How to Build and Exit a Profitable Business with Ciara Stockeland

The Best Guest

In this episode, Victoria Bennion welcomes Ciara Stockeland, speaker, author, Ironman athlete, and fractional CFO for inventory-based businesses. Ciara shares the story of how she launched her first business at 13, built and sold a subscription box company in under two years, and now empowers entrepreneurs to make sense of their numbers and reclaim financial freedom. She breaks down the most common mistakes inventory-based business owners make, how to prepare your business for exit, and why understanding your finances is the real path to freedom.

About Ciara

Ciara Stockeland, is a speaker, author, 4x Ironman and Fractional CFO for inventory based businesses.

Ciara has owned and operated a business since her early teens. As a serial entrepreneur, her business mindset and tenacity led her to opening her first store in 2006 which she then franchised. Her vast experience in both retail and wholesale industries led her to launch the first to market wholesale subscription box for boutique retailers, which she built and sold within 18 months. Most recently Ciara has launched the Inventory Genius, a consulting program for inventory-based business owners.

She has twice had the opportunity to testify before two U.S. Senate Committees regarding the “joint employer” standard for businesses and its effect on small businesses and franchises. Additionally, in 2015 she represented small businesses at a White House Summit on Worker Voice and again in 2018 for a Summit on Economics.

Ciara has been recognized as a Small Business Champion through SCORE, has held a seat on the United States Chamber of Commerce Small Business Council and is a Profit First Certified Coach. Through her consulting program, Ciara gives business owners the confidence and tools to build profitability and peace of mind in their inventory-based businesses.

In her free time Ciara enjoys training for endurance races and most recently completed her fourth Ironman at the Ironman World Championships in Kona, 2023.

She currently resides in Tennessee with her husband Jim and her Great Pyrenees Bentley.

Key Takeaways

Profit is the Priority

Building a big business doesn’t mean you’re building a profitable one. Entrepreneurs should focus on margins and cash flow not just top-line sales.

Know Your Five Numbers

Success hinges on understanding five core areas: sales, cost of goods sold, gross margin, expenses, and net profit. Mastering these leads to control and confidence.

Adaptability is Strength

Listening to your customers and pivoting from your original business idea can open unexpected doors to scalable success.

Plan to Exit Before You Want Out

The time to prepare your business for sale is not when you're ready to leave but well before, while you still have the clarity and control to make it valuable to someone else.

Tell Your Story Loudly

Whether testifying before Congress or launching a business, Ciara emphasizes the power of sharing your personal experience to drive change and connect with others.

Quote

“It's not super attractive to fill out your spreadsheet and to look at your financials. It's very attractive when you have financial freedom, you write yourself a paycheck… That is what we can all get up in the morning for.” — Ciara Stockeland

Mentioned in This Episode

Inventory Genius Book

Ciara Stockeland's Inventory Genius Method has helped hundreds of inventory based business owners create more profit and keep more cash. Get your free copy here

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Transcript

Victoria Bennion:

Hello and welcome. I'm your host, Victoria Bennion, and the founder of the best

podcast guest booking agency. And you're listening to the best guest, the

podcast for business owners, creatives, and entrepreneurs who want to harness

the power of podcasts to grow their platforms and increase their visibility.

Today, we welcome to the podcast Ciara Stockeland who is a

speaker, author, full-time Iron Man and fractional CFO for inventory based

businesses. Sierra has owned and operated a business since her early teens as a

serial entrepreneur. Her business mindset and tenacity led her to opening her

first store in 2006, which she then franchised.

Her vast experience in both retail and wholesale industries led

her to launch the first to market wholesale subscription box for boutique

retailers, which he built and [00:01:00] sold

within 18 months.

Most recently, Ciara's launched the Inventory Genius, a

consulting program for inventory based business owners.

Welcome to the podcast, Ciara. It's really great to have the

chance to chat with you today.

You started your first business as a teenager? I believe. I.

And you opened your first store in 2006, which you then franchised. Could you

talk about what attracted you to working in this space and, the lessons you

learned,

Ciara Stockeland:

Yeah, so I started my first. Formal business, if you will, when I was 13, I

hadn't set out to start a business with it, but I was from a small business

family, so it was very common in our family to find value in things or solve

problems create solutions through business. And so I. Built a theater company

for homeschool students.

I was homeschooled at the time just for fun at first, but then

started having other people come and ask if their children could be involved.

And so I built that and grew it into a formal theater [00:02:00]

acting company. We put on full length productions all through my time of.

