
Brief summary of show:
In this episode, Brittany Driscoll shares insights into the pervasive influence of marketing in our lives and how she leveraged authenticity to transform people into potent brand advocates.
Explore her fearless pursuit of her dreams and learn how she masterfully balances a thriving career with personal well-being. Uncover her invaluable tips for preserving mental and physical health amidst demanding schedules, and glean wisdom on staying aligned with initial motivations during times of change.
Brittany is Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Squeeze, a way better massage experience. Squeeze is headquartered in Nashville, TN with its flagship location in Studio City, CA and is now franchising nationwide.
Driscoll also Co-Founded and leads The Feel-Good Company, a service agency supporting a collective of wellness brands dedicated to bettering the mind, body, and soul for good; and serves as Chairwoman of the Board for Okay Humans, a talk therapy concept and counseling experience focused on emotional and mental wellness.
Prior to Squeeze, Driscoll spent four years at Drybar, the original blow dry bar and the world's largest blowdry franchise, as Vice President of Marketing, where she helped grow the company from $30 Million to more than $100 Million in revenue. While at the company, Driscoll onboarded over 20 new Operating Partners, opened more than 50 new Drybar shops and launched the Drybar product line internationally, as well as in Sephora, Ulta, Nordstrom and Bloomingdales.
Leading up to her time at Drybar, Driscoll spent over a decade in marketing and advertising working on various global brands and with Fortune 500 corporations including Hilton Worldwide, The Coca-Cola Company, Disney, Mattel, Toyota, Home Depot, and more. She has been featured in multiple national publications such as Business Insider, Entrepreneur Magazine, Fast Company, Forbes, and more as an expert in creating disruption in retail.
A female entrepreneur, cancer survivor, and wellness advocate, Driscoll has a strong passion for supporting other women in business and has become a thought-leader in her community. She believes in speaking up for what you believe in, empowering people to use their voice, and that we all have the ability to change the world for good. Driscoll and Squeeze are creating a launchpad of opportunities for individuals who want to take their future into their own hands and begin a life of entrepreneurship. Squeeze’s franchise model sets all franchisees up for success with extensive support from the franchisor in real estate, construction, operations, technology, marketing and more. Brittany is building The Feel-Good Revolution, the company’s mantra focused on improving the lives of its guests and team members while transforming communities for good.
Listen in as we talk about:
[3:25] How her experience in marketing opened up doors to where she is today
[6:50] Living in a marketing world
[9:00] Taking the leap into following your dreams
[10:20] People becoming your best marketing channel
[11:15] How to balance it all as a busy, successful woman
[15:25] Keeping your sanity and physical health when you're busy with other things
[22:30] Knowing why you started
[23:15] How to know if it's time to stop something
[27:20] What she's working on next
Notes from Natalie:
Seeking Health: www.natalietysdal.com/favorites
Connect with Brittany:
Connect with Me
View Transcript for this Episode
Natalie: Hi, everyone. Happy back to school. Well, at least where I'm from, I've been preparing my classroom and doing lesson plans. The second career of teaching. It is no joke, but I have to admit I absolutely love it and I feel so blessed to be able to do it. Something I think about a lot as a teacher and as a mom, is this.
Am I really doing what God made me to do? Am I living up to my own potential? Not comparing myself to everyone else, but living up to my potential? Today, I have someone for you that you're gonna love and you're gonna learn from. Her name is Stephanie Nelson. She's known for a business and a website that grew beyond what she.
Ever imagine, maybe you've heard of her as the coupon mom, but she has a new project and it's a book called Imagine More. Do what you love, discover your Potential. You know, sometimes we are our own worst critic. We hold ourselves back, and today we're gonna talk about growing through your hardships and through your mistakes, asking for help embracing the pivotal people in your life.
And being that pivotal person in the lives of others. Before we get started, thank you so much for being here. Be sure to hop on over to my website, natalie tsol.com and join the newsletter. Also, check out what we have going on with the blog. Let's not waste any time. I'd like to get right to it with Stephanie Nelson.
Natalie: Stephanie, thank you so much for taking the time today. I wanna talk about a few things with you, namely finding our potential in your book and your vulnerability in your book and teaching us
that. But let's, let's backtrack just a little bit in how you got there to this book and your background.
