Mindy Young: Podcast Interview w/ Kaelynn
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[00:00:00]
Mindy Young: when I first started my business doing the surface pattern design, like, I didn't even know how to make a real repeating pattern. I just kind of Modge Podged it and thought it did, but if you zoomed way in on the seams, the seams didn't match up perfectly. But then when I got licensed with a company, they're like, "Hey, by the way, your designs don't match up correctly."
And then I felt dumb. But I went back and had to fix hundreds of designs, but I learned, and now I know how to do it really well. And I wasn't afraid to try something, though. And even though I looked stupid, I learned a hard lesson, it made me better, and it m- made my business into what it is today. I think so many people get hung up on all the little things instead of just jumping in.
Kaelynn Priest-2: A lot of women in business who I talk to have a deep desire for a beautiful home. And it's something where we feel a little bit like, "Ooh, is this worldly? I don't know." But really, at the [00:01:00] core, your desire for your beautiful home probably centers around a desire to have enough space to gather the people who are most important to you and to be able to feel close to the Savior, to be able to feel the Spirit in your physical environment, which I am very passionate about, and I share the same passion with Mindy, the owner of Indie Bloom Design.
It is a hand-painted floral wallpaper company, and you should know that Mindy is the only artist that works for the brand. So when you go to her most stunningly beautiful Instagram and see all of the wallpaper florals, they're all hand-painted by Mindy. And as I was preparing for this podcast episode and looking through Mindy's website and through her Instagram, I recognized one of her prints that is on my daughter Nora's baby blanket that I would have purchased almost seven years ago.
And Nora and I both absolutely adore this blanket, and come to find out that print was drawn by Mindy. So, so fun to have her on the [00:02:00] show. You're going to be blown away by the Spirit in this episode. Mindy's testimony is so bright, and I love hearing her experiences about her journey from, through multiple different businesses, through a long experience in entrepreneurship, and the curving, winding road that entrepreneurship offers a lot of us.
So I really want you to listen for promptings from the Spirit, and especially for feelings from the Spirit, confirmations where the Spirit tells you what Mindy's saying is true. Listen up, and maybe the Spirit will even send you something, some new information about something it wants you to know or something that it wants you to do differently in your business
Kaelynn Priest: tell us all about you
Mindy Young: Okay. Well, me and my family, we live in
northern Utah on a little tiny farm, and we love where we live, and we have a mini cow even on our farm.
Um, we've lived here [00:03:00] for 10 years. We used to live down in Utah County, and we loved it there too as well, and that's kind of where my story begins as an entrepreneur.
So, we got married super young. I was 19 got pregnant right away. And We kind of just needed some more income because f- right then, like the recession hit, and I hadn't gone to school because I got pregnant right away, and I was like kind of a little bit unsure of how we were gonna be able to bring in money where I hadn't gone to school.
I was like, "What kind of job can I get that's gonna be able to help suppor- support our family and provide?" And so I decided just to pick up a camera and teach myself photography, and so that's kind of where my entrepreneurial journey begins. I started taking pictures of my own kids and then my friends' kids, and then it just kind of grew organically, and before I knew it, I had a business that was working so good.
And by the time I had my second child she... Like, I was just so busy. And one morning, I had woke up, and I was [00:04:00] editing early in the morning. Business was so good at this time, but I looked over... Sorry, I'm a crier too, so I'm gonna try to... I'm gonna try to keep it together, but I am a crier, so I apologize.
But
I look, I look over, and my son, who was probably about three at this time, and my daughter would've been about like like 18-months-ish he's over there like climbing up on the counter to get cereal, and he's pouring cereal for both of them. And it just crushed my soul at the time to just look at that and go, "Where are my priorities?
What am I doing?" Like, my, my children are hungry, and Mom's not paying enough attention to this yet. And I, I mean, like I know it's little, but at the time, that was really hard for me to see. And I didn't know how I would be able to give up, you know, photography because I realized then my children were first [00:05:00] priority, and they needed me.
And so, fast-forward a little bit I, I decided just to pray and ask Heavenly Father like, "I need your help, and I need your guidance in what we can do to provide income but then also allow me to be home with my babies." And I just got this straight-up answer, "Sell all your equipment. Get rid of everything.
Like, everything's gonna be okay," so I did it. And I needed to do that in order to be like th- like, "This is done. This, this chapter is closed." And Heavenly Father knew me. He knew that I wouldn't be able to... Like, I'd still maybe wanna try to go back a little bit, you know? Like, I couldn't... Like, I hadn't had that full trust.
I had lots of trust issues that I've worked through over the years . And he knew me. He knew that, like, that's what needed to be done. So as soon as I did it, not even kidding, like a week later, um, the company that I did my blog back in the day on, they contacted me and they're like, "Hey, we love [00:06:00] your photography blog.
It's so beautiful. You know, who designed it for you?" And I said, "I actually did it." And they're like, "Oh, we're looking for designers. Can you come do these?" And I'm like, "I don't know anything about web design." I ha- Like, And they're like, "Well, if you know Photoshop, you know enough." And I'm like, "Okay.
Well, I taught myself Photoshop with photography, so we'll figure this out. I did it on my own blog. I could do it for other ones." So I start designing websites for this company and selling them, and that was, like, my toes dipped into, um, like the digital world and digital assets and how powerful they are.
And I started making over six figures a year within that first year of just getting these up, and I was free outside of just designing what I needed to design. Then I'd get it up for sale, and then it would sell while I was sleeping. And my, my mind was, like, exploded into that. Like, what else can I do that can t- supply this type [00:07:00] of income, because this is amazing.
