00:05
Lara Schmoisman
This is coffee number five. I’m your host, Lara Schmoisman. Hi, everyone. Welcome back to coffee number five. Are you ready for this? Remember this year when the year started, and I know we’re almost at the end of the year that I told you. What was my keyword for the year? My keyword was community. And because I was inspired by new communities that I joined. I was inspired by what I was seeing out there in social media, and I was inspired by my team. And if we wouldn’t be a community and working together, it wouldn’t happen. The magic wouldn’t be there. And today, I want to bring to you the queen of community. And April, she is a c I gonna. What’s your last name is? Uchitel. 

00:57
April Uchitel
Yeah. Perfect. 

00:58
Lara Schmoisman
Oh, I did it. Okay. April Uchitel, she’s the CEO of the board. She’s former CEO of Violet Grey. You’ve been around. You are in the fashion industry. You are a board of multiple incredible communities. Let’s call it communities. But mostly today, you are the CEO of the board. So what’s the board? How the board started. 

01:23
April Uchitel
So the board, funny enough, like, the seeds, I think, were planted for me back in 2013, to be honest, I was in Manhattan. I was a chief brand officer of a tech company called Shop Spring. We were building a marketplace on mobile. This is super early app ecosystem days. Way before there were buy buttons on Instagram. And we really set out to disrupt that middleman play that most companies were stuck with a wholesale model or moving into direct to consumer, starting slow. And were there to really bridge that gap in the sense that were creating one destination for all brands to be shopped on, to control the content, to control the pricing, and actually to acquire the customer. So it was pretty disruptive. And as I onboarded 1600 brands in three years, I ran around Manhattan like a crazy person. 

02:13
April Uchitel
And I would go from really emerging brands. At the time, Enzo Graviel was working out of a closet. Harry Warby Parker, Nasty Gal had just launched Casper, just launched all the way up to Gucci. And so I would sit in these brand meetings, and because I had been a senior executive in fashion for many years, they just started to share all their other pain points. And so I organically started to connect them with other founders and other companies who had just been through that, whether it was replatforming or a new sales agent or going international. And I just realized how siloed all these companies were building. And it was definitely much more gated back then. This idea that it was your contact, your buyer, whether it was a service, three PL, whatever that may be. 

02:55
April Uchitel
And so part of my role at the board was building out kind of the UX and the experience for the brands, bringing the brands on, and then the chicken and egg of getting more brands, more customers, more brands, more customers. I started to kind of create a community within the brand partners that we had, and I would bring in Jeff Rader from Harry’s to do a fireside chat with brands like Rebecca Minkoff and Mario Cornejo that we’re really just starting to explore direct to consumer. And so this piece just started to kind of make me more aware from this 360 perspective that there was just, nobody was helping each other, you know, and no one was sharing information that could really save hundreds of thousands of dollars and years, you know, of pain. Had they just spoken to someone down the street? 

03:36
April Uchitel
And so I had this idea to really build kind of angie’s list meets Tinder, where here’s my problem. Who can I go and talk to? And then how do you make that transactional in the sense that there’s a real value share? And when I got to LA, and I was the CEO of Violet Gray, it was another 130 brands. And I was constantly getting asked for introductions to formulators, sales agents, looking for a president. And I kind of, over time, became that resource to go to for information advisor, network, et cetera. And when I stepped down during the pandemic and just had seen this huge shift with COVID moving everybody into a virtual space, watching all of the senior talent also kind of exit companies and start to move into this fractional space. 

04:22
April Uchitel
And so all of a sudden, what initially was brands in these siloed environments became these independent consultants all working from home. And the idea of really kind of creating this one destination in the way that we built spring for those talented, and I say vetted, because community is very much around like minded humans being able to create a destination for companies looking for talent, and then to really share our knowledge and our resources and our network so that we empower each other in the way that it’s very easy to become siloed and a little lonely when you’ve now left a team that you were running and going into your own space. So it’s a long answer. 

