14. Purposeful Entrepreneurship: Tara Milburn and Ethical Swag
EPISODE 14
Join us for another episode of Figure Eight where Julie talks with Tara Milburn, the founder and CEO of Ethical Swag. Tara recounts the challenges of promoting sustainable products in a traditionally non-sustainable industry, the decision to become a B Corp, and building a remote, geographically diverse team.
Catch the Conversation
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Tara's career spans over three decades, where she developed skills in foreign direct investment, sales, marketing, business development, partnerships, strategic planning, communications, and customer service. Her professional journey includes government roles and private sector positions, encompassing everything from startups to international enterprise. A notable highlight in her career was as an initial team member that successfully brought the 2010 Olympic Winter Games to Vancouver, BC, and she was also involved in the NBA's first international expansion into Canada.
Tara founded Ethical Swag in 2010 but didn't quit her full-time corporate job until after turning 50, when her kids were older and she could dedicate more time and energy to the venture. She embarked on a journey to redefine what success looks like in a company. Tara believes that business has created many of the challenges we face globally, and has an important role to play in fixing it. Ethical Swag is her way of demonstrating we can solve problems in business, create a better world, provide great swag that aligns with her clients values, and have fun doing it!
You can connect with Ethical Swag through their website, Facebook, or Instagram. You can connect with Tara via LinkedIn.
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Julie and Tara discuss...
**Ethical Swag's Mission, Values, and Evolution (00:05:53)** Tara's perspective on Ethical Swag as a business vehicle, the industry's response to sustainable products, and the challenges of articulating and achieving her goals for the company. They also discuss Tara's decision to become a B Corp, and the importance of third-party certifications.
**Building a Geographically Diverse Team (00:15:01)** Tara's approach to creating a geographically diverse team, the values of transparency, and the challenges and advantages of building a strong culture within a dispersed team, especially in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
**Clear communication parameters and technology use (00:23:03)** The impact of evolving technology on work, including the convergence of technologies and the need to be purposeful and thoughtful.
**Balancing profitability and sustainability (00:31:18)** Exploration of the idea that businesses can be profitable while also promoting sustainability and ethical practices. Tara recounts the challenges of societal expectations and the need for progress over perfection in promoting positive change.
**Supporting entrepreneurs in business challenges (00:37:59)** The importance of building a supportive community for entrepreneurs facing business challenges and navigating the "black hole" phases.
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**Julie** (00:00:04) - Welcome to Figure Eight, where we feature inspiring stories of women entrepreneurs who have grown their businesses to seven and eight figures revenue. If you're in the mix of growing a bigger business, these stories are for you. Join us as we explore where the tough spots are, how to overcome them, and how to prepare yourself for the next portion of the climb. I'm your host, Julie Ellis. I'm an author, entrepreneur, and a growth in leadership coach who co-founded, grew, and exited an eight figure business. This led me to exploring why some women achieve great things, and that led to my book Big Gorgeous Goals. Let's explore the systems, processes and people that help us grow our businesses to new heights. If you're interested in growing your business, this podcast will help. Now let's get going. Hello and welcome to this episode of Figure Eight. Today I am in conversation with Tara Milburn. Tara is the founder of Ethical Swag, and I think we all know about the great things we tend to get out there in the world from companies, and she is putting a new spin on this.
**Julie** (00:01:22) - I'm curious to talk to her today about how she came up with the idea for her company, and how she left her very successful corporate career with some amazing highlights to build this venture. she believes that business has created a lot of the challenges that we face globally, and she wants to play an active role in fixing it. So Ethical Swag is her way of demonstrating how we can solve problems in business and create a better world, and provide great swag that aligns with client values while having a lot of fun doing it. So welcome Tara, it's so great to talk with you.
**Tara** (00:02:02) - Thanks so much, Julie.
**Julie** (00:02:03) - Yeah, so I'm really curious about how like, you had some pretty nice corporate career highlights when I read your bio with being involved in, you know, having the Olympics come to Canada, the NBA come to Canada. Like, those are some pretty great corporate highlights. How did you decide you would leave all of that and become an entrepreneur?
