Building Businesses with Authenticity and Connection featuring Olivia Shears

[00:00:00] HOST: Adrienne Garland: Leadership isn't just changing. It's evolving in ways we're only just beginning to imagine. And women, we're not playing this game anymore. We're the ones reshaping the entire field, building models, movements, and businesses that serve more than just a few. On the She Leads podcast, you'll hear real conversations with women who've broken through all kinds of barriers, revenue, identity, borders, and expectations. There's no sugar coating here, just the truth told by those who are living it. I'm Adrienne Garland, entrepreneur, strategist, educator, and creator of live experiences, gathering women leaders together for over a decade. And this is the She Leads podcast. So today, my guest is Olivia Shears. She's the co-founder of Long-Distance Besties and the owner of Social Bean Agency. Olivia's all about friendship, entrepreneurship, creativity, and building things that bring people closer together. Long-Distance Besties was created to celebrate the friendships that survive the miles. The ones that grow stronger with time, letters, and love. When she's not working on new ways to connect people, you can usually find her with a coffee in her hand and a big dream in the Mother, welcome to the She Leads podcast, Olivia.

[00:01:21] GUEST: Olivia Shears: Hi. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me.

[00:01:24] HOST: Adrienne Garland: I am so glad that you are here today on the She Leads podcast and I can't wait to dive into our conversation. And actually, I'll kick it right off with something that we were just talking about. So, we were just talking about how so many women entrepreneurs do multiple things. So, you have two businesses. Can you talk about you know your your business the first one that you're that you started and then why you chose to also launch Long-Distance Besties.

[00:01:47] GUEST: Olivia Shears: Absolutely. So the first business I started was actually a picnic design company. I I don't run that anymore. That was 2020 during COVID. I started doing picnics and I realized my favorite part of that was the social media marketing aspect. So come 2021 and I already started working with some social media clients while I was still doing the picnics, which was like dates and anniversaries. I'd set up a picnic. And by 2022, I closed the picnics down, went fully into social media. And since then, it's been that's been my whole thing. That's that's what I don't know, keeps me going. That's that's my main thing. And somehow in the past year and a half, Long-Distance Besties started with two of my best friends. That was just a a combination of of dreams and plans and goals that all three of us came together and were like, we need to fill this space that that is missing long-distance besties. You know, we hear about long-distance relationships and and military long distance, but how often are we hearing about long-distance friendships, but we all have them? Like, we all, you know, graduated high school and moved. We all graduated college and moved. People have moved for jobs and there was just this void. So, So, so that was a really big thing was we wanted to fill that void. And yeah, so now I do both of those together. Picnics are long gone, but social media and Long-Distance Besties are are my thing. That's what I spend 90% of my time doing. And I'm I'm happy and very fortunate to be in this position.

[00:03:32] HOST: Adrienne Garland: Oh, I love it. So, let's also dial it back. So, even let's go down let's go back in time even before the the picnics. And what a great idea. And it's so funny because I I think I remember remember just seeing your picnic business. When you just said that, I was like, "Oh, I'm very familiar with that because I thought that was such a great idea." But let's go back. So, tell talk to me a little bit about your background and, you know, were you in corporate and then decided to start a business? Can you talk a little bit about where this all came from?

[00:04:03] GUEST: Olivia Shears: Absolutely. So, to go way back, I grew up with just it was just my mom and me for most of my life. and she is an entrepreneur as well. She has been a wedding photographer for oh my gosh 30 years now maybe and just in the past five years she started doing photo organizing and does she has an Instagram where she shares all her photo organizing tips and so I I grew up with that like strong female entrepreneur energy and like I said it was just her and I and she was like my my world my inspiration I I always wanted to be like my mom. I still want to be like my mom and So 2018 2020 time frame. I graduated high school in 2018 and went into nannying at first which I always love nannying. That was fine. It you know it it was a job for when I was in college and COVID hit and the first few months of COVID the first six months of COVID I was actually a valet so I lost my nanny job and went right into cars which I don't think anybody expects that. was like driving stick shift cars and parking cars and and you know I don't think anybody looks at me and thinks oh yeah she was a valet but