05:01
Lara Schmoisman
It was a long answer, but it was valid. And also, what you created is really a community, because it’s not about only this. Matching is what you just said about. I mean, I love to be part of a community that I have a question and I can put it in our chat. I’m gonna have ten people answering. And if they don’t have the answer, oh, I may be able to introduce you with these people. It’s about being kind, being about generous, of helping. 

05:30
April Uchitel
You know, I love to say where generosity and ambition are not mutually exclusive, because at the end of the day, everyone is building companies and we’re looking to monetize our knowledge and our skills and bring those that impact to more companies when you’ve left one. And ultimately, things are changing so fast. Just to stay relevant and to stay upskilled and ahead of the curve, you really do need to have your knowledge constantly advancing. And sometimes it’s hard to do that when you’re inside a company. Really heads down on moving it forward. There’s a little bit more visibility coming in as an objective observer, but you’re gathering all this information from your peers. And what I really love about this community is that it is very much built on multiple industries and disciplines. 

06:13
April Uchitel
I set out not to just do marketing, not to just do beauty, because quite frankly, where I think the tapestry is really rich is when you have the AI expert, the sustainability expert, the Gen Z expert, the TikTok expert, all kind of sharing their knowledge collectively. So that even if it’s just like, oh, that’s really interesting. Kind of a cheat sheet of what’s happening to, let’s go deeper and really sit with our AI experts and have them really walk us through where we should be, what we should be reading, what we should be subscribed to, how we should be guiding our clients along all these different, ever changing paths. And so what I love about the community is it’s that real generous exchange. And there’s just a lot of transparency. 

06:54
April Uchitel
And I think vulnerability in this space where before, when you’re inside a company, it’s very much about kind of wearing the armor and kind of for that seat at the table. Now you can be a lot more open and vulnerable and share across the community because we’re all in this new way of working. 

07:12
Lara Schmoisman
Yeah, I have to say that someone was asking me this week about being generous or giving advice because I took a call that, and I just said, you don’t need to hire me for this. You need to do it this way and this way. And they were shocked. I said, you know what, I only found generosity in people, that they really know what they’re doing. 

07:34
April Uchitel
Yeah, no, I agree. I agree. And I think, you know, the idea, like I said, go back to the scarcity model where it was so gated and closed in fashion, especially. And this idea that, you know, it’s your buyer contact, it’s your. Somehow you have a relationship that no one else has. And it’s just, it’s so false because the, you know, the more you open and share, the more you get back. And it’s. It’s something that I’ve really practiced deeply in my career of, if I can help someone, I will, you know, in that sense of making those connections that are so valuable, and it comes back later, you know, I have people. 

08:10
Lara Schmoisman
I never understood those people who say, I don’t recommend, because you never know. 

08:15
April Uchitel
And you know what? There’s plenty for everybody. I think it’s that sense, too. And I remember, honestly, when I was at spring, and I was looking at my Angie’s list meets Tinder idea, I met this woman who was also at spring, but she and her husband were part of a brewers organization. So their hobby, Washington, making beer on the side. And so she was explaining to me, there’s this website where you literally, like, all the brewers can log in and they can say, what temperature do you guys use? How long does it ferment for? And again, everybody jumps in and answers. And that was 2014. And I remember thinking, that is so genius just to have a space where people can just ask for help and get answers. It seemed, you know, ridiculous. 

08:51
April Uchitel
And it’s actually, you know, what we do at the board collectively. But there’s so many areas, I know so many people that are, you have. 

08:59
Lara Schmoisman
To be a very specific personality to be in the board, and you’re a very good selector. I don’t know how to say you attract the right people. And I know that not always was the right people. And sometimes you had to make difficult decisions of who you let in or not. But it’s all about that. It’s attracting the right team, it’s attracting the right client. Understanding that we are not competing, even. I mean, there are other people in the world that have agencies, they’re agency owners. And you know, what we share. We have private chats all the time. Hey, this has ever happened to you or what do you use for this? Because they’re inclined for everyone. I’m what might not be a good client for me, might be a good client for him. And I’m happy to refer. 

