All luv, no hype, & dope as fluff.
Head Mutha Fluffa Therese Dozier, founder of LUV SPUN, turned her events based cotton candy business around in 2020 by moving her Artisanal Candy Floss to Shopify.
LUVSPUN provides a unique flavor experience beyond the pink or blue cotton candy you’re used to. Their branding is fun, edgy, and their 200 flavors are unique and fantastic.
LUVSPUN is more than just candy floss. It was founded to teach kids with Autism Spectrum Disorder that they can create their own future success through entrepreneurship and that they are completely capable of carving out their own space in this world and that their differences should be celebrated.
The Unofficial Shopify Podcast
4/27/2021
Kurt Elster: Oh, wow. Spring is here. Summer’s right around the corner. And we’re gonna be going back to amusement parks, and carnivals, and state fairs, and I cannot wait. Roaring ‘20s. Life is returning. And as we’re out there engaging in some frivolity… We’ve earned it after the dumpster fire that was 2020. I think we should all take a moment and get some cotton candy. The next time you see cotton candy, try it. Relive that childhood experience. And I have with me today someone who is an absolute expert in cotton candy. I am joined by the head mutha fluffa at LUVSPUN, Therese Dozier. And this is a Shopify store where you can buy artisanal spun candy, right?
Therese Dozier: Yes. Absolutely. How are you?
Kurt Elster: I am doing very well now that you are here. I have been… We scheduled this like a month ago and it is… I’ve been looking forward to it. Someone introduced me to your store. I thought it was the coolest thing ever. And immediately I reached out, you said, “I would love to do your show.” And then I put it out of my head intentionally so that I would be fresh, so that you could tell me your story and I’d be hearing it for the first time.
Therese Dozier: Yay! How exciting. So, yeah.
Kurt Elster: I am thrilled about it. So, let’s start with what… Tell me in your own words what is LUVSPUN?
Therese Dozier: LUVSPUN is an artisanal cotton candy company that makes over 200 flavors of clean cotton candy. We make it from organic raw sugar and all-natural flavors, and we make it with no hype, which means we don’t have any artificial colors or flavors, and that means that everything you see is all fluffy, it’s white, it’s no preservatives, doesn’t give you that gnarly headache. It’s just… It’s good. And the flavors are like a flavor explosion in your mouth. They’re amazing.
Kurt Elster: What are some of the flavors here?
Therese Dozier: So, like my favorite is pineapple, and you can shake Tajin on it, and I don’t know if a lot of your listeners are familiar with Tajin, it’s like this spicy, lemony, Mexican seasoning that you’re supposed to put on fruit. It’s delicious. So, like pineapple, we have watermelon, we have cucumber, crème brulee, creamsicle-
Kurt Elster: Crème brulee. Oh my gosh.
Therese Dozier: Yeah. Yeah. And it tastes, like you taste the brulee part, like that’s the amazingness of it.
Kurt Elster: A Tajin cotton candy. Now I’m interested.
Therese Dozier: Oh, yeah. I mean, it’s optional. If you order that bundle, which is called I Love Tajin, we send you little packages of Tajin to put on it. So, it’s optional. You don’t have to. It’s not a commitment.
Kurt Elster: So, when I think of cotton candy, I think of the big… You get the thing as big as your head and it’s on a stick.
Therese Dozier: Right. And you can get pink or blue.
Kurt Elster: Yeah. And pink or blue. Horrifying, unnatural colors. And I don’t imagine it as like… I never would have thought of it as a thing that would store or ship. What madness is this that you said, “You know what? I’m gonna send cotton candy through the mail.” This would have never occurred to me. Where do you get the idea? How did this start? Does this work? Can I actually ship this?
Therese Dozier: It probably wouldn’t have occurred to me unless COVID happened. So, we were primarily event-based. We would show up at popups, we’d do corporate events, we did some really high-end wineries here in California, we did Google our first year. We were out and about, and we were at popups, and marketplaces, and private events. And then COVID hit, and we were like… You know, I felt really silly trying to… Everybody had this collective, “What are we gonna do? Are we gonna die? Is this the end?” Right?
