Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Kara Lynch Guthrie . We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Kara , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear your thoughts about making remote work effective.

I have worked from home for the last decade. When covid hit, we were poised and ready to elevate our business model in my wellness company. We already had the infrastructure of presenting and meeting on zoom in place, we simply stepped it up. Where we used to have 1-2 daily zooms, we pivoted and went to 3-4 daily. We saw tremendous growth in 2020. Then things changed. We saw what we are calling “zoom fatigue.” People became tired of meeting on zoom. We had to diversify and luckily, things started opening up and people were open to meeting. in person again, usually in smaller groups.

We’ve become really proficient in the ability to pivot and adapt to changes based on peoples level of comfort. It’s all about balance and meeting people where they are. For my secondary business, which I just added to my portfolio about 6 weeks ago, I have the discipline of working from home. It’s important to have clearly defined business hours and structure so that I can operate both businesses successfully. I work from home and commute a couple days every other week for in person meetings.

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?

My professional background is in the media business. I grew up with my father owning and operating radio stations across the country. I studied broadcast journalism at University of Southern California and went right into radio sales straight of out college. I worked in sales for the first 7 years of my career and then when my father sold his business, after a year or so the new ownership promoted me into management. After another 7 years, I brought my father out of early retirement and we launched a local group of radio stations specializing in sports. We got away from the corporate mentality and treated employees as people and not numbers. We thrived with our company, until the economy did not cooperate in 2010. It was at that time that I pivoted, and re-evaluated my life as a working professional mom. I needed to take a step back and find something that I could do to replace my income, but with more flexibility to be a more present mom to my two young sons. For the last decade, I have run a successful wellness company from home. Working around my boys very busy schedules, I partnered with a US Based manufacturer of consumer packaged goods. Think Whole Foods Quality, Target/Wallmart pricing, convenience of Amazon. My business is thriving and to represent a company that is not struggling with supply chain issues and incredible inflation is refreshing. We have what people need/want. As a new empty nester, I was struggling with having too much tome on my hands so I have taken on a new project that I can work along side my wellness business. Back in media, I am producing beer, wine and music festivals in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. It’s added some new exciting challenges to my life. We had our first event last weekend and while it was exhausting, it was fun to see it come together from start to finish in about 5 weeks time.

What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?

A decade ago when I pivoted away from media, I was searching for something with more flexibility. Truthfully, I was not ready to dive back into work, but I needed to. I was introduced to the Wellness company. At the time, I really was not sure that I would make an income or be able to have success – I thought I would work with them until I found what I was looking for. If you would have told me then that I would still be here a decade later….I would have laughed. But, it’s such a solid business model and the company is thriving. I firmly believe in the mission behind the company, the products they manufacture and the leadership of the company.

That said, having relocated to Colorado, while at the same time, becoming an empty nester, with both of my boys being in college, I needed to add something to my plate to challenge me, help me meet people in this market and the events business has been an amazing addition to my life. It’s only been about 6 weeks, but I truly believe it will even strengthen my wellness company, because of the many new connections I am making. I have always believed that if you want to get things done, ask a busy person to do the job.

We’d love to hear about you met your business partner.

So, you may wonder how I got into the events business. It’s a fun story. As I mentioned, I was feeling like a had a little too much time on my hands. I have always worked my wellness company around my kids schedule. With the kids away, there was a void. I got a call from a good friend from college, my sorority sister Krista- who owns the radio stations in the mountains. She knew how I was feeling, she also has two grown boys, so we have a lot in common and we grew up the me media business at the same time. Her event manager quit and didn’t give her much notice and they had just signed a contract that day on the event that happened last weekend, so she called me on a Tuesday and I started on Wednesday. It was a win-win. She needed help, she knew my experience and she knew I had the flexibility to start right away. So I did.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: karalynchguthrie
• Facebook: karalynchguthrie
• Linkedin: Kara Lynch Guthrie
• Twitter: @karalguthrie