Fashion Therapy: Marisol Colette's Story

[00:00:00] Sanjay Parekh: Welcome to The Side Hustle to Small Business Podcast, powered by Hiscox. I'm your host, Sanjay Parekh. Throughout my career, I've had side hustles, some of which have turned into real businesses, but first and foremost, I'm a serial technology entrepreneur. In the creator space, we hear plenty of advice on how to hustle harder and why you can sleep when you're dead.

[00:00:21] On this show, we ask new questions in hopes of getting new answers. Questions like, how can small businesses work smarter? How do you achieve balance between work and family? How can we redefine success in our businesses so that we don't burn out after year three? Every week I sit down with business founders at various stages of their side hustle to small business journey.

[00:00:43] These entrepreneurs are pushing the envelope while keeping their values. Keep listening for conversation, context, and camaraderie.

[00:00:56] Today's guest is Marisol Colette, founder of Sol Reflection based in Asheville, North Carolina. Welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. So I'm excited to have you on because as our listeners will soon find out you made up a whole thing for yourself, like a whole business that didn't really even exist before you came around. So before we get into that, give us a little bit about your background and what got you to where you are today.

[00:01:23] Marisol Colette: So I grew up with a family of artists and I went to art school for high school, but I also was very interested in the helping profession. So I went to college and I started to get an undergraduate in social work. Then I went to grad school in New York City and got my master's in social work because the idea of being in a profession where I could lead people to deep transformation was really meaningful for me and really exciting for me. So fast forward, I got a job at the VA hospital, but on the side, I'm, I sang, I had all this art background.

[00:01:57] I still have this, you know, family full of artists and on the side I would do going through people's closets for fun and for free, like my friends. And they would feed me dinner and we would have a great time. And it was then that the reflections started to come like, wow, this is really meaningful. This is more than just telling me what to wear. I feel really confident at the end of our time together, which wasn't necessarily surprising to me because of my background as a therapist. I was like, oh yeah, I'm listening in a deeper way. But then after hearing that, I was like what if I married these two things and made this whole business up? As the fashion therapist.

[00:02:36] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. I love that because honestly, like I probably need a different kind of fashion therapy because I have no fashion, but but I like the the mirroring of those two things. So okay. You're, so you start this thing, there's really nobody doing this at that point, right. How do you get started with something like this? Because the other challenge is you're doing something that nobody else is doing, which means nobody else knows that they need that, right? So how do you get started doing that?

[00:03:11] Marisol Colette: Well, the first thing I did was when I left my job very, felt very courageous to do because a government job is like golden handcuffs, but really can sometimes be more like bronze handcuffs, but it feels really hard to leave and nobody was leaving the job that I had at the time.

[00:03:26] It was a big surprise to folks, but I started private practice, so I built a therapy practice because I am a therapist and that I knew I could do. That's something that everybody knows. You know what a therapist is. And then little by little, I just started charging for the thing that I was doing for my friends. So I'll come to your closet, I'll go through your closet, we'll make things, we'll make outfits out of the things that you already have, and we'll rework your wardrobe. And then of course that turns into, well, how do I fill in the gaps? It's like, okay. And then I would charge people to go shopping with them, and it's grown immensely. This is my 10 year anniversary.

[00:04:01] Sanjay Parekh: Wow. That's awesome. So was the starting your private practice, the first kind of entrepreneurial thing you did, or was there anything entrepreneurial, like when you were a kid or anything else like that?

[00:04:12] Marisol Colette: Yeah, I mean, I made friendship bracelets put it in this, I don't even know where it came from, but it was like a, I briefcase that had a glass front to it. This is very, I don't know what else you would've fit in there. I guess jewelry and I would go around and sell my friendship bracelets again, fast forward. We were in Portugal earlier this year and I made friendship bracelets for my whole family, so apparently I'm still making them. I'm just not selling them.

