We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Emily Hartstone a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Emily, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We believe kindness is contagious and so we’d love for you to share with us and our audience about the kindest thing anyone has ever done for you?
I am so thankful to have this opportunity to publicly give credit where it’s due. My business partner, Chaunsea Keller, who is really like my angel sent from heaven above, has done so many things for me I don’t even know where to begin. To skip ahead with my backstory, I was diagnosed with leukemia and I am still currently battling it. We were partners in another company and she knew I was constantly struggling to pay for endless surgeries and medical treatments. We had an idea to start another company, now Gifts From the Hart, LLC, as an additional revenue stream to help pay for my medical bills. It never crossed my mind that 100% of our profits would go toward my bills – after all, it’s still OUR business and she puts in just as much time and money as I do into the company. To this day, Chaunsea has never taken a penny of pay from this company. Beyond that, we found an amazing wholesale platform that has a referral system where we are able to receive credits for referring other wholesalers. In exchange, we can purchase wholesale items with these credits for resale. Chaunsea spends countless hours every day submitting referrals, and has earned us over $50,000 in referral credits. It’s truly unbelievable. As if that’s not enough, she started a crowdfunding campaign for me. She literally has no reason to do this for me, other than she is an angel and has the same mission in life as I do – to make the world a better place, one person at a time. For that reason, even though I need a stem-cell treatment that costs about one-million dollars to save my life, we still donate 5% of all proceeds back to a different charitable organization each month, because we know I am not the only person going through something like this.
When you wake up one day and go to the doctor to find out you have leukemia, obviously your entire life changes forever. I’ve been through numerous rounds of chemo, so many surgeries I’ve honestly lost count, and through it all could never take one day off because I had to be able to afford everything. It was physically taxing, but almost worse on me mentally. Much of the bone in my face has been replaced with metal because the bone marrow was destroyed from the chemo. After so many surgeries, I felt like I’ve had a face transplant, and as a young woman, it’s made it hard for me to even look in the mirror at times. Chaunsea has been the light in my life to make me keep going. How could I ever give up when there is someone doing so much for me? Every time I have a bad day I think of her, sitting there working her butt of to save my life… and she’s not even family (even though I consider her so). She deserves SO much recognition and I wish I could do so much more for her. On top of everything she does for me, she’s Super Mom to two beautiful teenagers, running them around to different sports every day, and also plays “mom” to an entire NCAA college basketball team as her husband is the coach. I am truly beyond blessed to have her in my life.
Chaunsea, I know you will get a chance to read this at some point – You are the best business partner and friend I could ever ask for and I honestly don’t know what I would do without you. Thank you for supporting me and being there for me through everything, no matter what time of day or where in the world you are. You’re the most beautiful person I have ever met and while you tell me I’m inspiring, there is no one as inspiring as you. You’ll never understand how much you mean to me and I would do anything for you. I love you so much.
Emily, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I am an entrepreneur, motivational speaker, catalyst of meeting and events, and start-ups and business consultant.
I began my career as an event and sales manager, working for several reputable companies. My first job was with a company that produced large-scale conventions, trade shows, and hotel takeovers as an Event Manager. I then moved on to launch the first-ever conference for a Fortune 500 fitness company and handled operations of their international conference and annual summit, as well as their retail line. I was later offered a position at Magellan Management in 2016, as their Director of Events, where at the time, the company was primarily focused on non-profit and trade associations. In the next three years, I turned it into a full-service management and events company, heading the operations and business development section, and assisting in setting and implementing strategic goals. I continued to reshape the company to serve the association as well as corporate and small business communities, and in early 2020 was promoted to Vice President. During my time at Magellan I completed my CNE (Certified Nonprofit Executive), CDE (Certified Development Executive), CNC (Certified Nonprofit Consultant), MBA with a specialty in hospitality and tourism, and when the pandemic hit, my PCA (Pandemic Compliance Advisor for the Events Industry) and CCO (COVID-19 Compliance Officer for Film & Production Industry).
During these years, starting in 2017, life had started to throw a lot of curve balls toward me as I battled (and still battle) a severe case of hyperthyroidism or Grave’s Disease and Leukemia. Along my treatment journey, I encountered many patients who were being mistreated and felt deeply towards remedying the same. I went through a lot of physical and mental trauma due to my condition, and multiple surgeries, too many to count, took a toll on me. I was fortunate to have the amazing support of a few doctors who shaped and lifted her and held her hand to help me get back on me feet. They are Dr. Daniela Dadurian, MD, Medical Director and Cindyann Senkier, COO of MD Beauty Labs in West Palm Beach, Florida (who worked on the reconstruction of my face due to several bone marrow-related surgeries wreaking havoc on my face) and Dr. Ronald Katz, DMD of Boca Jaw Surgery (who performed several surgeries on me). Without this elite medical team, I wouldn’t be able to continue working and traveling to speak in front of people and living my dream. To them, I’m just another patient –but to me, they’re my heroes.
