CEO Kid – Mandee Widrick

If you like horses or you have children who love to write or that you are homeschooling this is a MUST READ article for you! Mandee Widrick is an amazing writer, young entrepreneur, and networker!  In less than one month she grew her facebook fan page to over 1000 and is getting ready to launch her site – Horse Family Magazine in the mean time you can get details here:  http://mandeewidrick.com/horsefamily/

Here is the entire interview I did with her and you can listen to her by clicking on her name in the Audio Section of the site for Members:

Sarah – Well, hello, I’m Sarah Cook with Raising CEO kids and today I’m here with Mandee Widrick who is not a teen CEO but she is a young CEO and she started when she was in her teens.  And I just am so impressed with what she’s already accomplished.  And so Mandee, why don’t you go ahead and tell us what you’re doing, how you got started and where people can find you on the web?

MW -   Thanks so much Sarah.  Well, I started writing when I was about 15 years old.  And at the time I really didn’t know how I wanted to work that into a career.  And about the time I turned 17, I started writing for various magazines and it eventually turned into an opportunity where I started writing for a Bit and Bridle magazine, which was started by a friend of mine.  And eventually she didn’t want to do that anymore and so I took over the business and now I’m working that into basically a new magazine that’s going be called Horse Family.  So you can find that website and it’s still in progress.  So it’s not actually completely finished yet.  But the magazine is horsefamilymagazine.com.  And my other links are you can find me on Twitter at Twitter.com/mandeewidrick.  That’s Mandee with two e’s.  I spell it a little bit different.  And I’m also on Facebook and LinkedIn and all of those social networking sites.

Sarah – That’s great.  Yay!!  It’s fun to know where to find people I think.  All right, so tell me a little bit about what do you like most about writing?

MW -   Well, I really enjoy just the creativity, \ the fact that I can come up with an idea and then turn it into something even bigger.  And right now I don’t even do as much writing as I used to because I have writers for my magazine and I spend a lot of time probably more on the marketing aspect of all of it.  But I really enjoy that with my business, I can meet so many great people; it’s opened up a lot of doors for me.  So I think that’s probably what I enjoy more is the marketing aspect more than the writing.

Sarah – Okay.  So tell me how do you do that?  Where do you find advertisers for the magazine, where do you find the writers, how do you go about that marketing aspect of your business and just give some tips to CEO kids that will be listening.

MW -   Well, I’ve done a lot on the internet.  I’m learning to do more in person now because I have to get out there and sell a little more than I used to as I’ve been growing.  But as far as the internet goes, that’s where I have found all of my writers and most of my advertisers actually.  And part of it was just with the social media websites like Facebook and Twitter.  I don’t really use MySpace anymore.  I do have a MySpace page but I don’t use it as much because Facebook and Twitter have really been huge in connecting with people and it’s where I have found most of my writers.  And another thing that I’ve done too is I was homeschooled so I’ve been able to reach out to the home school community a little bit and say, “Hey I’ve got this opportunity.”  And I have found a few home school kids that want to help out and I have found other, there are adults that I have writing for me as well.  So I’ve got somewhat of a little age range going on there; a variety of ages.  But, it’s all researching into the area of interest that people have.  Getting on there, searching for keywords on Twitter and everything and that’s how I connected with a lot of these people that have helped me out.

Sarah – That’s great.  So do you pay all of them or is it kind of pro bono that they get to do a little bit of, have their name and where they’re located?  I mean how do you do that as a young person in business starting out, how did you get the writers and still make the cash flow happen?

MW -   Well, I haven’t paid any of them as of yet.  It’s something that I’m working into fairly soon I hope.  But right now, people just want their name out there and that’s how I started out when I was about 15 is I really didn’t care if they were paying for my articles or not.  I just started sending them in all over.  And then when they started getting published, I was able to start building a portfolio.  And I think that a lot of young people can do that and it’s great if you make some money on the side.  But it’s also a great way even if you don’t get paid to get your name out there because that looks impressive on the portfolio or a resume as you begin to get older and pursue something.  So none of them are paid right now.  But they really enjoy writing for me and seeing their name in print.  And sometimes I do swap for some advertising.  It depends on who my writer is.

