251: Year End Wrap Up
Michele Williams:
Hello. My name is Michele and you're listening to Profit is a Choice.
Joining me on the podcast today is Ceil DiGuglielmo. You probably recognize Ceil as she has been with me multiple times since 2018. She is the owner of the Curtains and Soft Furnishings Library and the host of the Sew Much More podcast. Every year, Ceil and I get together to talk about what has happened over the last year. We share our business and life experiences, our highs, our lows, what we're most proud of, and what we're looking forward to the next year. We hope that this authentic conversation that you can listen in on between the two of us will spark an interest in you to have that special someone that you can share some of your business highs, lows, and what's happening with as well. Enjoy the podcast.
Every day, empowered entrepreneurs are taking ownership of their company financial health and enjoying the rewards of reduced stress and more creativity. With my background as a financial software developer, owner of multiple businesses in the interior design industry, educator, and speaker, I coach women in the interior design industry to increase their profits, regain ownership of their bottom line, and to have fun again in their business. Welcome to Profit is a Choice. Hey, Ceil. How are you?
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
Hey, Michele. I'm great. How are you?
Michele Williams:
Awesome. Welcome to both of our podcasts. Like we do every year.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
Yes.
Michele Williams:
I was just kind of counting even on my fingers. We started this back in 2018, so I think like 18,19, 20,21, 22. So this is like our 6th year in a row of getting to do this together.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
Well, I look forward to this every year and I always listen to at least last year's. I don't have time to listen to more than that, although that might be interesting one year.
Michele Williams:
Oh, I know. Sit down and binge them all right there. Yeah.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
But it really gives me a lot of joy to get this opportunity to do this with you. I take a few minutes to think about what we're going to talk about and what were some of my highlights, low lights, what am I proud of, and all of that. I just love being able to catch up with you and find out some of the things that we haven't had time to catch up on in the last couple of months.
Michele Williams:
Yeah. I was thinking about when I asked you, I think at CWC, I said, we are still going to do this, aren't we? And I remember thinking and feeling I was thinking about it today, feeling that fear of what if she says, yeah, I think I'm done with that. I don't want to do that.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
Oh, my gosh.
Michele Williams:
It gave my stomach such a drop, such a please don't tell me you're done having this conversation.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
No, I'm not.
Michele Williams:
I know and that’s so cool.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
And I won't be for a long time.
Michele Williams:
I think what makes it so special is that we hold some of the things that we would normally talk about in general conversation as friends so that we can have a very authentic and genuine conversation here at this time. And my hope, and I know that your hope as well, Ceil, as we've done this over the years, is to encourage our listeners to find their own somebody to sit down and every year have, like, a decompress and talk about your business year, personal year. But I think sometimes it's so easy to find that best friend to talk about your personal life and what's happened and how it's been going. It's not always as easy to find that trusted business friend that you say can we talk about this? I just love the opportunity to kind of review and consider and meditate in some ways on what worked and what didn't. To give intentional thought, I think is really important as we wrap up any year.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
I'm not sure I would do it if we didn't plan this conversation. So, the answer is yes, every year.
Michele Williams:
I think I would do it in bits and pieces, and I might kind of half do it, but to sit and allow myself honestly to kind of process a year.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
Yeah, there's a lot of value to it.
Michele Williams:
How do you want to start this year?
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
Why don't we start with the low points, because then we can go to the high points?
Michele Williams:
I like it. Yes.
Ceil DiGuglielmo: All right, so for you, what was the low point this year?
Michele Williams: Oh, gosh, now you're going to turn it back on me. I gave you the steering wheel well!
Ceil DiGuglielmo: Well, I chose so now you’re answering.
Michele Williams:
Alright, we can do that. Low parts this year. You know what? Compared to last year, I haven't had a lot of lows this year. Last year was a tough year. My husband was diagnosed with cancer, and we went through that entire journey. I think I told you last year I couldn't read books. It was a very traumatizing year for us in some respects. This year, my lows were different. I think my lows this year, honestly, were more about exhaustion. That's what mine came from. I didn't have any big low experiences, but there were times that I was just very tired, just mentally drained, I think, from holding everything together last year. And just that feeling of holding it together, holding it together, holding it together. We had so many highs this year. It's been such a year of beautiful times and moments in my life and in my business, I think kind of that juxtaposition of low to high brings with it a tiredness. I'm kind of on a journey now. I'll give you a sneak peek into what we're going to talk about for where I'm going, I'm kind of on the journey now of what does it look like, and what is it that I really want to attain. You know, your question of always, what does success mean to you? Kind of looking at this next season that I'm getting ready to walk into, what does success look like for me? What is enough? Where do I feel like sometimes, I'm working so much that I'm not living my life? How do I make certain that I'm living my life while I'm doing my work? So, I am trying to be very intentional about the people that I work with and serve, very intentional about those that I serve alongside, and very intentional about where my time goes. I've always had that intentionality, but I think coming from a place of serving and helping and holding up and not just doing that in two companies but doing that at a higher rate in my home because I had to, it's exhausted me.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
It is. It wears you out. And when you have to be consistently like that for a long time, I think it takes its toll on you.
Michele Williams:
I think what happened with me, and I know that it happens with others, is we're high performers. We're go-getters, we're doers, we're solvers. I think sometimes that we do it so much, we don't even recognize the load that we're carrying. I don't mean just a physical load, but a mental and an emotional load. So, it's been great for me to have somebody to help process through the mental and the emotional load. My tiredness didn't come from physical exertion in some ways. So, learning to put things down. In the same way that if you were carrying a load of bricks and it got really heavy, I would sit it down. We don't always sit down the mental load of bricks or the emotional load of bricks. It's been a year of recognizing the exhaustion from those things and learning how to set those things down.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
I think, too, Michele, we talked last year about if you're traveling for work, taking a day when you come back, and sort of both of us talked about trying to build that into our business. When life has struggles in it, you do need a little decompression from that, too. As high performers, I think we just keep going. We just keep going.
