MANDY KELLOGG RYE

Mandy Kellogg Rye

Failure has never dissuaded me from doing something, meaning I don't think about it. I don't think about the bad outcome, really. Probably should think about it more sometimes, but I literally don't care about it.

 

Jon Pertchik

Today on The Market Makers, Mandy Kellogg Rye, founder of Waiting on Martha, she started a blog while drinking wine and watching a movie, zero thought of failure, zero plan. Three months later, Martha Stewart called, but this isn't a story about getting lucky. It's about what happens when a work ethic gets a creative spark that's been waiting for an outlet.

 

One of the things that leaps out to me when I look into your background a little bit is every quote has the two words, the other hard work, and just speak to your sort of views on that, and maybe we can start to dig into where does that come from in Mandy?

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

Sure. Well, I definitely think I come by it naturally, meaning my parents are the two, hardest working people I've ever met in my life, but I've always been a worker. I've always enjoyed it. So, I had a job the second I could have a job. One of the new things is the kids don't want to drive. I was still in the car before I had my license.

 

Jon Pertchik

I got caught a couple of times, but that's for another day.

 

So, where does Mandy's work ethic come from?

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

My parents always instilled, like literally, I could do whatever I wanted. If I wanted to be the president, I could be it if I worked hard enough for it, so there was never a, "It's given to you." It just is.

 

Jon Pertchik

Can we double click on that?

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

Yeah.

 

Jon Pertchik

So, why? What was it about them or who they were or where they came from? Where does that come from in them?

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

They were partners, so there weren't male and female duties. They were true partners and really hard workers, themselves. My dad had two jobs the majority of my life, and I used to go with him to his night job when I was in half day kindergarten. I remember that clearly.

 

Jon Pertchik

So, you're talking like five years old or something.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

Yeah. He worked for the wastewater treatment plant at night. He was a realtor by day. My parents, I don't ever remember telling me, "No, that's a bad idea," or "No, you shouldn't do that." Making mistakes was not a bad thing, and I still feel that way.

 

Jon Pertchik

Oh my God.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

If I make a mistake, who cares? You're not going to fail unless you're taking big swings, and you're absolutely going to fail all the time, and that's okay. Failure has never dissuaded me from doing something, meaning I don't think about it. I don't think about the bad outcome, really. Probably should think about it more sometimes, but I literally don't care about it.

 

Jon Pertchik

You're this five-year-old. Picture this cute little girl, holding her dad's hand, going to work, and all these ingredients from that time of, failure's okay and just work hard, and your parents probably telling you some of these things, but more importantly, living it, and you just seeing that through modeling their behavior.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

100%.

 

Jon Pertchik

Tell me about going to work with your dad. What are some of those early memories of what were you doing? Were you just playing with stuff while your dad's working? What was that like?

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

It was the night shift, right? And so, his work was about 45 minutes to 50 minutes from where we lived, and he would always stop at 7-Eleven and let me get whatever candy I wanted, and I was a huge junk food. I did not eat real food when I was young.

 

Jon Pertchik

Well, that's impossible to imagine.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

Yeah. I mean, I would just go and walk the plant with him, and then I would obviously sleep at some point, but my customers know my parents. I just expanded my space a year and a half ago. My parents are 75. We cut and laid all of that tile in the front entranceway for three days, like me, my mom and my dad.

 

Jon Pertchik

Oh my God.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

He built all the houses I grew up in, so they let me design every room that I had. They'd be hanging out of the chimney, and they had real jobs too, so I come by it naturally and they were always very supportive.

 

Jon Pertchik

I mean, the takeaway there is make sure you have great parents.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

Yeah. You can't choose your parents, but you can choose who you're around. You can choose your spouse, you can choose your friends, you can choose who works for you, and so making sure you have people that are cheering for your success and cheering for you and in your corner.

 

Jon Pertchik

Where does some of that awareness that you just described come from, about choosing people importantly around you?

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

Sure. I mean, listen, I didn't always choose the right people.

