Understanding Your Numbers with Sarah Delevan
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Meet Sarah Delevan
Sarah Delevan is the host of The Good Food CFO Podcast and the founder of Sarah Delevan Consulting, a Financial Consulting Firm helping mission-driven food business owners achieve financial sustainability and profitability without compromising their values. Sarah's background in Operations Management and Finance, and her experience as a Good Food Business Owner and Specialty Buyer inform her unique and proven approach to aiding business owners to understand their numbers and create a clear path to profitability.
Episode Highlights
During this episode of The Food Means Business Podcast, we discuss:
Sarah’s childhood dreams of becoming a business woman, her love of numbers, and career in data analysis
How a visit to a dermatologist inspired her to volunteer at farmers markets which eventually led to starting her first business, The Produce Project
How she helps good food business owners to understand their numbers and create a profitable businesses
The shame that some business owners feel about making money
How to assess your financial situation and slowly but steadily make the changes required to hit your goals
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00;00;00;03 - 00;00;04;17
Djenaba
All right. Well, Sarah, welcome to the Food Means Business podcast and so happy to have you here.
00;00;05;00 - 00;00;07;22
Sarah Delevan
Thank you so much for having me. I am delighted to be here.
00;00;08;04 - 00;00;16;27
Djenaba
Absolutely. I've been following you for quite a bit of time on Instagram and LinkedIn and enjoy all of your posts and your podcast and everything. And so it's so great to have you here.
00;00;17;09 - 00;00;22;00
Sarah Delevan
Thank you. Likewise. I admire you through Instagram as well.
00;00;22;10 - 00;00;42;14
Djenaba
Yesterday I went to the fancy food show and I got to meet some people in real life from from LinkedIn and Instagram. So it was really nice. So hopefully we can meet meets, meet soon. But I I'll jump in here a little bit. So if it means is this podcast is all about taking that leap from being an employee to a business owner.
00;00;42;14 - 00;00;48;26
Djenaba
So I'd love to for you, share your story, give a little bit, maybe a little bit information about your friends and family. They tell us all about you.
00;00;49;09 - 00;01;15;12
Sarah Delevan
Yeah, sure. Oh my goodness. How much time do you have now? So I a big part. I mean, food has always been a big part of my family. So my maternal grandfather is 100% polish. And so that was sort of the food that we grew up with. We make pierogies by hand every year, and his mom taught taught his wife.
00;01;15;12 - 00;01;35;06
Sarah Delevan
So my grandmother like how to cook a lot of traditional Polish dishes and I just grew up is like, oh, I'm a Polish person. And like, this is like who I am. And every family get together. It wasn't always Polish food, but there was tons of food. All of the women in my family cooked the men to, and it's just always been a really big part of my life.
00;01;35;15 - 00;01;53;01
Sarah Delevan
But I never dreamed of working anywhere in the industry I always dreamt of being. And I'm not kidding, a business woman I wanted to wear suits. I wanted to have an office. I remember back in the day when they were called PDAs. At the time, there was one, like the first one that ever came out was called Cleo.
00;01;53;01 - 00;02;09;28
Sarah Delevan
I was in my high school and I was like, Mom, I need a Cleo. And she was like, All right. So she bought it for for Christmas. I had nothing to schedule. I had no notes to take of it. I asked for a computer when I was like six, you know, that was like very much. It's still is very much me.
00;02;10;20 - 00;02;32;24
Sarah Delevan
And so I went to college, studied marketing, but back in the day there was no social media. Marketing was like a very different thing. I've always had a like a love for numbers and like puzzles. And so I actually did strategic marketing is what we called it, but really just data analysis, what is happening in the industry, Where should we be focusing our attention?
00;02;33;20 - 00;02;51;26
Sarah Delevan
So no thoughts of ever being in the food industry. But but a big thing, a big part of my life was that I struggled with acne for a really long time. And when I was in my twenties, I was in college. It turned into cystic acne, which if you've never had it or heard about it or know someone, it's really painful.