And I did that for years, but we had more kids. I have four kids now. And it just... Life was just crazy, and I, I was loving what I was doing, but I still just kind of felt like, you know, what else could I do? Like, there's something else that I could still be doing. I started making, like, templates for people's, like, Christmas cards.
I started also doing, like, logo design and branding design for people. I tried to stick in the photography world still. I still really marketed heavily to them. And then, um When I had my fourth baby, I was looking for cute floral designs, and I couldn't find anything that I was looking for for wallpaper and for her swaddles.
You know, back... This was 10 years ago. There wasn't a lot on the market yet, and I was like, "You know what? I bet I could just make it. So I'm a DIY-er, and I could just do this." I jumped two feet in and know nothing about this world and started designing my first thing, and [00:08:00] I post it on Facebook, and everyone's like, "Oh my gosh, I would buy that.
You should figure out a way to sell this." And I was like, "Okay." So I figured it out, and I got into this world, and this is currently what I'm doing now. Um, I actually design wallpaper. I was doing fabric. I was heavily designing fabric when I first started, but I've graduated into wallpaper. But as I went through this business, I got into the business world.
I wanted to know more about business. I wanted to know about more like marketing and all the things. I, like, dove straight in. But as I started to dive in, I realized, like, I started to split a little bit with, like, reading my scriptures every day because I wanted to listen to the business podcast, and I wanted to listen to, you know, like, my business books and things 'cause that was, like, what I was feasting on at the time.
And I slowly started to veer just a little bit, and not so much that I was, like, ever going to, like Give up my testimony and things, but it was rocky, I will say. And [00:09:00] my business was booming. I, like, we, I was attracting people to me because they were like, "Hey, I wanna do this too. I'm seeing you do it.
Can you teach how to do this?" And so I got into the teaching world and started teaching people how to do what I do and saw how amazing that money is too as well. And I got a little distracted there for a little bit. I had, like, my first six-figure week and that, like, that blew my mind. But I wasn't spiritually ready to handle that kind of money.
And it broke me. It was my most successful year, but I felt hollow inside of my soul. And it's because I wasn't turning to Christ. I wasn't turning to God. I wasn't reading His Word to guide me. Even though, like, I was. I was doing, like, the little basic things, but I wasn't, like, immersed in it [00:10:00] at the time.
And so from this point, I just, I crumbled. I, like, totally lost my mind, and my business started failing because of some other things that had happened. And, like, the platform I was selling on, they changed all these things and it completely wrecked my business. This thing that I thought... Like, my husband quit his job.
He was working with me. You know, we thought we had it in the bank, and then everything changed, and I crumbled with it. I didn't have that strong testimony. I was walking every day and I was angry. I was, like, crying out to God like, "Why?" Like, "Why am I going through this? Why has this happened?" You know, all the things.
I'm very, I'm a very real person. And I, I remember one specific day of just crying. I was, like, on my bathroom floor just sobbing, and I just heard these straight-up words that were like, "You've done this before. You can do it again." Like, "Stop complaining and just get [00:11:00] up and go do the work." And as I was, like, in the business world too, I was in masterminds a couple of them actually.
But I never truly felt like I was in a place that felt like like, I don't know, just like a part of other people who are working towards the same goal. Like, we- we're all business owners and stuff and had those kind of things in common. But I love that you're doing this, by the way. Like, I love... Because I finally feel, like, seen and heard, that there's other women out there like me who genuinely love God, wanna talk about God, want to center your business around bringing His kingdom to the world.
And so- just to backtrack a little bit, so I was in a couple of these masterminds and kind of feeling alone, and I decided to leave them. And I just got so much clarity from Heavenly Father. It's like, just, like, read from my scriptures and everything's gonna [00:12:00] be okay. And I can't even tell you. I... So I was at Desert Book, and I found the New Living Translation there of the Bible, and I grabbed it, and I read it, and I feasted on it, and I became obsessed with reading it.
It just clicked in my brain. Like, it was finally like I, I was understanding the scriptures, and I was like, "Why have I not been reading this the whole entire freaking time I've been doing all this business? Why has this not been the first source that I've been turning to?" Because it has all the answers.
And it's like when I was first rocking and rolling in business, I, I was doing what, you know, we're taught to do. I'm so thankful. I, I've been an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ since I was 18. And now that I've been, like, a member long enough, I've seen how blessed we are to have so many wonderful things taught to us daily that make us such, like, just grit and [00:13:00] grinders and people who love to just, like, serve people.
And when you truly- serve people with something like a gift that you have, that's where the magic happens. And when you lean into that, money comes. Like, it comes naturally when you're not so focused on the money. And that's where at first I was making such, like, great money, and then all of a sudden it, it got messed up when I stopped focusing.
I started focusing more on the money instead of, like, serving people and, like, doing what I was made to do. And I wanna read to you this scripture, actually. So it's in Matthew 6:33, and it says, "Seek the kingdom of God above all else and live righteously, and He will give you everything you need." And I love this scripture so much because I feel like seeking the kingdom, you know, obviously that is, like, being someone who is, like, loving God, turning to God, you know, [00:14:00] doing the, the everyday things, going to church, reading your scriptures, going to the temple, like, all those things.
But when I read this it was like truly I think God wants us to go, "Hey, I am a child of God. I have beautiful gifts that I can give other people and serve them all day long," and He's gonna take care of everything else. Like, when you can figure out what your God-given gift is and bless the world with it, like, if you're pursuing a business, God is going to bless you with that when you're doing it righteously.