 

Jon Pertchik

Well, we all haven't. Come on, yeah.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

I mean, for sure. If you ask my mom about some of my boyfriends, she would tell you, "Absolutely not." But college is where I really thrived, and I'll never forget this too. I grew up in the same small town. I just always felt like I was meant for a bigger life. Now, looking back at 45, I'm so thankful for where I grew up, and I yearn for that and have that nostalgia. We drove freshman year, and we were crossing. In Peoria, there's a bridge, and it's this big orange bridge and we're crossing it, and Wide Open Spaces by the Dixie Chicks was playing. My dad just said to me like, "This is your chance. You need to go and not come back."

 

Jon Pertchik

So wait, wait. This is like a movie scene I'm picturing.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

Yeah. It's very vivid in my head, but college was just the change for me.

 

Jon Pertchik

So, college was the window. Not the moment, but like the window when you started to transform.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

Yes.

 

Jon Pertchik

And tell me a little more about that, because it sounds like this was a moment when you're just starting to become who you've become.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

Yes, and my dad is not like this deep, he's an amazing person, but we're not having heart to hearts. It's not these deep conversations, so for him to say that is obviously stuck in my head forever, but he just said, "I don't want you to come back," not that they didn't want to see me all the time.

 

Jon Pertchik

I understand.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

He's like, "This is your time, and you need to focus your energy here," and I really didn't go back much after that.

 

Jon Pertchik

But when he said that, did you get it, do you think?

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

I got it on a like, yeah. I mean, yeah. I did.

 

Jon Pertchik

So, it actually meant something, not just now in reflection, but then.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

Yes, it did.

 

Jon Pertchik

Wow. Mandy always wanted a big life, but how do you get there when nobody's showing you the path?

 

When did things start to foment and become like focus and caring about where you're heading as a person, as a career person, eventually, as an entrepreneur? When did that start to come together for you and how? How did it come about?

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

I think from a young age, I always wanted a big life. Always wanted a big life.

 

Jon Pertchik

So, you were dreaming big.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

Dreaming big from day one, and big life to me meant being in the city, being a boss, buying what I wanted. I wish someone would've said, "Okay. What do you love, and how can you make money from that?" Because the idea of an entrepreneur back then was like, your parents had a business, and you took over the business. It was never like you could create your own brand. The idea of creating your own brand is how this all started, but you didn't really know that until you saw it in action.

 

Jon Pertchik

Right.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

So, I was like, "Okay. Well, I like to argue, and lawyers make a lot of money," so you know what? I'm going to be a poly science-

 

Jon Pertchik

I like to argue.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

Speech communication major. I hate political science. As much as I actually love politics, I hate it. That's the one thing. I wish I would've done a business marketing or taking classes I enjoyed, because I would've enjoyed the learning side of college more than thinking that it was just going to get me to this end-sum game. That's the one thing, I wish I would've enjoyed and spent more time in the library and maybe a little less time at our bars.

 

Jon Pertchik

That was the name of a bar. We used to say, "I'm at the library," because there was a bar down the street that was called that.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

Well, our bars stayed up until four, and my best friend's parents owned three of them, so trust me-

 

Jon Pertchik

That's convenient. Maybe that's problematic, that they, the parents [inaudible 00:07:21]. I'm not sure.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

But listen, I went to law school, so learning was done at some point.

 

Jon Pertchik

Right. You were figuring it out.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

But I didn't enjoy it.

 

Jon Pertchik

So then, this idea of creating your own brand, how did that start to percolate up in your mind-

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

Yes.

 

Jon Pertchik

And seeing that as you and where you're heading?

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

It's very specific. I can tell you this so easily, and to anyone that is thinking about this, creating your own brand based on who you are and your authenticity in it is the key, and it will take you everywhere. My corporate job before this, I was in healthcare and consulting, but I helped hospitals and health systems with their social media and email marketing strategy. This was at the inception of social media. I mean, Instagram hadn't even launched yet, so that was very helpful for me, but I was constantly watching social media trends and all of that stuff. Then, Etsy launched, and you're like, "Oh, okay."

 

Jon Pertchik

Very familiar with this.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

I worked from home. At the core of it, it was a sales job. Very good at it, but I'm a worker, so I had plenty of free time. Outside of it, I was the number one sales individual for numerous years, because I'm competitive.