00;02;52;09 - 00;03;15;20
Sarah Delevan
And it's not only physically painful, it lasts a really long time. And I would wake up in the morning and be like, Oh great. Like, who am I today? You know what? What new thing am I going to be greeted with? And I took every over-the-counter, you know, cream and applied it. I saw a dermatologist. I took the most intense drug that you could take to cure me of this acne.
00;03;15;20 - 00;03;37;04
Sarah Delevan
And all of it was temporary. And and so it was really frustrating. And I when I moved to L.A., I lived on the East Coast all my life and I moved to L.A. with my husband wasn't my husband at the time, but I went to a dermatologist out here and she asked me what I was eating and like other questions that no dermatologist had ever asked me before.
00;03;37;04 - 00;04;03;26
Sarah Delevan
And I think I was in her office for an hour and a half. And she I was I personally I was a vegetarian at the time, and I was consuming a lot of soy. And for my body that was not agreeable. And I had to learn that. So I had to learn like what? Things to stay away from for me and why and literally just did that didn't take any drugs like got some gentle cleansers and stuff and she really like cured my skin through food.
00;04;04;05 - 00;04;27;01
Sarah Delevan
And I read Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma at literally the same time. I was like, That's it. I need to like preach the gospel of good food and knowing where your food comes from. And so that's where it all started. And I dove into farmers markets. I was a volunteer for a little while, all while working remotely, you know, for my my strategic marketing job on the East Coast.
00;04;27;01 - 00;04;57;17
Sarah Delevan
And I remember doing dishes at a cooking school and like answering emails. I mean, I was making like $10 an hour, like it was like my third. I had three jobs at one time. I was just desperate to get into it. And then where I move from employee to business owner was that at the farmers market I could see that regardless of income level, regardless of demographic, people were insanely excited about the foods of the season and gathering it and knowing their farmers and cooking.
00;04;57;17 - 00;05;30;18
Sarah Delevan
And you didn't have that experience when people were shopping in the grocery store. And I thought, Let's take this experience out of the sort of four walls, if you will, of the farmer's market. That happens on a specific day at a specific time and make it more readily available to people. And so myself and a partner launched what we called the produce project, and we would source farm fresh ingredients and locally raised, you know, beef and pork and chicken and locally caught sustainable seafood.
00;05;30;18 - 00;05;55;06
Sarah Delevan
And we made a pop up market and we did that for two years. And it was incredible and exhausting. And we didn't make any money because we were unaware that a business like that couldn't follow the sort of standard model of of, you know, a commodity business, right? You know, oh, grocery stores, they are they have a 50% margin.
00;05;55;10 - 00;06;20;15
Sarah Delevan
Okay, That didn't work for us. We just didn't know any better. So we closed that business after two years. I went on to be a buyer, which was an amazing experience because I was able to take what I had kind of learned and done for two years while I owned the business and apply it to a much bigger business, sourcing from a lot more farmers and creators and artisans, and serving it to a lot more people working with distributors.
00;06;20;24 - 00;06;42;08
Sarah Delevan
So I did that for two years and then I managed to market for a little while ago like a retail market, and then I got the chance to and I share this because in case a door has been closed on you, maybe you'll learn something from me or kind of not feel so bad about it. I got this amazing opportunity to work at a company that was like a startup, right?
00;06;42;08 - 00;07;07;19
Sarah Delevan
And it had just gotten round B or whatever. It's called funding. And they hired me and I remember calling my husband and being like, I've made it. This is amazing money. You're not going to believe it. I can't believe they gave me this offer. I start in two weeks. I gave my notice, I hired my replacement and two or three days before I was supposed to start, they phoned me and said our funding got pulled.
00;07;07;19 - 00;07;31;22
Sarah Delevan
You do not have a job and are closing the business in like three months. And I was like, okay. And I hung up the phone right? And then I was like, Oh my God, what am I going to do? I don't have a job. I had never not had a job. And so I called them back and I said, Can you please put on a piece of your letterhead that, like I did have a job like that and send me a copy?
