Jenny (00:29)
If you struggle with showing up on social media or using social media to move your business forward, this is the conversation you need to hear. I'm sitting down with Kaylin Sheik, who is the founder of Sweetwater, which is a floral focused lifestyle brand rooted in Northern Michigan. And Kaylin has built up Sweetwater over 11 years from a total solo operation in her basement to a full-time team retail location that focuses on wedding design, workshops, and wreaths.
And she now speaks across the country on business, designing a life you truly love living, and inspiring women to bloom, which she says means build life out of moments. How cute is that? Bloom, build life out of moments? I loved it. But I invited Kaylin on the show to talk about social media.
showing up authentically as the face of your business, even if that's not something that excites you, because I know it doesn't always excite me, but we talk about other things around social media as well, like protecting your own privacy and boundaries and the comparison trap around social media, using it to get more sales for your business and more. So if you're someone who has a flower farm business or a starting one and you feel a little weird about social media, or you just want to hear a fresh perspective, you are going to love hearing Kaylyn's
perspective on this and quite honestly this woman is fire. This is one of the most fun podcast episodes I have ever recorded so I think you're going to enjoy it. So let's go.
Jenny (01:56)
Kaylin, thanks for being here.
Kalin Sheick (01:58)
Jenny, I'm so excited to yap today. I cannot wait. Thank you for having me.
Jenny (02:02)
No, thank you for being here. And I told you this before, but I selfishly wanted you to come on the podcast. So I, yes, yes, this is literally my coaching call. ⁓ cause you are great at social media and this is something that I really struggle with sometimes. And I feel like you have a great perspective on it. So I like just selfishly wanted to get your perspective. And so the first question I have is, I guess, maybe not a question, but a lot of people.
Kalin Sheick (02:07)
I know this is our, this is your coaching call. Let's just record it.
Jenny (02:32)
are probably feeling like me, where they don't love social media, but they know it's great for their business, so they wanna use it, they're afraid to show up. What do you say to those kinds of people ⁓ who maybe resist it a little bit?
Kalin Sheick (02:35)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
It's really common for me to hear like, you know, do I have to do it or it's such a pain for me? And I kind of come at it from two schools of thought. The first thing is my tough love version, which is if you want to have a business in the year 2026, this is a part of our job. This is a part of our job, just like paying our taxes or doing our books or operating and managing a website, social media.
unfortunately has become intricately woven into running a profitable business and earning a living. There is no way around it anymore. However, I really want people to feel, especially women, because I only ever hear this from women. I never hear it from men being like, social media. mean, yeah, kind of, but I feel like floristry is primarily women, for the most part, dominated by females. I'm like,
I feel like we're way overthinking it. We are way overthinking it. It is incredibly noisy. Every time you turn a screen on, someone's yelling at you to do it differently. There's a new strategy. There's a new tactic. There's a new way to crack the algorithm. And I just feel like only in marketing is that possible. And that's just how marketing has been for hundreds of years. It's just always changing. There's never like a let's crack the new strategy to balancing your books.
Let's crack the new strategy or let's try this new thing. So I feel like we need to give ourselves a lot of grace that marketing and social media is a living breathing thing, but we do need to do it, unfortunate.
Jenny (04:22)
Yes, I 100 % agree with you. I feel like I've just had the mantra over the past however many years that I may hate social media personally, but I love what's on the other side of it. So when I do it and I am consistent and I am good at it, I like the sales and the revenue that come from it and the audience and community. So I just try to focus on the positives, but it's hard sometimes.
Kalin Sheick (04:33)
Yes.
For sure.
It is hard and it's also just like thinking about, you I feel the way many people feel about social media is how I feel about like taxes and estimated quarterly. I'm like, I literally hate this part so much, but hey, I really like making money and I really wanna run a business that allows me to fill in the blank that's different for everyone. And so I've just reframed social media completely as just a part of this process. And also I hope we'll talk about like,
Jenny (05:01)
heat.
Kalin Sheick (05:17)
boundaries today and finding a way for it to work into your life because I don't feel like you need to give your entire happiness away to showing up on a camera every day.
Jenny (05:27)
Yeah, let's just talk about that right now because I think boundaries and systems are, at least for me, a really key piece to making it work. What about you?
Kalin Sheick (05:32)
Mm-hmm.
I, so this year I like became as something switched in me about like around in the fall, like November, December, we were in wreath season, which is a crazy role for us here. And I was just like, I hate my phone. I want to throw it off a bridge. I hate social media. I don't want to show up on it anymore. I'm exhausted. It's noisy. We were going through a lot of changes as a team at that time. And so it was just like, this is messy and annoying.
And then I kind of just decided, why am I letting apps or this pie in the sky social media have any control over my life? I am in the driver's seat. I am the one in full control over how I show up for this. So I just put boundaries in place. I'm off my phone completely on Sundays. It's bricked. I got a brick for my phone. I'm obsessed. It's changed my life. And then I was like, okay, I'm going to show up this many times a week. I make my list like,
I gave myself a boatloads and boatloads of grace. Like I don't need to post every single day, but if I can, that's awesome. I show up in my stories a little bit. I'm showing up way less. Nothing has changed in my life. In fact, it's gotten way better. But just setting these limits around like, okay, this is my time of the day to do social media and then being done with it has been a game changer. And I feel like everyone listening knows that we have a list a mile long of stuff to accomplish.
And so if it gets put on the list, usually sometimes eventually gets done. So just putting it on the list to like prepare a few posts, work on a few marketing things, and then signing off and moving on to the next thing on your list will kind of save your sanity a little bit, I hope.
Jenny (07:22)
Yeah, think that's, it's super important to have that sustainability piece of it. Otherwise, if you're super committed, I don't wanna say super committed, but if you're obsessively doing it all the time, it takes over your life. Like that's not sustainable way to run your business either. Right.
