Episode 104: Take The Risk: You Only Live Once With Cigi England
Starting a business is all about taking a risk. In this episode, Cigi England chats with Amy Vetter about how she took the chance and left her corporate job to now run two businesses. Cigi is the founder of Cigi's Boutique, a fashion store, and The Exceptional Bean, a not-for-profit coffee shop that centers on helping employ individuals with special needs. She found a way to pursue her passion and serve the community. Listen in to learn more about Cigi's journey and stay tuned as she offers tips and advice for aspiring entrepreneurs or anyone looking to venture out and chase their dreams.
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Take The Risk: You Only Live Once With Cigi England
Welcome to this episode where I interview Cigi England. She is the CEO of Cigi’s Boutique and also the Founder of The Exceptional Bean. She graduated from Tennessee Technological University in 2006. After spending eight years in the fashion industry in Atlanta, she decided to move back to Cookeville to be closer to her family and friends. With the support of her amazing friends and wonderful community, Cigi’s Boutique was created.
Cigi celebrated seven years in business in 2022. She and her husband, Michael, are involved with local organizations that work with individuals with special needs. She has served on the board at Rising Above Ministries for three years. After spending time with their friends that have disabilities, they thought it would be awesome to create a place of their very own. How wonderful would it be to work, play and cultivate a community together?
During my interview with Cigi, we discussed her background in sales, fashion and the special needs community that has created this career that she has now. During this interview, she will share some key takeaways as an entrepreneur to help others succeed in their ventures as well. I am excited for you to read this interview. Please like, share and subscribe so that more and more people can share the tips of these leaders on this show.
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Welcome to this episode where I am going to interview Cigi England. She is the CEO of Cigi’s Boutique and also the Founder of The Exceptional Bean. Cigi, do you want to give a little background on yourself before we begin?
I started my boutique and it will be eight years in November 2022. I wanted to set out to be a store where women of all ages and all sizes could come in and shop. You would feel welcome and beautiful when you came in and when you left, you would leave with something that made you a little happier than when you entered.
I also wanted it to be affordable so it doesn’t matter how old you are and what size you are. We cater to women from little girl’s size six to women’s 3X and everything in between. My newest journey is founding a nonprofit called The Exceptional Bean, which will open this May 2022. It is a coffee shop that will employ individuals with disabilities and special needs.
I’m excited to delve into your story. Let’s start from the beginning. Maybe you can give us a little background on growing up, where you are from, what your parents did and growing up with siblings, that sort of thing.
That is important to know where someone came from to how they got where they are now. I grew up in a very small town called Whitwell, Tennessee. It is about twenty minutes West of Chattanooga. I went to kindergarten through 12th grade and then decided to come to Tennessee Tech in 2002 and I graduated with Human Ecology, Fashion Merchandising and Design with a minor in Business Marketing in 2006.
I decided to move to Atlanta to pursue my dreams in the fashion world and it was a recession. It was not a good time to be starting a career because the whole economy was bad. The housing market, retail and everything were down. I ended up working three jobs before I got my dream job at AmericasMart. It is a wholesale mart where now that I own a store, I go there to buy the goods that are in my store. It is fashion trade shows, home trade shows and gift trade shows. I was a recruiter so I would go to the Las Vegas, Dallas, Miami, San Francisco, Chicago and New York markets and I would recruit people to come exhibit in the Atlanta Show.
I credit that to my success with my business now because I worked the wholesale and the retail side. I would see businesses that were successful and I would take note of their buying habits, where they cater to their personal style or customer demographic. I would notice when clients of mine would close and then I would reach out to them and they will be like, “Why were you not at the market?” They would share with me what happened to their business. I would take notes of the right things that they were doing and the wrong things.
I decided to move back to Tennessee, honestly because my heart tells me to. I did not have a set plan. It did not make sense on paper. I had a great career in Atlanta. I was climbing that corporate ladder but I did not feel fulfilled. Every time that I would come visit my family and my friends, I would leave and it would break my heart. I did not know why I should be here but I felt like I should be here. I moved back in 2014 and decided to open my store and here we are several years later and we have made it through a global pandemic. I feel like we can make it through anything.
