SBA

loan. And so, yes, I'm putting the money in making

this business happen. But to ask a group full

of people to carry on your mission, to pretty

much make your livelihood make sense and for me

to actually do this thing, to pay them nothing,

and then to have them rely on other people to

make their lives functioning and to walk in each

day not knowing what they're going to make. And

walking out, maybe the same day being like that

wasn't worth the time. And doing that, So doing

living wage based on Carrie's living wage, so

I knew I wanted to do that. Obviously with tipping,

people are able to come in and still tip and do

that whole thing. But I also wanted to look at

people beyond just that had service experience

and I think a lot of people get into an industry

and stay there and I think a lot of bitterness comes from it. And you can

only focus on, oh yeah, that one asshole that

walked in, that reams you a new one and hates

their wine and wants everything for free. But

I wanted to get people that were just generally

excited for the mission and saw something bigger

because for me, it's bigger than me and I want

it to be that way, but also to see the potential

in it as well. So a lot of people that I have

hired had reached out to me almost prior to me

posting the position. They reached out and said,

I want to be involved and that's it. And I just

love what you're doing. So a lot of people are

actually working professionals, some work in HR travel writer. Somebody is a graphic designer. Everyone has this

mix of experience, but their personalities and

just like, the realness about them are awesome.

But the one thing, probably the thing that I've

always wanted to stay consistent to in my hiring

is someone who's hungry. And I remember in a job

and telling my boss she was one of the best bosses

I ever had, but I was trying to work through into

a promotion and I built this whole thing and I'm

like, I'm hungry. And she kind of laughed at me.

And I was like, no, it was nonprofit. It's a totally different beast sometimes,

but I am. And there was something that didn't

click there. And so I think there's something

about people, it's like that grit and that hunger

for something else. I think you can't teach that.

COURTNEY: Yeah.

DANA: So how did you identify that in your people?

TIFFANY: So when people came, I was very much

off the bat, like, what have you read about me?

Because I actually have one website that talks

only about the restaurant, but I have a whole

other one that if you click one other button from

the normal website, it takes you to oh, it takes you to a lend where it was almost like kind

of my start of the concept of it, and I wanted

to see if people could get there and see it and

just what they pulled from it. And so there were

people that came in for the serving role, and

they're like, I'm not sure what RBF stands for

and didn't know they were just looking for another

job. And I turned away people with years and years

of service experience. I said, no, this isn't

what I wanted to do. But I very specifically remember

one girl came in and I'm just really into the

gen z right now. They are just taking over.

DANA: They are.

TIFFANY: And she came in and she's like, I have

my job during the day and my friends, we all work

from home and we get together and we had a conversation

together of how can we better our lives and better

our financial futures and put ourselves out in

a way that we hadn't before. And we all decided,

let's get another little side hustle and let's do something, and we'll make the promise to ourselves and

then we'll save, and then we'll go on a little

trip together. They really sat there and thought

it out, and everyone kind of has come to me with

those types of things. And one of the girls working

for me, she has an HR role, and it's a little

slower this time of year. And she's like, I'm

always hungry for connection and hungry for understanding people better and wanting to she's like, that just expands who I

am. It expands them. And that's what I was searching

for, for people that it's not about handing somebody a glass of wine. It's about when someone

walk like a regular walks in, it's like, you were

scared about that doctor's appointment last week.

How are you doing? You okay? I know that you were

going through something tough last week and connecting

on a totally different level. And everybody that

I've hired has that and really grasp that at a really deep, deep

level. So that's going to always come for me before

experiences, but then also how I was looking at

people's experience was, this isn't just where

I'm stopping. I would like other locations. I'd

like to have a wine label at some point. Like,

what are you interested in? Marketing, social

media? Do you want to manage later on? Do you

want to see a wine label grow? Would you be interested

in more of an operations piece of that business

development? There's so many different little

pieces, but I see that with people, and it's like,

let's expand on your strengths and where you want

to go, because most of these people are not stopping

at a server role. They will have bigger lives

and bigger dreams and go on to bigger things.

And if I can help them get to those places, even

if it's not with me, that's what I want to do.

DANA: Right, no, I totally understand that.

COURTNEY: What's been the biggest hurdle for hiring?