Michele Williams:
Yeah. I didn't have a lot of time to build that in, because when I had it, we were kind of using it in a different way. Then this fall season has been one of my most difficult, only because of the timing of how things kind of came together. So, we were in the middle of a home renovation, and, I mean, kitchen gut, ripping out all the furniture in the house, new flooring, everything had to be refinished. You can't stay in your house all while I was in an eight-week travel cycle where I was gone every week. I mean, we were sleeping at our son's house. We were moving things out into a pod. I was packing for three different things and living in our basement. It was tumultuous just because of the timing. I mean, it was nothing that anybody else hadn't gone through. So, I wouldn't say it was low. It just caused a lot of extra tiredness and exhaustion that I'm still working to catch back up from. But listen, in the grand scheme of things, if that's as bad as it gets, I can handle that kind of a low year, right? Or kind of a low during a year compared to the year before. I'll take exhaustion any day. I say this not to diminish it. If other people are feeling it too, it still needs to be handled and dealt with, because we were meant to thrive, not merely to survive. I truly believe that. I can say that even in my go-ahead, move forward, all those things, I want to do it more in a thriving way where I feel that rest. I want to feel rested. Because if my mind feels rested, I have a lot of new ideas. All right, now, how about you? What are your lows?
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
So, I started out the year still in recovery from my foot surgery and it did take longer than I expected. The patience that I spoke about last year, I needed to keep digging in and finding more of it. It has not quite healed the way I expected it to. I've gone back to the doctor. We're looking into a couple of things. I can walk fine. I can't run yet. I don't know if I'll ever be able to. Most days it's just uncomfortable. It's not painful and compared to last year, I've always been that way. Well, at least it's not like it was last year. But it's not quite where I thought it would be. I have much more energy. I can exercise, I can take long walks. It's just not quite what I expected it to be. So, the doctor and I are working on that not the end of the world. I lost a sister-in-law this year, and she died of ALS. So, the struggle went on for years. Last year, we talked about trying to connect with people who were important to me. Trying to see Cindy was difficult sometimes because she just wasn't having a good day. It always had to be her choice whether or not she had visitors. , and my brother from my perspective, my brother really stepped up to the plate and took care of his wife. I know it wasn't easy for either of them. It wasn't easy for their daughter who lived with them, or for their two children who didn't live with them. As much as it was a low point for me, watching them as a family and being able to help them with a few small things and connect with them when they needed somebody, made me realize how lucky I was to have the family that I have and the people that I have. And while I miss my sister-in-law terribly, she hasn't been who she was for a very long time. So, she's at peace, and she's in a far better place than she was while she was living here. Not that anybody in her family is ready to hear that line. We need to move on a long time before we can say that. But again, it brought me back to some of the things that we talked about last year. What am I doing in my life? Am I taking the time? Did I block off enough Fridays, which I talked about last year, and did I look at the time and say, you know what, now's a good time to call my sister Maggie? She's done work, and I can take a break for half an hour. I haven't talked to her all week. Those are the things that I tried to make more of an effort to do because of that. Yes, definitely the low point of the year was losing her. But again, knowing the impact that it had on the rest of us, trying to connect and help my brother and help my nieces and nephew again reminds me how lucky I am to have the family I have.
Michele Williams:
Isn't it interesting that if we allow the lessons, even in dark, difficult times, they're glimmers of hope? There are tiny little, sometimes pinprick lights that keep us going and moving forward. You know, sometimes we can be so consumed by the work that we do or the business that we're building that I can, we can easily lose sight of that.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
On a regular basis, I do, Michele.
Michele Williams:
That's why this year I kept asking myself, am I doing or am I living? There were times that I would even find myself in the act of my busyness, thinking, well, when I retire, I will. I finally caught myself. Michele, what if you don't ever get to retirement? Are you going to wait and live some of these things that you want to do? Are you waiting to live? But what you're doing right now is living. That's literally the chatter in my brain. Oh, my gosh, Michele. You're living right now, girl. Step it up. I am looking at the fact that I want to go do a dance class. I think I want to go swing or something. I think it'd be so fun.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
Yeah.
Michele Williams:
I'm just really trying to think about, what does it look like to live? Joel is making some career decisions on what he wants to do and how he wants to do it. So then, of course, that's feeding into our conversations about life and where do we want to settle for the next ten years and what does this look like and that look like? And there's a part of it that's scary, but there's a part of it that's exciting and adventurous. We are not tethered to our children anymore. They're raised. I'll tell you a highlight. Our oldest son got married this year. Super highlight. We love him, and of course we love his wife and oh my gosh, just like they're done, not that we don't still parent, we will always. But college is done, weddings are done, they're out of the house. So, we have a little bit more freedom for a small amount of time until we go back into caring for our parents and other things that we can do some things. That's kind of a sweet time and I don't want to miss it.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
Right. We talked about that last year, and Bill and I talked about it. My sister-in-law had to retire because her health was deteriorating. She's probably one of those people who worked harder than anyone I had ever known. She was a loyal employee. She always worked long hours, and I just kept thinking she couldn't wait to retire and when she did, it was because she had to. And the same thing. My brother was never resentful of what she needed, but at one point he made some reference to his oldest grandson playing ball for the high school that he goes to, and he's pretty good. Not just in my brother's eyes, but he's pretty good. He was going down south for a tournament. My brother said to me, Cindy and I should be hopping in the car, stopping to see our daughter who lives in Virginia, going to see him play in this tournament, and then going to visit a friend who lives in North Carolina. That's what we should be doing. He said, instead, I'm lifting her out of a chair and putting her on a potty and I'm waiting for the nurse's aide to come. He said this was not fair to her. It was the first time I saw his resentment of it, but it was that reminder for me and Bill, but we can do it right now.
Michele Williams:
You know what's been one of the best teachers for me in this?
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
What's that?
Michele Williams:
My sons and their wives.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
Really?
Michele Williams:
Yeah, because they're in their 20s.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
Yeah?
Michele Williams:
They’re young, they've got energy, they've got some money because they don't have children yet, and so they're like off to Hawaii and they're going skiing and they're going to this concert, and we're going to the mountains for the weekend, and we're going to Mexico for a trip. I mean they're just like, not afraid. They're not overspending, and this is over for the years, but they're not afraid that if they want something to save up for it and then go do to live. The other day I was like, hey, what are you guys doing? Oh, we're sitting up at a winery, hanging out, listening to live music. They are enjoying their life, and it's just a good reminder that they're in the same situation we are in right now. You don't have little ones and so they have been really great teachers for Joel and me. The stuff in our house that we have to do is always going to be here. So, at some point, get up and go outside, enjoy yourself, and come back in. All right let's move to some good stuff. So, I'm going to turn the tables back on you. Tell me some of the highlights from your year.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
Okay. So, personally, my older daughter got engaged to a guy that we just love, and we're now planning our first wedding and it is so much fun. She's so organized and she's decisive. She knows what she likes and what she doesn't like.