 

Jon Pertchik

You are?

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

A little bit, but don't play game night with me. I've always been a creative individual, and so I've always had this creative spark that was never nurtured. I never had an outlet for it, right?

 

Jon Pertchik

Right.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

And so, I was watching a movie called Waiting for Guffman, and I was drinking wine.

 

Jon Pertchik

Oh, Waiting For

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

Yes, yes. But I was drinking a lot of wine that night.

 

Jon Pertchik

Foreshadowing.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

And I loved Martha Stewart, and these blogs started being created, and I was like, "Well, I can do that. I can share this life." Anthony and I had just moved in together. I love to cook. I love to do all of those things. I love to make things, and I was like, "Well, this would be fun, and you know what? Why not add a little E-commerce component to it?" And it was when Macy's and them weren't even doing E-commerce then, and so I started this little blog with zero thought of failure, with zero thought about the name, with zero thought about anything, made my own little logo. It was pink and orange, and because I was kind of at the beginning, which is always important, three months later, Martha Stewart invited me and 50 other entrepreneurs out, and this is when she had the show, and we spent a weekend there with the magazines , and then Pottery Barn reached out. All of these things started to happen.

 

Jon Pertchik

So, that happened fast.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

It happened fast.

 

Jon Pertchik

Can I go back for a second? Because this is a window that's important. One thing you said though, leading up to that moment, was you were this creative person, and I want to call that out, but everything up until this moment, at least in our conversation, is like you're this driven, hardworking, and this is a dumb thing to say, but I'll say it. I think a lot of times people assume if you're creative-

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

Yes.

 

Jon Pertchik

There's like this hard charging, nerdy, robotic, like go forward, linear thinking kind of person, and then there's a creative on the other hand, and they don't coexist.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

Correct.

 

Jon Pertchik

You are obviously both of those.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

I'm in the middle.

 

Jon Pertchik

So, tell me about how you started to have the self-awareness that you have this creative thing inside of you.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

I never wanted what you would think of as a typical creative job. I never wanted to be a florist or an artist. I can't paint worth a damn, like those sort of things that you just naturally think of as creative, and I always wanted money. I mean, to be very honest, I wanted a nice life.

 

Jon Pertchik

Right.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

When this all happened, I was 29, 30, so it's not like I was like 22, so I worked my corporate job while doing this for four plus years-

 

Jon Pertchik

Wow.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

Because I was like, "I'm not going back to living paycheck to paycheck."

 

Jon Pertchik

Stay in this moment where you decided to do this thing. At that moment, this was going to be a side hustle, a fun, was it going to be a hobby-ish thing?

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

Yeah.

 

Jon Pertchik

So, this was like this cool, crazy, fun idea to have an outlet to express yourself. You still have every plan to make money doing your job, and you're doing well. You're a top salesperson. That ain't changing in this moment, but you've got this cool sort of probably like, was it more to do something fun and expressive?

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

Yes, and I would-

 

Jon Pertchik

Well, that's the best part, right?

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

For sure, because it came from an authentic place.

 

Jon Pertchik

Exactly.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

And I'll tell you what, if anyone wants to be in retail as an entrepreneur and make money, then you're getting it for the wrong reason, because I made a lot more money in corporate America and sales than I do now, but no, it was just this fun thing, but the thing with me is nothing stays small, right? So, it's like, "Well, I could also do this, and then I could run these brands, and then I could add this component, and then I could add this component." It's a natural snowball with me always.

 

Jon Pertchik

For you, right. I got it. I've totally seen that in you. One thing I do want to triple click on, because this is a lesson I've learned through just this podcast, if you had tested me and said before doing this and having a chance to meet great people like you, "What are the top one or two characteristics of successful people?" it wouldn't have made the top ten, which I'm embarrassed to say now, which would be now number one, not number two or three, is authenticity.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

Yeah, 100%.