TIFFANY: I think it's sometimes just the positions

that people don't see as glamorous. I think there's

a lot of service jobs that people aren't looking

at, but I think a lot of I've been able to capture

a lot of the people for more of the customer interaction

piece of it for just, like, a standard food prep

position. It's not gaining the traction that I

wanted, but I kind of turned that into something that's probably more positive, where I decided

to not mix that piece of it. So I have a girl

working for me, and she's a Ukrainian refugee,

so her English is actually fabulous. She's still

getting through a piece of I mean, she's only

been here for such a short amount of time, but

doesn't know a whole lot about wine. So I was

kind of like, hey, would you be interested in

a food prep? She said 1000%. Then I was thinking

about it. Like, the girl has done high level tech.

She's been a chef. She's done so much in her career.

She's done wild amounts of social media marketing.

And I was like, Why don't you run the show? Run

the show in the back and help me with inventory.

Help me with ordering. Help me with all these

different pieces, because you absolutely can do

it. She's like, 1000%. We'll do it. I gave her

a bump and then decided instead of just having

someone just back there prepping the entire time,

let's level the playing field a little bit. Let's

make sure that everyone understands how hard everybody's

job is. So, like, kind of working on a rotational

system where someone's behind the bar. Some people

are serving somebody's helping our girl in the

back.

DANA: Right.

TIFFANY: And then in a couple of hours, they'll

shift around. If someone comes in is like, you

know what? I feel like I this much energy today.

I'm hormonal and I'm going to sit back and work

with our girl all day in the food prep area.

DANA: Cool.

TIFFANY: Someone's like, my back's kind of hurting. I'll just stand behind the bar. Instead of running

around all day, let's actually take time and understand

what people are going through and adjusting to that way too. But then

also really having people know that they can step

in for each other.

DANA: Yeah. I love that. It's like kind of taking

cross training to a whole new level in a lot of

ways, which I think it's a little bit more sustainable.

Really? 1000%, because you're not locked into

only this person can replace my shift. Right?

For sure. They can do all the things. I think

it's a really neat concept, for sure. Yeah. And

also I totally agree, builds up that camaraderie.

I remember we were doing a team training one time,

and it was a rental company, and we were talking

to them about it, and it was during the pandemic,

so they let go of pretty much all of their staff.

And then so the salespeople, who normally just

sat in a chair, they have hard jobs, don't get

me wrong, they're very busy people, but they hadn't

ever washed linens or polished glassware or done

any of that. And then she was like, I had no idea

how much time, impatience and energy and effort

it took to make a rack of glasses look good enough

to go out and just the respect they had for that

job. Now I've been doing that by myself.

TIFFANY: And I'm like, oh my gosh, I can't believe these. To go through one rack of

damn glasses and here I am at a champagne boy

bar school. It's totally true. It's like it gives

people appreciation for what somebody else is

doing. And then I think it's like, hey, I can

tell, like, you're exhausted. Do you want to switch

out with me and just do this? And I think it'll

really put an even level playing field for everybody.

COURTNEY: It's also the built in culture there.

DANA: Yes. Creating that absolutely culture of

very family oriented team.

TIFFANY: Yeah, it was mostly I'm like, why didn't

I think about before? But it's like it's part

of the process. Things are going to work. Things

aren't going to work. Yeah.

DANA: What are you most nervous about managing

this team that you have? What kind of gives you

pause sometimes when you think about it?

TIFFANY: I think what gives me pause is if I were

to miss something, obviously I'm running a business

and I'm looking at guest experience and financials and I tend to with a very diagnosed ADHD

brain, I get very focused and I go very big picture

and then I get really granular. And then somebody

was seeing something or somebody was being kind of secretly bullied or there was some level

of discrimination or something was happening and

they didn't come forward. Yeah, I'm trying to

very much on the front end to be like, no bullying,

no discrimination. Like, none of the clicky things.

Like, the second I feel it, the longer you let

even a small toxic behavior continue.

DANA: It is a disease like cancer.

TIFFANY: It is cancer. And that is the thing that

I think companies do wrong. They keep people for

way too long and your team morale is destroyed

and it's so hard to come back from. So I've been

very vocal about that, of just like, please just

tell me. Pull me, pull my manager. There will

be no retaliation. This is going to be handled

well. Just tell us. Not everybody feels comfortable to do that sometimes. And

I think those are the things that I worry about,

where someone goes home and carries that anxiety

and carries that pain with them. Because I know

I did in my own way in my last job for so long,

and that's what would kill me before anything

else, is somebody that would carry something like

that. So that's kind of the weird shit that goes

through my head, but I think that makes me worry.