09:50
April Uchitel
Absolutely. I mean, I remember when I was in, you know, and been in president and CEO roles, and generally when something’s happening, you call all the other president and CEO friends at different companies to see if that is exactly you know, for me it’d be a request from a department store to participate in an ad vehicle. And they were telling you, it costs this much and you’re like, is everybody paying that much? And then you call everybody you know? And it’s that shared knowledge that makes you able to make a smarter business decision. You can’t really operate in a bubble. And I think that generosity of spirit where multiple brains can kind of come together and learn from each other and it could just be someone says one thing and it just opens up a whole other way of thinking. 

10:29
April Uchitel
And I’ve seen it happen in person. When we gather where someone’s speaking and a lot of heads are nodding and then someone’s like, oh my God, that is genius. And it could be so subtle and so just a twist on something they were thinking. And to me, those little baby steps of evolution, when you look back, and I went from fashion to tech to beauty to now community, and our careers evolve and I don’t look at them pivots because each thing needed to happen to get to the other thing. And so we’re really talking with most people in their late forties and above at the board and 15 years or plus I senior roles. 

11:08
April Uchitel
And this space has a very strong kind of corporate foundation, has now moved into a very entrepreneurial place when you’re working for yourself or you’re running your own company and it’s just a different headset and some people can make that leap easier than others. And really having the support of someone who’s been consulting for twelve years with someone who just started last week and how do we, you know, really kind of help move things forward, especially as we’re sharing what’s happening industry, whether it’s, you know, paid marketing or SEO or things we can use each other to workshop. So we’re giving the best advice to our clients and it’s not something that we did two years ago at a company because that’s already, you can’t deploy those tactics anymore. And so it has to really be this real time approach. 

11:49
April Uchitel
And when I talk to brands and founders and we start to understand where they’re stuck, it’s really important that they feel safe in who they’re working with. And I think having a community mindset really helps people kind of visualize us as an entity very different than say a McKinsey or a huge agency where you kind of get sold in by this guy and this guy works on the project. Our goal is to really have that human connection and it stems from being built and based on a community model. 

12:16
Lara Schmoisman
Yeah. So I’m so glad that you were brought up working with brands because it’s something were discussing. And it just fascinated to me, too, when we approach brands, everyone thinks that they know the problem they have. 

12:31
April Uchitel
Yeah. 

12:32
Lara Schmoisman
It’s really important to trigger that problem. It’s like in medicine, and were talking about this, too. If you have a problem, you have to have a diagnosis. 

12:44
April Uchitel
Yes. You can’t just take the aspirin. 

12:46
Lara Schmoisman
Exactly. So it’s really, the aspirin is going to be a placebo. It’s going to be only for a little while, but you need solutions. And this is a lot of things that I’m seeing in the market right now, that companies, that they have solutions, they try to patch the places instead of finding the expertise or the expert. And sometimes it’s just one call or few calls and find that direction. And I feel like a lot of companies are afraid to ask for that help or not knowing where to go. 

13:20
April Uchitel
I think you’re right. I think there’s a fear of being vulnerable in the sense that you don’t want to say what you don’t know, but it’s almost more. So they’re moving so fast, and so where they’re reacting is where they feel the most pain. And yet where it’s systemic is probably way further back in. You know, that funnel inside. So, for example, we’ll have people reach out looking for help with social media strategy, and then we send somebody, you know, they get in there and basically they’re like, social is not the problem. Brand’s the problem. You know, the story’s not strong, the content’s not strong. It’s really confusing across all the channels. And so while they’re feeling it on social, it’s just, the reality is it’s not firing across the rest of the channels and it’s not consistent. 

13:58
April Uchitel
And they need to kind of go back and kind of do that work. And so what we really try to guide brands into is almost like brand therapy, where it’s what happens when I talk to a founder. It’s what all of us happen when we first take that initial phone call, trying to really understand where they’re stuck and then deciding if they really are, you know, in the, in that place. 

14:18
Lara Schmoisman
First of all, a lot of things that we have when we have a problems, are the symptoms of the problem. Not necessarily. Is the problem itself the cause? 