So-
Kurt Elster: Yeah. March 2020. I will never forget it. It like… I’d wake up every morning and for a moment, I had forgotten about the pandemic, and then I would go, “Oh, right.” And just the wave of anxiety would come over me. And then over time, we sort of discovered like, “Okay, maybe things aren’t… We’re gonna be okay but we’re still waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
Therese Dozier: Yeah. Absolutely.
Kurt Elster: And then slowly we started figuring our way out of it. Now, I’m not dismissing the horrible experience we all had, but we survived.
Therese Dozier: Yeah, for sure. I stayed in the bed probably for the better part of that month between March and April and just kind of like didn’t understand, right? Was freaking out. And so, I saw these businesses trying to pick back up online and I’m like, “What the heck’s going on?” And then people were like, “Hey, are you selling?” And I’m like, “We’re about to die. This is the silliest thing.”
Kurt Elster: Right.
Therese Dozier: People need masks, and alcohol, and hand sanitizer. Nobody needs cotton candy. But you know, there was a lot of people who encouraged us to kind of transition into a packaged good because people needed that joy, you know? It was that time where everybody was like, “Screw it. Who knows how long we’re gonna be in here. The summer body’s not happening this year, so let’s get this sugar.”
Kurt Elster: Oh. Yeah, I know. Remember when they told us like, “Oh, well, everybody’s just gotta lock down for two weeks.”
Therese Dozier: Two weeks. Yeah, it’s just crazy. It’s just a time warp. You just lost an entire year of your life.
Kurt Elster: So, how long had you been… You would show up to events and you’d sell cotton candy. And you were doing this for like big corporate events, that kind of thing. When did you start that?
Therese Dozier: So, I started in 2018, but I had actually had the idea since 2014. I love cotton candy and I had been to a bunch of events and I had gone to this wedding event and someone was serving just the regular old cotton candy, and I was like, “This is great at weddings, but this could be so much better. It could be fancy. It could be flavorful. I know there’s a way to make it cool.” And so, that planted the seed in 2014. And then 2018, I had been working… I worked corporate-wise as a marketer at that point and I did digital marketing, and before that I was a scientist. I’ve had a bunch of lifetimes in my corporate experience.
Kurt Elster: A scientist!
Therese Dozier: Yeah. I was for about 10 years. But I was just tired of working for the man if you understand.
Kurt Elster: Oh, 100%.
Therese Dozier: Yeah. It was just really… It was not only like the 9:00 to 5:00, but I ran into… As someone with a very outspoken personality, and someone who is very creative, and is very… I guess strong willed. It was pretty difficult for me to fit in in a corporate setting. I would never be able to speak or speak my mind. It was just really challenging and uncomfortable, and so I was like, “You know what? I’m gonna start this. I’m going to be rich.”
That’s it. You have to have this mindset, right? I didn’t want to start it and just be like, “Well, let’s see what it does,” because what’s the point? And I mean really, the idea was for me to not only create this cotton candy company which would take me out of this corporate situation, but also, I have two kids with autism, so I wanted to create an opportunity for them to not only have something to do, but to kind of see this model of entrepreneurship as a way for them to create their own lane. I wasn’t… You know, they may not go to college. They may, they may not. But I wanted to make sure that they knew that they had options to create their destiny.
And so, it was really an opportunity for me to teach them.
Kurt Elster: That’s amazing. I mean, I relate in that I always viewed myself as outspoken to the point of being contrarian at times, as a creative, really very much applied that label to myself, saw myself that way, and I wanted to be independent. For a variety of reasons, but really who doesn’t? And that kind… When you have that personality, and then you try and work in like a big team, big corporate office, where because of the size they need to really operate on a lot of standards, and practices, and this is the system, and that’s that, and you very quickly get labeled as difficult in that scenario, right?
Therese Dozier: Right, right.
Kurt Elster: And then on top of it, to be a woman and a person of color, which obviously, I am neither.
Therese Dozier: Oh, yeah. A Black woman. Not a… My label is Black woman.