Michele Williams:
Like a good design client.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
Yes, and it's a good daughter to have in planning a wedding. We've already picked out the venue, we've started dress shopping, and it's next October, so we've still got a lot of time, but it's not a lot of time. As you know, it goes by quickly, but it puts us in a different place in our relationship. We're back to working together on something which we haven't done in a little while. It's been really fun so far. Our younger daughter is going to be her maid of honor. So, it's already been a couple of, it's kind of added to that theme of I wanted to spend more time with the people I love and care about. My younger daughter turned 30 this year, which is still mind-boggling to me, but we went up to the mountains for a weekend and celebrated her birthday and spent it with the six of us, the boyfriend and fiancé, and Bill and I. We had a really wonderful time. We spend time together. They come for dinner; they hang out, but when you spend a whole weekend together, it's a whole different experience. So personally, that's probably been the biggest high. We'll do you personally, and then we'll do work stuff. So, what's been the personal high for you?
Michele Williams:
Yeah, so we have a couple. One is again, my oldest son got married to his high school sweetheart, and so we've known her for probably almost over twelve years now. We love her and her family. You know what I will say very blessed. Both of our, we call them our daughters in love, they are both just amazing women and their families are fantastic. There's just a blessing in having them join with us. Like, we're all even now planning for all of the holiday pieces and parts and when are we going to be with this family and that family, and we're even doing things with the other in-laws on both sides. So that's a huge thing for us. So that's been really nice to see.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
Oh, nice.
Michele Williams:
We had a highlight that I took two weeks of vacation. So that's a business thing, but I know two weeks. It was actually a little bit more than two weeks and Joel, and I went to Alaska. That's somewhere he's always wanted to go that's been on his bucket list since I met the guy when we were 16 and 17 years old, he wanted to go to Alaska. Honestly, after the whole cancer thing last year, I said to him, where do you want to go because I'm going to take you. He said, Alaska and we booked it. So that was fun. We had a really great time.
We went to Vancouver and spent a couple of days there because I'd never been to Vancouver. We just said, if we're going kind of like your brother, we just need to make the plan and do it. We spent a couple of days, and then we cruised for seven, and then we did a land tour for four. So we were, like, 15-16 days. Then we got home, and we renovated part of our house. We had started planning for that in 2020 when we all kind of went haywire. Then all of my design clients in 21 and 22 were like, don't do it, don't do it and I listened to them. Finally, in ‘23, I'm like, it’s going to cost me more, but I cannot live in this kitchen one more day. It was starting to affect my mood. I'm not even kidding you. I walk downstairs and look at my kitchen. I'll walk into my house and look at my kitchen. Now, the sad part is, that I don't cook very much anymore, but my kitchen is amazing. So, I do now want to cook. I want to cook.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
And you had put that on your list a couple of years back of like, how many nights a week do I want to be in my kitchen cooking and enjoying it? Because neither you nor I really vote cook first.
Michele Williams:
But now I will, because it's a space that I'm telling you, if anybody ever questions the need for a designer or the work of a designer, find a space in your home that physically, mentally, and emotionally just brings you down. There were two rooms in my house that I just felt, and they are both being redone right now. I've got to tell you, I cannot wait. Like, I wake up in the morning, and I think I get to walk into that kitchen and make coffee. I'm excited, which seems silly until you feel the difference that being in a space that feels more like you can make you feel. So anyway, those are some of my really big highlights personally.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
Okay.
Michele Williams:
Oh, and I'll give you one more. Okay. My husband is another year out, cancer-free, so I'm going to always take that.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
Yeah, that's a great one.
Michele Williams:
We'll take it. Yeah.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
All right. So, what about work-wise?
Michele Williams:
Metrique is doing really well, and I'm so excited. What I love is when I am talking to business owners who really want to understand their financials. I know that is a phrase that is thrown around all the time, but I mean, those that are like, you know what? I am not going to spend another year wondering, do I have enough money to pay myself? Do I have enough money to hire? Do I have enough money to do ABC and XYZ? Can I buy a building? Do I need to go home? Do I have enough to get retirement? Do I have enough to help pay for insurance? Some of these things are really important things. Can I even just take some money out to go on vacation? Like whatever it is.
It is those people who really want to be super intentional about their money, when I share with them all of the new things that we have in Metrique, I can just watch their faces. And that, to me, is the best feeling ever. We have some new things coming out in Metrique. We have a break-even analysis. We've already got top-down bottom. Yeah. You can figure out what it takes to break even at any point in time in your business, which is amazing. We have profit calculators and margin calculators and just all kinds of things. And just seeing it being used more and more and more as a tool by people who want to know and understand their numbers is amazing. I can't even express to you how that makes me feel, because what it is is it's a tool in their toolbox that my team has created that they are learning to use. They don't need me to do it after they've learned it. So now that means it doesn't matter what their business is. They have the tools to figure out what they need to do and where they need to go at any given time. It's kind of like the dashboard of the car. They've got indicators that they had all along but covered up with a big black sheet. Now they can look at those indicators and make decisions with data. That brings safety to me and that reduces my stress level. I feel stressed when somebody's asking me to make a decision without data.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
Without enough information.
Michele Williams:
Without enough information. I'm supposed to make a decision to hire, to fire, to move left, to move right, to do whatever it is. Yet I'm somehow not getting all the just for the type of person that I am that does not fit with my DNA. So, to be able to have those details, that's a highlight for me.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
Michele, do you feel a shift in the mindset in our industry where people are? I mean, sometimes when I ask the question, what are you not so good at? When I interview people, the answer is still the bookkeeping, the accounting. But I don't feel like they're neglecting it the way it used to be neglected. I think you've done so much to move that needle forward, not just by the pricing without emotion classes, but just the whole structure of your business. But I've noticed recently that people are throwing in phrases that, well, when I check my P&L or cash flow is a problem, I'm like, but you know what that means. You and I both know that wasn't always the case in this industry.
