Full Episode Transcript

Dr. Ashley Blackington (00:00.994)

Hello and welcome back to the AND/BOTH. I am here today with Mary Wiegand and she is from Boon, which we are gonna hear all about and learn all about in a minute. But first welcome Mary, thank you for being here.

Mary Wiegand (00:14.281)

Thank you so much for having me today.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (00:17.458)

And so how about let's start with the big picture. Who are you, what do you do, all of these things, and we'll go from there.

Mary Wiegand (00:26.973)

Yeah, sounds good. Yes, as you said, I am Mary Wiegand. I am many things as this podcast name somewhat entails. So I am the founder and CEO of Boon, which again, we can get into. It's a consultant agency that is built after more than a decade of my corporate career in retail. So had spent a decent amount of time in corporate retail before starting Boon as an agency, as an option to have an entrepreneurial endeavor using the skills that I had built through my corporate time. On top of that, I am a mom. I am a mom to four biological kids, of which two are identical twins. And I'm a stepmom to two additional bonus kids, which makes me a mom to six. So definitely some family logistics that go on as well as running the business. I live in Columbus, Ohio, but have spent time across like many cities in the US.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (01:25.182)

Yeah, well definitely having a corporate career with some of the bigger pieces, I'm sure that that's had an influence on movement around the country for sure. So it's funny because before starting podcasting, you listen to all these ones and you're like, I think this is what I would like and all of these pieces and a lot of these podcasts give these really formal intros.

Mary Wiegand (01:35.463)

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (01:54.402)

And I think every once in a while, I catch people off guard because I'm like, tell me about you and people are like, me? Oh, oh wait. And so, but I think it's important because I think that like some people start and I don't think there's a good, bad or otherwise, but some people are like, I am a mom. And then some people are like, I am a so and so. And so I always think that it's really interesting to hear how people start the conversation.

Mary Wiegand (01:55.462)

Yeah, I definitely feel that I am both things, and probably if you catch me at a different moment, it's the other way. And I'm one of those, if you look at my LinkedIn profile and my title, the first title says mother. So it says mother, and then it says the other things that I do in my profile.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (02:37.59)

When I think too, there's a lot of having a larger family, you're sort of in this space where it's not, like I think if you have one or two kids, there's more of a juggle to it and there's more of a tendency to be like, yeah, no, I do this also. But when you have kids, like I have four and you have six, it's like, no, I have children. Like I don't have child or like, to like I have children, this is an entity. This is a, not a machine, but like this is a collective that I run and it has to run this way. And I run it with a partner and all of those pieces, but we are a machine here and the machine has to exist alongside of like all these other pieces.

Mary Wiegand (03:10.787)

Mm-hmm. Yes.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (03:33.298)

I do love it. I love too, because having different perspectives, I think also informs like how those intros actually go. Fascinating to me. Very fascinating. And so tell me about Boon. What what's type of consulting do you do? And who do you work with? And how does that all how'd that all come to be?

Mary Wiegand (03:42.185)

Sure. Yeah, so Boon is a leading analytic consultant agency that provides demand forecasting and inventory management. So that's where our expertise lies. And what that really means is making sure that product-based businesses have the right product and the right amount at the right time. Inventory management. Do you have enough supply to fuel the demand that you're going to have? It's a lot of work in spreadsheets. So we're really looking at the analytic side of how much did you sell, how much are you going to sell, down to the product color size level. 

And it is based on where my corporate career had been. So I had worked at major retailers, Target Corporation, Victoria's Secret, Tiffany & Company, learning that same functional expertise within the big retailers, learning best practices. But coming to Boon was my effort to say that this functional expertise can be applied to any product-based business. And a lot of these younger businesses that are startups that are emerging brands don't have access to this type of functional expertise. It's something that can be very crucial to their level of success if they don't end up way overstocked or way understocked for their customers' demand, obviously.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (04:50.798)

Mm.

Mary Wiegand (05:14.045)

And so really taking the boon approach is taking a human approach to brands that otherwise wouldn't have the expertise. And a lot of times that is people, you know, under 50 million annual revenue, but often it's under 5 million annual revenue. And we work with brands that are even under 1 million annual revenue. And we work with them all fractionally, part-time and on a personalized scope of work. So depending on how much support they need, we really tailor to say, how can we hone in on this one piece of your business to help you make the right decisions so that you have that right product at the right time.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (05:46.602)

I love that because the fractional piece is, I think, so important, especially as you get smaller and smaller in companies, because people are like, it's like that phone a friend option. I mean, you have to pay your friend, but it's the phone.

Mary Wiegand (05:47.733)

Yes.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (06:13.794)

It's the phone a friend option of like, I just I really this is that one specific like hangnail in being efficient and being effective and being able to like move forward in a way that means something for my business given what I do and what I sell and all of that. That's cool. So you must get a chance to watch people grow as these businesses move from like a 1 million to hopefully 50 and beyond.

Mary Wiegand (06:28.969)

Yeah, we do, and we really, really enjoy that. Brands tend to stay with the Boon model, with a Boon statement of work, for about 18 months to almost two years. And through the course of that, again, we may be adjusting exactly what pieces of the puzzle we're fixing for them and how we're supporting them, but we do get to see them kind of grow and evolve. And oftentimes, when they're done with Boon, it's usually a moment where they're hiring internally. 

So we've got them to the place where like, hey, now you can have somebody internal on your team, you don't need the fractional support anymore, you're ready and you understand the value of this functional area so that you're ready to have somebody in full time. And even when they graduate, we still like to support them. The team really, you know, we buy our Christmas gifts from the Boon client portfolio, we really focus on Instagram, we repost their stories, we really try to take an internal approach even though we're not an internal team member.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (07:07.626)

That's awesome. So how many people do you have in your portfolio right now?