Kurt Elster: If I have that fear. Yeah, like if I’ve got that fear, it’s gonna be 10 times worse for you. So, 100%, that financial independence, or getting that financial independence and that total independence really… I respect that as the choice. And then on top of it, to be like, “Hey, for your kids, to say look, you can design your own lifestyle and you can thrive.” Wow.
Therese Dozier: Absolutely. I mean, it’s important. That was modeled to me. I had a grandmother who was… She was an antique broker and she had tons of real estate. And what else did she do? Oh, she was a real estate agent, as well, and she was a nurse. She was a nurse in World War II. She was amazing. And my mother ran a business. And it’s just been modeled to me, you know? Just even if you did have a 9:00 to 5:00 or regular job, that multiple streams of income, if you have more time, if you have enough time to sit your butt on the couch when you get home and flip the remote control, then you can do something else with yourself.
Kurt Elster: Absolutely. But it’s like you have to… You can’t force it. You have to want it. I think that’s-
Therese Dozier: Yeah. No, I mean, it’s definitely something that’s in you. Entrepreneurship is not for no suckers. It’s not for no punks. It’s definitely for people who have that grind. You know, people who have that fire in their heart, or those people who go to a 9:00 to 5:00 and say there’s gotta be something else. I mean, and nothing… Not saying anything bad about people who have 9:00 to 5:00s or who are happy in that space. I was once married to someone in that space and they thrived, you know?
It’s just I just know it’s not for me.
Kurt Elster: Yeah. And I think that’s how it works, like you have to know that. Look within, and acknowledge it, and own it, and then from there, okay, now I’ve… You’ve really asked yourself why not me. And once you’ve done that, then it starts.
Therese Dozier: Yeah. Absolutely.
Kurt Elster: So, you start this event business to do artisanal cotton candy. And you were formerly a scientist, which I think is incredible. I love science backgrounds. Okay, so we’ve got this cotton candy business that you saw it at a wedding, and you went, “I could do that but better. It doesn’t have to be these lame flavors. It could be really cool stuff.”
Therese Dozier: I incubated that for years and I would tell everybody. People thought I was crazy. I’m like, “Yeah, when I start my cotton candy business.” And they’re like, “Okay. All right.” You know? They’re like, “What the hell? Cotton candy?” They didn’t think it was important. And I think one of the things behind our business is like it’s LUVSPUN, the name. It’s made from love. It’s like our whole steelo, I guess you would say, is just about love. You know, sharing love, loving our community, loving people who usually aren’t loved, showing love to yourself by purchasing some cotton candy. You know, I mean it’s our theme. It is our mission.
Kurt Elster: Your branding. Just phenomenal.
Therese Dozier: It is our mission. Thank you so much.
Kurt Elster: I love it. It’s like the kind of branding… It’s a thumb stopper. It immediately grabbed me when I got… Okay, I gotta know more. So, when it was the events business, did you… Was it LUVSPUN then? Did it have the branding? Or did that come as part of the pivot?
Therese Dozier: No. Absolutely. It’s always been LUVSPUN. The branding is all homemade. That’s what I spend my energy doing. It’s something that really relaxes me. And just making sure that it’s a fun vibe, like I think that… Look, cotton candy’s been around for 120 years, you know? And so, it’s not something that is… I’m not recreating the wheel here, so I wanted to make sure that when you saw LUVSPUN, that you got a different impression of cotton candy. And what cotton candy is in the market right now is either fair food, which is the pink or blue, or then you see there’s cotton candy carts that exist and they’re all ethereal, and fluffy, and pink, and girly, and all that.
You know, I wanted this to be inclusive, and I wanted it to be inclusive of all genders, all ages, and I wanted it to be edgy. Who needs fluffy, woo woo cotton candy anymore, right? And this is different, so it’s got all these flavors. Let’s just turn it on its head. So, we use a lot of cheeky puns, and I’m the head mutha fluffa. I call our customers lovers, because I don’t want to call them mutha fluffas, because somebody might get a little offended. But, I mean we’ve gotten some pushback. We had somebody on Instagram say, “We just hate when cotton candy companies use bad puns to try and sell.” And I’m just like, “Whatever. Keep scrolling.”
