#awinewith Jordan Hartley
MEET Jordan, Founder of Hartley Health.
You can find them here:
Transcript
Danielle Lewis (00:07):
Jordan, welcome to Spark tv. I'm so excited to have you here.
Jordan Hartley (00:11):
Thank you for having me.
Danielle Lewis (00:13):
So good. Let's start out by telling everybody who you are and what you do.
Jordan Hartley (00:18):
Cool. So I'm Jordan. I own Hartley Health Meal Prep company, which is a holistic meal prep company that we do 90% Whole Foods gas additive and preservative free. And we're really passionate about just sustainability and providing really holistic health meals to people at this current period in time.
Danielle Lewis (00:41):
I love that. We were just saying, and I was just expressing how some days being a woman in business, I struggle to feed myself and my husband. So this is amazing. I'm very into this, especially being healthy because I feel like the quick stuff is often the crap stuff.
Jordan Hartley (01:01):
It's
Danielle Lewis (01:02):
Easy to grab a two minute noodles over something healthy. How did this start? How did you get into it?
Jordan Hartley (01:10):
So my background is in chefing. I've been a chef like 15 years or something like that, and fine dining all the way, just was like, I'm going to be a famous fine dining chef, everyone's going to know me. But as life happens, I hurt my back when I was about two, two, so did the whole London thing, did all the Michelin Star restaurants, was like, this is my dream and then hurt my back and was like, oh, okay, no crap.
Danielle Lewis (01:41):
New dream. Need a new dream. What
Jordan Hartley (01:43):
Happens now? So when I hurt my back, I just was like, I still want to be a chef. But then I also kind of moved away from working in kitchens as much just because it was really hard to do the chefing hours that are required, which is minimum 60 hours a week. And I got into health and fitness and then I was suddenly like, okay, health and fitness, my mental health is getting better. I understand food is fuel. And I just started piecing the pictures together of I guess what health meant to me and what wellness meant to me. And then I went to a health food cafe and it wasn't a health food cafe. They were like using canola oil and stuff like that. And I was like, this isn't right. Being my 22-year-old self, I was like, can you give me the direction of your business please?
Danielle Lewis (02:37):
I love it. I love it.
Jordan Hartley (02:39):
They were like, bye, see you,
Danielle Lewis (02:41):
Please leave our premises.
Jordan Hartley (02:45):
So that's where I was like, oh, there's a gap in the market for personalized meal prep. So we don't have the normal meal prep company. Ours is very personalized where we create and tailor meals, a lot of dietary. So that's sort of what came about where I was like, oh, I can make this a whole business and I want to be in people's houses. And then I just one day quit and sold all my belongings and said, I'm just going to start this.
Danielle Lewis (03:11):
Oh my god, I am so impressed. I love that so much. Okay, so talk me through it. Do you actually physically go into people's houses or can you buy online? Talk me through the actual logistics.
Jordan Hartley (03:25):
Yeah, so you can buy online. We have a couple of different packages available and with two of the packages you would require a consult with us. So you can buy your standard package of low calie or balanced and that's where we just cook for you. But we have a real, I guess, fantastic relationship with practitioners. So if you are someone that has dietary needs or you, there's a lot elimination diets happening at the moment. There's a lot of gluten-free and dairy free and people wanting specifically calories and macros, their meals cooked to that. So rather than you trying to fit our meals into your day, we fit the meals into your food instead. So you do with us. Yeah, you do that. You do a consult. We've got a pretty down pat now where you don't necessarily have to talk to us, you can put your dietaries and everything in and then we create meal plans. So it's pretty unique in the sense that we range from a average price point to a very high price point depending on what your needs are. And then we cater to a lot of, I guess, specialty clients. That's where our main sort of jam is.
Danielle Lewis (04:37):
That's so cool. And what about taste? I have this thing at the moment where I'm like, I have to find meals that I actually enjoy eating that are good for me. Don don't want to sit down and eat carrot sticks even though I know that they're really good for me. So I'm obsessed at the moment with finding meals that I love that are super healthy. Can you be fussy?
Jordan Hartley (05:00):
Yeah. So we have exclusion lists where if you're someone that has particular needs and you can't have coriander, of course you can set. Yeah. So we do that. And then in regards to taste, our big thing is creating those gas holistic meals. So
Danielle Lewis (05:21):
What does that mean? What's gas free?
Jordan Hartley (05:22):
Oh, I'm just going to blow your mind.