00;07;31;22 - 00;07;48;02
Sarah Delevan
I had a copy of the offer and just in case I had to like, collect unemployment or something, like I didn't know what was going to happen. But that same day I got an email from a chef that I had worked with who said, Hey, I'm opening a restaurant with another chef in L.A. and we need a buyer.
00;07;48;27 - 00;07;58;22
Sarah Delevan
Can you come consult for us? And I was like, Oh, thank God, I'm employed. And but that started that started the consulting business. So that's the true story of how I became a business owner.
00;07;58;22 - 00;08;07;04
Djenaba
I love that. So now you help food business owners with their finances. So tell us a little bit about what you do, what you're doing right now.
00;08;07;04 - 00;08;25;25
Sarah Delevan
Yeah, so we do a couple of different things really. I mean, at the end goal of all of it is for good food business owners to understand their numbers and to have a business that is financially sustainable and better yet profitable and one that is paying them a living wage as well as the folks that that work for them.
00;08;25;25 - 00;08;52;03
Sarah Delevan
We really believe that profitability benefits the business owner, their community and really the society at large. Right. So so that's the end goal of all of it. But we have a group coaching program where we offer all the tools that I use with my one on one clients and video resources and time with me one on one to just help people wherever they're at in their food business and with their finances.
00;08;52;03 - 00;09;28;02
Sarah Delevan
Just figure out what's the right next step, right? That's the goal of that group and community. And then we have our one on one consulting or kind of freelance CFO or whatever you might want to call it, and that's really hands on. So we're managing cash flow for people and helping them with that. We are creating strategy both financial and business strategy with them, identifying key targets, setting sales goals, like really we become a part of their team to help them grow sustainably and to hit their financial goals.
00;09;28;29 - 00;09;53;26
Djenaba
It's such a challenge being a business owner, just because I know for for in my my at my instance, I put together a business plan. It included a you know, a profit and loss statement and, and then, you know, things don't always turn out the way that you think they are like after you launch, right. Yeah. And you're and you're really excited and you're making money and then you're like, you see that there is like the on your profit and loss statement.
00;09;53;26 - 00;09;58;23
Djenaba
There is like there is a profit at the bottom, right? Yeah. Then you go to your balance sheet and you're like where.
00;09;59;15 - 00;10;04;02
Sarah Delevan
Yeah. Where is everybody at your bank account and you're like, or you're big.
00;10;04;02 - 00;10;16;01
Djenaba
This is, this says it, there is this much money, but then there's not there. So I'd love for you to just talk about like and I think for me for a while like I felt a lot of shame around that, like because I didn't, I was like, I know what I'm looking at. Like, why is it not doing what I wanted to do?
00;10;16;01 - 00;10;23;16
Djenaba
So can you talk a little bit about the shame that we feel around our numbers and how you know, what we could do, what we can do better?
00;10;23;22 - 00;10;51;00
Sarah Delevan
Let me ask the question again. How much time do you have? I want to yes, I can definitely talk about that. And I want to share first that like I had tons of shame around money and making money in my first business, my food business. And it was like if I'm doing this under the guise of doing good right and doing a creating a business that is doing good, I should not want to make money, right?
00;10;51;00 - 00;11;11;18
Sarah Delevan
I don't know why that was the belief that I had, but it was and we had clients or customers who said, you guys need to be charging more. And then we have other people who say Your prices are outrageous. And the only voices that we heard in our head were those negative voices. And I think shame exists around numbers for a variety of reasons.
00;11;11;18 - 00;11;37;12
Sarah Delevan
It has to do with how we were raised and the, you know, how money was talked about and dealt with, how much you had, how much you didn't have when you were growing up. And so I think everybody's source of shame is a little bit different. But I think something that is very common, especially within what we call the good foods space, where there's a purpose and a mission connected to the business that we're running.
00;11;37;24 - 00;12;10;29
Sarah Delevan
We feel like we should not be making money, that we should be doing things altruistically only. And I had to do a lot of kind of self-help and reading and digging into why did I feel ashamed about making money before I could figure it out? And I'll say that sometimes our fear around making money or saying that we want to make money has to do with, like I said, like the family that we are part of or the community that we're in.