[00:04:36] Sanjay Parekh: Al always about the friendship bracelet. It's always, I guess you can't go wrong with those at all, can you?

[00:04:41] Marisol Colette: Yeah.

[00:04:42] Sanjay Parekh: Okay, so I, so I got to ask, so, okay, a family of artists, do they think you were kind of crazy for going into social work? Because that's really kind of off the beaten path from art.

[00:04:54] Marisol Colette: Yeah. No, not at all. Because I also, I all, they are also people who volunteer, who have very heart-centered values. So they had me volunteering at a nursing home when I was like 11. So it, it made sense. It made sense and admirable, I think, to them as well.

[00:05:13] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. I love that. Okay, so I mean in a lot of ways now you've kind of married therapy with art you know, fashion. Just being a different kind of art. Okay. So you get started with your friends and whatever, just going through their closets. When did you kind of realize that, hey, this is a real business, and how did you start thinking about charging people and how did you decide on how much to charge people?

[00:05:40] Marisol Colette: That is an incredible question because there is no industry standard really for even personal stylists. So I'm in a group of celebrity stylists and we are just now having the conversation of like, what is the industry standard? And it is. Incredibly varied. So then you know, at first it was all local.

[00:06:00] So how do I charge based on my location? What do I think my value is? What do I need to make in order to be, you know, half the breadwinner in the family? So I mean it, it's amazing. I don't know. I mean, I had a business coach in the very beginning. I've had business coaches along the way, and I think that's in that has influenced what I've charged. And also just the more expertise I have and the longer I've been in business, the more I understand what my value is. But it's a great business question for somebody who. Comes out as like, I just want to support people. I just wanna help people. I wanna do this from this heart-centered creative place. It's a interesting conversation in the mind of a creative.

[00:06:44] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. So how did you get started though? So when you did start charging, like how did you pick a number? Did you just pick a number out of the air and you're like, let's see if they pay this.

[00:06:55] Marisol Colette: I think so. I mean, I think so. I can't remember if it was like, what can you pay? I don't think so, because I needed to make a certain amount of money. Oh, I bet. What I did is I bet I charged my hourly rate that I charged as a therapist. I think that's what I did. So I just translated that same hourly rate.

[00:07:10] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. And so now okay. How do you think about that you know, fast forward 10 years from now? Like is it different? Is it the same now still? Was that the right number? Like looking back at that?

[00:07:24] Marisol Colette: It was the right number at the time. I had a lot of learning to do, so it was a great number for me. It worked for our family. No, it is not the same anymore. I do still have a very small private practice. That hourly rate is still lower than my hourly styling rate. And it's just a matter of what I do, all of the things that I'm doing in the moments that I am styling someone, I often am with them at their homes. So there's travel involved. I fly places. There's all sorts of. Extra things that go into it and yeah, and then I sell, I have like bigger packages, so I work with people on a long-term basis and then I just, it's a conversion of how many hours I spend with them.

[00:08:07] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. Okay. So that's what I was trying to understand too, that it's an interesting point. So at first I was thinking like, okay, this is maybe. A one and done type of thing. And that would then translate into why you would need to charge more. Because look, you're gonna do it once and you're not gonna, so there are kind of ongoing engagements with folks.

[00:08:26] So how do you figure that out? Like when it makes sense to have a longer engagement versus not for somebody?

[00:08:35] Marisol Colette: Yeah. So right now I have I have one client who's a socialite who is at events all of the time. So she has a large closet, she's a maximalist. It's great. We're constantly curating and cu she wants new outfits for every event. Totally works. She needs me all the time. I have another client who is international speaker. Usually she's on the news. She's about to release her book. So I work with her because she's about to be on book tour. So it's. Constant conversations, podcast, speaking engagements, et cetera. So she just wants, she has better things to do than worry about what to wear, which is one of my taglines because that's what I wanna support, is allowing other people to focus on what they are here to do and not allowing them to be distracted by what they wear, or have to spend time worrying about it, like putting it together. Any amount of time spent on that. So I just pick her outfits and put it into her digital closet, and she wears. Exactly what I tell her to wear to the things that I tell her to wear I'm doing.

