Hear how Lisa Song Sutton went from Lawyer to Entrepreneur to Beauty Queen, to a SERIAL 7 Figure Entrepreneur and how you can leverage some of her key tips and insights for success!

RealTalk Podcast:  Episode 14

Guest:  Lisa Song Sutton

About Lisa:

• Successful serial entrepreneur
• Real estate investor
• Former Miss Nevada - United States
• Former Congressional Candidate for Nevada’s 4th District.
• Former attorney who started her business career working in a top Las Vegas law firm, specializing in business litigation. 
• Started her first business, Sin City Cupcakes in 2012.

 

Companies:

Sin City Cupcakes

Ship Las Vegas

Elite Homes - Christie’s International Real Estate 

Liquid and Lace Swimwear

Lisa often publishes articles for periodicals like Forbes, Inc Magazine, and Business Insider on all things, business, and entrepreneurship. She's passionate about sharing her message of leadership and empowerment as well as action...encouraging people, especially women to take a seat at the table and make their voices heard. 

Key Takeaways and show notes from Lisa Song Sutton:

Partnerships and Business Models:  

• No company stays the same forever so, your paperwork then also has to change along with the company
• Have a discussion with your partner and make sure you guys are on the same page because if one of you wants to have a legacy business and the other wants to eventually sell it, in 60 months, that's the misalignment. 
• A business is going to go through life cycles. If it's a legacy business or lifestyle business, that's one thing….But when you're ramping up and getting strategic and positioning it to sell, it's a very different animal, and you really need to take a different approach as to how you run it. (i.e. how lean, how systemized, a little more frugal, etc).
• Work-life Balance has to be your own definition of it. It's not going to be 50/50. There are going to be some days where it's less than more.
• When you're in the beginning stages of your company expect to be in the trenches, don't expect to take your weekends off. Don't expect to take days off.   If you do,  you're setting yourself up for failure. You need to go in with blinders on and just say, okay, am I willing to not take a vacation for the next two years? You have to be intense if you're serious about getting your business to a place of stability.

Systems and Operations:

• Document everything - all processes and procedures.  
• It's so helpful for training new employees because the documents already exist. It's easier than as you make tweaks to your processes and systems just to update them. It's also great insurance. If a key person leaves your company and they were the one that responsible for a lot of tactical day-to-day things because someone else can pick up where they left off

Support and Mindset:

• When you go through a rough time, you can't let it discourage you to the point where you're like, I'm just not going to do this at all. I think it's really important just to not let yourself get to that point. Cause you've worked so hard to build this. Surround yourself with good supportive people.
• You're going to them for support and confidence because your confidence has now been shocked and hit because of the situation. So you have to surround yourself with people who believe in you.
• Most  women who are overachievers tend to suffer from occasional bouts of imposter syndrome
• I think imposter syndrome, is such a human thing. It can be a blessing in the sense that it keeps you humble, at least for me. I never get too big for my britches regardless of what the facade is or what the social media facade is. I never get too big for my britches. I remember where I come from. And I think somewhere that little bit of self-doubt that I'll carry or that will pop up from time to time. That's my reality check to keep grinding. 
• You never know everything. So I think they can be a blessing. So instead of looking at imposter syndrome as we have to eliminate those, that, every day is superwoman. That's not true.
• The cape has to go in the wash sometimes. 
• When I feel discouraged or in control, I'll grab a notepad and I'll start making a list of the things I can do right now. What can I tighten up right now? There's always something helpful to me. Write it down. So that way at the end of the day, I'm crossing it off. 
• If you're so drawn to adventure and you're so drawn to an idea and you know, in your gut that it could work, then why not take the risk in your twenties? Why not take the risk in your thirties?  I just feel I meet a lot of young people and think, you have so much time. You could mess up for the next nine years. And you'll still be okay. And I think as we get older, we become a little more risk-averse.
• Entrepreneurs, in general, are very willing to take a risk. And I think that 80% of the world is risk-averse and can understand that we're willing to roll the dice and do things that aren't as secure, but in exchange, it's also because we're so passionate and we want to make a difference in the world and we want to do things and beat to a slightly different drum that we're willing to take that shot.
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The main keys to your success?

• I have great people around me. I'm so thankful for my partners, for our teams and our staff, and the great people who work with us and for us, without them, none of this would be possible. None of this would even exist without them. I'm incredibly grateful for that and just grateful for my inner circle too, my family, my great friends who have supported me along the journey the entire way. I’ve got a girlfriend of mine who knew she was in my kitchen when we were starting the recipe right and creating recipes for Sin City Cupcakes in 2011. I'm blessed to have just great people around me.  So I just want to make sure that I remind myself of that and stay grateful for that. 

What's the best advice you've ever received? 

• So my parents told me this quote when I was little and it's just something that has stuck with me ever since, hard work, beats talent when talent doesn't work hard. And I found that to be true time and time again in my life. There's always going to be someone faster than you, smarter than you, and better looking than you, whatever the case is and in the context. And so the question is, what do you bring to the table?  I think, having a solid work ethic and being willing to grind when most won't, so that's a quality that a lot of people don't have. I think it's easy to talk about and it's easy to share memes on social media, but when it comes down to, who's going to do the work, no one wants to do the work. And so if you're the one who's willing to do the work, you should reap the reward for that. Show that your work ethic is what will set you apart from other competitors. 

What is something about you that most people don't know? 

• I'm very musical and I grew up with dance classes as well. So I grew up with private piano lessons, private flute lessons, taught dance lessons. I had a fine arts upbringing. and I think people are just always really surprised by that. 

What woman has inspired you and why? 

• There are so many, Of course, what immediately comes to mind are family and female mentors I have in my life. But you know, I love the way that Sara Blakely approaches things. The founder of Spanx
• Her innovation came out of fixing a problem or spotting something that she was like, I should do something about this. And then she did. Then she put in the groundwork. She grinded where she was doing it out of her house and having boxes show up at her house, holding inventory at her home. And I love the journey and the progression that she's taken. And I just think that it's great to watch. It's something to aspire to.

 

Personal Website:  https://www.lisasongsutton.com/ 

Social: 

@lisasongsutton - Instagram

@lisasongsutton - Facebook

 

Social:

@sincitycupcakes - Instagram

@Sincitycupcakes -Facebook

@elitehomes.us - Instagram

@elitehomesUS - Facebook

Lisa’s LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisasongsutton/

We'd love to hear from you!  If there are topics or burning issues that you'd love to hear about, or if you would like to be considered as a guest on the RealTalk Podcast with Maureen Borzacchiello, just shoot us a note:  [e-mail] or complete this short questionnaire:    https://programs.maureenborza.com/