Stephanie: Well, thanks so much for having me on. I love any opportunity to share the story with people because my dream is that people will say, Hey, if she can do that, I can too, because everyone has a story and everyone has a potential story that hasn't happened yet. I. It's kind of our choice on whether or not we wanna, you know, take a leap and give it a try.
So I like to share this story. I'm 60 years old when I had two young children. I quit working. I had a corporate career 10 years, and I quit working, and I was on a super tight budget because we had not built that into the plan. So being on a super tight budget, I learned how to save money in every area.
And what I discovered now, just this was back in the year 2000, so this is before Facebook and before Instagram. This is before women were even using email accounts, so before we even had cell phones.
So I discovered saving money with grocery coupons, and I was that woman ahead of you in line with a huge stack of coupons.
Who kept you waiting? I mean, it was not popular in 2000, but,
Natalie: you have that whole binder where things were sectioned out in different places and.
Stephanie: that's right. That's right. However I really wanted, I'm, I have two little kids. I went to a seminar, a, a speaker, a woman who had written a book on prayer and she was so inspiring and her last sentence that I remember was, if there's something you love to do, figure out how to use it to help other people.
Because if you can do that equation, you will have discovered God's amazing plan for your life. I have two little kids. I have a five-year-old and a three-year-old. I don't have any extra time, and I left there so fired up, Natalie. I thought, okay, I love this grocery coupon thing. How can I use that to help other people?
Natalie: Well, you did that in a big way and I know that's what you're about to tell us.
Stephanie: and what I'm telling people is completely unexpected. All I knew was this equation. I love how to do this thing. how can I use it to help other people? Fast forward 11 days, I'm sitting in church. Church Bulletin has a, desperate plea for food, for the local food pantry and the items they listed.
All I saw was, wow, these are all coupon items. So I go to the grocery store, I decide I'm gonna buy as many groceries as I can with my coupons that fit this list. I got $60 worth of groceries that cost me $10. And then when this happens to you, you're gonna get this light bulb moment. You're gonna get this feeling like, oh my gosh, this is it.
Oh my gosh, I gotta tell this the world about it. And so I did, and I irritated every neighbor, every friend, nobody wanted to hear about this. So fast forward, that was 2000. It took a few years of I created a website step by step by step with the help of other people, but no money. You did it with no money.
And I say that to people because so many times we have ideas, but we think, oh, I don't have any money, I don't have any staff. I can't do anything. And that's what I thought too. So the book details it in more detail.
But what I learned in this 20 year journey of doing coupon mom is that God always has a new surprise.
I mean, we have never maxed out our potential.
Natalie: Yeah.
Stephanie: And so many times it simply depends on our willingness to look for the idea.
Natalie: Mm-hmm.
Stephanie: And trust me, you're gonna know when you land on it. It's like you remember when you first fell in love, you just can't talk about anything else. You're like, this is it. Well, that's how your light bulb moment is.
You're like, this is it. So that's in a nutshell, that's what I did with coupon. Mom and I retired five years ago.
Natalie: But the coupon mom got very big. You had many appearances on national television. You had, were very successful with it.
Stephanie: It did. And I'll tell you, when I, I sat down to write the story of this journey because I wanted my sons who are in their twenties someday to know the whole story. 'cause you know, our kids see the highlight reel, they don't see the backstory. So many times, the most learning we have is from our bloopers.
We don't let people see. So I wanted them to like see the whole story and become inspired to do their own thing too. But yes, coupon mom started with literally me dial up internet, okay, from a spare bedroom. It took a few years and I got a lucky break. Like you wanna talk A lucky break. I got on our local news in Atlanta, good Day, Atlanta.
They asked me to demonstrate how to do this, how to buy groceries free and. What are the chances? At the same time I was there, the same 15 minute time slot was another guest that day. I am on TV for the first time ever in three years. He does this every day going city to city. He's one of those experts who goes on TV and he watched my whole thing and afterwards he said, you've gotta get this on national tv. I'm like, well, gosh, I've emailed all the shows. They haven't returned my email. How do you get on national tv? And he said, I know the top producer at Good Morning America, and he gave me her name. I called her up, she said, send me information. And I did. And a few months later, good morning America had me come on.