Danielle Lewis (05:24):
Oh my god, do it. Do it. You said it before and I was like, I've got to circle back and ask you what that means.
Jordan Hartley (05:30):
So basically all food that you buy from a supermarket that's in that plastic packaging, even if it was another meal prep company with those plastic film lids or eggs from coals with those lids, there's two gas mix. So in the CO2 gas mix, there's a mix of six different mixtures to extend the shelf life. So it can last for two plus weeks. Oh no. It's really like when you find that out it's like what are you eating? What am
Danielle Lewis (05:59):
I eating? Yeah. Holy crap. That's gross.
Jordan Hartley (06:03):
Yeah, I mean don't get me wrong. I would eat Maccas for sure and I would drink a wine no problem. But if you are consistently buying day in, day out meal prep, that's scary. If you don't know that that's happening,
Danielle Lewis (06:20):
And I guess it's like balance, right? I mean if you are 80% of the time looking after yourself really conscious of all of those things, then maybe the Maccas or the wine doesn't matter so much. It's kind of when the wine and the Maccas is every day that it's a problem.
Jordan Hartley (06:34):
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So in regards to taste, I think this is quite biased because my company, but I think ours tastes amazingly fresh and unique compared to the other companies because we deliver twice a week and that menu is always fresh where it's not in those extra sealed packages.
Danielle Lewis (06:56):
Wow. So does that mean that this is super local? Where do you deliver to?
Jordan Hartley (07:01):
We do all of Sydney and also Newcastle as well.
Danielle Lewis (07:04):
Wow, awesome. Okay, so I need to move for Sydney. This is good.
Jordan Hartley (07:10):
I would've sent you some if you were close by. Yeah,
Danielle Lewis (07:13):
No, I'm over the other side of the country. Damnit, I'll have to fly you over here to cook for me and sort me out. Oh, that is so amazing. So how was the process for you setting up the business? So obviously you were used to working for other people in the chef kind of environments. How did you go from stuff it, I'm going to sell all my belongings and start this. What was that process
Jordan Hartley (07:42):
Kind of freeing? If I can remember correctly from the age of I'm nearly 30, so this was sort 22, 23, I started it. I kind of just was like, fuck it. When I was that age, you don't really have any responsibility. I lived in a share house and
Danielle Lewis (08:00):
A time to do it, isn't it
Jordan Hartley (08:02):
In a share house? I was very wild. So I was sort of like whatever. And I also, being a chef, I dunno if you've had any experiences with chefs or anything like that, but they're
Danielle Lewis (08:14):
Usually crazy. That's what I know.
Jordan Hartley (08:19):
Yeah, we can be pretty crazy, but we also don't really being told what to do. So generally the drive for working for yourself as a chef in many ways is really positive because you will make it work and make it happen. There's also a lot of negative things to that.
Danielle Lewis (08:36):
Well, I guess that's why there are a lot of restaurants that are chef owned. I guess that's the, if you think about, obviously the food at a restaurant has to be amazing and if it's like that person is leading the charge, it goes to show that it would be a good place.
Jordan Hartley (08:54):
Yeah, we definitely are unique in many ways with our work. I think I've got a lot of friends that are chefs and they're in similar industries or do similar things to me and we all kind of sometimes struggle to understand why people don't work as hard as us, but I think it's like a chef mentality that we have.
Danielle Lewis (09:14):
I was literally just thinking what a breed of people to be amazing business owners because you are so right, the hours you have to do chefing and usually when you first started talking and you're like, the dream was to be everyone knows me, Michelin, it's like the drive that you need for that is when you think about business owners, we often label them crazy and delusional because we have this focus, this I'm going to work every hour of the day to make my dream a reality. So the crossover is super interesting.
Jordan Hartley (09:51):
I was having a conversation with a friend about it and it's sometimes hard for people to get and we sometimes have to reign ourselves back because I mean in an ideal world you are sipping cocktails on the beach, but when you are in it
Danielle Lewis (10:05):
A leader, when that happens
Jordan Hartley (10:08):
As a chef, it can be challenging in many ways. That would be, I wouldn't want to paint a picture for people to say, oh, business is all easy breezy. But definitely with the chefing hat on the side, it can be a bit full on sometimes for us.
Danielle Lewis (10:24):
Yeah, totally. Oh, it's kind of cool that you already had that experience before starting a business.