And you're still gonna have hard stuff. You're still gonna have the grit and grind. You're still gonna have bad days. But God is guiding you, and He is going to make sure that, like, your heart desires are answered when you're righteously living and working for it.
Kaelynn Priest: Mm.
Mindy Young: And so that's something I feel like that I've been through the, the last few years is a refiner's fire.
It's [00:15:00] like He was trying to push me back onto the road. I was, like, clear off on the side. Not clear off, but, like, I, I had wandered a little bit and I actually I, I'll say I got a calling to be in the Relief Society stake presidency as the secretary, and at the time I had just hired a secretary because I hate secretarial work.
I am like, I am a business owner to the T, and I like to be the boss and the leader, and then I, I needed somebody to do the task-y things. So I hire somebody, and that literal the same week I get
Kaelynn Priest: that's
Mindy Young: called in. And I was like, "Okay. God, what do you want me to learn? What do you need me to learn?" And He taught me a lot over the last four years, and but I will say that is what grounded me.
Kaelynn Priest: Mm.
Mindy Young: I wouldn't have got that calling- I don't know where I would be. I don't know where my family would be, my business would be. But it got me back on the path, like, super straight,
Kaelynn Priest: Mm.
Mindy Young: allowed me [00:16:00] to grow so much more than I ever, ever would have thought I could have grown. And I still hate secretarial stuff.
I still hate it. But I will tell you, I learned, though, how to treat mine. I learned all the things that she's dealing with that I can help her with, and, you know, I, I had a different perspective going through this.
Kaelynn Priest: Yeah
Mindy Young: But that's kind of, like, my story in a nutshell, and currently we're... We sell wallpaper for, like, little girls' rooms and stuff with my flower designs, and I love, I love what I do because I truly want people to feel heaven in their homes.
That's,
Kaelynn Priest: Oh
Mindy Young: my goal.
Kaelynn Priest: that. are you the core designer of your wallpaper right now? Do you have people helping you with that?
Mindy Young: I am currently just doing it myself. We have hopes
Kaelynn Priest: you
Mindy Young: dreams, yeah, to have more come on, but it's just me currently
Kaelynn Priest: Oh my gosh. Okay, so for those of you who don't follow Mindy yet, they will after this episode, you have to go look at her [00:17:00] content because she literally hand paints the designs that are going on the wallpaper, and every single one stunningly beautiful. I was actually shopping the other day. I was like, "I think I need to buy some wallpaper from Mindy just because I love your story so much." But it's like I don't know how to choose. Every single one is like... It is so beautiful. So this
is my question for you, because I feel like when you were talking about when you figure out what your God-given gift is and you lean into that, will bless your business and you won't have to try so hard, basically, is my words, not yours.
But I feel like one of your God-given gifts, just from what you've shared and your story, is making things beautiful. It's kind of like the theme of photography and then moving into like, the fabric prints and now wallpaper. question for you is for anyone who is also in a business where their work is basically making things beautiful, like we're... You know, if you've been educated by the, like, classic business [00:18:00] entrepreneur guys, they're gonna tell you your business has to solve a problem.
And there are some unique businesses where the problem may or may not be urgent, but it is still a core desire as a human to have a beautiful space. I was wondering if you could speak to that a little bit from your experience.
Mindy Young: Yeah. I, so honestly, I feel like, like the way I serve people, 'cause it's funny 'cause y- I, I coach designers too, and it's like they, they don't understand, like, how they serve people creating artwork. But really, it's like the feeling that you're bringing someone... Like, I literally am helping a mom design the most beautiful, dreamy room for her daughter, or even, like, I think about the moms bringing their babies home for the first time.
Like, nothing is better than bringing home that baby that's fresh from heaven into a space, and I want that feeling to be complete when they're bringing their babies home. And then as they grow too as well, and we've had multiple buyers, you know, like, come back and, like, upgrade [00:19:00] their, to the big girl room, you know?
And it's been fun to watch that. But they feel that from me. Like, I genuinely, like, I am just shining God's light through my gift, and it's like people are feeling that. Like, I'm answering those questions for them and I am solving those problems because they want that feeling too in their home, and they can feel that through my artwork.
And I can't even tell you how many people tell me, "Oh, this, this is just so joyful. This makes me feel so good." And I'm like, "Perfect," 'cause that's exactly what I'm going for. So you know, like, it's, it's just like when you are truly serving from your heart and, like, the God-given gifts and you realize, like, you're doing it for Him and for serving people and making them feel a part of why we're here, you know?
It, it just, it makes everything come full circle
Kaelynn Priest: Yeah. Can you... I wanna hear your perspective on, I talk to a lot of ladies who [00:20:00] feel, who feel like one of their desires that they want from their business is the financial increase so that they can make their home beautiful. talk to a lot of ladies who are like, "I don't know. Like, is that a, that greedy?
Is that me, like, being prideful?"
And I have my own perspective on that, and I have a sense that you and I share the same perspective. But I wanna hear how you would respond if someone asked you that
Mindy Young: Yes. So I actually struggled with this for a long time too, because I'm like, "Am I making people feel like they need to have these, like, big fancy elaborate homes and things?" But the thing is, there's people at all different budgets that can afford different things, and you shouldn't discount for the people who don't have that budget just because you...