**Tara** (00:02:26) - Well, geez. Yeah, you're. That's years ago now, and I left it honestly, for balance.
**Tara** (00:02:33) - You know, I, I absolutely loved what I was doing. I loved who I was doing it with but we started our family. The sports and entertainment industry and family back when I was, you know, before family, I get to work at seven in the morning and sometimes I wouldn't get home until midnight because you sort of come out of your office and go into a, you know, a suite and see a concert or a hockey game or a basketball game or something like that. And my goodness, it was a lot of fun. but you can only do so much when you've got a young family. So I left that, when our family started. So that that's when that started. But, I was just I've just been very, very fortunate in my career to work with amazing people and with really exciting projects. It's always been a lot of fun. And I've just been lucky.
**Julie** (00:03:30) - Right. Well, yes. And we could talk about being lucky and how maybe you've created some of that luck for yourself, as well as taking advantage of the opportunities that came your way.
**Tara** (00:03:43) - Yeah, yeah, I moved to Vancouver. I had never been there and I didn't know a soul.
**Julie** (00:03:50) - So that is a sense of adventure.
**Tara** (00:03:52) - Well, it also people say there's nepotism and there's all this sort of thing in business. I was able to get my career going from sort of 0 to 60 very quickly in a city I never had been to. I didn't know one soul. I had no business connections, I had nothing. So I think I think it's accessible to anybody. It's it's it's out there. We can do it. Anyone can do it. and it's not who you know or anything like that.
**Julie** (00:04:22) - Right. And so how did the journey I mean, you've lived all over this country then if you have lived in Vancouver and now you're on the East Coast, how did you what was the journey? I know you had the idea for Ethical Swag quite a number of years before you actually, started to move forward with the company and founding and actually getting to work at it. What was that like?
**Tara** (00:04:47) - So I always wanted to be an entrepreneur.
**Tara** (00:04:50) - I always wanted to have a business. I've dabbled in it a few times over, the course of my career. But for me, it it had to align with my values. It had to be very purposeful. It had to accomplish the the goals that I had set out as a business. And to be completely honest, I had a difficult time finding a partner or partners that could see the vision that I had for how to develop a company. So I've had several starts into entrepreneurship over the course of my career. Ethical Swag is the one that I said, okay, let's let's really take all of the learnings that I've had over all of these years and let's really action on them in a way that aligns with my heart and my head, and nobody could. God bless them. Not even my husband can get into my head. So it was it's a really hard thing to to really articulate. It's getting easier now because of the the success of Ethical Swag and our team and that sort of thing.
**Tara** (00:05:53) - But when it was just an idea in my head, I didn't even have the language for what I was trying to build, to be completely honest. And so that language has come, the actions have come. And it's it's a lot easier to talk about now. But I had all these things in my head that I really wanted to accomplish that was around creating meaningful work that was around hiring for talent, not location. So making sure that we make work accessible to people wherever they choose to live or however they choose to live. There was all these things in my head I didn't even know how to articulate, and I didn't know how to action on them, but I knew that I needed to, and that's kind of what Ethical Swag is. It's not really putting logos on pens. It's around sort of the governance structure, and it's around what we're trying to accomplish as a company. And that's that's what I'm loving.
**Julie** (00:06:47) - I think that's so interesting because you have all these things that are sort of swirling around, and you have to find all the threads and figure out how you're going to pull them together and, and make that a part of what it is you're doing.
**Julie** (00:06:59) - And it feels like it's not only the swag portion and what you're actually selling, but then it's how you build the team and what the culture looks like, and all the different pieces that go along with it.
**Tara** (00:07:10) - 100% 100. Really, the business is the vehicle. It's our bus.
**Julie** (00:07:16) - That's a great way of looking at it.
**Tara** (00:07:18) - Right. It's how are we building that vehicle? What kind of seats are we putting in? What kind of engine are we putting into it? Where's the door going to be? Where's the windows going to be? How comfortable is it going to be for the people on the bus? It's just a vehicle for me. And originally when I came up with the idea, I didn't know that I wanted to do it full time, to be completely honest, because part of me was like, oh, like the industry has a bad rap, like, let's face it. Right? And I was in that category as well. But what I saw was a disconnect between what people were saying about their brands and what they were putting their logos on.
**Julie** (00:07:56) - Yes. And I feel like you were a little bit ahead of the curve in terms of like talking to companies about making the connection between that. Like, I feel like today as we sit here in 2024, it's like, of course people make that connection. But I mean, I don't know if it was so much like that when you got started.