[00:05:27] GUEST: Olivia Shears: yeah it was very it was very random but it was a job at the time and it was only like six months but it was I was working like double shifts where it was like 8:00 a.m. to 11 p.m. five or six days a week. I was missing out on things with my friends. I was still in college at this point. which was even harder. I'm, you know, I'm in college. I'm in a sorority. I'm working this job that's asking so much of me. And there was one time my mom came to visit me in town to take me to a Dolphins game. And I tried for weeks to get off work. I really wanted to get this day off. I was trying so hard, but they were not budging on letting me get this day off

[00:06:17] GUEST: Olivia Shears: until the day came. Still couldn't find anybody to replace me. My mom came to town and ended up taking my boyfriend to the Dolphins game while I sat at work. Oh no. And I just I was so upset and maybe being a little dramatic about it, but I was crying at work. I was just like, "Oh my gosh, I'm missing so much of my life right now. I'm 20 years old and I'm sacrificing so much already." And the next day after the Dolphins game, I quit. And I was like, "Something needs to change." I I didn't even know what it was yet, but something needed to change. And within two months, that's when I kicked off the picnics.

[00:07:05] HOST: Adrienne Garland: So, So yeah. Were you in co you were in college when you started the picnic business?

[00:07:08] GUEST: Olivia Shears: I was. So I graduated in geh two and a half years ago. I think December 2022. 2023.

[00:07:18] HOST: Adrienne Garland: Wow. Wow. So how'd you I'm going to ask you a bunch of questions about that because I actually teach entrepreneurship at the college level at NYU and at Rice University. And I love love love the students and all of the incredible ideas that they have. They They see things from a different perspective than I do and I feel like I learn as much from them as I hope that they learn from me. So when you were in college, did you take any entrepreneurship classes?

[00:07:49] GUEST: Olivia Shears: You know, I don't think I did actually. So I So actually at first I was a construction management major also super random. And about two years in I switched to communications which was a lot of communication psychology. based classes. So, I actually don't think I did take any entrepreneurship classes, but I wish I did.

[0008:21] HOST: Adrienne Garland: Yeah. It's funny because you clearly have an entrepreneurial mindset and you are taking the actions and learning, you know, what makes for a successful business. So, the with the picnic business, I I imagine that the reason that you closed it down was twofold. First, the pandemic, thank God, wound down. and people probably weren't seeking things to to do like that as much anymore. Although I'm sure that they they you know many people still want to do picnics and then secondly that you fell in love with the social media part of it.

[00:09:00] GUEST: Olivia Shears: Yeah, absolutely. There was also, you know, I really fell out of love with it. So I would do the picnics on Miami Beach and we'd park five blocks away from the beach because Miami Beach parking. We'd have to take wagons full of rugs and pillows and tables and food and I couldn't do it by myself. I always needed a helper with me which was kind of you know it's it's hard to have to rely on somebody like that.

[00:09:29] HOST: Adrienne Garland: Yeah.

[00:09:30] GUEST: Olivia Shears: And then Miami Park started permitting so they were charging like $3 $400 for a you know half day permit and that was just people didn't want to pay that and like you said people were getting out of out of the you know COVID doing stuff like that mindset. So there was so many reasons that I was just like I think I need to move on. And it was a really hard choice at the time. At the time it was like I was, you know, I had these I had the picnics, I had social media. I didn't know what direction to go. But now I can look back and be so grateful for the choice I did make.

[00:10:09] HOST: Adrienne Garland: Love that. And then when you did start up the Social Bean Agency, that's not easy. You know, there are definitely a lot of people that, you know, claim to be experts in social media and, you know, they have agencies or they're independent contract there's a ton of competition out there. So, making the decision to launch a social media agency, I'm sure that you had to think to yourself, well, what is my niche? So, can you talk a little bit about what your niche is and what differentiates your services from everything else that's out there?