Like, you can't cater to everyone. You have to figure out where your market is and who's willing to pay what, and then you price in that range, right? And I will say, so if you want a beautiful home and you can afford to have a beautiful [00:21:00] home, absolutely freaking do it. But if you're going into debt to try to, like, keep up with the Joneses and things, I feel like that's where you've gotta get back on track.
Like, when you have the money and the abundance to have beautiful things and have earthly things, as long as we're not worshiping them, right, we're not, like, obsessing about it, that's when it's okay. Like, God has given us abundance to use it. And so, and obviously keeping it in perspective so that we're inviting people into our beautiful home to, you know, like, make them feel, like, share the gospel and feel a part of something.
You know, like, you just have to keep perspective in everything
Kaelynn Priest: Yeah. I feel like, I actually talk to some of my friends about this a lot, like my physical space around me contributes or detracts a lot from the spirit that I feel. It sounds kind of funny, and I don't hear a lot of people talking about this, but it's like to me, investing in... If, I see it kind of [00:22:00] as an, an investment, like making my space around me feel heavenly contributes to my health, emotional health, spiritual health. What would you say, what's, what's your take on the importance of having a physical space around you that feels good to your soul?
Mindy Young: Yeah, I know the listeners can't see behind me in my office, but we actually built this. This is a detached garage that we built off of our home, 'cause our home is, like, a 1970s home that we've remodeled, but it's not big enough to have something that I love to work in every day. And I started in my living room, working from my living room, and had crazy kids running around, you know, and the chaos is real, and I needed...
I knew I needed that peace. And so we looked at how much it would cost to build us an office to be able to, like, work out of and everything, and I will tell you, like, having a space that creates peace and things for you, like your creativity, it makes the biggest difference. [00:23:00] And everyone's at different stages along the way, but, like, I remember dreaming in my first...
We had a little 1920s home. It was, like, a two-bedroom house, and it was like, it was as big as our living room now. And I remember in those days wishing and hoping for one day to have like, certain things, like a beautiful office or a beautiful studio where I could paint and things, but at the time we couldn't afford that.
And so I was doing creative things. Like, I even had my studio in that tiny little home at the time, 'cause that's all we could do at the time. But it's fun now to look back and go, all those dreams... I remember sitting on our porch at our other house telling my husband all these dreams. We have all those things now, and we love it.
But, like, that was more than 10 years ago. It was, like, 15 to 20 years ago that we were sitting on that porch talking about these dreams, and it's not that. Like, you can't have it tomorrow. It... Like, God wants to give it to you now, but you gotta go through some things in order to, [00:24:00] like, really be ready for it, and that's something that I learned, too, even when like, with my business.
When I got that abundance of money, it's like I didn't even know what to do with it, because I hadn't been focused, and it... Like, I've, I just crashed and burned. I was like, "I don't know what to do with this much money." Like, it scared me almost. And then now that I've had it, though, I know I can get it back, and I know what I wanna do with it now, because God prepared me for it.
And so it's like you can create the most beautiful, dreamy place on earth for yourself if you're rooted in the right direction and have the right mindset around it, I guess.
Kaelynn Priest: Yeah, yeah. would you say to the girl... I'm thinking of a past version of myself too, who was thinking, like, I'm in my office, which is my happy place right now. I remember thinking like, "Wouldn't it be so cool if I had my own room in our house?" And that felt like, oh, is that like much? Is
Mindy Young: हम्म।
Kaelynn Priest: [00:25:00] is that what God wants for me?
And now my perspective is that God wants what I want. We're
on the same page there. But for the girl who's in the dreaming phase, kind of like the before she's realized whatever it is that she's dreaming about, whether it's having a physical space or maybe it's a, a group of people that she's imagining that she wants to be a part of, what would you say to the girl who maybe she's like dreaming about it, but also is like doubting herself or questioning herself a little bit?
Mindy Young: Yeah. So I would honestly say number one is, like, make God your best friend because there's gonna be hard stuff. There's gonna be lots of hard stuff that you go through, and you need him by your side through everything. I love this. I heard this from someone. He said, at night they have a saying that's above their bed.
I can't remember who said it either. It was somebody that came and spoke at one of our conferences. And he said, "We [00:26:00] have this saying above our bed that says, 'Give it to God.'" And I love that so much because it's like a nightly reminder, like- Tomorrow's a new day, and, like, you can do this. Like, you just gotta figure it out.
And that's something I actually talk to, you know, my the coaching girls that I coach and stuff is I say FIO, figure it out. Like, you can figure it out. You are so capable of so much more than what you think you are. And when you have God on your side, like, He magnifies that when you are willing and you're, like, t- like, turning to Him to help push you.
It's so magnified. And being around the business world for so long now and seeing, like, different business owners and struggles we all go through, I'm like, dang. Like, we almost have, like, a, a super so- or, like, super secret of just, like, we have extra power on our side because I see so many struggle with, like, [00:27:00] addiction and other things that, like, I don't have to struggle with because I, I don't, I don't drink those things and I don't do those things.
But I turn to God instead of turning to the worldly things, things, and that helps me get through so much with business. And it's hard, but it's a lot harder without God and without turning to Him daily. And I thought I could do it for a while, 'cause I'm like, I'm such a do-it-yourselfer, and I think a lot of us are, especially in, I feel like, the LDS world, where it's like we're just taught to be, like, bootstrappers, and we love to just get things done and do things ourself.