So as if that's not crazy enough, I go on Good Morning America. I do the coupon thing and it exploded.
Natalie: Mm-hmm.
Stephanie: And good morning America came back to me and here I am a housewife. Right? I guess that's not a word you should use, but that's, and they said, do you know anything else about saving money? And they hired me and they gave me this name.
They gave me the name, the coupon mom, which was the best thing they ever could have done. And I went on the show for three years and companies started hiring and the whole thing was crazy.
Natalie: and you enjoyed it for a long time.
Stephanie: I, I loved it. And you know, when I sat down to write this story, when you think about. When you think about your journey and you think about your dream, you think, I'm all alone in this.
I don't have any money. I don't have any staff. But as I looked at the story, Natalie, and I think we can all do this in our lives.
You will all of a sudden see all these, what I call pivotal people who came alongside you. Either they encouraged you or they lent their expertise. They told you the name of the Good Morning America producer.
Amazing things can happen. You don't have even, I never did have an executive team or anything. It was always just me and some data entry workers, but I was never alone. I looked around and I had this whole tribe of people who encouraged me all those years. And here's what's cool. This wouldn't work in business.
We don't think this way, but in God's kingdom, this works. What ended up happening was there are women like me all across the country who started their own websites doing the same thing in their cities. I, you know, Cincinnati coupon mom, Pittsburgh coupon mom, they were cropping up everywhere. And I at first thought, oh my gosh.
'cause wouldn't you think, oh my gosh, these are competitors. Oh my, this is terrible. Well, you know what happened? My business doubled
Natalie: Oh wow. Yeah.
Stephanie: and then I became friends with them.
So, you know, it was just this wonderful experience of not only, yes, it was successful, but I watched other women become successful. Some of those women became millionaires.
They're home with their kids. They're doing what they love to do, and so you just could, I have predicted that when I heard the inspirational speakers say, if there's something you love to do, No. So that's why I'm excited about this book. I want people to read it and I want them to say, huh, if that woman, like, she's not glamorous, she's not brilliant, she didn't have any money.
If she could do that, what could I do? And I'm gonna say, probably something pretty amazing. You just don't know what it is yet, right?
Natalie: Well, let's get to that. Let's talk about finding your potential and it, it came to you through a sermon came or through the, it was the woman you told us about,
but. What kind of tips do you give in this book and do you have for people? And I think about this often, like am I living up to the potential God gave me?
Not how do I compare myself to my neighbor, my friend, my coworker, but who I was made to be? And to me, that's what's most important. I.
Stephanie: Right, right. And so couple of things, like I say, the book is not really so much a story. I have my story, but I have lots of other stories, lots of other people's stories, hoping that it, people who started businesses, people who started charities, people who started just other humanitarian efforts. So that you'll see yourself in someone's story is my point.
But kind of two things. One is if you all of a sudden feel like, hey, Wait a minute, maybe there is more potential. I come at it. I think there's two different directions you can come at it from. One is either saying, here's this thing I love to do, which is, okay, let's just say grocery coupons. How am I gonna use that to help other people?
Or you can come at it from the other direction. Here's a group of disenfranchised or marginalized or suffering people who I want to help. How can I help them? Well, they need someone to do X, Y, Z. I don't know how to do X, Y, Z. Okay? You know what? You can learn that. So either, and sometimes the beauty is you can combine the two.
But here's, I heard a speaker just the other day say this, and this is kind of the, big picture for me. Let's suppose you have a tiny seed, okay? You don't even know what it is. You, you lost the packet. It could be a flour, it could be a vegetable. Have no idea what's in that seed. There's huge potential in that seed.
That seed, that tiny seed could become an oak tree. That tiny seed could become a 260 pound watermelon. You have no idea. You're not gonna know until you get in the dirt.
Natalie: Yeah.
Stephanie: So you get in the dirt. There's two things you need. There's actually three. First is sunlight, and I kind of, my analogy for that is your connection with God.
Okay, here's, here's this light, this. He believes in you. He has potential. He knows what's in that seed, and every day you tap into that. The second is water. And I kind of view that as the people around us, the people who are helping us, the people who believe in us, and the combination of those two things.