Jordan Hartley (10:33):
Yeah, I'm so glad a chef, two chefs called in sick today, so I had to cook. So if I didn't know how to cook, that would be a problem, right?
Danielle Lewis (10:42):
Yeah, totally. And I think some people start a business thinking that it's going to be freedom and they go from a nine to five job and they think if I start a business, I get to work my own hours, I get to do this, I get to do that. And they don't really realize all of the things when people work football and say you have to do it. All those little things where coming from a chef background, you are already used to working long hours being under pressure. You kind of have a really nice foundation for going into business.
Jordan Hartley (11:15):
Yes, we do. I'm trying to personally move away from that foundation and be like, let's get into it and not work so crazy. But it is,
Danielle Lewis (11:25):
I know, and hopefully there are seasons, right where yes, sometimes it's a little bit hectic, but other times you're like, okay, now I can be strategic and look off here and think about longterm business goals.
Jordan Hartley (11:36):
Absolutely.
Danielle Lewis (11:38):
So good. So that's really interesting point you just made around staffing. What's that been staffing up the business? How have you found finding people, retaining people, any secret weapons?
Jordan Hartley (11:53):
I have a secret weapon, her name is Rachel. She's amazing. Staffing has been hard. Transparently, we've run at extremely high staffing cost. Year one because I've had a baby, and two because it's really hard to find good staff. And as your business grows, I think we're up to 10 staff now as it grows the amount of training that you have to put in for yourself and for policies and procedures so
(12:24):
You don't just get to hire an extra two staff and then not have new policies and procedures written. So that's been probably my biggest push and struggle is there's no, you need high cash flow to be able to employ more staff, but then you also need someone in operations writing new policies and procedures, which is probably just an upskill and another level that I've had to reach and really be pushed to in the past two years, which I guess you don't really know when you start business and you suddenly start hiring people you think like, oh, I just hire people and it grows, but actually it comes with a whole lot more problems.
Danielle Lewis (13:02):
Totally. And isn't that funny? Oh my god, that's so true. I always think about that and people always say, if I just hit this revenue goal or if I just hit this, then everything will be good. And I'm like, nah, the problems just get harder. The more people you have, the more money you make. Everything just levels up even
Jordan Hartley (13:18):
Probably. Yeah, you get more holes in your bucket the bigger you get or the more you scale. Yeah, it's unlikely that you're going to be making more money and you're going to have a lot of holes.
Danielle Lewis (13:32):
Totally. Even thinking about profit margin and like you said, you've got to have the cashflow to bring on the people, but then you bring on the people, you've got to bring on more people to deliver more. It's just this ratcheting up sometimes and you look at it and you're like, hang on a second. What am I doing with my life? I'm just working to feed people.
Jordan Hartley (13:54):
It can get like that sometimes.
Danielle Lewis (13:56):
So what do you love? What's your favorite part of the business?
Jordan Hartley (14:01):
I love being able to provide this type of food for people. The feedback. I know sometimes when you look on people's Google reviews, you might be like, oh, why do they have five stars? No one's being honest. But just if you look at our Google reviews just as an example, it's like we literally are changing people's lives in relationship to food. Not because you're making, yes, it's meal prep, it's food in a container and you likely are putting in the microwave. But there's just a lot of people that have a lot of issues with certain types of food.
(14:38):
A lot of people have a lot of weight loss or gut health issues that they are trying so hard to achieve and then they come to us and just because our meals are so clean and they are free from all the nasties, you can say people have such a really beautiful experience and I love that I can show people that there's a different way to eat and I also, as much as I wouldn't say right now going through it, but I do love the management of the whole process of the hustle of bringing it together. I really thrive on that as well.
Danielle Lewis (15:14):
Yeah, there's something kind of magical about all of the moving parts and being able to make it work.
Jordan Hartley (15:23):
If you ask me at 2:00 AM I would probably be like, no, not that I'm actually sometimes I work at 2:00 AM with a baby now, but when it comes together it's really cool to have seen just myself personally, professionally now you don't know how to do totally
Danielle Lewis (15:42):
Level up problem solve.
Jordan Hartley (15:43):
Yeah, I didn't know how to do that before, so that's really, that's another favorite part for me.
Danielle Lewis (15:48):
That's so cool. And you just mentioned new baby, so what challenges have being a new mom brought to business?