14:27
April Uchitel
Yeah. 

14:27
Lara Schmoisman
Yeah, the cause. So, and many times when you are so into the problem, you don’t have or into your company. I see a lot of founders, a lot of CEO’s of the companies are so in love with their product that they cannot see many times. In reality, it’s like you’re so in love with your husband or boyfriend when you start that you cannot see his flaws. And then they show up. At some point, believe me, they will show up. 

14:53
April Uchitel
They will show up, I think. Yes, absolutely. And also, the crazy thing is some people just don’t really understand the roles that go with a certain title. So I’ll have a lot of people reaching out saying, I need to see, I need a CMO. And then when we start to really look at what they need to have done, I realize, like, none of that is the role of a CMO. So for example, we just had a client reach out looking for a CMO. And once we spoke, she needed crisis pr, she needed help with her Amazon shop, and she wanted a whole website audit. And I said, none of those things are a CMO. So it’s also this misunderstanding of who to bring in for what. Because the way titles are, every company is so different. It’s really like, what are the problems? 

15:34
April Uchitel
And forget the title, you know, but what are the things we need to solve? And then for us, when we try and do the talent matching, sometimes it’s not all one person, it’s just yet they think that’s one kind of silver bullet that can come in and fix all these things. In the reality, it’s just generally not the case. And so we need to do a lot of educating as well and really figure out the right sequencing and the right scope. Because our goal, my goal was always, I want to be that trusted first phone call. So when I sat in my CEO seat and all of a sudden we needed to do something that I didn’t have the talent on the team to do. 

16:05
April Uchitel
And I had the choices of either getting someone to kind of punch above their weight, or go and hire for something that I wasn’t quite sure. Is that the direction we’re going in or bring in someone externally? And then when I decide to go that path, where do I find that person? I generally call people I trust and say, can you recommend a good ex? And so for me, the idea for the board was to be that first phone call that someone could be like, shit, we don’t have this talent, or we need to figure this out, we need help and to call the board and to know that. But to me, I take it very personally, it’s not book a CMO log in, and they have the skills. It’s beyond that. 

16:40
April Uchitel
It’s not only is this the right person with the skills, but also a culture fit. Are there commonalities that you get just from talking to people about what they’re passionate about and how their spirit is? It’s my superpower. And being able to be like, oh, my God, they’re going to love each other. 

16:57
Lara Schmoisman
They’re a matchmaker. 

16:59
April Uchitel
Exactly. And so my favorite thing is when you’re making that match on all levels and you see it back in the testimonials from companies like, we work with Farfetch’d, we work with moda operandi, and their feedback was, it was such a pleasure. They were so generous. We learned so much. They helped us in all these ways. And to me, having been in the CEO seat, that’s what I was looking for. I was looking for someone to come in and really be a thought partner, really help me and not just tell me what to do and then make sure my team did it and really also help me understand what I don’t know. And I think that’s the beauty. Someone who’s been, I think that’s. 

17:34
Lara Schmoisman
What you get when you get a seasoned professional that they are not afraid of speak out, and also they are not necessarily part of the culture of your environment. 

17:45
April Uchitel
And that’s the best part, because once you’re on the other side of the p and L, like now you’re in the politics, you know, you’re in, you know, striving for ownership, et cetera, we take that ego away completely, and it’s really just like, how can we come in and help? And I really equated us to kind of a swat team idea of, can we get exactly who you need to come in and help? Really move the needle in a way that feels supported and also educated. There’s a lot of junior people sometimes in companies, that are above their weight in certain ways, looking for leadership or guidance that they’re unable to get because the staffs are smaller and people are just expected to figure it out. 

18:27
April Uchitel
For us, we play this almost Switzerland role where we have this objective view of the company, but again, no ego or personal agenda in moving any other way than listening to the team and the founders and where they’re trying to get to. And that’s been really powerful to have that impact. We just did what we call a blue sky brainstorm with a men’s skincare brand. And were seven of us for a month just kind of ideating, workshopping and then making recommendations so that we could lay out a real landscape across the areas that he was focused on and didn’t have the team in house to do to then, quite frankly, build that trust, align on where he’s going, where he’s been, where he’s trying to get to. 