[00:10:43] GUEST: Olivia Shears: Yeah, absolutely. So, there is a lot of competition. That is something that is kind of on my mind every day. And one thing that you know what, I don't know how this comes across, but I think what makes my business different is me and my biggest way of getting new clients is networking groups, networking events, referrals from people. Like interacting, human-to-human interaction is where I find most of my business, which is funny as a social media manager, but I think I think I'm what sets it apart. I think I'm like a very dedicated person. And I think I think it's rare to find somebody that'll put all of their eggs into your business. And that's what I do for all of my clients. I I will give my soul to all of my clients. And I want nothing more than every person I work with to be successful. And it's not my business, but it might as well be with how I treat these companies. Like I I feel like I have a stake in every single company that I work with. And and I truly want them to get to the goals that they they they want. And a lot of people niche down into industries. That's a big thing I see. And I do have industries that I I more commonly work with. I have a lot of wedding industry and mental health in general. That's I definitely lean into those, but I'm also I like working with different industries. It makes every day a little different for me.

[00:12:12] GUEST: Olivia Shears: For example, I just started a dog account this week, like a dog influencer account, which is super so random. I've never done anything I've never worked with pets before, but I'm a huge dog girl, so it was like this is so fitting for me. But yes, So, I know a lot of people like to niche by industry, but I think that's not necessarily my thing. And then right now, I'm very focused on just social media. So, I do basically all things social media, but I don't really go outside of that. Even like Google advertising. I get I get asked about that sometimes. I I really just want to be focused on social media right now and how I can improve somebody's social media before I even think about Google ads or or website creation.

[00:13:00] GUEST: Olivia Shears: So, yeah, that's what I feel. like makes me a little different, I guess.

[00:13:03] HOST: Adrienne Garland: I love that. So, I'm going to ask you maybe for some advice because you're you're you're Gen Z, right? You're Are you Gen Z? Okay. So, you're Gen Z. You you grew up with the you know the the digital devices in your your hands. Very different than me. I'm Gen X and all the women that are like me. We We very much and this isn't for everybody but the majority of the women that I speak to. We understand the importance of social media. We we want to be able to use it effectively. We have learned how to go from, you know, analog to digital and we've kept all of our skills up. So, we're not afraid of technology. We're learning AI. But social media is definitely something that I don't know that we have a handle on. And even speaking for myself personally, I've tried to work with people to help me with social media and as as you know helpful as it can be, so many times I find myself saying that just doesn't feel right. That doesn't feel like me. So what can somebody who you know has a business, they know that they need to be on social media they are who you know they are their business and yet they feel very uncomfortable turning the camera on themselves. What can a a woman entrepreneur who's growing her business that knows that she needs social media but is either reluctant or she doesn't know exactly what to do. What can she do?

[00:14:26] GUEST: Olivia Shears: So one thing I would say is I think a lot of people get really caught up with perfection. I think that's just a that's in everybody to a degree. And I see it in social media a lot and especially with newer clients. They they're so worried about perfection that they won't get behind the camera. They won't post the post. They they aren't interested in being a part of it because if it can't be perfect, they don't want it. And I get that. I I feel that for my own my own pages sometimes. Like I I don't want to post this if it's not perfect. I don't want to be on camera right now if I don't want to if I don't look perfect. So I think just trying the best that you can to get out of the perfectionism mindset because one thing about social media is there's this argument about quality versus quantity. I think both are equally as important as important. People will tell you one is more important than the other. I think they're equally as important, but at the end of the day, it would be better to post 20 posts in one month month that are good and and you look good rather than one that is perfect.

[00:15:43] GUEST: Olivia Shears: I think at the end of the day, like quantity is important and and Quality is important. I'm not saying it's not, but but quantity is important. And when you start getting wrapped up in the I want to make it perfect. This needs to be great. I can't put this out into the world unless it's perfect. That's when you start losing the quantity. And and you just got to find the balance of both, I think, is really what it comes down to. And and for my experience, so I've been doing social media. I started my picnic page five years ago. So I've been running social media to some degree for five years now. And over the years, I've gotten more comfortable being behind the camera and being online just by doing it. And I know that's just not even the best advice, but but you just have to just do it. Like that's that's kind of how I look at a lot of things in life. I'm a very like just just make it happen. Just bulldoze through. You can do this. Like just get behind the camera even when you don't feel like it. Post the video even when you don't feel like it. And eventually you get comfortable cuz by this point I can say I'm totally comfortable in posting whatever on my pages on my personal pages like my business personal. But so that's one thing I would say is just just post the post. Don't don't get so caught up in in the minute details

[00:17:10] GUEST: Olivia Shears: and just just release some of those expectations. The expectation that you need to be perfect, the expectation that you know you can't make a little mistake here and there. And once you're posting and and you start seeing that quantity, I think you'll likely start to see the results that that you're hoping for.