Kurt Elster: Hold on. Who is this person who’s that invested in all cotton candy companies’ copywriting? What a bizarre stance to take.
Therese Dozier: Listen, it is absolutely absurd. And then I went and clicked on their profile and it was like this entire bikini page of bikini ladies, and I was like, “Really? You’re sitting here, buddy, objectifying women, but you want to tell me about my puns? Give me a break.”
Kurt Elster: I know. The loudest critics are the one who rarely create anything, I’ve discovered.
Therese Dozier: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.
Kurt Elster: Like when you get those crappy drive-by comments and then you click through and it’s like, “Oh, I see what’s going on here.”
Therese Dozier: Right, right.
Kurt Elster: Yeah, it’s like you’re just tearing me down because you didn’t do anything. It’s really easy to criticize. So, you’ve got this event brand. You’ve got the vision, the flavors, the branding, this just really super fun brand voice no matter what Instagram bikini weirdo says. Then a pandemic hits. We all freak out. We don’t know what to do. And it also feels like it’s such a dark, somber time that when… What do you do? And how are you supposed to talk? And what’s okay? And what’s acceptable? And when it’s like this tongue-in-cheek, mutha fluffa, cotton candy. Wow! You’re supposed to promote that during a pandemic when everyone’s terrified? It’s scary.
But then you realize people want a sense of normalcy and they want something-
Therese Dozier: To soothe them.
Kurt Elster: And they want a distraction. And so, people started asking you, like, “Can I just get it?” Okay, so what… How do we go from an events business, to let’s not get out of bed until this is over, to we’re now shipping this stuff nationwide?
Therese Dozier: So, the thing about the beginning of the pandemic was like… and we were locked in the house, it was really interesting, because previously… So, in 2018, we started. That was the end of November 2018. Spring of 2019, my mother fell ill unexpectedly, terminally ill, and I had to stop everything for four months and bond with her and care for her before she passed away. So, we were really like locked down. The business was still going through events and everything, but I lost my mom in August of 2018, so it was really challenging for the business, challenging for my creativity to kind of keep marketing it at that time, and so then, still a couple months in, here comes COVID and so I’m still grieving, I’m grieving whatever… I don’t even know what’s happening, right?
So, there’s this whole thing, and then people were like, “Hey, we need this cotton candy.” So, I had to kind of figure out an entirely new business. It’s crazy because LUVSPUN is not the same LUVSPUN that it was before the pandemic. And now that-
Kurt Elster: You are a much stronger person than I am. I mean, just the amount of adversity there, like I would have lost the ability to function at that point.
Therese Dozier: Oh, I did.
Kurt Elster: I really… I would not have been able to pivot a business.
Therese Dozier: Thank you. I appreciate that. I mean, it was either I sit and wallow in it or I make something happen, you know what I mean? And that’s just what it was. It wasn’t serving me to sit under the covers, under the electric blanket, and just look at the news and watch the numbers climb, and watch the people die on TV. No, that’s not my vibe, so let me-
Kurt Elster: The doom scrolling. Right? You forget about that but yeah, it’s like… and I learned it’s like a neurological function. Your brain wants you in this time of stress to just monitor communication. It’s like a neurological function you can’t resist and so you doom scroll, and you just like 24/7 news cycle, and all the systems are optimized to lock you into that, and you were able to break out of it.
Therese Dozier: Yeah. I was… You know, and as a scientist, I still have that scientific mind, so I’m trying to really wrap my head around everything as much as I can, you know? I’m not like this professional epidemiologist, but I’m trying to see if there’s any patterns that I can pick up from this news station, and this news station, and that became my job. But I didn’t want COVID from TV to be my job, so we pivoted.
And it started really with local delivery, just our neighbors, our local customers were like, “Hey, hey!” And so, we started selling through our Instagram, which was really fun. People were so excited. They would meet us at the door. We had contactless delivery, which was really cool. We showed people how we were taking precautions to make sure that their cotton candy wasn’t contaminated or that we were being safe with it.
