Hi, friends. Welcome to the Life with Loverly podcast. I’m Brittany, a wife, mom, and lifestyle entrepreneur here to help you discover your best daily style and encourage you to try new things when getting dressed each day. I took a tiny following on social media and turned it into a community of over one million amazing women, and I am so glad you’re here. I’ll be sharing my heart with you beyond the 15 seconds on Instagram, so we’ll be diving into things like personal growth, friendships, motherhood, marriage, and of course, the business of blogging. Really, this space is here to serve as your go-to resource to building a life you adore while sprinkling some kindness to others along the way. Grab an iced coffee and let’s do life together. I’m Brittany, and this is the Life With Loverly podcast. Hi, friends. Welcome back to the Life With Loverly Podcast. Today’s episode is a little different, but in the best way. A while back, I had the chance to sit down with Allie Reeves, entrepreneur and business coach on her podcast, Six Figure Influencer, that has now turned into All In With Allie. And we had such a meaningful conversation that I wanted to share it here with you two. We talked all about my journey, how Loverly Grace started from helping coworkers style outfits, growing into the business it is today, building a team, and what it looks like to grow while remaining true to my purpose. Allie asked such thoughtful questions and I really opened up about the behind the scenes of running a brand and balancing it with life. So whether you’re a longtime listener or new here, I think you’re going to enjoy this episode. I hope it encourages you wherever you are in your own journey and gives you some helpful takeaways along the way. All right, let’s get into it. Here’s my conversation from Allie’s podcast.

I have the Brittany Sjogren on the Six Figure Influencer Podcast. Brittany, this is something that I’ve thought about so many times and I’m like, man, because I love following you. You are freaking killing it. And I’m just so happy we’re here. So welcome.

Thank you so much for having me on. I love chatting with other boss babes and creatives, so this is going to be really exciting.

It’s going to be awesome. I’ve already told you, I have so many questions. I got so many thoughtful questions from my people as well, and they’re really pumped just to hear about your life and how you got started and how you got here and all the things. So do tell us how you got started because you’ve built this. I mean, I’m just going to call it an empire, like what you’ve done. So how did you get started? Give us the nutshell version of how you got here.

Okay. So I started Loverly Grey back in 2016, beginning of 2016. I was working a corporate job. I was in sales for an IT staffing firm and I was an account manager. And in this job, I worked with probably like 50 other people my similar age. This was like kind of right out of college, mid 20s. And I was in the sales position and we had to wear business professional clothing because we were client facing. I was constantly meeting with clients, so I needed to look professional, but I didn’t want to just wear a plain suit and just be like blah. So I was always looking at ways to spice up my work wear wardrobe. And I’ve always been super into fashion. It’s funny, sometimes I tell people how when I was in high school, I had like an agenda. And on the days of the week, I would write out what I was wearing on the day in the agenda. So I could flip back and be like, “Oh, I wore that combo. I’m going to switch that top and wear it again here.” And for years, I would just write out what I was wearing. So fashion was something I was always very interested in. And so I wanted to bring these fashionable options to the corporate workplace. And so I just started kind of like shopping for unique work wear. And then I would go back to my office and share with the girls in the office like, “Oh, Loft is having 50% off. If you need some tops to go with your pencil skirt, here’s some really cute ideas or Target has great work wear.” And I just started sharing all of this. And so eventually a few of my friends were like, “Why don’t you share about this on the internet?” Blogging and influencing wasn’t really like, I wouldn’t say the word was influencing back then. It was more like writing a blog post. And so after some encouragement, a friend of mine was really like, “You need to give this a go.” So I started an Instagram account, started sharing daily work wear outfits. And then it just kind of, because nobody was sharing work wear. So I kind of looked at like, what’s going to make me different when I started my Instagram? Why should somebody follow me? And because nobody was really sharing work wear and I was able to give like five work wear outfits that I was genuinely wearing every week, that’s kind of how it all started. And then just kind of like, here we are today, six years later.

Wow. So you knew, okay. And that’s one of the things that I was wondering. Okay. Have you always been into fashion? Because you’re, I mean, it doesn’t take anybody five minutes to follow you to see that you know how to throw together the best outfits and how to accessorize and all the things. Okay. So you’ve always had a passion for fashion and it started with work wear. And you had, okay, so this was back in 2016. So you’re one of the OG trailblazers before. I mean, this is before stories, this is before – Yes. I feel like influencers and what we see, it’s so prevalent now, but you were just somebody who was like, “No, I like this. I want to give it a shot. And work wear is a space that I could fill.”

Yes. And it was kind of like I wanted to do this if it made no money because at the time I was just starting it as a hobby. My husband and I got married August of 2015. I had spent all this time planning a wedding. Then afterwards, I just felt like kind of this lull of like, “What am I going to do with my extra time after work? We didn’t have kids yet.” And so that’s when I was like, “This would be a good time to give this a go, start it as a hobby. It would just be kind of fun.” There were other bloggers that I followed and saw things on Pinterest. But again, I just didn’t see anybody giving work wear tips. So I just saw there was a void here. And then it eventually turned into, as I kind of got going within the first few months and sharing a lot of work wear, on the weekends, I would share a date night outfit or a casual outfit. And then, so I just started thinking of like, what events do people have going on in their life that they might need an outfit idea for? And so that’s when I started adding like, “Oh, you’re going to go after work to happy hour. Well, here’s how you could transition your work wear outfit into a happy hour outfit. Or you’re going to go take a bar class. Here’s what you should wear to go there.” So then the ideas and the posts became more than just work wear, but that’s really where it spawned from. And to this day, even though I haven’t worked a corporate job in five years, I still try to provide work wear to my audience because it’s still not a ton of people really share that.