Give me a little background on your parents. What did they do when you were growing up?
My dad is in sales and I am my father’s daughter. I have only had jobs in sales my entire life, from my very first job to now. I have worked in customer service in that industry. My mom is a special ed teacher so that seeds into what I’m doing now with The Exceptional Bean. I have learned from my parents the sales and then the heart for the special needs community. I’m doing both of those now. I’m an only child.
What industry was your dad selling in?
Employment is very hard because companies don't want to take a chance. They think that it's a risk to hire someone with a disability. But it's no more risk than if they were to hire someone with no disabilities.
My dad was in the tire industry. His company developed a product called Flat-proofing. They would put this gel and foam into large pieces of equipment. If they were to hit a nail, they would not go flat. They tried to develop it into a consumer product for car tires but it weighs the vehicle down too much so it was more on the industrial side.
Was it watching your dad? Did he take you to where he was working? How did you learn from him? What got you excited about what he was doing?
He would take my mom and I on his business trips whenever we were out of school in the summer or the breaks during the holidays. He was traveling. He had the whole US territory and he would leave on Monday come back on a Thursday pretty much the whole time I was in middle school and high school. I would get to meet his clients and get to go to dinners, trade shows and things like that.
I have always been a people person. I have seen how my dad would connect with his clients throughout my whole life. He was not trying to sell a product. He wanted to get to know you and how this product can help you. He is retired now but he has friends that he has made through the industry that we get Christmas cards every year and when their kids get married, we go to their weddings. Forming that relationship is not so much about numbers. If someone trusts you then they are going to buy what you are selling.
That means that your mom and you were alone a lot if he was traveling Monday to Saturday. I’m guessing you were a little more independent.
She had a family to take care of, worked full-time and would go to school at night. It is the sacrifice that she made to fulfill a dream of hers that she had always had. Now that I’m an adult, I’m like, “That is a big deal that she did that.” At that time, I was a kid so I did not understand it. I would also go to work with my mom and when I would come home from college breaks, I would go into her classroom. She always worked with middle school and high school-aged with special needs students.
I would see how she would interact and how she treated her students like she treated me. She loved all of them and if they needed something, she would provide it. She would accommodate whatever accommodations they needed to help their learning become easier for them. She would do that. From a young age, she introduced me to the special needs community.
When young kids are introduced to that at an early age, it is less intimidating and less scary because some adults have never interacted with that community and they do not know how. That is something that we want to end with The Exceptional Bean. We want to be a resource and focus on ability over the disability. We want to be a resource of information for these families with these children and adults with special needs. It is a community to come in and say, “We are more alike than we are different.”
Why was your mom passionate about it? Why did she want to go back, do this and create a lot of stress on herself? Did she have anyone in her family?
We have cousins and a very dear cousin that we were super close to. He was born with CP and a lot of other disabilities and he was non-verbal. We lived right down the street from him. We called him Little Bit. It was his nickname. He was such a huge impact and he was being raised by a single mother, who was my grandma’s best friend. They were always a huge part of our life. We got introduced to that and we would see how every day truly was a struggle.
There were good times and bad times that once someone is in a wheelchair, you can’t hop in the car and go do whatever you want to do at that moment. You have to make plans and plan ahead. Is there a ramp? Is there an ADA door? Is there a bathroom facility there? They were such a huge part of our life. I also think that she had a job in daycare very early on and it was a special needs daycare. It was Siskin, which is a rehab facility.
Take the Risk: We want to just be a resource and focus on ability over the disability. We want to be a resource of information for these families, with these children and adults with special needs and the community to come in and say, we're more alike than we are different.
She got introduced to that world and she wanted to make a difference. She wanted to go to college, better herself, give herself more options and do that. I will be leaving for college soon and with my dad traveling, she will be at home. She said she had to fill her time with something and that is what she chose to do.
How did it change your perspective of everyday life by having experienced that so young?