**Tara** (00:08:17) - No, no. I incorporated in 2010. I didn't actually give it my full time effort until years later, but in 2010 when I came up with the idea, I came up with the name and I incorporated. And that was very serendipitous, I think because the name is a little bit like Kleenex, you know, it's it's a fabulous name. I got the URL. I was able to get all the socials and all that sort of thing. And if if it was years later, I don't know that we would have, you know, been able to do that. But when I started and I was talking to people I went to back in 2010, I went to, it's called PI, which is an international, promotional products, show, in Vegas.
**Tara** (00:09:02) - And I was talking to people and they're like, okay, so wait, wait, wait, wait, can I get this? You're only going to sell sustainable products. And I'm like, yeah. And they're like, you're going to be out of business in a minute. Like, and they're like, so you won't sell everything nice.
**Julie** (00:09:14) - I won't see you here next year. Hahaha.
**Tara** (00:09:17) - 100%. The look of shock on their faces. They thought I had just flown in from Mars. Honestly, it was not the talk at all. And And I was like no, no, no, that's that's what we're going to do. And you know, interestingly enough, I didn't the industry was not there at all back then.
**Julie** (00:09:36) - Right? So even like in product selection or all of the things that you needed from others to put your business together was even just in the infancy of all of that.
**Tara** (00:09:46) - Yeah, exactly. It was it was very early days. I'll tell you though. Holy mack, it's come a long way in those years, I must say.
**Tara** (00:09:57) - And the supply chain is really starting to take notice. We we've been really working hard. Like, we literally vote with our dollars. So if we can get an equivalent product. But the packaging from the supplier has a lot of, let's say, pens, for example, they're not even thinking, right, some pens, every single pen comes individually selling wrapped. And then others. You get a bag with 500 pens in it and it's not. It's it's not affecting the quality of the decoration or anything like that. So when that sort of thing would happen, I would just say, okay, we're going to go to this supplier, not that supplier, because we don't want pens individually seller wrapped, period. And if we can't and the more we grow, the louder our voice gets, the more that we can sort of impact some of those suppliers and their supply chains. And absolutely, thanks to sort of the awareness around sustainability, the suppliers are really waking up to it. And there's a lot more.
**Tara** (00:10:59) - Those conversations are really like, I get, oh, you're different. When I talk to suppliers a lot. They're like, oh, I've never had these conversations before. You're very, very different. And I'm like, but it's really important for us and it it should be important for you too. And we're looking to align with partners that are thinking about these things and are thinking about their packaging and, and thinking about where the products are coming from and that sort of thing. And it's been a really interesting journey. It really has.
**Julie** (00:11:27) - It is it's an interesting, interesting wave to ride from that infant. You know, no one really was talking about it to now having conversations and there's so much awareness. So I think that's a really, you know, timing, kind of an interesting piece. How did you decide to become a B Corp? What led you down that what led you down that path? I mean, obviously fit with your sort of what you believe in and where you want to be in the world.
**Julie** (00:11:55) - But what made you actually go through the process of doing that?
**Tara** (00:11:59) - Oh, it's hard to.
**Julie** (00:12:00) - I know, that's why I'm curious.
**Tara** (00:12:03) - Yeah, it's not easy. and part of it is that. I there's so many certifications that you can buy. Honestly, we live in a world of fake news and, you know, beautiful little crests on the bottom of your email signature and on your website that say that you're all that in a cup of tea and actually just bought it. And, B Corp is not like that. And so that was one of the reasons I chose to go the B Corp route because I was, you know, we are a remote team. We're not physically anywhere. Our customers don't come through our doors. They don't get to meet us personally. We absolutely have phone. We have zoom meetings, you know, all that sort of thing with our customers all the time. But at the end of the day, this industry grew up around relationships. It's it's a it's an industry where people largely work within a 40 kilometer or mile radius from their head office.