People are going to no show. People are going

to give you notice and quit. We can work through

that. That's just to be expected. And if I wasn't expecting that, it'd be crazy. So I worked in

recruiting where that happened all the time. I

saw those things happen. It might be the last

person you expect to do it, but I think it's mostly

I want to create a place that is so psychologically,

emotionally and physically safe that if I got

the feedback that someone didn't feel that way,

that would be the thing that killed me, that I

didn't what that's hard.

COURTNEY: It's like thinking through kind of like

that, because I feel like I have also some missing things, gaps. Like, I'm also very big picture, and we'll

get hyper focused and kind of miss a little bit

of the middle. And one of the things that I struggle with a lot is some of

the technology. It's definitely beyond me. So

when I started class this year without Dana teaching

it by myself, she has her own class at Meredith.

I was like, hey, this is me, blah, blah, blah,

whatever. I was like, I have, like to no technology

skill. Like, I'm going to put a link up there

that's not going to work. I'm going to forget

to click a button. I'm going to do all these things.

I was like, so it is not going to offend me when

you point it out, when you raise your hand and

you're like, hey, this is View only. I can't edit

it, or, hey, whatever, or Send me the email, because

if you're having problems with it, so is everyone

else. We're just going to spend some amount of

time on Tuesday and make sure every link works.

You can see everything, and everything lines up,

and they're really good about telling me, and

I don't get offended. So I think part of the thing

that you could do is you could just let your employees

know, like, this is how my brain works.

TIFFANY: Very true.

COURTNEY: I think, like, this this is what I'm

afraid of missing, and these are the things that

are concerned me about that. And then what if

you had something that was like an anonymous way

that they could just put it, like, hey, I'm feeling

blah, blah, blah, blah, and it's just anonymous.

TIFFANY: It's a really good idea. I had sent out

it was probably a terrible idea on Sunday night.

I've gotten to the place, construction is pretty

much done, and I actually have.

DANA: To open a business.

TIFFANY: Now, I know that it's like, this is a

great office space, but I guess it's an expensive

one, but I guess I have to do something with it.

And I had to just make a decision. And I scheduled,

like, a ribbon cutting with Town of Carrie, and

I did these things. Once I make the decision and

start to do those things, I just go full motion.

I'm paralyzed, scared. This is how I work. I go

into total paralysis, and then I kick it off,

and then I'm crazy. So I sent this email to my

staff just of training, and we're doing some friends

and family things. And so I broke it down in this

big email, and about three of them were like,

I need some clarification things. I'm like, okay,

well, nice work. You were the little crazy. Okay,

so then I wrote up this. I'm like, okay, I'm finding

what my holes are, and sometimes I go too. Big picture. And I needed to get granular,

and I needed to break it down, and I didn't do

that. So I'm like, okay, noted. But that made

me better that they called me out in the nicest way of girlfriend, like, entrepreneur. Bring it back, bring it back.

So now it's like, okay, yeah, I know what to do

next time. But that's really good advice to have

someone anonymous, I think, too.

DANA: I feel like all day long you can say all

you want to your employees, and it's not until

that first time that they start to trust you.

And I feel like for us, we were always like, we're

cool. Come tell us if you're having a hard time,

and we'll be all right. And I remember the first time my immediate reaction would be like, oh, my

God, why are you struggling right now? Can you

please look at my plate? But I knew that if I

reacted that way, then they would never trust me again. So it's like one of those. Things where

it's hard to build that trust without having the

experience of you don't want the experience, but

the one time it happens and you handle it correctly,

then every single employee later, they're going

to be like, no, it's for real. She really means

this. She's really going to handle it for sure.

If you're having a problem, absolutely.

TIFFANY: That's a really good reminder. Especially

it's just someone coming to you, and you're like,

oh, my gosh. Literally, I'm, like, drowning. Just being able to stop for

a minute and stop yourself for a minute and really

handle that.

DANA: Yeah, no, totally. And we're guilty of it.

I mean, there's been many times it's like, you

can ask me any question anytime in the office.

It's free time. They come in, they're like, you're busy? I'm like, I'm very busy

right now. What do you need? They're like, no,

give me five minutes, and then I'll be in the

mental space to absorb whatever you need me to

absorb right now.

