When I met Ryann, I knew I wanted to have her on the podcast. Ryann has had very successful careers in marketing and sales. And while she experienced success, she realized that she still didn’t have the community she needed to share her struggles and her joys that allowed her to be vulnerable. That is when she founded Be in the Room: The Exclusive Community. Her mission is to create a safe space for every woman who has ever been told she’s too much, too picky, too loud, too ANYTHING to come together and be fearlessly themselves.
In this episode we will cover:
- Transitioning to entrepreneurship
- Relationship with money
- The importance of a relationship with an attorney
You can find Ryann on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Linkedin and at Beintheroom.org.
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The 5-Day Legalpreneur Challenge is back! It is going to cover everything you need to know as a small business owner; this won’t be just a surface level discussion like you get in this podcast, instead we are diving deep into all the knowledge you need to run your business. Remember to use code PODCAST for a special discount!
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Disclaimer:
The Legalpreneur Podcast is advertising/marketing material. It is not legal advice. Please consult with your attorney on these topics. Copyright Legalpreneur Inc 2022
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Episode 191: Be in the Room with Ryann Dowdy Transcript
Andrea: [00:00:03] Welcome to the Legalpreneur Podcast. I’m your host, Andrea Sager, founder and CEO of Legalpreneur, Inc. As a serial entrepreneur and someone that works exclusively with small business owners legally protecting their business, I’m dedicated to covering common legal issues faced by business owners, providing you with the business knowledge you need to catapult your businesses growth and showing you just how some of the world’s most elite entrepreneurs have handled these legal and business issues themselves in true attorney fashion. The information in this episode is not legal advice. This is for informational purposes only, and you should always consult with your attorney before implementing any of the information in the show. In case you missed it, Legalpreneur live is now dream bigger. We’re talking all things business and personal growth. Tickets are actually not for sale right now. We had to put everything on a wait list because things are getting a little crazy. And on July 11th, we are having a humongous blowout sale. When I mean humongous. I mean, like 70% off of your VIP ticket, plus like another added bonus. However, this offer will only be available to those on our text list.
Andrea: [00:01:16] So text the word event to 8322253164. Yes, 70% off of your VIP ticket. And there's another amazing thing in there and you'll be like, What the heck? Have you gone crazy? No, I have not gone crazy, but text me. We will get you all the details. And seriously, nobody else is going to get this offer. You have to be on the text list. This will be available for 24 hours only on July 11th to get you a ticket to dream bigger. So happening October 5th of the seventh in Phenix, Arizona, covering all things business and personal growth. Hello. Hello. Welcome back to the Legalpreneur podcast. I am super pumped for today's guest, Ryann Dowdy. She is the Founder of Be in the Room. And Ryann and I met in Costa Rica this past year. We were there in March and just had the best freaking time in Costa Rica. I mean, who doesn't have the best time in Costa Rica? But I knew I had to have her on the podcast because she has a lot to share. So Ryann, thank you so much for being with us today. Ryann: [00:02:24] Yeah, Andrea, I'm excited and it's true. Costa Rica is amazing. Costa Rica is way cooler with like 14 other badass business owners. Andrea: [00:02:31] It is. Like so there's a time and a place for solo travel and then there's a time and a place for getting badass bitches together and just having the fucking time of our lives. Ryann: [00:02:43] Good. It was so good. Yeah. Andrea: [00:02:45] So okay, let's get started. Tell people what you do. How exactly did you get to where you are today? Ryann: [00:02:53] Yeah. So I had a 15 year corporate career, so I started my career selling radio advertising in Orlando, Florida, when I was 21 years old. Andrea: [00:03:02] Oh, that's awesome. Ryann: [00:03:03] Yeah. So I sold if there's a digital if it's a marketing platform. Andrea I sold it and eventually fell in love with the startup space. The digital marketing MarTech space is where I spend a large portion of my career. Eventually, I tell people I retired from the corporate world as the director of sales for digital marketing agency here in Kansas City, which is home for me. And, you know. Ryann: [00:03:24] Woke up one day feeling really unfulfilled and didn't necessarily know that entrepreneurship was the track. It was actually I thought it was an industry change. I just had been selling marketing for so long. I just needed to go sell something else, right? I was good at sales. I loved sales. And in all of that I discovered online entrepreneurship and the ability to use the skills that you have and actually like people will pay you for that. I was like, That's a thing. That's pretty cool. But what I learned was sales was a pain point for a lot of female entrepreneurs. So as before, the Great Resignation had a name, but I was