Mary Wiegand (07:28.965)

Oh, from a client standpoint, we average around 20 to 25 on any given month as they come and go.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (07:35.206)

Oh, wow. So that's a lot of management. And how big is your team?

Mary Wiegand (07:39.805)

Yeah, my team right now, there's about 16 of us. And I say that because again, we come and we go. And I have a very unique team that's also part of my kind of and both where I'm lying in many areas of business is as a mom myself, I started Boon after I had my daughter. So I was the mom to two at the time and really wanted this opportunity to use my skills from corporate, but not be tied to one brand or 40 hours in an office.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (07:45.55)

Mm-hmm.

Mary Wiegand (08:06.505)

And this is in 2017, so well before hybrid work, well before anyone was thinking that you had an option besides going to the office every day. So started Boon with that in mind for myself. Have not necessarily been able to do that as well when you're a business owner. I still probably work more than 40 hours, but my team is comprised of everybody who is a part-time worker, so nobody works full-time, and it allows them to have that non-traditional blend of work and life.

And so a lot of them are moms who had chosen to stay home after their corporate careers, and then they give hours to Boon, or their individuals are multi-passionate and have other and both type endeavors where they're able to give some hours to Boon and hours to other things. So across the 16, it depends on who's assigned to what project, working on which clients, but they give anywhere from about 10 to 30 hours a week to the Boon business.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (09:03.542)

That's cool. So you're, you really ran in the forefront of, I started working on a product of, on a tech product before COVID or no, it was in the beginning of COVID and I had, I connected with a firm and they, they were like, we are only remote. And I remember at the time being like, Oh my God, did you, so you just went remote because, and they were like, no, we started the business this way because, because they work with people from all over the world. And so it just, made sense and I was like, “wow, that is so cool to have already like seen the writing on the wall” and especially like as a parent and as a mom to be able to say, okay, this doesn't really work. I want to do this my own way. And also I'm going to create space for other people to be able to have this as an option.

Mary Wiegand (09:53.977)

Mm-hmm. That's a huge passion of mine is to provide it for other people and give them that opportunity. Many of the people on my team might otherwise be out of the workforce if they didn't have this opportunity, right? And they had chosen that path and Boon sometimes is also like an on-ramp back to the workforce, right? They may choose to be here for a couple years as they figure out if they want to return to corporate. But yeah, I think, you know, the pandemic opened the eyes to people that you don't have to be physically located together.

But yeah, Boon's been that way since the beginning and our team is located across three of the four time zones across the US, all the way spanning to California. And so are our clients. Our clients don't have to be here either.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (10:35.674)

Yeah, yeah, I love the asynchronous way of the world in so many aspects now. I just feel like it fits everybody better. Like it doesn't mean, I don't know, I just, the idea of like everybody getting together to like sit in a room together, and it's like the new evolution of like, this could have been an email. Like literally now it is an email. Or it's like a five minute, blocking off time and schedule.

Mary Wiegand (10:40.024)

Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (11:04.286)

It seems to me like people have become really protective of the parts of their schedule that they can control. And in terms of like, I am available, I am not available and I hope that's here to stay.

Mary Wiegand (11:18.001)

Yeah, I think we employ that every single day. And even it's interesting, you know, you use the word asynchronous and that is the way the team works primarily, of course, even to where the time zones are different and then our working, our bodies and our brains wanna work at different times. I'm a morning person, I'm up, I've already done multiple hours of work as we sit here this morning talking, but I'm not a night owl.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (11:29.183)

Mm-hmm.

Mary Wiegand (11:39.869)

I have team members who don't even want to start work until 6 p.m., you know, maybe it's their partner, a significant other comes home and watches the kids and they work from six to midnight. That will never be me, but Boon has allowed them to have a flexible schedule truly where they're not tied to eight in the morning to six at night. We can go to the bus stops, we can volunteer at school. Again, we can have other endeavors that we do in our time within the day too.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (11:48.607)

Yeah, that's awesome. So that's on the business side. So the personal side of six kids. So how old are they?

Mary Wiegand (12:08.569)

Yes. The twins are the youngest. They just turned four, and they go up to age 11. So between four and 11.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (12:17.655)

Okay.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (12:21.89)

So twins and then wow, that is, so I have four in that and that feels like a lot. And if I doubled up on the last one, that's a lot. Just in terms of like the, so because it's springtime, I mean, I'm not sure when this will air, but like because it's springtime, you've also gotta be in the season that I'm in where everyone has grown out of everything

Mary Wiegand (12:24.637)

Yeah. Uh huh.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (12:50.746)

We're moving from like all of the winter things to the summer things and the summer things that were like a little bit too big last year are laughably small this year and I'm like what happened I mean I get it like you feed them and you put them in the sunlight and they grow but like why all of it at once?

Mary Wiegand (13:00.213)

Yes, the closet organization and the drawer resetting is happening in this house as well. I'm sure you feel this too, the interesting thing that I have to manage is the hand-me-downs. So it's like, okay, now wait, I've got the youngest are four who are both boys. I have older boys who are nine and 11. So as I take stuff out of there, the 11-year-old should pass it to the nine-year-old, but I may have a season in between where they don't actually fit it.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (13:14.034)

Mmm. Yes.