Kalin Sheick (07:28)
Yes, yes.
And it's also not real. Like we are
not talking enough about how it is not the real world. Social media is not real. No one's life is like, and I feel like we as the collective, especially millennial women, I don't know how old are you? Okay, yeah, so you are. So I'm 38 and I feel like our generation especially is going through this reckoning with how we live our lives and how we spend our time.
Jenny (07:47)
Right.
I'm 35. I'm millennial ⁓ woman.
Kalin Sheick (08:11)
And so just allowing a little bit of time for it, like you would anything else in your business, and then just moving on with your day and realizing that you're gonna do it imperfectly, you're gonna mess up, your caption's gonna have a typo, your edit is not gonna be flawless. But like, I hear these stories of people spending like, I spent two hours editing that reel. I'm like, girl, please, girl, please, that is two hours of your life. You will never get back. And fun fact, the...
Jenny (08:34)
Ow.
Kalin Sheick (08:39)
highest performing content I have is always the stuff I just threw at a wall to see if it's stuck.
Jenny (08:44)
Yeah. I think that what you said earlier, that we're all overthinking it, all over complicating it, hit the nail on the head there.
Kalin Sheick (08:52)
Mm-hmm.
It feels like we overthink, like I live by the motto, done is better than perfect. It is the reason my business has become what it has become. Because if you cannot, if you sit and wait for the perfect time or the perfect edit or the perfect caption, perfect inspiration, you will be waiting forever. And then you get into a shame spiral, right? About like, I should have posted today, this is why I suck. And look at her, she posted this and this and it.
And I'm just like, let's release all of that. We are all doing the absolute best we can. We are all human beings being human. And there is so much life off our devices. There is so much big, beautiful, wonderful, crazy, hard, sad, funny, happy, wonderful life happening that we need to go live. And our time is a non-renewable resource. We can't get it back. So I don't think we should be staring at a screen all day for it.
Jenny (09:34)
so much.
you
No, I don't think so either. And something that I think about a lot with social media is like, what is my return on investment? Like if I'm spending five hours a week, am I actually getting that as a return in sales? And of course, this all depends on everyone's unique business and their strategy with social media and what they're trying to do. But like for me, I have to physically schedule in time to work on social media. It's only once or twice a month. like, if I'm not seeing a return on my time
Kalin Sheick (09:55)
Mm-hmm.
Jenny (10:19)
on that, I reevaluate it. And I think it's OK that if it changes over time, depending on your season of life, your season of business, I don't know.
Kalin Sheick (10:21)
Mm-hmm.
It's always going to be a living, breathing part of how it fits into your day to day. like, look, like you're a mom, I'm a mom, there's moms listening who have little kids, like there are not enough hours in the day. And so there are not enough hours in the day. And how we spend that time is so of value to us. And the ROI on social media is based effectively impossible to track, right? Cause it's like, are you tracking every single minute you open the app?
Jenny (10:39)
There are not.
Kalin Sheick (10:56)
Are you tracking when you were creating content? Are you tracking like your engagement and all that? So I look at it as kind of like maintenance. Like you need to be there and you need to be posting with some regularity, but that regularity is gonna look different for everyone. Some people can do it seven posts a week, 20 stories a day, running polls, running cool things on Instagram, running awesome stories on Facebook, creating YouTube shorts, like you name it.
Jenny (11:04)
Mmm.
Kalin Sheick (11:23)
And then there's some people who are like, my goal right now is to do one post a week. And I'm to be really proud of myself if I can get there. And just again, being okay with not doing it like everybody else. I really want to talk about comparison today because I feel like comparison is the thing that is paralyzing everybody.
Jenny (11:37)
Yeah.
I completely got off of social media for probably like eight months last year. Like if you saw, like if my business is posted, but I had like a helper.
Kalin Sheick (11:50)
Bravo, stunning, I'm jealous of that.
Jenny (11:58)
who was posting for me. And I had to take that break because I was, every time I opened it, I would see somebody else and it was destroying my mental health. Like, I'm not proud to say that, but like, I'm not like a mentally super strong person. And I recognize that like, this is not healthy for me and it's not helping me in my business. So I just like.
Kalin Sheick (11:58)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jenny (12:21)
stepped way back, I've now stepped back into it, but I needed that break because I was the person who was constantly comparing myself to every single other person out there. So I would love to hear your take on that.
Kalin Sheick (12:24)
Mm-hmm.
First off, I love that you shared that because it's so powerful to share, because so many people look up to you, rightfully so. And for them to hear the person who they're looking up to be like, I was not well, because this is literally robbing me of my joy.
Jenny (12:40)
I don't know.
Kalin Sheick (12:51)
I think we, when you open these apps and you are just swimming in a sea of your own competition and your own industry, it is designed to make us feel bad about ourselves, guys. This is like, I'm gonna get a little meta here for a little pun, but I like, it was lit quite literally designed to addict our brains to it.
And then in that addiction, we are spiraling into, need more, I need to be more, I need to do more, I need to plant more, I need to grow more, I need to buy more. The comparison it is bringing into your life is robbing you quite literally of living and enjoying all the things. I love when people are like, I cold turkey went off it. My best friend, cold turkey three years ago, she was like, my anxiety is not well from social media, my doom scrolling, I'm just sitting here.
She fully just left all the apps. She does not exist online anymore. It's such a beautiful thing. I'm so jealous of her. She doesn't own a business, so she can do this. And just to be able to like go back to analog. But I would say to anyone listening who, if you open the app and it makes you feel less than, mute or unfollow those accounts. Like my top advice I give florists and growers and flower people is stop.
Jenny (13:57)
Hahaha!