Jordan Hartley (15:58):
So many. I feel like I'm naive. I feel like I need to start a business for women to teach a lot to do for this. So I'm a solo parent as well. So it's been really challenging in that regard. I thought, I don't know, I just thought it would work itself out, but I swiftly realized it doesn't just, it's a whole human, I dunno if that's quite naive, but I wasn't really around many people with babies in business before, so I never saw what that looked like. So the first couple of months were fine, they just sleep all the time. But we grew by 30% when I had a baby.
Danielle Lewis (16:42):
Whoa.
Jordan Hartley (16:45):
So that was really hectic. I had a baby in July and then by November we did our biggest month we've ever done. That was really challenging. I actually didn't expect to grow that much. We not being that involved in the business, I wasn't really doing as much work and we grew and that was really, really challenging. I've had some amazing people around me that have really helped me lean on them, but I fully, and I don't recommend this to moms, but she would sleep and I would have to work. Yeah, not, it's not really a sad thing or anything, but that's where we were at because we were just growing even more. So yeah, she'd sleep and I'd work basically.
Danielle Lewis (17:30):
Oh my god, that's hectic.
Jordan Hartley (17:32):
Yeah.
Danielle Lewis (17:34):
How is it? So I think six months ago. Yeah. So how are you feeling? What phase are you in now? Are you getting any breast for yourself or do you feel like you're coming out the other side or is this like No, I'm still pushing through.
Jordan Hartley (17:47):
I'm still pushing through to honest. It's quite where we shut today was our last day of cooking for the year. So we shut now until the second of Jan, so that's a bit chill. Our industry is really slow in December, which good and bad, everyone wants cashflow, but also everyone wants a holiday, so it'll be fine as we quiet down. But getting into the groove of it, trying to work it all out, be a mom and a business owner and all of the above,
Danielle Lewis (18:23):
It's just full on, isn't it? I feel like they're just two massive full-time jobs. Being a business owner is multiple full-time jobs. Being a mom is a full-time job. It's just funny how you just make it work. Even though if you looked at it objectively, you'd be like, that is insane. There is not enough time in the day. But as a mom, moms just impress me so much. They just do it. They just make it happen.
Jordan Hartley (18:55):
Yeah, it's definitely not something I'm shouting from the rooftops to other moms and I think this western society in this day and age we're really, women should go back to work and it's kind of frowned upon when women aren't getting back into it and they feel quite a little guilt shame for not just taking a break with their baby through you, which they definitely should. So I'm quite the opposite of it now. I think I can create one day some really epic impact to help women in business step away and have that time for themselves because yeah, it's an interesting too to know,
Danielle Lewis (19:40):
And I think you are right. I don't know if there's ever a right answer. I feel like moms get it, if they do take the break, they're not looking after the career. If they go back to the career, they're not taking the break and looking after the child. I think there you never feel like you're doing the right thing.
Jordan Hartley (19:58):
Yeah, definitely. I am very much in a different world where I'm like, no, I should take two years off and be with my baby. But sometimes it just doesn't work like that.
Danielle Lewis (20:12):
Yeah. What advice would you give new moms who are trying to run their businesses still
Jordan Hartley (20:21):
Outsource, get a va actually, if you thought, even if you have admin staff that you have lots of admin staff, but even if you have admin staff, get yourself a personal VA and break down to the do sort of list tasks that you are doing in your everyday that you might think are quite minor. And this is, and I say this on a really minor scale. I know when you have admin, someone's answering your emails and stuff already, but just little bits and pieces that you don't realize whether it's connecting two staff members together or whether it's connecting an email chain together or you needing suppliers to talk to this one and this one. Get a VA to do that. It took me maybe four months in, I tasked everything I was doing down and I wasn't doing my own personal stuff. I was always hitting my tasks and my goals for my admin.
(21:19):
And then I'm like, okay, getting these giant lists of, wow, I've written five campaigns and I've executed X, Y, Z, and then I'd look at my personal life and I'd ticked nothing off and that's how my brain works. I need to do some dot points and then I'm like, cool, that's all done. I quickly realized after looking at this list, it was like task out to a va, even if it's those minor ones that, and then just prepare ahead of time more than you think. I gave myself a really long, substantial amount of time that I thought that I was prepared enough for, but double it sounds really, people would say, what do you mean? A year is long enough to organize my business and do that? But I had that or nine months, sorry. And yeah, it wasn't enough at all. And so give yourself double time.