Mary Wiegand (13:40.457)

So I have to box it up get it ready, label it so that it's ready for the nine-year-old the next year, and then prep things for the four-year-old down the road too. So I struggle to try to basically play Frogger and leapfrog, hop over things for clothes. And truthfully, I'm not great at it. The kids' closets and the kids' drawers are not where my area of excellence lies. The kids are always well dressed. We find things. We do a lot of laundry.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (13:40.747)

Yep.

Mary Wiegand (14:05.361)

I think sometimes less is more and we just wash what we have and we wear it again. So we don't overload the clothes by any means. We've also found a lot of other families that are like bigger families or have multiples. We have a great family who has twin boys a few years older and they give us tons of hand me downs from there. So we're able to have matching sets for the boys and really being able to like utilize you know clothes for the second hand, both financially but also just sustainability like to not buy new every time. Yeah.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (14:33.778)

Yeah, yeah, and it's, and I also feel like if once you get to having kids that are this age or beyond like, like you know where to buy, where to spend the money so that things will last because it's true, like you go to Target and you're like, wow, this is so cute. Oh, this is cute. Oh, like my son would love this or my daughter would love this. And all of a sudden, you know, there's like, like you've got to clothe four human beings. And even if it's a $5 t-shirt, whatever. But if you have pieces that last a long time, like maybe a little bit more investment, like, like I say, so I have girl, boy, girl, boy. And if something survives my second, because he's like the kid, like, I'm not kidding. So last winter, I think it was last winter. I get a lot of stuff at a consignment store in town because it makes sense. Sustainability, economically all of those pieces and one of the owners has twins and my two oldest were the same size and so she was like I bought these jackets these kids never wore these jackets like they're beautiful like beautiful nice Patagonia jackets with the like not the puffy ones but they have a shell to them right so I'm like this is excellent I come home I bring the jackets home my daughter's is gray my son is black.

Mary Wiegand (15:52.355)

Mm, yeah, yeah.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (16:03.018)

and they are the same family and the same school and the same recess and the same everything. I'm not kidding. My daughter's jacket still looked brand new at the end of the year. And she's not like, you know, she's not like leaning against the wall at recess. Like, yeah, like she's out running around and playing and stuff like that. My son looked like he got dragged behind a school bus. I hit, I was like, you are in the same... you have the same schedule of your day, you have the same opportunity. Like the buttons are ripped off, you know, like Patagonia, they make like a great product. The buttons are ripped off on the shell piece. There's like a hole in the elbow. And I'm like, you play on the same playground. Like what happened? And he's like, I...

Mary Wiegand (16:36.943)

Yes, yes. “I'm sorry.” Well, yeah. I mean, and you do have, I mean, there is a gender difference, even if she's not a girly girl, but I see similar things with my twins who are four, and I will tell you, shoes is one of the hardest, right? So to manage shoes, and I don't know how close in size your kids are, but because the twins, it's one of the only things I always buy them the same, so that we just can match four shoes around, and we don't have to find whose shoes are whose.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (17:02.002)

Ah. Yep. Smart.

Mary Wiegand (17:14.525)

But one of the twins who is definitely more destructive had decided that he would scooter. And instead of using the, putting his foot on the brake on the back of the scooter, he decided that he would just put the toe of his shoe down and drag it across the sidewalk. So shoes becomes one thing that I do buy mostly at Target and just buy the like 14.99 and know that they're only gonna last so long. And yes, I tell him to use the brake on the scooter, but he just destroys shoes through and through.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (17:26.771)

Yes.

Mary Wiegand (17:44.728)

Yeah.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (17:44.962)

Yeah, my youngest has, so yeah, so he just got a scooter for his birthday with a brake because he was using a scooter with the brakes snapped off because that was a hand-me-down from an older child. He wasn't going anywhere fast. Like he's not jumping anything because he's just turned four. But same thing, like I pulled sneakers out that were the size that when the brake got snapped off the original scooter and I'm like, why is there no left toe? Right, that's right. So.

Mary Wiegand (17:56.341)

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (18:14.594)

You know, it's like they walk through a puddle and he's like, my sock is wet. And I'm like, okay, that's yeah, I forgot. So now we have to do a toe check on the sneakers that get pulled out because exactly the same reason really making me feel seen here. Solidarity.

Mary Wiegand (18:24.977)

Yep. Kids, man. Yeah. Yes. Yes, absolutely. Well, I think your metaphor of it being a machine when you have a big family or, you know, four is definitely a big family and six is two and our six obviously is, it's so true. People ask me like, how do you do it? People that have two kids look at me and think that I have three times the amount of work. I'm like, no, it's not the same as two kids times three, it's a whole different machine. And if you run it well and you involve the kids, I try to really make them understand what's happening.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (19:17.762)

Mm-hmm.

Mary Wiegand (19:22.429)

Even the four-year-olds know the basic schedule, they understand why we may have to go to take brother to a soccer game, why we may have to cut something short, why we can't do a certain activity for, till a certain day, but also why we're also giving them opportunities, why we're taking them on vacation, why we want them to experience things outside of our environment and our neighborhood here. But it is absolutely a machine that just has to work day after day.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (19:29.982)

Yeah, and I think too that's the part that maybe like when, like when I had, I feel like this, when I had one, zero to one I would argue all the day long is the hardest.