Kalin Sheick (14:14)
obsessively following every single person in the world who does what you do. Go find inspiration and joy from other creative ventures. Like, I love following people who are incredible home chefs. I am not a home chef. I am a cook. I cook for three kids every single night I make them dinner. That but I feel I glean so much inspiration and so much creativity from seeing what those other women are up to in their sphere. don't
I mean, I love us, but I really am like kind of bored by florists. I'm like, cool, I do this every day. don't need, I'm at a flower shop right now as we talk. I don't need to go look at a bunch of other flower shops. That's very boring to me.
Jenny (14:45)
Yeah.
Yeah, it's too much for me. If I'm going to go scroll on social media, the last thing I want to see is flowers and farming. Because, I need a break. so I have, obviously, I have a personal private account. Don't try to find me in there. I'm not going to be friends with anybody because it's my space. I shouldn't even mention it. But anyway, yes. My cozy corner where I actually also watch a bunch of professional chefs and bakers and like,
Kalin Sheick (14:56)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Swear to God.
Mm-hmm.
That's your curated little corner, your cozy corner.
Yes, what is it about food content?
Jenny (15:23)
I don't know, just love it.
Kalin Sheick (15:23)
Flowers and food, they're very aligned though. This is a whole thing I've dug into before. It's like, flowers, you're only as good as your recipe, your ingredients, like your ingredients change. You have to be able to flex with it, like cooking with what's fresh, designing with what's seasonal. Like there's a lot of parallels there.
Jenny (15:41)
Yes, I think you're right. And I want something that's just like, my brain literally needs to shut off. like, instead of just being in like work mode all the time, because if I see something related to business or flowers or farming, like I immediately get sucked back into like work. And like my brain can't dissociate from the business. And so I need that. So.
Kalin Sheick (15:47)
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Jenny (16:05)
I have, I really want to talk about this with you and it's actually about being authentic in your business. And I feel like authenticity is kind of like this, I don't know if it's like a buzzword, but it's kind of hard to like define. Like, is it just being yourself? Cause I feel like I'm afraid to be myself and you know, so you're really good at that, I think. So can you tell us like what being authentic looks like in creating content for social media?
Kalin Sheick (16:12)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Thank you.
I feel like authenticity in order to embrace it fully, you need to just be completely comfortable with the fact that you are not for everybody. And that is okay. Like, if you put 100 people into a room, there is no way you would form meaningful, trusting, like meets like relationships with 100 people. That's ridiculous. So to craft our content or craft our social media presence around
Jenny (16:39)
you
Kalin Sheick (17:01)
wanting everyone to be okay with it is a ridiculous ask. And this kind of balks in the face of a lot of things that those of us who came up, what year did you start your business?
Jenny (17:15)
2015.
Kalin Sheick (17:16)
Okay, I'm 2015 too. Stunning. Yes. Okay, so you and I got swept up in the girl boss movement and we got swept up in all this Instagram fodder. I call it complete BS because I think from the jump, there were really, really important, powerful people in the flower industry at that time saying, you cannot show the behind the scenes.
Jenny (17:19)
Really? That's such a cool coincidence.
Yeah.
Kalin Sheick (17:43)
You cannot show your personality. It needs to be about the artwork. needs to be about the art. It needs to be about the product. It needs to be about growing tips. It needs to be aesthetically just so beautiful that it is so aspirational for people that they want your life. They want your business. And I kind of from the jump was like, I am not the best flower designer out here, but I knew I was a good talker and I knew I could tell a good story. And so I was like, I'm just gonna show up for who I am.
design beautiful flowers, but I'm going to really show people who I am as a person, what I hold to be of high value, share snippets of my life that I'm comfortable sharing. I would love to talk about like why I don't share my kids if you have that on your on your whole thing today. That's another thing I'm a diehard passionate Hill I will die on but is the authenticity came from like
I realized early on that not everyone needed to be my customer. Not every single person on the internet needed to follow me because I knew that if I was showing who I really am and my personality, then the people who relate to that would be a quicker and shorter sale than trying to please everybody and being something that wasn't authentic to me. And also for anyone listening, if you're showing up as something that doesn't feel like your true authentic self,
my God, the exhaustion, the exhaustion of trying to build a business that feels and looks and sounds a certain way because you think that's what's gonna sell. But if that doesn't feel and look and sound and appear as an authentic version of yourself, you will burn yourself to a crisp. You will have no longevity and staying power. So yeah, I show up authentically. I mean, if you follow me on Instagram, what you see is what you get.
our entire team now, we are who we are. And people are like, sometimes, sometimes they'll DM us like, wow, this really isn't for me. And we're like, you can just hit on follow. Like Carol, you don't have to make an announcement on your way out. sorry, Carol, sorry, sorry, Carol, that we said a bad little miss slip, a little bad word or something like you can just leave Carol. But over the course of more than a decade, you know, I have found sales not to be that hard.
Jenny (19:49)
Hahaha!
People are so funny.
Kalin Sheick (20:10)
because we've already sold who we are. And you buy from people you know, you like, and you trust. We are buying from people we are not buying from brands.
Jenny (20:14)
Mm.
Yes, I think that's so true. I think people need to get away from this idea of like, my small business has to be like this brand, like you are your brand, you know what I mean? Exactly.
Kalin Sheick (20:35)
Mm-hmm. You are your brand. You are your small
business and you are your brand. And one thing I hear often from people is like, I'm nervous because everyone in my town, this is like such a thing. It's like we act like we're on the Amish, like we're Amish or like we're on the ⁓ Oregon trail. People are like, everyone in my town will see. Like if I try and be myself and I'm like, okay, cool. Like that's the goal. And if they like you,
They will come to your business and support it. And if they don't, guys, it's not that heavy. No one at home is thinking about you as much as you think they are. Like they'll just see it and be like, huh, okay, there's that flower lady. And then scroll to the next thing. They're not like, you know what? I'm going to see her tomorrow at preschool drop off and I'm going to give her a piece of my mind. I live in a town with less than 5,000 people in it. It is tiny. Everywhere we go, we know people. We're in a very busy season of life with our kids and I will go places and I'm like,
Jenny (21:17)
Yes.