And but I started, I think, relying too much on my own efforts instead of God helping me with that work I wanted to do. And there's a balance that you have, and there's a trust too as well that I get these little bracelets made every year with, like, a word of the year. And it's my word for the year that, [00:28:00] like, w- whatever it is that I feel like God needs me to focus on most in my business, like, I look at that every day as a reminder.
And what, the one year that it was, like, just the worst year of my life, it said trust. And I had to just look at that every day and just trust that, like, it's all gonna work out. Even in this firestorm that I thought was gonna end everything for us, it all ended up working out. And guess what? Like, we're on the other side now.
And looking back, I'm like, there's no way we could do what we're doing now if I would've stayed there. And now we're, like, running our own business, where we were relying on another business. We were kind of selling, like, third party, and they were printing and stuff. And I was just getting a commission off of everything.
But now we're selling our own wallpaper, and we're making way more money. We have more control. Like, I'm not in Like nobody else is controlling me. And
so, like you never, you never know what the end of the story is going to be if you give up when it's hard. And [00:29:00] I will say, I, my husband, my poor husband, he has to deal with my crazy do-it-yourselfer attitude.
I can just do everything myself. But there was finally a time where I was like, "I can't do this anymore. Like I literally, physically, mentally, I cannot do this anymore." And that's where God came in and stepped in, and was like, "Great. You ready to do it my way? 'Cause I'm ready to do it too." And
Kaelynn Priest: Yeah
Mindy Young: His way is so much better, and so much, so much lighter.
And knowing that you put on that like armor of God every morning when you prep yourself before you go to work, it just makes everything better
Kaelynn Priest: Yeah. What do you do to put on the armor of God? Do you have a routine, a morning routine, or is it different every day?
Mindy Young: Yeah. So in the summertime, I tell my husband, "I don't know why we live in northern Utah," because I suffer through the winter. I am a sun chaser. I love the sun. And so we have a beautiful deck area [00:30:00] that we go sit out on every morning. We go to the gym, and then we come home, and I just open up my scriptures and read.
And we have to hand water our... we live on three acres, and we have to hand water about an acre of that every day. And so we just sit out there and, like, move the sprinkler, and we just read our scriptures and read other, like, good books and things too.
Kaelynn Priest: Yeah
Mindy Young: it just fills my cup so much with just hearing the birds chirp, you know, like every day.
But then when the winter comes, it's so hard, 'cause it's like we're stuck at the kitchen table with artificial lighting. We did put in big, huge slider windows on our back side of our house so that we could have some more light, but I mean, like, that is... I- Like, if you don't have a routine for yourself, like, get one.
Like, apply it. Because once you start getting in routine, you're gonna see yourself start to have progress forward because you're doing, like, something that's moving the needle forward instead of sitting stuck, feeling anxious, feeling overwhelmed. Like, the [00:31:00] antidote to feeling those feelings is action.
And so if you can get in some sort of routine for yourself, I know it's hard because especially when I had babies, it was so hard, but we learned to get up early. So we're usually up in the summertime, we're up by, like 5:00, 5:30, but sometimes in the wintertime we're up even earlier because our kids go to school.
So we have to get up earlier. But we've learned to just be early risers. That's when it works for us to fit in everything, and sometimes you have to adjust your schedule to do that.
Kaelynn Priest: Yeah. It sounds like you're doing this with your husband too
Mindy Young: Yeah. So we, he works from home too with his other job that he had to go back to, but we're, like, working to, like, slowly get him away from working and coming back. He's, he still does do a lot of stuff for me. He answers emails and deals with customer service and things, but we're trying to get him back to full-time again with me.
Kaelynn Priest: so cool. Can I ask
Mindy Young: Yeah.
Kaelynn Priest: about that? Because,
Mindy Young: Yeah
Kaelynn Priest: my husband works too. We've always had the dream of like, "One day you're gonna quit your job. We're gonna work together." It hasn't [00:32:00] happened yet. But can you say, say a little bit about having your husband quit and then have him going back? Tell me what
that experience was like for the both of you.
Mindy Young: Yeah, I was just maxed out. Like our business was doing so good, but like I wasn't able to like jump up to the next level, and I'm like, "What is wrong?" And then I'm like, "It's me. I'm doing everything. That's what's wrong." And so I told my husband, I'm like, "I need to hire somebody." So I'm like, "It might as well just be you, and we'll keep the money in the business."
And so it was scary though because he was making over six figures at his job, and to leave that was like, "Can we do this?" 'Cause that's like for sure thing. Well, at least you think it is. But I mean, like that was what we thought was security. And when he left his job, we ended up making up his income in my business that year he came, and plus more because he finally took off all the things that I was juggling doing myself.
And that was like, that showed us like, "Okay, we can do this." Like it, it was a faith... [00:33:00] Like it was... I'm not gonna lie, it was scary, but when we just finally did it and we went full force in, like... And there was some learning. Like we, we had to kind of like establish roles and like make sure we set those boundaries because there was some like learning periods there.
Like it wasn't awful, but it was just like we needed to establish our boundaries of what we do and who's in charge of what, and I needed to let go of control and let him do the things that I hired him for, you know, like that I brought him on for. And so it, it... There was a little bit of a learning experience in it, but now we love being together.
And seriously, like we're together all the time, and I know most people would be like, "How do you guys do that?" But he is my other best friend. Like God and him are my best friends, and we have so much fun together. Like we love working together now.