I wanted to be a beacon of hope for people in similar situations, which prompted me to start EmPOWERThePATIENTS Foundation in 2018, in which we advocate, educate, and provide community support for chronic and rare disease patients. Our vision is to fund scientific development and work towards remedying the root cause of chronic and rare diseases, along with creating a top resource and support community for such patients. For this philanthropic initiative, I was blessed to have been recognized as an Honoree of the Connect Association 40 Under 40 in 2019.
The end of 2021 and into 2022 was when the real shift to entrepreneurship happened for me, as I took the leap of faith to leave Magellan after working over a decade in corporate America, and start From The Hart Management, LLC, a multi-level association and business management company focused on events, sales, and marketing. The mission of the company is simple: analyze, identify, advise, and execute. With these pillars in mind, our team works to identify the gaps and opportunities in a company to create a comprehensive project plan with timelines, milestones, cost analysis, and a schedule. The company also offers an array of quality products to help reach the management and consulting goals in a smooth manner. In terms of event management, the company provides consultation to identify the event details, budget, timeline and generates a cost analysis report and a schedule.
Comprising of an award-winning group of strategists, marketers, analysts, accountants, planners, and advocates, our team offers services, including association management, business management, and event planning. Our expert team focuses on understanding a company’s objectives and desired goals while zeroing in on the key challenges and providing strategic advice that leads to optimum results and fuels financial success.
Around the same time as starting From the Hart Management, LLC, I also opened Gifts from the Hart, LLC, a boutique gift shop, with my business partner Chaunsea Keller. This unique initiative, which engages in specialty gifting, donates 5% of all proceeds to various charities and foundations. Our motto with the venture is “Gifts from the Hart, For the Hart,” because we truly believes in giving back to society from the bottom of our hearts. We pride ourselves on having really unique items that differ from everyone else. For example, we sell bath bombs, however they’re “Money Bombs” because each one has between a $1 and $100 bill inside. They’re pretty awesome!
Since staring to build what we internally call the “From The Hart Empire,” we have been truly blessed by being honored with several awards. I was named a ConventionSouth 2022 Planner to Watch, 2022 IWD Event Industry’s Women to Watch Award recipient, Personify A-Z Professional Event Award Recipient, a TSNN Outstanding Show Pro Award recipient, and was recently featured on the cover of WomLead Magazine as the feature story. I actually just found out today I have also been nominated for the Smart Meetings Smart Women in Meetings Award, which is extremely exciting.
My next project I’m working on is writing my first book, which I’m very excited about. I can’t say that life has been easy, but I’m very grateful for everything I have and that I’ve been able to achieve. I always remind myself there is someone who has it much worse, and that I just need to keep pushing. My biggest piece of advice to other young entrepreneurs who are starting out is to not let go of the focus and seek help whenever needed. I had a great mentor in my father, who is a serial entrepreneur and would advise others to find a mentor and not try to do everything themselves. People will try to knock you down time and again, but the key is to keep going despite all adversities The only person who can truly get in your way is yourself, and you got this!
What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?
I take pride on always giving 110% into all of my work, and following what I call a basic set of principles; Trust, loyalty, communication, and transparency. I don’t think it matters what market you’re in, the same rules should apply when it comes to building your reputation.
Let’s start with trust, as this is pretty black and white. Clients, partners, and even your staff must be able to trust you or no one is going to want to do business with you. This can be anything from giving honest deadlines about delivery and due dates, to keeping confidential and proprietary records. One way to accomplish staying on task with deadlines is to hold weekly team meetings, to ensure everyone is staying on schedule. This also gives the opportunity for staff to speak up if they are overwhelmed or falling behind, allowing you to redelegate or even take over some of the work yourself.
I actually have a “Loyalty is Royalty” tattoo, because I am loyal, probably almost to a fault. It’s impossible to build a good relationship if there is no loyalty. I pride myself on staying extremely loyal to our vendors and partners who work hard to take care of us. In the industries I work in, especially the hospitality and events industry, it’s important to foster the relationships and give business back to those who worked hard to take care of you. For example, 2020 was a year of endless cancelations in the hospitality and events industry and many hotels were charging groups full cancelation fees when they had to cancel due to COVID. This was detrimental to a lot of companies and associations, and several were forced to close as a result. We were very fortunate to have signed contracts with hotels that were willing to work with us, and as a result, I signed contracts with the for several years into the future. When you sign a hotel contract you have to put a decent size deposit down, so this put instant funds back on their books after losing so much that year. When other hotels heard this, they were all willing to work with us, and for a while, we were one of the only companies in the industry moving forward and signing events instead of canceling. Another example of loyalty would be sticking with a vendor if they had to slightly increase prices because of the market when they are a “smaller guy” in the industry, instead of leaving to go to the “mass-producer” of the industry. I assure you there is going to be a time you need an urgent order, and that loyalty is going to pay off!