I’ve noticed that actually. And I love that you do that because I work from home, but I love work wear anyway. And I love just that whole boss vibe aesthetic. So I love that you do that to this day. Please keep doing that for us.

I have so much fun doing it too. And sometimes I’m like, “Gosh, I wish that I actually worked in a corporate office.” And we always joke, they’re like, “You can wear the clothes here. You are in the office.”

Just show up in your three piece suit with full blazer and heels there. It’s fine.

Exactly.

Have like a Wednesday work attire day, making Nichelle and everybody dress up in suits. I think that’s a great idea personally.

It’s a good idea for later.

Okay, perfect. I can already see the reels. Okay. So one of my big questions for you that I know would resonate so much with the women that are listening is you started this while you were in corporate and it took off while you were in corporate. So how did you balance? Because I know you were also a newlywed and I don’t think you had kids yet. Okay. But you had to find this balance. And clearly in order to leave this job, you were putting in the work early. So how did you make that balance? What was your process?

So I spent a lot of times on the weekends prepping ideas. My husband, he also worked for the same company and just in a different role, but he started to travel a lot during like when I was first starting out. He took on a project that had like an international presence. So he was doing a lot of travel. So I had extra time after work. I would get home and then I would basically, if it was a time he was traveling, I would block off from like six to 10. And I was home by myself, maybe watching TV and I was able to like prep content or write blog posts or come up with ideas. So that was key because I didn’t have like an additional responsibility of a children or of like a husband at the time. I think now it would be so different to try to like work that in. I’m sure there would just be a different way I would figure out how to do that, but that really helped me be able to work really hard at first and get a bunch of ideas out there and kind of set what my expectations for this hobby is or what it was. And so that I think was how I really got it going. And I would say like probably nine months in while I was working full time, I kind of went to my husband and I was like, “I feel like I could do this blog thing full time. What are your thoughts?” And I knew I was going to have to give him like months of preparation because he was still very much like, “There’s no way.”

It wasn’t a thing. He was probably like, “What are you talking about?”

Yeah. And my corporate job was a six figure job. I was in sales. I had the opportunity to make more if I kind of worked harder. And so he was like, “Why would you give this up?” And I was like, “Well, I think I can make more doing this job because there’s a lot of streams of revenue. It’s not just one way to get paid.” And I think one mistake I made was not showing him some of the financial gain I was seeing from it earlier. So when I first started, you had to apply to be on LTK or reward style or any of these shopping platforms where you could earn a commission back. And you had to prove, like your account had to show that you were going to be a resource to people. So from January until May, I posted on my Instagram without making any income. It was just truly like, “Here’s the outfits I’m wearing. I enjoy putting these together. I’m enjoying building this community.” But I was not getting paid for any of it. And then I applied to LTK in May and I quickly got accepted, which I was like, “This is amazing.” And so then I was able to start linking the outfits. So if people wanted to buy them, instead of me just saying like, “This dress is from Loft,” and then they have to go figure out where it is, how to get it. I was able to start linking things. And the technology was a little bit different. It was like when you would like it, it would go to your email. And so that’s how people were able to start shopping. And I started to see income coming in from that. It was nothing crazy at first, but I think from that time, May to December, so that first year that I was on it, I think I made $14,000 from commission, which I thought was pretty good because I knew people who were making no commission, but posting the same. It just, for whatever reason, it wasn’t resonating. And so I think I built up this audience in those first few months of this is what I’m going to be sharing. And one thing that I did that was a little bit more unique that maybe not everybody was doing was I shared the fit and the size. And I walked people through a lot of ways to wear it. I thought if I’m going to buy this, what would somebody else want to know when they go to buy it? Oh, this fits a little weird. You might want to size down. Because I didn’t want somebody to have to go out of their way to return it, but I also wanted to keep the commission. So I wish I would have let him know this was making money a little bit earlier, but I kind of had it set up. It went into a different account. I kind of used that money to put back into the business and buy outfits and style multiple things. And so even, I mean, leaving a job to make $14,000, I just knew that there were opportunities with partnerships and that was just commission. So I had started getting a few partnerships and I was like, “I can consistently start doing this.” And it kind of got to a point where I was like, “I either need to go hard on my sales job because I was one of our top sales people, but I was kind of like starting to dwindle a little because I just wasn’t passionate about it anymore. Or I needed to like go hard. I needed to pick where I was going to put all this effort and time because I knew I could be really great at either one. So it took me a few months to convince him, but I eventually at the end of the year, I was like, let me just start full-time January 2017 and let’s just see what happens. So it was kind of wild.

Wow.

But yeah.

Okay. What’s so cool to me about that is you making that decision after making $14,000. I mean, that to me, I think that’s so cool because we now know in hindsight where you are now. And it’s like, I think it’s safe to say you made the right decision. Yes. But like that took some guts. And especially with Chris not being like. I mean, he sounds so supportive and I know he’s on your team now, which I want to talk about. But him having some reservations in the beginning and you still advocating for yourself. And even with the little results, which were great at the time, like, wow, this is, I mean, $14,000 is significant. Especially I’m sure for that period. But to say like, no, I see the potential in this. And taking that leap, I would say so early on and going all in.