**Tara** (00:13:02) - And I was looking to build a company that was going to be North American wide. So I was like, relationships matter. They are important. I'm a I'm, I'm, I'm big on relationships. and we're not going to have those. So how do we build trust with our partners? How do they know that we are who we say we are? And the way to do that is third party audits. The way to do that is to get certifications that you don't buy, but you earn. And so when I looked into it, I don't agree with everything of B Corp, honestly. I think they're an amazing, amazing organization. But we don't necessarily they give lots of points. If you have your customers really close to you, what's not our business model? Right. And so it doesn't mean that we're any lesser of a company. As far as I'm concerned, but we lose points on that. For example. So, you know, it's not everything, but it is a third party accreditation from a very respected global organization called B Corporation that says to the world, okay, we've met, we've met a global standard on sustainability.
**Tara** (00:14:16) - And so that's why we did it. And that's why it was important to me.
**Julie** (00:14:20) - I think it makes a lot of sense. And it does help. Open doors. I'm sure when you go and you know, especially I think when you think of, you know, all the greenwashing and the, you know, people who say things and may have some of those badges you talk about, but it's not really at the heart of it. You know, what you're trying to really get to, which is it's actually good for the Earth. It's actually sustainable. All of those kinds of pieces.
**Tara** (00:14:48) - Yeah yeah yeah yeah.
**Julie** (00:14:50) - And so you've talked about how your team has been sort of, you know, geographically diverse from the beginning. How has that worked out for you?
**Tara** (00:15:01) - Yeah. So every decision I made when I was doing the business, when I decided to go all in, when I decided that, you know, this is going to be how we pay you the mortgage and all that sort of thing.
**Tara** (00:15:11) - I was like, I had to get really, really focused. Okay. What does ethical mean? If I ask ten people what ethical meant, I'd get ten different definitions. And transparency is really important to me. It's it's the honesty and the trust. It's not being perfect. Because I think even as women, we hold ourselves back sometimes because we have such a high standard of it's got to be perfect before I get out there.
**Julie** (00:15:39) - That is a fatal flaw for many of us.
**Tara** (00:15:43) - I think it is, and I think it's why we aren't as sort of like we we want to know 95% before we go out. And a lot of our, our male counterparts are happy to know 20% and figure it out the rest of the way. And I think the answer somewhere in the middle there, I think that we overcompensate and sometimes they're a little more bullish than maybe. Anyway, that's a different conversation for a different day. But yeah. So it was really important for me to define what does ethical mean.
**Tara** (00:16:16) - What do we stand for, who are we? And all those kinds of things. And I spent a lot of time on that. And one of the big reasons why I started the company is because I wanted to be able to create meaningful employment. So I'm like, how do you do that? how do you accommodate for family situations? How do you accommodate for location? And, and I was like, we need to be completely virtual. So every software that I chose was very purposeful. How did it connect? And I'm looking at it here half a drawer and that's our filing system in paper. We do not produce paper, we do not. Like every decision is how do we do it? Electronically? and so we have a team. We have two team members in Nairobi, very much members of our team. we sent them computers. you know, they've got their Ethical Swag, sweaters. They're very much part of our team. And, when you ask them what makes Ethical Swag meaningful to you, it's the same kinds of things that you and I would say, right.
**Tara** (00:17:26) - And I wanted to be home for my family. So I'm choosing a career path that allows me to do that. I want to work a part of a team that is meaningful and that have my back and that, you know, we're like a family and we're looking out for each other and we're doing something with a greater purpose. And so if you talk to a team member of mine in Nairobi or BC in the woods, my operations manager lives literally in the woods. We ask her how the cougars and the bears are quite often, they're we're actually very similar.
**Julie** (00:18:04) - Yes. And now how do you manage? So, I mean, thinking about the number of time zones just across Canada and having a team that's, you know, dispersed across them is is one challenge. But then adding team members on other continents adds that many more layers. How do you manage those time differences?
**Tara** (00:18:24) - So we make the work work around it. Quite, you know, largely. we do have a couple of team members, ones in India and ones in Thailand, and they do work nights so that they can meet our, time zone.
**Tara** (00:18:41) - our, our colleagues in Nairobi, they work during their day and they do things while we sleep. So when our production team comes in, they've got a queue ready to go and work.
**Julie** (00:18:57) - Ways to make it to your advantage.
**Tara** (00:19:00) - 100%. And a lot of our clients are in California and on on the west coast of Canada. So our team members that are in Vancouver, then they're able to work on the West Coast time zone so that you don't have people working too late here. And so it just works. There's always ways to make things work, if that's your intention, I believe.
