#20: Relentlessly Pursuing Your Passion with Amy Lacey, Founder & CEO of Cali'Flour Foods
Passion or profit?
If you ever get in a situation when you have to choose only one, what would you do?
In this episode of Scale with Joy, I was joined by Amy Lacey, CEO and Founder of Cali'Flour Foods.
She shared how:
She went through this exact same situation, and how she ultimately chose her passion and decided to keep her products authentic.
Authenticity eventually became the key ingredient to their profits growing exponentially in the long run.
She made a message out of her mess and focused on how her credibility could help others.
Listen to my interview with Amy for more tips on how to successfully earn millions and millions from the things you're truly passionate about.
Learn more about Cali'Flour Foods here or check out Amy on Instagram @heyamylacey.
Are you a visionary entrepreneur who wants to create change with your company in the world? If so, I want to let you know about a free masterclass that I just wrapped up. In this short but powerful training, I teach you exactly how to create a brand that inspires the hearts and minds of your audience and invites them into massive action. These are the very same frameworks that I've used to help my own private consulting clients and national companies you know and love, spread their mission, launch expansion, and accelerate influence. To join in, visit https://joybrandcreative.com/movement.
Listen to the Show:
Laura (00:00):
This is the Scale with Joy show, episode 20: relentlessly pursuing your passion with Amy Lacey.
(00:10):
Welcome to the Scale with Joy show, a podcast about scaling your company while living your most purposeful life. Because here's the thing: there are no rules to say you can't grow a massively profitable empire and have joy in the everyday. My name is Laura Meyer and let's get started.
(00:36):
As an entrepreneur, do you ever feel like you need to choose between passion or profit? And if you ever got into a situation where you had to choose only one, what would you do? Well, today's interview Amy Lacey CEO and Founder of Cali ‘Flour Foods, tells us how she went through the same exact situation and how choosing her passion actually made her products more authentic. So much so, that authenticity eventually becomes the key ingredient to her profits, where she has grown exponentially. In the last few years, she says, don't do something for the money, cause it'll just fall apart. Do it because you're passionate because you believe in it because it is your, why. Well you know that I am all about that here at JoyBrand Creative and so in this next interview, she's going to give you tips on how to successfully earn millions from the things that you love the most. Next up Amy Lacey.
(01:31):
Hey everybody. Welcome back. I am here with Amy Lacey on Instagram @heyamylacey, so hey Amy Lacey! Thank you for being here. I am great because I'm with you and I wanted to let everybody know that I invited you here today because first of all, I love, love, love Cali ‘Flour Foods. I love everything about it. We share that mutual friend and Tonya Dalton, and she's amazing. You have grown this business despite many trials and tribulations into a multi multimillion-dollar operation and you have done so much good in the world with it. So that's really why I wanted to have you here. I love Cali ‘Flour Foods as a food allergy mama, you have autoimmune disease. Everybody can benefit from the healthy product that you put out in the world. So would you mind sharing a little bit about your background and some of the things you're working on today?
Amy (02:27):
Yeah. First of all, thank you so much for having me and I'm honored and I love your beautiful family behind you and the son that struggles, I get it. And I have so much empathy for that. And as a mom, my son struggled too, and I didn't even realize it for many years, so I know it can be really difficult. So that's one of the reasons why I created this product. It started just a way for me to help myself and my son. And it was just really organic growth. In the beginning, we went to farmer's market because so many people loved it once I discovered how to make it. And we truly were the first cauliflower pizza crust on the market. There was another one that was called a veggie crest, but we were the first on the market. And you know, I have no experience in the food industry.
(03:13):
So I didn't hit grocery stores hard. I really just went to farmer's market, a few grocery stores. And then we started sharing our clients that we're prospering and eating the product and either losing weight or able to eat pizza again, because they were a diabetic. A lot of people that had auto-immune because they could relate to me were just benefiting from the product. We started sharing those stories online and boom, our online business, just, it literally went viral. We shared one customer. Her name is Jessie. She had a daughter named Kenzie. Kenzie struggled. She was nonverbal autistic, and the doctor put her on a low carb diet. And in order for Kenzie to eat, Jessie would have to sit down and eat with her. And she said, hey, Kenzie's favorite food is pizza. Can you send me your product? Because she can't eat pizza anymore.