Danielle Lewis (22:15):
Wow. Yeah, I love that so much. I mean that VA tip, it is so good. I think oftentimes we feel a bit guilty, like you go, oh, it's such a tiny little task, I can do that, I can do that. But when there's a hundred of them, it's like all I did today was tiny tasks.
Jordan Hartley (22:34):
If you're repeating the tiny tasks multiple times a day or a week, because generally they are really simple ones that you're doing actually, it's a pretty massive chunk of your time that's getting wasted going to that, and you're likely to be able to outsource and for a decent price per hour you would be able to do that for you.
Danielle Lewis (22:54):
Yeah, exactly. And I mean it's actually full circle meal prep, get some help with food. What are all of those? I was even just thinking, I know we're talking kind of businessy admin tasks, but I was also thinking it stresses me out at the end of the day going, oh shit, I've got no food to, and my husband works very long hours. Not that I don't, but I like to have dinner ready or whatever, or at least food in the house so we can kind of deal with it together. And it's stressful at the end of the day after having a busy day going, holy shit, I've got no food. And I'm like even just little things like that. What are all of the things that stress you out that somebody else can take care of?
Jordan Hartley (23:41):
If I didn't have my family helping me, someone comes and does my washing, someone does my cleaning, my nan and my mom are really incredible like that. So I mean, I don't want tell someone to go and get a cleaner or get someone to be doing their washing because maybe you can't afford that when you're in your own business. But there are lots of things that you possibly could task out, which just for me, even though I own a meal prep company, I still cook a lot of my own food. It's just being organized for those small things. Otherwise you kind of are sometimes picking in those free hours. As a business owner, what would be the best option? Should I meditate? Should I reply to staff? Should I eat? You don't really get to, depending if the person has a partner at home or their partner might be at work. So really you'd be working by yourself every day anyway with the baby. So yeah, there's just a few things like that which are really helpful.
Danielle Lewis (24:40):
Yeah, I love that so much. I think it's just so important. I do feel, again, we do feel guilty sometimes for outsourcing things, but it's the thing that sets us free. I always say to people, if you're building a business, you can't do everything yourself because that means you have a job. And don't get me wrong at the start, you do have to hustle. You do have to do everything. You've got to figure it out. But there does come a point in time where if you can't free up your time to do high value things, then your business isn't going to grow, it's not going to scale. So we've got to let go of that guilt and let go of all the shitty little tasks that we're not really adding any value to.
Jordan Hartley (25:22):
Yeah, absolutely.
Danielle Lewis (25:24):
So good. I love it. What about challenges? What do you think has been the biggest challenges for you in business over the past years?
Jordan Hartley (25:37):
Probably people management is really challenging. I'm really nice.
(25:48):
I don't mean ever nasty, but I'm very much a, let's try it this way, let's try it that way. Let's try it this way. So really just knowing my internal boundaries, which I'm still working on daily of like, okay, enough's enough. They don't need to learn how to train for the 10th time a different way. It's just not working. And I don't mean you don't need to be nasty to them, but it is just like, Hey, this is not for us anymore. My own boundaries. There have been a real struggle with really just trying to make, I'm an empath, so it's like making sure everyone's happy. So that's been really challenging. And then that was most businesses in Covid. But
Danielle Lewis (26:33):
Yeah,
Jordan Hartley (26:34):
We started off when I was 22. I think I made 200 K in my first year as a 22-year-old and was like, what the fuck? This is crazy. This is the
Danielle Lewis (26:45):
Best.
Jordan Hartley (26:46):
Which is cool. 22, no idea what you're doing. Then the proceeding years, so that was 2018, then we had 2019 smashed. It grew by another 40% or something like that, and I billing all this money growing and everything and then Covid came and we lost 70% in a day. So that has been a challenge and we now are turned profitable again and we are now back on top and we've now done our biggest months and everything yet, but it's taken from 2021, taken two years essentially starting from scratch. Zoe, I rebranded everything in a way and forgetting that I did, I didn't forget that I had a successful business from the day it launched, but I did feel as though I had to restart again from the end of Covid.
Danielle Lewis (27:45):
So I'm super interested in this because I feel like that happened to us as well. And I feel like I went through this phase of I have been working in this fucking business for so many years and I'm starting from scratch
Jordan Hartley (28:01):
This. Oh, I cried so many was
Danielle Lewis (28:03):
Destroying.