**Julie** (00:19:23) - Yes. If you decide there's a lot of reasons why something won't work, then it's probably not going to. So yeah. So what happens if you decide it's going to work. It has to work. Then you make it work. You find ways that it will.
**Tara** (00:19:39) - Exactly. Exactly.
**Julie** (00:19:42) - And so culture was something that was really important to you as you built that bus and decided, you know what color the seats were going to be in the exterior and all those fun things.
**Julie** (00:19:53) - And how did you build that culture. How do you feel like it was different, or where did you have advantages in having this dispersed team that you were building a great culture with?
**Tara** (00:20:09) - It's interesting because it's changed so much since Covid. Honestly, it really has. We're learning. we're absolute learning. I'm learning that a lot of people that are attracted to at home work are introverts. Which is really interesting. Didn't kind of, you know, think about that. But learning that that's something learning how to communicate, learning how to like, you know, I think when we were talking earlier, you said when you when you walk into an office and you look at somebody in the eye, you kind of get a feel for how they're doing on that day. And you don't get that right. And so I've chosen to live in a, a small place. So I've done the work from home thing a little bit more. but it's I missed being a part of a team when I was doing that, even though, like, for years I worked, as the only person in my location.
**Tara** (00:21:08) - And the rest of our office was in Halifax. And I found it lonely because there's a lot of things that happen around the the cooler conversations that happen and that sort of thing. So one of the things that I recognized, because I'm literally been collecting ideas over 30 years of what I wanted and what I didn't want. And so through my experience of being the only remote, remote employee in an organization over a several years, I realized how much I missed because I wasn't physically there. And so one of the things that I recognized was, unless everybody is remote, you're going to be left out, right?
**Julie** (00:21:47) - yes. I think managing the hybrid workplace is definitely the most challenging as a leader.
**Tara** (00:21:54) - Totally because it's nobody's fault. You start in a meeting and you have a conversation about something, and then all of a sudden the meeting takes a different turn, and all of a sudden now you've got another working group doing something else. It's really exciting, and you're completely excluded. I remember at one point when I was in my old company, I heard about the fact that they were doing a regional development strategy.
**Tara** (00:22:16) - And I phoned up my boss. I'm like, who's on the subcommittee for the Regional Development Committee? And he's like, oh, it's this person. They were all in Halifax. I was the only regional person in the company. I was like, you didn't think to ask me to be on the Regional Development subcommittee?
**Tara** (00:22:35) - Like it's hilarious.
**Tara** (00:22:38) - But out of sight, out of mind. It's not their fault. They're great people. But I was like, oh, wow. So for me, everybody's remote. But we do have like we give opportunities. If we say if you you think that you'll thrive better in a co-working environment, we'll pay for you to work in, like a WeWork or in one of those,
**Julie** (00:23:03) - Yeah, yeah, kind of community office space.
**Tara** (00:23:06) - Exactly. So we're not saying you have to be at home, because also, when my children were younger, I didn't have a dedicated office like I have now. It would have been a lot harder for me.
**Julie** (00:23:17) - To want one someone's bedroom, so I can relate to that.
**Tara** (00:23:21) - Right. Yeah.
**Tara** (00:23:22) - So we have to recognize that too, when we're talking about remote work and when we're talking about allowing people to show up to work in the way that fits with their lives. Right. And so we're open to all of that. And we're working it out as we go. And everybody has a voice. and we have an office here, but nobody goes to it because everybody likes working from home. And then we have an employee in Vancouver that is in a co-working space and loves it. And so I think it's I think the point is what's right for you, what's right for me. It's not the same.
**Julie** (00:23:58) - No. And you have the automatic baseline of you are going to be remote. We are not you know chances are chances are you're not hiring locally. So therefore how do you want to work.
**Tara** (00:24:14) - Yeah, exactly.
**Julie** (00:24:14) - Great. It's a great baseline to sort of leap off from in terms of finding out how they want to work because you aren't invested in. That, really? I mean, it's like you have no, you know, impetus to be like, well, I really want you in the office, but, you know, they're just not they're not close.
**Julie** (00:24:33) - So, you know, it takes away a certain amount of expectation and puts you in a, like, let's work together to figure this out kind of frame.