Michele Williams:
Yeah, right. 20 years ago, I started my business in 2000. So, 24 years and I can tell you, it was not the conversation, barely was profit a conversation. It was not on the tip of anybody's tongue. Nobody talked about cash flow. Nobody talked about cash management. None of those. I know part of my story was asking people about it, and them looking at me like, I built a project management software. Project accounting. I knew what project accounting was. I knew we needed to see if we had profit yet. I had people looking at me like I'd grown horns and I thought to myself, people are so snobby about sharing their numbers. Until remember, I said, I realized this because they didn't know their numbers. They didn't even know what they were looking at. Half of them didn't even know the question I was asking them. Didn't know. I think there has been so much more of a conversation just in our day-to-day heck, in TikTok and Instagram and everywhere else, there are enough conversations about it that I think it's getting closer to the front burner than the back burner for many. I still do think there is very much a gap in applying all the resources that could be applied, but I think there is an earlier recognition of those things being needed. I know even at CWC, I taught a class almost like basic accounting principles. What is income? What is a cost of good? What does it look like? And if you were to keep it all, even in an Excel spreadsheet, how do you keep it? How do you then build your own mini-P&L so you can see what we're talking about? And I'm telling you, even people that had been in business were like, okay, now I understand. Now I got so much feedback from a course that just started almost at ground zero, and built up again. So, I see a hunger for it, believe it or not. Less shame wrapped around it and more hunger for if I'm going to get out here and bust my booty every single day doing this stuff, I need to make money, or I'm seeing a lot more of I've stepped out of this role or position. Like, I'm no longer a teacher or a nurse or whatever maybe your first career was, whether it's window treatments or interior design, it's a second career. Whatever their second career is, I'm seeing a lot more, and I need to replace that salary. I need to replace that salary. So, when they start thinking not about, I just need to work and hope I make a profit, but I need to replace a salary. That is a conversation shift right there.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
Okay. I think that what I've seen is it's not as much of a foreign language to people now, and it's not an option to ignore it. I do feel like in the early stages of your changing your business to consulting and coaching, you really had to push back against that.
Michele Williams:
I mean, you and I have talked about that. I actually made an active choice not to market fear. And if you think about it, most of the marketing structure that we're taught is fear-based. Yeah, I might ask, do you feel stressed about something? But I'm not trying to make people feel more stressed. Instead, I'm trying to say, do you feel stressed? Let me empower you. There's a way out. Let me give you confidence. You can feel a different way, as opposed to you're going to keep feeling that you're going to stay that way. I could pound on the pain, which is what they tell you to do, pound the pain, and then we'll show. But that just creates more shame, more guilt, more hiding and I never wanted to do that. I'll tell you one of the highest compliments. There are two compliments that people have given me more than once that I will tell you resonate with me the most. One is you don't care just about our business; you care about us as people. That's one of the highest things for me. Then the second is when people say to me over and over and over, I am showing you everything, but you never make me feel shame. I tell to them when you give me your financials or we're talking about it's like I am showing somebody the underwear drawer of your business. I'm getting ready to find out if you wear thongs or tighty-whities or what's going on. It's like I've got the picture of what's in that drawer and we're just going to look at it, and we're just going to talk about what needs to be replaced and what needs to be kept.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
With no judgment whatsoever.
Michele Williams:
With no judgment whatsoever. Those two things, you never make me feel shame or feel bad when I'm talking about these numbers, you help me find the way out or to understand what it is, and then you care not just about my business, but you care about me as a person. I'm telling you if that is all of it going forward. I'm totally cool with that. That's good for me right there.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
Yeah. I think the conversation that you've kept going, the reaching out to people, that not making them feel shame about what they didn't understand or what they hadn't done or if they had never paid themselves before and just saying, okay, here's where we are now. This is what we're going to do moving forward. I think that concept has just allowed people to get over it and say, all right, I can't keep saying I'm bad at accounting or I'm bad at bookkeeping. I just need to hire someone and do it. I've seen more of that over the last couple of years where newer and younger people coming into the industry are starting out right away. Oh yeah, I have a bookkeeper. Oh yeah, I have an accountant. They're not giving it any thought. I know that for a lot of us, we didn't have the business background, or it was business out of the needs that we had to bring some income in. So why would we pay a bookkeeper when we wanted the money to stay right where our family could use it until there was nothing left of us to give and we couldn't earn any more money because we were working too hard? I love that the mindset has changed, and I love that people are dropping statements like, yeah, cash flow is a big problem for me and that's because I just did this or just did that. Sometimes I have to really pay attention to what they're saying and stop, wow, that's a big change from what I used to hear, and just stay in the moment when people are talking to me.
Michele Williams:
But, yeah, the conversations were more about, well, every design is different, or I just love sewing. Like whatever the I'm going to say the task is for that particular company. They were more worried about crafting the task to the highest level than about running the business that allowed them to keep doing the task. Yes, that's the thing that I have been trying to say; I don't care how beautifully you design; I don't care how beautifully you sew, I don't care how great you are at it. If you're running your business, at the end of the day, your ability to keep doing that is dependent on your ability to run a company that is successful. And I got to tell you, there are plenty of people that you're still going to see out there that are on social media, that their work is beautiful. I mean, it's aesthetically pleasing, and they are falling apart. They're not paying their bills, they're not paying their taxes, they're not paying themselves or they're overpaying themselves and they're robbing Peter to pay Paul. It's still happening and going on. Sometimes those people call me, and they can change it if they want to change it, but sometimes they don't want to change it.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
You know what, Michele? That's funny.
Michele Williams:
That's a hard one. That's a hard one for me it is when I'm looking at things and I'm saying, this is not sustainable. Mike Michalowicz talks about this all the time, that your sustainability in business is based on gross profit, your revenue, that is a vanity metric. That's all that it is. I sold a million dollars this year, made a million. Doesn't mean your company had a million, doesn't mean you profited a million. Means you had the ability to sell a million.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
Right.
Michele Williams:
That's awesome. That's not the whole story nor the whole picture. I see people caught up that they're successful because they can sell like they deem success as selling. They don't deem success as and I paid the government what was due them, and I paid myself, and I saved for retirement, and I made sure my employees were taken care of. They're not going all the way down, like the chain, if you will, of the money. And so kind of having that conversation with people can sometimes lead down a path of maybe we shouldn't work together because our ideas of success are so very different that I can't get behind a company that has great sales but doesn't follow through or doesn't handle the money correctly. Even after being told and learning, they choose not to. That's hard. In other words, for anybody, it's the same thing for design. You can tell somebody that's not going to work in this room. That is not a good color. This is not a good theme, that art doesn't fit. Like, you can tell them and tell them and tell them and tell them, but if they still choose to do all those crazy things, we have to make a decision. Are we going to continue engaging with that?
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
Exactly.