Sarah – That’s great.  That’s so good.  So what, helped you come up with the idea?  Were you always interested in horses or was it, is it something you just kind of happened upon because you were writing for that friend of yours?  How did that happen?

MW -   Well, the magazine was started by a friend of mine and she was another homeschooled girl and so we kind of had a connection that way.  She wasn’t even from the same state.  She’s from Georgia and I live in New York and so with email, you know how that goes.  Emails get forwarded around and so it was, I got an email one day about the magazine and that’s how I heard about it.  But I’ve always been interested in horses.  I’ve had horses since I was 13 and I’ve always loved them.  I still have some now.  I’ve got one riding horse and then I have several mini horses here on our family’s farm.  So it’s certainly something that I’ve been interested in for a long time.  And the magazine just kind of added onto that.  It was putting two interests together basically.

Sarah – Okay.  That’s awesome.  So what are some of the costs of involved in doing a magazine?  Is it actually in print or is just an online magazine?   And if it is in print, how did you find people to publish it?

MW -   It is in print.  We’re working on getting it on both in print and online but the changes that we’re working on when it becomes Horse Family.  But with the printing, printing costs are very expensive.  So as a young person, it really took a lot of research to how to figure out how to get out there and sell ads.  And it’s something that I was not at all familiar with.  And when I took over the magazine, I didn’t even know what it all would entail.  So I kind of jumped head first into this thing and it had no idea of what I was getting myself into.  But after I started printing, I only printed one copy when I said, okay, I found this out of my bank account.  Something else has to do this.  So that’s when I started perusing the advertising, there was a printer already that my friend had been using.  But I started doing some shopping around and I actually found the printer that I used for a while over Twitter.  And so it was just finding mutual connections and just kind of talking to people and saying, hey this is what I’m doing.  And someone eventually suggested that I try a company that’s local and so I did.  And it’s not hard when you have people especially online or people that you know that are in a business to ask around and see who knows who.  So that’s how I ran across my printing company.

Sarah – That’s great.  So tell us about selling the ads?  Because I know that sales in general really sometimes really terrifies people.  So how did you, what do you do, how did you start that?  What was your first sales call like when you were trying to get the ads for the magazine so that you could actually get published and move forward?

MW -   Well, I can’t remember what my first call was but I did a lot of my sales online for quite a while and that helped.  But now I’m actually getting out.  And it took me a while to actually grasp the whole concept of selling ads because it’s something that’s a little more, I don’t know if I want to call it complicated but it definitely takes a little more effort than one might realize.  So what I’m starting to do now is get out and shadow people who are in ad sales.  So I’m reaching out the community and trying to find people locally and even nationally that are familiar with the sales methods and techniques and they’re actually letting me come in and shadow them.  So I’m still learning.  I actually had a meeting just yesterday with a local newspaper and their ad sales director said that I could come in and shadow their ad sales team next week; so I’m excited about that.  But it’s really about just finding people that have experience in what you’re looking to do.  Because if you can get education that way, it’s a great way if you can get out and get hands on it’s really important.

Sarah – That sounds good.  So basically you’re looking for mentors.  In every different aspect of what you’re trying to do, you’re looking for mentors and for connections.  I love that you’ve done that.  So are you in college too, are you planning on going to college, are you just focusing mostly on your business right now?  What are your plans?

MW -   I am not in college and I haven’t gone to college at all.  And so when people see that I’m doing, they look at me and they’re like, really.  Because I’ve never been to college.  What I do, what I have done is I’ve utilized my local small business development center here in New York state and they have free business advisors that are paid by the government and I can go in there and meet with them and help me put a business plan together.  So I’ve worked with them quite a bit but I haven’t done any college and I probably won’t at this point because I’m doing pretty well for myself and I don’t really see how that would even fit in now at this point.  So I figure if my business is doing well and I’m actually working on starting a second business too.  If everything is working out well, then I don’t really see it in the near future.