(04:03):
And I said, sure. And I sent it to her for seven months. Jessie and Kenzie sat down and ate it. And it was one of their meals that they ate every day, sometimes two, because Jessie would make her sandwiches out of it or a wrap or pizza. And seven months later with a low carb diet, not just our product, but many products that Jesse made, Kenzie became verbal and Jesse lost 169 pounds. I don't recommend losing that much weight that fast, but it works for Jessie and her life was completely changed. So we shared that story, which is really near and dear to my heart. And that story went viral. And so our online business took off. And now nowhere nationwide in grocery stores and Kroger and Walmart, and we're coming out with all these entrees because I've developed a cookbook. And in the process of me cooking other things, besides pizza for myself and my family, decided to put it in a cookbook, it went national bestseller.
(05:06):
And I thought, well, a lot of these recipes can be made and sold in the grocery store. Cause a lot of times the feedback is, oh, I don't have time to do that. We actually put our pizza recipe that we sell online in grocery, in our cookbook. But the feedback was, I don't want to take the time to do it. So I'm like, okay, it's the exact ingredients. We don't put fillers to make it cheaper, to fit the grocery store freezer. We literally keep it as clean as what I'm eating when I'm making it in my kitchen. So we're getting ready to launch lasagna and tamales. Yeah, I'm all about comfort food. I grew up a product of the depression. My mom's mom went through it and my mom was a single mom. So we were on a very tight budget. So I grew up eating really inexpensive comfort foods, have lot of knowledge about nutrition and how to like take comfort food that's unhealthy and full of fillers and white flour and make it healthy.
(06:07):
And the sad thing is my grandmother, who I love dearly passed away from rheumatoid arthritis, which she was getting infusions from. And it turns out it's part of this whole auto-immune thing that we struggle with in our family.
Laura (06:21):
Yeah. It's with the inflammatory foods with that, you know, you were going from farmer's markets to having these great success stories and then take us, how did it go from simple farmer's markets to, I don't know if you're comfortable sharing the size company that you have, if you're not totally okay, but it's in the millions. Let's just put it that way.
Amy (06:42):
Yeah. So like I said, we started sharing our clients' stories and really making our clients the hero I went to Donald Miller's Story Brand in Nashville, Tennessee. Have you heard of that?
Laura (06:54):
Yeah, I've gone through his training too.
Amy (06:56):
We haven't talked about this. I recommend listening to his podcast. I will say I listened to the power of email. I'm an anti-email person early on. I don't like getting emails. I just, I'm horrible about checking email. And I listened to Donald Miller's Story Brand podcast with Jeff Walker about the power of email. And we implemented what Jeff said and our email list group like dramatically. So if you're trying to build an email list, look up that podcast from 2016 or find anything that Jeff Walker has done about email. It works. So, the day that we launched an email to our consumers, we sold $86,000 worth of product that day. And I knew that email had a power, but more importantly, I don't care about the sales and the dollars. And I think that's part of the reason why we're so successful is, if I cared about the money, I would have altered my product.
(07:57):
There's over 50 cauliflower products on the market. I don't want to bash on competition. I want the consumer to be able to judge for themselves by reading the ingredients. So if it's got cornstarch and xanthan gum and fillers in it, you know, that cauliflower is probably, if it's got 14 ingredients, it probably doesn't have much cauliflower in it. So you're kind of defeating the purpose of buying it. And I could have made my product really inexpensive and I chose not to because I wanted to keep it fresh cauliflower. And that's the main ingredient. So I've stayed true. And I believe part of the success is a making your customers the hero. Yes. Be listening to people like Jeff Walker, people like you, people that have done it, that are successful around yourself with those kinds of people. Cause you can learn so much from them, which is what I did.