Michele Williams:
Same thing from the window treatment group. Pick any businessperson who is asking your professional opinions, and chooses to do something different, then you're not a good fit. Then you're not a good fit. Yeah.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
And you've always been pretty good, Michele, about recognizing that. I think again, I've seen that shift in our industry, too, where somebody gets onto either Facebook or the Curtains and Soft Furnishings Resource Library, and they're saying know, oh, this designer is asking me to do this, and that's not my normal way to do it. She wants me to leave out the inner lining. The answer generally these days is then she's not your client. You're trying to accommodate her for one job because it's her grandmother or those are all things that we can make some exceptions for. But if every job he or she comes to you with is, oh, can you take this away? Oh, can you do this for less? That is not your client, and you need to take the stress out of your life that they are causing and find someone else.
Michele Williams:
Yeah, I think another high point for me this year is that I've had a much better life balance.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
Oh, good.
Michele Williams:
Even though I've told you I'm exhausted and tired.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
Yeah, right.
Michele Williams:
It's been a better balance between my two companies. They still both take up a lot of my time. I am completely full-time plus, but there's a lot of light at the end of the tunnel for being in a good groove with them. I'm really proud of the work that we've done in Scarlett Thread Consulting and I'm really proud of the work that we've done in Metrique Solutions. Okay, how about you? What are your business highs?
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
Well, my business highs are I've really been running the library successfully and consistently. I put out a newsletter every week, and every single week someone replies to that newsletter that either the quote I included or one of the conversations in the form was really helpful for them. So, I know that what we're doing within the library is helpful. The community within the library has grown tremendously too. The forum is a very active place, and people are asking a lot of questions, helping each other out, sharing pictures, venting to each other, and all of that. When I first took over the library, that was not the case, people were all on Facebook.
Michele Williams: Well, that's the way it used to be.
Ceil DiGuglielmo: Yes.
Michele Williams:
Then the conversation kind of moved to Facebook and now people are honestly, they're getting really sick of a lot of social media because too many other things can come into play. But it's really kind of nice to go back.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
Even, I'll go onto Facebook to check something, and 20 minutes later I go, yeah, I got to get back to work. Oh, I never got that information I went on there for. So, I'm really proud of that and I'm proud of what the people within the library, the community within the library are doing. We finished our first book club, which you helped us out with, and it was Price Your Work with Confidence by Kitty Stein. Like many things, it started out with more people. Everybody can't do everything all the time, and this time of the year is difficult, but there are still people showing up every week for book club, and it's helping that. I go into this where everyone makes sure that everyone understands I don't have all the answers. I'm reading the book with you. I'm just here to provide the platform for us to talk to each other and help each other. I've been really proud of the progress that the women in this group have made in reading the book and we're answering some of the questions together with each other and helping each other out. The library is really becoming more of what it used to be. There's the community part of it, but I've added to the content a great deal of information. A lot of it is coming from the workroom channel. Janelle provides me with some of it, but some of it I've created myself and that feels good to be increasing the value of the membership within the library.
Michele Williams:
That's awesome. I just wrote down that book, I know we're going to talk books because we always do, and I'd not read that one yet. Certainly, know Donald Miller and have read some of Story Brand and some of the other books that he's done, but I've not read that one. So that might be one I read.
Ceil DiGuglielmo: I think you'll enjoy it. I think it's things you already know, but I like his analogies.
Michele Williams:
Yeah.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
You and I have talked about how I don't always absorb things the first time through. There is something about the way he presents his material that sits well with me, and I can grasp it fairly well from him. And that seems to be the case with the people who are reading the book. So, yeah, I'm happy with how that's going.
Michele Williams:
That's awesome. You know what I saw from the outside looking in, I think this was the year that you didn't have your time split as much between multiple things. So maybe did you feel like a high was having more time to actually focus on the library?
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
Yes, I cut back dramatically.
Michele Williams:
Not just the library itself, but your ability to reduce the distraction and to have better focus, perhaps.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
Last year, we talked about two things. One of which I did better than the other. One was to cut way back on the workroom part of my business. I've had far fewer jobs, and I'm finishing up one, and it's probably going to be my last one. There are a couple of designers that I know locally who have small jobs for me, and some of them I can turn into content for the library. So that's part of my process now. Is there something valuable in here I could be recording? I'm much less split between, I say the two areas of my home because my workroom is in my basement and my office is upstairs. It's just too distracting to try to do too many different things and you know that because you're running more than one business. But to be in my workroom and working on a pair of panels and thinking, oh, shoot, that email has to go out. Running upstairs it's just not a good way for me to work. I'm already squirreled and distracted by things. I don't need more of it. So, yeah, drastically fewer window treatments and I'm pretty much at that spot where after I get this job done, I think I probably will be done, unless it's personal stuff or, like I said, one or two small jobs for some of my designers. So, yeah, I'm pretty happy with that.
Michele Williams:
So then what are you seeing as maybe some of your next opportunities or places that you want to take the business in ‘24, what should we be watching for?
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
Yeah, two things. One is the second thing I did not do as well that we talked about last year is I did not block out enough of my Fridays like I said I was going to. Bill has Fridays off in the summer and we take a lot of them off, but I didn't continue to do it as much as I would have liked. I still did it, but not to the same level that I wanted to. I'll continue that as we go into next year. But because I've been able to focus on a few things within the library as it's grown, I feel like I've lost a little bit of contact with some of the members, the direct contact. I have a great email campaign that automatically emails people, and I wrote the emails, but it's not like me going, oh look, so and so just joined, let me email them. It's automatic and it needs to be so that they get the information that they need. But I felt like I didn't quite have the same connection to some of the members. I've worked on that a little bit more this year and I feel like I'm in a better place with that. I feel like it is not my job to know all the answers. It is my job to know where to find them or to help people or to ask in the forum and say, this person is looking for this.
That was a little hard for me in the beginning, maybe a little impostor syndrome, like, I'm not the best workroom in the world, I've done a lot of work, but I haven't done everything. Moving away from that and saying, okay, I may not be the best workroom, but I know all the best workrooms there are, and I know people who have these answers. I've also gotten a lot more contributions from what we call contributing partners, and they are people in the industry who really help answer the questions in the forum and they've been jumping in and helping out with things. To me, that's what the library community is all about working on the digital digest as a source of information for people, but also a funnel to bring people to the library and see what a great collection of information and resources it is. When I first took over the digest from Janelle, her employee Liz Kelly helped me with it, and it took me a couple of publications before I could figure that software program out. Now it's like second nature and it happens very easily for me. It gives me more time to look for content and not spend it on creating the actual magazine. So, yeah, that's all gotten a lot easier, and I now have more time for it because I'm not in my workroom as much.