Elementary, junior high school, college, and even into being married.

So I did that for over a decade. It was great. Learning

experience, how to balance a checkbook and how to market things and how to

provide a service. And then after I decided I was done with that business I got

married, had a couple kids, and was ready to move on. I decided that I would

like to start a retail store, so I had never worked any retail in my life but I

thought it would be a great idea to open a store, and I wanted to build a

brand.

I knew from the beginning that my idea was not to build myself

a hobby or to create a job for myself, but I really wanted to build a brand.

And so my first concept was a high-end maternity baby boutique. It was when it

was getting very popular to dress really cute when you're pregnant. The

celebrities were all buying beautiful things and so we had nothing available in

North Dakota, which is where I was from for that.

And so I opened this boutique and then, as typically happens to

small [00:03:00] business and entrepreneurs,

you start one way, but then you find your journey really weaving and winding.

And that's what happened with me as well. I opened that store six months later,

had the opportunity to open a second concept to help someone that I knew sell a

bunch of off, overpriced and off price product.

And that concept took off. Everybody loved getting a deal, and

it appealed to the masses where I was finding my maternity store, something I

hadn't thought of. That customer was a very short term customer. Because once

they had their baby, they were gone. They move on. And so I decided to merge

the two ideas and bring the outlet store into a boutique environment.

And then that's the concept that I franchised. The first lesson

I always love to share with entrepreneurs is to really listen to your customers

and don't get so set on. What you dreamed this concept or this business would

look like. 'cause often what we think is going to work is not what resonates

with the customer.

And if we stay very stubborn in like wanting it to be exactly

how we had planned, we can miss out on a lot of opportunity. [00:04:00] I.

Victoria Bennion:

That's good advice. You've also run a subscription box business, and you scaled

that very quickly and sold it.

Ciara Stockeland: So,

had the retail concept franchise that, so I had touched a lot of inventory. And

I, because I was a boutique owner, I had often gone to market. As is very

typical. You go to market as a boutique owner you shop, you buy ahead. But the

landscape of how people were buying for their small retail stores was really

changing because the internet was very popular.

Social media was coming about, everyone had online stores. And

so when I sold the franchise concept, I sold my brand to one of my franchisees

and I decided, okay, I'm going to start a new business. I'm going to do it

differently this time. There's some really hard lessons that I learned with

that first business, some of which I use all the time for my clients now,

focusing on profit, really defining your own success.

So there was these lessons I had learned, and I wanted to try

to build a new business with those lessons and build it more successfully. [00:05:00] Solve a problem, but I knew that I wanted

to sell it. I didn't want to, own and operate and build a seven figure

subscription box. I just wanted to solve a problem.

And because buying was changing and subscription box like Fab,

fit, fun, and Stitch Fix were really coming into play. I thought, what if I

could create a subscription box where I would match together wholesalers and

retailers so wholesalers could send samples to a boutique owner's doorstep. And

so instead of having to travel to market, you could find new products.

And so that's the subscription box I built. Grew that

profitably from day one built it and grew it and sold it within 18 months.

Victoria Bennion: So

with all your experience, I know you've touched on this a little bit, but what

mistakes do you see inventory based business owners making?

Ciara Stockeland:

Yeah, I think really the mistakes that I made I see happen over and over in

inventory based businesses, and the main ones being there's no focus on the

numbers. We hear a lot that we should know your numbers as a business [00:06:00] owner, but what does that actually mean?

So most business owners are very creative, right?

We can cast a vision, we can solve a problem, we can probably

sell to anyone, right? We're good at sales, but we're often not good at the

science part of our business, which is numbers, data, facts, and a lot of it's

very intimidating, right? It doesn't come naturally to us most often, and we

don't find it enjoyable.

And so what we tend to do when something is intimidating,

confusing, or not enjoyable, is we push it aside. And so what small business

owners do, which is what I did. We just keep focusing on selling and growing.

'cause that's where we're comfortable. And we think if we can sell more, we'll

solve our problems.

And then we find ourselves in debt or cashflow overwhelm,

financial stress. And so our solution to that is sell more stuff. And so we

just keep selling more and adding complexity instead of focusing on what the

numbers are actually telling us. So for all business owners, this tends to be,

a main, issue. And then for inventory based businesses in particular, if you [00:07:00] don't focus on the numbers, you really can

run into cash flow issues quickly because your inventory is such a big part of

your business. So if you don't know the numbers and you don't know how to buy

accurately and watch those inventory numbers, you can really fall into a lot of

financial stress very quickly.

