really skip the generations, right? Yeah. Yeah, it does sometimes. So that's, that's cool. I hope you,
you know, if you ever want to practice partner for Spanish, I got you.
That's right. So, um, as we, as we get ready to dive into your vision
and where, where your vision of T came from and, and being able to launch a T franchise,
you know, along the lines of Starbucks, um, what are three resources, three books that you'd
recommend to the audience if they've got a vision they want to fulfill? Well, let's see, I've been
exposed to so much stuff lately and, um, I did go, it was just kind of on a whim. I've been doing so
many cool networking events. And so, um, I went to, uh, I was actually a realtors of San Antonio. So
I think mostly women, women realtors of San Antonio, and they had a guest speaker and he had a book
called the Liberty of Our Language Revealed. And it's Thomas Blackburn. Um, I'm gonna wait, Thomas,
Thomas, we'll call him Thomas. Yeah, we can update in the show notes. That's okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
I'll find it. Thomas, um, he wrote a book called, um, Thomas Blackwell. That's what it is. Blackwell.
And so it's all about, uh, speaking positivity into existence and how the impact of our words,
um, on everything around us and inside of us. So I've always been a little bit of a, you know,
I've a little bit cheeky. And so I won't say that I, everything that comes out of my mouth is positive,
but, um, his, his talk really made me think about that, you know, especially as you try to manifest
something like, like a business, uh, and a business that's there to serve. Um, I, I got a lot out of
that. So, um, power of our language and, and what we say, what we think and all that stuff tied
together. Uh, another resource, um, I've, I'm doing a training right now called RFA, um, which is a
couple of gentlemen, young guys, young guys from Florida who've put together a pretty intensive
in and out kind of training for, um, marketing. So I think a lot of people in my shoes, small
business owners are going to be, um, struggling to pay for the marketing. And what I found is when I,
when I paid someone else to do it, um, I thought, ah, this is going to be great. They're professionals.
They'll put it together, but
I got a verse everybody's bottle over right now. 99% of marketers have no idea what they're doing,
but go ahead. Well, and you know what I found, I'm not going to say they know what they're doing,
but they were super sweet, super wonderful, but they just didn't, it wasn't me. You know, it wasn't
in my, they weren't in my head. They could, they weren't putting out what the way I would do it or
the way I would say it or the emphasis I wanted to, to put on it. So I really feel like in my case,
especially, it's not just a matter of not having, you know, a huge amount of money to put toward
marketing, but really it's just about like, I want my version to come out, my vision, my spin. So
I love that too, but I think that's enough. Well, that's good. And that's pointed in to,
to respect the reality too. I'm not calling out people for being bad, but marketers, we have a 99%
loss rate as businesses over 10 years, 96% literally lose and fail 4% hang on. And so there's
a lot of things that are broken there. Right. So it's important as business owners that we read
books like the E-Myth where, you know, somebody like Michael Berger, who has multiple victories
in business breaks down greater formulas and capacities to understand how do we find the ones
who are legitimate. And I'm very curious about the resource. I didn't catch it. How do you spell it?
What, what's the name of the resource? So it's, it's a RFA. So they named their company Rich from
Anywhere. And it's, they have, they have a couple of really cool things. I mean, they've actually
developed an actual software called Communicate. And it'll do everything for you. It puts all your
funneling, all of your emails, all of your marketing tools in one place. They provide a lot of
templates. They've really put a lot of work into it. And I was, I was pretty impressed. And they,
they just, they reel me right in. Nice. Well, that's awesome. Yeah. I'll definitely be taking
a look at it. We'll drop their link in the resources as well. The, the world of abundance,
right? The law of abundance says when we find opportunities for expansion, the neat thing about
expansion is you're not giving away the cake that you have. You're more like cultivating a farm
where you have more land to continue to grow what you're doing. Adding layers to your cake, right?
Yeah, exactly. Well, I'll set on the cake analogy. So we will cut to a break real quick. We'll be
right back and we'll dive in about tea, Starbucks, coffee, La Tida, all things wonderful with your
vision, Leah, and look forward to it. All right. Welcome in to Vision Pros Live with Jackson Calame.