Kalin Sheick (21:33)
People will be like, I follow you on Instagram. That's very kind. That's very nice. But everywhere I go, it's like, don't, I'm not like, my God, did they see that real where I fully embarrassed myself last week? Like, I never think about that. And I'm just like, if they did, they did, I guess. I don't know. It's weird.
Jenny (21:48)
Yeah, I think that that's something that I'm trying to be better at. Like, for example, I posted a real. Yeah, let me tell you about my my. So well, for example, I shared something that was like I would say like, I don't want to say off brand, but like I posted a reel that was like a joke the other day, and I thought I thought it was freaking hilarious. I was like, this is so funny. And like, it's my sense of humor.
Kalin Sheick (21:52)
Okay. Yes, I want to hear all of it.
I want to hear all of it. Let's dive deep.
Okay.
Okay, wait, tell me the joke. Like, tell
me, like, give me the full depth.
Jenny (22:19)
So basically the Instagram reel was like, want to know how you make or how you get like wealthy off of a flower farm and you print money. And then, okay, thank you. I thought it was also funny. And then I was like, you spend less money than you earn. And then I was like, ⁓
Kalin Sheick (22:28)
I love this already because it's hysterical. Okay, keep going.
Ba dum tsh.
Jenny (22:41)
Right, and then I was like, wait, that advice took like less than 30 seconds. And so like, I thought it was hilarious, but the internet did not. And so, well, it...
Kalin Sheick (22:45)
Yep. Yes. They didn't. Did they come for you?
Jenny (22:51)
No, nobody came for me. It was just like there was no engagement or I shouldn't say no, but very little engagement, very little interaction. Like, no, like I was like, everyone's to be like, ha ha, Jenny, you got us. And then like there was like zero comments and I was like, womp. And then for a second, for a second, I was like, maybe I should delete this. Maybe it's not. Maybe people thought I was like serious with my like hook. And then I was just like, I don't really care. I'm going leave it because I thought it was funny. And so I left it. So that's my story.
Kalin Sheick (22:55)
Okay.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yup.
Okay, there's a couple
things I wanna unpack here. Number one, you made a piece of content in like less than a minute. So it's a win right away. Whether or not it has engagement or takes off or has traction as we stay here in the shop, like we made it in less than a minute, we're calling it a win. Number two, I think, not that my opinion is the only one that matters, I think it's funnier than hell, okay? Because...
Jenny (23:36)
when.
Kalin Sheick (23:46)
What I really wanted you to say, and this is like my humor, is like, do you want to know how to get insanely wealthy and flowers? Don't go into flowers. Don't go into this business, guys. That's the second version. But I feel like...
Jenny (23:53)
yeah, that too. That too. Yes, I know I say that all the time too. Well, I feel like that's
why I joke about it all the time because it's like, I think that it's funny, but...
Kalin Sheick (24:04)
Yes!
Yes. And also
like if I saw that, it's self-deprecating, which is like my favorite kind of humor. And I would be like, ⁓ this is funny. And it fits your niche, right? Like you help women develop businesses that are going to be profitable in the flower space, growing especially. And so you need to have content that is like, hey, here it is at its simplest form, broskies.
You spend less than you earn and then your business is profitable. I love it. Grade A++ and I do not care that it got no traction because also the content lives forever. And so if someone comes to your profile in six months and they're doing a binge scroll on you like, I just found Jenny. I want to see what she's all about. That shows your personality and that shows that you're funny and that you have a sense of humor. And I say grade A plus. Good job.
Jenny (24:42)
Thank you, Kaylin.
you
Kalin Sheick (25:04)
I love it.
Jenny (25:05)
Thank you. Thank you. But I think that I know I'm not the only one that gets caught up in that sometimes where I like make something and I'm like, this is going to be like incredible. And usually it's not. And then things that I'm like, I'm just going to like throw this out there. And then it completely takes off. And I'm like, whoa, didn't expect that at all. And I feel like I still like, I always want to just like want to figure it out, but like it's impossible. So.
Kalin Sheick (25:11)
Mm-hmm.
Yup.
Right?
I feel like we talk about this often on my team. The secret is that we can sense as viewers, now this doesn't apply to every single piece of content made, but we can sense as viewers authenticity. And when you rip something really quickly, like, ⁓ this is just something I know backwards and forwards. This is something I live every day in my business, at my farm, in my growing practices.
and you share it and it rips off really quick. The reason is because people are like, that is a nugget of knowledge that I got from that girl that that is her in her zone of genius versus when we're like, okay, I'm gonna edit this and it's okay, now I need to shoot this and I need to shoot that. I feel like we feel like, that was a little more edited that was a little more produced. And I feel like we as human beings are craving that authentic connection.
And it's so hard as creators, because we all are creators, we're growers, we're florists, we're flower people, but we're creators. It's so hard to give ourselves the permission for it to be that really quick stuff that we just kind of throw up there that we feel we know like the back of our hand. Like, obviously everyone knows this, but I always say assume your audience knows nothing because you will be a shock.
at what takes off when you're sharing just what comes of second nature to you.
Jenny (26:57)
Yeah, and I think that's helpful for everybody to understand that. Now, when it comes to like someone who is
trying to promote their small local flower farm or florist shop or floral business, what do you think people should think about how to approach their social media quote unquote strategy? Like is it truly just about showing up and sharing the stories that are happening like on the farm behind the scenes just showing what flowers are blooming, what's going on? Or do you think that in order to make sales happen as a result from social media, there needs to be some sort
Kalin Sheick (27:22)
Yeah.