[00:09:36] Sanjay Parekh: I feel like I need that. But that, that's probably a whole different conversation.

[00:09:41] Marisol Colette: No, it's probably the..

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[00:10:08] Sanjay Parekh: So let's talk about like how you pitch this in the beginning because I mean, I think a lot of entrepreneurs have this same challenge when they're trying to do something that's very new and very different. And it's this struggle of trying to communicate what you're doing as well as the value proposition behind it. So how did you think about those things for yourself?

[00:10:31] Marisol Colette: Yeah, that's such a good question because it, you know, as you're starting a business, you have to think about the quote unquote elevator pitch. So how do I explain this to somebody in under 30 seconds if I'm meeting somebody in a restaurant or something like that, and I. It is trial and error. I mean, in the beginning I used to call myself your best girlfriend, right? Because I was, at the time, I was thinking about it from the perspective of when I would help my friends, I'd go into your closet. It's a very vulnerable place to be inside your home looking at, you know, everybody's like, oh, my closet's a mess, or, oh, my clothes are, whatever.

[00:11:04] You know, we're talking about body image. We're talking about how they. Feel in their bodies. We're talking about who they are, how they wanna authentically express themselves. There's a lot of vulnerability in that, and the best person for that job is your best friend. So I used to call myself your best girlfriend and that is not, that does not fully describe what I do and it. The wisdom that I bring to the potential for the transformation that clients have. So the depth of transformation that people experience when they truly feel like their authentic selves. It's much more, you know, that comes from my expertise, not just being a great friend.

[00:11:43] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. Have you had like with clients like these breakthroughs that, that don't relate to fashion while you're doing these things?

[00:11:50] Marisol Colette: Hundred percent.

[00:11:51] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah.

[00:11:52] Marisol Colette: Oh, 100%. Yeah, because, you know, we do become close in my it, with the work that I do, I am available, ongoing, so I'm having lots of conversations. Sometimes we're talking about money actually, because we're talking about investment in self. So do I feel like I'm worth the investment in myself to spend money on quality clothes. Do I love myself enough to buy clothes? Do I like my body enough to want to adorn myself? I mean, it's, you know, I don't, I think the difference between when I was a social worker, as the front facing part of my business, and when I am a personal stylist with the therapeutic background.

[00:12:30] The big difference is that we are coming at it from this creative, lighthearted, more fun, beauty forward perspective. And so it, there are breakthroughs, but it's a lot, it's not super cathartic. Like if you're sitting in a therapy office, it can be really big and meaningful, but it's not intended to be like a let's strip you down figuratively and literally and start from scratch here.

[00:12:56] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. Have you had so this is interesting to me that you still have the small practice. That you're doing as well as this, which is kind of maybe the larger portion of what you're doing. Have you had people kind of migrate back and forth between essentially the two businesses?

[00:13:14] Marisol Colette: No, because ethically I can't, with my particular license.

[00:13:19] Sanjay Parekh: Got it.

[00:13:19] Marisol Colette: Okay. So, no, but you know, I mean, it, people are talking about self-esteem. They're talking about how they're showing up in their own businesses or in their own lives or dating and things like that. So, you know I have that flavor in my background as a therapist. I can talk to people about body image and that part of it, eating right and things like that, and society's expectations on us as all genders, what they expect us to do strong. Beautiful, skinny, buff.

[00:13:49] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah.

[00:13:50] Marisol Colette: Tall.

[00:13:50] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. Yeah. What, so what's your motivation? This is interesting to me too, because it seems like a lot of your effort is on the kind of fashion therapy and helping people kinds of, you know, in terms of that make them feel good, make them look good make them comfortable in kind of the person that they are. But you're still holding onto this kind of traditional therapy business as well. And do you feel like that kind of makes it harder for you to grow the business or deal with the business? Like, like why is that, that you're holding onto that therapy business as well?