19:07
April Uchitel
And then from our recommendations, he was able to start to sequence first step, second step, third step. But now it’s all built on time spent really getting to know the business and to know him. And I know a lot of companies can’t afford to take that time, but it’s just so important before you just start to build scopes and throw talent or money at aspects of the business. 

19:29
Lara Schmoisman
Absolutely, absolutely. So important was talking to a brand who somehow they decided that do things overseas because it looked more flashy in Europe. 

19:42
April Uchitel
From a production perspective. 

19:43
Lara Schmoisman
No, from the marketing perspective. Okay, got it. So it was very interesting to me because where are you going to sell? Who is your target audience? And they’re in the US right now. So you’re telling me that you’re developing the whole market strategy in another country to target to the us market? 

20:06
April Uchitel
That seems a little backwards. 

20:08
Lara Schmoisman
Yeah. 

20:11
April Uchitel
Budgets are a factor. Right. And so I think the beauty also of bringing in someone who’s project based, or we call it fractional, is really, you’re getting someone really senior and they’re not fully loaded on your p and L. You don’t have to invest x percent of your entire staff, the operation budgets in a person, but ultimately have real clarity on this kind of short sprints that you really need help with. And for me, that three to six month, where are we at? Where are we going to get to? Is so much easier to track. As someone who’s run the p and L and what can I afford in my budget to put towards what and. 

20:47
Lara Schmoisman
Where am I going to? I think that’s one of the problems. A lot of the companies that they come to you or to me in this case, they’re not aware of the reality of the budget. 

20:57
April Uchitel
Yeah, that is true. You have to be at the, at that decision making level, but then also you have to put context around it. So we’ve had situations where it could be a $35,000 project, but you’re getting a CFO, a COO for six weeks, doing a deep dive into the business, building out the business model, the operating plan, looking at the merge plan, looking at the marketing plan, interviewing stakeholders, really doing this incredible assessment. And in general, it’s the price of one month of a CEO, you know, you’re getting two key executives doing really incredible work, laying the groundwork. Sometimes things have shifted as you’ve scaled and all of a sudden reporting structures don’t work anymore. The margins, the marketing budgets are not aligning across channels. 

21:39
April Uchitel
And I really believe sometimes you just have to take a breath and it’s really hard to stop and look. And so having people come in and you can do that in tandem with you while you’re still doing all your other stuff, I think it’s just a really powerful way to support the leadership team and to have them really look at their business objectively with some outside eyes to then say, oh my God, that you’re, we totally missed that. You’re right, that should be our priority. 

22:05
Lara Schmoisman
Not that how many, I seen that they’ve done. They have marketing plans, they had all these ideas, but they didn’t know. They didn’t have the cost. For example, they got some execution, but they didn’t have money for ads in their budget. Add money, which is a huge mistake. They didn’t have platforms cost. 

22:27
April Uchitel
Yeah, yeah. And so then it falls flat and you wasted money that you could have used elsewhere. And it’s really kind of shocking to me how many companies at many sizes don’t really have a clear operating plan, whether it’s around new business lines and how they’re funding them. And then they start to put too many things on us. Very small team that’s just impossible to scale at the way that they think or quite frankly, whats not working anymore. They cant quite figure out where to spend that money instead. And sometimes you need someone to come in who is really watching every channel now across multiple clients who has clear visibility. Its not just that happened for me at my last company six months ago. Its like this is happening across the board. This is the thing. 

23:11
April Uchitel
Performance marketing is not bringing the returns it used to. What are companies doing and how are they shifting in terms of brand marketing and partnerships, collaborations and IRL and whatever that may be? What I love about our community is that we share successes and we share wins. People have visibility into what is working that really impacts all the clients that they can work as well. 

23:36
Lara Schmoisman
Also, we share what is not working and experience with this company because there are so many platforms out there. 