Jenny (27:38)
like curation or strategy, like I'd love to hear your opinion on that.
Kalin Sheick (27:43)
feel that the sales will come when you have a strategy that you can stay consistent with. And strategy helps consistency because then the question is answered for you. Okay, what do I talk about? What do I post? I think one of the biggest things I hear from people is like, I have no idea what to talk about. So the thing I tell every single person is just start with writing down three or five, not 50, three to five.
Jenny (27:49)
Mm. Yeah.
Kalin Sheick (28:12)
things you like talking about or pillars or buckets that are your brand, right? So is community really big for you? Is motherhood something you like talking about? It's like, we obviously know flowers, guys. So like, you don't need to write flowers down as one of your buckets. Like if you're a flower farm, you're not writing flowers down. You're writing like, we do weddings. Like if you're trying to get really into weddings this year, like weddings is one of your buckets. If you're trying to get really into workshops this year, workshops is a bucket.
If your farm as a place, the property and the land that you cultivate and where you're raising your family is a huge deal, your farm's gonna be something. Is your community, is your story, like, and then when you have this list, kind of this outline, this guide, allowing it to help you know what to talk about next, that's a strategy. And when we have a strategy, we can be more consistent and consistency leads to sales.
And what I want to say is when someone comes over to your profile, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, ⁓ Facebook, anywhere, I don't know where everyone is these days, threads, if you're on Substack, find me, I'm obsessed with Substack right now. Wherever you are, I want you to be filling those content buckets on the regular and not freaking out about, ⁓ but I talked about the farm, I see this one all the time, I talked about the farm last week and like everyone, y'all, they didn't see it.
Because if you put 100 people in a room, only 20 of them are seeing what you posted, which is maybe a discussion for five minutes from now. So it's like, don't, you cannot overthink it. I want them to hear about your farm all the time. You know why? Because it's gonna make them wanna go there. It's gonna make them wanna drive. If I hear about your farm all the time, oh my God, I'm on my way home. I know that girl, she's off this road somewhere. Let's take a turn. But if you're paralyzed by like, I talked about the farm last June. I talked about the farm last June. I can barely talk about it now. It's 4th of July. No, get out. We gotta just.
allow ourselves permission for this to be way less serious than we're taking it.
Jenny (30:11)
Yeah, I also something that really helped me was and this actually came from me writing my email newsletters, which then translated to my social media was I would literally just write down funny things that happened around the farm. And I and I like every week something crazy or funny or weird happens. And so I just would take those stories and I made them into email newsletters. And we basically just repurpose them on our social media. And the response we have gotten from that
Kalin Sheick (30:25)
Love that.
For sure, for sure.
Jenny (30:41)
has been incredible. The amount of people that come up to us and they're like, your email newsletter about your cows eating your flowers when they got out was so funny. Are you gonna have those flowers this month? Then they like, yeah. So I think just documenting what's happening. Yeah.
Kalin Sheick (30:49)
Yes, yes.
Right? Yes.
It's creating that, like we love stories. And so it's
like creating that like who, what are your characters, cows, goats, who do you have around, chickens, kids, a partner, a husband, a wife, like who do you have with you and what are things that are happening in the day to day? I love that Jenny, that is a genius, genius approach. You should be proud of yourself for that one, bravo. Gold star, A++.
Jenny (31:20)
Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I was, well.
Well, it mostly just came out of me sitting down and being like, what the heck am I going to write about now? Because we all have those sort of like moments and like, you can have prompts and you can have this and that. But for me, I was just like, well, what has been happening? And so that's really helped me. Hopefully that might help somebody else around here. But also, Kaylyn, you just said like, yeah, only like 3 % of your audience is seeing it. And people get so hung up on, I don't want to be annoying. I don't want to be like, you know,
Kalin Sheick (31:31)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yep.
I don't want to post another picture
of myself because I posted a picture with me in it last week and that's going to make everyone think I'm an egotistical maniac. No, they didn't see it. News flash, A, they didn't see it. B, we want to see pictures of people. And I see this as a big hang up in floristry and in flowers in general because what we do is so visually appealing and so gorgeous that everyone's like, I just want to show flowers. But I am not giving my money to flowers by Denise.
Jenny (32:01)
Right.
Kalin Sheick (32:22)
When I go to the Instagram handle, I don't know, I'm so sorry if some flowers by, I don't know if you're real, but please don't sue me. I don't know if you're real Denise. Now we have to flowers by Denise. If I go to your Instagram, ⁓ there's many, she's coming for me. She's coming for me. If I go to your Instagram profile and I don't see your face, your face in the last three, four posts.
Jenny (32:28)
I'm going to Google that.
⁓ they're Heldton, Oklahoma. She's getting a shout out.
Kalin Sheick (32:50)
or let alone your profile picture. I really want to know who I'm following and I really want to know the person. And often people will say, well, I don't really have an interesting story. I just like started growing flowers. There's, there's, that's okay. You don't have to have this crazy sob story. You can just talk about why you love them and how you got into them. But I do need to see your face because only
They say right now 20%, I don't even think it's 20 % of our audiences are seeing our stuff anymore. I think it's... Okay, so let's call it three to six. That's sad. So if we put 100 people in a room, on a good day, five of them saw your post. So don't overthink that you showed your face twice last week, because it's beautiful and you should show it.
Jenny (33:20)
I saw a statistic that was like three to six. Who knows?
Yeah, I also hear from a lot of flower farmers that are like, I don't want to show my face. I don't want to be the face of my brand. And like, I get it. But also, you are your business if you are a small business owner, like you should be proud and you should be the face of your business. And so like, part of me is like, I get that and I think you can make it work. But I also think it's going to work so much better if
Kalin Sheick (33:48)
Yup.
Jenny (34:05)
Right? mean, like, that's what you're saying.