meeting all of these women who were starting businesses and their businesses were struggling and a lot of it came back to the sales peace in their business. And so that was where I saw an opportunity. I was like, I'm good at sales. I've been training and coaching. I mean, I've literally coached hundreds of sales reps at this point in the game, built several multimillion dollar sales organizations from the ground up. I was like, I can totally do this. So I started my first business teaching. We said we taught high achieving women how to leave their 9 to 5 and build profitable businesses. In all of that, that exploded really quickly. It was really incredible and I was working with a business coach at the time and her business went from like 2 million to 10 million overnight and she hired a sales team and brought me in as a consultant to train her sales team. And we actually then use that curriculum to launch a second business, which was called Social Sellers Academy in partnership. Unfortunately, that partnership did not work out. And I got to go through a very lovely business divorce in the beginning of 2022, but in all of that I learned a lot. It was a really incredible experience, but it was the fourth quarter of last year when we were ending all of that. I had shut down my business or shut down my programs teaching sales to new entrepreneurs. I knew that I couldn't go back to teaching sales to new entrepreneurs. Right? I just knew that that was not a space that I could go. So I was like, What? What do I love? What am I good at? Where do I see an opportunity in the market? And this is as the market was really starting to shift online, things were changing. Facebook ads, costs were skyrocketing like a lot of people had. Their businesses had blown up during COVID. And there's all these people carrying around these businesses that they hate. And so I saw an opportunity to create a community called Be in the Room, which is about being in the room with other smart, high achieving women having real open and honest conversations that don't necessarily feel safe to have elsewhere. And so we launched that in January, and we have found that we're serving the middle market really well, Andrea. So it's not really a great space if you're like brand new to business or brand new to your career and you really still need that blueprint. And we're finding that a lot of executives, multimillion dollar business owners at. Etcetera, have a lot of resources. There are a lot of resources that come in at that point. And then there's the other like 90% of the world that is looking for community collaboration, idea sharing, how to be a better leader, how to develop themselves as leader. And so that's who we are serving today. Andrea: [00:06:00] I love that that's that's a lot in a nutshell you like condense that down really. Andrea: [00:06:06] Well I've told that story once or twice. Andrea: [00:06:09] Yeah, only a couple times. So tell me about your first transition like that initial transition into entrepreneurship. What were like some like your early days where you just like, what the fuck am I doing or what? Because you knew how to sell. So and of course like selling half the battle, like, of course you need business, you need sales. But tell me like what were some early struggles? Ryann: [00:06:33] Yeah. So I actually really struggled to get my business off the ground, which is kind of funny because I did know how to sell. But what it was was I got so caught up in the online entrepreneur content creation hamster wheel, build an email list, you know, do all the thing crap and like really forgot my roots of like go out, meet people, build relationships, solve problems. So in the beginning it was like I was trying to I was trying to look super fancy on the Internet instead of being like, hey, I'm really good at what I do and I can help you. So that was kind of an issue early on. I mean, I'm talking like eight months of like the struggle, but then I grew my business as a side hustle, as the breadwinner in my family. And so I couldn't just, like, quit the job and go all in. So I grew it as a side hustle. But I think the mistake really early on was trying to do all the things and got really away from like the fundamentals of business, right? I got really swept up in like all the different ways that we can grow business. And they're all tools that I use currently, obviously. But when I was brand new to business, I didn't need any of that crap, right? It was really about like just go meet people and solve problems. So that was one of my biggest mistakes, was getting really caught up in like what my business looked like externally instead of being like foundationally building those those pieces. Andrea: [00:07:44] Yeah. Yeah. And what were some of the struggles with, like the newer business owners like now? Because you say like now, I don't I don't want to work with those people. That's not who I serve. Like, why? Because and I'm there to I am there to I'm like, if you are brand new, like you are not going to work with me personally because that's just a step up. So I want to hear your version. Ryann: [00:08:07] I really love serving new entrepreneurs, like I like the startup space. The reason why I knew that I couldn't go back to that. Andrea, when we decided to burn everything down, was really who I was as a person. You know, they often say that we wind up like leading the people a few steps behind us, right? Like we're a