We are joined by one of my wonderful coaching clients, Lisa Lantz, the brilliant owner of The Getup—a community-focused resale store that sells everything from newborn and adult clothing to accessories, kids' gear, and toys. Lisa is just a few short weeks away from graduating from the Inventory Genius program, and she has made absolute leaps and bounds over the past year.

We have never had a guest on the show with this specific type of inventory-based business model, and the breakthroughs she has made with her numbers are going to blow you away. Whether you run a traditional retail boutique, a resale shop, or even a dropshipping business, Lisa’s journey holds some massive gold nuggets for you.

• Consignment vs. Buy-Outright: Understand the financial risk of buying inventory outright from your customers versus running a traditional consignment model, and why your margins must reflect that risk.

• The Fear of Policy Changes: Why we need to "stay out of our customers' pocketbooks" and make business-first decisions without letting fear dictate our financial policies.

• Cracking the Cash-to-Credit Ratio: How tracking the exact ratio of cash payouts to in-store credit (which, for Lisa, sits consistently at 70% cash and 30% credit) allows for highly accurate cash-flow planning.

• Data-Driven Curating: Moving away from buying inventory just because "it's in good shape" to hand-curating based on high-margin, fast-turning categories (like discovering women's wear drove over 50% of Lisa's sales!).

• The Power of One-Dollar Levers: How focusing on just one simple lever—like raising your average ticket size by a small margin through employee training—can bridge massive sales gaps.

Because The Getup is a buy-outright resale store, Lisa's customers can choose between cash or in-store credit (which now offers 10% more value) on the spot. When we first started working together, this model created a lot of cloudiness around her COGS (Cost of Goods Sold).

We realized Lisa was paying up to 40% back in cash just to support her community and keep inventory coming in. But when you buy outright, you take on 100% of the risk if that item doesn't sell. We adjusted her payouts down, and despite her fear that she'd drive people away, not a single customer complained.

"We hold off on making really important financial decisions out of fear of what people will think or say, and a lot of times, that story is only created in our head."

Once we started digging into the data, we discovered a highly consistent pattern: 30% of her buyouts were store credit, and 70% were cash. Knowing this ratio changed everything. Instead of guessing, Lisa can now accurately map out her open-to-buy plan and know exactly how much hard cash she needs on hand each month. No more putting out daily financial fires!

In resale, your inventory is a daily surprise. Lisa used to accept items simply because they were nice. Now, she uses her category data to make smart buying decisions. When she realized women's apparel made up over 50% of her sales, she knew exactly where to focus her efforts. We also talk about the delicate art of saying "no" to individual black-bag drop-offs without making it personal.

Our latest project is bridging a big sales growth gap not by wishing for random traffic, but by focusing on average ticket size. Lisa shares her strategy for bringing her part-time team into the numbers conversation, recording training videos, and why she is temporarily stepping back onto the sales floor to spot the operational puzzle pieces herself.

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Have you ever wondered if your business is financially fragile? It’s a term that might not sound very attractive, but it’s a reality for thousands of small businesses—even those that look incredibly healthy from the outside.

In this episode, I’m pulling back the curtain on why so many small business owners are quietly stressing behind closed doors. We’re talking about the gap between looking successful on social media and actually having a stable, profitable foundation.

• The "Financial Fragility" Trap: How a business can look busy, have customers, and show growth, yet be one slow month away from a full-on panic.

• Common Signs of Fragility: If you find yourself constantly transferring money between accounts, living "weekend-to-weekend," or using debt to cover operational mistakes, this episode is for you.

• The 6 Reasons Your Business Stays Fragile:

  1. Focusing on Sales, Not Profit: Revenue is just an illusion of success if you aren't retaining profit.

  2. Emotional Decision-Making: Buying inventory, hiring, or avoiding price increases based on feelings rather than data is a recipe for instability.