COURTNEY: I don't know. We must do a good job

of making ourselves look very busy. It literally

came up in one of the annual reviews of, like,

to make you a little less stressed and busy. I

thought we were handling this just fine. Why is

this coming up in your review?

DANA: Yeah, it's true.

TIFFANY: It's like me telling I have one nephew,

my sister has a little 1415 month old boy, and

I said, there's so much part of psychology, like,

if he's, like, upset or crying, don't tell him

it's okay, because you don't know if he's okay.

You don't know what's feeling, and you want to

be able to make sure he's regulated. But then

my dog whines. I'm like, you are fine. So taking

my own advice, for sure.

COURTNEY: My dog's like, the boy who cried wolf.

That dog whines all the time.

TIFFANY: Mine, too.

COURTNEY: He just wants to go outside all the

time.

TIFFANY: Mine doesn't need anything. I don't need anything. I'm like, you've had

food. You have water. You fed outside. I'm holding

you. And she's like, bow.

COURTNEY: I know. Mine's the same way. We have

that little bell thing on the door. Like, that's

how we taught him to go out. Horrible idea. All

he does is ring that damn bell. Ring it. Ring

it again. Ring it again. Come whine at me. Ring

the bell. Like, I heard the bell. I'm ignoring

the bell.

DANA: You don't need to go out.

COURTNEY: You need to go out.

TIFFANY: What's the point of this bell? We digress.

DANA: I feel like you've named so many strengths

that you have as a boss. I think your past and

your experience with other bosses has really kind

of let you hone it, which I think is you're so

far along, so much farther along than I think

other entrepreneurs, because I don't feel like

I had I don't think I had an idea of a kind of

boss I was going to be.

COURTNEY: And we kind of were, like, in our 20s.

TIFFANY: Yeah, but still, I'm almost 40, so I

have a little more life experience.

DANA: But still, it's still one of those things

where we failed a lot to figure out what kind

of a boss, what made us a good boss, and how we

should manage. So I'm really curious what you

think is the most important trait to have just

as a generality, and what do you think is your

strongest trait that you can identify right now

when you're managing your team?

TIFFANY: I would say I did talk very badly about

the bad boss, but I do want to give props to a

really good boss. And one thing that I did really take away from her and what she did with me, and

this is when I was in organ tissue donation, and

so I had a very weird role.

DANA: Sounds like a weird job.

TIFFANY: It's a weird job. So pretty much there's

people that are there's a coordinator for every

hospital going through the organ donation process.

It's very, very slow. There's nurses. It's handled

very delicately. But there's all these other organizations

that touch donation in some capacity. There's

funeral homes, there's hospices that are all part

of the process that typically get forgotten. And

so my job was kind of to touch upon, just to manage

all the relationships around donation, and it

was mostly with tissue donation. And so all my

clients were funeral homes, and for the most part,

and some of my best friends are funeral directors.

Funeral homeowners. It's a very fun time. They're

great drinkers. They're fabulous drinkers. And

so this role was I was kind of on my little lonely

island, and I didn't really belong anywhere. There

was no team that I just so I kind of went to everybody's

team meetings, but I just kind of came and went.

But I had to really play a weird role that was

I had to be completely in the middle. I had to

advocate for both my organization and the clients.

I couldn't always be like, well, I couldn't play

devil's advocate and be like, well, they mean

well. I had to go back to my company, be like, we messed up. We are messing this up,

and this is how we need to fix it and really do

both sides of that. But my boss, for the most

part, funeral homes are great. They're wonderful.

They're still good. Most of my best friends, there

are some that just hate donation. They hate donation

in every capacity. And they would call, they'd

scream, they'd get mad. They curse you out. They

would tell families, like, horrible, horrible

things, but they would always say, I want to talk

to your boss. Let me talk to your boss. And at

the end of the day, my role had not really been

a successful role for anybody for, like, a decade.

I was the first person to come in and actually

make something out of it and get things to a good

place. And so my boss told me, she said, if any

point anyone wants to talk to your boss, you're

going to know better than I am and say you're

talking to her. You're going to handle this 1000%

better than I can. And she just said, I trust

you. I trust your opinion. I trust the stance

you're taking. I trust your experience in this.

Even though she had just absolute insane amount

of knowledge for donation and organ donation in

a completely different capacity, she was looking

at it from a totally different viewpoint. She

knew she was going to always sway in the direction

of the company and not the other way around. And

she said, you fully understand the needs of everybody.