few steps. And so in the beginning I was just a few steps ahead, right? I was like, okay, my business is starting to make money. I know what I'm doing. And so I could very easily get there. But then once my business is skyrocketed in the best way possible, it was like I really just lost patience in the the mindset aspect of it and I'm so afraid and not have any money in my business isn't making any money. And the fear of investment and the fear of growth, the fear of success, the imposter syndrome. I just I had done so much work personally. I mean, I'm sure somebody has said this on your podcast before, right? Like entrepreneurship is the best personal development journey you'll ever go on. And so I couldn't get in their shoes anymore. Like I could not empathize and I couldn't connect in a really heartfelt way. And so I just found myself being really just frustrated and impatient, like, what do you mean you don't have $3,000 to invest in your business? What the hell are you going to do if you're not going to? And I was like, That's not a good business. Nobody wants to go. Nobody wants that girl. Andrea: [00:09:16] Yeah, no. And oh, my gosh, let's dive into that, because that's something that is near and dear to my heart. Doing the work, like going through my personal like actual, like legal divorce from a person. And that has like so going into entrepreneurship, like, yes, absolutely. It propels you to self development. And that's when I realize, like, this is not my person and then my divorce propelled me even further into more self development. So I'm curious. For you personally. When did you start your self development work? Was it like getting a taste in the corporate world or like it? Because for me it wasn't even a thing until I was like starting to make money in my business. And honestly, I remember listening to people on podcasts and like really successful people and they all talked about mindset and I was like, maybe there's just like this cult with entrepreneurs and they're like, oh, we all have to talk about this mindset. Thing to get them in it. And then I was like, Maybe there's something to it. And I started diving into it and I was like. Holy Shit, here we go. So I'm curious about your story about. Ryann: [00:10:26] So mine was very similar, right? Like we didn't, it's kind of wild. Like I spent 15 years in sales. Andrea And like nobody once ever talked to me about, like, my relationship with money. Like, what the fuck? Andrea: [00:10:37] Yeah. Ryann: [00:10:37] They never once. So I think some days I'm still unraveling that, right. But for me it actually started in the direct sales space, in the MLM space. So before I went all in on coaching and consulting, I was I sold wine for a Napa Valley based winery in a direct sales environment and I just did it to pay for daycare. It was before I had my first kid and I was like, I really want to not have to change my lifestyle when I have this kid and daycare is expensive. So I was like, If I can make an extra thousand a month selling wine and earning free wine, I'm here for that. And so I went to my first annual conference. We called it wine camp, and it was a lot of fun. But that's really when I got back into like listening to books and podcasts. I listened to a podcast prior to that point, and so that's really what propelled it was I started reading and listening again. That's what inspired the entrepreneurship journey. And even then I still same way. Like I was like, whatever this mindset shit is is just baloney, right? Like and it took me a really maybe not too long. It was just probably a solid year before I was like, okay, cool, I'm ready to start digging into this. Ryann: [00:11:40] And even then the first, I'd say year and a half to two years of mindset work still felt very surface level. I still was running into I saw these old habits and these old loops that I kept winding up. And so like I was successful, I was making money and my businesses were growing, but again was still struggling with like fulfillment and joy. And I was like, What does that mean? Like, we have a sign in my bathroom that's like joy, happiness without circumstance. And I'm like, womp, womp, womp, womp, womp, right? Like, I just I was like, is that even a thing? Like, who walks around like that? But I realized that Joy is is just that right? It's it's contentment more to me than like butterflies and rainbows. And so, like, I kept having to dig. And it's so layer after layer. Like, I feel like I'm still peeling back the onion and then, yeah, dealing with my business divorce, my personal divorce, my business divorce. I had to like other wounds came up and trauma and trust and all sorts of other shit. So it's been a wild ride. Andrea: [00:12:34] Yeah. And I'm curious, what work have you done around, like your money, your money story? Because that's something that I'm diving I'm pretty deep into right now because I was set back and not even because like paying for the divorce, but just like getting out of the situation, getting out of the marriage. And right now I'm like, oh, my gosh. Like before I left, I had all like, I had money here, money here, money here. And now I'm like. I have nothing. But it's like the I have a clean slate, and now I'm just like trying to reboot because I know, like, diving and all the money mindset stuff. Like there's a reason all of those things happened because it's somehow part of my money story. So I'm curious like, what have you