**Tara** (00:24:42) - And it's amazing. Technology today really allows for this. Honestly, it was always my dream to do this, but technology has caught up with my dream, so it's actually quite simple. You know, we have slack, we use slack as our you're walking down the hall, you've got a comment, but if you are going back to find that information again sometime, don't put it in slack. Right. So that's sort of our baseline for slack. It's it's literally you're in the same office. It's like hey do you have a pen? Hey do you I don't understand this this question from this client. Can you chime in? We have the different channels. It works really well. But anything that we're going to want to refer to later, we don't put in slack. Right. So we have certain communications parameters around our different sort of ways that we communicate.
**Tara** (00:25:32) - and it works. And when it doesn't, we get together and say, okay, that we dropped the ball on that one. Oops, we lost that or that got lost or we forgot about this. How do we kind of collectively solve for it? And we do and it's its building and it's growing. And my gosh, we've got it dialed in now. I'll tell you it's it's amazing. It's amazing.
**Tara** (00:25:53) - Yeah.
**Julie** (00:25:53) - Well and I think that speaks to how you've sort of enabled communication. So both from a technology perspective but also from sort of a process perspective around what's working, what's not working, and how to what do we need to work in our best state possible.
**Tara** (00:26:14) - One of my biggest worries, honestly, as we onboard new people and that sort of thing. Just because we're doing it this way doesn't mean we're always going to do it this way. You know, there's a tendency when you come into a company, it's like, oh, this doesn't really make a lot of sense, but this is the way they do it, and somebody will keep doing it that way.
**Tara** (00:26:29) - And then that sort of perpetuates over time and becomes like, why are we even doing this? Like, I don't understand. And so one of the things from a cultural standpoint, we're always like, if you think there's a better way. And so everybody on the teams empowered to put their hand up, there's never a bad suggestions. I, I love the way the team is developing to really have each other's backs, to embrace suggestions from other people. it's it's interesting. It's really interesting how it's it's evolving.
**Julie** (00:27:03) - It is interesting. And I think, I mean, technology's evolving so fast as well that, you know, like you said, technology's caught up to your dream. But you know what happens when it even sort of surpasses what you imagined in terms of ways you can work together? Because I think, you know, in the next decade, we're going to see even more change. And it like, it'll open possibilities and efficiencies that we probably don't even imagine right now.
**Tara** (00:27:30) - 100% where we are in a time that we haven't seen in a long, long time.
**Tara** (00:27:37) - So there was a convergence of technologies, sort of, back in the early 1900s between telephone, and cars. So communication robotics, right. that really took us from one place in our evolution to another from a communications and industrialization and all that sort of thing. We're kind of at another point like that in our, in our world around AI robotics. There's there's a convergence of technologies that are happening right now. And I don't think any of us can really get our heads wrapped around what it's going to look like in ten years. but what it's doing for me is to say, how can we be really purposeful? With all of this converging technology in a way that we don't repeat some of the mistakes we made last time because we made a lot of mistakes. And so if you think of, you know, robotics and driverless cars and AI and technology and all the things that are going on right now, let's just not do repeat of what we've done. How can we be really purposeful and thoughtful about.
**Tara** (00:28:51) - Because I just think that we've we've sort of let ourselves down in a lot of ways. Our Families, I use I use this line quite often, but when I was growing up, a barber with seven kids could afford to buy a house. And that's gone. Our kids and I would suggest, you know, my kids would be coming from a place of privilege and so would yours. And in terms of where we are today, they can't afford to buy houses. And like, how is that even something that's happening in today's society? So how do we now address and harness the power of what's going on from a technology standpoint to fix some of the things we got wrong last time and create a better world? And that's really, I think, where my brain is. I think that the Ethical Swag is a vehicle for change. It's not about putting logos on pants. If you're going to be buying pens with logos. Let's support companies and supply chains and people to help to create that other world that I'm talking about.
**Tara** (00:29:55) - And if all of us do that and we harness our purchasing power and we're thoughtful about where our money's going and how we're doing it, I think that we can take the best of what we've got and throw away some of the things we got wrong over the last few years.
**Julie** (00:30:10) - I think it also opens the door for new players, inventive ideas, those kinds of small, you know, ideas that things that start small and, and can grow and come into play and be important. Right. I think about that on the sustainability or just like from an entrepreneurial perspective, you know, somebody who has an idea and wants to start a business and you know how that then that can play into how we create that better world and how they get opportunities to break into, you know, the establishment, so to speak.