I trust you to make the right decision. Do you

know how powerful that is when someone says, I

know you will own this to the best of your ability

for yourself, for us and for them? And that was

something that I realized people really need.

They need to be trusted. They need ownership in

what they are doing. And so when I was just talking

about the girl and working just kind of in the

prep area, she's brilliant. She's done so much

in her career. And I had this moment where I was

like, she can't just be back there and prepping

food. This is insane. And I presented to her,

I was like, I want you to own this and I want

to listen to you and you're going to know things

that are going on back here that I'm not always

going to. And just know that I trust in your opinion

and what you think you're going to see people

if there is a charcuterie board and you notice

it always coming back with people plucking things

off, tell me we don't need that. If you were seeing

people always wanting to add certain things on,

tell me. We'll switch it up. I think people want

to own part of the process and it's like, hey,

I'm noticing this and this and this. I bet things

could be a little bit different. Let's talk about

it. I know probably and this is probably why I

was an entrepreneur in my twenty s. I don't know

if I would have been able to do that. I think

probably either my impostor syndrome, my ego,

something would have gotten the way into that

and where I didn't want to feel wrong. And I think

you get to be 40, you're going to be wrong. And

so it's like, I think it's being okay to be wrong

and also take and be able to listen to people

that are doing, who are on the floor and doing

it's not just the floor, it's the sales teams,

it's the admin staff, it's the catering people.

It's who's ever seen things just to obviously

you can't take everything into accountability.

Be like, yes, let's make all these changes, but

to at least know because it's part of the bigger

picture. It's how you can move Forward in a different

way. So I Think that's what I've Learned In this

Piece and I'm hoping that's what I can bring as

a Leader in allowing people to be seen and be

Heard and very validated in their own experiences.

DANA: Yeah, I love that. That is my biggest struggle

is being wrong, it just is. But I feel like it's

been such a learning experience and what I have

found for me, because it's not that I like to

be right, because that's really what a lot of

this self Development trying to figure out, why

do I care so much? And it's not that I want to

be right, it's that I want to have no regrets.

And So when I have a Team Member come to me and

Say, I think we should do this and I think we should do the opposite,

it's because and maybe because the reason is there's, things are like, I want to change XYZ

because it's not working or whatever. And I feel

like, well, we haven't actually done it to its

capacity, we haven't done our due diligence on

it at all. And I really firmly believe that this

is going to be the right Path forward. But can

we try it for real? Can we try it for real for

a month and if after a month it's still failing

100%, we'll change it? Because I don't want to

look back on it and Say, man, I should have just

trusted my gut and I knew that was right.

COURTNEY: You know what I mean?

TIFFANY: That's exactly what I was going to Say.

I'm Like, Is it being right or wrong or Is it

trusting your gut right? And for Me, I've told

my Husband Michael, I'm Like, any part of this

process that I have regretted, that I've been

upset about is When I haven't trusted my gut.

DANA: Yes.

TIFFANY: And every time that I've followed It,

I'm like, okay, even if it's like, you know what?

That didn't work and let's try something else.

And I thought that was going to look good or I

thought that was the best thing to get, at least

I trusted it. So I Think some people just don't

want to be wrong. I think what yours is it's about

trusting your gut and that could be for me, that's

all. Some of that is like my childhood trauma

stuff that I have to go through that I am learning

about where I was told forever my gut was not

to be trusted, that it was wrong. So it took me

a long time to realize to listen to that. But

everybody has a different experience with that.

I think some people are just like, I'm right.

But I think a lot of it comes down to how those

things were viewed in your family growing up.

DANA: Totally. And I think it kind of at the same

point, what I feel like with my employee is I

don't want to shut them down. I don't want them

to stop giving me ideas.

TIFFANY: Right.

DANA: I don't want them to stop talking to me about it. So it's like, I hear you, I see

you and I can see your point. I can see where

this could be an issue. But what you don't see

maybe is this aspect. It the bigger picture that

we need to explore. I say I could be completely

wrong, but for me, I just need to have that peace

of mind that we had a fidelity with it, I guess

you could say, is what I say all the time.

TIFFANY: For sure.

DANA: Yeah.

COURTNEY: No, I love that. I love all the things

that you said about giving people ownership and

power and empowering them to do the best job.