[00:17:30] HOST: Adrienne Garland: It's such good advice. I mean, it it applies to so much in life, right? It's it's sort of like if you have the if you have the motivation or the inclination in your in your being, something's telling you to do it. And we do get in our way so much. It's, you know, it's self-sabotaging behavior. But having that entrepreneurial mindset and that that, you know, let me put something out there to see the reaction that I get and do that as an experiment, a social media experiment is the best way to learn. And so I think that we have to approach social media as a a learning experiment versus feeling like and I I think that this happens to so many people when when we post a video for social media, we feel like we're going on television, you know what I mean?

[00:18:19] GUEST: Olivia Shears: Absolutely.

[00:18:20] HOST: Adrienne Garland: Like we're shooting a movie. And I know for myself personally, I love those social media accounts that are entertaining or they're they're so insightful and, you know, they're they're put together so beautifully and produced, but I I think that those types of accounts are, you know, they're funded by by something or they're they're from a larger corporation that has a budget to put together a production.

[00:18:43] GUEST: Olivia Shears: 100%. Yeah. I I think about that often. Like I think people do get really caught up looking at those pages that that have everything looking perfect and you're not considering that they have, you know, a social media agency backing them. They have expensive lighting on them. They have the best microphone on them. And sometimes that's just not an option. Not everybody has that that ability to make that happen. So, and it's okay if you don't. It's so okay if you can't be perfect is is really what it comes down to. Just be yourself on the internet is what I tell people all the time. Like authenticity sells. It really does.

[00:19:23] HOST: Adrienne Garland: Yeah. The the authentic part of it is also very it it exposes you because especially, you know, as we age there's so much societal pressure to look a certain way, to to, you know, say certain things. And it it's been it's been really difficult as someone who's in Gen X to to know almost where our place is. And I I think that there's so much that we have to do mindset wise in order to show up. So, it's not necessarily showing up that where the problem lies. The problem lies in a much deep place. But I really like your advice on like, hey, just do it. Just be yourself. We need more people that are themselves instead of everybody trying to look act, you know, speak like all of the quote unquote popular people on social media. That that's not going to work for us.

[00:20:14] GUEST: Olivia Shears: No, I agree 100%.

[00:20:16] HOST: Adrienne Garland: I love it. So, talk to me a little bit about switch, you know, switching gears from the Social Bean Agency, which I totally love. And I I think the the message from that part of our conversation to all women entrepreneurs that are growing their businesses and looking to get past that million-dollar mark, we're all brands. And so, we have to we have to put ourselves out there to get visibility for our brands to help our businesses to to grow. So, if we want our businesses to grow, social media is, you know, in the majority of cases some that we must do. So now moving on because I love this topic about your business, bestie, especially women entrepreneurs. You know, we we we just face so many challenges and it's so important to have those people that are by your side and that are your cheerleaders. So can you talk about your business besties and and the journal and the whole entire just business in particular.

[00:21:20] GUEST: Olivia Shears: Absolutely. So, I co-founded Long-Distance Besties with two of my pretty much childhood friends. One of them I met in kindergarten and I moved away from her in seventh going into eighth grade. So, we were pretty young when we started doing long distance. And then I moved from Florida to Iowa where I met my my second bestie, my my new bestie, Mason. And I lived in Iowa for about 2 years before I started doing long distance. When I left there to go to Pennsylvania, I've kind of been all over the place. So, somehow I connected my Iowa best friend and my Florida best friend in mid high school, so I don't 10 years agoish now. And we started group chat. We started texting every day. I took my Iowa friend to Florida to visit there. I took my Florida friend to Iowa. And we just became a group. I I don't even know what happened. We just became like this little trio, which is crazy now because we've been doing long distance for nearly 10 years, all three of us. Two, the other two have never even lived in the same place. And we're just like this unstoppable bestie force that probably text more than we should and are so obsessed with each other. So about so a year and a half ago, well, going back a little further, we we would send each other mail, we would send each other gifts, we'd send each other letters, on each other photos. We would do FaceTimes all the time. We'd do iMessage games. Anytime a new game came out, we would all download it and play it together. So, we always were doing all these things to stay connected. And about a year and a half ago, Shelby, my Florida friend, was like, "What if instead of sending letters, we sent each other a journal?" And, you know, we all fill out our journal turn, we pass it along, and then I think I just have this like make money mindset. So, I was like, "Okay, fabulous idea, but let's sell it, too.