Kaelynn Priest: That is so cool. I have more questions about that, but the other thing that I wanna ask you about is mentioned... [00:34:00] This is a, a perspective that I've also experienced as a business owner when you start moving into, like, the, I don't even know. there's a moment where you learn that money is easier to make than you've been telling yourself that it is, I
just know a lot of the ladies in our audience are in the phase where they haven't made any money yet and are telling themselves, "Oh, it's really hard. You gotta work so hard. It's gonna be so difficult." But I love your perspective that I made it once, I can make it again. I wanna hear your, what you would share with the girl who hasn't made the money yet but wants to. What advice would you give her?
Mindy Young: So just keep doing what's controllable in the day. Like, focus on the controllables of what you can do. You can't control if someone's gonna buy, like, your product or your service, but you can control whatever will make them want to as far as, like, making your marketing better, you know, learning how to speak to somebody [00:35:00] better, identifying who y- who your customer is and really serving them.
That's something that I do so different in my business that I've set myself apart in my industry because I genuinely, like, obsess about the one person, and I wanna serve them with more than just my product. And if you can s- learn to serve people with, like... And answer their, um like, the things they struggle with more than just your product, like, that ends up getting you so many more sales because people learn to trust you.
They learn that you're the expert, and that moves the needle way more than trying to sell, sell, sell, and market, and get all your emails out, you know, all the things that we're taught in marketing. That works, but you know what? The... When I was making over $200,000 a year in my business at first, and I never emailed out a single email.
It was just marketing myself on Instagram.
So, like, even though we feel like we need these things, necessarily, like, if you're just serving people, [00:36:00] it's all going to come back, like, if you're just really great at learning how to serve people.
Kaelynn Priest: Mm.
Mindy Young: so that's, like, my main thing is, like, when I teach beginners, I'm like, "Figure out what else you can do to solve their problems than just post about your product all day long."
Even though your product is amazing and you know it will help somebody, there's a lot of other problems that same person that would buy that product struggle with, and if you can figure out those things and serve them for free, that's, like, even more magic because then they're not buying anything, and they're feeling so much value that they wanna give back to you and buy your stuff too as well.
Kaelynn Priest: Do you have any cool stories with customers that come to mind where you were like... I think of the book The Nordstrom Way that talks all about this, like, not over the top, but unusual customer service that can really set you apart. Super recommend that book. But I am curious if you have any stories that come to mind of, like, customers where you have gone above and beyond for, or that [00:37:00] stand out in your mind
Mindy Young: Yeah, there's one that became one of my, like, good friends actually because we just would message each other. And that's where I, like, really learned how to serve my customers because she was my ideal customer and I would ask her questions all the time and be like, "What are you looking for?" You know, I was designing for fashion at the time so, like, she was a little handmade maker who would make cute clothing items and sell them on Etsy.
And she's grown her business into a multimillion-dollar business and it's been fun to, like, bounce back and forth because, like, I've helped her too just, like, mentioning things she should do in her business 'cause I saw her, like, so busy and weighed down and I'm like, "You need to do this, you know, and get, get some employees and things."
And it's been fun to watch her grow. But she also, like, helped me so much in picking color, making sure I was on top of things for trends and things. And when you can find people that, like, are your perfect ideal customer and, like, you're, you're [00:38:00] helping each other almost, it's, it's magic. And she's someone who will always stick out in my mind as, like, a customer that, like, she helped me learn how to serve people because she, she needed so many different things that I didn't think about in the beginning that I started doing and then it set the tone for the rest of my business and I started standing out more as a designer because I didn't just help her with cute fabric prints for the fabric she was buying.
I was helping her make sure she was on top of her collections releasing on time because I was designing for the seasons that were, like, in style that needed, she needed like six months before. So all the other designers are designing, you know, fall in fall season or just before, but I was, like, six months ahead so she would come back and buy from me because I was, like, on top of that.
That was something that, just that little thing, me switching my timeline in when I design made a huge difference for her business too. So, [00:39:00] like, there's just little things if you can find somebody that you know is, like, your customer that you can definitely make friends with and don't be afraid to message people
Kaelynn Priest: Totally. Okay, I'm so glad you brought this up, and I don't think this is just I'm thinking of my product business, Poppy Seed Play, that I, I did this for a little while. I would actually, like, I would DM people and be like, "Hey, I have seen that..." You know, some of them I can see in Shopify they're a repeat customer.
They've been back a couple times. so I would literally ask them, like, "Could we jump on a Zoom call? And can I, like, talk to you about what you love about our products or what you don't love? And I would love to hear from you." And I did a couple, I call them, like, focus groups.
the insights that I got from that, I would've never figured out, like, all...
I think that was when the idea for putting the mat underneath the baby gyms, like, oh, duh. Like, that's, like, an easy add-on that everybody's gonna need when they put their baby on the floor. I had never even thought about it. So I think that's something you can do in any form of [00:40:00] business.
Whether you're a service provider, whether you're a coach, whether you're a product business owner, you can really go the extra mile by listening to what the people
need. It's kind of like, it's kinda cool because it's actually very simple. It's actu- Like, business at its core is actually very simple. It's finding out what the
people need and delivering it to them, or finding a
Mindy Young: Yep
Kaelynn Priest: Faster way to deliver it to them and making sure that they know about it.
That's really all business is at the core. I know it's more complicated than that too, but such good advice to, if you really go the extra mile to listen to what the people want and then provide what they want, that's a pretty great, pretty safe business model.
Mindy Young: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I feel like a lot of people, it's like we get excited to sell something, right? We're, we're like, "This is our product. We wanna sell it. We wanna tell everybody about it," which is great, it's part of it, but at the same time, it's more like self-serving instead of serving your customer.