Yeah. I think I just saw, and I mean, this is like before there was video content. So I think towards the end, I had a Loverly Grey Snapchat account and people could follow Snapchat. So I was showing kind of more outfits. I don’t know. Sometimes I think back and I’m like, how did I do this before stories? But that’s what made, I think, it even better once stories came around is I already had this community and then I started sharing tryons. It was just so wild though, because it was definitely a leap of faith, but I just had this feeling it was going to work. And so I came from the staffing industry and I was like, “This doesn’t work. I will just get a job. I’ll just go back to staffing. I’m very marketable. I know how to get a job again.” So I kind of wasn’t really that worried about it. Thankfully it worked out.

Yeah. You had a plan B, which I think is super helpful obviously in taking any kind of leap of faith, but you still went all in. And what I’m hearing, what I’ve heard from the podcast that I’ve listened to and what you’ve put out is you treated Loverly Grey like a business from the jump. Yes. It started as a hobby. That’s what drew you to it, but you took it very seriously. I mean, you went straight into what, posting twice a day pretty much? Yeah. Multiple blogs a week.

Yes. And with my sales job, we had like a standing meeting 8:00 AM every day, but you needed to be prepped for your day before that standing meeting. So I usually got to the office about like 70, 7:15, got my pre-morning routine done. And then we worked until five, but if you had a client meeting or if the work wasn’t done, you didn’t leave. And so I worked in that job for four years. So it was just ingrained in me like sales. You get out of it, what you put into it. And so my mindset was already like that. So I just kind of translated like I’m going to get into this what I put or get out of it, what I put into it. My husband was going to his job that same like seven to five. So I knew if I got up, got ready, I could put that whole day into Leverly Gray and creating all this content. And I treated it every weekday as a work day. And that I think absolutely helped me that second year and really helped keep that sales mindset and just like really helped get me to where I am today. I mean, I still operate on, we work eight to five, five days a week here.

Beautiful.

And that’s just like what works best for me. I have the time. This dedicated. I know afterwards I’m off. So like really setting boundaries with your schedule is like a must do in my opinion.

I think people look at bloggers. And if you’re not in this industry, you’ve never grown a business online. And I think it’s so easy to look at bloggers, be like, I could do that. It’s not fair they make the money that they make just posting outfits. But there’s a reason why I am not a fashion blogger and I’ve built this business. One, I have zero fashion sense. But also two, I don’t want to do that work. You have to do so much work. And I know you have this amazing team now and we’ll get into that, but I just admire you so much for especially in the beginning, just really bootstrapping this business and working it out and holding yourself to structure and a work ethic for what started as a passion project. Because that’s why we’re here talking about it today. No doubt.

It’s crazy. I think too, once I saw like the consistency of like collaborations coming in, brands wanting to work with me, the dollar signs beside some of those, because not only was I like a super hard worker, I was actually like, they were getting their ROI from working with me because my people were actually buying what I was talking about. And so that’s like also a whole other thing. You can do this job and people can love following you, but like if you’re not a good salesperson, if you’re not giving the right information, you might not sell anything. And so then it’s like brands might pay you less or they might pay you more if you’re driving a ton of sales to them. So there was like this other unique formula that I realized that I really had to gain the trust of my followers and really figure out what it was that they were specifically wanting. What were the price points? I had to do a lot of like testing on the front end to deliver. And so I think really studying your audience and knowing that too takes a little bit of time.

Yeah. And that’s one of the first things that I noticed about you. I don’t know if you remember this, but this is how I came across to you is I woke up one day, this was last year, probably about a year ago. Yeah. And I opened up Instagram and I had hundreds of new followers. I was like, “Oh my God, what is happening? A reel has gone viral. I did something wrong.” My brain’s like, “Oh God.” And I pull up my stories and you shared about me in your stories. And I can’t even remember what it was specifically. And I was like, “What?” And your followers were so faithful. I mean, they were just like, “Cool. Brittany mentioned this chick. We’re going to follow her.” And I was just like, “Darn, your audience is so engaged, so trusting.” And that’s one of the things that I preach constantly is like, is it sexy to have a big following? Yes. But what’s ultimately going to move the needle forward in a business is an engaged following. Yes. And I’ve seen so. I mean, you have a giant, giant, giant, giant following. But I’ve seen so many businesses that are doing great really, really well, millions of dollars who have less than 10,000 followers because their audience is so, so trusting and engaged. So what would be. I know clearly you have such a pulse on your ideal client. That is obvious. You’ve done the work. You know who you’re speaking to. You know what she wants to see. And you go the extra mile to showcase the outfits and how they move and all the things. Or do you remember or is there anything else you could share of ways that you have increased the trust with your audience and engagement? The things that you do, you’re like, okay, I know that they’re going to appreciate this and you’ve seen results from it.

I would say one major thing that I started doing, so I guess it was sometime in 2017, stories became a thing on Instagram. And this was just like stories now, another way to engage with your audience. And so I started doing stories. And at first it started out just as like a, “Hey, I’m Brittany. This is what I’m doing today.” Not even necessarily showing outfits, but then I kind of was like, “Hold on. I can do video now with this. I could try these clothes on.” It became different. But then they added this feature where people could message you and you can kind of have a conversation with a follower or a reader, somebody who’s consuming your content. And so at that point, I just started responding back to everybody who was messaging me. And yes, that took a lot of time, but I treated that as customer service. And so every person who messages, I mean, there are definitely people we just can’t get to. I also have a team who helps me with messages because I am a brand. And if you think of like brands have customer service teams who will field questions. And so when people DM me and they’re like, “Hey, what size did you get in this?” To respond back and just be like, “I’m wearing a size small if it’s true to size.” That’s going to let them. It’s almost like an immediate purchase if you respond back to them. It’s true. When messages first started, stories first started, you couldn’t share a link in stories. So your direct link to a consumer was sending them a DM with the link and then they could click it to purchase there. So I very early on just started interacting with people. And I think several people even to this day are like, “You’re the only influencers ever responded back to me.” Wow. And I know that people who don’t have the business mindset behind this job don’t see the importance in direct communication with the followers, but I think it’s very important. And so that would be one way I think people have just grown to trust me. And then, I mean, I’m not just trying to sell anything. It’s like I’m very particular about the clothes that I’m sharing. I do reach out occasionally and share other products, but I think my bread and butter are people coming here to shop outfits. And once they’ve tried it and it worked for them, then they’re like, “Okay, I’m coming back. What else is she talking about?”