Jordan Hartley (28:04):
Yeah. Oh, I have cried days on days and days about it where I'm just like, because your business is not a failure, it's just that you haven't had to adjust to a new economy and we've come out of it. It's such, everything's tripled in price. So you've then had to create your business and then be even more strategic about it. And I'd never spent a single dollar on marketing before Covid. We were all word of class and we were doing X amount of money and now suddenly we spend all this money on marketing. And because you have to, I don't know, since Covid, you have to do business a bit differently, a little bit.
Danielle Lewis (28:45):
I think so too, and I think it is weird. So Scrunch, which is my main business, it's an influencer platform, digital marketing agency vibe, and it used to be all face-to-face meetings. I was on a plane twice a week, so I was in Brisbane at the time and it was very much, you have to be in Sydney and Melbourne. So I had to be down there face-to-face meeting people. Then the world shut down. We do everything via Zoom, but then it's like to get in front of those people, I now have to advertise for them to find me and then to do something on Zoom. So the whole dynamic of sales and marketing has changed so much in the last few years.
Jordan Hartley (29:28):
Yeah, it's completely new and I'm still trying to wrap my head around it and I'm trying to work out if it's a shadow of mine, but all these new marketing people and everything that are now online and Instagram, and sometimes I feel like businesses that have sort of built themselves from the ground up are maybe struggling all these new popup ones on Instagram. Yeah, I
Danielle Lewis (29:54):
Know. And it's really interesting because I mean I've even ex-employees start their own agency in the same vein and then people fresh out of uni starting their own thing and I'm like, wow, literally today anybody can just start a business tomorrow around in competition to you. Doesn't matter what industry you're in. And then yeah, you're right. Show up on Instagram and say, Hey, this is what we're doing. Buy from us. It's full on.
Jordan Hartley (30:25):
Yeah, well, it's fully changed and I think that's what a main thing. I've been wrapping my head around with a challenge. You get a lot of head noise where you're like, okay, should I be doing that? Or sometimes I'm like, should I dance on a reel on TikTok? No
Danielle Lewis (30:41):
A Beto. Beto.
Jordan Hartley (30:44):
That's the struggles that has come after I feel where you'll question or doubt yourself and be like, is that what I need to do to tell me? So that's been a challenge for me with readjusting out of Covid and turning profitable again, but with less sleep than ever before, which is not what people, that's not the goal in life. So that's a pretty big challenge I'm facing right now is it's not really sustainable to hustle. But my mentor who also had a meal prep company, she said it took her 10 years. So I'm like, okay,
Danielle Lewis (31:23):
Got to keep going. Got to hit that 10 year mark,
Jordan Hartley (31:26):
Three more to go.
Danielle Lewis (31:29):
Oh my God. That's crazy. But it's so true, and I think back to the point about watching other people on Instagram, sometimes there is this narrative that it's like, you can be a millionaire tomorrow if you just dance on reels. And it's like, no, it does take years. It is years of trial and testing and optimizing and figuring out what works. It is not overnight.
Jordan Hartley (31:55):
Well, that's what I have to remind myself a lot is not to do the comparison thing. Not to be like, okay, my business is not the same as someone else on Instagram that's doing 10 K months or something like that. It's like we pay wages, we pay staff, we are getting tax bills sent to us, left, right and center. I have to do the, and no one's
Danielle Lewis (32:18):
Talking about that on Instagram, are they?
Jordan Hartley (32:21):
So I have to do that self-checking reminder of yeah, that's great that you can sell something on Instagram, but you are in the longevity of business growth that you're trying to
Danielle Lewis (32:37):
Yeah, it is full on. We need to start an Instagram account about all the shit things about Mrs. That no one talks about. But it is funny, even that 10 K months, it's like, when did that exist before this idea of 10 K months, a hundred K years million, these random milestones that there's people latch onto, I can show you how to get there. I've got the blueprint to show you how to do 10 K months. It just blows my mind. In the last couple of years I've just seen that from so many people on Instagram. It's wild.
Jordan Hartley (33:12):
Yeah, I guess it's just a new business model that a new way to do business that people follow on. Clearly
Danielle Lewis (33:20):
It's working, obviously it's working for people.
Jordan Hartley (33:23):
Yeah, it is.
Danielle Lewis (33:25):
I love it so much. So what's next for you? In 2024?
Jordan Hartley (33:31):
We're starting? No, so for business, we're in the process of starting capital raising, I think.
Danielle Lewis (33:41):
Cool.