(08:50):
And then stay true to yourself. I had somebody come to me at the pizza in 2017 and he said, he's a co-packer. And he said, I can make your product and we can cut your price in half and you can pocket all that money. And of course I'm like struggling. I'm in the hole early 2017. I'm still in the hole with my business, with startup costs. And of course my ears are like, okay, let's figure out. And he told me what he would do to the product. So he was going to add these fillers and then I sat there and I thought, okay. And he's like, and it can be really automated. No more handcrafted, just automated. So it's not going to be like, you made it in your kitchen anymore. And then I realized I couldn't eat it. And so then I'm like, okay, I'm going to be fraud.
(09:36):
And I can't lie. So how am I going to be interviewed? How am I going to talk to people? And then what if people that have auto-immune buy it, they're going to get sick. I can't eat it. So right away, I was like, okay, this product has to stay authentic and clean. And no matter who is in my business, who works for me, who invests in me, whatever it has to stay that way. And that's how we've stayed true and authentic. And I think people appreciate that. They appreciate that we don't just vomit about our product, that we actually highlight success from other people that our consumers truly are our heroes, the busy mom that wants to feed their child's healthier or their family healthier. The millennial. I know millennials hate that term. I don't know what else to say though. If they could give me another term, I would use it.
(10:26):
But that young person that I see so often on Instagram, they just how-to massive workout and they want to eat something that's really satiating, nutrition, just filling, but they don't want to eat a bunch of its fillers. There's a difference between fiber filling and fillers, you know, we're the perfect product for them. And so many of them eat us. And then anybody that has any kind of diabetes type two in particular, weight loss, auto-immune, all those people can eat us. Really, they can't eat the other products on the market. So I encourage people to read the ingredients. And I think that's, what's kept us super successful. People are smarter now than they've ever been. Cause they look on the internet and they research. And that's the first thing I did when I was diagnosed. As I came home, I jumped on the internet and I found Rachel Ray's cauliflower pizza crust on the internet.
(11:20):
It's not our same recipe, but it's the first one I ever made. And honestly, I didn't even like cauliflower. It wasn't a vegetable I had in my house. I thought it smelled, I didn't care for it. It's actually the most, it's amazing vegetable because it takes on any flavors with it. So that's why we can have a dessert made from cauliflower. Cause it's so bland and parents with picky kids, cause I have one that won't eat any vegetables, you can sneak it in without them knowing.
Laura (11:49):
Yes, I do that same thing. My youngest is very picky. My oldest one, the one with food allergies, you know, he didn't grow up with any tastes that were from processed food, you know? So it is interesting how different they are because of that. So in this moment, when there's somebody coming to you, you're in debt, you are at a show you've probably invested in the show. So you're in debt and then you just spent more money, and you're looking to grow and get on the other side of that upswing. And somebody comes to you and says, I have a formula for how to make this happen? What's the fear conversation? And then how did you move through that fear conversation?
Amy (12:31):
I've had to work really hard on fear. First of all, that conversation actually did happen. And I just shared that with you. And it was very tempting and the temptation came from the dollar sign, like, okay, I'm in debt. Yes. But when you believe in something so much and you know that it's changed your life so much that perseveres over a dollar sign do not do something for money. It will fall apart. I guarantee it do it because you're passionate because you believe in it because it is your why.
(13:06):
I often say I made a message out of my mess. If you saw me 10 years ago, I was in bed. I couldn't walk. I had a Walker. I had to have help. My youngest had to be sent away to live with my in-laws for a couple months. It was a rock bottom, low, I felt suicidal. I was on Wellbutrin. I was on steroids. I was on Plaquenil. I was on Coumadin for my blood clot, then I almost died from, I was a mess. I was at the low of my low and I gained 40, over 40 pounds. It was not a good time. But one day when Grant was gone, he was two months old. The fear of what I was experiencing, I was wallowing in self-pity. I was fearful for where I was going. I didn't feel like I could get better.