I think there's something about hiring a team

and interviewing all these people that makes you

realize there's a lot of skills out there and

a lot of holes that you have and that you don't

know everything. Right? I always say that for

me, I know that my team is strong. When I'm the weakest link on my team, I hire for

my holes. I hire for those people that I think

are going to take what I have and make it better,

for sure. And I think it's always such an honor

to be able to be the leader of some one who I deem whatever

aspect it is better than I am. But I'm in charge

of leading them and growing them, for sure.

TIFFANY: I think I've hired servers very differently.

But like, hiring a manager, I think that was the

one piece of advice given to me from we were just

talking about Sarah Abernathy. She was just like,

the one thing I didn't do right off the bat was

just hire a manager. Because you think like, oh, I can save a certain amount of money. I'll just

have servers do the thing. She's like, it is worth

the spend every single time. And so I had built that into my budget. I had built that into my first couple

of years cost. And it was so much more nerve wracking

for me to make that hire. And I probably waited

way too long to give her the offer. Even though

I knew I was going to hire her, there was something

that felt because it's so vulnerable, it's such

a vulnerable position. I know how I am in more

of like, I've mentioned a bigger picture where

I wanted someone in the weeds, the operations,

the scene, the day to day, and to be able to see

things in a way that I can't. And the woman I hired, she's

amazing. And every single day I spend with her,

I was like, oh my God, I've made the absolute

right choice. And she's ex military. I asked them

like, so have you done any type of inventory thing.

She's like, oh, you know, like a small 55 million,

like, inventory with the army.

DANA: Okay, you can handle my wine.

TIFFANY: You can handle my 50 bottles of wine is fine. But the way she is

approaching the role, and I was interviewing people

today, and I was like, there's someone I was kind

of on the fence with. And I was talking to her

about it. The way she presented it back to me,

she's like, I can see where you're going on both

sides. Here's where I think it's a good idea.

It wasn't like, oh, God, no. We're like, oh, well, you have to

do it was just this very the way she laid it out for

me, in a way of it was super appreciated. And

it was again, it's like just like you were saying,

it's like, I feel like you're trusting your gut,

but you go into decision fatigue in so much of

this, too. That's a huge probably, like, where I'm at, it's probably when I get to

a downfall or like, a trauma response of not being

able to go into total paralysis. But she laid

it out. She saw what I was saying, and she put

it in a couple of ways. It was like, oh, my God.

It was just something like I needed to hear. And

she's very calm, and I'm a little like, I get

a little excited or a little whatever. It's really

appreciated.

DANA: I love that. Well, we would love to talk

a little about what you see. What are your goals

for your team, and what are you projecting in

the next year for your team?

TIFFANY: So I would really like to continue digging

out of people. I mean, not dig, but really what

they see for themselves. And I think I always

hated in interview questions like, where do you

see yourself in five years? It's like, kind of

the worst because.

COURTNEY: It'S maybe you're here. If I don't say

that, are you going to hire me?

TIFFANY: Exactly. Going to your competitor? I

don't know. I want to continue to make the time

and effort to continue to build on people. And

have either of you read the book Powerful patty

McCord, she was one of the top leadership people at the very beginning of Netflix. She was there through

the transition of the DVDs to streaming. But she

has such great nuggets of really when you give

people the chance to see their own market value,

and if somebody leaves, it's like, that's awesome.

I almost very rarely gave a counteroffer, mostly

because I didn't want them to feel like now they're

worthy, now that they're planning on leaving me.

She would say, like, hey, go do what you got to

do. If you want us to give you a counter, we can

have that discussion. But I would rather you go

experience something, and if it's not what you

expect, let's have a conversation and bring you

back it was very much around. Like, people need

to take every year or so and be like, what are

my skill sets? Where do I stand out? Where do

I shine? Where are the things that I'm kind of

lacking on? Like, me, it's like I barely passed finance in grad school.

That's why I have a CPA. It's like to be able

to take those things and like, where am I at and

what do I want to do and what can get me there?

And having to sit down with everybody at certain

points and being like, what feels good, what doesn't?

What do you see? It's like, hey, I've heard you

talking about your wine label, and I would love

to help start some of the business development

side of that and be reaching out to people and

like, let's talk. Let's continue to build on people's

skills and what they want to do. Like, maybe it's

hiring, taking someone out of a serving role and

having them be full time social media. Maybe it's saying, hey, we're building the second

location you want up for manager? Let's have you

start doing some leadership development here to

start preparing you for some things like that,

instead of just throwing you in and expecting

you to know how to deal with the team. So knowing

that I need to get out of my own brain and running

a business and do those things, and not just once

a year, it's like, just be able to have those

conversations and really build up. So when we

have those conversations, people have already

been thinking about it and know which direction

that they want to go. So I would like people at

a year to be thinking not just my next couple

of shifts and what that looks like, but where

do I want to go? You can always find people with

hunger and drive and grit in those places that

can come and do that for a while. But it's the

people that I want to do this thing with me. And

that's what I've said to everybody I've hired.