I'm your show host. We will be doing interviews for visionary entrepreneurs and guest leaders
who are building fantastic visions out there. Hey, what's up Vision Pros. Welcome into another
episode of Vision Pros Live. I'm your show host, Jackson Calame, founder and CEO of First Class
Business. I'm excited to have a local native from the San Antonio area, Kerrville, and she's here
with me and I'm from San Antonio too, for those who don't know this. So this is exciting. So I'm
usually interviewing people from all over the nation and she's got a tea shop called La Tida
with super high quality teas. And I know personally how incredibly hard it is to run small local
businesses, starting from being born to a mother, a single mother of six, who ran a gas station
outside of San Antonio before there was anything outside of the 1604 loop. I know the sacrifice is
an effort that she put into that. We also had a little restaurant in it. She called Salt and Pepper
that was very quaint. And my grandpa owned a couple of gas stations as well. There was all
sorts of learning opportunities growing up, watching the different developments of businesses,
understanding how important small businesses are, not only to America and to our economy, but
to my personal life. I grew up around a lot of them. So I'm really happy that Leah's got her shop.
We look forward to seeing her shop continue to grow. We're going to talk about her desires for
expansion efforts to bring forward what Starbucks has done for cappuccinos, frappuccinos, all these
different drinks, because a lot of us don't know a whole lot about the world of tea. And so we're
going to explore that today. Before I bring Leah on stage, I also want to give a shout out to a few
of our sponsors. The two sponsors that are listed right now are actually clients of ours. And I only
work with people who inspire me and will inspire my four children as well. I got four children.
I want to see them know that I was a good example in life, that I worked with people who made things
that matter. Let's talk about Sean LeChuga and The Wellness Shop 365. Sean's actually become an
amazing friend of mine. He actually started also helping us with our pre-show processes of talking
to people for this show, because we saw opportunities to integrate our visions even further. What really
caught my attention about him as a holistic wellness professional was that they were asking
questions as deep as, what's your joy look like in life? What about spirituality in your career?
And not just your health, but your relationships. And were you volunteering? And Sean and Julianne
have created this 365 Wheel of Life to run an assessment on that. And of course, they also help
with the traditional aspects of health too, such as what's your diet and exercise look like, what
supplements are you taking? And I just found them an absolute joy to get to know and work with and
talk to. And we look forward to seeing their vision continue to expand. Melissa Gray of The Law Spot
is also one of those sponsors and having, again, helped so many different businesses out there that,
you know, if I were to ask, I've worked with a few thousand businesses, and if I were to ask them,
who is your legal counsel? 90% of them probably do not have somebody on hand. The ones that do,
likely just chose somebody and they probably pay retainers that are far higher than they need to.
And they're probably fairly disconnected from that general counsel. Melissa came onto the show and
I was a bit nervous about that because I'm a very big nurturer. I don't like people who are
conflict oriented and most attorneys I meet, they kind of get in your face pretty quick. She's a
nurturer. She's also got the ability to be the professional attorney and she makes legal simple
for people. She's based out of the Dallas area in Texas as well. And again, I found her to be an
absolute joy to work with. And she's building this program called The Law Spot that bridges a gap
between the free resources out there like LegalZoom and Crocodoc. And again, those New York style
retainers where you're getting charged by the minute and it's adding up fast and you're not
necessarily getting that type of representation that makes you feel comfortable. As a legal counsel,
as stewards of our lives, as stewards of our ventures and our visions, the more wise we become
with how we do business, the more we learn about what we need to know about what we don't know,
the more likely we're going to have success. So I hope that helps at least one of you. Feel free to
contact them or check their episodes out. And we have the Water Project. I'm running out of water
right now, but this is exactly why I bring this up. There's millions of people who would have to
walk miles to go get water in this world. I get to walk to my kitchen. I think most of you listening
in do as well. We don't have to go far for our basic resources. And so we have an opportunity to
raise awareness. We have an opportunity to give back. What I love about the Water Project is they
let you select the community that you're actually going to help. And you get to see how many people
are affected by it. You get to see what project they're going to complete. And you actually get
to see that project come to fruition as they email you with updates about what's going on,
how the process works. I love their transparency and how they go about this. And these kids that
I see on the screen right after this list of projects showcases that these kids celebrate
water like it's Christmas Day. And while that simultaneously breaks my heart, it reminds me
of the power and value and importance of bringing resources to people in the world. We've got 8
billion people in this world to help. So if you have a cause that's near and dear to your heart,
near and dear to your heart that you'd like us to contribute to, please drop that as a comment in
the links. We'll be happy to take a look at it. We might even feature it on the show as well.