Michele Williams:
Before we move on and I share mine, I want to talk about something for a minute and that is the idea that you said about really kind of coming to terms with I don't know everything, but I know where to find it. I do think that leads a lot of us to impostor syndrome. I bet you I've had that conversation three times this week already, not counting this. I'm going to give you the $0.02 that I give to my clients when this comes up and it is this. If we only do the things that we already know how to do, we're quickly going to be bored. We're going to think, I'm not learning, I'm not growing. This is ridiculous. Then here's the next question, the first is being settled, but the fact that we should always be learning something, otherwise we're going to be bored out of our minds. It becomes too repetitive. Just write stamp it, stamp it, stamp it, stamp it and move on. Okay. The second thing that I want to suggest to you is I want you to name a company for me that is growing, thriving, and innovating that does not have R & D. I'm going to wait, because not a one.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
You can wait the rest of the day, Michele. There are no answers to that.
Michele Williams:
That's the point. If you step back and think, why does a company even have R & D? Why would you have research and development? Because you don't know the answer. But you know there is an answer out there, and you know, there may be another way or a different way or more efficient way or whatever. So, you're researching to develop a different, better, more successful way. When we are in business and the impostor syndrome kind of rears up, we need to stop and say to ourselves, wait a minute, I was never tasked with knowing everything. I was tasked with having a company that would do research and development to find the answer. Now, what I'm going to do is go into R & D mode. There is nothing wrong with R & D, because every company that is successful has R & D, but for some reason, as small businesses, we think we don't deserve R & D. Then we say we didn't know it, which would have made us bored anyway. We beat ourselves up because we didn't know it, which wouldn't have been the company we wanted. We put ourselves out there saying we can figure out new things. Give us something new. Let me be inspired and then we act like an imposter because we were inspired by something that we'd never done before, realizing these things go together. If we want to be inspired, we want to be challenged and we want to do something new and different. I don't know how to always do it immediately is part of it. We have to make peace with that and recognize that all good companies have research and development.
We then craft time in our schedule to have R & D. My answer has always been something along these lines. Thank you so much for inviting me to look at this project, problem, whatever. I believe there's more than one way that we can solve this. What I would like to do is give some time, attention, and research to which would be the best option for you or for your situation, and then go back and really look it up. Unless you just know, nobody's forcing us on the line to make a decision. This is something that's self-imposed 99% of the time. I just want to put that out to you as a way to look at imposter syndrome. Is it awesome that I'm feeling this? Because what this means is not that I'm an imposter, it means that I now have an opportunity for research and development. It means I'm growing. It means I'm not doing something by rote memory that is going to lead me to boredom. So, therefore, I am thankful for an opportunity that's taking me outside of my comfort zone. I think it's just shifting the conversation in our heads.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
I like that, Michele. I realized that there were pieces as I took over the library and took over the Digest. I didn't feel like an imposter because I didn't know how to use the platform that the Digest lives on. You know, I was learning from Liz, who's young enough to be my daughter. Not once did I think, why don't I know this? How would I know how to do that kind of work when I had been fabricating window treatments? I gave myself plenty of grace on that and just learned. There have been a couple of things where I have worked into my schedule. Okay, I'm going to spend an hour on Wednesday morning learning this or learning that all because more and more of what I'm doing is on the computer now, and it never occurred to me that I should already know those things. I was joking recently, I've never made grommet panels. No one's ever asked me to make them. Susan did a challenge for her podcast last year where something you had started or you pulled a magazine article out, and I said, well, I guess I'm making grommet panels now because I've never made them before. But I didn't feel like an imposter trying to learn to do that, because I had plenty of places to do the research.
Michele Williams:
That's right.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
But I did exactly what you said. I sat down, I went to the library, I searched for grommets and learned how to do it and I didn't think badly of myself because of it.
Michele Williams:
That's the whole point to give ourselves that grace and to recognize. It's like when I learned and recognized that the feeling of fear and the feeling of excitement are the same thing. They're like two sides of the coin. Before I walk up on stage and you get kind of that jittery, I mean, I'm talking about a big stage, and you get that jittery. That's a good thing, that's excitement. I could look at it as fear, but the way that I get out of the fear is I usually put on Hype music. I'll have some Hype music that then makes me dance or do something to kind of get the energy flowing so that I can recognize it as excitement. Instead of like, oh my gosh, I'm going to be sick. It's how we use it in the messaging that we tell ourselves. So anyway, because it came up three times this week, I thought it was worth mentioning and, really thinking about just research and development. Okay, all this is doing is saying we need to do some R & D and I'm okay with that. I know how to do it.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
Yeah. That's crazy.
Michele Williams:
One of the things that I have done recently is make a couple of shifts in Scarlet Thread Consulting to offer some smaller packages. Not just smaller in terms of financials, they are investments, but smaller in terms of get-in-get-out. I'm super excited about them. We're calling them the CFO2Go. What that really means is learning how to be in control of your financials and then, going off on your own and doing it. Like not having to be with me all the time, not that I would not love to be with you all the time.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
It is not what everybody needs it.
Michele Williams:
That's right. But it's the whole proverb of teaching a man to fish and then he can eat for life. Kind of the way that we're looking at it is we have two different versions of that. A smaller version, and then a more in-depth version that says, let me help you understand your financials. I can tell you here's the extra education that you might need. Here are the gaps that you have in your understanding because different people understand different things. Then both tie into Metrique Solutions and we help you get that set up. You get six months of, watching and helping make sure that you're where you need to be so that then you are educated and set up to be able to be in control of your financial future. Those are two- and three-month packages. So, they get in, get out. I'm really proud of those because they’re the things that I love doing. Teaching, coaching, educating, and then giving you a tool to go do it. That's empowering. That's blissful to me. So, I'm really excited about that. We are also still working in Metrique. We're constantly putting out new things. We have some other really fun things coming. We now can load balance sheets. We can now give you quick ratios, working ratios, and break-even analysis as I said earlier. It really is a tool that will help you do your year-end planning and your new-year planning. We're going to be building some other pieces and parts, like bonus structures and all kinds of things that you're just like, I just need a calculator to run all these numbers. We're building those things in for you so that makes me super excited about the potential to shift the way creative companies are able to manage their businesses. That's what we have coming and I'm super pumped about that.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
One of the things that we talked about last year was that my husband is a couple of years older than I am and we're heading towards his retirement a little bit longer, especially now with a wedding to pay for and possibly a second one after that. But this year at the custom workroom conference, Susan Woodcock did her Fred Rogers impersonation and talked about the neighborhood and mentioned that in a couple of years she would like to retire and who's going to take over.