[00:23:19] HOST: Adrienne Garland: Yeah. Make money off of it.

[00:23:20] GUEST: Olivia Shears: Which is like story of my life. I anytime somebody comes to me with an idea, I'm like, sell it. Make it a business. I don't know why. It's funny though. But so, we started this journal and we started the Instagram page and we kind of were like, I don't know how this is going to go. Whatever. Like, let's just be fun about it at first and and just see where the wind takes us. And it's been crazy. So last month, May, we celebrated a year together and doing this business. A year of the journal, a year of the Instagram page, and we've we're almost at 15,000 Instagram followers. We have this like booming community of people that is just so it's fascinating to me. We get comments. We get DMs of people who are like, "This is so relatable. This is inspirational. I love your friendship. Your friendship is inspiring our friendship. Actually, we got a DM last night that was a woman who said she's been doing a shared journal, like a DIY shared journal with her best friend for over 30 years now.

[00:24:33] HOST: Adrienne Garland: Oh my gosh.

[00:24:35] GUEST: Olivia Shears: So, it's just like we get all of this community interaction. Our journals have sold in America, of course, Canada, France, the UK. I think we're like close to 10 different countries we've shipped our journal to, which is crazy in itself as well. Like I think Germany is one too. I just we would have never guessed that our journal would even leave America, let alone get to all of these countries, let alone touch all of these people. And since we've we've created edition two, actually, we have edition two coming out right now of the journal. And the journal is essentially so you you have the journal, you fill out your personal section, which you write what's new in your life, you add a photo, you add some artwork, and you answer a prompt. So the prompt could be like, "What's what is the best and worst thing that's ever happened in your life. They're they're deeper prompts.

[00:25:35] GUEST: Olivia Shears: And then you flip to the back half of the journal and it's it's like open-ended prompts. So, you fill it out on your own leisure. What's your favorite song? Add more photos of XYZ event. Talk about your goals. Goal planning. So, you fill out your turn. You fill out the back half. You ship it to your friends. They do that. They ship it back. You can have up to maybe like four people do it. There's 12 turns, so four is probably good. our group does three and yeah, it's just it's been like a whirlwind of unexpected things that have come out of this. So, it's been it's been

[00:26:21] HOST: Adrienne Garland: Yeah, I mean, you're definitely tapping into something again that goes deeper than quote unquote just a journal, right? It's it's human connection and that is definitely something it's, you know, it's almost like the opposite of social media. where you're you're definitely interacting with people, but you might not get to that depth of relationship that you might through sharing more heart centered and deeper things about yourself. So it's it's almost it's perfect what you're doing because it completely balances the scales, right? So when I guess like I just have question. So after let's say you know these 12 turns people really get to know one another and everything. What what comes next? Is it just like it's a natural progression into a deeper relationship? Like I could see this being so much more than just you know long-distance besties, right? There's long-distance biz besties long-distance you know, relationships, like there's so much that can be expanded from here.

[00:27:21] GUEST: Olivia Shears: We have talked a lot about that about what's next for us and and it feels like one of those businesses where the opportunities are just so many and I don't think every business has has that opportunity to go 6,000 different directions, but but we do and we're fortunate for that. But also, it's a little it's overwhelming. There's so many ways we can go. I think long-distance relationships is definitely an avenue we'd love to go with the journal. Long-distance family is somewhere we'd love to go. Long-distance military members.