But there's a third thing I just read yesterday, which is the dirt, the quality of the dirt. And this was huge for me, Natalie. So you can either have really good soil or you could have rocks and weeds. And I liken that too. The rocks and weeds are the people who think your idea is stupid. But you know what?
They probably don't think your idea is stupid. They just have their own issues and maybe they're a little jealous. And then there are the people over here who say, you know what, Natalie, I so believe in you. I might not understand your idea, but I have you on my prayer list. I think God has big plans for you, and when someone says that to you, that is like the really good soil.
So it's a combination of surrounding yourself with people who speak into you and encourage you even if they don't understand what you're doing. Watering is tapping into people. In my book I talk about so many different people I reached out to and asked for help. You know, people who had skills I didn't have.
People love to help. Especially when people see your vision and they feel like they're a part of the solution,
and that's the third way you can reach your potential. You know, the third way is, is there someone doing something that you really admire? You might not have to start something, you could hit your wagon to someone else and you could make their thing successful.
Because you did that. I had lots of people who did that for me. There is no way coupon mom would've been what it was without a handful of key pivotal people. So,
Natalie: I, I love everything about what you just said.
A couple of things that I'll really take with me the quality of the soil. What a great analogy for surrounding yourself with the right people. I mean, sometimes we, we. Stay in these friend groups or even a work environment because we think that's what we're supposed to do.
Or for me in my career for so many years, it was, well, this is what I trained to do. This is what I worked so hard for. People think this is such a glamorous TV job, and yet I didn't. Feel like the quality of, well, news first of all is just a toxic environment, but I didn't feel like it was an environment that was feeding me or that God was using me there.
And so surrounding yourself with the right people to elevate you to whatever that is, what a beautiful analogy of that quality soil.
Stephanie: And that's what God wants for us, right? He wants community, but, and it doesn't mean, you know, there might be, I, I use the word, there are toxic people in our lives, and sometimes you just have to recognize that you still like love people. But you can love My favorite author, Bob Goff says You can love them from afar.
Natalie: And you don't have to spend so much time in that environment. And it's like, it's like watching the news hour upon hour upon hour. How do you think you're gonna feel? You're gonna feel pretty rotten. You're gonna feel agitated, you're gonna feel depressed. We have to decide how we're gonna spend our time and what we're gonna let in because it's feeding our minds and our souls our hearts with all of that.
Okay. You talked about asking for help. That's a tough one for people, but learning to say, will you support me?
Stephanie: Right, and I do think that there are people who, like what I experienced was there are people who wanted to help, but you did have to ask. So one of my best examples, and I'll say this, I said this in the book, don't overlook your local university. There are brilliant students who are still idealistic and they are hard workers.
I actually needed, for my website, I needed a user-friendly database. I did not have a user-friendly database. It was a clunky website. It was, you know, I started it with 20 bucks. It was just, you know, and I saw more sophisticated websites with these cool databases that I thought, well, that would really be user friendly.
And I went and I got a price estimate for $60,000. Oh my gosh. I'm a stay-at-home mom on a grocery budget. I can't do that. But I ran across an article, Georgia Tech is in Atlanta where I lived. Georgia Tech, brilliant students, and every student had to do a senior project. I think this is very common at most colleges.
And so I emailed the professor. I told him what I needed and he said, well, it's up to the students on what they wanna do, but I'll throw your name in the hat. And I waited. It turned out four students volunteered because they said they wanted to help impact people's lives by reducing hunger. I.
Natalie: Hmm.
Stephanie: And I'll tell you what those four students did.
They did I, because my vision was limited, I had an idea of what I wanted. I pointed to other websites. They said, well, we will never impress our peers if that's all we do. We have a much bigger idea than that. And I said, oh, a bigger idea. That sounds expensive to maintain. I don't have any money. I don't know.
It doesn't need to be fancy. I just need something simple. And they said, You know what? Why don't you just let us do what we wanna do? And if you don't wanna use it, you don't have to fast forward. Natalie. What they developed ended up, first of all, so fantastic. It was so great. I couldn't have dreamed it up.
So user friendly. It ended up becoming the industry standard in the grocery coupon industry. Not only other websites copied it, but the actual coupon companies copied it
Natalie: that's great.