I do not have children but the best analogy that I can give is when my friends have children, they start to notice things like, “This is not child-friendly. My kid can’t go to this building because it is not safe.” The car seats and the outlets in the house. You arrange your whole life to make everything child-friendly when you become a mom.
When special needs parents get the news that they are going to have a special needs child, that doesn’t end at eighteen. That is going to go on longer for their entire life. I have a lot of friends and family members with disabilities and special needs. The more that I would hang out with them, the more that I would do life with them like holidays, birthday parties, movies, bowling. I began to notice this is not ADA. There is not a ramp here or a door here. My friend, Abby, could not use the restroom here.
You will go into some handicap bathroom stalls that are technically ADA but if your wheelchair is a large wheelchair, there is no way it fits in there. I have friends that leave their homes and do not use the restroom all day until they get home because they know that there is no public facility that they can use. Also, employment is very hard because companies do not want to take a chance. They think that it is a risk to hire someone with a disability. It is no more risk than if they were to hire with no disabilities. I began to notice things when I was with my friends. I started to notice there are not a lot of opportunities to build community and employment.
Having that background, your father in sales, your mom doing this, what did you originally go to college for?
I originally did go for Fashion Merchandising and Design.
Why is that?
When I was a little girl, remember the fashion plates that you could lay down on the piece of paper and do the tracing, I would do that. I would create outfits and sketches. I’m talking about from the time I was six years old. I was going to be a fashion designer. If you ask me, that is what I would tell you. I started taking sewing classes and I did not love to sew.
I knew that I was not going to be a designer. I needed to focus more on the sales art class. I love the colors and textures. I love that when you look good, you feel good. When you feel good, you perform better at whatever you are doing. It is an art form and it is self-care into one. I have always wanted to work in this industry.
A quick story, it reminded me of what you are saying. I’m a CPA but what I always wanted to do was go to art school. I was a painter growing up and so forth. Several years ago, I was like, “What if I went back to school?” I went and attended an orientation at a design school here at the University of Cincinnati but I went for the fashion because I was like, “That is what I want to do.” The same thing as you, I have never been a sewer or anything like that. I’m an entrepreneur. The dean came to speak at the orientation and one of the things that they do at that school is their culmination project at the end of being in school.
When you look good, you feel good. And when you feel good, you perform better at whatever you're doing. So, it's really an art form and it's self-care into one.
Another school there, like the medical school, will come and say, “This is my problem,” and then the fashion designers have to solve it. What they did that year was have a fashion show because the medical school said, “When people put on a hospital gown, they get sicker.” We designed hospital gowns so people wouldn’t feel sick. What you were saying was exactly similar. They had a whole fashion show with people in wheelchairs, people in all different body shapes and whatever. You do not always think of these creative outlets as solving for real human needs, which was interesting.
You took a step back and looked at what your strengths are in this field that you love and you have an interesting mix of degrees. You went to Atlanta, had your job there and got your experience, what you hadn’t seen as being an entrepreneur from what I can tell. Your father was a salesperson but he was working for a corporation. Your mom was a teacher. What did you draw from there in becoming an entrepreneur? You listened to a lot of people about the mistakes they made but until you start a business, you do not understand the reality of it. What did you learn?
As you and I now know, once you do it, you are very easily able to encourage others because I have been here. I have done it. You can do it too. If I can, you can do it. “Cigi, you need to open your own store. You have all the tools. You worked at the wholesale and retail side. You have the knowledge, skill and work ethic. You can do this.” It was one night with all these people telling me that I can do it. I was like, “I’m going to do it. I’m going to start small.”
I started with 400 square feet. I made my own clothing racks. I painted my store and started very small. In my mind, I was telling myself, “This could be a pop-up through the holidays because we opened on November 1, 2014. If it doesn’t make it, I will go get another job.” I had the mindset to start small. I did not take out any loans or lines of credit. I used what I had in my savings and I was full send, “Let’s do this.” I had a goal for day one and it was $500. I said, “If I reached $500, that is going to be my sign that I can do this.” On day one, it snowed here in Tennessee. I thought no one would come because we do not drive or act when it snows.