**Tara** (00:30:49) - Yeah.
**Tara** (00:30:50) - And that's what we need to do. We need to break in to the establishment. And the way to do that is with for profit, powerful companies fight fire with fire. Right.
**Tara** (00:31:02) - We can't be social enterprises and we can't be meek and mild about, you know, profitability. the way to really get that attention is to have for profit companies, but do it with purpose.
**Julie** (00:31:18) - And I think that's, you know, often a conflicted place like where you know we're promoting, you know, eco friendly, sustainable, all of those different pieces. And then it's like and we don't, you know, take a salary or a profit or and you know that those two things often are, you know like little dirty when they're coupled together sort of viewed that way. Right. And so how do we like it's okay to do things that are good for the earth in a business practice that, you know, builds great culture and great companies and make money doing it, that is okay, 100%.
**Tara** (00:31:58) - 100%.
**Julie** (00:31:59) - And the companies actually that are making money and get bigger have the influence or the clout to actually make change.
**Tara** (00:32:08) - Exactly.
**Tara** (00:32:10) - Exactly. And I find that we're in a world this cancel culture.
**Tara** (00:32:15) - And if you don't have everything perfect, we're going to sort of marginalize you. You like progress over perfection, get something right, and then work on something else, like, you know, the, the apple, the apple commercial Mother Nature. They did, like, a four minute short on Mother Nature. I don't know if you saw that. And I was like, okay, they're doing a lot of great things. And then people criticized me for saying they were doing great things. Oh, but they're not doing very well over here. And I'm like, can we not just celebrate something that's good? Like, you know, it's like, yeah, but yeah, but yeah, but when somebody do it and there are times where people do it as a marketing thing and it needs to be real. I'm not saying that, but but you know, there's, there's organizations that are doing a really, really good job around sustainability and the environment, but they still have a long way to go on their workforce culture and their, diversity and inclusion and that sort of thing.
**Tara** (00:33:15) - Right. So they might be doing really well on the environmental side, but not so well on the DEI side. So do we say you're bad or do we say great work?
**Julie** (00:33:25) - Now you know, how can you use that to influence the places where you need to do work.
**Tara** (00:33:30) - Exactly.
**Julie** (00:33:31) - Yeah. Well, and there is the, you know, is it's the carrot and the big stick kind of. Right. Like like what, you know, the mentality of like, well, if, if it's not perfect then, but then how do we make progress and how do we acknowledge that people are trying to make progress. Right. Exactly.
**Tara** (00:33:52) - Exactly.
**Julie** (00:33:53) - Yeah. No, I think it's it. I think it will be very interesting to see, you know, how things unfold and and where we end up in the next while. So what's next for Ethical Swag? What's next for you on your path to world domination.
**Tara** (00:34:08) - So still a lot of work to do to get Ethical Swag, sort of to the next level so that it's really because we're really just growing like Covid was an interesting time, right? I launched I made it my full time focus only in the late 2017.
**Tara** (00:34:27) - So I incorporated in 2010, but kept my corporate job right through, because I had young kids and I had, geez, I had parents with a house burned down. I had a lot of personal stuff going on. And I also know what it's like to be an entrepreneur and how it's all consuming. And so it was only in 2017, late 2017, that I said, okay, I'm going to go all in on this. And then Covid hit in 2020. so we've we've got a phenomenal company, a phenomenal, foundation. I've got another year of two of really reinforcing that so that, you know, it's it's a strong, stable, sustainable company. for me, it's the vehicle, as we've talked about many, many times in this podcast. So what's really interesting to me, I feel like even in our business schools, we're teaching the wrong things. I feel that in the incubators with, startups, we're saying grow fast at any cost. There's, there's, there's this mentality that I've witnessed over my 30 plus year career that I think we need to change.
**Tara** (00:35:33) - So for me and for what's next is really get Ethical Swag sort of soaring with the eagles. so that then we can start to say, how do we do this at scale with startups and how do we build in. because there's a lot of companies that become very successful and say, oh, wait, that wasn't so good. I'm going to now give back. It's sort of the I'm a politician, so I'm going to be a little slimy to get in, but then I'll be good when I'm there. And it never happened. So for me, it's how do we bake in sort of these principles at the get go and make it less difficult to do it because it is hard.