Yeah. Okay. That’s cool. I love so much how, because we’ve already said, you’ve taken this and treat it like a business since day one. And what do most businesses have, especially stores? They have customer service. And you as an influencer, you’re essentially a store that you get to just share the best of multiple stores, which is amazing. And I think I love that tip because I think that’s one of the easiest things to let slide, especially as your audience grows. And I mean, that’s something that I know I can be better at. And I love hearing you say that because it’s like, okay, that just affirms I need to get support in my DMs. And if you can do it with 914,000 followers, what the crap. I have no excuse. So thank you so much for that. And I think the authenticity with the things that you sell or share and sell are things that you actually would buy yourself. People can tell. I have unfollowed people because I bought a couple of things from them and the quality and just, I don’t know. It was like, wait, you’re not really wearing this. Or that quality, you sold the quality and the quality is trash. And the first day I followed you, you shared these Nike sneakers. You shared how they fit. So it helped me pick the right size. And to this day, they’re my favorite pair of Nike sneakers. So thank you.

Love that. It’s funny because when, I don’t No. I feel like people just, if you trust somebody because they’re sharing certain things, you do kind of get a connection with this person or with whoever it is. And when stories first started, I would actually wear the clothes on stories that I was going to post my post about later that night. And so people would see me saying like, “Oh, hey, just talking, not even talking about the outfit.” And then they’d be like, “Where’s that from?” And I’d be like, “Oh, I just posted it actually. The details are here.” And people would always be like, “You’re the only person I ever see actually wearing the clothes that they’re posting about.” There you go. And to me, I’m like, “Yes, because I want you to buy it. And so I want you to see that I’m wearing it because I actually do wear it to go out and do things.” And so that’s another thing. I feel like that’s another sales tactic, but just like whoever your audience is and whoever your consumer is, how are they thinking? What do they need to know about all of this for them to make the purchase? Do they need to see me wearing it a few times? Do they need to just know the fit? Are they just looking for something specific, like a dress to wear to a wedding? Here’s a few options. But that also helped me a lot to gain trust is because I was actually using the products I was talking about.

Perfect. Yeah. Thinking about that whole customer experience, how are they thinking? Again, back to the ideal client. So strategic. We love that. Okay. So let’s talk about when you decided to expand. So you went full-time January 2017. And then when did you know, okay, I need some help. I desire some help. What did that look like? Because now you have seven people on your team. Yes. You have a full on business over there. So talk to us about your decision making and when you knew it was the right time.

I just was kind of getting bogged down and I felt like I wasn’t easily able to complete tasks or I just needed another set of hands to help some of these things get done. There weren’t enough hours in the day to do everything I wanted to grow, to pump out the amount of content I wanted to pump out. And I had help with. I worked with a photographer, so we would batch content. So I’d have a lot of stuff to prep. But I just kind of was like, I just need help doing more and with another set of hands, another brain to kind of help come up with ideas. Surely that would just mean we will grow. And so it was December of 2017 that I hired my first full-time employee. It was a friend of mine who was leaving her job. She worked in social media for a boutique. And so I was like, “This is kind of perfect. You’re aware of the world that we’re in, that I’m in. You have fashion, boutique experience.” And so that was my first hire. And I felt like after I had. It was like a weight lifted off my shoulder. I was like, “We can fly forward now because we’ve got two people helping.” And then people were following along because it was this cool story like, “Oh my gosh, Lepid Gray hired somebody. What is that person going to do? I didn’t even realize this was a business that you could have an employee for.” A year after I was doing it full time, I was like, “We need more help.” And I think even into the first six months of having that person, I was like, “I feel like we could hire more people and they could do more things.” I didn’t hire. And I added my second team member. Actually, Chris was my second full-time hire.

Really.

Yeah.

That’s cool. And he does your financials. He does all of the numbers, accounting, that kind of thing?

Yes. We kind of got to a point where I had been making more than him. I was sort of like, “This doesn’t make sense. You’re grinding at your job. We just had a baby and I was like,” I’m trying to balance being a mom, being a business owner, yet you get to leave and go to work every day and I have to do that, but I’m making triple what you’re making. “I was like,” I feel like this doesn’t make sense. “Basically, we kind of came to the decision. I was like,” We need to hire somebody else to do all the finances or you just need to come and help do it. “Because he was already doing it behind the scenes. He would do his job and then at night he would do my books or work with our accountant, go over contracts. And so then we made the decision to bring him on full-time. And ironically enough, he started with me February of 2020. Six weeks later is when the world shut down.

No pressure. No big deal. It’s fine.

And I was pregnant with our second at the time. And so he kind of immediately became daddy daycare because we pulled our daughter out of daycare because I was pregnant. You just didn’t know. And so he turned into full-time daycare so I could still work. And then he did his work on the side or like after Collins was sleeping, which really was kind of nice because he had been doing that for so long. But then we quickly were like, okay, we need to start adding on more help. So it was in 2020 that I hired a part-time virtual assistant and she helped my other assistant and I really just kind of take some tasks off my plate. And then 20, I had another part-time personal assistant who helped me. And then 2021, I hired three people that year.