Mary Wiegand (19:44.901)

Absolutely. 100% you are absolutely correct. Yeah.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (19:47.15)

Mm-hmm. And it's not the mentality of like one more kid is one more sandwich because it's not. It's just a different, you have to apply a different strategy to the same space. And like I see people that, like I was overwhelmed when I had one child because everything is new and you don't know what you're doing and you listen to everybody. And then I realized that the best advice comes from people who have more children than you. And so after that, it was like, okay, well, people that have two children, like how do you manage that? And then I had a second child and then three children, it was like, okay, so like, what are some of the things that you do? And then I had four and nobody asked, like everybody asked me, right? Instead of me asking anyone, because I was like, listen, I don't have time to talk because I have four kids. But I think that's what happens is you have,

Mary Wiegand (20:36.485)

Yes.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (20:45.546)

You just have to be more efficient because the alternative is to just be overwhelmed all the time.

Mary Wiegand (20:52.377)

Absolutely, and I think one of the things I say, and I'm sure you can understand this, having four is, all parents can only fight some battles. Pick your battles, it's like a classic line. But in a bigger family, it's not exactly pick your battles. It's like stay out of the super overwhelmed zone and stay in your machine zone. And no, that doesn't mean I let my kids go out again in ratty clothes or they don't get fed. I pick my battles to say, it's okay if everything's not perfect.

I have given up perfection. Perfection left a long time ago and I keep them informed. I talk to them again about like what we're doing, why we're doing it. And I like bring them into the fold of the machine. And I think, you know, that's just different than being able to have control. I think for me, at Two Kids was a lot for me, but I was trying to keep control of everything.

Once I went to three kids, I only had three kids for seven minutes, so that was pretty short, but like from three to four, you know, both of those then I was like, well, control is gone. They were also born like three weeks into the pandemic. So, you know, life was a whole mess at that time. So I think, yeah, just knowing that it's not just pick your battles, but it's really like, release some control, otherwise you will be overwhelmed every single hour of the day.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (22:10.75)

Yeah, I like that idea. I think that that's such an important thing that you can't learn until you learn it, that if you are trying to have your hand in every single thing throughout the day, you are taking time away from yourself. Like, nobody else is gonna, you're like, all of a sudden your six-year-old's not gonna be like, no, mom, like, I've got it, right?

Mary Wiegand (22:27.817)

Thank you.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (22:40.666)

Like, they're like, she seems to know what she's doing. She looks into this, like, let's get her on board but that when you start having those conversations of like, I can't do all of these things, so like this is your job now. Because it's true, you can't. You can't manage, you can't manage four people to the level that you can manage one person. But I think that is a huge benefit to having a larger family if that's what you want. I'm not, listen, I'm not gonna come on here and be like, everyone needs to have like 19 children and counting.

Mary Wiegand (23:03.651)

I'm sorry.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (23:08.734)

I don't take my children to the grocery store for exactly that reason. I did it once. I took all four of my kids to the grocery store once. It was, I was sweating. I thought I was a professional. I am not. There was a lot of, there was a lot of like, it was like I took like four squirrels into the store. They're all very nice and they're all very polite and they all follow direction, but like.

Mary Wiegand (23:10.801)

Yeah. Yes. I'm sorry.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (23:34.226)

It was just something of like, like my two eyes can't go in four directions. And I was like, I got we got to go like, God, I hope we have chicken because that's really what we had to come in here for. And, you know, random, random stuff, but.

Mary Wiegand (23:40.09)

The one item, yes. Yes, yes. No, I mean, absolutely. Like, I'm the same way. Like, if you look at my life, I didn't plan to have six kids, right? I didn't even plan to have four. They're identical twins, random happen, there's, you know, chance of anybody that can just, egg splits have two identical twins. So no, I didn't like set out to have six, but it's a journey that I'm on, and I'm like enjoying it and finding the ways to blend work and life and kids and all of it back together. And we do take all six to the grocery store sometimes, but usually with two adults and two carts, yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (24:16.354)

Yeah, I'm sweating. I remember watching the Duggar episode and this is why I always am like, oh my God, because when they went to the grocery store, this was like years ago, before the fact that they were out to lunch came to light, which I mean, scandal of all scandals, right?

Mary Wiegand (24:45.169)

Yes, yes. Yeah.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (24:51.85)

Like, holy, no one saw that coming. But I remember like, there was like a line of people and there were shopping carts. And I mean, like there was a lot of stuff in cans and there was a lot of things that were like it was it was a whole thing. But I was like, really? But yeah, no, it's that is, but they had to run that machine. I mean, they, we could spend an hour dissecting the daggers, but we don't need to.

Mary Wiegand (25:05.237)

Yeah. It is an intriguing social, like, yeah, like, not experiment because it's real, but like, yeah, yeah. If I was a sociologist, something there. Yeah.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (25:22.674)

Yeah. But I, oh yeah. Yeah, there's a lot, there's a lot there. You could dig in on that. But I think that what I like to take away from it in terms of like the entrepreneurship piece, because I don't think that I would have started my own business, and I don't know how you feel about this, but I don't wouldn't have started my own business if I didn't need to have the flexibility that I have, coupled with the fact that starting your own business doesn't begin with flexibility, but being able to see the bigger picture as the impetus to keep going in the beginning of it, I don't think I would have done what I do if I didn't have as many kids as I have, and I mean it in the best way possible.

Mary Wiegand (26:13.141)

I mean, I think entrepreneurship comes out of necessity, right? For anybody, it's a necessity of a product-based business who sees something that they want to have in the marketplace that then they don't find, so they create it themselves. Or for you and I, similarly, we needed to blend our work and our life and our mental health and our capabilities all into one. And that's the thing for me too. I could have, at the time I started Boon, with only two kids.

My opportunity at the time was sort of stay at home mom or do my own thing. And for me, it wasn't about, I just wasn't on the path to do stay at home mom. I wanted to use the skills that I'd learned, the functional expertise that I had in a way that felt meaningful to me. So I made that decision. Yeah, so with only two kids at the time, and I didn't, you know, ignorantly thinking that I would also be one like my team who works part time.