Jordan Hartley (33:42):
I say I think because I think need to think on it more. But yeah, that's the road we're about to go down. We've consecutively created profitable months where we're able to show investors that this is a really viable product and looking into that world. So I've just sort of been getting myself into all things investment and
Danielle Lewis (34:09):
Black hole. Yes.
Jordan Hartley (34:12):
Yeah. So that's next for us. I believe. I'm sort of just in the process of working all that out and how I want to go about it. And then the other big goal is connect directly to farmers.
Danielle Lewis (34:26):
Oh wow.
Jordan Hartley (34:27):
Yeah. I would love to be able to be part of a zero waste movement where we are actually getting food direct from farmers to our kitchen where we're cooking for, so we are just making less of a footprint. That would be incredible. So that's sort of my next to do as well.
Danielle Lewis (34:47):
Oh my God, amazing. It sounds like it's going to be another big successful year.
Jordan Hartley (34:52):
We hope
Danielle Lewis (34:54):
So. Good. Okay, so let's wrap on one last question that I love to leave our Spark community with. So reflecting on your time in business, what would be one piece of advice that you would give to another woman in business to support her on her journey?
Jordan Hartley (35:14):
I have 10 things. That's
Danielle Lewis (35:16):
All. That's all right. You can give as many as you like.
Jordan Hartley (35:20):
You said, I'm a massive fan of outsourcing. That was probably one of my strong points when I started business is outsource as much as you can and don't feed into the fear of you can't afford it or it's not possible because you can literally put something on Upwork and get someone to help you for $8 an hour. And I'm not saying that's always the best way to go. You should definitely look to employ people as well, but if you are someone that doesn't really have any money, there are platforms out there that you can use to outsource or connect with other practitioners in your industry. That was a really profound way that we were able to grow was we said that we were nutrition certified and approved, but we outsourced and then contracted, and then we billed them. So then that way we were able to That's very good.
(36:18):
So rather than trying to do it all yourself, someone else can help you and some other woman is likely, and these were all women I worked with, they can make money as well, and you are both making money off the product that you are selling. So that's a really valuable, I guess part that I did for my business that I would advise any other woman to do is outsource as much as you can and then task yourself in time blocks as well. It's really boring. I feel like people want this really profound business advice and I'm like, you really need to task yourself everything you're doing and time, track and timestamp, everything.
Danielle Lewis (36:59):
It's so funny though because the boring stuff is the stuff that works. I agree. I remember when I first started out in business and I discovered all of the things like the Tony Robbins and the four Hour Work week, and I was like, oh my God, my mind is blown. But 10 years later I'm like, no, it's exactly what you said. Get people to do things for you that cost less than you. Time block rest, look after yourself, pay yourself. It's just these handful of things that will keep you sane and actually in business and profitable and growing.
Jordan Hartley (37:37):
Oh, absolutely. I couldn't agree more. And write your policies and procedures as you go.
Danielle Lewis (37:42):
Yeah.
Jordan Hartley (37:43):
Another big one for people is like, don't leave yourself to the last minute and then get yourself in sticky situations or anything like that, because as your business grows, if it does scale, you need that from the start.
Danielle Lewis (37:56):
Yeah, that's so true. Like contracts, whether it's employment contracts, whether it's suppliers, whether it's customers, just anything like that, policies and procedures far out, you can get caught out. I have.
Jordan Hartley (38:12):
It just doesn't, yeah, it's not fun business advice I guess, but it's just like you end up spending a lot of money on all these things if you do it two years down the track, or even depending on how fast your business grows, if you are doing it and backtracking, which often happens and it's so fine if it does happen, but if you are outsourcing generally you can get that VA to task what they're doing at the same time. So then you're two birds with one stone, so you're like, someone's tasking you and writing your policies and procedures at the same time, which is invaluable.
Danielle Lewis (38:43):
Yeah, that is such good advice. And I love, I remember when I first started scrunch, we didn't do that and all the first employees, we were all flying by the seat of our pants, and then when we realized we had to grow up and implement these things, they were hated it. And I was like, nah, you just got to set expectations with people from day one. This is how we operate here. Even if it's just employee number one, it's set that standard from day one.
Jordan Hartley (39:10):
I think that that could be hard to do, but totally what I would tell women to do if I was starting again.
Danielle Lewis (39:17):
Yeah. I love it. I love it so much. Jordan, you are incredible. Thank you so much for sharing your journey, story, insights, wisdom, all of the things with us today. I really appreciate you.
Jordan Hartley (39:30):
Thank you for having me.
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