So without further ado, we're going to explore La Ti Da, bringing the floor is on stage and
Leah, welcome to Vision Pros Live. Hello, hello. Thrilled to be here. Happy to have you. We're
going to dive right into this vision of tea and your life really. This is going to be very well
rounded. This is your show. So what is your vision for those that you serve? Well, I am just thrilled,
thrilled, thrilled to be here in San Antonio. I discovered this little tea shop in Kerrville
that was phenomenal. And that's where I finished up my teaching career. And I fell in love with
their tea. I've always been a tea drinker, but you know, you'll find that one restaurant, Bill Miller,
you know, has great tea. Yay. It's always fresh, always good. But this was next level. I mean,
these people- That's big. Yeah. I don't know anybody who doesn't rave about Bill Miller's.
So then we honored it. Yeah, they have done their part. But I tell you what, I think I was,
I think I was telling you that back in the eighties, when I finished college, we went on a little
Europe trip with a little group, you know, the little groups that you meet in school. And as an
English major, of course, we were all just thrilled to be anywhere near Shakespeare and all that. But
we are, we were in Europe and we're passing these amazing, you know, three, 400 year old cafes with
these gorgeous patios and everyone's drinking this amazing foamy, creamy stuff. And we're like,
what is that? What is that? And then anybody out there who's like me, you know, over 50,
you know that we did not have cappuccinos, lattes and espressos in the old days. We had a cup of Joe
and that was it. And if you got real cream, it was a banner day. So we were over there just floored
by the gorgeous fresh ground. I mean, they were making it. You could smell it coming out of the,
I mean, it was, it was like, it was a Mecca. So, you know, shortly after that, when I got back from
Europe and I started hearing about this new kind called Starbucks, you know, and they're bringing
in all these cappuccinos and lattes and it's like, you know, lot venti back then it was really, you
know, funny people laughing about the different funny sizes and the funny names. But, but you
know, now look at us today, 2024, you know, if anybody goes a day without Starbucks, it's, it's,
it's unusual, right? So it's exactly the same. I go for the cake pops. I'm all about my cake pops.
Oh, okay. That's good. Well, you know what you like. So it's exactly the same story with tea.
Just like with coffee over the centuries, the rest of the world, you know, has, has known all about
teas and the value of tea and the health benefits of tea and the amazing variety and just
soul soothing qualities of tea. Like I am just into it. You know what I mean? So I have a lot of
fun and I thought to myself, am I going to get tired of saying this ever? Because when people
come in the store, I immediately like stick their nose into a can of tea and say, smell this, smell
this. And we have, you know, we have zero artificial flavors in our tea. It's a hundred percent
natural. Most of it's certified organic. There's a few glitches there where you can't get the
certification, but most 90% of our teas are certified organic, but absolutely all natural.
So you're not going to have any artificial flavors and you're going to see giant pieces of coconut,
little tiny pieces of peach, little pieces of strawberries, dried orange. I mean, everything's
in there, you know, sourced from fruit and it's, it's amazing. So that is my, I'm just so excited
about the possibility of everybody learning about this and enjoying it kind of just like, like we
all did with coffee, except with coffee, you know, there's a downside to coffee. It's, it's pretty
harsh on your stomach. It's pretty, it can be, it can be very unhelpful as far as anxiety and stress
relief, you know, certain kind of stress relief that comes with having your nice cup of coffee.
But then there's that cap, that intense caffeine that I know personally, I can feel it in my heart.
You know, it's a little bit, it's a little bit much for me. So, and then plus with you have stomach
issues, then you can be really, you know, having some trouble when you're, when you're drinking too
much coffee. So some people have told me, you know, Hey, I'm trying to get off coffee. I'm trying to
cut back on coffee. So I got here for that mission as well, because we have so many, almond biscotti.