00;12;10;29 - 00;12;33;16
Sarah Delevan
I recently spoke to someone and they were selling a product that they knew was losing money, but it was a dish that was a part of that community, like the heritage and and the like. It was such an ingrained part of it, she said, I cannot charge what I need to because then this community that I'm making for cannot afford it.
00;12;34;09 - 00;13;00;27
Sarah Delevan
And I get that like to my core. I fully understand that and then comes the sensitive but direct conversation about how much more benefit could you provide to this community if you did charge what you needed to charge? Now, maybe that means that some of these folks can't buy it, but who else can? And how else can you do what you're doing?
00;13;00;27 - 00;13;23;01
Sarah Delevan
This gift that you do have to give to the world and help it make the have it help you make money so that you can give back to this community or give this dish to the community at a lower price, but at no detriment to you and to your business and to your dreams. And we have conversations like that every week inside of our business.
00;13;23;09 - 00;13;40;21
Djenaba
I bet it that actually things have happened to me. People have said to me before, I thought you supported small businesses. Why are you charging this much? And, you know, you know, and it's like it hurts at first. And then after a while, I'm like, this person is not the right they're not the right target audience for me.
00;13;40;21 - 00;13;52;13
Djenaba
And I need and I need to focus on who know the person is going to be able to afford my services. Yeah. And it's just kind of just it's a it's a challenge. This is a challenge because it hurts because you want to be able to help everyone and you just can't.
00;13;52;20 - 00;14;20;23
Sarah Delevan
Yeah. And I think thinking about, okay, if I can't help them in this way, how how can I help them? You know, and some people want to contribute, right, to charitable causes and things. And it's like, well, don't sell your products at a lower price. Sell them at the price you need to to make money so that you have enough to give, to give to the causes to the humans do, to whomever it is that you that you really want to support.
00;14;21;01 - 00;14;46;18
Sarah Delevan
I was talking to Kat Fields White on a podcast the other day, and I said, you know, capitalism isn't going anywhere in our lifetime and there is a lot of greed and negative stuff that happens within, but we don't have to be a part of the bad. We can be change, we can create change. And I think the sad part is that money is necessary to do it.
00;14;46;27 - 00;14;57;26
Sarah Delevan
But if we can be positive around money and have a positive outlook on it, profit is not a dirty word and we can do a lot of good with it.
00;14;58;00 - 00;15;20;25
Djenaba
So. So let's talk about how how do we become profitable. I, I know that you are a profit first profession and I am all about profit first. I love it and would love to have you to talk about it. Someone just that's just starting out versus someone that's kind of been in business for a while. How can they those both types of businesses implement a profit for?
00;15;21;10 - 00;15;24;01
Djenaba
First of all, what is profit first? Can I kind of walk us through that a little bit?
00;15;24;01 - 00;15;44;14
Sarah Delevan
Yeah. So I do have to say a disclaimer. I'm no longer an electively certified profit first member, but I love the community. It was just sort of a business decision that I had to to make, whether to continue to be a part of that group or not. I still support the book and Mike and the community and all of that, but I just wanted to make sure that I was open about that.
00;15;45;04 - 00;15;45;15
Djenaba
Thank you.
00;15;45;23 - 00;16;17;19
Sarah Delevan
Yeah, but I think Profit first is an amazing concept that for me helped me to give my clients a tool to take our plans and put them into action day to day. Right? Because you can, like you said, you can make a plan or a forecast and things may not go exactly how you planned them to. But if you are managing your money in a way that is strategic, you can still make things work and or get back on track.
00;16;17;19 - 00;16;35;22
Sarah Delevan
So it's one of the reasons I love profit first as a as a cash flow strategy. What I really connected with it on was, number one, that Mike's goal is to and I might be quote, misquoting him, but I think alleviate entrepreneurial poverty.
00;16;35;22 - 00;16;36;00
Djenaba
Yeah.