Wow.

So yeah, we’ve just kind of been expanding ever since then.

So you moved fast. That’s fast.

Yeah. It was fast. And I think when I hired Nichelle, Nichelle’s role was a backfill position. One of my right hand man that I had before Nichelle, we lived in different areas because in 2020, we moved to Athens, which is my hometown. So I moved away from where my assistant was. And I really needed somebody in person with me every day. And so it just wasn’t. She lived in Woodstock. She had just had a baby. It just logistically didn’t work out anymore. So then Nichelle was like, I mean, could not have been a better hire. And I think her skill really helped me set some really big future goals. And then we quickly started needing additional hands because we were on track to hit some of these big goals. Which I think I would have just kept going at the pace, but I wasn’t going to get to the next level if I didn’t have more help. So that’s really where I feel like, I mean, she was an excellent hire.

Okay. So I have a question and hopefully this will make sense for you, but I think there’s. Because I just hired my first full-time employee and it was a struggle for me. It was a whole thing. And I know many people listening to this, this is something that they’re struggling with as well. Not even talking full-time, but just bringing on a VA and when’s the right time. So you obviously, you went, I would say zero to a hundred. I mean, to me, that’s fast in the rate that you hire people, which is amazing. So my question for you is now in hindsight, do you think you hired before it made a ton of sense? I don’t know how to word it. Maybe before financially it made sense because you knew that eventually it would, you knew with the right people in place, the money would come. Or do you think it was like, no, it was the perfect time. The money was there and then we got to just roll with it. Does that make sense?

Yeah. I think because I was seeing the money coming in with my first employee, I kind of like though about it backwards. I’m like, okay, if I’m going to pay her like X amount, that’s going to, out of a whole year, if I’m making this much and I subtract her salary, yes, that’s worth it. I know we will make even more than that once she comes on. Chris was much more hesitant like, “What? We can afford this.” And I’m like, “Yes, we can. Yes, we can. And we’re going to make more when we have.”

Have I been wrong so far? No.

And so I think I just did it knowing that it was going to work itself out, which I don’t know if maybe that’s not the best way to do it, but it worked. We busted it. We were able to do more and work smarter. And I remember I was talking with a friend one time and she told me, she took this like CEO kind of like entrepreneur class that was like a six month class. And I was asking her, I was like, “How is it? What have you learned?” And she was like, “Well, one thing I learned was they asked us to give yourself as the CEO an hourly rate.” And so the teacher told us, “Why don’t you just say you as a CEO, make $500 an hour. So every task that you do throughout the day, if it’s not worth $500 an hour, then you need to hire somebody else to do that task.”

So good.

And that clicked and I was like, “Boom, let’s go.” Because I was doing these things that I’m like, “This is so tedious and taking so long, but I want to push this out. I want to make sure this is right for my community, but it’s not worth my time when I could have somebody else that I train and teach and teach the Loverly Grey way and they can do that as their job. And then I can do things that are worth my hourly rate.” So good. So that was a huge turning point for me, I think, as far as feeling this freedom to hire more people. So I would definitely recommend, and I tell that to people all the time is like, “If you’re on the fence, think about it like this.” Even if it’s not $500 an hour, maybe it’s $100 an hour or $50 an hour.

There are things you were doing you should not be doing that other people would love to do and would be better at it.

Exactly.

I love that advice. Thank you for that. And I think it’s perfect advice, but I think that the thing to really consider with that, with taking action and trusting that the results are going to come, is that you back it with work. You bet on yourself, but also you show up. And Brittany, obviously, I mean, eight to five Monday through Friday, you show the F up and you crank out content like nobody’s business, which is why, again, you’ve built what you’ve built. So I love that so much. Thank you. You are inspiring me with every word that’s coming out of your mouth. So really quickly, because I know people are going to ask, you have seven team members. Can you give a breakdown of what each person handles, just like high level for you?

Yes. So there’s me, I’m content creator, main face of the brand. Chris is a CFO. He handles all the backend contracts. Not even really contracts as much, but all communication with our outside counsel does all the books, all the financial side. And then there’s Nichelle. She’s a director of operations. She oversees all of the other employees. And she’s also like my right hand man, literally kind of does whatever. She also helps me with a lot of content creation, video. She’s like, if I can only have one person with me for the day, she’s going to handle everything. Then I have my virtual assistant. She helps me with emails, newsletter creation, blog post creation. She helps me do collages and like Canva and templates and LTK. And then I have a communications manager. She helps with all PR. She runs our podcast. She does all the editing for the podcast, but then she’s also just like the community outreach type person as well. Then we have our social media manager who helps with all of, like kind of oversee all of my social channels. So Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram. She’s kind of helping come up with content ideas. She does a lot of like behind the scenes research on trends for different social platforms. And then I have a part-time personal assistant who helps run my Poshmark account. She does office stuff, but then she also like walks my dog from time to time or like babysits my kids if we need it. So that’s kind of like a overview of –

Dream team.

Everybody.

And is everybody besides your assistant or your part-time assistant, is everybody else full-time?

Everybody is full-time. So my VA is part-time and then my personal assistant is part-time. So there’s four full-time, five including me. Yeah. And I think we’re even talking right now, we’re like, okay, we could hire another person right now and then maybe another one by the end of this year.

What would they do?