23:46
April Uchitel
Yeah, yeah and yes, I agree. I mean, one thing that we have too, that I think is really unique to us is we have a program called the Black Book of the board where we help tech companies get in front of brands and retailers with this very clear mission to really reach decision makers with products and opportunities that we think are super interesting. If we just, when were sitting in those seats, this would have been something we would have loved to know existed because the amount of pitch decks they’re getting, the amount of people reaching out to them, especially with now everything that’s an AI based technology play, it’s really overwhelming. 

24:19
April Uchitel
And having sat in that CEO seat and being pitched 24/7 by agencies and by new technologies and payment partners and everything else, it’s like a full time job just to vet who’s coming at you. And so for me, being able to again be this bridge to help our networks, our brands and retailers understand where some new emerging technologies out there that is really powerful and worth taking a look at. And because we have this very informal relationship, they can quickly say, great, nope, we’re building it ourselves. Not interested. I just lost my CMO, and we can get a lot of intelligence back for these tech companies. And it’s that bridge that I feel like the board is building across members to members to clients, technology to clients. And really, I see us as this ecosystem. 

25:03
April Uchitel
Like I said, I want to be that first phone call when someone’s like, I need help, and that could be a member. And so when I look at the inbounds that we have about 220 members now, we have about 400 applications. And quite frankly, the network is really what’s driving, because if you’re connected to a member already, you kind of know what to expect. But also there’s a sense of, like, these are my people. And so that’s kind of when you’re, you know, going back to, how do I curate this? It really, a lot came from people in my network in the beginning that I just organically was watching change their career paths, and then they would introduce more people, and it really had this. 

25:37
Lara Schmoisman
Groundswell, or like me, that we kept running into each other. 

25:40
April Uchitel
Yeah, yeah, exactly. At the show. And if people like you shocked April. And for me, I think I’m a good judge of character. It’s a recommendation engine at the end of the day. So I need to be able to make sure that if I’m saying, you need to work with Laura, she’s amazing, that I really, truly believe and know that, and that generally comes from other people’s recommendations and the careers that everyone has had. You can look back at all the companies they’ve worked at, and then we can see people in common, and all those things start to say, okay, there’s a real shared understanding of spending years in these types of companies, from Google, Meta, Apple, Conde Nast, Disney, Goop, Walmart. 

26:22
April Uchitel
Those are a lot of where our members have come from, as well as a lot of them have been from C suite roles, CPG companies, really big, huge roles, and now completely shifting. And it’s really the human side of community that I think we really do solve for. Well, is that helping each other with no expectation of something in return? That’s what you sign up for when you join a community in general? 

26:46
Lara Schmoisman
I have one last question for you. I’ve been seeing this a lot. Everyone wants to be a consultant. 

26:53
April Uchitel
Yeah. 

26:54
Lara Schmoisman
And a consultant is something that consult on something specific. I’ve been seeing these consultants that I’ve been want to be 360. I personally will never hire a consultant just for a whole business. You want experts. And that’s what I seen a lot. A lot of people that they dream of this consultancy or fractional life, and they think it’s easy. Now, in your vision, in your experience, who is the right person or what is the right time of your life into become fractional? 

27:31
April Uchitel
You know, it’s, I think to me, when you’ve had, like, a variety of experiences and you start to realize at a certain point, you become a generalist. Right. You’ve touched a lot of stuff. You’ve done a lot of stuff. You’ve run a lot of teams, and there’s a bit of a calling that’s like, oh, but my favorite part was the brand building, or my favorite part was the narrative. And I think the consultants that do really well are the ones kind of really honed in on that passion part, because they can also pick up these things once they’re in there. But what is the key thing that they’re trying to help companies with? 

27:59
April Uchitel
We do a lot of kind of workshopping in this space, because when you move into consulting, you kind of tell everybody you do all these things, but it’s really impossible on the other side to be like, okay, but what should I hire you for? And it’s like we had this conversation about painkiller versus vitamin in terms of, you’re there to solve a problem. The more you can be clear about the problem you’re solving, the better they can understand what they want you for. And if you stay in this very general space, it’s really challenging to kind of narrow that down. And so I think the people that do it really well, that have real clear perspective on the value that they bring. 