[00:14:27] Marisol Colette: I don't take on new clients, but I have clients that I had from before and I love them.

[00:14:32] I just love them. So I have kept them, kept working with them. They're biweekly, so I only see them a couple times a month. It's not a huge you know, I would never call any of my work a time suck, but like, it's not, it doesn't take up a lot of my time. Right. It helps me keep me, it like keeps me top of mind as far as the therapeutic practices.

[00:14:51] I have to keep my license up so I get education. It all helps everything else. So, yeah, no, it doesn't bother me at all. And my motivation for. Why I do what I do is because think about all these amazing people, especially the heart-centered people, and they have all this incredible work they wanna do in the world. All of the folks who are starting their businesses. This comes from a place of deep deep. Desire and values that they wanna get their business out in the world. And they, you know, somewhere deep down they believe that it's, that it is meaningful enough to start a business. And the courage that takes and the fact that you have to be face, face facing, outward to be your business. Small businesses, you are the face of your business. And it takes confidence and courage. And so many people, I cannot tell you how many people have said to me. I got invited to a dinner with my friends and I didn't go because I didn't know what to wear. And that is a microcosm of what it would look like to be invited to a speaking engagement or to a networking event that it would be even hard for you to get dressed you know, to go out with friends and you said no, you know what I mean?

[00:15:58] People hide because they're uncomfortable in their own skin. And then there's this. Especially with especially with small businesses, it's like, okay, so I'm starting my own business. I should I look professional? Do I need to wear a suit? What should I wear? How do I how do I align myself and show people how I'm different than somebody else or what I really like about my business and why I'm here to do what I do and how we can actually express that through what we wear. And then that gives people yet another layer of understanding about who we are, what our values are, what we're here to do, what our business is about. So yeah, I just want people to shine and feel really confident.

[00:16:40] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. I love that. And so interesting. So now it makes a lot of sense, right? You've got this therapy business that I guess over time. It would get smaller and smaller since you're not taking on new clients. And then over time, you know the fashion side will become larger and larger.

[00:16:58] So let's talk about that a little bit. You started this out as kind of just a sole entrepreneur doing this therapy thing. How are you thinking about growing that business? Or does it grow, you know, does it become a team? Is it a team now? How big of a team where do you see this going in the future?

[00:17:17] Marisol Colette: Yeah, I have, yes, it is growing because I hit my 10 year anniversary this October. It, that feels like such an incredible milestone. And in the last two years, my business has grown, but I also proverbially quit. It was the top of, I think it was the top of 20, 24. I said to my husband, I was like, what would you say if. Quit my business altogether. And he just came up with a cute little jingle and was like, kind of laughing. He was like, we're closing Sol Reflection and we don't know what's gonna happen. You know? And I was, and he took it really lightly. And I, but I needed, I actually, what I didn't know what was coming, but what I knew is that I needed to turn the dial down on certain things that I had been doing, close down certain parts of my business so that I could open up into new layers.

[00:18:04] And last year I, or. Yeah, earlier this year I had like eight contractors that worked for me. And then I started to put them all into one full-time employee. Not all of them, but a couple of them got moved into one full-time employee. So as of October, I hired my first full-time employee and she's. Incredible. I cannot believe that with 40 hours a week, we are still behind when before she was five hours a week. Okay.

[00:18:35] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah, you, so that's such an interesting insight. And I think that's a challenge for a lot of entrepreneurs and small business owners is like thinking about that first hire. And then worrying about like, oh, is there gonna be enough work for this person? Oh, is there gonna be revenue that supports this person? So how did you get over that for yourself to get to that point? Like, you have this team of contractors, but sometimes concentrating that into one person doesn't always necessarily work.

[00:19:02] Marisol Colette: It is still a huge leap of faith. I mean, what am I in my, currently, in my just beginning months of this?