I think Nichelle needs an assistant. And then I think we could split up some of these other roles. Because now some of the girls, they have a lot on their plate. And I’m like, maybe they could do really good at their job if we took a few things off and they really honed in on some of these tasks. So I think we can kind of move some tasks around and create another role. And then later this year, I guess a little like spoiler alert, we have some merchandise coming out.

Yay!

So that’s going to be exciting. And so we’ll need another person to kind of help run all of that. And there’s a lot coming with that. So I think there will be a whole separate team that will roll with that at some point.

Wow. Wow. You know you’re big time when your assistant needs an assistant.

I know. It’s so funny. But I’m like, I really. And part of me is like, I don’t want you to have to do that because there’s other things we could be doing. So we need to get you somebody to do that for you.

But what’s so cool about what you just said is you’re operating as a CEO of your business. You have put the structure and the team around you so you can see these things. You can oversee like, wow, she’s amazing at what she’s doing. She could be doing a lot better if we had additional support for her. Versus if you had half the team that you have, you might not be able to see that. And then you have these employees that are stressed and not really loving what they’re doing and they’re not being as effective. So you’ve put that structure around and that’s something to be proud of and it’s very inspiring.

And it’s hard. Anybody out there listening right now that is trying to figure out like where your role is and what you’re going to give to somebody else, it is hard to. I have a big problem with delegating. I’ve learned to make it not a problem, but it is hard at first to kind of be like, “Well, I can just do that better. I need to still be doing that.” But once I started giving some of these tasks and seeing them getting done really well, and I was training them, they were doing it the loverly gray way, like how I wanted. And it was getting done in a better timeline. There was so much that I was like, “Wow, I should have done that earlier. I wish I would have given that task to somebody earlier because they’re thriving in it. I’m able to thrive in other areas.” So I encourage you to take that leap. It’s hard, but it’s definitely beneficial once you let some of the delegation go.

I could not agree more. That’s something that I struggle with as well. And there’s so many things that are just so. It’s easy to do, but it adds up. And it’s like, “Oh, well, I know the way that I like it and I can do it this way.” But it is every time I hand something off to Sarah and I see how fast she turns it around and often better again than I would do it. It’s addicting. And it’s like, wow, what else can I give away? Can you come wash my hair? Ooh, this is exciting. So I could not agree with you more. Okay. So massive team, massive growth. I wanted to ask you about trolls because you have this very engaged following, most of which love and adore you. But with any kind of following, any kind of presence, you’re going to get people that don’t vibe with you or that are just your average troll. And that’s something that I know is hard for me to deal with on occasion. I don’t even get a lot and it throws me off my game. And I know a lot of people listening, that’s something that they’re worried about. So what’s been your experience and how have you navigated people who have been ugly to you behind the scenes or in public?

It’s definitely hard. I would say my audience is wonderful. I don’t see a ton of trolls, but I feel like it’s very obvious what you’re going to get from my page when you come there. And any kind of like troll who does slip through the cracks are very. They clearly, it’s a them problem. It’s a jealousy issue on their side. And I think I’ve grown to understand that. It took me a long time to not take that kind of like negative shit talking to heart because it’s a representation of them. It’s not something. I’m not going to be everybody’s cup of tea and I’m fine with that. I still like what I’m sharing. There are enough people out there that like what I do and want to support me. But it definitely stings from time to time, especially if it’s something that is hitting an insecurity you already are feeling about yourself or something that you’re like, “Hmm, cool.” And there’s been times I’ve gotten down for like days over the one negative comment. I get hundreds of positive comments, but the one one that is really negative, that’s what I’m taking to heart and that’s what everybody must feel about me. But I think just realizing that it’s not a you thing. If you are actually in the wrong and you are getting called out for something, then that’s different. But I know there’s all these troll websites and different things, online forums. And I made the mistake probably when I was like a year in of, I stumbled upon one of these sites on Google. And I went down a rabbit hole for a few hours reading all the negative things that people on the internet though about me. And that –

Wait, they put you on a site?

Yeah. Oh, they’re like crazy like blogger hate sites. It’s wild. And so I read all this stuff and I was just like, some of it I was just like, “This is so far from the truth. This is just getting crazy.” And after that, I vowed I would never look at any type of like negative thing like that because that’s just not going to do me well. There’s just no positive to it. We’re very good about if you’re going to be mean here, then you don’t get to be here. So block, goodbye.

Perfect.

I feel like I don’t see a ton anymore just with help with our social media. She kind of helps field things. If there’s something I need to see or respond, I will do that. But I try to do it being professional. I’m a brand at the end of the day. And I also think too, if I were to go respond back to somebody and be like, “F you, da, da, da, da, da.” They could screenshot that and also put that on the internet somewhere. And then that becomes a whole other thing. So it’s kind of like, I don’t want to stoop down to this level of negativity, but it’s not easy. Thankfully, we don’t really see it a ton, but I just know it’s a reflection on that person, not on me.

Yeah. I love how you say you don’t respond or you really consider that because that’s hard for me. Again, I don’t get a lot, but it’s just every once in a while you get that person and it’s like, “Are you serious? You want to rumble? Let’s rumble.”

I know. And then I usually have to like, okay. I want to say that. I want to throw some punches, but I’m like, “It’s not worth it. That’s what this person wants me to do. They want me to get upset about it.”

So just block, delete, move on. And I think also that needs to be reiterated is when you get to the point where you might be featured on some negative blogs or sites, don’t look. I love that because I think that would be something that I would feel like I need to look at just to know what people are saying and to be aware. But to your point, one, you can’t stop it. And two, that’s not going to serve you. And if it hurts the way you continue to show up moving forward, then they’re winning. And at the end of the day, you just have to remember it’s, like you said, a them problem, not a you problem.

