Kendall Antonelli, who started a cheese shop with her husband. Antonelli’s Cheese Shop has taken off, and last year their revenue was $1.9 million. Kendall and her husband have found that they secret to their success is storytelling. They share the personal stories behind their cheeses and other products.

Famous 5:

Favorite Book? – Good to Great, Uncontainable, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits
Favorite online tool? — QuickBooks

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?—Yes
If you could let your 20 year old self know one thing, what would it be? — Keep an adventurous spirit. Do something every day that betters yourself.

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:25 – Nathan introduces Kendall
01:40 – Kendall and her husband got the idea on their honeymoon
02:25 – Her husband wanted to find a better job, in cheese
03:00 – He decided to look into the business
03:40 – Kendall was working in social work
04:20 – They always wanted to work together
04:45 – She grew up in a farm town, and they “fell in love with the story of cheese.”
05:10 – They looked at their strengths
05:35 – Antonelli’s Cheese LLC
06:00 – Their rent
07:10 – Multiple business models
07:20 – Her and her husband have separate roles
08:25 – Open-book management
08:40 – $1.9 million in 2015
09:05 – “Passion with Purpose”
09:25 – Their retail is the most successful
10:00 – Cost is per pound
11:00 – Making cheese is a labor-intensive industry
12:15 – They decided to not be cheese makers, but be out of the kitchen and “storytelling”
13:15 – All the costs behind a wheel of cheese
13:40 – Team of six or seven people
14:05 – An artisanal journey
14:30 – Telling the story of the cheese
14:45 – Skews were as high as 2000
15:15 – Most lucrative products
- 16:15 – Wholesale in 2015 was about half of their revenue
- 16:45 – Cheese of the Month Club
- 17:15 – Parties and catering
17:45 – Their wholesale market is more flexible for clients
18:25 – Dealing with a perishable item/shelf life
19:00 – They are looking into investors
19:25 – What they pay themselves
20:20 – They travel to cheese conventions around the world
20:55 – They want to be in control of their business
21:30 – Professional and personal life can coexist
24:00 – Antonellischeese.com
26:20 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Make your passion your business.
Design a career that lets you accomplish your life goals.
Your professional and personal life can coexist.

Resources Mentioned:

Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for cheapest price possible.
Freshbooks - The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts.
Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+
Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5 hour drive) to listen to audio books.
QuickBooks – The accounting tool for Antonelli’s Cheese Shop
Good to Great, Uncontainable and Mastering the Rockefeller Habits – A series of great business books that Kendall recommends.

Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

EP 366: Her Cheese Shop Does $1m+ Annually, EBITDA Low, Why?

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