Michele Williams:
Yeah, she rocked my world.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
Yeah, I know she did.
Michele Williams:
She was like five years old, and I was like, oh my gosh.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
She surprised a few people, Michele.
Michele Williams:
You know what it made me think of? Oh, wow, that means my peers are retiring and I didn't really think about it for me, I think about it for other people. I don't think about it for me. I thought, do I really want to do this in five years? If all my best friends that I've been in the business with for 25-30 years if they're all gone, do I still want to do it? I mean, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I hit her up later and told her I needed a warning before you did that.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
I didn't have a warning either, so I was just as surprised as everybody. It is something I have been thinking about. I think I told you last year, that our financial advisor is talking to Bill and asked Bill, when do you want to retire? We were on Zoom, but she looked at me and said, Ceil, when do you want to retire? And I didn't have an answer because I hadn't thought about it. I knew we were talking about it, but I was thinking of it more in terms of what is he going to do with himself because he's already said he needs a part-time job. He can't be hanging around the house all day and we've agreed that's not a good thing.
I've started to think about who would make a good fit to take over the library when I'm done, and do I want to just pass the library off but still keep doing the podcast or the umbrella of my companies, I still love doing the podcast, so I don't really see that ending. If I can get a few things systematized better than they are, I can do this part-time for a while. Five years from now, if all my peers are not in this industry, do I still want to be here? I've interviewed a few new to the industry people recently, and it's been so exciting to see their enthusiasm, their intelligence about their finances, all of that stuff. There is a point in time where I know I'm going to be ready to step aside and let someone else take this over. It will be a very bittersweet moment for sure. I'll be like when I made the decision to stop making window treatments, it felt like a weight had been lifted off of you. I look forward to that, but not quite yet. I've paid attention to who uses the library and thinks it's a valuable tool and are they a good fit? Would they be good to take it over? But I'm not really actively looking for anyone yet, just paying attention.
Michele Williams:
All right, so as we get closer to the end of our time together, I know last year we kind of had the conversation, everybody that's ever listened to my podcast knows I'm normally a very avid reader, last year, I was unable to read. That's right. It rocked my world because I'd never had a time in my life where I couldn't read. I just couldn't. I just couldn't. Anyway, I've been able to pick up some books again this year and start reading, and wanted to see if you have any to share. I've got three that I've got with me to share with you.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
Okay. So, I did better than I did the year before, but it was still a challenge for me to focus.
Michele Williams:
Yeah, same.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
One of the things I talked about was how much reading I would get done while I was recuperating, didn't happen. I was in pain, and that is not a good way to read. We had prearranged for me to have forgiveness if I couldn't read during my recovery. But as the year has gone on, absolutely able to read novels and fiction without any problem. I've read “Unreasonable Hospitality” by Will Godera. I heard about him on Simon Sinek's podcast as a matter of fact, I think Simon Sinek is his publisher, and it was fascinating to me.
Michele Williams:
I think I bought that. I think I have that one upstairs and I haven't read that one yet.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
Yeah, I finally finished reading that. I'm in the process of reading “How to Grow Your Small Business” with Donald Miller. I started “Buy Back Your Time” by Dan Martin. It's very focused on multi-people and businesses.
Michele Williams:
Okay, I bought that one, too. I've not read that one yet, but it's definitely on my to-read list.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
Yeah, I feel like this is not the time for me to read that book, so I gave myself permission to stop. I reread “Getting Things Done” by David Allen because I'm taking a course in Evernote on using the Evernote platform to get things done. So instead of a notebook or anything like that, everything is in Evernote. I have been trying to find the time to do that for three years, and I'm well underway completing it. So I am very happy with myself for that.
Michele Williams:
All right, so here's the first one I read, “Strong Like Water”.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
Oh, I heard about this. I haven't read it
Michele Williams:
By Aundi Kobler. I also read her book, “Try Softer”, which is about finding the freedom, safety, and compassion to move through hard things and experience true flourishing. Which is kind of where I was through the last year, even hard things in business. It says on the back of it, one of the things it says, and I love this, it says, there is a cost to being a certain kind of strong. We've all heard the platitude, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. But the truth is that when we spend our lives trying to be the strong one, we may become exhausted, burned out, and disconnected from our truest God-given selves. What if it were different? And in “Strong Like Water”, they talk about a framework for true flourishing. It was a way to think about the strength of water. We think of water sometimes and not strong until we see it in action, like in a hurricane or something, where we're watching the water damage or things that are rising water or broken levees and things like that. Yeah, it was not a quick, easy read. It's a thoughtful read, but I will say that I found some ability to rest by looking at the same way that you ask people, how do you define success? How do you define strength? And strength doesn't always show up sometimes. Sometimes there's strength in being quiet. Sometimes there's strength in speaking up. And so really digging into that a little bit.
The other book that I got, and I gave to all of my clients this year who came to my event was “The Gap and the Gain” by Dan Sullivan. Cannot recommend this enough. “The Gap and the Gain”, really talking about how when we always kind of compare ourselves or can easily the imposter syndrome comes up because we're comparing ourselves to an ideal, not to what's really happening or to a goal or to something that's more concrete. It's to this ethereal ideal so therefore we never reach this ethereal idea and so there's always this gap. Gap. We're not enough, we're not enough. We're not enough. Versus looking at how far we've come, what we've gained, the difference from where we started, kind of when we said, if we go back and listen to our six podcasts all in a row, we're going to see some growth. Because six years ago I didn't have Metrique and I don't think you have the library, so very different things. Anyway, that was really good. I've not read this yet, but I'm going to throw it out there. It's the one that came out right behind it, “Who not how”. That talks about how you get things done. It's looking at the formula to achieve big goals through teamwork and instead of saying how are we going to get it done, the question is, who's the right person to do that? This is the one I'm getting ready to start reading. But those would be my three business kind of books that I would say have had an impact.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
I'm happy that both of us felt like we could read books this year.
Michele Williams:
I know I'm not back to the stack of twelve.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
No, me either.