We never thought we would make $5,000 on my first day. I almost sold all of my inventory. I’m like, “I reached the goal and that is a sign that I can do this.” I went back to the market. With my experience of working, I knew exactly where to go in Dallas or in Atlanta, how to navigate the market, how to buy and buy from, who was ready to manufacture and who was not. I used that skill and that knowledge that I learned from my previous career to be able to restock my store.
Within six months, we over doubled into a little over 1,100 square feet. Now, I’m in my third location, which is even larger. My advice and the advice that my friends gave me was to start small. I do not have to go buy a building and spend $50,000 in decorations and have the prettiest hangers and racks. You do not have to have the best of the best to start.
Start small, test the water, see if it works and then you can always grow. That has been my philosophy. I am the customer service guru. I know where I’m good at what I’m not good at. Hiring an accountant was so important to me to see the numbers and see what I needed to do. My first two things are to set the area, who is your customer, define your mission and vision and hire an accountant.
All the accountants reading this appreciate you saying that because so many small businesses think they can do it on their own but a lot of times in your situation, they are reading off their POS system but not realizing why they have no money. It is like reading your ATM receipt without knowing what is still sitting out there on credit and everything else. How you go and select an accountant that is going to advise you and talk to you about your numbers, not hand them over to you, was important especially in your space.
When you are not a numbers girl or a person in general, you need to have someone that you can say, “I do not get this. I need you to break this down to my level. I’m going to need some circles, graphs some bar graphs and some charts. I need you to break this down to where I can understand it because I know how to buy for a boutique and serve a customer.” You do not need to hire an accountant that you are intimidated by or you do not mesh well with. You do not have to be best friends but I need you to communicate on my level.
What were pitfalls or that you got in trouble along the way?
People will come into my store and they will say, “Do you have one of everything?” I’m honest and I’m like, “No, I do not like half the stuff in here because it is not my closet.” It is a store and I’m starting to the community. My taste is a little different than the majority of people here. You need to serve your client. You do not need to get into this because you like to shop or you have good fashion taste. That is not what this is. This is a business and you need to serve your customer, not yourself.
Any other pitfalls you came along the way as you got into business or as you were growing that surprised you that you did not know?
Advertising and marketing, I had no idea how much a billboard or radio ad cost. In the beginning, I was using strictly social media because it was free and I still use it. When you start a business, as you said, there is no way to know what is going to come your way. There is not a book on, “Here’s how to be an entrepreneur and kill it.” That is not a thing because every industry is different.
The South is different than the Midwest and all those things. Wherever you live, running a boutique here would not be the same as it is in Atlanta or even in Chattanooga because of the demographic and the size of the town. I did not plan correctly for marketing and advertising. I was not educated in that area to know that that is important and you have to spend a lot of money but that is what you have to do in order to make money.
Now, you have had the business for a good amount of time. What has been the cause of you starting this other not-for-profit and going into this area?
My store has afforded me the opportunity to give back to my community. I have had the honor of serving on two nonprofit boards. Getting into the nonprofit and the ministry world, there are so many nonprofits that do things. I was able to use my store as a tool to give back to those local nonprofits, sponsor events and use it for the women’s ministry.
If someone graduated from the ministry, they would come to pick out a free outfit for their job interview process. I was able to use my store as a tool to give back. That has always been important to me. One of the boards that I serve on is called Rising Above Ministries, which is a special needs ministry here in Cookeville. That threw me even more into the local Cookeville special needs families.
I would make them, I would sponsor events with my store and they would come shop. They host women for all of the special needs moms. They would come to my store and I would shut it down. They will be an exclusive VIP just for them. Once I got involved in their world, I wanted to do something that catered specifically to families with disabilities and special needs. Using my store as a resource to give back to others and get more planted in that community is what gave me the desire to create a second business because it is going to be a coffee shop. It is a nonprofit but it is also a business.
Why coffee? Why did you decide to do that?