I'm just saying, it's my favorite.
That's cool. And I love your passion. I mean, that's what resonates about the vision. It's like,
okay, like I can, I can see, feel, smell, taste, touch the vision just by listening to you describe
it. And that shows the artistry in your passion and what you're up to. I got, so what about for
you? I'm looking at your, your vision from a more personal standpoint, what do you see for, and I'm
going to, I'm going to interject with one business style thing here. When we talked about naming this,
naming this program, I named it to do for tea, what Starbucks did for coffee. Does that mean that
you want to have these franchises all over the world in every corner? Or does that mean that
there's a, it's about the experience and about bringing the, the reality to, even if it's just
to local San Antonio, how big is this vision? How big do you want to see it go?
Oh my gosh. Well, you know, I was a teacher, so my vision, my whole, my whole life's work has
always just been about the people right in front of me. You know what I mean? Like your students
are right in front of you and they're there every day and you got to entertain them and you got to
engage them and you got to keep them learning and keep them loving learning. So that's kind of like,
I'm just steeped in that, you know? So I'm doing the same thing now. People come in and I am just
loving learning, loving teaching them. And, and it's just, it's super rewarding for me to just be
out and telling people about it. And the more people I can get in the better. Right now, that's
my biggest problem is I just don't have an, I don't have a little classroom full of, full of people.
You know, I have, you know, I try to, I try every, you know, every kind of tactic I can to get
more people in the door, spread the word, that sort of thing. But my vision, I mean, I could see this
because it's such an amazing product. I mean, and if you start looking online, like there's tea,
tea websites, there's, there's plenty of places where the tea is sold and it can be mailed to you
and you can enjoy it. If you don't know to look for it, you're not going to know, but to have a
place in town, like Tivana used to be. And I believe Tivana was sort of run out of town by
Starbucks. If I know the story, right. That's, that's the story I keep hearing. I haven't
researched it at all, but basically, you know, like cowboys Indians, they all got their
perspectives. So, but it was a very popular store. And those of you, those of you out there who
remember Tivana like, like Latida is, is doing the same thing. They're, they're doing the same
thing. They're bringing the loose leaf to the vision. I would say is to make this popular and
to also make or help people realize the health benefits. One of my customers told me today
that her son told her stop drinking embalming fluid.
And he was referring to diet drinks, those aspartame, all the, all the really bad
chemicals that basically we just willingly just put into our bodies all day long, because we want
to save calories or we're in a hurry or whatever. So, you know, it's kind of a little bit of a
learning curve, but the enjoyment, the pleasure, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,
the, the relaxation you get from a truly fresh cup of tea or glass of tea, because this can be
hot or cold. A lot of people come in and say, well, I like my tea cold. I don't know. We can't,
these teas could be anything cold, hot, mixed together, milk, no milk, honey, you name it. So
it's just infinite, infinite, infinite variety, which is the other big difference with coffee.
Coffee has a pretty cool thing. Let's, let's, let's leave coffee alone for a little while.
Yeah. I like the vision on tea and what you're going to, and I don't drink coffee either, but,
you know, to respect people's variety of choice. I think that's what's cool about this is you're
giving people more options and your focus is on these healthy options too, that also happen to
taste really good. So I'm excited for them to be able to try that. And the types of health benefits
are just amazing. Like there's a rooibos tea that a lot of people haven't heard of. It's from South
Africa. It has amazing anti-inflammatory properties. So a lot of the ailments and the
aches and pains that we deal with are always about inflammation. So this tea is naturally caffeine
free. So you can drink it at night and it just seeps into your body all night long, relieving
all that inflammation and other irritants. So it's just incredible the different health benefits
because tea was like the original medicine, you know, thousands of years ago. So yeah, for a lot
of cultures, absolutely. And we're going to dive into a question driven towards helping the other
visionaries who are listening in, you know, the other vision pros who want to build their businesses
as well. One of the questions we ask leaders that come on the show is what's the worst leadership
experience you've ever had? Well, you know, I was an assistant principal for about 20 years.