Stephanie: And that was okay. And so as soon as coupon mom started making money, and I'll be honest, it made a lot of money. Had no idea would ever make any money, right?
I, uh, set up an endowment at Georgia Tech and every year a student gets a scholarship in those four students' names.
Natalie: Oh, beautiful.
Stephanie: so you just never know. So how do you think it makes those students feel? That's what I'm saying. When you ask people for their help, you are actually encouraging them.
Natalie: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Stephanie: They get to be a part of your amazing story.
And I'm still telling the story, and that happened 20 years ago. Yeah. So it's fun now. They're grownups, they have their own kids. I emailed 'em and said, you guys, I wrote a chapter about you in my book. I mean, I don't know. I love the whole thing.
Natalie: That is fan. What a great, great story and a testament to asking. I, I like to take care of things myself. Like, oh, I don't wanna bother anyone. Oh, I don't, you know, whatever it is. But I've definitely learned, especially in the last year with some hardships, That people do stand behind you when they feel like they're part of your journey and they want, I mean, I want to help people, so then when I don't allow people to do what I'm looking to do, it's, that's not, that's not healthy or good.
Stephanie: And there are plenty of people. I don't know if you've ever done the Enneagram, but if you can find an Enneagram too, gosh, they love to help.
Natalie: Oh, yeah. What's your, your greatest hope with this book?
Stephanie: So let me tell you my dream. So this is why I, I don't, I wrote a book about God surprising us with amazing journeys, and yet I continue to be surprised by what God's doing for me. I mean, it's crazy. I think I'm writing this book. I'm gonna help other people. I actually, I'll tell you what, it was a 240 page p d F document.
I was just gonna have it as a free download off my website. I didn't do anything with it. And a literary agent approached me and he, he said, have you ever thought of writing a book? I'm like, well, funny thing I did a few months ago, I don't know. And he uh, and you know, it was, I know I was coupon mom, this is a faith-based book, trying to get people excited about reaching their dreams.
And he took a look at it and he said, no, I definitely wanna represent this. He sent it out on a Thursday afternoon and on Friday morning Fabulous publisher responded, and to my surprise, they gave me an advance. Now, if they had asked me, I would've said, you don't need to. I'm retired. But they did. And so here's what we're doing.
So when I first started Coupon Mom, I applied and there was an essay contest. Dan and Yogurt Company had a thousand dollars prize if you were starting a charitable effort. And I didn't have my own computer yet. I wrote the 500 word essay with my idea and they gave me the prize. So I won. But it was exciting because they believed in me.
I was like, wow, the Jan and Yogurt Company thinks this is a good idea. I bought my computer Fast forward. Now Imagine More is the name of the book. I'm starting an initiative called a nonprofit called Imagine More, and our tagline is, we give small grants to people with big dreams. So the advance was a lot.
And so I'm giving out a lot of small grants. And so in the book I explained, you know, if you have. An idea if you have a humanitarian idea or a charitable idea, you do not have to be a 5 0 1 C three nonprofit. You can be a woman at home with two kids who doesn't have a computer. We have a application and it's really just me at my kitchen table, probably crying about these people's amazing stories and I'm just gonna send out checks.
But my hope is that we're not just gonna send out checks that we could provide encouragement, motivation, and maybe some educational workshops. And maybe it'll get big enough that we can meet in person. I mean, the potential, what could imagine more be it. I want it to be a community. Dreamers, even if we all have different initiatives that we have in common, is that we all have this light bulb thing we're so excited about.
And if we feel like if you really do feel like, as you said, you're doing God's work, I mean, that's a powerful group. So that's what's next
Natalie: Yeah. What? Oh, that's so exciting. So exciting. So you're a few months out, the book is being published in October. Is that
Stephanie: That's right. October 10th, it's coming out from Harper Collins Christian. Thomas Nelson books and we'll just be doing podcasts, talking about it, some book signings. And I'm really hoping that there will be you know, people who apply. 'cause that's the fun at this point in my life, if I see the young person on fire and um, it's, you know, this, it's so much fun to see dreamers and to, I know how the Dan and Yogurt company made me feel.
So if we can do that for each other, if we can be each other's good soil, I. What are the possibilities?
Natalie: Oh, that sounds like the next book. Be The Good Soil.