28:32
April Uchitel
So whether it’s you’re doing regulation, you know, in kind of product development or even if you’re a fractional CMo, which in general is, you know, can mean a lot of things, there’s something that is your sweet spot. And so we have a member whose sweet spot is go to market. Like, she’s zero, you know, to 15, maybe to 20, but at 20 million, she’s not your girl. And she’s so clear. And she knows, like, that’s where she wins. We have other people that are like, hate the building part. They want to. They want to blow it up. You know, they like to take it from here to here. 

29:01
April Uchitel
And so really understanding where your own superpowers are within that framework and then being able to kind of package yourself, because the more clear you can be, it’s like anything, if you have to read too much, and I’m still not quite sure what they do. They’ve already lost them. 

29:18
Lara Schmoisman
Getting clients is not easy. 

29:20
April Uchitel
Yeah, yeah. Well, and that’s also the network. And so the also reason I built the board is to create that point of sale, technically, where we can increase visibility for ourselves and for all members so that when someone is like, shoot, I need help, you know, we surface as a destination. And it’s very much this word of mouth network effect. You know, what I’ve loved is it’s really been trusted relationships. Referring trusted relationships as, like, you need to work with these guys. And definitely, you know, we’re all playing the long game, right. I think people that move into consulting and then eventually, like, this is too hard. I just got to go get a full time job, maybe weren’t built for that space, you know, and I think it’s. It’s. It’s really enticing to think, oh, I have better quality of life. 

30:03
April Uchitel
I have more flexibility. But you have to be also prepared for the hustle. And some people aren’t built in that same way. You know, I’ve been in sales. It is a hustle, but it’s, you know, but it’s leaning in and being just really strategic of who you know and how to put yourself out there. And, and right now, budgets are. Budgets are tight. You know, things are closing, taking longer to close people. 

30:27
Lara Schmoisman
Also, something happened in the election. It’s your value. And this is something that I’m learning lately, and I’m really trying to better at it, not give my work for free, because team, my time, everything costs money. 

30:42
April Uchitel
Yes. 

30:42
Lara Schmoisman
At the end of the day, you’re not able to scale because you’re being held back for using your time with something else. 

30:49
April Uchitel
Yeah, no, it’s true. And it’s hard when someone needs help, but they can’t afford the help. They’re going to ask for favors. And you, as a good person, want to help people as much as you can. But at the end of the day, this is our livelihood. My husband, he’s a photographer, and he has a studio and shoots, and he’s always getting people trying to barter on the rate. And he’s like, you know, you don’t go into the car dealership and say, I really want that car, but can you give it to me for 40% off? You know, but there’s this sense of negotiation now that is kind of wacky, and it’s really honestly disrespectful of the person unless it’s an outrageous margin. 

31:21
April Uchitel
And, you know, there’s room, you know, there are certain people and big agencies that have more room to negotiate, but the idea of going direct to somebody that is really their direct income, and so asking someone to take less for their talent is not ideal. And having the conviction to say, you know what, I’m worth more than that, I’m sorry, but it just doesn’t work for me. And I totally can help you, and I’d love to help you, but it has to be, it has to work for both of us. And so I’m also getting better at recognizing that, and which is why we started office hours where we could send people that couldn’t afford a $10,000 a month scope to talk to someone and get really tactical advice on an hourly basis. 

32:00
April Uchitel
And I think that’s what I think is a good solve because there’s still a transactional element, which means you’re going to show up, and I’m going to show up, and we’re going to do this with this intention, as opposed to I’m going to take you to coffee and pick your brain and you’re going to kind of not really care because you’re not getting paid. And it doesn’t really work in the long run. And I think it’s just a matter of more times people try and do that and they realize they’re not getting the great advice and that they, you get what you pay for at the end of the day. 

32:28
Lara Schmoisman
Exactly. And picking someone’s mind for a minute is not going to give you, really the tools that you need to exit. 