(13:54):
And I was like, no, this is my rock bottom. I want my family back. I want family fun night with pizza again. That's what we used to have every Friday night; I'm going to kick this in the pants. I'm going to figure out how to do it. And that's what I did. I mean, like I said, I went to the internet, but I started baby steps. Moving forward to get out of fear. I mean, fear is debilitating in itself. So when you're a mom, like think about our toddler. I talk about this often on stage, a toddler when they learn to walk on average will fall 38 times a day. So in the time span of an average toddler that learns how to walk. They have fallen over 3000 times. They always get right back up and try again. So if we can have that same mentality in our businesses, I have fallen probably 3000 times in this business, but I always get right back up.
(14:48):
I mean, we've had disasters happen. We've had packaging misprints. We've had just really expensive things happen. We've had issues with employees we've had partnership issues. You have to rise above that. You cannot let the fear debilitate you. It's a learned behavior. So as a toddler, we don't know what fear is yet. So that's why when we fall, we, it might hurt. We might cry, but we get right back up. And eventually we learn to walk and then we learned to run and that's what you can do in your business. So I'm in that running phase. I persevered through a lot of fear. I don't let fear come into my business. I really believe what you think and what you say. So it's really important if you have a team to say what you truly believe to say what you hope for so that they get it in their mind and it becomes this, this manifestation and it works.
(15:45):
It sounds woo, woo. But I'm telling you it works. So in 2017, we had a CEO that we let go and we had a certain amount of sales. We were at 1.8 million for the year, which is amazing. Yeah. But we were half a million dollars in debt. And I remember when that CEO left, he said, you won't make it till November. And I was determined with my team. Yeah. I have a small team. We had a lot of debt, especially to UPS that we didn't realize we had. And I was like, okay, team. Here's what we're going to do. We're going to double our sales. We are going to put out the most positive vibes. We're going to share more of our customers. We are going to double our sales. We're going to get out of debt. And we are going to persevere.
(16:34):
And we ended that year at 5.3 million. Now we started this manifestation August of 2017. We have five months and we went from 1.8 to 5.3 million. And that was my team's vision, their belief, we set monthly goals. Yeah. We had a range of what we were going to pay off on certain dates and we accomplished all those goals. And so when we hit those goals, I remember our first goal in August was we were going to do 600,000 for that month and we hit it, I'm not kidding at 9:45 on the last day of the month. At the time I had about six people on the team and four of the six were in the office and we popped champagne and we celebrated and we celebrated not that we hit our goal, we celebrated that we were a team, that we worked so well together and that we knew together we can accomplish anything.
(17:38):
And so that's really important. I think if you're just a startup, like I was in the very beginning, you might only have one person. I had one person; her name is Jimmy. She's still with us me today. She's my right-hand person. She believed in it. We believed in each other and here we are today. So I think surrounding yourself with a good team, I didn't always know how I was going to pay for Jimmy. Sometimes it was right out of my pocket. So yeah. So I believe setting really good goals and never wavering like, and get people to align with your goals again, make your customer the hero. That's so important.
Laura (18:20):
Hey, there are you a visionary entrepreneur who wants to create change with your company in the world? If so, I want to let you know about a free masterclass that I just wrapped up in this short, but powerful training. I teach you exactly how to create a brand that inspires the hearts and minds of your audience and invite them into massive action. These are the very same frameworks that I've used to help my own private consulting clients and national companies, you know, and love spread their mission, launch expansion and accelerate influence. To join in visit joybrandcreative.com/movement. That's joybrandcreative.com/movement. Also available in the show notes. Now back to the show.
Amy (19:10):
I recently had somebody call me, a friend said, hey, will you talk to this person? She's coming out with a new product. It's a keto product. Keto is really hot right now. Will you talk to her? Cause she's struggling with her business. And keto is so hot, there's these other people that are doing so well. And when we talked, I didn't talk at all. She just told me what she did in the past, which she worked with this, this phenomenal company. I won't say who it is. It's phenomenal and everybody knows. And she was a Rockstar in that company. She talked about her product. She talked about herself. She never asked me one question. I wasn't even sure why I was there. She's still not successful today because I can see in her ads, it's all about her. Yeah. And it's all about her product. It's not about the people she's going to help. It's not about others. And I really think you've got to pay it forward and you've got to make it about others. You can't make it about yourself. And it's a fine balance because you need the credibility. Like she's got really great mad skills because of the company she came from, it's got to be a balance of how your credibility can help others, but it has to be about others always. Cause if it's just about yourself, it's not going to work and that's in life. That's the way it is in life, right? Yeah.