So there's like, which experience do I choose? That's a tough spot to be in because you have to,
you know, you have to balance the need to be a friend to the students and a resource and a guide
and also a disciplinarian. So they don't sometimes they don't want to hear what you have to say or
they've gotten themselves into a position that you now have to deal with and you're the face
and you're the face of the consequence. So there's just I can't even tell you how many
there's a lot of them. I think, though, that in taking all that I've learned from from that,
those years in an administration is, you know, to keep it, keep it, keep it positive. You know,
everything even when we mess up, it's a learning experience. Even when things don't go the right
way or the way we want them to, it's we're going to go on, we're going to persevere, we're going to
learn from this. We're not going to make the same mistakes twice. So that, you know, and then every
day, I mean, as a new business owner, that's my lesson every every 20 seconds. Oh, I don't want
to do that again. So my first text blast this morning and I scheduled it for 8am. So guess how
many people unsubscribe when I woke them up? Yeah, that that is one more reason.
That would be. Yeah. And you know, it's people, people are going to be upset no matter what we do.
We'll find some, you know, you can't please everybody. At the same time, there are certain
lessons, you're right. That say, oh, man, you know, I probably could have, I kind of probably
could have lost less people in the process of that timing. So well said. Thank you for acknowledging
that we make mistakes as visionaries. Yeah. Oh, yeah. The other thing too, is, you know,
if you're a visionary, you can't do it alone. So you have to have a team and to keep your team
where you want them to be is a lot of positivity, a lot of encouragement, a lot of grace. Because,
you know, a lot of us visionaries, I don't even know if I'd call myself a visionary, but a lot of
people in my position, they're kind of, you know, my way or the highway, I've got the best idea in
the room, yada yada yada. You know, you have to check, check, check that as much as you can,
because you can't do it alone. You shouldn't try to do it alone. And you don't want to alienate
yourself so that you have to do it alone. Because if you drive all those people away that are willing
to help you, that's, you're going to find yourself in a very bad spot. Yeah, that's true. Well, you
know, we, I would agree with you. Most people don't consider themselves visionaries. It would be
pretty dangerous to go around introducing yourself and then in the normal world, you know, hey, I'm
a visionary. You know, I think people would not understand the context of that. So there's
definitely a unique subset of individuals who are attracted to the show and come towards it. And
the idea of, of the visionary is somebody who's got a plan, right? A plan is a vision.
And it's an opportunity to perhaps, and a goal as well. You mentioned struggles earlier and goals
related to the struggle. And yeah, if a goal doesn't have a struggle, it's not really a goal.
Oh, that's funny. Like, cause you asked the question, you know, how did all this start? And so
literally, if I think about it, it was all about like, oh, I want to take this to San Antonio and
share this because everybody doesn't know about it. That's a new vision. So it's like, yeah, it's
like, my whole, my whole idea was just to share. And that's kind of like, I think what makes my
situation, I'm, I didn't go into this to be like, Ooh, let's create a, let's be an entrepreneur.
Let's, I didn't even realize what I had to be an entrepreneur to do this. So, you know, I'm not in
it for the money. I don't care about money. And you're in education for 20 years, you learn to live
in, within, and that's, and I'm perfectly happy. So, you know, it's not about that. It's about
really genuinely sharing and helping people because people need help. We've got the highest
levels of diabetes, you know, diabetes related illnesses, all that stuff.
I'd like to ask you on the, on the positive side of leadership, let's flip, let's flip to the
opposite end. What has been your best leadership experience ever?
You know, and again, I would say it's all about team because when I have, was so lucky, I was at
Clark High School and Tyvee High School with the most amazing people. And I could, if I try to
list them all by name, but I'd leave somebody out. But they're, and they are all people with
that's just names you would probably recognize because they're so well known in education,
because they just give, give, give. So the experience I had was just being around those people,
emulating them, learning from them, understanding how to give grace, to give space, to give, give,
give. I mean, that's all, that's all you do in education. It's just, you're just constantly
pouring yourself out. And when you have those excellent role models, then you have a team where
everyone has the same goal and everybody is focused on the same goal and they're in it to win it.