That's the joke in all of it for me, is that as the business owner, you can work part time, doesn't happen. But what it does do, and it allows me to be both things, is I can be flexible. My time is mine, and yes, even if I spend 50 hours doing Boon stuff, I'm going to be at the school this afternoon, volunteering at the library, because no one can tell me I have to sit at my computer at three o'clock. I'm at the bus stop every day. I'm allowed because I'm in charge to adjust that schedule.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (27:47.874)

Mm-hmm.

Mary Wiegand (28:03.397)

So yeah, I think, and maybe, you know what, if for me, if life hadn't changed over those years of what had happened from the starting boon, maybe I would have ended up back in corporate with the steady salary, with the guardrails of knowing exactly what to do. I think because of the additional kids that have come into my life, both by twin birth and bonus stepchildren, I think this is the path that really does allow me to be my best at both things. Absolutely. Yeah.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (28:06.226)

Yeah. And so how do you, in order to do that, in order to make like 50 hours a week work, how do you make that work with childcare? Like are the kids, so kids are in school? Most of them.

Mary Wiegand (28:18.921)

Kids are in school, so four are in elementary school. The two twins are in daycare still. So daycare is great, it's very expensive, but the hours are great. So the twins are usually at, they leave for daycare by about 7 a.m. Again, we're a very early family over here, and they're there till end of school. The elementary school bus stop is 830 to four. So my core hours, 830 to four. I try to get as many meetings as I can done during that.

I try to focus most of my time on Boon, giving myself flexibility to do opportunities that I have. But otherwise, I'm a morning person, so before seven, I probably put in at least an hour. Evenings, again, not so much. Weekends also are off limits. As a business owner, to me, just because it's Saturday, doesn't mean that I can't review a bunch of financial documents or I can't check over things that the team needs or check on a couple client projects.

it's really pieced together. And it's not 50 hours every week anymore. In the real scaling moments of Boon, I was working hard and would put the kids to bed, and I'd try to get them to bed by 7.45 to 8.30, and I would pump in another two or three hours at night. But it just felt like when you're doing it for yourself, and you're seeing the results of that, and you're seeing the growth, it didn't feel as cumbersome as when in my prior corporate career, you feel like you're selling your soul to that one brand and grinding it out for the man, proverbial or real sometimes. And so like, yeah, I think I fit it in now, but it doesn't feel as overwhelming as corporate.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (29:50.953)

Yeah, yeah, I think that idea of like the personal buy-in, like you are steering the ship, and so would you want to go back and like do two hours at your laptop after your kids went to bed if you were working in a corporate environment? Like, no, hard pass. So how about, yeah, so what about outside of work? So what about outside of work and outside of like the the machine of childhood and all of that. Like, what do you do? What do you non-boon do? Ha ha ha.

Mary Wiegand (30:35.325)

Yeah, if I'm not boon and not actively parenting, I'm definitely that mom who like self-care comes and it goes in different forms. I like to be outside. I like to be social. So if anything, I'm probably meeting up with people, dinner, drinks with friends, traveling. Again, I don't live near most of my family members nor my like core people.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (30:51.406)

Mm-hmm.

Mary Wiegand (31:01.769)

So getting on an airplane and traveling to somewhere new, not with all six kids. I have yet to put all six kids on an airplane, but that's the merry time. When I get a moment to be with myself, traveling somewhere, that's really what energizes me with being with family and friends, good food, good people. Yeah.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (31:20.69)

Yeah. So I think this is really important to talk about because I think that a lot of times what happens when, um, you know, there's like the self care garbage of like the bubble bath and the wine mom and all of those pieces, like, I think it's really important to say when you say it's not all the time. And because I think it's another layer of expectation that we put on ourselves in all, in all ages and stages of motherhood, right? It's like, you have a new baby and you're like, I just want to be able to like go and do this, this and this. Like we always strive for the thing that is just out of reach. However, there's lots of other things that are within reach that we're like, oh, but it's not that thing. Right. So like instead of saying, like, all I want to do is get on an airplane. It's like I am going to get on an airplane. But in the meantime, I'm going to do this, this and this, because these are within my wheelhouse.

Mary Wiegand (32:19.125)

Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think taking the pressure off. Yeah, I'm not a wine mom, a bubble bath mom. I'm not at the gym every day. So I don't put the pressure to find the quintessential like self-care code to certain activities in a certain amount of time. It's like when I can find the time, I try to be fully present in those moments where I feel like I'm re-energizing myself. And to me, I'm okay that it doesn't happen every night and every weekend.

And at the same time, I think I find very little moments that are like self-care or that slight re-energizing, whether it's the song that hits just right on the radio or the kid that says just the right thing at that moment that makes you feel so blessed to be their parent. You know, sometimes it's the perfect hot cup of coffee that I get to drink without anybody bothering me. It might be at 5.15 in the morning, but little things like that I feel like can really add to my ability to be the best at Boon, the best mom, and still feel like I'm me inside of there somewhere.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (33:23.626)

Yeah, like when you take yourself out of the machine, that is your own life. Yeah, I always, like I think about this stuff when it comes to, because we talk about it here and also thinking about like how to make it possible. Like I don't have childcare outside of school. So if you go on, you know, if you talk to other people that have the benefit of like grandparents that are involved or family that lives down the street or all of those things. It's like, and maybe this was, I don't know if this was your experience, but my, so my last baby was born two days before the world shut down. So same, same. I see you. But I remember this feeling of like hearing everyone around me being like, oh my God, what am I going to do?