**Julie** (00:36:18) - Yes. Well, and it's sort of this idea of like, if you can build the solid base and the foundation in the right way, it's going to turn into this springboard that you can then use to scale up the business quickly. And, you know, without a lot of bumps. Not that there will be none because I know entrepreneurship but but, but that the path forward will be smoother.
**Julie** (00:36:43) - And you can use that springboard to really lever yourself forward 100%.
**Tara** (00:36:47) - Yeah, I look at business. There's, there's, phases that we go through as entrepreneurs. And you would know this as an entrepreneur, right. And so you go through growth phase and you go through, you know, these phases, and then you hit what I call a black hole. And that black hole is where you have to invest in your processes and, and your systems. And it feels like you're not getting anywhere. And it's like painful because you're spending a lot of money and you're not seeing the corresponding growth. Right?
**Julie** (00:37:14) - Yes.
**Julie** (00:37:15) - Often you need to invest in people as well. In those black holes. You need the expertise to come so that the revenue will follow. But it's always a like moment when you're spending all this money and you're not sure you know when the top will open in terms of the revenue coming. Yeah.
**Tara** (00:37:33) - I'm looking at you. You're such an entrepreneur. And you're like, oh, been there, done that.
**Tara** (00:37:37) - Got the T-shirt right.
**Julie** (00:37:40) - I have some scars I could show you.
**Tara** (00:37:42) - Yeah, exactly.
**Tara** (00:37:43) - And I think a lot of entrepreneurs give up in the black holes because they don't see the other side. It's like, oh, why am I doing this? It was easier back there when I had lower revenues, and I didn't have as many people, and I didn't have as many problems.
**Julie** (00:37:59) - Yeah, it's true, but and honestly, I feel like that kind of is, is why I do this. Why I am doing this work is because we need to build community around ourselves. So when we're in the black hole, we have the supports as entrepreneurs to be like who I feel I'm feeling, you know, really off kilter here. How did you get through this or what was it like for you, or do you have any ideas for me about where I could go next? Because otherwise it's very dark and lonely place.
**Tara** (00:38:33) - Oh, it's hard, it's.
**Tara** (00:38:34) - Hard because it's, you know, if we use the analogy of building, you're you're down, you're digging, you're digging the foundation in those black holes, the stories go on really quickly if you build a proper foundation, and if you don't invest in the black holes, you can't put stories on your building. You're building on stilts.
**Tara** (00:38:55) - Right. and I've had a friend who's an entrepreneur, and she was in a black hole, and she's like, I don't know if I can do this anymore. I'm like, I know exactly where you are. Because she was she's an engineer and an architect, not necessarily a business person. I come come at things from a business perspective because I've got over 30 years in business and I'm like, no, don't give up. You're in a black hole. This is how you know to define it. This is what you're doing. This is why you're doing this. This is why this was like this then, and this is where you're going. And she's on the other side of it now. And she's like, oh my God, this is amazing. But she almost gave up in the black hole because it was just treachery. So I agree with you. And it's how do we teach those things and how do we how do we help companies, kind of get through them and give them the supports and, and that sort of thing.
**Tara** (00:39:43) - And that's kind of the next chapter for me, honestly.
**Julie** (00:39:48) - Well, I think that's really exciting and I'm looking forward to seeing where that next chapter takes you. So I want to thank you for coming and chatting with me today. It's been really interesting and I'm very excited to see where you what direction you take next and what is next for you. And Ethical Swag.
**Tara** (00:40:06) - I sincerely appreciate your interest in what we're doing. Thank you.
**Julie** (00:40:12) - I hope you enjoyed today's episode. Please remember to hit subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. So you won't miss any episodes. Figure Eight isn't just a podcast, it's a way of seeing the big, gorgeous goals of women entrepreneurs coming to life. If you're interested in learning more, you can find my book, Big Gorgeous Goals on Amazon anywhere you might live. For more about my growth and leadership training programs, visit JulieEllis.ca to see how we might work together. Read my blog or sign up to get your free diagnostic. Are you ready for growth? Once again, that's JulieEllis.ca. When we work together, we all win. See you again soon for another episode of Figure Eight.