Laura (20:30):
Yes. I'm such a big believer in generosity. And I'll say that like sometimes it shows up years later in ways you weren't expecting. And I think a lot of people when they're first starting out will like start putting out content. And they're like, well, I didn't get a customer. It's been two weeks. And you're like, you're just getting, going, being generous. It's so important to have like 10 years of generosity. And I don't know about you, but there were times where I was so busy. I forgot to be generous with my clients or employees. And then all of a sudden you realized your stuck and then you start getting generous again and it starts getting unstuck.
Amy (21:03):
Yeah. And that, I will say, the other thing you really need to do is perseverance because there's a lot of highs and a lot of lows, but you need to persevere right down through the middle. And early on in 2016, it was me and a partner and we were the ones that took it to farmer's market. And I think fear broke us up. The fear of not trusting the fear of, of failure. The business was failing. It was in the hole. We ended that year, negative 269,000. And I think fear broke that relationship up, but the fear of failure and the fear of not trusting one another or the fear of not trusting the people that were helping us, that fear overcame the passion and the belief in the customer. And so it really dissolved.
(21:55):
And in 2017, I changed the way that I was thinking about my business and the way that I was treating people. And that's really what I think. I mean, we blew up August through December of 2017 and in 2018, my team was a small team of believers. Now I'm not here to preach faith. Everybody believes in something, but I think you have to believe in something bigger than yourself, whatever that looks like for you. My team of believers, we did a lot of meditation, prayer, I believe in reading books to grow. So we had a book club within our company that this great guy named Brandt, who used to be, basically a pastor to teenagers that he led our group. And so we've always done book clubs. We always gave to charity, even when we didn't have money to programs that we really believed in. And so that was important. And I also picked an employee every month and they pick their charity. And then we gave based on their charity. In 2018, we went from 5.3 million to 20 million.
(23:03):
I truly believe the focus, nothing changed from August 2017. The employees didn't change. They were all the same employees, but I believe it was having those employees who are hungry. They believe in it as much as I do. Humble, you know, we made a lot of mistakes as a team, but we own them and we moved forward and we learn from them. So if you're not making mistakes in your business, it's not going to grow. The only way it's going to grow is if you make mistakes, don't get on yourself about the mistakes. Mistakes are actually a good thing. They teach you something and then emotional intelligence. And that's something that lacked early on in my business because fear is not emotional intelligence. Fear causes anger, debilitation. So fear wasn't in these six people. There was no fear. We were just going for it.
(23:56):
I feel like that's what took us from 5.2 to 20 million. And now we're more than double that. And I'm not allowed to say the exact number, but you know, we have really big goals for the next two years and it's not about the dollar. We don't put a dollar amount, go on. It's about the amount of people that we want to serve. It's about impact.
Laura (24:22):
It's about impact. Yeah. So what I love about what you just said is so much, but what stands out to me is a couple of things. The first is that when you're growing a business, so for those of you who are listening and you think you're going to make always the right hire, you're going to partner always with the right people. As you grow, if you get into the millions and eight figures, you are going to make mistakes about who you're partnering with, who you're hiring, who you're bringing on. And a lot of times when those mistakes happen, they will blame you. That has happened. They will tell you why it's your fault that this is all happening, which is another fear conversation, right? And really listening to your intuition and being unafraid to say, I have a vision for how this is going to go and fear and whatever you're bringing into this company or bringing this room is not welcome. You're welcome. But your fear is not. And that is, that's a tough, tough conversation. And I think sometimes people, when I learned this, I thought there was something wrong with me. I thought that, you know, when I made my first like senior level, miss hire, I felt like, oh my goodness, I messed up royally here. I have felt that too.