Mary Wiegand (34:08.593)

Yep, we're real close. Yeah.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (34:22.482)

Everything is this all the time and me being confronted with the reality of like, literally there was no difference for me in the amount of health and childcare that I had in February of 2020 and April of 2020. Like I was just like, like this, I'm confused about what is going on because there's never a place, other than school, there is never a place or a person or whatever that is coming in to do this.

And so it's like, like my opportunity to find moments for self care and pieces like that are like that. Like I'm like, I'm going to make this cup of coffee and I'm going to stand here and I'm going to take three long glorious sips of coffee. And you know, then people that like normally have a lot of like help come in and they have the opportunity to do that or like, I can't even drink a cup of coffee. I'm like, you have those three sips, man. And they're like, “What? What are you talking about?” 

That's it, that's the bucket. Fill her up.

Mary Wiegand (35:25.461)

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. I agree, and I think, you know, that's not, when I listen to you, I see the positive in that. And I'm sure people could listen to that and be like, wait, you stake your day on three long sips of coffee, but if you can get yourself in the mental space, and that is like, not important to you, but that is something that does rejuvenate you, and you can focus on that moment and be in it, I agree. Like, something as short as 30 seconds of peace is a mom to many, right?

You really can enjoy it and feel like, not that it's gonna revive me for another 100 hour week or something that would be coming, but it gets me through the next little bit and reminds me that I can find moments for myself too.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (35:55.521)

Yeah, it's those like, like the breadcrumbs on the way back to, you know, whatever, insert your fairy tale. I love it. So how do you so what is the like, what's the path that you see going forward? Because our kids are literally the same age and the same like start to finish. So what how do you how do you feel like you want this to lay out going forward work and kids and all of that?

Mary Wiegand (36:16.995)

Yes. I mean, I think that's where one, I struggle to find a lot of time to focus on the future, to kind of like, I'm a dreamer by life and I like to think about all the cool opportunities that we'll have, but I also, to keep from being overwhelmed, I don't overthink, like, you know, what if this, what if that, also, you know, we are a blended family, so we're dealing with a lot of situations that are happening because the kids have other parents that they see throughout the week, so we don't have all six kids all seven days of the week, it's a rotating schedule. But ultimately, this is what, like, I feel like my family and my business and myself as a person, we've just set ourselves up for an amazing success to come, right? Where these kids will get opportunities to experience life, to have an awesome family dynamic, to have a home, to have siblings, to see working parents, to see a working mom who dedicates herself to the career, but also can be a mom. And so, my hope is just more of the same and like taking the foundation that I've truly laid and even since, you know, our youngest were born in the last four years, everything that I've put as this foundation, I think really is gonna hopefully like thrive in the next five years. Yeah.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (37:41.783)

Mm-hmm. Yeah, I love it because I think too, like the tendency is to be like, well here I am right now and I need to be there. Like I need to go from one million to 50 million in order to be successful, where you're saying I'm good right here because I got myself here and I don't need to be there in order to be successful because I'm already successful in getting myself to this point.

Mary Wiegand (38:06.485)

Beautifully said, yes, that, that is exactly how you just said, yes, how I feel there. And I think that's part of the machine. And it's part of, you know, I have grinded it out for a long time. It wasn't easy to get to this place. I wasn't handed this business. I wasn't handed any funding. The entire thing is bootstrapped. So I worked hard for it. But yeah, I feel successful. And I feel like I like I said, the foundation is here to build upon and just not even build upon just enjoy and like hopefully just continue. Yeah.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (38:55.102)

Do you feel like the success of Boon is the thing, is part of the equation when it comes to the and/both? Like there's lots of people out there who I believe are listening, hopefully in general, plug, but that there are people out there that are listening who are working and they're in the trenches right now. Like they're like, all right, Mary, like tell me that what I'm doing is worth it, because right now I feel like I wanna fold in the towel, polish my CV, and not deal with this junk anymore.

Mary Wiegand (39:23.913)

Thank you. Yeah, 100% absolutely that is true. Like the success of Boon is heavily in that foundation of what I have in my family right now. And being able to push to a level that I have a sustainable business, I have something that I know that I can run, that it can support my family. No, we're not making millions here, but I have a place where I know my role as an entrepreneur, as a founder, CEO, and as a mom.

And yeah, I grinded it out, right? So like, if you're in those trenches, I gave myself 18 months from the minute I had those twins in the pandemic, also got divorced at that, like within that same month. So I was like, I have got to figure this out. I gave myself 18 months and said, what will happen at the end of 18 months? I will decide, should I polish that CV and go to corporate or did I make something that is able to sustain us and able to continue on?

And I pushed hard and those days were long with newborns, with the kids chaos, with still lockdowns and shutdowns and childcare changes. But it was absolutely worth it. And I'm gonna be honest, sometimes I still think like, oh, that corporate box looks nice because someone else tells me what to do. I can just sign off at five o'clock, close my laptop and be done. But those are fleeting moments at this point. It's like, oh yeah, nope, like not what I wanna do.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (40:47.37)

Mm-hmm.

Mary Wiegand (40:57.269)

The grind is definitely worth it on the other side. And the other side can be what you determine success, as you say. Like the other side doesn't have to be 5 million. It's where you feel like you've got yourself to what you need to be. And that's where I was. Where do I need to be after that 18 month mark, post twins, post pandemic, post divorce? And that's where I found myself. I've gotten myself a little bit past that now that we've been four years, but I was there at the 18 month mark to continue. So don't define your success by what you think others' success is either.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (41:29.442)

That's so important. Like I wish I could shout that from the rooftops is this idea of like, there is so many different versions of what success looks like. And that when we start to use other people's ruler, it's never gonna fit because what's important to you is not important to somebody else. Like what's important to me is like being able to pick up my kids from school.