00;16;36;09 - 00;16;59;11
Sarah Delevan
Right. Like, okay, yes, please. We want to get business owners paid so that we can keep operating these businesses that are doing good right. So that they can fulfill the missions that they've set out to do and we've set out to do. So. I love that. And the other part of it was at the beginning of profit. First, if you're going to work with a professional, you have to do an assessment.
00;16;59;18 - 00;17;27;15
Sarah Delevan
And I can't remember what they call it, but we have been for a few years doing what we call profit assessment. And so we look at the finances of a business and say, Where are you today? What is not working? What is working, and what changes do we need to make to hit the financial goals that we want to and from once we know where we are and what the critical numbers are that we need to hit, we now know where to focus our efforts in our business.
00;17;27;21 - 00;17;50;29
Sarah Delevan
We know what our targets are and we can make a really strategic approach and plan to putting it into place. The other thing that I really like about profit first is that they repeatedly share the message that these changes are not going to happen overnight. They are not expected to. And you you might want to achieve them in a year.
00;17;50;29 - 00;18;07;29
Sarah Delevan
You might be really realistic and be like, okay, it's going to take a year and a half. Or you might understand that your financial situation requires that they have to happen in six months. And it, it it's a nice reminder that slow and steady wins the race. And it's possible.
00;18;08;10 - 00;18;14;14
Djenaba
It's so hard because we just all want to just like we're running towards some kind of finish line that's not actually there.
00;18;14;23 - 00;18;18;19
Sarah Delevan
Yeah. And we're the only ones who are pushing us to get there. Right.
00;18;18;19 - 00;18;37;12
Djenaba
That that's. Yeah. Yes. So yeah, I try to tell myself that all the time and I'm like when you look around at other people, like, oh, they're successful, I'm happy for them. Okay. I want to be, I want to do just that thing. And so you kind of you kind of get yourself off course because you're focusing you're looking at what someone else is doing, not like kind of what you should be, what you should be doing.
00;18;37;14 - 00;19;12;06
Sarah Delevan
I think that's a great point. And when going back to the idea of a profit assessment, it's like that is the type of tool and the type of information that will allow you to go, okay, I see what they're doing, but what do I need to do? Where do I need to be focusing my attention? Because I think I have fallen prey to this, that there's all of these messages, especially on social media, like scale your business and, you know, do this and be on Shopify and like, you know, get an investor just whatever and you're like, Oh, well, I must be doing all of those things if I want to be successful.
00;19;12;20 - 00;19;30;15
Sarah Delevan
Now I ask myself, Is that message for me, right? Is that mine to do or or no? And if I can go back and go, okay, what are my three objectives for this year if that does not support moving me toward those objectives, that's not for me right now. And I can kind of put it out of my mind.
00;19;31;00 - 00;19;41;23
Djenaba
Yeah, that makes total sense. Sort of sense. So yeah. So let's talk about how do we become profitable? Like what are some steps that business owners can take?
00;19;42;14 - 00;20;06;15
Sarah Delevan
Oh my gosh. I think all these steps. Yeah, all the steps. I think I'll talk about a couple of of missteps maybe. Sure. To kind of frame it that way, if that works for you. The big, big one is that your margins should be 50% when you're selling direct to consumer. Right? This is a myth. I don't know where it came from.
00;20;06;15 - 00;20;30;24
Sarah Delevan
Somewhere on the Internet. Deep in the Internet, it's just not true. I hesitate to provide benchmarks publicly, but what I do say is that know what you want your business to be. So like, what is the vision for your business, right? If you're going to be a DTC company forever, then maybe having 50% margins can work for you.
00;20;31;19 - 00;20;58;11
Sarah Delevan
If you're going to be a gigantic brand one day who is selling through a distributor, that 50% margin is going to turn into zero practically by the time you go from DTC to direct, you know, to the retailer through a distributor. So figuring out what do I want to be, what are the margins that I need to be successful today and in the future for my business is really beneficial.
00;20;58;15 - 00;21;01;28
Sarah Delevan
So I think that's I guess I kind of turned it around. That's something you need to do.
00;21;02;06 - 00;21;02;11
Djenaba
Sure.