Stephanie: Ooh,
Natalie: I dunno, I'm always thinking for the next thing. Right. And I'm sure there's another one in you. Uh, So your podcast, tell me about that.
Stephanie: So, I think I told you when I wrote the story and I started connecting the dots, the coupon mom story, I, I noticed that yes, there were many people who helped along the way, but there were four people who I described as pivotal people. If any one of those four people had not stepped into the story coupon, mom would never have grown beyond my backyard.
And that is really humbling when you say, oh my gosh, I had a a software developer, I. Had he not stepped into the story, the website would not have worked. And he was not the first software developer. I mean, I had a couple of failed ones. So a publicist, had she not stepped into the story, there is no way what happened would've happened.
The man who told me about Good Morning America and um, other people. So when I looked at the Pivotal People concept, I thought, I want a podcast. I wanna talk to people who are making a difference in the world. Because there's nothing more exciting. This is just for my own benefit.
The podcast is called Pivotal People, but I just have conversations with people who have written books, who have created documentaries, who have started charities, who have started businesses.
What they all have in common is that they are, they are on fire for their cause, and there is nothing more fun than talking to someone who's on fire for their cause. So I have started about a year and a half ago just published the 60th episode. I look at and think I have been so privileged to talk, to, really get to know 60 fascinating people, and I have a little rule for myself.
Most people have written a book. I always read the entire book. First of all, I love to read, so this is the perfect thing. I read the entire book and I highlight things so that we can have a good conversation.
Natalie: Yeah.
Stephanie: And some of the folks I've become friends with, and some of the folks have come on more than once because now they've written a second book.
So I tell everybody, you should really have your own podcast because this is the most interesting thing to do. You must have, you have a lot more episodes than I do. Look at all the people you've gotten to
Natalie: Well, when you do it every week for a few years, those episodes add up. But I, I've thought now that I'm teaching as well of stopping the podcast, like how much do I really have capacity for? I do it because I love it and I do it because I feel like I. I learn every week. Like I, I get to meet and talk and learn from people just like you and what a, what a blessing that is in my life, and I hope in others by doing that.
Stephanie: Yep. and then you hear from people who listen. You know, because that's the other thing. Sometimes it's, oh, oh gosh, should I write this book? Is anyone gonna read it? Should I do this podcast? Is anyone gonna listen? And I say, you know, in God's economy, the numbers are different. One person could read your book, it could change their life.
One person could hear your podcast, Natalie, and then they're buying the person's book, and it was just what they needed, right? So we just put it out there and see, let God figure out the rest.
Natalie: I think that is so true. I love that and I, I hope when people hear this, that they think not only of the Pivotal people helping them, but how they can be that in someone's everyday life. I think that's what I'm really loving about teaching right now is we have the opportunity to make a difference in one person's life just by being there for them or, you know, teaching.
Yes, I love that, but it's sometimes it's just the relationship.
Stephanie: And you'll hear from 'em. If you're a teacher in high school, you're hear. You know, you don't know, 5, 10, 15 years. My daughter-in-law is a teacher, and I see the stuff that she does for her students, and I think, oh my gosh, you're gonna be hearing from them in 20 years. You just changed their life. She's like, oh, I just did this.
I said, no, you just did something that really mattered.
Natalie: I love that. Yeah. Where can we be that pivotal person? Well, tell me where people can find you now, your website and more information.
Stephanie: Well the information about my book and we'll have free chapters is@stephanienelson.com. And then if you wanna save money with grocery coupons, believe it or not, we still have an audience with coupon mom.com, so we list the best grocery deals every week. Coupons you can print. So we can, you can do both.
Natalie: Wonderful. Good. And I will be sure to link both of those in the show notes along with a link to the book. I imagine people can pre-order.
Stephanie: Yes. We're it? Oh, the book is already on Amazon and
Natalie: Oh,
Stephanie: every book seller's website.
Natalie: Super. Well, it's such a pleasure, Stephanie. Thank you.
Stephanie: Thank you so much.
Natalie: Yeah, I hope to talk to you again. We'll be, we'll make it a return guest
Stephanie: and you have to come on my podcast.
Natalie: I would be honored to. All right. Take care.
Stephanie: Thank you.