Sarah – Right.  So tell me a little bit about homeschooling and how do you feel like that either helped or opened your eyes with the business world?  Because I’ve heard that there’s lots of different kids in lots of different situations.  So do you feel like homeschooling helped you because of your flexibility that you have with it?  Or tell me a little bit more about that.

MW -   Well, I definitely feel like it tapped into my creativity and I can’t really say one way or the other.  I was always homeschooled so I can’t really compare it to public school or private school or anything like that.  But I really felt like I can specifically remember and this is the story I always tell.  My mom sat me down at the table with my siblings one day and we had never really done anything quite like that.  And she said, here I want you guys to all write something like poetry.  And I remember just writing a poem off the top of my head.  And because it wasn’t just some kind of strict assignment.  It was just like here’s the paper, now write.  It was just really tapping into my creativity.  And I remember that as my starting point because she read the poem later, my mom did and she really liked it.  And because I felt like I had something, I kept writing.  And it was probably only a couple months later when I won $200.00 for some poetry and I’d only been writing at that time just for a couple of months.  And that’s what really gave me a kicker was just seeing that I had a talent that I could actually use to make money.  That $200.00 bucks, when you’re 15, $200.00 is a lot of money.  Yeah, I was really excited.

Sarah – That is so great.  So what do you feel like are your daily and weekly efforts that you use to grow?  Do you have like a certain schedule or do you just kind of go off the cuff?  What do you feel like you use to be strategic in growing your business?

MW -   Well, I really believe that a schedule is very important and it’s something that I’ve really only been learning as of lately I guess you could say.  Because for a couple of years now I’ve worked at home and it worked out fine.  It was good because I was young and I wasn’t really in the place where I could be working outside of the home anyways with my business just because of money and whatnot.  But, I recently rented out an office which is where I am right now.  And having an office and growing to work in the morning and getting up early and having a schedule laid out.  And even if it’s just a tentative schedule, it’s important I feel because I was just very up in the air about everything and I feel like I wasted time just on my computer.  I got distracted easily and being at home and we live on a farm and there’s a lot of animals, I have other siblings that were still being homeschooled.  And it was a bit districting.  But I think a schedule is important regardless no matter where you are.  If you got to do it at home, and I know with kids, most of them are going to work from home so I think they should have a schedule laid out because I just feel it’s just really important when it comes to being successful.

Sarah – That’s awesome.  So what do you feel like your parents did really well in supporting you?  Were they totally hands off, were they really, really involved as your business grew?  Tell us a little bit more about that.

MW -   My mom especially was always very supportive of what I was doing.  Both of my parents were and I think that that it was important to see that they took interest.  It wasn’t, I can’t say that they could really relate to what I was doing because I don’t come from an entrepreneurial family whatsoever; which I’ve been told is uncommon with a kid to just start their own business when the parents just have no background in it.  And so it was interesting to see how that worked out.  But they definitely, my mom was definitely very supportive of everything I was always doing which helped.  She had said, that’s no good, that probably would have kind of shot me down and I may not have continued doing it.  So to have the encouragement even though she didn’t always connect with everything I was doing and she still doesn’t now.  She just says, “Okay, Mandee, you’re busy, you go do your thing and that’s all good.”  Because I’m kind of doing things that are way over her head now.  But definitely the support and encouragement was very important to me when I was younger.

Sarah – That’s awesome.  So how do you balance it all?  How do you balance the family life?  Are you still living at home or do you have your own apartment now?  How do you balance all of those things?

MW -   I’m still living at home just because with the business being so new, it was either apartment or office and I picked the office.

Sarah – Yeah, no kidding.  I would have too probably.