Mary Wiegand (41:45.742)

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (41:56.866)

That means that like my workday looks different than other people's, but some people, that's not the thing. It's like, it's important. My husband drops the kids off at school in the morning. It's important to him to go and do that. I'm like, you know, from the porch, like, see you later guys. And, but at one point in time, I was like, well, I have to drop them off and I have to pick them up and I have to do this and I have to do this and I have to do this because that's what success looks like. And then it, you know, it wasn't.

Mary Wiegand (42:08.989)

Hehehehehehe

Dr. Ashley Blackington (42:27.61)

You know, you get super clear on like, this doesn't feel successful. This really feels like I'm kicking myself in the teeth and like telling myself to smile. Let's start pairing away the things that are really, really important and the things that are not that they're not important, but they're not important to me right now.

Mary Wiegand (42:35.409)

Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yes, absolutely.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (42:50.898)

Yeah, I really love what you're doing. And I think that the opportunity for people to see, it's the great elephant walk. So there's other people, there's other four child families. We don't, I don't know of any five child families that are in like around me. I mean, there are, but I don't know them. They're busy. But I remember like having people that had four kids that their kids were a little bit older than mine. is I sort of called it this like the elephant walk, right?

Mary Wiegand (43:03.957)

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (43:20.658)

Like you just follow the person in front of you. And it was that like we were talking about earlier, like the advice of, okay, like I have a new baby. I have a toddler. I have two kids in early elementary school. What am I supposed to do right now? Like how do I, and these moms were like, this part sucks. It doesn't all suck, but like.

everything that you are feeling and everything that you are going through right now, like we all did, normal. And just like people saying, just having people say to me like, no, this part is really tricky, creates that, that like it lets the pressure off and it creates that openness and that opportunity to be like, oh, I don't have to love like so many diapers.

Mary Wiegand (44:15.549)

Yeah, I mean, I think it is acknowledging the stages and that there's goods and bads on each stage. And I think you can apply that exact thing from motherhood to entrepreneurship as we just said. Like some of that sucks. It's really hard to get through some things. And even as you get to different stages in either place, things will hit you that you don't expect, but having community and knowing places that you can go to say like, hey, this is what's happening to me.

Not venting in a mean way, just be like, oh my gosh, here's my day. And I do that all the time with my team, with my friends, just really being like, oh my gosh, this is what happened in my day today, in Boon today. But yes, acknowledging, I like the elephant walk analogy, but I think you can apply it to entrepreneurship too.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (44:57.41)

Yeah. And I think too, it's also like, because it's for me, like having the option to talk to people like, I get this and I'm sure that you get this, 100%. People that have like two kids and they're like, oh my God, everything's really stressful. And they're like, I can't complain to you because you have more children than me.

Mary Wiegand (45:15.838)

Yes.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (45:29.842)

That's not helpful. Like it's not helpful. Like I'm never gonna have two kids because I don't have two kids. You're never gonna have four kids, but it doesn't mean that my experience is like harder or I'm better at this, or you're not where you need to be. It just means that it's different, and in order to find community, everyone has to be willing to be good, bad, ugly otherwise.

Mary Wiegand (45:42.949)

Yes, no, I couldn't have said it better. I experienced that as you said, absolutely. And it's just like, we don't, the comparison, we don't need to compare, right? That's just going to rob us all of connection, community, joy. I've heard it so many times about people comparing to what I experienced in 2020, you know, you similarly, oh my gosh, you had a baby in the pandemic. That must have been the worst thing ever. It's like, no, I had a different experience than you did. It's not a comparison. And yes, six kids versus two kids.

I will say it's very funny when people see me out in public with only a portion of the kids and then make comments. That is really fun to see them react. And then sometimes I'll just let it go. And sometimes they're like, well, I have four more at home. And they're like, what? So yeah, it's fun to see everybody out in public.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (46:28.494)

Mm-hmm. Oh my God, I love it. There's, I've done this like, you know, toddler music class, baby toddler music class for years and years. And it happens every time where like my youngest because he didn't do it in the beginning because of the pandemic. So we've had to move to different classes, just schedule wise and stuff like that. And so I take him and it's just him. And people are like, oh, is he your oldest? And I'm like, no.

Mary Wiegand (46:59.615)

Yeah.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (47:01.354)

And then like a couple weeks goes by and inevitably I either go on Mondays or Fridays. So there'll be a day off of school. And last week it was spring vacation. And last week, my youngest is now one of the oldest kids in the class, just because, you know, people keep having babies and kids keep growing. And I rolled in there with an 11 year old, a nine year old, and a six year old who are like writing their names. I just woke my daughter up at 10 o'clock to come in and all of this and like rolled this posse through and all of these people were like, oh my God, who are these children?

Mary Wiegand (47:34.521)

Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, I know the comments that you, I mean, I live the comments. Yes. Yeah.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (47:41.662)

Yeah. Oh, it cracks me up every time because I'm like, oh, I don't know who these people are. Oh, this one looks like me. Oh, oh, this one keeps calling me mom. Oh, come on now. Get into my big giant school bus and we'll drive around. Oh, my gosh. No vehicles.