I'm like, I hope you know, I want you on this

journey with me. And hopefully in a year, I can

be offering profit sharing or health care and

things to be able to take care of people in a

better way when I'm not just getting off of the

ground, but always being able to give people really

the reason of a bigger reason as to why they're

there. And not just me being almost the last reason,

but for them.

DANA: Yeah, it's like you're creating stakeholders.

Yes. And I think that's I love that because I

think it's hard to do that. It's easy, I think,

to try to put forth that's what you want, but

it's hard to really create those stakeholders,

especially as a new business, because just exactly

like you said, you're kind of stuck in the weeds

of the day to day and whatnot? And I love that

you're having those conversations and putting

these things on the calendar. Like, I want to

have these check ins because I don't want it to

I don't want to forget about it, which is what

we did for so long. We were like, oh, yeah, we

probably should check in with people. It's been

a year since their last time one on one. I know

it does, but I really love that because I think

it sounds like that's such a cornerstone of your

culture.

TIFFANY: And that's exactly it. And kind of at

the beginning of this, I could have had some opportunities

to work with investors and not just put all my

money into it. But number one, being a little

control freak, number two, I wanted to show my

model worked.

DANA: Yeah.

TIFFANY: The second you introduce investors or

any seed incubator paces, someone else is saying,

well, that's not going to work and you should

do this because we've done this and this and this

and this where I wanted to come into it and saying

clean slate. Here is exactly what I did from beginning

to end. Here's where I made the changes here and

here to adjust what was working, but to use that

as a model for other things moving forward, because

for what I'm trying to do, it's just to do things

in a really different way. It's like I want to

have that data. I want to show that. I want to

have the data be within the people that are working

for me and have that be such a part of this, too.

So I just knew it had to be from not just the

core values and the brand alignment and who I

am and what the space looked like and guest experience,

but it needed to be the whole story.

DANA: Yeah. Oh, I love that so much. Yeah.

COURTNEY: So what's one thing that you've learned

about yourself in this process? This whole process?

TIFFANY: Probably things I already knew. I have no patience. I feel like I'm getting a

little bit better. Okay, this is going to sound

weird. I think I learned I know more than I thought

I did. And if you would have told me five years

ago that I would be starting a business, I don't

know if I would have believed you. But to get

through so many of these pieces and to sort through

oh, my gosh, the things we had to do for SBA,

like, Holy mother of God, you promise? Like your first child in a

kidney. I mean, it's just like there's they need everything. Like, I mean,

so much of this and I think what I learned is so unequivocally that I've needed to trust my

gut all along, like we were saying. And again,

the parts of the process have made me the most

mad is when I haven't. But I think I'll kind of

add on to that. I think if I were to have done

this five years ago, ten years ago, two years

ago, certain parts of the process would have stopped

me in my tracks. And instead, at this point, I

have learned where my strengths are and how to

overcome some of those things to keep going. And

one of those was like, the space where I'm at

the realtor. When he first showed it to us a year

ago, we're looking at it and he said, by the way,

you are never going to get this place. What he

literally said, is this your realtor? Not mine. It was not mine. And he's like, well, they want

to do a different concept. And he was like, I

probably wouldn't even apply, but I guess go ahead

if you feel like it. And I think a couple of years

ago, I wouldn't have, right? I think I've just

been like, they're.

COURTNEY: Not going to pick.

TIFFANY: Why put it in the work? Why do the thing?

Why go through the effort to just feel rejected?

I think I was more scared of rejection than doing

something. So I think I would have let something

like that absolutely to tear me away. Like, at

some point in the process now that I've said husband

45 times, we're not actually married, but wear

wedding rings and we feel like we are, it's mostly

that we've gone through the pandemic and we're

over 40. Like, let's just be honest, life works

a little differently. But there was kind of a

whole conversation about wanting his financials

because they're like, we looked at yours and yours

are great, but where's his? I'm like, you know

we're not married, right? Like, I know we're weird

and we call each other husband and wife and we wear rings, but

we're not. And they're like, yeah, we know. So

let's reverse this situation. If this was him

applying for this.