32:36
April Uchitel
No. And there’s definitely, and I’ve helped and had many thousands of phone calls over the years. You know, in those situations when someone’s making a career move and they just want to know what do I think about this industry? And, you know, but there’s a certain point where there’s only so many hours in the day and where can that time go? But I think networking is huge and great, and especially as you’re moving up in your career, finding mentors and finding people, and that’s a different thing in the way I think about this, is actual people looking for advice for their business and not wanting to pay for it, which is very different than I’m graduating college and I want to get into this industry and my friend is in that industry and will you talk to her? That’s very different in my opinion. 

33:15
April Uchitel
And we do mentoring at the board as well, and we can really put parameters around that and then we can put a structure, and then it’s really easy to program and we’re happy to build in those elements. And we’re doing that right now at the CFDA. And ultimately, it’s a big give overall, but it’s a low lift individually when you can bring a bunch of people together to all give an hour or two of their time. And so for me, it’s, again, finding the structure. 

33:40
Lara Schmoisman
Believe me, when those minds are together, even when we get together for a meeting or whatever, you can see the energy, it’s boiling and you can see these waves and magic happens. 

33:53
April Uchitel
Well, and it goes, you know, so we have our New York meeting coming up, and one of the topics we have is future casting, which can mean a bunch of stuff. But one of the members who’s kind of leading it is really sparkly and dynamic and has all these great ideas of what the future looks like in this space for us. And so to be able to sit in a room with 50 people and really kind of have that conversation and almost workshop it live, I think that’s the beauty of our community. You know, we’re less about the experts talking at everybody else. It’s really the sense of sharing from all sides. And so, you know, there’s also boundaries, and that’s a big conversation that we have a lot. 

34:32
April Uchitel
And so, you know, to me, it’s really, like I said, we’re playing the long game. You know, if this is really where you want to land and how you want to help companies. And my goal is to really help companies, that’s truly at the bottom line, and that’s what the members are here to do as well and help each other, you know, in the process. 

34:50
Lara Schmoisman
So I love that’s the intention. I believe that intentions are important. Yeah. When it starts from a good place, it’s never good that I want to make money off you. 

35:03
April Uchitel
Yeah, yeah. No. And I think reciprocity and there’s, you know, a very transactional environment can still be very positive and very empowering. You know, we just got to know what the roles of the game are. And I think, for me, that took me a minute in building this community as to what value to place on membership and what value and how many people to have and how much programming and really, like, you know, community is not easy. It’s really not. You can’t please. 

35:29
Lara Schmoisman
In a community, there are also many. 

35:31
April Uchitel
Opinions, many opinions, and you can’t be everything to everybody. And so you look for those through lines. And for me, it’s really that integrity and that way of wanting to do it differently. That generosity, which we talked about. Like, there are certain core principles, ambition being one of them, but also impact, you know, that. That to me, is when I see real alignment from new members that come into the community. And, you know, it’s what can I bring? What can I take, what can we do together? 

35:56
April Uchitel
And it’s with that philosophy that I think, honestly, if you look at the world today and how divided and divisive it is, we’re all looking for those, you know, kind of like minded thinkers and people, whether it is in our neighborhood or our communities, through work and through school and kids and parent, other parents, and, you know, you find your people. And so leaning into that and making those connections with those founders and companies and investors, and there’s a lot that we have deep relationships with, and we can really be that trusted resource. And at the end of the day, it’s about the people, you know, completely. 

36:29
Lara Schmoisman
And it’s really. 

36:31
April Uchitel
That’s the. I’m thrilled that you’re part of it. 

36:34
Lara Schmoisman
It is. It’s all about finding your people. April, thank you so much for being here. This was really nice to have, actually a little time and talk to you, which I never do. Okay, thank you, everyone. And I will see you out there next week with more coffee. Number five. Find everything you need@laraschmoisman.com. Or in the episode notes, right below. Don’t forget to subscribe. Was so good to have you here today. See you next time. Catch you on the flip side. Ciao. Ciao.