[00:19:08] So I, yeah. And had my, like, one of my lowest earning months. Right after I hired her full-time, and I just thought, what an interesting universal response to this, because all signs point to Yes. Right. But what I'm recognizing is we're actually spending a lot of our time forward thinking. So we're doing a lot of long-term planning. So I just got invited to a, an event next September, like a company that does multimillion dollar fundraisers in Texas. So that's, you know, in the future we're, we are leading a retreat in Italy in April of 2026. So that's another future thing that could not have happened without her support.

[00:19:52] So, you know, while it. While the, like ROI in the very moment that I hired her isn't the same. There's this huge transition, the whole point of having her on was to grow the business in these larger ways. So, yeah. Well, I mean, it's a day, it is small business. It's a day to day leap of faith in practice.

[00:20:12] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. So this is so interesting. So how did you not get nervous. because I think a lot of entrepreneurs would like, okay, you hire your first employee and then revenue went down, right? Like that's a panic moment right there. So how did you keep calm? How did you not get nervous in that? And how did you get yourself through that?

[00:20:33] Marisol Colette: I'm paying her approximately what I was paying all of those contractors together. I have to remember that because it's a mindset thing too, right? It's like I, yes, there is a lot of pressure actually because she is, I am responsible to her and she is relying on me solely for now. And yeah, I mean, did I wake up for a bunch of days nervous, having had nervous dreams. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I'm human, but I have people, I have mentors. I run the numbers. We're doing this on a quarterly basis that we have goals that we have to hit on a quarterly basis. We are gonna hit that goal because, you know, I think the, when you're in business for yourself, you're looking at day to day.

[00:21:19] You're like, did I make money today? Did I make money today? And then it's like. Did I make money this month? And then it becomes, did I make money this quarter? And then all of a sudden it starts to be like, oh, did I make money? How much did I make collectively this year? Right? So low earning month is not what's gonna happen over, you know, Q4 for me, it's just a part of it. And yeah, and then I call my mentors and I'm like, do I have to make a change? Do I need to reduce her hours? Do I need to make a change or do I need to just sit in the discomfort and the faith knowing that things are coming?

[00:21:50] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. I often say about entrepreneurs that those, there's those of us that have had to worry about payroll and making payroll and those there, the rest of us are those that have not yet had to worry about making payroll.

[00:22:02] I think it, it comes from all of us at some point. And I think you become a very different entrepreneur when you've had to deal with that and have got, had to go through that because you really do. Like, I think you, you touched upon that where. You are responsible now, right? You're not only responsible for yourself, like, and then, you know whatever it is.

[00:22:23] But now the minute that you start hiring people you're responsible to them. The business is more about them than it is about you at that moment. So how did you find this first employee? Like, how did you go out and get this like, you know, magical unicorn that is.

[00:22:40] Marisol Colette: She is a unicorn.

[00:22:41] Sanjay Parekh: That has helped driving business.

[00:22:42] Marisol Colette: A unicorn. I, so I, I courted her to no end. So she, I got connected to her when she was an intern in undergrad. And her five hours a week was as valuable as my 60 that I put in. Like, her five hours were so potent and she was always available and she had a million things on her plate and double major and all this stuff. And yet she still showed up for me just as crisp and concise and, you know, on point is ever for those five hours. So I was like, how can I hire you full time? And I'm saying these words out loud, knowing that at the time I was in the process of, you know, proverbially closing my business. And so I shut off the valve.

[00:23:27] I said, I'm not taking on new clients, and yet I'm saying out loud, can I hire you full time? So. And she told me no. She told me no. She told me no. She told me no, she didn't wanna work virtually. She lives in New York City. And I asked her again and I just kept without making her uncomfortable. I just kept saying, you know, this is an option if you want it to be. And when she graduated, she took a job in person somewhere. And she really couldn't give me as many hours. She did not like it as much, and she said she thought about working for me, like what it, how much more she enjoyed working for me.