MW -   Yeah, you know and I live at home on a farm and I really am quite happy there for now.  In a couple of years I don’t know how soon it come, I guess it’s going to depend on my income.  But I’ll probably move out eventually and get my own place.  But I don’t mind at all living at home with my family.  And getting the office is definitely, it’s been helping me take more time out to do things with my family.  This is the first year that I’ve really I think starting kicking in and helping more even with things because I’ve had some structure this time around just this year; the past few months especially.  So with the office and going to work in the morning, coming home in the evening and then helping with things around the house and doing things with my family, it’s definitely better now that I can separate work from family .  I think it’s definitely helped a lot.

Sarah – That’s good.  So if we only had like a few more minutes to five some tips, what would you really love to share with kids around the world that are either in business or want to be in business?

MW -   Well, I think some of the important things are not to be afraid when you’ve got an idea.  For me, I remember a lot of things used to scare me a lot and it’s something I’ve had to overcome.  And it’s really just getting out there and being courageous and it’s really important to have courage when you’ve got something good and you believe in an idea.  You’ve got to be courageous enough to get out there and actually start doing it.  And someone actually just said something to me a couple weeks ago that just struck me and it was that people have so many great ideas but most of the people never actually follow through with them.  And think about all the great things that could be accomplished and done in the world if all of these ideas were put to good use.  And so I think that’s important is just be brave and get out there and don’t be afraid to meet people.  It’s really going to help you in the long run.

Sarah – That’s awesome.  I think that you’re right.  A lot of times fear stops people, especially kids because they’re like well I can’t do that, I’m so young.  So how did you overcome that for yourself?  How did you overcome the fear that maybe you were a little too young to start doing whatever you were doing?  Or did you ever even have that fear?

MW -   Well, I had fear, it wasn’t so much the fear of being young because I always did like standing out.  I liked going against the flow and doing some things different.  But it was more of the fear of talking to new people and doing things that I may not completely understand.  That was a lot of stuff that I did not understand.  And it was I guess getting tossed at is just trusting that things are going to turn out the way that they were meant to in the long run and having faith that I could do it and believing in myself and my abilities.

Because there’s a quote from Les Brown that really stood out to me just recently as well and I was watching one of his clips on YouTube and he was speaking at one of his seminars.  And he’s one of the world’s greatest motivational speakers from what I’ve seen of him.  And he said to his audience, he’s like, “You have greatness in you.”  And that’s just something important that we all need to remember is that we all can do great things no matter what other people believe of us, it doesn’t matter how old we are.  And so it wasn’t so much my age as it was I didn’t know that I believed in my abilities.  So it was just realizing that I did have something good offer and I needed to use it.

Sarah – Oh Mandee, that’s great.  I love that you shared that because he really is a great speaker and I love that you articulated that we all have greatness.  And I’m so glad that you’re believing in your greatness now because look what you’re doing and of all the things that you’re going to accomplish in the future as well and the inspiration that you’ll be just so many people whether they’re young kids or whether they’re adults.  I think you have an awesome work that you’re doing and I just applaud you for it.  So as we wrap up here, just share one more time where everybody can find you and maybe some of the resources that you’re looking for?  Are you still looking for writers, are you still looking for people to do advertising?  Just share those things too.

MW -   Yeah.  Well, they can find me on web, horsefamilymagazine.com.  And I also have a personal blog where I upload different videos and different blogs and what not.  I have a video post that I put up fairly often called, “The minute with Mandee.”  And it’s just short little clips that have different tips and ideas for people in business or even just life tips in general.  And so that’s something fun that I do on my blog; mandeewidrick.com.   And again that’s Mandee with two e’s; M-a-n-d-e-e.  And I definitely am always on the lookout for writers and advertisers and I have several people lined up already for my writing but I’m always willing to take a look at any submissions or pictures or anything like that.  So if anyone wants to get in touch with me, they definitely can do that.