Kalin Sheick (34:07)
I often say,
like my tough love, my internet big sister comes out. Once a year we train people here in Walloon Lake with our team. We call it Blooming Business and it's a full weekend and we talk all about the stuff. This year I had a girl who came up to me, she's awesome, big time grower, awesome grower. Design skills are like so on point and she's like, I just don't want to show my face. Like I do not want to show my face. I hate photos that are taken of me. And I was like, I have to cut it to you straight right now.
Jenny (34:10)
Mm-hmm.
Kalin Sheick (34:36)
You don't have to show your face every day, but you need to somehow drum up two or three pictures of yourself holding flowers, growing, kneeling over in a field, pulling, like cutting dahlias. I don't care what it is. And you got to pin those to the top of your profile then because you you're choosing to own a business. And part of what comes with choosing to own a business is the buck stops with you. And so they have to know
who that person is. And also the little bit of pain now in finding pictures of yourself that you like and sharing a little bit about yourself is way less pain than when someone's mad. When a customer is mad and they don't know the person behind the brand, they're gonna be 10 times harder to deal with than if they, like we had a woman this weekend who,
Sent us a message on a DM on Sweetwater. She was unhappy about something with her flowers and they just weren't, they were a little more blue than she thought and she wanted more white and it's just total normal customer feedback. And I was like, I'm going to call you tomorrow morning and make this right. sent and she was like, you don't even need to call me because I know you guys and I trust you guys. And I know this was just like a one-off thing and I just want to provide the feedback. I'm not even giving you my phone number because I know how busy you guys are. And I'm so grateful. I just wanted to provide the feedback.
Had we not shown our personality, shown our faces, become the face of our brands for years, she would have raked me over the coals and written me a nasty Google review because we're mad when we don't know the people. And so the feedback of, don't want to take my picture. You're just going to have to put on your big girl pants and get over it. That came off a little harsh, but that's the truth, ladies. Thank you.
Jenny (36:21)
Yes. It was perfect. Also,
that idea of just taking two to three pictures of yourself with the flowers and pinning them on your profile, that's genius, genius. Like if you really...
Kalin Sheick (36:32)
Just pin them, guys.
Because then when I go to your profile,
I see you and I see what you're doing, you're working. I always say like a straight on, like a headshot of you holding flowers, great. Second one, you designing, looking away, walking through a field. And then you've covered your bases of showing up at your brand and then you can let it go a little bit.
Jenny (37:00)
Yes, I love that. And my favorite accounts that I have followed have always been, like there's a couple of accounts specifically that come to mind where I always see people with the flowers because anybody can post a big bunch of vernunculus or arrangements, but that's what makes you unique and memorable and builds that trust. So yeah, everyone listen to Kaylin's big sister, Tough Love here. That's perfect.
Kalin Sheick (37:11)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Sorry, I'm just gonna
cut it to you straight ladies, but I feel like we all can find two or three photos of ourselves that are acceptable to share.
Jenny (37:30)
That's perfect.
Yes. Now.
Speaking of sharing photos of ourselves and our families and that stuff like that, how do you decide what you keep private? Because I am a very private person, which I think is why I find social media hard. I find it very difficult to share pieces of my life that feel very special to me. I kinda just wanna keep some things to myself. I don't share, or I very, very smallly share my family. If I put a video,
Kalin Sheick (37:42)
Yes.
Yep, and I love that about you.
Jenny (38:08)
or a picture of my son up, which is very rare, you cannot see his face. It's like his little body off in the distance and like, okay, great. I'm sure everybody has, whatever your opinion is about that, good for you. This is just my opinion. But like, how do you decide what to share versus what to keep private for you?
Kalin Sheick (38:15)
We are kindred spirits in this way. We are kindred spirits in this way.
So from the jump 10 years ago, I had no kids. And I was like, when I have kids one day, I'm not sharing them on this account. I decided that from a logistical and safety standpoint, I used to work in television news. I was a TV reporter. I covered child crime. I was like, my kids are never being shown on it. It's just not happening. So from a logistical standpoint, I will share them. And I get a lot of DMs about this when I talk about this.
Jenny (38:34)
Same.
Kalin Sheick (39:00)
I will share them if their image or likeness could not be stolen and replicated. So from a hard and fast rule, it's like, like you said, far away, a family picture of us far away where even if you pinch Zoom, you're not getting much. ⁓ I've also never shared their names. I've never shared, like, I just want to keep some things just for our family. So from a child safety standpoint, I decided and everyone makes their own decision and I do not shame anyone.
Listen, I have friends who their kids are in their content every day and they have bank accounts set up for them and money they make from the account account content. One day they're going to give them access to those bank accounts. Friends of huge followings. That's fine. If that fits your bill and that feels good to you and mostly if that feels good to your kids, then I want that journey for you. I ⁓ contrary to popular belief for a girl who has blown her life on the Internet every day for 12 years.
I'm a wildly private person and I felt very much ⁓ maybe three or four years in, I was just like, I've given too much of myself to this. Like I have nothing that is still ours. And it felt kind of gross to me and I knew we weren't slowing down. Like the business was taking off. I've since since launched.
spun off a personal brand after this. And I just decided really early, like, okay, I'm gonna share the level to which I am comfortable. And then stuff will happen and people will be like, my God, you didn't even talk about that. And I'm like, yeah, because I didn't really want to. you know, an example that's really topical right now is my sister, she works with us and she's my best friend. She lives seven miles away from me. We're raising our kids together. Like she is always in my stories. Everyone loves Egan. They all know her.
and she just had a baby like a week ago and we never shared. She never announced it, we never showed her for 10 months from her face down and people are shook to their core. I'm like, yeah, Egan had a whole ass baby and y'all didn't even know. Like again, furthering that we barely know, like what we see is just the surface, but also like keeping things for ourselves and wanting that privacy to still be garnered as our own.