  3. Avoiding the Numbers: Overwhelm and intimidation often lead owners to look away from their financials.

  4. Excessive Inventory: Why your "well-stocked" warehouse might actually be a pile of trapped cash.

  5. Building Around Survival Habits: When you operate in chaos for too long, survival becomes your "normal."

  6. Mistaking Hard Work for Strategy: You can work 80-hour weeks and still have poor margins. Strategy beats effort every time.

I share a real-world example from a recent one-on-one coaching call where a business owner was working for free while her team managed the profitable service components. We talk about how to break these cycles and move toward true leadership.

Remember: You didn't start your business to create a job for yourself that doesn't pay you. It's time to stop playing "store" and start leading like a CEO.

1. Know Your Numbers: Specifically, know your break-even point. Clarity creates control.

2. Consistent Financial Reviews: Stop avoiding the data. Analyze your margins and expenses regularly.

3. Stop Buying Emotionally: Use data-driven strategies to manage your inventory.

4. Build Cash Reserves: Start small—even just 1% of your gross margin per week—to stop the cycle of panic over unexpected expenses.

5. Lead Like a CEO: Shift your mindset from daily operator to strategic leader.

I want to challenge you this week: Take out a pen and paper. Ask yourself, "Am I financially fragile?" and identify one habit from today's episode you can commit to changing.

If you’re ready to stop the chaos and build an operating system designed for profit, let’s get to work.

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I am thrilled to sit down with a very special guest: Rachel Lien, a yarn shop owner from the Pacific Northwest who is officially graduating from the Inventory Genius Operating System Program this month!

One year ago, Rachel found herself trapped on the classic retail hamster wheel. Despite bringing in massive revenue from a local yarn crawl event, the cash quickly vanished, leaving her with mounting credit card debt, zero clarity on where the money went, and a deep-seated fear of her own numbers.

Tune in as we discuss her incredible transformation over the last 12 months. Rachel shares how shifting from blindly jumping in to establishing a fearless, weekly Money Mondays routine gave her total control over her business finances. We talk about ditching wishful thinking for concrete data, the pride that comes with stepping up as a true CEO, and how she is now confidently using numbers to evaluate a major retail expansion.

If you've ever felt like your business is a sieve leaking cash, this episode will inspire you to look at the scary things, take action, and reclaim control of your inventory and profits.

• Sales Don't Equal Profit: High-revenue events are great, but without a clear inventory strategy, that cash can disappear into a black hole of debt and over-purchasing.

• The Power of the Routine: Establishing a non-negotiable rhythm—like Money Mondays—to look at your numbers every single week eliminates the fear of the unknown.

• Data Backs the Dream: Wishful thinking is the spark that starts a business, but data is the fuel that makes major decisions (like expansions or moves) safe and sustainable.

• It’s Not a Hobby: Operating a retail business with financial discipline moves you away from playing store and into building a long-term asset that supports your community.

"I didn't want to feel like I was standing in a sieve. There were leaks everywhere, and I didn't know where the money was going. I wanted to make the money and be able to decide what to do with it." — Rachel Lien

"The wishful thinking was the spark, and then the data is the actual thing that's gonna back up the decision." — Rachel Lien

"Even if you're scared—especially if you're scared—you need to take action. You need to look at the scary thing, because if you don't, it's gonna keep you stuck." — Rachel Lien

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Welcome back to part two of our Money Mindset Conversation! Today, I’m sitting down once again with endurance and mindset coach Jennifer Vollmann to dive deep into a topic that so many of us try to avoid: our relationship with debt.

Debt can feel like a heavy, nasty word that gets instantly tangled up with our personal identity and self-worth. In this episode, Jennifer breaks down why numbers on a computer screen feel so personal, how shame can completely freeze our business progress, and how we can systematically rewrite the stories we tell ourselves about what we owe. We also discuss a powerful concept that got Jennifer to the Ironman World Championships: borrowing belief from a coach or mentor until you can build your own evidence.

• Numbers are Neutral: A figure like $50,000 is just data on a screen. It doesn't have power until your brain attaches a narrative to it.

• The Danger of Shame: Shame is the ultimate stalling emotion. When we internalize debt as a personal failure, we freeze, avoid the numbers, and stop taking action.