[00:27:54] GUEST: Olivia Shears: So, right now, in the next week or two, we're releasing a pen pal matchup program where you get matched up with a stranger. So, ideally in the future, we also have our long-distance besties version, but more geared towards strangers, pen pals, really getting to know somebody from base level because long-distance besties are are journal is very much for people that pretty much already knew each other, already had some type of existing relationship. But yeah, there's there's a thousand avenues we want to go. We just started releasing digital games as well. So like a FaceTime card game. You get on FaceTime, you you share your screen, and you play this card game. So there's so many places. And yeah, that's that's what we we're constantly in talks about. What's next?

[00:28:46] HOST: Adrienne Garland: Yeah. Oh my gosh, Olivia, I just I love this so much. It's it's so much fun and the thing that keeps popping up in my head is almost like you know what is old is new again. People this is how people used to you know communicate and share with one another through letters right letter exchanges and digital has been able to connect people with you know anyone all over the world in real time but with that I I do believe something deeper was lost. Lo and you're bringing that back again in a really really beautiful way. Two things that I would like to do. First of all, let's shout out to your mom who's wedding photographer. Let's tell everybody where they can find her for these photo organizing tips, which I think so many people could could benefit from. So, let's first shout out your mom.

[00:29:43] GUEST: Olivia Shears: So, her photography business, her wedding photography business, She's based in Southwest Florida and it's Impressions Photography and her photo organizing account is on Instagram. It's @the.christa.k and she totally go check her out. You'll love her page. We're I'm I do her social media actually. So, but she is also like marketing expert. Like we work together honestly everything we do like I work for her, she works for me. We're like constantly on the phone talking business. It's hilarious. We'll be we'll have like a 30 minute conversation that sounds like I'm on the phone with a client and then at the end we're like, "Love you. Bye. Love you, ma.

[00:30:30] HOST: Adrienne Garland: That is so great. So heartwarming. She did an amazing job with you and she really instilled that entrepreneurial mindset in you. And the next thing that I would like to do is you were so kind and generous and you provided she leads with two Long-Distance Besties shared journals that we were going to gift to women who attended She Leads Live LA. Unfortunately, we didn't get the journals until the the event wrapped, but we do have an online conference coming up on June 10th. And so, what I would love to be able to do is to put out to everybody that if you listen to this episode and you register for the She Leads online conference on June 10th that we will put you in a drawing to win one of the two journals and we'll send those out to you and I might even add a little something into those journals so you get to know me a little bit more.

[00:31:30] HOST: Adrienne Garland: So, thank you so much. So, this has been such an amazing conversation. You are so accomplished for being so young. I love your entrepreneurial mindset. I love how you know people come to you with opportunities and you say, "Let's turn this into a business. So that that just is so inspiring to me. If people want to purchase a journal, if people want to get to know you and follow you, can you tell us all the things about where we can connect with you?

[00:31:58] GUEST: Olivia Shears: Absolutely. So Long-Distance Besties, probably best if you go to our Instagram, which is @longdistancebestiesldb, and from there we have the link in our bio that is our stand store, which has our journal. It's going to have edition two coming coming soon, coming today actually. It's going to have our digital products, our Facebook group, just all the ways to get connected. But yeah, I would hop over to the Instagram first, which is @longdistancebestieslddb. And then if you're interested in social media, my Instagram is @socialbean.ag and my website is socialbeanagency.com.

[00:32:41] HOST: Adrienne Garland: I love it. Olivia, thank you so much for spending time with us here today. I can't wait to see everything that's to come for you and your future. And just thank you so much for for being an entrepreneur and showing us how it's done.

[00:32:51] GUEST: Olivia Shears: Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me.

[00:32:53] HOST: Adrienne Garland: If this conversation moved you, inspired you, or made you think differently, please take a moment to leave a five-star rating and review. It's not just about boosting the show. It's about amplifying the voices of women entrepreneurs who are leading with vision, building with purpose, and shaping What's next? We need more of these conversations in the world right now, don't you think? And if someone came to mind while you were listening, someone who matters to you, send this episode to them. If there's something on your mind about leadership, legacy, or what's next, I want to hear it. Head to sheleadsia.com/voice and leave a voice memo or note. Your insight might just help shape a future episode. Make sure to follow the show and come back next week for more conversations you won't hear anywhere else. Thank you so much for listening. This is the She Leads Podcast Network.