I always say, my of my rules are once we get past the child safety stuff is like, am I sharing this in a way, could this affect other people? So anytime I'm sharing like stuff about my husband, Matt, or the team, we're obviously like really careful, like are you comfortable with this? Number two, I always feel like I don't owe anyone listening. You don't owe anybody anything. So sometimes people are like,
Well, I've really struggled with I had a girl I was coaching like a year ago and she was like, I really struggled with like my mental health and I want to talk about that. And I was like, cool, if you feel comfortable talking about that. She was like, but I don't want to tell them about like that. I was, I went to a facility and I'm like, you don't have to like, you can talk about something and share about something to the level at which you are comfortable. And I also want to encourage anyone listening, like just feel like you can have things that happen. You can have days in your life that happened.
You can grow flowers that you don't share. You can have a pot of annuals from the nursery that are laden with chemicals. You can pick up those pink bubblegum petunias and grow them in pots and no one needs to know. You don't have to share every single thing of every single ⁓ part of your life because I want us to know that what we share is forever.
And also we don't get this time back and I want you to have things that still feel sacred to you.
Jenny (42:52)
Yes, I feel very similarly and part of me feels like this business of mine, I have poured my soul into it. mean, like anybody who has had a business for decade will feel what I'm talking about. Like it has taken so much from me and I have given so much to it that there are pieces that I am just unwilling to share with other people and for me to have like some sense
Kalin Sheick (43:03)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Yes. Yes.
Yes.
Jenny (43:22)
semblance of like work-life separation, like I have to have some things that I just do not share and that are just for me. So I think it's okay.
Kalin Sheick (43:25)
Yes.
Jenny, that's so good.
That's so good. That is so spot on. Like anyone listening who is starting or operating or running a business, it sucks the life out of you in a way you cannot even put words to. is, ownership is a level of crazy that I don't know why anyone would ever choose it. And I always, I often say if it was easy, everyone would do it. If it was, if it was fun,
Everyone would keep going forever and forever and forever. So we all make a gamble. We all make exchanges of our time and our efforts for what it gives us back. I will say it's not fun. I mean, I have fun day to day, but ownership is not fun. ⁓ The stress will try and kill you, but the flexibility it has given me and my husband is something I'm not willing to go back on. So I will put myself through this for this. we all are, everything is an exchange of time and energy.
So for us to just wanna grasp onto one remaining thing I think is healthy, and I honestly think it's necessary. Because the people I see burning out to the point where they can't go on anymore, and I fully, my God, anytime I see someone who's like, I'm out, I'm going back, I'm like, I get it. I get why they're making that decision fully. I want to say to them, I'm proud of you.
and then I want all of us to take the lesson and maybe, like, maybe we don't need to share every single thing because it leaves nothing left. That's just yours.
Jenny (45:05)
Yes, exactly. And I know some people will say, and sometimes I have felt like this from time to time, that if I'm not sharing everything, that I'm not being authentic, and I just also just don't think that that's true.
Kalin Sheick (45:16)
Yep. Yep.
No, not at all. I often talk about my, ⁓ my third child, my daughter, we spent 79 days in a NICU. She was born, she was on life support. I almost died having her. That's okay. It's fine. Now she's perfect. She's wonderful. She's hysterical. She's also a little bad. So, you know, like, know, whatever happens, but she turns four in a couple of weeks and the summer she was born, of course it was summer was our busiest wedding summer ever. And when she was born, ⁓ she came early.
Jenny (45:28)
⁓ so sorry. ⁓ my gosh.
Kalin Sheick (45:49)
And so I recover, I have an NDE, a near death experience. She's on life support. I am alive. I'm in this hospital room. It's three and a half hours from her house. I've got a one year old and a two year old at home. And I say to my husband, I can't share about this. I cannot because the clients will waffle. Like the hundred couples we have ready to go will be like, ⁓ shoot.
Jenny (46:11)
Mmm... yes.
Kalin Sheick (46:17)
This woman who I've given money to is not there. She's not well. And I was full blown when I speak, this is part of my keynote. Like I was full blown, like burn it down. I do not care. I do not care. We will refund everyone's money. I don't, and my husband, thank goodness was like, we have a team. We're going to execute the summer. It's going to be messy. It's going to be hard. It's not going to be the leadership you want to provide people. But I kept saying to him, I can't share about this.
Jenny (46:30)
⁓
Kalin Sheick (46:46)
because they're going to question whether or not they made the right call. And then like in a week's time, I did this insane mental flip where I was like, but if I don't share about it, I'm lying to them. Like I'm withholding, is impacting me so much. I am so messed up right now watching her fight for her life. I have to tell them. So.
whether right, wrong, or indifferent. That's how I started the personal brand. I had the Sweetwater account. I started the Kalen Sheik account. And I was like, hi, if you have found me here, here's what's going on. And I still didn't share everything. I did not share what she was diagnosed with. I did not share how bad it was. I did not share she was on life support. I was like, she's born. We're going to be here for a while. The team's got it. Kind of a version in a spin in the PR that I felt comfortable with.
And it took me years to want to feel comfortable talking about it, sharing about it. But to anyone who's dealing with anything, you don't owe anybody, anyone or anything. You do not owe people your deepest, darkest secrets. But if it feels to you like something you want to share, then I empower you to do so. And I also want to remind you of what's going to come with that. Because what I was not ready for was I shared about it. And then there was this
onslaught of, you know, blessings of people wanting to help us. But I was so overwhelmed in their support. I was like, I don't want this to be about me go support my team. But it was kind of a mess. So we're all just we're all just mucking through some mess at some point and you got to share how you're comfortable sharing.