00;21;02;14 - 00;21;08;23
Sarah Delevan
To be profitable right, is figure that out and don't benchmark your margins on someone else's.
00;21;09;24 - 00;21;10;14
Djenaba
That's huge.
00;21;10;19 - 00;21;33;07
Sarah Delevan
You're going have to of you having that the exact same like business model in L.A. and Ohio and your cost targets are going to be completely different. Your labor costs are going to be completely different. You just can't you can't do it. So that's a big one. I think the other one is to understand your costs, particularly your cost of goods sold.
00;21;33;07 - 00;21;59;18
Sarah Delevan
And one of the things I like to recommend for people is that, of course your ingredients and your packaging are your cogs, right in your cost of goods sold. You also want to include your production labor in that if you're producing in-house. And the other thing that we always look at in the COGS category are things like merchant fees and shipping costs, because those are costs that you are going to incur no matter what, right, when you sell a product.
00;21;59;18 - 00;22;24;15
Sarah Delevan
So we think about what are all the costs of producing your product, selling your product, and then delivering that product to your customer. Look at all of those as cost of goods sold. Now your bookkeeper might go, Oh, I am not putting merchant fees above the gross profit line. And you just say, okay, but I know that I'm going to look at it that way because something you want to drive for is what most people call positive gross profit.
00;22;24;15 - 00;22;53;17
Sarah Delevan
In the profit First World, we call it positive real revenue. And I love that term. It is real revenue is the actual amount of money that you have to cover your operating costs to pay yourself, to pay back any credit cards or debt that you have to pay your taxes. Once you become profitable. Right. And to to take away a little bit of savings, which we call profit in your business, you can reinvested or treat yourself once a quarter or at the end of the year.
00;22;53;17 - 00;23;18;20
Sarah Delevan
So not only understanding your margins and what your COGS should be, but what the specific targets are for ingredients and packaging for labor and for what we call other cogs and checking in with them regularly. Because if you can control those, even in a volatile world like we are in right now, there is a certain level of control that you do have, how you choose to grow, what channel you choose to focus on, right?
00;23;19;08 - 00;23;27;07
Sarah Delevan
How you price your product, and if you are laser focused on that as the CEO of your company, you can and will be profitable.
00;23;27;23 - 00;23;33;07
Djenaba
So are you looking at those costs on a monthly basis? Like what is your recommendation to your client?
00;23;33;14 - 00;23;56;26
Sarah Delevan
That's a great question. We look at the piano and the, you know, the numbers in the piano on a monthly basis, right. And we break down those cost of goods sold into each of those three categories, and we're looking at them over time. So I like to do a running 12 months. So for the last 12 months we can see where have our cogs been and you'll have a little bit of fluctuation.
00;23;57;17 - 00;24;21;25
Sarah Delevan
But if you got a giant peak or something is happening that seems really out of whack, or if slowly, let's say your ingredient costs are going up, up, up, up, up, you will see it before it becomes too dangerous or too late to turn around. So absolutely look at your now on a monthly basis, but go a step further and track the specific.
00;24;21;25 - 00;24;39;24
Sarah Delevan
And I wouldn't do dollar amounts, I like to say do a percentage of revenue because that's really going to tell a better story than just looking at the dollar amounts that you're spending. So track that percentage over time and make sure that you're hitting the targets that you want to be hitting, not necessarily in a particular month, but on that 12 month average.
00;24;39;24 - 00;24;42;11
Sarah Delevan
And kind of keep an eye on what's happening there.
00;24;43;05 - 00;25;03;22
Djenaba
That's great. That's so helpful. Thank you. So I want to talk about you and kind of what you do outside of your business, because I don't I can speak for myself like we just took our first vacation in five years in December. Wow. Just which was it was amazing. But it just seems like it was a it was a really long time.
00;25;04;07 - 00;25;12;19
Djenaba
So I'm just wondering, like, what and what do you what do you do for fun? Have you been able to get away? Tell us, like, how do you like kind of rest outside of your business?
