Episode#029: The Secret Ingredient to Success with Gigi Butler
If love an amazing Cinderella story, you either already know or soon will fall in love with Gigi Butler!
Crowned the queen of sweet success, Gigi is the proud owner of Gigi’s Cupcakes which has sold over 1 million delicious cupcakes and has grossed over $35 million in sales annually, has over 115 stores throughout the US, is a speaker, author of her book The Secret Ingredient, and is featured in Daymond John’s book, The Power of Broke.
But the reason I know that Gigi’s story will speak to you is not just because of her successes of today, but of the road she traveled to get there. It hasn’t been a linear or easy journey, and her story inspires me so deeply!
She’s been on Undercover Boss, the Ted X stage and she’s being recognized everywhere not just for her business or even her cupcakes, but as a female entrepreneur that we all should look up to.
I can’t wait for you all to be inspired by her story and to learn some incredible lessons in entrepreneurship and business!
The story of Gigi’s Cupcakes
I’m the founder of Gigi’s cupcakes and I've always been an entrepreneur. I started dreaming at seven. I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to move to Nashville and be a country music singer songwriter. I pursued that goal since seven, but I needed to do something for money. So I decided to start my first business at 15 called Gigi’s cleaning company. I would clean during the day and go to school of course, and then sing country music at night. I started singing professional. I got in my first band at 17 and at about 19 years old, I really felt like I needed to move to Nashville. I had told my parents at seven I was moving to Nashville.
Never Fear Failure
They thought I was crazy, but they still supported me and they were always supportive of my dreams and they taught me not to fear failure. What I think is the most important thing is people feel so afraid to fail and I never was. I didn't even know about failure. I knew failure, but I didn't know how to fear it. I saw a failure as definitely a motivator instead of an obstacle. So at 19 I said, you know, I'm going to move to Nashville and I dropped out of college. I don't recommend that to anybody. But took my second semester college money, made a music demo and moved. And the thing about moving is it's such a huge leap of faith because you leave everything that you've known. I had $500 to my name, knew no one, didn't have a place to live, didn't have a job. But I knew that if I didn't take that leap, and if I didn't fight that being afraid that I would never know. So I took the leap and started working at Red Lobster when I first got here, built up my cleaning business and then eventually just clean during the day. And then started singing at night and did that for many, many years and started cleaning for very high profile business people, very successful music artists, recording artists, musicians, lawyers, doctors, lots of people that really taught me about business and about how to be successful.
Surround yourself with Successful and Driven People (and Continue to Learn)
Now I may not have gone to college on that, but if you’re in a room and you're dusting a guy’s desk who's a multi, multimillionaire and he's says, come over here, let me show you the stocks today and let me show you why I'm selling and buying. And as I'm dusting his desk, I may not have been in a school facility, school environment, but I was learning so much from my customers who had been so successful. So I think that's a huge priceless thing that no one really gets, is that experience through just learning. Hang around success. That also taught me about being original in branding. I really got into branding because I was a country music artist and everyone has to have their own brand. Even if you're a singer, you have something about you that's original. So that's where my branding experience came from. And then being in all these high profile business people’s lives, I saw how important branding was and how important having that their own kind of what we say here in Nashville is your own shtick, like your own type of thing. So that's kind of where things started for me.
You have to let go to grow
Well, most people don't know that I had taken out $100,000 cash advances on my credit cards. People think I just got a loan or family loaned me money. No. So first of all, I had $100,000 that I had to pay back with big interest. And so that was just frightening. And then came the day before we opened and I came to the store and the contractor said, I forgot a bill and it was a $15,000 trial…I'm melted on floor. Then I had $33 left in my name. So the only thing that got me up the next morning was belief that, if I fail, I'll have to pay back $100,000 of debt. So I have to keep going. I can't stop now so I opened my doors and just prayed. I didn't know what I was doing and lines form and we instantly, we're in business. It was the most crazy thing.
It is humbling. And a lot of people don't realize that that's the surrender. That's right. If you really want to grow and you want to be everything that you can be and God wants you to be, you have to surrender. If you don't, you won't be where you're supposed to be. I mean, it's your choice. We all don't really have a choice, but uh, there's such a bigger picture for everyone and everyone has meant to create. It's, it's that surrendering, surrendering. I love that word.
It takes HARD WORK
I think we've lost the art in this country of hard work. That's what this country was built on. Working hard and sucking it up, not being so soft. It's so politically correct. I'm just so tired of all of that because it does not get you anywhere if you're so on the fence about stuff. You have to be passionate about things. You have to work your butt off and you have to suck it up and quit being so soft. I mean, people are such wusses now…get out, work, sacrifice, kick some butt and don't say no until you get what you are trying to achieve. I hear “Oh, I got hurt.” Well, you're going to get kicked in the teeth about 5,000 times in your life. You better get used to it because if you want to grow and you want to be something that not everybody is, you're going to have to get kicked in the teeth a lot and people just don't want to get kicked in the teeth anymore. I know they don't want to sacrifice, so that's fine if you don't want to sacrifice, do your thing. But here's what I tell people that have that creation, have that entrepreneur type of personality inside them. If you're shoving down what your heart is really telling you to create and to do something special, then you're selling yourself short because you are not willing to put it out and work hard. You're not living to your full potential, you need to suck it up and get going.