done around. Ryann: [00:13:24] Money that's wild that you say that because it was the same thing for me. My business divorce and me restarting over and trying and not wanting to let go of my team while I started over. Like set me back pretty significantly financially because I, when I went to my business partner and told her that I didn't think that I wanted to continue to grow the business long term, I didn't anticipate just shutting it down. In my mind, it was going to be like a 12 to 18 month journey and she was like, okay, fine, I'm done here. And I was like, Oh shit, which just happened. So I actually am in this. It's a season of reinvention where, yeah, I'm having to rethink money and how I spend money and expenses and everything else because yeah, I mean a lot of I kept the business afloat with my personal funds for probably about four months. The beginning of this year we're finally making money, which is exciting. But that was not. I didn't anticipate that. Right? Like you're used to like, okay, cool. I just dip into savings for that or Oh, I want to invest in this big thing, here's some cash. And now I'm like, Can I get a payment plan for that? So which is very different than where it was six months ago. And for me, it's learning that and what I have actually learned that's really wild. I've been working with a coach and I was in Sedona and we had this whole session about like I've learned that I am excellent at making money, right? Like I am a builder, I am a creator. Ryann: [00:14:38] I can create money all day long. What I have not been doing is actually like spending time with my money and creating a safe space with money and holding on to money and having money. So I keep I kept working on all this time my mindset around making money and being okay with a person who makes a lot of money. Well, now I have to work on being a person who has a lot of money. Yes, I can make a lot of money, but I know again, I made it and I had it and I used it to keep the business afloat. So, I mean, we're not going to lose our house or anything like that. But, you know, being very used to having a very healthy cushion and no longer having a very healthy cushion is. But now it's like having money and creating a safe space with money and like literally looking at a relationship with money, right? Like that question of is if money was a relation, if money was, a person wouldn't want to hang out with you like what it feels, seeing, heard, understood. And I'm like, hell no. Because I just like don't even open the emails that my account says I don't want to see it, right? So I've had to work on being a person who has money and appreciating all amounts of money. Like I just got an email this morning of like book royalties that are like $43. And my first thought was like, no, no, no, nope, nope, nope. Like, if money was a person, I have to be excited about $43, right? Andrea: [00:15:50] Like, gosh, I love how you're like seeing money as a person. Like, is this like because I'm that's one thing I'm working on is seeing validating and like people like that's a whole journey for me. Ryann: [00:16:05] And like doing that with money. Andrea: [00:16:07] Oh, my God. That makes so much sense to me. Thank you for that. Ryann: [00:16:11] Because, yeah, I mean, normally I'd be like 40 bucks, right? Like that one even like take my family to Taco Bell, for crying out loud. But it was like, no, but I still have to make it feel safe and excited. Like, if money is energy, right, and we are energy, we have to be excited about it in all amounts, right? Like it's the whole going back to like the biblical stuff of like who you is trusted with little be trusted with much, right? So if we're like stepping over tiny piles of cash because we're looking for, you know, giant piles of cash, that's not the way it works. And so I'm learning to work on being a person who has money. And even it was the end of the month, like, I kind of reconcile everything, right? We're recording this at the beginning of a month and I literally wanted to go pay something off, right? So I was like, okay, cool, we had a good month, I'm going to go pay. And I was like, Nope, I'm going to have money. So I took 30% of what I was going to use. I looked at the whole dollar amount. I took 30% and put it in savings and then took 70% and went pay the credit card. And normally I wouldn't do that right. But that's because money wasn't safe to stay here. And so now I'm like, I want it to be safe for money to stay here. I need money and to understand that it's safe here and that I can both, you know, pay down the credit card and save at the same time. So that's been my work. Andrea: [00:17:25] Oh, my God. I love your work. So how did you like it? Definitely not where I planned to go in this podcast, but I'm so glad that we've gotten here. So what? Like how like how were you introduced to that? Or what? Like how did you get there? Ryann: [00:17:44] So it was through my coach. She was the one who asked me that question. So we so I went through. So I worked with a coach for six months in the back part of 2021. And then I actually went through her certification program in the beginning of 2022. And one of the things is I have this story of like being set back right and feeling behind and playing catch up because again, I was using a lot of my savings and stuff to keep the business afloat. And so she's like, Well, what have you spent money on that has not felt good to you? Ryann: [00:18:12] And I'm like, I don't know. Ryann: [00:18:14] So she literally gave me the homework assignment and like going back through all my credit card statements for the past six months and like finding any money that I spent that I was not excited about, that didn't feel good to me and like forgiving myself for it because I was beating myself up over it. I'm like, Oh my God. I'm like, you know, blown through all this cash to keep this business afloat. And I told it as a negative. So that's where she really gave me that homework assignment because I wrote it down because it was really, really, really important, an important part of the conversation. And I revisit it often, which is actually why it's on my desk. Working in tandem with your money. Right? So there's and here it says there's only abundance if you create the environment for abundance. So if you're mad about how you have to spend your money, the energy is off. And so, like, I've, I've she's like even small stuff, right? Because remember, we're taught from a money perspective where like, oh, well, you don't want to restrict because restriction is bad. And she's like, it's not about restriction, it's about being excited about how you're spending your money. So I'll give you an example. We use the CB's or I get charged like $5.99 a month for the CBSE app and I've never canceled it because who the it's going to take me more time than it's worth to go track down how the how to cancel that. Andrea: [00:19:23] And that's how they fucking get you. Ryann: [00:19:25] Yeah it is. But it also is the idea of like, but I don't like spending that money. Nobody fucking uses the CBSE app. So it's little things like that. Like she's like, that's not restriction, that's honoring your money, that's honoring the energy. And if the energy is not good, then it needs to go. So like I'm going through subscriptions, I'm going through like all sorts of shit of that. I have just let slide because again, it felt like more time and effort than it was worth to go. Cancel the subscription, cancel the thing, track down the password to do it. So yeah, it was, it was prompted through that conversation. Andrea: [00:19:54] Wow. I love that. This is incredible because like, this is literally what I'm like, going through myself and what I a lot of people know, a lot of the listeners know that I was like paying the bills of my ex husband and then that no longer felt good to me. And he's obviously not happy that I'm no longer paying his bills, but I don't have to. Like there's no court in America that's going to order me to do that, especially not here in Texas. And I was just doing it because I'm a people pleaser. But as I'm healing my codependency and people please nice. I'm like, no, I don't want to do that anymore. So. Yeah. Like getting back on my power. Slowly but surely. Ryann: [00:20:43] No, no. We had, like, we had invested in some stuff. Like, we had a guy who came in and did, like, our meal prep and stuff for us. And I used to love writing that check. It felt fun. It felt luxurious. I felt taken care of. But then, like the minute that that check started to not feel good, where it was like, oh, how much you spent, how much on groceries? Like, as soon as I found myself asking those questions, I realized that again energetically, that was not how I wanted to spend my money. And it's not because I didn't have it. It's not because I was like, Oh, I need this money to go do something else. It was just like, I don't enjoy cutting this check anymore. So that's what I think it means about like creating an environment for abundance, like really being going through it. I told my husband again, it's the beginning of the month. I was like, I need us to start saving receipts because at the end of the month I just pay the credit card bill and I don't look and I mean, again, first world problems, but what are we spending our money on? And are those the things we want to be spending our money on? Do we have the money? Yes. But are those the things we want to be spending our money on? Does that energetically feel good? So to me, that's what it means to create the environment for abundance. And again, it doesn't matter if it's a little bit of money or a lot of money. It's does the money feel good is really where I'm trying to get and even investments in the business of, like I said, just some some subscriptions and stuff that I haven't let go because again, $19 a month doesn't feel like worth tracking down, but it feels important to do now. Andrea: [00:22:01] Oh, my gosh. I love that. I'm so glad we went there. So one thing that I do want to ask about is the legal side of business. What whether like where do you want to go with this, number one? And like, first of all, I do want to ask about like this business, be in the room, the previous businesses, what legal protection, if any, have you put in place like? Andrea: [00:22:28] So it took me a while to like actually go get my own attorney to do stuff. Like for a while I was using like templates and things like that. So I was probably at a point in my business where we were making between 20 and 50,000 a month before. I was like, I should probably have like an attorney, like someone I could call because I use my accountant, set up my LLC and different things like that. So I started on the accounting side of things and protecting my money and from a tax perspective. But it took me a little while to get to the point where I felt like