00;25;12;22 - 00;25;35;00
Sarah Delevan
That's a good question. Reading is really important for me. There's something about reading that sort of calms the nervous system. So I will confess that I usually read business books because I can't get that relaxed and like read fiction. It's just not in me. But I do read. I try to read like every morning just to kind of center myself a little bit before the day starts.
00;25;35;28 - 00;25;37;29
Sarah Delevan
I took up golf during the pandemic.
00;25;38;08 - 00;25;40;12
Djenaba
He's okay.
00;25;40;12 - 00;25;57;05
Sarah Delevan
My husband, you know, was just like a golfer for fun. And we had he had friends that lived in the area and they would go golfing from time to time and then they moved away. And he was like, well, now who do I go golfing? And I was like, Well, I could go with you if you really want me to.
00;25;57;05 - 00;26;16;22
Sarah Delevan
I've been golfing once before and I was so terrible. I was like, I'm never doing this again. But I went to the Goodwill and I got some golf clubs and we went out and now I don't do like full course, like long golf courses, but we do what we call pigeon putt. So it's like shorter, shorter distances. And so so we do that.
00;26;16;22 - 00;26;34;02
Sarah Delevan
And I have to say that I've learned a lot about myself. I learned a couple of life lessons, I think while on the golf course about taking your time and not being worried about what other people think about you. And it's also just kind of nice to walk and sort of be in nature in a way. So I love that.
00;26;34;13 - 00;26;53;20
Sarah Delevan
And then my other favorite thing to do, believe it or not, is to go on road trips. I will drive in a car for 12 hours really, at all? Yes. And it's funny because I'm like a go, go, go kind of person and I will work. It's hard. It used to be hard for me to shut off, you know, work.
00;26;53;20 - 00;27;13;05
Sarah Delevan
But you can put me in a car on a road trip and I will drive for 12 hours and not be mad about it. So we actually just drove to Portland couple maybe a month ago. Now to the Good Food Mercantile up there. And then we drove from there to Eureka, California, which is like a seven or so hour trip and then back to L.A. And I loved every second of it.
00;27;13;05 - 00;27;16;01
Sarah Delevan
And I just think it's a really cool way to see the United States, too.
00;27;16;14 - 00;27;32;08
Djenaba
Yeah, that's great. So we have something at Hudson Kitchen called the Money Bell that we ring when we are celebrating. Anything could be, you know, someone got a new retail partner. It could be someone got their paycheck or whatever it could be. So we wanted to find out what you're celebrating right now.
00;27;32;18 - 00;27;53;05
Sarah Delevan
That is such a good question. I feel like and depending on the day of the week, it would be a different answer. But right now what I'm celebrating and really proud of is refocusing on my business. I think it's really easy to get pulled in a lot of directions by, you know, people with good ideas or like we were talking about before, like things you maybe should be doing or you feel like you're supposed to be doing.
00;27;53;18 - 00;28;24;28
Sarah Delevan
And that kind of happened to me this year. I was doing a lot of education externally and it was amazing. But I realized that I was missing digging into what we're trying to build here at zero 11 Consulting and the Good Food CFO. And I just feel really happy and kind of celebrating that, like we're building a business on our own terms and that which is a big deal for us and a lot of our our customers and clients and just excited about it.
00;28;25;02 - 00;28;27;17
Sarah Delevan
You know, I don't know if that's like a super good.
00;28;27;18 - 00;28;37;13
Djenaba
Answer, but that's great. All right. That's so great. Well, thank you so much for being on the Food Means Business podcast, Sara. Tell everyone how they can find you and work with you.
00;28;37;19 - 00;28;55;29
Sarah Delevan
Of course, so you can visit Sara Delavan dot com. I love hanging out on Instagram at Sara dot Delavan dot Consulting. Come say hi please and then you can check out the Good Food CFO podcast. We release new episodes every other Monday and you can find that on any podcasting platform.
00;28;56;20 - 00;28;57;27
Djenaba
Oh, thank you so much.
00;28;58;01 - 00;29;00;15
Sarah Delevan
Thank you.