CASS SPIES - TWISTED HEALTHY TREATS
ON WHY SHE’S FINANCED HER BUSINESS THROUGH LOANS RATHER THAN SEEKING EXTERNAL CASH
Today’s guest Cass Spies is the founder of healthy ice cream brand Twisted Healthy Treats. In this chat she shares why her dream was to be ‘the next Janine Ellis’ and create a frozen yoghurt retail franchise, (and how this didn’t pan out) how she went about building her own manufacturing facility and landing retailers like Woolworths, Costco in the US, as well as over 5000 school canteens across Australia.
You’ll learn:
How Cass phased the transition of her business away from retail and into wholesale when her stores weren’t making money
Why opening her own manufacturing facility was one of the scariest things she’s done thus far
Why getting her products into school canteens pretty much saved her business
Why she listens to the signs the universe puts in front of her
When to know when to continue pushing forward vs. giving up and letting go of the plan
How landing a deal with Costco saw her increase sales by 70%
The process of exporting her product to China
Why Cass has chosen to finance her business via loans instead of seeking external investment
We hope you enjoyed this conversation – for more podcast action follow us on Instagram @lady.brains, or sign up to our monthly newsletter at www.ladybrains.com
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“My vision to be completely frank was to be the next Janine Ellis. She is an incredible female entrepreneur, I think she’s done amazing things with Boost Juice, and consequently, her other retail businesses, and I wanted to roll out a franchise network of stores across the country. I think what we realized very quickly is that retail is a bit of a black art. We had some stores that were doing incredibly well, and some stores that were doing incredibly not well. What we ended up with was a portfolio of company owned stores, where some were making money, and some were losing a lot of money. ”
“It didn’t happen quickly, it felt a bit like an ocean liner, when we decided to get out of retail and move into wholesale. The actual time that it took, and the small decisions, and the day by day conversations and changes that we were making to the business, it really did take us 12 to 24 months to make that full transition. ”
“The game changing moment in our business was when our products started to be sold in school canteens. That was really when I was at a very low point in my love and passion for the business. I was asking myself all sorts of questions about why I had gone on this journey, and why I was doing what we were doing. I had this incredible team of people around me that believed in the vision and I was asking myself all these questions about whether it was the right decision. And that’s when our product got picked up by school canteens. And as I said, that was just huge. ”
“I also think there’s moments when the universe is giving you a message that you should not be going down this path. And I have, in my journey with Twisted, I have pushed through those moments and said ‘no universe, we are going to do this’ and it’s been the wrong decision. I do really believe in those moments of synchronicity. I think what I’ve learned over the last 12 to 13 years of having the business is sometimes it’s very important to stop, take stock, have a moment of clarity before just pushing through because that that was what the business plan said we were going to do. ”
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