I had I needed legal counsel to help me with contracts, to help me with employment and hiring contracts and all those different things. So I mean, my businesses are relatively mature and I'm so glad that I had a relationship with an attorney by the time I went through my business divorce, because it was so helpful for him to know, like all the iterations of my business and to know me as a person because I was accused of some pretty gregarious things as far as theft and mismanagement of company funds. Ryann: [00:23:24] And intentionally running the company into the ground were all words that were used in an email. And so I it felt really good to know that he was in my corner and he knew me personally and he knew he reviewed all of my contracts. He didn't write them for that, that secondary business. So having a person when I had I waited until I needed somebody to have somebody. I feel like my business divorce would have been much more painful. But I already had somebody, somebody I already trusted, somebody who knew what was going on because they'd reviewed all of the contracts. Because what I did is I partnered with somebody who was my business coach, somebody who made a lot more money than I did. And I did make the mistake of trusting her for a lot of things because I was, oh, she's done this before, right? So we did use her attorney and everything to set up our operating agreement and our partnership agreement. But I again had a relationship and I was able to say, Hey, Chris, can you review these for me? And we did make changes and thank God for some of those changes with everything that went down. So it was but also understanding what a business attorney can and cannot do, because that was something too that Chris had to. Of course, as my attorney, we at one point in time had to bring in a business litigator because we were threatened that they were going to sue us. And Chris was like, Ryan, I don't go to court. So then I had to understand all the different types of attorneys and what needs to happen and what my boundaries were and what I and couldn't say. So I have I have flex that really well, but in the beginning it was contracts, employment agreements, contractor agreements, etc. is where I started. But I was really grateful to have that relationship when I really needed it because it made it a hell of a lot easier. Andrea: [00:24:48] Yeah. Oh, my gosh. I know you've been through the wringer. Ryann: [00:24:53] I know. I told Chris when we got, like, all of our paperwork signed, I was like, I am just so excited to not get a bill from you next month. You're amazing. I would refer you to anybody in Missouri or Kansas who needs an attorney, but my God, I'm so glad that I don't have to cut that check. Speaking of money, that doesn't feel good. Andrea: [00:25:13] Yes. Oh, my gosh. And can you give the list? So for those that are listening, Ryan is not a client of mine. She has her own attorney. And that I love to bring like anybody in business, whether you're our client or not. And I just want it. Can you just allude to like what his hourly rate is? You don't have to tell us what your bills were, but do you even know his hourly rate? Andrea: [00:25:35] It was 125 to 150, I think. Is what I was billed. Andrea: [00:25:39] Yeah. Ryann: [00:25:40] Typically. Because so when it was just contracts, it was always a flat fee, right? It was like, oh, for a contract, it's 750 for this. For an ad, oftentimes it was like, I'm just going to edit this last contract I made for you. So then I would just get billed like 50 bucks or 100 bucks. But in the with all the business divorce stuff where he billed me hourly, I think it was $125 an hour is what he was billing me. Andrea: [00:25:59] Okay, that sounds right. Ryann: [00:26:01] Okay. All right. Andrea: [00:26:03] Yeah. So it's I always I don't like billing hourly. But it's necessary sometimes, like in that kind of matter where there there is tension. I don't want to say litigation because it wasn't litigated, but yeah, there are things that you certainly have to build hourly, but it's over and done with. You are on the other side of your business, divorce. How do you feel about that? Ryann: [00:26:29] I feel amazing. You know, it was I learned so much through it, right? Just like you learned it in your. And not to compare a personal divorce in a business divorce, but you do have to reflect. Right. And being accused of really gregarious things by someone that you trusted is it's its own personal development journey, right? Like not internalizing that shit like I. Andrea There was a time I was literally going through my American Express line by line justifying expenses. So like audible, we're talking like rental cars, hotels. When we were in the hotel together, I'm like, she was here, like, what you want? And I knew this was her, her legal team or her accounting team. I think it came from her personally, but they were trying to trick me up with the Amex bills is that's how it felt anyway. And I like literally going through it line by line. And you have those moments of like, did I do something wrong? When I was well aware, you know, and you're an attorney and I probably shouldn't say it like this, but I'm like, bitch, if I'm going to, I'm going to steal money. Like, I'm going to steal more than like the audible monthly audible. Andrea: [00:27:24] Yeah. Ryann: [00:27:26] Or the rental car. Like, it's going to be worth it. Like if I'm going to steal money, like