Right. Yeah.

Okay. So one of the things that I’ve heard you say before is that you take a week long vacation each quarter, which I am obsessed with. Yes.

Yes. I started doing this back in 2020. I started it because I was about to have a mental breakdown. And I was like, “I can’t do this anymore. Clear my schedule. I’m going off the grid to just regroup.” And then I came back from that and I was like, “Wow, I feel so refreshed and so recharged. And now I want to do all this other stuff.” And then it just kind of was like, “Well, I should do this again. That was great. My business survived. Because I took a vacation, didn’t mean that I wasn’t going to be gone off the internet.” And so then I just was like, “I deserve this.” If you think about a regular, anybody else gets vacation time where they don’t have to do their job. And my job is seven days a week. Potentially can be twenty four seven. I mean, anytime I open up the app is a working hour for me. And so I just needed that time to regroup and spend time with family or get things done and not feel like I was not doing work. So I have loved incorporating that into my years. It’s been great.

I just wanted people to hear that because I think it’s important. And I think you’re not justifying it, but I don’t think you need to at all because at the end of the day, you’ve created this business of your dreams and you’re creating the life of your dreams as well. And if you decide, “Hey, the life of my dreams has a vacation every quarter or some sort of family trip,” hell yeah. Because otherwise, just work in corporate where somebody tells you what to do. So I just wanted to talk about that. So I know you show up in your stories while you’re on vacation. You do a beautiful job still talking about your outfits and things like that. But are you mindful about batching content ahead of time that way you don’t have to work much while you’re there?

Yes. So depending on where we are going. So for example, we have a beach house down on 30A that we, it’s a rental property we’ve rented out most of the year, but we do go there to vacation as well. And a lot of times what I’ve started doing is I will fly Nichelle down and she will stay for like the first two days and we will prep content for the week. And we’ll get all these outfit photos. We’ll create content that we maybe want to use later. It’s a beautiful area. So it’s kind of like, why wouldn’t we take advantage of shooting? And then she goes home and I have my family vacation. And then I’m not stressed about, okay, I need to get photos for this or I need to create this or hurry along. Stopping my family vacation to work. But it allows me to scratch that itch at the beginning of the trip. And then we have the rest of the trip to just solely focus on family, which has been really nice.

Awesome. So you’ve found these ways to relax, but I’m sure over the years, since 2016, you’ve had your fair share of challenges as well. So I’m curious, it doesn’t have to be the biggest challenge, but something that comes to mind, like a big challenge that’s come up for you when growing your brand and business. And have you had moments where you’re just. I mean, I know you just mentioned you were super stressed, that’s why you took that vacation. But are there moments or have there been moments where like, wow, this is a lot. I don’t know if I’m cut out for this. How did you navigate that if there have been situations like that?

I would say I am a worrier. And sometimes I wish I wouldn’t have let some numbers just get to me. I look back and I’m like, I used to worry so much about how’s the engagement doing? How’s this number doing? Whereas I saw the financial number attached to it, which was fine. It doesn’t matter how many people are engaging. But I mean, you’re putting all your. Instagram is not a platform I own. And so I am relying on this platform to push my content to the people it thinks I want to see. And so that is kind of a stressful thing. And so now I feel like I’m much more relaxed in the sense of I’m creating the content that I like, that historically I know my followers like. And financially, I see a correlation with what I’m sharing is profitable. And so I think I’m a little bit more relaxed in that sense now. And it’s fun. And not that it wasn’t fun at some points, but the anxiety Anxiety and just worrying about things that are out of my control. I feel like I’m doing a better job at that now, but it’s definitely a very real thing.

Oh, I can imagine every time somebody comes out with that big post, it’s like, “The algorithm is changing. Everybody run for your lives.” You’re like, “Oh no, we just figured this out.” So I can imagine where that’s your office, right? That has to cause-

Another thing I would say, the comparison. There are no rules. Being an influencer or being a blogger is a new industry. There are not really rules around, here’s the standard of what you should do. You should post two times a day and you should do this. And if you do this, this will happen in a corporate job where it’s like, “Here’s the book of our expectations. Do this and this will happen.” And so I think there was a time where you’re just trying to figure out what is working, but the girl next to you is trying to figure out what’s working for her. And you guys have two separate audiences, but you’re like, “Well, that’s working for her. Should I try that?” And same thing. She’s like, “Well, that’s working for her. Should I try that?” Everybody’s just trying to figure it out. And so I think not getting caught up in the comparison trap and because it works for you might not work for somebody else or it might work for them, it might not work for you. But just once you figure out what does work for you, stay the course, put your blinders on and do what ultimately makes you happy. And that’s where you will grow.

And I think that that’s such a testament to why you’re so successful, because this started off as something that you genuinely wanted to do. And it sounds like it still is something that you genuinely love doing. And we’re in this day and age where we all can build something like that. It may not be something you’re able to go full time into immediately. It might not look like fashion blogging, but you can build a business based around something that you love to do, especially nowadays. And the fact that you’re able to tap into, instead of focusing on the analytics and the numbers and stressing, you can tap into, okay, I know what my audience wants. I know my ideal client. And I just need to get back to the fun part and enjoying what I’m doing. And I think a level of trust too, I’m sure has a big part in that.

Totally. Totally agree.

Yeah. So one of the questions that I got was if you’ve had a mentor help you, because it sounds like you taught yourself pretty much how to do most things, but have you ever hired a mentor along the way or?