Michele Williams:
And guess what? I'm okay with that. Because my brain has been spent. I do read a lot of articles and I think that might be the difference is a lot more information comes in small bite-sized pieces versus full books.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
I've been concerned that maybe my ability to concentrate has been affected by that. What I realized is, and I talked about this year, if I'm trying to learn a new platform or if there's something I'm trying to get information about, I'll go to YouTube, I'll research it and get articles and read it. Sometimes the depth and the intensity of things that you and I are working on, I can't take in more than that. I have to take in an article, process it, and say, okay, well, that's not going to work for me. I mean, even one of the things I was struggling with this year was trying to find a new platform for the Digest because people were telling me they couldn't look at it on a mobile device and it had worked perfectly for years on a mobile device, and they were purchased by a new company just trying to find a new magazine platform. I stopped because I couldn't find anything that was actually better then and now it's working again on mobile devices. I don't know why. It's always something.
Michele Williams:
I think that's what it feels like. It's not that I'm not reading it's that the amount of energy spent online or looking at things or trying to take in information I had hit kind of the max of what I felt like I could take in. I would rather go sit and watch “Schitt's Creek” on Netflix and not take anything in but laughter and that's just where we were.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
I also think that I did read more novels this year than I had the year before, and I think part of it was the same and none of them are pithy, well-written books. I gave myself permission to stop many of them because I just was not enjoying them and I did feel like I was wasting time, but I did allow myself to watch a few series of shows that just allowed me to sit and laugh.
Michele Williams:
Yeah. Escapism. It's a beautiful thing.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
It's okay. It really is.
Michele Williams:
Yeah.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
I don't spend my whole life doing it just once in a while.
Michele Williams:
No. Sometimes Joel and I will be like at the end of the day, and we'll just be exhausted, and we'll just turn on, like, Andy Griffith or something. It's just funny, who cares?
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
And takes no brain power whatsoever.
Michele Williams:
No brain power. Just laughter. No brain power. It's a good thing. Well, Ceil, as always, it's a pleasure catching up with you and kind of understanding how your business is growing, and how you think through it. One last thing I want to ask you is, what would you say you're most proud of from this year?
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
I think it's continuing to grow, and growing a community within the library that knows that it's not about me. It is about what people need from each other and how they can help each other. I'm really pretty good at connecting people. When I see somebody has a question and I know it's somebody who doesn't maybe check the library often, I'll send them an email, hey, there's a question there I think you can help out with. Because I don't need to have all the answers, but seeing people connect with one another because of what's going on in the library, I'm very proud of that. It's one of those things where I am sitting here all by myself and going, oh, look at that they're helping each other, like a proud mom. How about you, Michele?
Michele Williams:
Yeah, I think for me, the thing that I'm most proud of, honestly, is very similar in seeing the people that I either coach or work within Metrique and seeing their pride, feeling like they've got another puzzle piece to truly make good decisions in their business with some level of confidence. Their confidence has been raised in that decision making and that makes me feel amazing to have some small part in making sure that they understand what they're building. They're protecting what they're building and they're thinking ahead about what they're building. You can't hardly put a number on that to me.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
I agree and, Michele, I think you should be exceptionally proud of the number of your clients who have grown and scaled their businesses in a way that they're proud of because we've all talked about, how we're in an industry where these businesses can be whatever we want them to be. Back to the comparison. Not to be looking at them and saying, oh, look what she did, but for them to look at how they started and where they are now. A lot of them, I know you would never take the credit because they're the ones who've done the work, but they've done it with your encouragement and coaching, and I've loved watching that. I see another person who's coached with you either hiring someone or moving out of their home into a retail location, or they've built a workroom separate from their home and I think that's something you should be exceptionally proud of.
Michele Williams:
I know we all say we have the best clients, but I really have the best clients. I really do.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
You do.
Michele Williams:
I do not take the community of women and men that I serve lightly. It means everything to me. I think at the end of the day, it's just such a bonus and a sweetness to keep doing it. That's why I think that whole retirement conversation hit me because I can't imagine in some way not giving what I have. I cannot imagine it. I mean, the day will come. I know it will come, but it feels so far off that I can't even imagine a day where I don't wake up and think, what else can I give them? That's how I wake up after I say, look at my beautiful kitchen, I think, what else can I give today? And I know that's not always normal, but it's how I think.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
Who am I serving? Well, I think we both have a lot to be proud of, for sure, this year. I look forward to this every year, Michele. So, thank you again for taking the time with me today. It's such a pleasure for me to get ready for it, and then the conversation just always shines. Thank you.
Michele Williams:
Oh, you're so welcome. It's a good time to stop and reflect and to think and what worked and what didn't work and how could I do it differently. Then also to create excitement for what's ahead and for all those listening to us, either my podcast, your podcast, or both of them, which I know many do find you somebody that you can decompress with or that you can review your year and have an honest conversation with. I mean, we don't limit this conversation to just business, because when you find that real person, your life bleeds into each other. Being able to share both, I think, is just critical in making sure that you feel really expressed and heard. I just want to encourage people to do that.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
It helps with the balance that you and I have been talking about. Like, am I living or am I running my business? It can be sometimes really helpful to have somebody remind you like, girl? You said you were blocking off Fridays. Have you done that?
Michele Williams:
Well, you know, I'm now going to put mine on there. I'm going to say call Ceil and see if she blocked off.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
I know you are.
Michele Williams:
I did block off most of my Fridays. Sometimes they got sucked up, but I still tried.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
I did okay, sometimes it was half a day on Friday, but I'm going to be more conscious of it because not only do I now have you and everybody who listens, but my older daughter found out that I talked about that. So every once in a while, on a Friday, like, I hope you're not working. Sometimes I am. Sometimes I'm not.
Michele Williams:
Well, Ceil, thank you so much and I wish you a super happy and wonderful ‘24.
Ceil DiGuglielmo:
Thank you. Same to you, Michele.
Michele Williams:
Thanks so much. Ceil, I love every year being able to have this conversation and I do hope that those of you who listened in found pieces and parts that maybe you could relate to, even if nothing else, the ability to sit with what happened in the last year and to be able to look at it. I also want to encourage you that if you want to take control of your financials as we talked about on the podcast today, go check it out on my website. Go to scarletthreadconsulting.com/CFO and you'll have access to our CFO program to see if maybe it would work for you. Now is also a really awesome time to check out Metrique Solutions at MetriqueSolutions.com to see if looking at your financials and doing that plan for next year can put you in a better place of just understanding your numbers and using them to make decisions. We would love to help you on that journey of true financial ownership and understanding so let us know how we can serve you best. Remember, profit isn't an accident, it happens by choice. Profit is a Choice is proud to be part of thedesignnetwork.org where you can discover more design media reaching creative listeners. Thanks for listening and stay creative and business-minded.