And nobody gets tired because, you know, we're all just going to go, go, go till 1130 at night
when the football game is finally over. You know, it's a lot. And my shout outs always to the
educators and the administrators and the teachers, because that's, yeah, that's where I learned
everything. And it's just a way of life that says other people are more important than I am.
You know, I'm, I love that you give the shout out to Clark High School. I grew up in Oak Meadow,
which is right there on Northwest Military in Heavner. You're probably very familiar.
And we were just outside of the North Side School District, but the North Side School District and
the Northeast School District as a public school product myself, were amazing. Absolutely
incredible teachers, absolutely incredible experiences. A lot of my friends have gone on
to do absolutely incredible things in the world. And it's, from what I understand, it's not super
common in the public space, but you know, you're, you're right. The team, you know, when a team
comes together and a team's able to work together, it just makes, it makes the process enjoyable and
learning is far easier when people are enjoying what they're doing. So if you were, if this was
your last chance to give a powerful lesson with the world of visionaries, people who want to pursue
their dreams, people who want to do something big, what's the powerful lesson that they can learn
from your experience? Well, I mean, I think honestly, it's, if you want to do something,
you have to make sure you have the right why. Like what is your why? And that's pretty, pretty
common these days, especially in education. We have, we always have to ask ourselves, what's our
why? Why, why are we doing this? And then that why absolutely has to be about in education. It's
about the students in business. In my mind, these days, it's got to be about your customers and the
people that you're trying to serve. So it's, you know, if you're, if you're like, Oh, I want to make
a bunch of money, let's do it. You know, it's, it's not really about that. And it's probably not going
to go too well. And it's not going to be very fun because you know, what's worse though is when it
does go really well and then they find themselves 20, 30, 40 years later, very empty. Yeah. That's
what I really feel bad for is the ones who pursue the cash as the, as the means, as the, you know,
I'm doing this for that and they don't find their depth. It's, it's, it's really sad to see that. So
it can work, but I love the depth that you're talking about. In fact, you've got a great
testimonial that just came in. And I'd like to highlight that. And that'd be Christine, Christian
Gutierrez, who says, what sets La Tida apart from all the other tea shops in San Antonio is
Leah, the knowledge, the passion, dedication that she brings to the community is second to none.
The Sunday tea tasting is definitely a unique, fun and calming experience.
Thank you, Christian. I love that. I mean, what, what better way to say like he knows your why,
you know, like he feels that why as a, you know, as a patron of, of your establishment. That's cool.
Yeah. Every Sunday we do a absolutely free tea tasting two o'clock, bring your whole family. If
you want everybody gets a cute little teacup and you know, it's super, super fun. You get to try,
we try, always try five different teas. So if you've never tasted an Oolong, you've never
tasted an herbal, it kind of gives you a chance to explore that and get familiar with them,
with the teas. So it's a lot of fun. Absolutely. I want to, I want to come back to
the establishment and more about the experience of working with or attracting people who may be
unfamiliar with tea, you know, and may not know that one, some of us, like I grew up thinking
tea was nasty, you know, and I also came up from a religion standpoint where we were blanket
taught tea and coffee, like never touch. And then I also learned later about herbal teas and how
beneficial they are. Thanks to my stepdad, he started to introduce me to herbal teas and said,
no, this is actually good for you and healthy. And, and so I started to, I started to understand
that there was a place for it, but I, I didn't know what I didn't know. And so one of the
challenges I think that your business faces that sushi places often face as well,
is how do I, how do I educate people to feel comfortable? Oh my gosh. I totally remember.
What's that? Yeah. I, I totally remember like, again, in the eighties, nobody had ever heard of
sushi. I thought it was the most disgusting thing I have ever heard. How can people sit here and eat
raw fish? Oh my gosh. What are they thinking? That's so bizarre. Now what's my favorite food?
Yup. Sushi. That's right. Like it's, it's crazy how delicious sushi is and how good for you. And
so we, it's just ignorance, you know, what's the experience like when we go into your tea shop?
What, what can we anticipate experiencing? Well, and I think you're right. So, you know,
people will say, I don't like tea. And most of the time it's because tea does have one very
important, um, uh, requirement and that is do not oversteep your tea. So people think, oh,
just leave it in there a little longer. It'll taste so much better. The longer, the better.