[00:24:03] So the first week I brought her on, I flew her here because I double booked myself for something. And so I was like, look, we're in person. I have to fly you here immediately because I need you in person. So and I'm taking her to Italy with me and she's such an incredible, valuable. Yeah, it was just one of those things. I'm so lucky to have her so lucky. Yeah.

[00:24:23] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. I mean, when you find those unicorn people, man, you got to do whatever you can. We've had one in the past that still does not work with us, has worked with us before, but not, you know, really for us anymore. She has her own business now. But my business partner and I have always said that, man, if we could have just a few people exactly like that, like clones of her.

[00:24:46] We could dominate the world. Like there would be dominate, nothing stopping us. When you find those unicorn employees, man, you got to do whatever you can to hang on to them. Okay. Let's switch gears a little bit and talk about kind of health and wellness. I know you've had challenges in your past.

[00:25:01] Let's talk about that and how that's kind of impacted your business. So how do you think about now kind of health and wellbeing related to running your businesses and how has it impacted you in the past?

[00:25:13] Marisol Colette: So right now I'm 41, I think I'm 41, and I have a four and a half year old. You know, so I'm at this time in my life where things are supposed to be almost too busy, right?

[00:25:26] Like this is just a period of life where things are just so busy for people because, you know, my business is still ramping up. I'm just in the first 10 years and, you know the quote unquote work life balance, I would say it's not. It's not where it will be as things continue to catch flywheels, right?

[00:25:46] Every time I catch a flywheel, like having my assistant now, I have so much more time to relax and be creative, right? To take things slower. But it's just supposed to be busy right now. And I also really love what I do after I had my kiddo. It was a very hard pregnancy. He's an IVF baby. We had eight years of fertility a issues and we're so fortunate to have him and, but the pregnancy was hard and postpartum was awful and.

[00:26:19] The first thing I wanted to do was go back to work because it was the only place I felt like I had any expertise. And so I love what I do. Plus, I mean, I'm shopping with people, I'm helping people. I get to see their joy. I get to see them shine beautiful colors, patterns, textures. So it's a delightful job. And when I. Overly busy. I just have to remember that this is temporary that I'm gonna get, you know, this is temporary. When I left my job at the va, I was diagnosed with cancer the, a couple weeks after I left. And again, when these moments when I'm make big leaps of faith and the universe is like, are you sure?

[00:26:59] Let me give you the ultimate test. But to me and it wasn't life threatening, we, it wasn't life threatening and I feel very grateful for that. And to me it was an opportunity to quite literally shed and let go of the. You know, no shade on government positions, but it was a very male dominated place that didn't always support creativity. I, I was told by my boss at the time, he said, you're a star and we don't have stars here. And I, while that was an insult, he was trying to, he was trying to dim me down a little bit. I also really appreciated that because that helped me see like, oh yeah, I can't be my full self here. This is not a place where I'm supposed to bring my creativity. Yeah. And so. Yeah, it was just a letting go of all of that, and it also put me flat on my ass and I had to sit really still and recover. And it gave me time to think like, okay, what would I do differently? What am I gonna do differently to make this job because I have the the luxury of making this job what I want it to be.

[00:28:05] Sanjay Parekh: Right. How long was it after that, that you started So Sol Reflection.

[00:28:11] Marisol Colette: I had opened my business and I would you know, a lot of my clients at the time didn't know, but that not long after I had surgery, I would climbed myself into my therapy chair and sit there in a little bit of pain.

[00:28:24] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So you were doing both at the same time, dealing with Kind of..

[00:28:28] Marisol Colette: A little bit, but I, a little bit answer as well as that I did not do it as much as, yeah. Did not get to blast off like I wanted to for sure.

[00:28:35] Sanjay Parekh: Right, right. Yeah. So interesting. Okay, last couple of questions here for you. You know, if you're, you, our listeners are probably listening to this and being like, okay, well.