• The Micro-Action Formula: Overcoming financial overwhelm starts with taking one small action within 24 hours to give your brain immediate feedback and build proof.

• Borrowing Belief: When you can’t see a path to financial freedom yourself, it is entirely okay to borrow the unwavering belief of your coach or mentor while you take the initial steps.

Jennifer explains how quickly our brains assign meaning to a number. Seeing a credit card balance or loan statement triggers an immediate thought (e.g., "This is too big"), which creates an emotion (overwhelm), drives a behavior (stalling/avoidance), and reinforces the original negative result.

Are you prone to freezing, over-delivering to overcompensate, or falling into the compare and despair trap? We look at how our internal debt stories sabotage other parts of our businesses—like stopping us from pricing our services at what we are actually worth.

I share a powerful exercise I use with my own coaching clients: writing down every single piece of debt with absolute honesty. No hiding, no lying to yourself. Putting a name and a number to everything on a single piece of paper stops the energy suck of the numbers swirling endlessly in your head.

Jennifer and I discuss how she used borrowed belief from her athletic coach to train for Kona before she ever believed it was possible herself. We talk about how to apply this to your finances—using the proof of a system or a coach's belief in you as a stepping stone to take action.

"Somebody with $50,000 in debt might feel it’s not a problem at all, while somebody with $5,000 in debt is completely crushed by it every single day. The debt is just a neutral circumstance. It is just a monetary figure. You get to decide what the story is."

"If you find yourself in deep shame with debt, the first thing to do is see if you can get to a slightly better thought. Even reminding yourself, 'Good people also have debt,' helps disconnect your intrinsic self-worth from your ability to run a business."

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T&O Strategic Advisory (http://www.tostrategicadvisory.com/) - Offering a wide range of tax and accounting services, including entity election and S-Corp advisory.

Are your thoughts setting a ceiling on your business’s financial success? In this special session, I'm sitting down with resident mindset coach Jennifer Vollmann to unpack the psychology of money.

Whether you find yourself stalling on financial tracking, overspending, or avoiding your numbers entirely, the root cause usually isn't a lack of business skill—it’s your money identity. Jennifer breaks down how to identify inherited limiting beliefs, shift into a factual mindset, and take massive action to build long-term profitability.

• Your Money Identity Runs on Autopilot: You didn't develop your view of money when you started your business. Your money identity is the sum of all the stories you’ve heard, witnessed, or been told since childhood by parents, culture, gender expectations, and society.

• The Proof Trap: When you hold a belief like "I'm bad with money," your brain actively drives behaviors (like avoiding your bank account or over-discounting) that generate chaos. Your brain then points to that chaos and says, "See? I told you so," locking you into a toxic loop.

• Neutralize Numbers with Facts: Money on a screen is just data. When you look at financial figures stripped of emotional stories, your brain stops panicking, allowing you to make strategic decisions.

• The 20% Rule: You don’t need to 100% believe a massive, positive new affirmation overnight. Upgrading your mindset by just 20% with a believable, factual step (e.g., changing "I can't save" to "I saved money for that one specific thing once, so I know how to do it") is enough to start shifting your actions.

• Action Creates Evidence: Thought work is fun, but it stays in your head without a physical shift. True empowerment comes when you move from feeling disempowered to taking control through clear, daily actions.

"An identity is just a thought you've had over and over again about yourself. You now believe it to be true, but it doesn't actually make it true." – Jennifer Vollmann

"Numbers are just numbers on a screen. When we look at them as neutral data, the brain can't argue feelings, and it's a much easier place to act from." – Jennifer Vollmann

"The framework doesn't change based on your personality or product. The business owners who see the results they're looking for are simply the action takers." – Ciara Stockeland

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Get $300 off your first month of Pie, and start attracting more high-intent customers through Google Ads and AI search. Claim the offer here: https://getpie.com/contact?utm_source=Ciara+Stockeland&utm_medium=Podcast&utm_campaign=300+offer