Yeah. So that's wrong. It's like overcooking a steak, right? Yeah, exactly. And so a lot of teas,
so, okay, this is a lot, but black teas, green teas, oolong teas, white teas, those are actual
teas. So they have actual tea leaves from the very same bush, the very same tree. Um, and it's just
a matter of how they're processed. Are they dry? Do they have water in their process? Are they rolled?
Are they, are they flat? Are they outside? Are they inside? There's a whole, every distinct type
of tea has a, has a different way it's processed. So herbals, rooibos and wellness teas have no tea
leaves in them. Okay. So the only reason they're called tea is because they're steeped and that's
pretty much the definition. So having said all that, um, you do want to be very careful with
the ones that are actual tea leaves because you can ruin them. They taste awful. I mean, literally
in a matter of seconds, they'll go from beautiful, floral, blooming, lovely flavor to the bitterest,
nastiest, most tangy, um, metallic taste you've ever had. So, so that's important. And so that's
why we, every time we do a tea tasting, I educate everybody on all that and try to help them
understand how to avoid bad tea because there really is no such thing as bad tea. I mean, you
can be allergic to something, but we can pretty much put any of our two teas together and they
almost taste, always taste amazing. Uh, we came up with one the other day, Jasmine Pearl,
with a white Earl gray. It's amazing. So, so, so good. And those teas must steep for two and a half
minutes only, only two and a half minutes. So if you've been steeping your tea for 10 minutes,
no, it's quick and beautiful and fast and fresh. And it's going to be good.
San Antonio and Texans and people throughout the world, uh, we're going to be doing a
great job of helping people throughout the world. Uh, you gotta give Latina a shot. You gotta come
to San Antonio, you gotta try it out when you're in town. Um, it's, it's, uh, in a, it's actually a
fantastic area of town too. On the north side of San Antonio, right of 1604, correct?
Mm hmm. Yeah, we're right there in the, in kind of like a smack dab in the middle of Stone Oak.
So, um, it might be a little bit of a haul, but I have recently, I've recently set up an entire
website, all online shopping. And the great thing about Latina is that even if you're in Wisconsin,
we can get on the phone, we can talk to you about what ails you. We can talk to you about what you
love, what you don't love, and we can help you choose, um, the tea that's right for you. And
we'll ship it right to you. That's amazing. It'll arrive on your front step and you can enjoy it
as long as you want. That's fantastic. So there's a, there's an e-commerce side of the business as
well that I was, I was actually unaware of. So I'm excited for that because yeah, everybody who's
listening in now can have an opportunity for that. So, um, the- If you're in the south side and you
don't want to drive all the way over here, um, through all the traffic and the closed highways
and all that good stuff, then same thing. We'll just make it straight to you and you won't have
to venture out until you're ready. That's awesome. And I bet this makes a fantastic gift as well.
Valentine's is coming up. Um, you know, you might be able to get a rush order in for that for
somebody who likes to try new experiences. If they like try new foods, like try new drinks,
then this would be an amazing opportunity to help expand their palette. Um, Leah, I would like to
ask before we wrap up for other visionaries as well, they're listening in, what are some of the
greatest lessons and challenges, um, and victories? It can be any one of those three that you've
learned about business ownership, um, as you've run this establishment, because so many people go in,
um, and, and don't know what's ahead of them on that path. I don't, I don't necessarily want to
scare people, but I do want people to be aware of the, you know, the paths that are kind of
already carved out, um, or the paths that we need to say, no, don't go down this path. That happens
a lot in business. So go ahead. The floor is yours. Well, gosh, where to begin? Um, so I was
originally a franchise and the franchise had a lot of, um, tight, tight control, regulations,
restrictions. Yeah. Type of, of what I could do for marketing. A lot of their stores are in small
towns. They do a great job. Just word of mouth. Everybody loves it. Like in Kerrville, everybody
knew about nobility. Everybody told everybody about nobility and it was just, you know, amazing. So,
um, when I got San Antonio in a large market, uh, that does not work at all. So the big lesson,
this is it, this is a big lesson. I would, I would say is partnership, partnership, partnership.