(25:41):
I have had some incredible people work for me that I saw a vision for them that they didn't see for themselves. And I've had somebody take our contacts and use them to benefit their own business. And they started their own business on the side while working with us. And I didn't learn it right away and that's okay. Like I wish her the best. And my goal someday for everybody that works with me is fulfill their dream. There's nothing better than to be able to fulfill somebody's dream and to pay it forward in that way. So a lot of our employees, when they get to pick the charity of their choice or they get that extra bonus, they can put their daughter into the college they want, those are really cool, fulfilling, you know, it's kind of selfish, but I love that feeling of giving to my employees. So I hope to be able to give more, but I have to use forgiveness. Forgiveness is super, is so important because people are going to be people and they're not always, they could be really good people and they may not align with your values.
(26:51):
And so they may not do what you think they should do, or they may not see your vision for their future. Really trying to listen to my employees and hear them and hear what they want. I've had an employee who still works for us in a position doing horrible. And I moved her. So I actually promoted her and I had a meeting with her and I'm like, I see this for you. I think you could do this. It's like, you're teenagers. I have two teenagers now, teenagers are, I should write a book on teenagers. If you want them to do something, pour into them as though they're already doing it. Wow. You are, your room looks great. You know, important to them, what you want.
(27:42):
So in this employee, I was like, I think you could do this position. You're great because of X, Y, and Z. So we promoted her when everyone thought I should fire her. And she had a good heart. She had the good basic foundations. She just wasn't good in that position. She wasn't passionate about that position. So to find out what she was passionate about was the key. So she is thriving, like massively thriving. She now leads a team. And in January I had somebody that asked me to fire her. And I'm so glad I didn't because she's thriving now. So yeah. You know, not, everybody's going to be a fit though unfortunately, you're not going to be able to move people around and it's not going to be a perfect set. I, like I said, I've had some people leave me that I think would have done amazing in our company and eventually could have gone on to do other things, but they chose to leave earlier and go on to do other things and that's okay.
Laura (28:46):
So good. So you have so much wisdom. I just am so grateful.
Amy (28:54):
I've learned a lot in the last year I tell my husband. So I went to school, graduated from Chico state. And then I went to a program, an MBA program, but I never finished it. I got pregnant and we have these student loans that he's still bitches about. And I'm like, okay, but I got an MBA. And the last three years, I've learned more in this business about business and people and products I could have never dreamed of. I mean, I've learned so much.
Laura (29:23):
Yeah. I always think about that. It's like the Velveteen rabbit story, you know, like you become real when you go through these trials in business and there is no way to avoid them. There really is not like you can have the best coach and the best program and you can make, you know, so many investments, but the way you learn is by doing and being ok with like, okay, now I get to do this. Now I get to fire somebody for the first time. Now I get to move somebody and follow my intuition. Now I get to, you know, it's like what you get to do as part of this journey. But you know, these are things you get to learn how to do. And as you said, seeing what's possible in somebody seeing what their potential is, seeing that maybe they're a fit for something else and you just don't have it right now in your company. Those are all gifts. Those are all gifts. You get to give as difficult as it is in different times. And so I'm just so grateful if you haven't tried Cali ‘Flour Foods, I highly highly recommend it. If you have anybody in your life with an egg allergy, if you have any friends whose kids have egg allergies, get the vegan one and stick it in your freezer, you will be so happy you did, because that's what we keep in stock. So thank you again, Amy, for being here. It's so great to connect with you. I know you've inspired so many. Yeah.
Amy (30:46):
Thank you. And one quick, final word, please. You make a mistake, know that if you learn from that mistake, your business is going to grow. But every major, big mistake we made our business flourished after that mistake, but we had to learn something from it.
Laura (31:03):
Yeah. Awesome. Thank you so much. Have a good day everybody.
(31:11):
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The Scale with Joy podcast dives into the mindset and strategies of scaling your company to the million dollar mark and beyond. Each week, we follow the journeys of innovators, disruptors, experts and leaders - sharing behind the scenes stories of their most challenging moments and greatest lessons learned-all while building their multi-million dollar empires.