COURTNEY: Right, is he on the business at all?

TIFFANY: No. Zero.

COURTNEY: What?

TIFFANY: Right? And I said, So if this was him,

would you be getting his random girlfriend's financials? And you know the answer

is no. You 1000% know that answer is no. And if

you are going to sit there and tell me that you

would, I will walk away today. I would not have

done that two years ago. I wouldn't have done

that five years ago to stand in this perfect location. First of all, he

told me I wasn't going to get it, then I got it.

Then we get to this place where if I had gotten

to this point even a couple of years ago, I would

have probably been like, oh, okay, well, I'll

get it for you, and I'll do this. And I just said,

no, I'll walk away today. I'll say no, we'll tear

it up and you guys can go find somebody else.

Because that is beyond have you not listened to

my mission and values and my core value alignment?

It's going completely against that. So I think

that's probably the thing I've learned in this

process is to use my voice and to trust that gut

and that I know I'm not going to always make the

right decision, but I'm going to do what's best

for my situation in that moment. In that moment.

DANA: Yeah. I love that.

COURTNEY: The information given.

DANA: Yeah. Right. We say that all the time. No, but

I love that. And I love that I feel very empowered

listening to you, because I do it's a hard world

to navigate, and I think that sometimes we started

very young, and I still think we had a lot of

gumption, but there are clear.

COURTNEY: I'm also in my 40s now. Yeah, not now.

Managing at 2039 in a couple of months. She hasn't

made it yet, but I want to pitch her cheek.

DANA: I think it's such a true statement, too, and

I think we've interviewed people before, and they

just like, I just wish I would have started sooner.

I wish I would have done this sooner. I wish I

realized I waited too long. And I really feel

like this is probably the slight woundness of me, is that you do

things at the right time and it all kind of works

out in the end because there's definitely things

I feel like we started really young, but if we

had done what we did now, I would have been actually

too scared.

COURTNEY: Right.

DANA: Because I would have had a lot more to lose.

TIFFANY: You might have overthought it.

DANA: Yeah, 100%.

TIFFANY: Yeah.

COURTNEY: It wasn't a whole lot of thought.

TIFFANY: Timing is like there is so much with

timing, but then I think so much comes into it,

too. I had to sort of convince myself, I'm like,

was it luck? Was it luck that I got this? But

no, I had something stacked against me. So you

go through certain things in your mind of, is

it privilege? Is it pushiness?

DANA: What was it?

TIFFANY: But I think a lot of it is timing and

preparedness and confidence. But also, I think

the scared also drives a lot. I tell myself every

day, I'm like, okay, imposter syndrome, get your

shit together here. But at the same time, I think.

DANA: Vulnerability, it keeps you humble.

TIFFANY: Keeps you humble and also has you tackle

things in a totally different way. If you were

just, like, pretending like you got this, it's

like some days I don't freaking got it. Yeah. And you have to be okay

with that.

DANA: Yeah, totally.

COURTNEY: Absolutely.

DANA: Well, I love that. I love your whole mission,

and I love that you're paying it forward and that

you're investing in your employees. I think that

is amazing, and I can't wait. I hope we have you

back, like, in a year to see totally what happened.

TIFFANY: Maybe we could do, like, a live recording.

DANA: While drinking some champagne.

TIFFANY: Yeah, I think that's the only correct

thing to do.

DANA: We'll put on the calendar.

TIFFANY: Yeah, why not? Put things out into. The

universe with a little buzz.

DANA: Well, thank you so much for tonight.

TIFFANY: Of course. Thank you guys for having

me so much.

DANA: Thanks, everyone, for gathering us today

to talk about team building. To learn more about RBF, you can visit RBF.Wine or

follow at Show Me your RBF on Instagram.

COURTNEY: And to learn more about our hustles,

visit us on The Gram @CandDevents @BradfordNC,

@Anthem.House and @Hustleandgather. And if you're interested in

learning more about our speaking, training or

venue consulting, head to our website@hustleandgather.com.

DANA: And if you love us and you love this show,

we'd be more than honored if you left a rating

and a review.

COURTNEY: This podcast is a production of Earfluence. I'm Courtney.

DANA: And I'm Dana.

COURTNEY: And we'll talk with you next time on

Hustle and Gather.