Mary Wiegand (47:48.018)

Yes, oh, vehicles, that's a whole thing. Yes, getting all these kids in car seats moved from spot to spot. Yeah, I could do a whole logistic, whole logistic day of how to move kids around. I always tell people it's like that math problem when you're in elementary school where there's a canoe, there's a chicken, there's a fox, and you gotta get everybody to the other side of the river, but you can't put the chicken and the fox together. That's my life.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (48:03.566)

Mm-hmm. Yeah, I know that well! Hehehehe

Mary Wiegand (48:22.757)

And my big old suburban trying to get kids to sporting activities every single week. Yep.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (48:25.131)

Mm-hmm. Oh, I love it. I really feel like, you know how they have like all of these, like ESPN has like the X games where they chop wood and they, um, they have like CrossFit and all this stuff. I'm like, I want there to be an ESPN show that's about like the tactical performance of motherhood. Like here, you have this car seat, you have this manual and you have this completely different brand and you have this, this and this. Here are the weights and the heights of your children. Go.

Mary Wiegand (48:37.516)

Yeah. Oh, and you've got to be at practice in an hour too.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (48:58.558)

Right? Like, yeah. You gotta be practicing an hour and somebody spilled milk because you weren't paying attention for two seconds because you had to go to the bathroom because you're a human and there is milk spilled in the back of your car and you need to figure out where it came from and clean it up. Otherwise you can never sell this vehicle.

Mary Wiegand (49:13.523)

Yes.

Mary Wiegand (49:18.621)

Yes. Sign me up. Boon will sponsor that. Like literally put, I'll make my marketing budget to sponsor this event on ESPN. Call me up. I'm there. Yeah.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (49:29.45)

Right, right, like you wear athletic gear because you're an athlete. You're getting the car, packing, getting out of the house, like going on vacation. There should be an amazing race with families and the prize should be $10 million. You can take two children around the world and you've got to compete in all these challenges. One of them's potty training, you get 10 million bucks.

Mary Wiegand (49:44.081)

Yes. Absolutely. Oh my gosh. Well, yeah, and I say, don't call it a vacation. It's only just parenting in a new place. Stop calling it vacation. Yeah.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (49:58.432)

No! Mm-hmm. Parenting in a harder location. With no blackout blinds. No one ever has blackout blinds.

Mary Wiegand (50:04.153)

Yep, yep, yep. My children don't really sleep, so the blackout blinds are not, we're up at six. Yeah, yeah, totally.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (50:13.718)

Yeah, there you go. Early, early, early risers, I love it. Oh my gosh. So on the tail end, on the like the wrapping it all up part of it, what advice do you have? Because I know that there are gonna be, there are people in your life that ask you advice because you have six kids, so therefore you must have like some sort of shepherding staff with you at all times. But what...

Mary Wiegand (50:24.21)

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (50:41.494)

What are things that you wish that people knew when it came to entrepreneurship and this? Because if you do read the paragraph, right, it's like, I have six children and I started my own business. People are like, that lady never sleeps. She must be a vampire. So where, like where would you, if someone was like, how, how and the how did you do this? Where do you start that for them?

Mary Wiegand (51:05.237)

It's a really good question and you're right. When people see the paragraph or the bullets of my life, their eyes gloss over, they don't understand, they almost feel like they can't talk to me and yet I have this very shepherding approach to life. I love to care for others. I love to get everybody as many as I can like under my wing and support them. So the advice really is find your community, right? And that's on parenting and entrepreneurship and I don't do this alone. It may look like that, but I definitely don't. And that community is fueled by other entrepreneurs that I meet, other moms that I meet, other females, males, anybody who you can connect with in that moment and be real and raw. And then at the end of that, have confidence in yourself, right? So I find my community and I have confidence. And I think through both of those things, I've really gotten myself to where I am in both capacities, boon and motherhood. But it's not easy.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (52:00.982)

Mm-hmm.

Mary Wiegand (52:02.609)

So after all that, like not easy, don't expect it to be easy. It's tough, there's hard days, there's still hard days. Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (52:12.106)

Yeah, and that's the, I think that like I can, I would echo that all the way to the bank, the having the vulnerability piece and having the willingness to say, this part I am really struggling with, or this, and also like this part I'm really proud of, because that sometimes feels really vulnerable to say. I think that that, I couldn't love what you just said more because it's so true. Like just, not having to do things or feel like you have to do things alone and celebrate and go through the hard stuff and all of that piece. So thank you so much for coming on today. I'm so excited that you that you that you guys spent an hour because I know what that hour is. I know how important that is.

Mary Wiegand (52:51.099)

Yes. Thank you.

Mary Wiegand (52:55.429)

Yeah. No, it was, you know, each hour is important, but it was delightful to connect. And I'm, you know, if our words help somebody or give somebody an hour of support, it's all worth it times a hundred. Yes.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (53:10.154)

Yes, exactly. And so for people out there, if they are doing the product-based business route, if this is their calling and their entrepreneurship goals, how would they, how do they get in touch with you and what does that look like?

Mary Wiegand (53:15.845)

Yeah, absolutely. You can find us on our website at boonllc.net. You can find me on LinkedIn under my name or Boon on LinkedIn or on Instagram. We really try to take that human approach. On the website, there's a place where you can connect directly with me, schedule on my calendar. I'd love to chat. Any way you can connect. Our DMs are always open on Instagram. Again, we try to take a human approach and would love to talk to anybody who even has slight inclination of launching a product-based business, we'd love to talk to you.

Dr. Ashley Blackington (53:57.198)

That's awesome. Well, thank you again so much for joining me today.

Mary Wiegand (53:59.449)

Yeah, yeah, thank you.