 

Jon Pertchik

I still am getting my head around that, but it does make sense, because it's like if you are true to who you are and you put yourself out there, whether expressed through great design, whether expressed through messaging, cooking, hospitality, or whatever, there will be people out there like you.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

And I'd like to say something about that, that I wish I would've heard as a younger person.

 

Jon Pertchik

Yes, please.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

And I feel like you'll get me, just knowing you from this little bit, I'm too much for a lot of people, and you either love me or hate me. There's not a lot of middle, but I've never been apologetic about that, and I was never taught to be apologetic about that. You don't have to like me, and that's okay, but I'm not going to dim my light for anybody.

 

Jon Pertchik

Which is, again, for people listening, there's like a huge takeaway to that. I love the word "unapologetic" too and tying that to authenticity, because they have to go together, right? I mean, if you're overly apologetic for things that you were doing to express yourself, then you're not really being authentic.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

So, I have all women who work for me and a lot of them are younger, and I won't let them say sorry. Women apologize way too much.

 

Jon Pertchik

So true.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

And you can say like, "I made a mistake," or whatever but, "Oh, I'm sorry," it's such a natural roll off the tongue, and I'm like, "Stop. We're not doing that. We're not doing that." Also, if you're selling anything, people know if you're authentic or not, so when I get on social media and I tell the people that follow me like, "I love this product," they don't question it. They know I love that product, and it happens like, "Oh. Well, that's what Mandy loves," so we know she's not lying.

 

Jon Pertchik

And that's so important, because you have a level of trust that you've earned-

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

For sure.

 

Jon Pertchik

With your audience because you've been authentic.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

And I tell them when I've messed up, and I tell them when things are hard. I've been very, very honest with people, and I think pulling the curtain back on retail, especially these last five years, whether it was COVID, whether it is how mean customers can be I mean, one of my team members before I walked in here called me crying, because we messed up a color because we're human, and you should read what this person wrote to her. I said, "No. We're not dealing with that person. Absolutely not."

 

Jon Pertchik

Martha Stewart calls, Pottery Barn reaches out, but what happens when the thing you build for fun becomes real with employees, leases, and consequences?

 

What was it like to meet Martha Stewart when you first did? And then, just I want to slow down that first three or four months of the launch. Was there an incredible level of surprise at how quickly things started moving?

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

Yes and no. There wasn't a lot to compare it to, and I always tell people comparison is a thief of joy, and don't compare your beginning to someone else's middle, because a lot of times people will stumble upon me. They weren't there at the beginning. They didn't see me struggle. They'll stumble upon me 10 years in.

 

Jon Pertchik

Right. That's great.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

Yes, I didn't have anything to compare it to.

 

Jon Pertchik

I see.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

So, it was exciting. Working with Pottery Barn, meeting Martha Stewart, going to New York, getting these opportunities, shooting for magazines, and that was crazy exciting, but did I compare it to anything? No, because there was nothing to compare it to.

 

Jon Pertchik

Now, in that window and you're starting to get real traction really quickly, I guess from there, that window and forward, is there a process of making choices to say, "Hey, my business is going to go deeper this way"? How do you do that?

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

I mean, retail's changed a lot, and how people consume content and buy and shop has changed a lot, right? Starting out, when you're at the smaller threshold, you can take more risks. You don't have to look at going deep in certain things. You can kind of do a lot of things and test a lot of things out, and especially when you don't have people whose salaries and families are depending on you.

 

Jon Pertchik

Counting on it, right.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

Now though, being at the level we're at, I have to be careful. I mean, there's not a small launch anymore.

 

Jon Pertchik

Right, right.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

It's a big launch, and I have people who work for me and they support their kids, and it's-

 

Jon Pertchik

And other people outside of them are going to act on it.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

It's very scary.

 

Jon Pertchik

Right. That's interesting.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

It's very scary.

 

Jon Pertchik

What's interesting about you, I think, you care about consequences, probably for others, more than you do even more for yourself.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

Yes. I haven't paid myself this year, because we are paying for our bill.

 

Jon Pertchik

Yeah. That's obvious. You're this hard charging person, but it sounds like you are deeply caring about people around you-

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

Deeply.