And so, that started. We were delivering everywhere. We had our van that my mom had left, because my mom had just bought a van before she fell ill, so we had that branded with LUVSPUN, and so it was really special that we got to drive around town and deliver everything. And then just a little bit after… Then the supply chain froze up, right? So, we couldn’t get our containers, we couldn’t get our flavors, the sugar was dodgy because who wanted to go to the big box store to grab the sugar. Everything was a steaming hot mess, right?
Kurt Elster: There were just unending challenges. Yeah, the supply chain stuff, which we’re still experiencing.
Therese Dozier: Oh yeah! For sure. For sure. I mean, my containers, so we had done packaged goods. We had done it packaged here and there, really sporadically, at some of our popups. And it was a hit, but it was never going to be our primary avenue of distributing our cotton candy, because the experience of people coming up to our booth, and smelling it, and seeing it being made in front of them was really engaging for them.
So, yeah, so a couple… I think it was maybe a month or a month-and-a-half after we got started, the whole George Floyd thing happened, right? Here’s another blow. It was just like endless. And shortly after that we got quite a bit of support, being a Black-owned company, but then we got this email and we got-
Kurt Elster: Uh oh.
Therese Dozier: And we got this email, and it was from O Magazine, Oprah Magazine, right?
Kurt Elster: Okay.
Therese Dozier: And we were like, “All right, whatever.” Maybe people are just being really cheeky during the pandemic.
Kurt Elster: Oh, so you thought this was a prank.
Therese Dozier: Absolutely, like why… We are tiny, this tiny little company, right? Who’s looking for us? Nobody’s looking for us. And-
Kurt Elster: I have goosebumps thinking that you almost deleted Oprah’s email.
Therese Dozier: Well, I don’t delete any email, so that’s a whole nother story, but yeah, they were like, “Hey, we’re just wondering what your evergreen product and your seasonal products would be for the holiday season?” What? What are you talking about? Evergreen? Seasonal? Oh, we have product development to do.
So, I jammed everything together and it was like I guess a two-and-a-half-week time period before we sent stuff off to Oprah Magazine. And the wait after the two-and-a-half-week process was really terrible. I don’t think I slept. And like I said, before our business was just, our product was just this neighborhood product, so it wasn’t super fancy. People would order from us online, but it wasn’t crazy fancy. It was just like we had a label; the product spoke for itself. It was fun. We stuck some buttons in there, you know, called it a day.
But Oprah made us kind of get our crap together, right? We had to have a product card, and have a thank you card, and package this, and package that, and the filling. We had to make it an experience. And it was such a great opportunity because people are still locked indoors. They can’t go out. They can’t shop. So, getting this package in the mail that’s a party in a box makes our product stand out even more.
So, after two months we got the womp-womp letter which was okay. It was okay. It was heartbreaking because you get the call from Oprah, you’re like, “This is it, mom! I’m gonna be a star!”
Kurt Elster: The big leagues called. Yeah. It’s like the big leagues called, will you be ready? Will you answer?
Therese Dozier: Right.
Kurt Elster: You said, “Look, we’ll get ready right now.” And yes, please.
Therese Dozier: Yeah.
Kurt Elster: And then-
Therese Dozier: The thing that was so crazy about it, right before we got the email I was already preparing. I had already been interviewing copackers. I was trying to source stuff in bulk. I was trying to kind of develop a fulfillment plan. So, in my long sight, that was in my binoculars, trying to scale the business in a way that we can accommodate 100,000, however many orders at a time we would need, right?
Kurt Elster: Going backward, when you started you said, “I’m gonna start this and I’m gonna be rich.” This reminds me of a story, Jim Carrey famously wrote himself a check for something like $10 million or $100 million.
Therese Dozier: I love it.
Kurt Elster: It was like signed to Jim Carrey and it was dated like I’ve got 15 years to do it, something like that, and he held onto that check, and he actually… I believe he stuck it in when he buried his dad, he stuck it in his pocket. But it was about envisioning it and having that expectation for yourself.
Therese Dozier: Oh, yeah. Absolutely.
Kurt Elster: And I think when you set that standard high, even though when you do it, it feels crazy, it becomes… Over time, it starts to become self-fulfilling. And you know, you end up… If I say like the universe responds to it, that’s not scientific. That sounds crazy and woo woo. But I think it’s your actions and what you’re doing creates this ripple effect. And for you it seems to be happening.