I

Victoria Bennion: can

imagine. What's the biggest transformation that you see when somebody decides

to take charge of their numbers?

Ciara Stockeland:

Yeah. Oh, it's so exciting. I just love what I do. I have so many amazing

success stories, people that have worked with me. I've created a framework that

we really, we walk through with everyone, whether they make $10,000 a year or

$10 million a year.

The framework is the same, and it's to really start with

focusing on five main areas in your business. Of course the sales, but then

also our cost of goods sold. The gross margin, of course, we watch our expenses

and then we really keep an eye on our net profit. And when business owners say,

okay, I'm willing to commit to understanding what's happening with the sales, [00:08:00] to really get a handle on my margin, to

understand my expenses, and to really build for profitability, it just opens a

wide world to them.

So they might come to me with a lot of debt. And if we can get

those five things. Figured out under control and really put together in a very

simple and cohesive way, we can start to make progress going forward because

now we have something to focus on.

Victoria Bennion: And

having control of your numbers is really important if you are building a

business that you want to sell.

Ciara Stockeland:

Yes, absolutely.

Victoria Bennion: How

do you determine when is the right time to exit a business?

Ciara Stockeland:

Yeah. It's funny 'cause a lot of people, most people that come are very

financially stressed. And so if I could just close my business, if I could just

walk away, like they're just tired of their business, they're overwhelmed,

they're very resentful, they haven't been taking a paycheck.

And so the idea is I just wanna close shop and walk away, but

I'm stuck. I can't. And so as we look at those five areas our sales are, gross

margin, cost of goods sold, all of those things I just talked through [00:09:00] and start to create a plan for

profitability. It gives us the opportunity then to say maybe we will grow and

scale.

Maybe we will close some of our locations, or maybe we will

sell. I think if you're interested in selling your business you want to make

sure that your numbers are in order, that you have good clean financials, and

that you're as profitable as can be starting today. So if you're looking at,

Hey, five years from now I'd love to be able to sell this, then start working

on the financials today.

If you're feeling like you're really overwhelmed, in fact, I

had a client I just talked to yesterday. She said, I'd love to just be done.

I'm so stressed, I wanna just be done. And so she put her business up for sale.

No one's interested, no one's been biting. So she's I'm stuck now. I wanna sell

it.

There's no one interested. I can't just walk away 'cause I have

a lease. What should I do? I don't know the numbers. Should I even invest in

that? And I said, here's the thing, whether you sell it or whether you keep it,

we still need to get that foundation correct. So I said, let's start today. [00:10:00] Focusing on getting those numbers cleaned

up.

And if someone comes along and is ready to and willing to buy

it, your business is gonna look even better. Or you might find that once your

finances are under control, it's actually not as burdensome as you're thinking

it is, and you might wanna just keep it. And so either way, we wanna focus on

the financials.

Victoria Bennion: Are

there clients that you tend to work with? Do they have physical stores on the

whole, ?

Ciara Stockeland:

Yeah, so when I started this work, it was really with a lot of physical stores

and a lot of boutiques. But now I work with all inventory based businesses. I

just had someone sign up that has a pet store.

I have a food retailer and wholesaler a jewelry maker, a

skincare distributor and then a lot of brick and mortar. So it's really all

over. There's makers, there's designers, wholesalers, e-comm stores, and

there's brick and mortars. It's just a vast array of anyone and everyone that

sells items.

, It's

Victoria Bennion: the

same kind of principles that. You are applying with either what kind of stage

are business owners at usually [00:11:00] when

they come to you? You mentioned some are done.

Ciara Stockeland:

Yes. Ready to be done. Or feeling like that's their only option?

I really work with. Businesses typically that are doing between

500 and let's say 1.5 million in top line revenue. That tends to be the sweet

spot for when they are ready to really dig in and do the work. A lot of times

before we hit that proof of concept we're just trying a lot of things, but when

you get to that place where, okay, I'm making half a million a year. I have a

couple loans. I have a lease. This is serious. I have to figure it out.

Typically, someone of that size might have one or two people working for them.

So you're starting to build a, build your team. But I have worked before with

people that are just starting out, and I have one client that's been in

business for 29 years.

So she doesn't have any debt. She just wants to understand her

numbers better, right? Because business is getting more and more expensive to

run and operate. Payroll costs are crazy. The cost of inventory's crazy. And so

she said,...