 

Jon Pertchik

And the people who follow you, because if you say this and people do this, and it's a bad consequence, whether it's for an employee, a teammate or someone out there, you take that in.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

Yes, and I deeply care about retail surviving, and I'm deeply happy for small business retailers. As competitive as I am in life, I am so not competitive with other retailers. But yeah, it's just changed a lot. In the beginning it was like, "This is what I love. Here's how I'm going to share it." I love a lot of things, so that's helpful. I love cooking and hosting and all of that, and then what started to happen when I got my brick and mortar, because I was on E-commerce and I'm still on E-commerce, but 15 years now, brick and mortar is 8 years, okay? So I did pop-ups all over the city for 2 years-

 

Jon Pertchik

Right, I saw that. Yeah.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

To test out size of space, location, what really matters. Fascinating. I would suggest anyone thinking about doing a brick and mortar to do that. That taught me more than anything.

 

Jon Pertchik

Can we go one level deep? Because I think there's a lot there. I mean, there's like a real lesson there, because-

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

Real lesson.

 

Jon Pertchik

Brick and mortar, you're making a long-term, heavy duty commitment.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

Yes.

 

Jon Pertchik

So, get it right in terms of location, offering.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

Oh, so important.

 

Jon Pertchik

Speak to that. How did you even realize that that was a smart thing to do before even doing it?

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

This is where there are a lot of things that you got to just say yes to that happen in the right time.

 

Jon Pertchik

Right.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

So because I was a blogger and influencing, and I'm saying that with quotes for those that can't see me, because it is a funny word to me still, so spots would reach out to me that were vacant in Atlanta. This was before pop-ups were a thing or just starting, so they didn't charge me rent. I just had to pay my operating costs, so great. I made sure that I did those pop-ups for longer than Q4, because if you did them in just Q4 and thought, "Oh. This is how much money you're making in retail," please. For here, it's the J months, January, June, July, so you got to live that pain. I wanted to know, did I want to go into a store every day? What is staffing like? How much space do you need? What is it going to cost? I did spaces that were too big and too small, like Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and I did three to four different spaces all around the city before I landed where I'm at. It was the best. Location trump's all, period. Location trump's all.

 

Jon Pertchik

Okay, so now just so we have some time to talk about where you are today. How are you juggling these things? You must have a great team. You said it's an all-female team. You must have people you really can count on.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

I mean, balance is a myth.

 

Jon Pertchik

Right.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

And my favorite quote that I keep telling myself is like, "Pressure is a privilege," because it is exhausting and how thankful-

 

Jon Pertchik

You have such a psycho awesome perspective.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

Am I to be chasing a dream that I wanted?

 

Jon Pertchik

The fact that the pressure's there means there's demand.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

Yes.

 

Jon Pertchik

There's utility for you.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

Pressure is privilege.

 

Jon Pertchik

So, pressure is a privilege.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

Pressure is a privilege.

 

Jon Pertchik

I'm telling you I'm going to use that a lot, and I will make sure you get credit from that.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

No. I mean it's not mine. I didn't say it.

 

Jon Pertchik

Well, you did to me.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

But I think two things. I think one is you need to have a come to Jesus with who you are and how you, as a person, are going to best work. I do my best work in spurts, so meaning like go, go, go, go, go for four or five days.

 

Jon Pertchik

Pause.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

Two days off. Go, go, go, go, go, two days off. So, I know how I work best, and I try to do that. Now, that's not always possible.

 

Jon Pertchik

Of course.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

I had a really unfortunate employment situation, so my Christmas got turned upside down, and in those situations I've just learned, embrace the chaos, and I'm going to be excited about it or happy, because I can only control what I can control.

 

Jon Pertchik

Absolutely.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

But I do have an amazing partner, my husband, and I do have amazing team members. Now, teams, it's the hardest part of a business. Hardest part of a business, period, and not all your team members are going to be your A players, and that's okay.

 

Jon Pertchik

It's important.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

But you got to have two or three, and I do and have always had those people, and they are my family. I used to think like, "Oh. You got to separate." No, you can't separate. No, because I can't pay them enough to be there for the money. They're there because they love me, period. Like, that is, that's why they're there.

