We were lucky to catch up with Lane and Lani Bidlack recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Lane and Lani, thanks for joining us today. Owning a business isn’t always glamorous and so most business owners we’ve connected with have shared that on tough days they sometimes wonder what it would have been like to have just had a regular job instead of all the responsibility of running a business. Have you ever felt that way?

Both of us come from working above and beyond normal business hours in our typical 9-to-5 careers. Lani went from store manager to sales rep over the course of 15 or so years, and before Lane exited his service to the fitness industry, he had worked countless jobs trading his time for money. Since starting “life and hours on her own terms,” Lani has reflected about how poorly her old boss had treated her over the course of her career with him, as well thought back on the endless days of travel, the anxiety of meeting new people and hoping for new business, and the hours spent taking care of clients after her day was “supposed” to be through. For her, there was no going back! That determination has sprung her into snowballing her successful, franchised Party business- PartydreamsToledo, as well as her creativity, into the avalanche that it has become now.
Lane has contemplated going back into the 9-5 arena pretty much in a 7-month cycle. It’s been either feast or famine in his world of handyman work. When things are busy, the decision to strike out on his own has been the right one, but when the cold months hit, people seem to lose all of their motivation and money to pursue their side projects. That leaves him barely scraping by and suffering mentally about where funds will come from.
Together, collectively, we both support each other and we make it work, until we feel as though that we have “really made it-“ where we feel comfortable, secure, and less stressed.
Making the time to the All the things…with Lane and Lani podcast has both a blessing and another iron in the fire for us. Trying to find guests to interview, scheduling a time when both of us can be available to do the show, and coming up with worthy and interesting topics is quite the dilemma most days.
Ultimately, we would LOVE to nothing but podcasting for an income.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Lani’s days have doubled in efforts towards the attention of the “people pleasing” side of things since starting her own business. She is no longer servicing someone else’s customers, but impressing her skills upon her own customers. Wedding package rentals pretty much sell themselves, but where she excels is in her balloon art. She offers “foundational” packages for every occasions, but is able to accommodate nearly every request. Lane has the same responsibility- relying heavily upon word-of-mouth marketing to build his book of clientele. Having to think on his feet with different t problems and situations when it comes to customer requests is a daily task. Nearly all projects are never straight-forward, cut and dry problems to solve.
Regarding the podcast- we built this podcast around the idea of “letting people talk.” Nowadays, we are in a rush as a society. We have rehearsed answers for every question because those questions are usually topical. We pride ourselves on pushing past normal, and bland interview conversations when we have guests on, and of course, giving plenty of our opinion of matters when the show is just the two of us. We feel that once we get past the topical answers that they have pre-rehearsed in their minds, that is truly when you get to know people and their personalities really come out.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

The hairy thing about being entrepreneurs is that capital is usually raised by yourself. We are strong proponents of having no credits cards, and/or debt. We’ve taken a lot of flack for not “just opening up a credit card and get it!” That is how we’re raised- go into debt to get what you want. We fell into the trap of being in huge debt (huge to us) early on in our marriage, and we made the decision to never go back there. Lani has taken one loan out through Square to improve upon the business, has since paid it back, and did so only because the interest rate was very low and it took the money right from every sale that she made to repay the loan back. It just made sense. Lane simply, and gradually built upon his tool cache with funds awarded from his work done. He learned as he’s gone along, and if a new project requires different tools, then those tools were purchased when necessary.
Funding the podcast was a bit hectic at the start. We started out with inexpensive, sports announcers microphones- the kind that have the earphones and one mic on the end of it. They were primitive at best, but we have since bought the necessary parts: Rode podcast mics, headsets and amplifier so that you can hear each everyone ont he podcast speaking clearly, movable mic stands, and recording equipment so that we can run things smoothly and efficiently. All of these things were funded from our own personal funds, earned from working our non-9-5 jobs.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

For the podcast specifically, both of us had to learn how to not be so polite and people-pleasing when it came to our podcast. We are still navigating through those waters because of the positions that we have been in our entire professional lives, but I would like to think that we are coming out of our shells and giving our full opinions on things that we would normally just agree with someone on so as not to start an argument or an otherwise heated discussion. Being raised to be respectful and courteous isn’t always what is needed especially when the other side of the argument needs to be mentioned and represented, and we having fun pushing past our “over-polite” selves.

Contact Info:

• Website: PartydreamsToledo.com
• Instagram: allthethingswithlaneandlani
• Facebook: All the things…with Lane and Lani
• Youtube: Lane and Lani
• Email: [email protected]