Jenny (48:29)
Yeah, I just want to reiterate that business is messy and there will be times where it's all we I keep thinking that someday I'm going to get it all figured out and business is not going to feel as much. And it's all a big joke because every stage there's new skills you have to learn. There's new things that come up. There's new life circumstances and business is messy. And if it feels messy, you're probably doing it right. Like I had a I don't want to say a similar situation to you, Kaylin, but like
Kalin Sheick (48:34)
Massey.
Ha!
Jenny (48:59)
I also had very traumatic birth experience and things burned down in our business. Things did not go well. It was not okay. I was not prepared for it. mean, some things I was, it sucked, but we got through it, you know? And so business is messy.
Kalin Sheick (49:03)
Yeah.
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Yeah.
Any business
owner I know who has staying power has, it's blown up in their face multiple times. And the staying power is in the pivot and the rebirth and the, okay, we're gonna figure this out. Like I had the hardest six months of business ownership this past winter, know, kind of like October to like, honestly, probably just came out of it in March. And I remember saying in December, driving to a Wreath event,
It feels like everything I have built is slipping through my fingers in real time. it's like grasping at sand. Like, I just couldn't hold on to it anymore. And I thought I had such great control and such great systems and an amazing team. And I do have an incredible team. And Matt and I can handle anything. And then I just remember kind of just letting it all go and just saying, okay, I will.
I will be stronger and better for this, but I gotta kinda just sit in this really messy, mucky, gross, awful time for a little bit. And then I just kinda woke up maybe eight weeks ago and I was like, we're gonna figure it out. And we have every day since.
Jenny (50:28)
Yeah, I feel like I also had a similar experience to that. You're like, yeah. OK. ⁓ yeah. Let me know if you want me to edit anything out. But yes. Yeah, no.
Kalin Sheick (50:31)
We'll take that off air. We'll take it off air.
Not at all. You can go right ahead. Let it all I am an open book and this has been so
fab.
Jenny (50:46)
Yes, I agree. So ⁓ gosh, I feel like we could probably talk for like hours about this. what else do you want to talk about to close this conversation out?
Kalin Sheick (50:53)
We really could, we really could.
I want people listening, especially women listening, who are building businesses with babies at your feet and on your hip and in a carrier in a field and you're doing preschool drop-off and you got nothing done and you're driving a little league and you gotta ba-da-da-da-da. You are doing enough. You are enough. You're doing an incredible job. If the people you love and care for feel your love,
and they are safe and healthy, nothing else on the planet matters. It does not matter your revenue. It does not matter that you planted 5,000 bulbs and the deer ate them the first day they came out of the ground because you had a fence issue from snow damage you didn't even know. Piss it all, okay? Like nothing else matters other than time with people we love and care for. And you can't get any of that back. You cannot get it back. You can plant flowers the rest of your days.
and be mediocre at it, but you don't get time with your kids back. And so I want everyone to just give themselves a boatload of grace and focus on what I call bloom, which is building life out of moments. Let's bloom. Let's not be obsessed with new things or this, this. Build a business that allows you to live the life you desire. It does not have to look like anyone else's business and you're doing a great job.
Jenny (52:25)
Thank you for that reminder. feel like you just made me feel so much better actually. So I wake up all the time and I'm like, my God, need, you you got to fix this in the business and do this and do this, but like, I need to make, but then I'm home with my son several days a week and then you're juggling all the things. And it's like, I think we all just need that reminder and give ourselves a little bit of grace. ⁓
Kalin Sheick (52:29)
That's what I'm here for.
Yeah. Yes.
Yes.
I am a living,
the reason I love talking about this stuff so much is I am living this right alongside my entire audience. example, we're recording right now. I'm interviewing a girl in a 30 minute, she's gonna be here. Then I have to go home, grocery shop, start getting ready for dinner tonight, kids to sports, pick up from school. I'm leaving work today in an hour and a half. Is that the leader I wanna be? Is that the business owner I imagine this Fortune five? No, I've been here and that's okay because
There's go time, there's slow time, there's family time, there's kid time. We need to give ourselves grace that we're dropping balls constantly and we're going to be for the next 15 years and I wouldn't have it any other way. And Jenny, you're doing a fab job. I want you to know that. What you've created is really special for so many people.
Jenny (53:33)
Thank you. And you as well, Kaylyn. Thank you so much. That means a lot. And to everyone listening, like, let the balls drop. Sorry. I just feel like that has to be my mantra for the next little while.
Kalin Sheick (53:35)
I mean it.
Let the balls drop. Let the balls drop.
It has
to be. Everyone's doing great. Please everyone come like connect with me on Instagram. Find me, look me up, all the things. I would love to hang. Yes.
Jenny (53:55)
Yes. Yeah. Tell everyone where they can find you. We will obviously link
to all of your accounts and everything in the show notes so they can find you, but tell everyone where to go.
Kalin Sheick (54:03)
Yes, thank you.
It's at Kaylin Sheik on Instagram, K-A-L-I-N-S, it'll pop right up. We're at Sweetwater Floral, that's the shop and the wedding side of things and workshops and all that. And then I am obsessed with Substack. You can come over and follow me and I write there every single week. And it's like a blog from 2007 and it's really scratching my millennial itch to write a diary. And I would love to see you over on Substack. You can just look up the Lucky Girl's Substack by Kaylin Sheik and I'm there.
Jenny (54:31)
Okay, Kailin, make sure you give me that link and I will link all those in the show notes so you guys can go follow Kailin. will. Thank you for being here and thanks for such a valuable conversation. It certainly made me feel a lot better and thanks everyone for listening to another episode. Don't forget we publish new episodes every Monday, so we'll see you next time. Same day, same place. Bye.
Kalin Sheick (54:35)
Promise, promise. Thank you for having me, Jenny.
Jenny (54:53)
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You can also grab this link in the show notes.