 

Jon Pertchik

Again, it speaks to just where drive and ambition comes from. It doesn't come from just a paycheck. It's deeper than that.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

Yeah.

 

Jon Pertchik

Speak to, if you don't mind, because you've mentioned it a few times, and if it's too personal, we can go back.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

No, nothing's too personal.

 

Jon Pertchik

Basically, your partnership with your husband, and how that support, that connection, however you would characterize what you have together when you use the word "partner," how that affects your ability to be successful.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

Well, I'll say this just in general, male, female, I don't care, choosing your partner is the most important decision you will make in your life.

 

Jon Pertchik

No question.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

Period. Like my parents, Anthony has never asked me to be someone else, ever, and he's so supportive and they call him St. Anthony at work, which is giving him too much credit, to be honest.

 

Jon Pertchik

You got to chop him off at the [inaudible 00:21:20] level.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

That's just not even fair, but he dropped me off today. He is just the most pure of heart person, and this is what I'll say about choosing a spouse. We are aligned on how we view life, like the big stuff, but we are completely different in our personalities. He's chill. I'm not.

 

Jon Pertchik

I would say the same thing about my wife, and I too, different aspects, but exactly the same.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

And he knows my parents and saw this, so he knew he was not sitting on the sideline. You know what I mean? He is not sitting on the sidelines, and he was the one in the beginning when we shipped, he shipped every night. I got him a beer fridge, a television, and a desk in the garage, and he shipped every package for four, five, six years after work, so he was in the trenches with me. Now he loves it, because he doesn't have to do half as much, but he is in the trenches with me all the time. Unless he feels it's harming me as a person, like I'm taking on too much, no dream is too big.

 

Jon Pertchik

That's amazing.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

So supportive.

 

Jon Pertchik

Where are you heading? I mean, what else is exciting on the horizon?

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

We're climbing the mountain. We're getting towards the peak. The last two years have been in the valley. The last two years have been really, really bad.

 

Jon Pertchik

Sure. They were tough.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

And I just want to be really truthful, because if anyone's looking, and a lot of that was caused by myself. We went through a huge expansion, and it was a lot, and last year there was a moment where I called the powers that be, even though I signed a 10-year lease and said, "I'm done. I can't do this anymore. I can't do it," and this is where the right people who know who you are, and my building management is a mom and pop. They love me and support me, and they said, "Mandy, we will figure it out if this is what you want, but I want you to take the week, and I want you to really think about it and not make any rash decisions," and I didn't, and I'm so happy I didn't. I had someone that knew me well enough to say, "Just take a breath," because I sometimes will make rash decisions.

 

I was just, for the first time in a long time, I'm really excited and feel very invigorated by the business and retail as a whole again. We're doing some rebranding. There's some new kind of category areas I want to dive a little deeper in, that have been on the horizon, have been in my brain a lot. Then, another thing I want to get back to that is needed, and I know it's needed, because I get stopped constantly here, is I used to be a space and coach and help other small business retailers, and just be a place that we can commiserate, talk, create these safe spaces, and bounce ideas off each other, and I want to bring that back because we need a place of community.

 

Jon Pertchik

Mandy Kellogg Rye, Waiting on Martha. Thank you so much.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

Thank you. Yes.

 

Jon Pertchik

Especially in this great market, to take time to do this, I'm super grateful, and it's been super fun getting to know you a little bit.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

So fun. Thank you.

 

Jon Pertchik

So, thanks so much for being here.

 

Mandy Kellogg Rye

Thanks for having me.

 

Jon Pertchik

Mandy is honest, in a way that's rare, about the hard years, about almost walking away, about not paying herself so her team gets paid first. She's never apologized for being who she is, and she's never pretended the climb was easy. Last year she almost quit. She called her landlord, ready to break a 10-year lease. Those close to her told her to take a breather and just take a week. She did, and she stayed. Now she's re-energized, because as she says, pressure is a privilege. I'm Jon Pertchik. Thanks for listening to The Market Makers. If you enjoy today's conversation, follow for more stories of transformation from the people shaping how we live, work, and gather.