I did not start networking right off the gate. I, I didn't know anything about networking. You
don't network in education. Okay. There's no networking in education. You just, um, everybody
just shares and you, you get online and you share with people all over the world and everything is
just all about sharing and making, making things better. But in business, it's a little bit
different. So I start, once I started networking though, I realized that just like an education,
everybody just wants to share. They want it. They want you to be successful. They want to figure
out how you can help each other. And so, for example, you just said Valentine's day, I have a
lovely little pop-up coming up on Saturday afternoon from four to seven. We've got all female
vendors and artisans. They're going to be selling their stuff. They're going to be bringing in their
people. I'm going to be bringing in people for them. And we're just going to showcase, um,
fabulous gifts, homemade, complete, one of a kind, unique. You can't get anywhere else.
And that's the kind of partnership. And these ladies just came in. Everyone I've met, everyone
I've talked to, um, San Antonio networking group, working moms of San Antonio, um,
NABO, National Association of Women Business Owners, all I have met so many wonderful,
wonderful people, um, and BNI, they just all come together and they, they gather around you and they
say, let's do it. I just met today with, um, two fundraisers. They want to do a leukemia and lymphoma
fundraiser. So we're going to be doing that, uh, coming up in a few weeks. It's going to be amazing.
Um, we're going to be, um, putting some challenges out there, getting people revved up about raising
money for cancer research. Um, so it's just, the possibilities are endless, but you have to get out
there. It's not, it's not going to come into your little shop. You'll be sitting by yourself staring
at an empty, at an empty room for, until you finally lose your lease. So, um, yeah, that's,
that's my, that's my nugget. It's a partner, partner, support, support, um, and keep it positive.
Like, and every beautiful networking event I've gone to has said the same thing. It's like you
have to give before you get. And so that's, um, that's the lesson right there. I think.
I love that. And, and there's, you know, I heard the two lessons. One was in small towns, the game's
different. Um, right. And we started this conversation. We were talking about marketers
and I said something that could be seen as very, very rude, which was 99% of marketers don't know
what they're doing. I would say the other thing that you learned in the process was to listen,
was to listen to your market. Um, and that's the challenge I see with most marketers. They want to
tell you how to do things or what to do, but in a way, it's a challenge. And so, um,
marketing, much like being a doctor, if we don't analysis, if we don't take an analysis of where
the person's at, what's going on with the market, what the market research is telling us about today
versus yesterday and this demographic versus that demographic, then it doesn't matter how much we
talk about how great we are. At the end of the day, people don't care how much you know until they
know how much you care. And if you don't care about the people you're serving, you're not going to
figure out the challenges and how to solve them. So, uh, I would say those two factors, partnerships,
partnerships, partnerships that applies on the global and national level as well. It also very
much applies to the local business factors of what we do. And, and Leah, I love how well you've
emulated listening to your, to your customers. I'll pull one more up here because, uh, we had
one other comment from, was it Ruby? And it got buried in here. Here we are. Ruby Diaz,
can't wait to stop by for tea on Sunday. Um, so you got somebody coming in and, uh, we will look,
we look forward to seeing your success, um, following along as, as you continue to grow the
business, uh, vision pros, those who are listening in, if you have a vision that you'd like to share
in the top right corner of the page, there will be a button that says, be our guest. We would love
to hear your wholesome visions, what you're trying to bring to the world. Uh, you don't have to be
Bill Gates or Michael Jordan, but if you're listening, Mike, you're welcome to come on the
show too. Um, and the rest of you can have questions. Feel free to, to, to, yeah, exactly.
MJ, you can follow Latida as well. Exactly. And the rest of you, uh, we'll have all of the links
that are pertinent for Latida as well in the landing page on the show notes. Um, you can catch
those there and Leah, we appreciate you being here today. This was awesome. Thank you so much for the
opportunity and I really appreciate you too, Jackson. Absolutely. I'll see you soon. Thank you
for being here today. I'm really happy that you tuned in to vision pros live. I'm looking forward
to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward. This is going to get more and
more fun. We'll have more and more engagement as well. We'll invite people to participate in the
show and thank you for giving us your time and attention. Have an excellent time building out
your vision.