Therese Dozier: Oh, thank you.
Kurt Elster: And I think that’s incredible.
Therese Dozier: I’m excited for it. This journey has been so exciting. It’s discouraging sometimes. I think I had… I went to one of my Shopify roundtables recently and there was this lady who was juggling five million things and I’m like, “I’m lucky if a shower.” I was having one of those moments and I started to feel bad about myself. But it was just like everybody’s like, “Look at what you’ve done in such a short time.” You know, I’m like, “Oh, I started my company in 2018,” but look at what you’ve experienced. Since 2018, you lost your parent, your only parent, and you have survived a pandemic. These are the conversations I have with myself, you know? So that I don’t get stuck in it.
And I think everybody has those moments where they get discouraged, but we… Oprah didn’t include us, which was completely fine, because we were not ready for Oprah. But at the end of the year, in November or December, we were… You know, everybody was applying to all these grants, and all these things for small businesses, and we applied to IFundWomen of Color, which is a pretty amazing program. And what they do is they teach women on their grant program sponsored by a bunch of different corporations, but they also provide the opportunity for women of color to learn how to crowdfund. So, we are currently in the middle of that accelerator to help us learn how to crowdfund. And through that, we actually kind of… You know, you have to develop your pitch, and you have to figure out really a lot of details about your business that you probably hadn’t thought of before because you want to explain it to people.
I could just be like, “Oh, I’m a cotton candy company.” But why are you a cotton candy company? So, during that process we kind of developed the understanding that entrepreneurship is an opportunity that a lot of people may not have, but I know one population, people with autism, and young individuals with autism like my son, who’s about to turn 15, they don’t have a lot of job opportunity once they mature out of the education system. So, my idea for LUVSPUN and the path that we are taking is to assist individuals with autism in learning job skills. And to create a repeatable, what do you call it, program, or repeatable model for this to be repeated across the country.
So, I mean it’s an easy enough job. It teaches counting money, execution of directives, sequence following, a lot of skills that people who have autism inherently excel at, so utilizing that skillset to create a fulfilling life for them. And their social skills, because if they’re out and about at an event, they may be a little shy, they may be a little outgoing just depending on the individual. It’ll help them practice their social skills, as well.
Kurt Elster: Oh, absolutely. All of those things. It’s incredible. And I think there’s a few families, family friends who I can think of, that would find opportunities like this incredible for their own children. So, when you launched the store on Shopify, when do you launch the Shopify store?
Therese Dozier: Oh, when did I? August? September?
Kurt Elster: Okay, so August 2020? Or August 2019?
Therese Dozier: Yeah. 2020.
Kurt Elster: Oh, okay. Wow. You know, it’s just not that long ago.
Therese Dozier: No.
Kurt Elster: How did you market it? How did you expect it to go?
Therese Dozier: I don’t know that I did market it. I think I switched it over and in the hindsight of being let down by not getting on the favorite things list, I was like, “You know what? I’m gonna let Oprah be my cherry on top, so let me position myself in a way that if I get that, I’m already ready.” So, I had a Facebook ads person help me kind of try and do a little quasi scale, you know? Trying to see where are there holes in the operation? Where are there holes in the fulfillment? And so, we kind of put some money behind some ads and he was like, “You can’t use this other website. You need to use Shopify.” And I was like, “Oh, okay, so let me switch on over.”
So, I did it in I think 24 hours. I did it myself.
Kurt Elster: Oh, wow.
Therese Dozier: It was super intuitive, super easy, and I just started the Shopify store, and he was like, “You did this in 24 hours?” I was like “Yeah. How hard is it?” So, it’s just being prepared. It’s like having all your assets in place, all your copy in place, and that’s just something that I had already done anyway, so yeah, I just got it going and that’s when we started our sales and our experiment. And I didn’t market it. I don’t market. I just do it off of Instagram right now and every once in a while, we’ll put some money behind some ads.