Because when we are genuinely like, "Okay, what is the problem that they suffer with, and how many problems can I answer [00:41:00] for them? Like, how many things can I create for them?" O- even if you can create a lot of things for free and just have your one main product, that is golden. Like, that... And push people to your one main product, but have lots of different things that you're helping them with.
That is... Like for instance, in my business, you know, I'm showing them paint colors. I would never have known that paint is such a pain point for my customer. Nobody... Like, everybody's afraid of paint, and I was like, "Oh, I'm gonna just... I, I, I pick really cute tones all the time in paint, so I'm gonna be able to help them with that."
And that blew my Instagram up. I've grown like 40,000 followers just this year just from sharing little, teeny-tiny things like that. Like, I'm not doing anything crazy. It's just like I'm answering one of those questions that they really have a hard time with, and they, they wanna come back and buy my wallpaper because I helped them already with something that they were struggling with.
So, you know, it's just figuring out little things like that. What else can you do that [00:42:00] helps that customer feel more value from you than what your competitors are offer- offering?
Like, not every wallpaper designer is also telling people paint color picks, you know? And I also do really cute room mock-ups.
Sometimes I do them with, like, Pinterest pins, and then I have AI just make me a beautiful room with them, and then I link them to all the things. And, like, just going... Like, that takes me some time to do, and most people don't want to do that extra work, but I'll do it. And then I get like my... Those posts are going viral, and so it's...
I'm gaining traffic even faster, not having to pay for any of this, and it's just because I'm serving, and then they're coming back and buying wallpaper from us because of what I'm doing.
Kaelynn Priest: So cool. Your Instagram is just, like... I can, like, feel the spirit looking at your feed. I know that sounds crazy, but
I really can.
Mindy Young: I love that. I love that
Kaelynn Priest: think that's such good advice, know, for... I'm thinking of, I used to coach Etsy business owners, funny enough, so I'm thinking about the ladies who I would coach who would be like, "But, [00:43:00] like, how do I know? do I know what the people want?" And it's like, talk to 'em.
Mindy Young: हम्म
Kaelynn Priest: media. 'Cause sometimes
we get in our heads, and it's like, what am I gonna post? What am I gonna say? And it's like, no, what are you gonna ask? What
Mindy Young: उह। उह।
Kaelynn Priest: ask? You put up a story poll. You put up a question box.
You, like, get
in their heads and figure out. If you don't know what they really want, we've gotta get, like, a two-way conversation going, otherwise you are going to feel confused about what they
Mindy Young: Yeah
Kaelynn Priest: gonna know what to post 'cause you don't know what the people need. so I'm always, like, with business owners who are stuck in their marketing.
I'm like, stop thinking about what to say and start asking questions,
Mindy Young: Yep
Kaelynn Priest: and see what people respond with. And if they don't respond, ask a question again. Ask it a
Mindy Young: उहम्।
Kaelynn Priest: easy to respond to and doesn't require them to, like, craft a novel in their minds in order to respond. but yeah, so valuable when your customer feels like they're being taken care of by you, they will come back.
They will refer their friends. The marketing [00:44:00] becomes pretty, I don't like to say effortless, 'cause it's never without effort, but it becomes easier, I think.
Mindy Young: Yeah, for sure
Kaelynn Priest: what are some of your, like, tips that are coming to your mind for a business owner who's getting her feet wet, getting his feet wet?
We have some male listeners too. But what would you say to someone who's getting started their entrepreneurship journey?
Mindy Young: I would say don't be afraid to look stupid or feel stupid. Like, when I first started my business doing the surface pattern design, like, I didn't even know how to make a real repeating pattern. I just kind of Modge Podged it and thought it did, but if you zoomed way in on the seams, the seams didn't match up perfectly.
And so if I would've printed that on wallpaper back then, people would have been able to see that it, it didn't match up correctly. But at the time, I didn't know how. I, I just kinda threw it together, and I was doing it on fabric where it was scaled down, so you couldn't really tell. But then when I got licensed [00:45:00] with a company, they're like, "Hey, by the way, your designs don't match up correctly."
And then I felt dumb. But I went back and had to fix hundreds of designs, but I learned, and now I know how to do it really well. And I wasn't afraid to try something, though. And even though I looked stupid, I learned a hard lesson, it made me better, and it m- made my business into what it is today. I think so many people get hung up on all the little things instead of just jumping in.
Just freaking... It's like you're at a pool. Like, stop sitting on the side and just jump in the water. You'll figure it out along the way, and there's always gonna be hard stuff. There's always gonna be stuff you don't know, but you won't know how to know it unless you try it, unless you do it. And so same thing, I think, even with marketing.
It's like when you're marketing yourself on Instagram nowadays, people are, like, afraid to show things, and I'm like, "The more you show, the more you're gonna figure out what works so that you can start doing more of that, and it will start working." So, like, if you're holding back things, like, just [00:46:00] try it.
And yes, it feels like the algorithm is against us, but I promise you it's not. You've just gotta figure out how to serve your customer. And when you know your customer good, and most people won't understand who their customer is if they're trying to sell too many things at once. I will say for a beginner, start with one thing.
Be really freaking great at doing one thing great. And once you figure that out, you'll know how to do it for other things. But until you get great with one, it's really hard to be great with lots of different things. So in the beginning, like, try to figure out what you wanna be known for first, and then be great at that, and then, then graduate on to adding other things in that market to that same person
Kaelynn Priest: Yeah. Or if you don't know what you wanna be known for, just start with the first idea that comes to your head.