The alternative is never living your purpose…
What’s the alternative? People look at it like, well there's a risk of what people will think of me, or what if I fail or what will my parents think? Or whatever there, you know, what will society think? Yeah. But what's the alternative is getting to the later part of your life and looking back on a life that you live for everybody else and you were never willing to take the leap and then you're like, oh my gosh, what was it all for? Like I never lived my purpose. And that to me is far scarier, far scarier. The 8 million failures that will happen along the way.
That’s my biggest fear. If I'm 90 years old and I'm on my rocking porch and I'm sitting there what? My porch on the rocking chair and I'm sitting there and I'm going, why didn't I, why, why? Why didn't I try? Why didn't I, I don't want to do what if I want to do? Why not? Why not? And I want to live in the why not. And if you, if you're so afraid of what people think about you well you're not going to live to your full potential because it's the people that are brave. It's the people that are crazy that stick their neck out and do something just absolutely completely abnormal that remain the top dogs.
It's not about money…it’s about the thrill of creating something
I've had so many defining moments where I could just be behind a potted plant in the fetal position crying, not getting up for the day. I've had a really hard couple of years and I'll tell you, it has been a really hard, people say, oh, she's made it. I have lost everything, gained everything, lost everything, gained everything. But that's the heart of an entrepreneur. You have to just be able to risk it all and lose it all because it's not really about the money. It's about the thrill of creating something. So there are so many defining times, I mean $15,000 drywall bill laying on the floor, crying, having $33 left to my name, but still getting up and opening my doors the next day. It's been so many things that I can't, I'd have to write a book about just all the time I've just gotten up off the floor and said, okay, I'll figure out a new plan.
Step out and walk in faith
My dad was a serial entrepreneur and we had a potbelly pig business. We had a farm, we had an arcade, we had five restaurants. My dad was a fireman in Los Angeles county. Every time he failed my mom would be there just, oh we can do it. God is good. You know, he'll pick us up. He's got our backs. So I was just taught that he, God's got your back. I mean you might as well just try to step out, step out of the boat.
If you fall in the water and you know it, you get wet. Well at least you stepped out of the boat. So my, my parents were very, very good at just letting me dream big, have, have a dream for myself and then supporting me of that.
I was raised as a Christian and I always knew God, but I think when you finally are alone by yourself broke, have no one and God is the only thing that you have that doesn't disappoint you in your life, then you really develop a relationship. And I can honestly say God is the only thing that I have been able to, family leaves, people get mad, money's gone. Everything in my life has been stripped from me.
The only thing I have and the only person that really gets my back is God. And I have learned to have faith in him and to step out and walk on faith. It's not this instant thing, but people are so afraid to step out and lean on him. You know, if you step out and you're on the wrong path, he's going to let you know if hope to take on, but at least you're stepping out. I said when I moved here to Nashville, you know, if God can deliver, the unbelieving is your lights across the Red Sea, you know, and do all of that. Well, couldn't you make a place for me in Nashville? I mean, yeah, he can. So that's what I've always believed. Well, if God can, then he can, if God can open a cupcake shop and I have one little cupcake shop of one little treat, then he can put 100 company, you know? So it's been a lifelong journey of faith and learning to have faith in God…
Knowledge is Power (and confidence)
…and if you don't know what you're doing, and you go into an environment where you’re “the boss”, but people know more in the room than you do as far as what your own businesses and what your passion is. So that's why learning from the ground up your business is so important because no one can pull wool over your eyes. I come into my original store and they try and like, no, no, no. Because they know that they have the knowledge because I built that thing stick by, stick, ground up, ground up. So they can't pull anything over me. I mean, you can't be asked me, I'm sorry. Because it's not at work. Especially, you know, in the cleaning business I'd cleaned, I've cleaned 65,000 toilets. You cannot go in there and, and try to tell me that you cleaned something.
I know that you didn't clean it, right? Because I've cleaned at 65,000 times. So knowledge is power. If you know what you're doing and you know more about your business, the name, anybody else, they're going to respect you. But it's the people. And I'm not saying you have to source yourself out and find people that are better than you at other things like social media. That's not my forte. So I have my fabulous Sydney doing it. So you've got to find those people that help you. But if you and your core of your business, you don't know what you're doing, people aren't going to respect it as much because they don't think you've earned it. When you've earned it, people respect you, respect you.
And to tack onto that knowledge is power. It's also confidence because the more you know, and the more you understand what you're doing and, and you're, you're an expert at you and, and your business and everything that you're growing and building it gives you this.