[00:28:47] She did something that was kind of very off the beaten path nobody else was doing. Hard to explain, you know, if you were talking to somebody that's trying to do that kind of thing, something that's, you know, too weird, people don't understand because it's never been done before, you know? What would, what kind of advice would you give to them about staying the course and, you know, making sure that people get it and getting to the promised land like you have?

[00:29:12] Marisol Colette: You got to keep it simple. Keep it 1 0 1 because when I first started trying to explain things to people as to what I was doing, it was overly complicated. It just it, but now I, I have it so simplified that the introduction to it is. Incredibly simple. And then speaking of flywheel you know, the thing that has always been difficult to explain is the depth of transformation on the other side. Like, how could you possibly be a different person after working with me for some time?

[00:29:43] Right? Like, how could you possibly just from changing what you wear. Right. And I think that's what people think. It's just about what you wear. And so that's the part that's always been hard to explain. So what I do when people, when I'm on a sales call, I say, and I have clients that you're welcome to talk to who have volunteered to talk to you, because there's no way for me to explain what this could look like for you other than for you to hear it from them.

[00:30:04] And so, you know, you got to get a couple. Testimonials and some word of mouth before it's gonna make sense to everyone and just stay, do your work and stay clear and true to yourself. Just do your work.

[00:30:17] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. Yeah. That's great advice. Okay, last question for you. Like now thinking about it, it's been 10 years.

[00:30:23] Fabulous. You know, a lot of small businesses don't get to that mark. Thinking back is there something that you experienced now that you're a lot wiser on that you would go back and do differently based on what you know now?

[00:30:40] Marisol Colette: P and Ls. I mean, I didn't even know what a PA profit and loss spreadsheet was when I got started. I would have loved to have taken a business course. I mean, that is just not, that was not on my radar. I think a business course, a tax class, all of those things should be I, there's an incredible book that a friend of mine wrote called Taxes for Humans, and I think it's an incredible book for small businesses because she talks about the tax benefits before you even realize that you are. An organization or a company or before you're even incorporated. So yeah, check out that book and I just wish I had that in 2015.

[00:31:17] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. How did you figure all that stuff out for yourself then as you went?

[00:31:22] Marisol Colette: Clunky by hiring business coaches along the way. But it wasn't the first one that told me that either, you know? Yeah. It was a mindset coach and a business coach. And then finally I got somebody who was like, are you actually kidding me that you've been in business for yourself without like a p and l? And I was like. I don't even know. I was like, I'm sorry to tell you, but very honestly, I don't even know what you're talking about.

[00:31:44] Sanjay Parekh: I pay my bills, I make the money. What else do you want?

[00:31:47] Marisol Colette: Exactly. Right. Exactly.

[00:31:49] Sanjay Parekh: I love it. Marisol, this has been fantastic. Where can our listeners find and connect with you online?

[00:31:55] Marisol Colette: Yeah, so my name is Marisol, SOL. So my business is Sol Reflection, SOL Reflection. So you can find me at SolReflection.com. I'm on Instagram at Sol Reflection. You can see all the fun outfits that I do, the conversations that I'm having, client testimonials and on Facebook, also at Sol Reflection, LinkedIn, Marisol Colette, Sol Reflection. Thinking anywhere else. Yeah. Awesome. 

[00:31:22] Sanjay Parekh: Thanks so much for being on today.

[00:32:24] Marisol Colette: Yeah. Thank you, Sanjay.

[00:32:30] Sanjay Parekh: Thanks for listening to this week's episode of the Side Hustle to Small Business podcast, powered by Hiscox. To learn more about how Hiscox can help protect your small business through intelligent insurance solutions, visit Hiscox.com. And to hear more Side Hustle to Small Business stories, or share your own story, please visit Hiscox.com/side-hustle-to-small-business. I'm your host, Sanjay Parekh. You can find out more about me at my website, SanjayParekh.com.