we're going to, like, go to the real bank, like we're going to make money. Andrea: [00:27:34] Yes. Yes. Ryann: [00:27:37] You know, so but you do it's a bit of a mind fuck, you know, of just some really wild accusations and having to wrap your head around that. And then, like I said, not let that infiltrate your day to day activity. So for me, it's that brain space of we we did not we did not acquiesce to any of the accusations. Like there was nothing like I was threatened to be sued two or three times. My favorite. You're going to love this. We got a threatening email from an attorney threatening to sue us. And it came from a Hotmail email address. Andrea: [00:28:11] Oh, my God. Andrea: [00:28:14] My attorney was like, Are you kidding me? Like, this is out of control. But I guess to threaten, litigate, like you have to be in the state, right? So she lives in the state of Florida. I live in the state of Missouri. So she had to find an attorney in Missouri, I guess, to file suit. I don't know. I'm not an attorney, but I mean, I'm guessing somebody just Googled somebody and they wound up with me with a Hotmail email address like, ah, threatening letter, threatening to sue us came from a Hotmail email address. It was one. Andrea: [00:28:39] Oh, my gosh. Andrea: [00:28:40] I wish I could see his face right now. Andrea: [00:28:42] That that is that's like rule number one. Get your fucking domain name. Andrea: [00:28:50] If it's $12 a month to, like, set that shit up. Andrea: [00:28:55] Like, oh, wow. Okay. Anyways. Ryann: [00:29:02] I feel like I was able to stand in my power. Speaking of standing in power and I learned I learned so much. I learned a lot about business. I learned a lot about myself. I learned a lot about partnerships in general and questions to ask because everyone's like, Oh, are you done with partnerships? I'm like, No, not I mean, yes or no. I don't know. I'm not going to let one situation say I'll never do it again. I just now know better questions to ask, things to think about what roles people play in the company like that was really more so what I learned than anything else. Andrea: [00:29:29] Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Andrea: [00:29:31] Well, Ryan, this has been amazing. Before we go, I love to ask all of my guests, what is your number one business tip? It doesn't have to be like, nothing specific. Like if somebody came off, came up to you off the street like, Ryan, I have no money. I don't know. I'm not going to make my business work. What do I do right? Ryann: [00:29:52] Relationships, relationships, relationships, relationships. There are no wrong, bad connections and relationships to build in business. And I mean, we're the perfect example, right? Like Andrew and I met in Costa Rica, come to find out, she was two rows behind us in first class and we didn't see her until we got the customer. But, you know, because another gal that we were traveling with and you know, but like this conversation is happening and I know you're having an event and I am having an event and there's just so many different ways that it's not like, Oh, what's Andrew going to buy for me? Or What am I going to buy from Andrea? But how can we build a relationship and what opportunities are presented through that? And I think that so many people in the beginning of building a business are so focused on how do I make money, how do I sign clients that they they step over opportunities to meet really cool people that know other really cool people. So I and this is and I honestly made this mistake again in the beginning. I copied my face off for like an entire year and did a shitty job of maintaining those relationships. And now it's kind of awkward sometimes to swing back around because I remember that one time I had a cup of coffee in 2018, but I mean, I'm doing it because it's important, but like just relationships are so important and never just coming the opportunity to have a cup of coffee, hop on a zoom call, talk to somebody new, learn something new, because you never know where those conversations and relationships will lead. Andrea: [00:31:09] I love that. And tell everybody where they can find you online. Ryann: [00:31:13] Yeah, absolutely. So I am at RyannDowdyofficial on Instagram and TikTok. I'm RyannDowdy on Instagram. I'm sorry, on LinkedIn and Facebook. Beintheroom.org is the website where you can learn about our membership, you can learn about our events or just hang out with us. We have podcasts as well, so I am easy to find. Ryann: [00:31:32] Amazing. I love it. Thank you so much, Ryan. Andrea: [00:31:35] Thank you, Andrea. Andrea: [00:31:39] Here at Legalpreneur, we're committed to providing a supportive legal community for all business owners. I know how scary the legal stuff can be. If you found this information helpful, I would be so grateful if you could share it with the fellow business owner. And quite frankly, it doesn't cost anything to rate, review or subscribe to the show. Your support helps me reach more listeners, which allows me to support more business owners in their entrepreneurial journey. Have any questions or comments about the show? Feel free to drop me a line on Instagram, I promise. I read all of the messages and comments and if you want to be a guest on the show or know someone that would make a great guest, simply fill out our application form and a team member will reach out if we think it's a good fit. I'll see you in the next episode.