I'm thinking of a phase where... I was actually thinking about this the other day. I should make a list of all the random things sold over the last 10 years so that people can see, like, it was not like, "Oh, I had the idea to sell a wooden [00:47:00] baby gym," and then I did, and then it...
No, it was like, there was a Christmas where I sold... I bought a bunch of wooden beads from China, and I strung them all together to make these, like, the wooden bead Christmas tree garlands that you can
Mindy Young: अहां।
Kaelynn Priest: they were cool. This was kinda, like, trendy. And I bought a ton of beads, and I just was stringing them together, like, two weeks before and sold them on Facebook Marketplace, and people really liked them. And I thought, "I could make a business out of this," and then I didn't 'cause I was like, "I don't want a seasonal busi- business," right?
But, like,
things that you would never know
Mindy Young: Yeah
Kaelynn Priest: just, until you just let yourself try it. You might find out it works really well, or you might find out it doesn't. It doesn't mean anything about you, but you... There is no other way to gain that information, unfortunately, or fortunately.
Mindy Young: Yeah
Kaelynn Priest: I think it's good news that is... For me, that's one of the f- well, God's with me, [00:48:00] out with me, chatting in my ear the whole time in my business. But especially in the beginning, when I'm, like, in the ideating phase. I, I got this question the other day, and I asked... I actually wanna ask you our perspective on it, too. How can you...
How do you tell the difference between your ideas and God's ideas? What
would you say?
Mindy Young: I would say I think they're all our ideas really. Like, and then when you do it, God is like, "Let me help you out." And He'll, like, correct it, or you'll start to feel a little bit of like, "Wait, this isn't quite what I was thinking." And sometimes you'll have that even if it is something that's gonna work, because it's new.
Like, you don't know enough yet, so it kinda scares you a little bit. But I think there are, like, very big red flags that God will place in front of you, that's like, "No, this is the wrong way." And I think sometimes it's just like we have all these good things inside of us, and God's like, "Okay, which one do you wanna do?
Let's do it together." But then [00:49:00] He'll let you know, like, okay, actually... Like for instance, with photography, like, it was great, and it worked great, but then He was like, "Mindy, you need to be a mom," and He directed my path right then. He put that red flag in the road, and He straight up told me. I felt... Like, I literally felt Him tell me like, "You have to hang this up."
And I had no idea how we were gonna do it, 'cause it was like my income was the main income as my husband was going to school at the time. Like, it was scary. But when you trust God, He's going to direct you, and He's going to help you figure stuff out. And sometimes He does let you figure out hard lessons when you're a little prideful like myself.
Like, He let me figure out a lot of hard things the last few years. But when you finally break and you come to Him with a broken heart, He's gonna make sure that, like, you're back on the path, and, like, whatever you desire, and you go all in with Him by your side, like, you're walking with Him daily. It's all gonna work out.
It's all gonna be okay. And sometimes [00:50:00] maybe the, the door does end up shutting, but trust that He's got another door that's gonna open for you that's gonna be the right door. Even when you've already gone down, you've already spent the money, you've already done all the things, He's gonna make it okay. You just gotta trust it, and trust that whatever you were walking with Him down that road and it ended up closing the door, you learned a lot of things that are gonna help you on the next thing.
And that's exactly what my path has done for me, and I thought it was gonna end. But really, He was opening up the door to something that was more beautiful than I ever could have asked for. And I just look forward to holding His hand a little bit tighter this time, and just chugging along.
Kaelynn Priest: I, everything that you said, I just, like, I just want you to know how strongly I'm feeling the spirit through our Zoom call. I just, I felt our entire, this entire call. I just appreciate your faith so much, and your [00:51:00] vulnerability. Sometimes it feels scary to share hard things that are going on in business when you are the public representative of your brand. But the last question that I had for you is, is basically that. What are you looking forward to? What is your game plan going forward in the next years of your business?
Mindy Young: Yeah, so right now I look forward to having my husband come on full-time again. We wanna grow locally, so we wanna try to start going to, like, local places so locally people know us. Because I'm really well-known in my industry online, but not so much locally. Now that we have physical product I can take to places we're looking forward to just growing, like, with interior designers too.
You know, like, I love the Utah Parade of Homes talking and networking with people and things. We've been doing that this year. And I just look forward to just growing this even bigger and grander than what I originally imagined. 'Cause I wouldn't have been able to do this without that leap that I had to take from my last, like, position I was in to this one.
It's allowed us to be able [00:52:00] to do that, and so I look forward just to growing it to something that, like, is a multi-million dollar company. I never thought I would say that, but that is a vision that God has put in my mind now that I couldn't see before. And I love to be able to say that now too. That scared me to say something like that before, but now I, I wanna say it.
I wanna manifest it. I wanna work for it. I am, like, all in, and God I know is right there with me to do it
Kaelynn Priest: Hey, it's kaelynn here. I hope you loved this episode of the By Their Fruits podcast. Thank you so much for listening. And I also wanna let you know that if you did love this episode, you might also love my weekly email series that I call Book of Mormon Business. Every week, I write a little insight about something that I either have learned or am learning from the Book of Mormon or the Bible about how to run a business with God's help, how to make God the co-founder of my business.
And if that sounds like something up your alley, go to kaelynnpriest.com/bookofmormon. The link is also [00:53:00] below in the show notes. And get on the email list, and I hope these little weekly insights lift your spirits and help you feel the spirit and hear Him more easily in your business
