We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Annemarie Schindler. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with AnneMarie below.

AnneMarie, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Being a business owner can be really hard sometimes. It’s rewarding, but most business owners we’ve spoken sometimes think about what it would have been like to have had a regular job instead. Have you ever wondered that yourself? Maybe you can talk to us about a time when you felt this way?

I have had my consulting practice for 8 years and I’m always surprised when this question pops into my awareness. On most days and months, the clients, the projects, and the work keeps me busy. I feel purposeful, engaged, and like I am making difference.

This summer was especially busy. I had a variety of clients and projects, some where the path to success felt very clear and others where we really needed to wade through what the best approach would be. Most days, I enjoy code-switching (toggling between strategy and tactics) but through my daily journaling and conversations with a colleague, I began to notice that the patterns of predictability, circular of decision making, and lack of strategy with one client were becoming very challenging to me. The dilemma was that this was our largest client, making up nearly a third of our revenue each year.

As the summer progressed, we hit a big milestone (yay!) only to be followed by weeks and months of no communication. It was uncomfortable, but it forced me to face my frustration head on and get honest about (1) whether I wanted to try and keep working with this client regardless of the declining relationship, (2) what type of work felt aligned and inspiring and whether I could find more of those clients and finally (3) whether I wanted to keep selling myself as a consultant or whether I knew enough about what I was good at/enjoyed now that I could find something internal and just let the work flow into me.

The thing I have realized about being an entrepreneur and business owner is that nothing happens in a vacuum. I have to consider what is happening outside of my work life while I sort through feelings and facts about my business. Besides being a female entrepreneur, I’m a mother, a daughter, and a friend. I usually have joint custody of my 9 year old daughter, but starting in July, I would be the primary parent 95% of the time. This meant, I would need to ask for more help when I had work travel; I would need to be more mindful of protecting pick-up/drop off; and my healthy habits would also require more scheduling. I’m an organized person so this doesn’t overwhelm me, but it does inflame my controlling tendencies which I’m working hard on in therapy.

When I looked at things closer, my internal debate about a “regular job” was really fear in disguise. I was afraid I couldn’t do it all….perfectly. I was afraid that I wouldn’t hit my revenue goals; I would have to face client rejection; I wouldn’t keep up with grocery shopping; and that (worst of all) my daughter might tire of me. Fear told me that I could relieve some pressure on myself by dropping all of the responsibilities of owning and managing my consulting firm, even though that simultaneously meant abandoning doing work I’m proud of and inspired by.

Thankfully, after 8 years, I know better than to make rushed decisions. Instead, I shared these concerns with friends and my daughter. I asked people I could trust for help. I read and journaled daily to remind myself that change is inevitable and that I could be calm and grateful that I was evolving as a person, mother, and business owner. Patience gave way to new ideas and more information. Time passed and I had small wins personally and professionally.

I’m sure I will revisit this idea of a “regular job” again in the future but for now, I know running my business and being a mom is exactly where I need to be.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I’m a blend of solopreneuer and team player and this dates back to my upbringing as a female athlete. Growing up, I played soccer and basketball all year round. I prided myself as a role player in both sports. The coaches knew when to put me, what I was good, what they could count on me for, and the morale and guidance I would bring to the team from the bench.

After college, I got my M.B.A. with a focus in Sport Industry from the University of New Haven. After a short stint at an advertising agency, where I cut my chops at creative thinking and project management, I accepted a job at The LIVESTRONG Foundation in Austin, TX.

LIVESTRONG was in its peak. Lance was retired (for the first time) but all of this corporate sponsors (Nike, RadioShack, Oakley, Mich Ultra, etc) were excited about leveraging his celebrity and brand through philanthropy and events. During my tenure at LIVESTRONG, I managed the event portfolio for the organization, consistently meeting the revenue targets between $2M- $10M annually. In this role, I managed a high-performing team that led donor/participant engagement and event production for fundraising events around the country. As the Foundation moved into more uncertain times, I was tasked with leading cross-collaborative initiatives focusing on revenue stabilization, event innovation, and strategic partnerships. After 8 years, I had experienced some of the highest-highs and lowest-lows in my work career.

The experience was invaluable to me and I wanted to use it to work on causes beyond cancer so I started my own firm, Small Wins Consulting. Through open collaboration, honest discussion, and researched strategies, my job is to deliver the results an organization needs. I help non-profit leaders pinpoint gaps in their strategic plans and execute innovative solutions. Really this means, I get into the nitty-gritty of business operations, development, and programs so that we can uncover what changes will have real, lasting impact on your community!

After 4 years of running Small Wins Consulting, I decided to open a second consulting practice with a partner. That business, called Ivy.Ly, is a collaborative endeavor where I can bring my strengths and also be balanced by my co-founder, Melissa Stewart. Many people don’t understand why Melissa and I run our own independent consulting practices AND a joint one, but it works extremely well for us, and I’m grateful to have someone who appreciates that sometimes 2 minds are better than 1.

I’m most proud of the fact that my strengths help organizations of all shapes and sizes. When a client comes to me looking for help, I love learning about them, asking questions, and getting into details in order to develop a custom roadmap for the path forward. From my work scaling organizations like The Chris Long Foundation, Fight Colorectal Cancer, or I AM ALS to more established engagements with National Children’s Alliance, Pelotonia, and KUT/KUTX, I’m deeply invested in the success of my clients and their interest in making an impact.

Let’s move on to buying businesses – can you talk to us about your experience with business acquisitions?

I’ve bought 2 businesses. The first was an established CrossFit gym in 2017 and the second was a local grocery story and adjacent property in 2021.

The CrossFit gym made a lot of sense because my ex-husband and I were co-owners of another gym about 30 miles away. The gym we bought was in a town that didn’t have any other CF gym competition and the area was growing quickly. The current owners ran the gym around their day jobs but had established a solid membership space and were in a place with low-overhead. We purchased that business based on the value of their equipment, with small payouts for each of the current owners. In this situation, it felt very turnkey and the positioned as a real positive for the gym community. They were gaining more expertise and someone who wanted to focus his attention on creating a thriving community to grow the gym’s membership and offerings in the future.

The second business purchase was more complicated and in turn, the business and partnership was less successful. My lesson from that is it is harder to purchase a business as a group, because you are navigating the priorities of multiple people who value data, profit, and success much differently.

How’d you meet your business partner?

My co-founder and business partner for Ivy.Ly met at The LIVESTRONG Foundation as peers. Melissa ran the largest team in the Foundation – Patient Navigation – and I ran a mid-sized team that handled nationwide event fundraising. While colleagues, we had shared, but different, experiences of those fateful years and yet agree it was the best training ground for managing through significant growth and contraction, building highly effective teams, and honing our expertise in organizational management. 

Over the next five years, we grew our own consulting firms, acting as sounding boards for complicated projects, providing ideas and feedback on new approaches, and celebrating the successes (and challenges) of small business ownership.

In 2019, we sat down to discuss forging a partnership. With more than three decades of combined experience across non-profit and for-profit settings, we agreed the potential in joining forces was to build something different. 

Ivy.Ly was born to help you chart your unique path forward.

Since its inception, Ivy.Ly’s client projects have focused on strategic planning, event development and production, and program design and operations. These engagements leverage our unique expertise as individual contributors within organizations, leadership skills managing complex teams and projects, and intentional approach to developing processes and tools, which support work planning and goal achievement. Most notably, we leans on our robust entrepreneurial experience and our distinct but different skill sets in order to construct inclusive and well-rounded solutions for our for-profit and non-profit clients.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://findsmallwins.com/
• Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/annemarieschindlermba