But we’re still dialing all of our marketing in. It’s like this omniverse of different channels, right? So, it’s just really word of mouth. We try and slide our product to some influencers when we have the opportunity. Networking, meeting a lot of different people is really helpful, and just selling it. I tell them our story and they’re like, “Oh, I don’t eat sugar.” But then by the time I finish talking to them they’re just like, “Okay, hey. Let me try this.” So, that’s where we are.
Kurt Elster: Yeah, that’s where… I was like, “Well, you know, my wife’s on a diet, so by extension of that I am on a diet, so I shouldn’t order this.” But now, clearly, I’m ordering some when we’re done with this interview. I think it’s time for our lightning round.
Therese Dozier: Oh.
Kurt Elster: All right. I have random questions and I want to know what characteristic are you most known for?
Therese Dozier: I think my positivity, and maybe my smile, and… Oh, it’s just one? I guess my relentless pursuit of what I want.
Kurt Elster: That’s such a fabulous thing to be known for, because it means that’s clearly what you’re doing, and I’d have to agree with it. What book belongs on everybody’s bookshelf?
Therese Dozier: In the Meantime by Iyanla Vanzant.
Kurt Elster: What’s that about?
Therese Dozier: It is about cleaning out your house from top to bottom, your figurative house, so whatever trauma or experiences that every individual has gone through in their life, you cannot have fulfilling relationships, whether they’re platonic, or romantic, or any kind of relationship, unless you’ve cleaned your house from the attic to the basement. And so, it gives you scenarios of individuals and how their blocks create continuing trauma for them, but it also gives you some tools to kind of clear those blocks, so I found that… I read that book years ago and found it very valuable.
Kurt Elster: This sounds like a good one for me too. I’ve put it in the show notes. It’s In the Meantime: Finding Yourself and the Love You Want.
Therese Dozier: Yep. That’s it.
Kurt Elster: All right. If you could instantly become an expert in anything, but it’s gotta be one thing, what do you become an expert in?
Therese Dozier: I can only reference what’s happening right now, and it would have to be Facebook ads.
Kurt Elster: It’s funny how many people say Facebook ads.
Therese Dozier: They drive me crazy.
Kurt Elster: It’s such a hard thing to master.
Therese Dozier: But it’s funny because like Shark Tank is like my guilty pleasure, right? So, I watch it and there’s these companies that get up there, and they’re like, “Oh yeah, we just threw a couple dollars.” They had no actual plan at Facebook and then they blew up. They sold a million dollars. They’re like, “Oh, we were just doing it ourselves.” I’m just like, “Okay. Well, show me.”
Kurt Elster: I think a lot of times they’re glossing over some important events in those stories, because it sounds way better to be like, “I don’t know what I’m doing, and a million dollars showed up at my front door.” That makes… That’s an interesting story. Versus like, “Well, we just kept trying, and failing, and iterating, and we blew through $10,000 on a credit card we couldn’t pay off, and then it worked.” That’s not… No one wants to hear that story.
Therese Dozier: Yeah. No, but you know, honestly, I think if I could learn anything was the question?
Kurt Elster: Yeah.
Therese Dozier: I would like to learn how to build stuff, like I find people who can either build stuff or play an instrument, I find that to be so amazing. Because it’s like creation, right? It’s you’re creating something from your hands, or from scratch, and I think that’s just so amazing.
Kurt Elster: Okay, so in your store, I want some cotton candy. You have a special offer for our folks. If I use code SHOPIFY15, what happens?
Therese Dozier: You’ll get 15% off and we can throw in some cool swag for you.
Kurt Elster: Oh my gosh. All right, I’m ordering when I get off the call.
Therese Dozier: Yes, please.
Kurt Elster: And finally, Therese, where can we learn more about you?
Therese Dozier: Well, you can follow us on Instagram @LUVSPUNFLOSS, and that’s L-U-V as in Victor-S-P-U-N-F as in Frank-L-O-S-S. And you can also find us at our website, which is LUV, L-U-V, dash S-P-U-N.com.
Kurt Elster: And I have included both of those in the show notes. Please check out the site. The branding is so cool. The flavors are so cool. I’m not kidding. I’m gonna place an order when we’re done with this.
Therese Dozier: Awesome. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it so much.