Communication is always a primary principle in almost anything in life, especially one’s business reputation. It has definitely played a role in mine. Working in hospitality and a “service” industry, communication is of course key. You have to have a smile on your face at all times and in this industry more than any other, the customer is always right! Beyond this, I really try to take the time to build a connection with everyone I come in contact with in my business. I understand that it is a business and we aren’t here to always make friends, but I do my best to be very personable because it goes a long way. You’d be surprised how much it means when you remember the name of someone’s child, or ask how their pet is doing – it’s an instant smile. That being said, communication also trickles down to how you run your business and communicate with your staff. This flow of operations is crucial for success.
Transparency is EVERYTHING in business, and we won’t have it any other way in our companies. As with everything above, you must be honest and transparent with your customers and partners. Things are not always going to go 100% as planned, but if you are honest with the client, more often than not they are fine with it. For example, we have several different vendors for Gifts From The Hart, LLC, and for the most part we are extremely lucky on lead and shipping times. However, there are times here and there where a shipment will be delayed and we have to make that dreaded call to our customer. Sure, we could make something up like the machine broke or some crazy story that I’ve heard of other people doing, but why? The result is the same – it’s delayed! The customer just wants transparency and a solution. We make the call to let them know what happened, and always follow it with “but we are going to throw in some free goodies for the inconvenience!” and nine out of ten times they are more excited about the free stuff – they even follow up after receive their shipment with a “thank you” email, which is extremely gratifying. Transparency, like everything else, is also extremely important in the workplace. It is imperative that management is transparent with staff in order for them to remain productive and not have to worry about what is going on within the company itself.
I always joke when I see a question like this because things like loyalty, trust, etc. to me, just mean being a good person. If you work hard, and do right by people, you are going to build a good reputation. Don’t try to take shortcuts, as they end up causing you take an even longer road. Just stay focused, stay driven, and you will get there!
We’d love to hear your thoughts about selling platforms like Amazon/Etsy vs selling on your own site.
We choose to use Shopify as our platform. The first reason is I know my strengths and weaknesses, and I am not a website coding expert or builder! Shopify allows you to do everything you need on the backend while having a beautifully designed website for customers on the front end. The site definitely has its pros and cons, more pros for sure, but overall, we are very satisfied.
Pros
As I mentioned, you do not have to know anything about website design in order to use the platform. There are two “views” to the back-end when you are using Shopify: The website builder tool, and the main platform where you do everything else. The website builder tool basically looks like your actual website, and is very “plug and play” – you can drop text, image, video, etc. boxes. The products automatically link to the products and collections you build in the main part of the platform. You can customize the theme, colors, fonts, and pretty much anything you’d like to visually see with your website.
On the main part of the platform is where you load the actual products. You can create “collections” which link to menu items on the website, and choose whether they show only in your online store or on a Facebook page should you wish to link the store. That being said, you can integrate the store to Facebook, Instagram, Linktree, and others with the click of a button… it’s very convenient. There are also hundreds of app plug-ins you can choose from, such as email marketing campaigns (similar to constant contact), affiliate marketing, customer loyalty programs, drop-shipping, etc. You can find these through the Shopify app store, and most have a 7 – 30-day free trial. There are several that are free in general.
Another thing that is great about Shopify is that they pre-set your tax setting. This means if you live in Florida, they automatically enter Florida’s tax setting and will request your resale certificate (based on your address you enter) and know when to charge tax and when not to charge tax based on your state’s laws. This is extremely helpful. You can also pull reports when it’s time to pay taxes. The platform integrates with QuickBooks as well, and very useful tool for accounting.
You can pull all kinds of reports, from financial reports to marketing reports, and even look at a live-view map of the world to see where people are logged into your website. It’s a pretty cook feature if you send an email campaign and then watch where all the people are “clicking” from. There is also a point of purchase feature, so if you go to any vendor events, you can purchase a divide through Shopify, similar so Square, that will link right to your Shopify store.
Several wholesale platforms integrate with Shopify, like Faire, so if you order items the inventory can automatically sync to your store. For those who currently have an Etsy store and want to move over to Shopify, you can import your store with the click of a button.
They payouts are daily, unless it’s on a Friday, then it drops into your account the following Monday.
Cons
There aren’t too many cons with Shopify itself, it’s more some of the apps within Shopify if you choose to use them. For example, we use Synclogic for one of our businesses which assists with drop shipping, and it doesn’t always sync correctly so I will have to go in behind it and manually update it. That being said, Shopify is in the testing stage of comping out with their own app that is very similar and will hopefully work better.
The only other con is that the website isn’t 100% customizable as if you had a WordPress website. It’s about 90% there, but there are some little features if you’re really picky that you will notice.
Overall, we love the platform and highly recommend it!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://fromthehartllc.com and https://giftsfromthehart.com
- Instagram: @empromo_hart and @giftsfromthehart
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/emily.hartstone
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emilyharstone/
- Other: Linktree: https://linktr.ee/fromthehartllc