Yeah. So back when I first started in 2016, I guess it was maybe like June. So I was like six months in. And I hired this girl, her name’s Megan McQueen and her Instagram is Bloom Into Beautiful. I did like a two hour Zoom call with her and she kind of gave me the influencer 101. Kind of like, “Here’s what you need to know to be successful.” And it was kind of like a starting point. It helped me kickstart and just gave me ideas. It was like, “I feel like I know what I’m doing, but maybe talking to somebody else who’s been in this industry or who has seen the success from talking to other people.” And I feel like it was very informative. I know she still offers this type of class. She actually offers a lot more now. But that was really the only time I ever had a mentor, had outside help. And it was just a very, it was like a one time thing. And she and I became friends, but I very quickly was figuring out what was working for me. And so I just kind of like kept going there. But I think having a mentor is great, but you have to also be willing to do the work and research on your own. People all the time come to me and they’re like, “Can you give me some tips I want to start out? Like what should I do?” And wanting me to give them a lot of information. And I’m like, “Okay, when I first, before I even started, I was on Pinterest. I was looking. I was studying other people that I enjoyed their content. I was seeing like, okay, so they’re posting at eight o’clock every night. I wonder why. Okay. I’m sitting here at eight o’clock scrolling. This makes sense. So I just kind of started paying attention. And I did all this research on my own and that really helped me get to where I am today. So it’s not going to be like something where you can go ask somebody and they’re going to tell you everything and every single thing is going to work for you. You have to be willing to put the work in yourself. Yeah. Having a mentor is great and can help guide you, but you also have to do the work beyond that to grow.

Agreed. Yeah. You got to put in the work. You have to want it bad enough. And success leaves clues, especially with your type of business. I mean, all the things that you do that work, you can see it and you’ve told us what you do behind the scenes. So now you have the full picture. But I know people are wondering, would you ever take on clients? If somebody wanted to hire you and pay you as a mentor or would you ever make a class? Have you ever thought about that?

I have though about doing a class or doing I guess kind of like an online class or like book of like, here’s how to be successful. I kind of think I would have more to offer for somebody who’s started out, they’re a few years in, they want to like take it to the next level. But then I also feel like I have a lot of tips on like if you’re first starting out, like things that would be really important to consider before starting. I’ve thought about it, but I don’t know. It was on the goal list last year was to like do a course. And then I was just kind of like, I just don’t know if I really want to do that or if that’s really like the direction I want to go in right now. But maybe eventually.

Maybe eventually. People are like, please.

Yeah.

Well, okay. I have a couple more questions for you just to close out that I know would be super interesting and valuable. But I was curious, what’s something that you’ve done over the course of your blogging and brand building career that you would change or that you regret, if anything? There may not be anything.

I feel like I don’t necessarily regret anything because any mistakes I felt like I might’ve made, I think were stepping stones to get to where I am. I think kind of going back to just like the worrying less about what. And keeping the blinders on, not worrying about what so and so is doing. I wish I could have learned that earlier. As far as like a second guessing on like, is what I’m doing working for me? Yes, it is. Just confidently keep going instead of worrying, well, could I be doing more? Should I be doing something different? But other than that, I feel like anything negative or anything I regret, I can’t really think of anything, but I know I just would turn it into like a stepping stone to move forward.

Absolutely. What’s something that you’ve done over the course of your career that you’re most proud of?

I would say, I mean, growing this community that I have is unbelievable. I mean, I feel like I’m so proud to wake up and get on my platforms and be there for people. And some of the messages that I’ve received of just things that make me feel like I’m just doing this because I love doing it and it’s impacting people in such a way that I think that is one thing I absolutely love hearing, but it keeps me going. And so I’m very proud of this community that I’ve built and I’m very proud of the hard work I’ve put into this to make a future for my family. And I think it’s really cool to be able to do that within like a six year timeframe.

Insane. And where do you see Loverly Grey in five years? We know March is coming, which is exciting. Yes. And I know you’re moving so fast. So you’re like, “Everything’s happening now.”

I know. I think I’ll eventually have a clothing line. That’s something that we are in the beginning phases of working on. I kind of always have wanted to have a brick and mortar store. I’m not really sure how that will work in the future, but I would love to have a place where people can come and shop with me and shop my clothing line and other things that I really love. So I think that will come. And then, I don’t know. I mean, I see the team expanding. I think we’ll offer probably just more services, more like styling services. But I think the biggest thing will be the clothing line and just kind of like wherever that will take us from there. We are wanting to start a foundation probably within the next two years. So we love giving back and giving back to our community. Charity work is very important to us. So I think we’ll have something specific on that side of the house. So that’ll be really fun to run as well.

Thank you so much for your time. Yes. And being so open and sharing all of the juicy details. I know I have taken so much away from this. I’m about to go put applications out for five job or job descriptions for five different people. So I’ll send my Chris to you when I’m done. I’ll be like, Brittany.

The Chris’s can have some conversations. It would be good.

Thank you so much. This has been wonderful. And where can the world find you?

Yes. So –

They already have, but the five people that have it.

On Instagram, you can find me @LoverlyGrey, and then I have a podcast as well. We are actually starting back up season three on May 3rd. And the podcast is Life with Loverly.

@Life with Loverly. And of course we’re going to link all the things. Brittany, thank you so much. You are a badass.

Thank you so much. This has been awesome. Hi friend. If you’re loving the show, will you go find that follow button on your podcast app? This will ensure that you won’t miss a single episode. I love having you in this community. Until next time. This season of Life with Loverly is produced by Elizabeth Evans Media Productions.