My husband and I were watching a channel one Sunday. We were watching Modern Marvels and it was about coffee shops in Europe. There is a coffee shop on every street and you go to the coffee shop to celebrate. You go there to get your coffee, announce good news, meet your friends there every day and they are the heartbeat of the community. It doesn’t matter that there is in one every 20 or 30 yards because each community has its own and they are all successful.
We started researching businesses that employed individuals with disabilities and we found that coffee shops, parlors, bakeries, dog grooming and all these businesses were doing the same thing that we wanted to do, which is hiring people with disabilities. We knew that it was a doable goal and we also want to create a community. That is where the coffee shop came into play.
In the coffee world, I’m a newbie. I’m not an expert by any means but we have five different coffee shops here in our town of Cookeville and they have all been super supportive. My husband is a runner. The runner community is so supportive and they help each other out. The coffee world is like that too. We are not in competition. They understand that while we are serving coffee, we are also doing a mission. Coffee shop because we wanted to create a business and build community. The coffee shop was perfect for both of those.
Take the Risk: There's not a lot of opportunity to build community and to build employment so we wanted to create something that would do all those things.
Everyone can do this, but you have to take the risk and you have to be willing to fail.
As far as your business model, explain that a little further. Is everyone with special needs that are going to be working there? What is the main mission? What do you hope to get out of it? Are you donating money from the coffee shop? Maybe you can give it a little more background on what you are doing there.
We are going to be integrated, which means people with and without disabilities will be working there due to the fact that people with disabilities can’t work a typical 40-hour workweek. We will be able to employ up to 40 individuals with disabilities because they can only work maybe 1 hour a day or 4 hours a week. Everyone is different due to the benefits that they receive and their ability to do or not do certain things.
We are able to employ way more people than a typical coffee shop because each person is not going to be able to work that 30- to 40-hour workweek. We are going to have three typical baristas, which means no disabilities and then we are going to have two managers like an eminent manager that are there at all times. They will facilitate everything but when you come into this coffee shop, the typical people will be in the background.
You get greeting, cashier, assistant barista, drink caller and a deliverer with a disability because we want this to be about them. We want to put them in front and center. As I said earlier, we want to showcase that ability over the disability. We want our customers to have that interaction and to educate themselves on how to interact with someone with a disability, which is intimidating to some people if you never have but the secret is to be kind like you would, hopefully, with a disability or not.
Is your overall mission to employ as many disabled people as you can? What is it that you are trying to achieve?
Our mission is to employ individuals with disabilities and a supportive environment. We want that environment to be as helpful and user-friendly as possible. Honestly, I wish that the whole world operated like that because we all have our own strengths and weaknesses. We may not have a disability that is visible but people are sensitive to sound, light, textures and so many things so we want to create a supportive environment.
No matter what you can or can’t do, we will find a way to make it more inclusive. If you want to be the cashier but you are blind then we will figure out how to make that work. There are so many ways to integrate everything. Is it an extra step or maybe it will cost a little more? Sure but we want this place to be the ADA poster child that everyone can get in and out easily and you can see everything. We want to create an environment that is very user-friendly for individuals with disabilities.
That is very cool. You have got three stores or three boutiques. Is that what you said?
No, I just have one boutique.
One boutique and now you are adding this. How have you looked at planning yourself as an entrepreneur to make sure you are spending the right amount of attention because these are very different businesses and one that you do not have as much knowledge of?
I finally have built such a good staff at my store. For the first time in a few years, I feel so comfortable leaving in my girl’s hands. I was talking to someone and I do not do anything that I wouldn’t ask my girls at my work to do. They know how to do everything. If I were to disappear for 3 weeks or 3 months, they know how to process shipments, inventory and the level of customer service that I expect.
It was important for me to have my first business up and running like a well-oiled machine so that I could start this nonprofit because it is a process to start a nonprofit. I help people who are on this. I did my degree in Tennessee Tech because there is so much paperwork and so many moving parts. We are also doing construction on the building. You have to pick out nails, paint, light fixtures, toilets, sink, faucets and everything you build in a house.
You are doing everything that is accessible for your employees, which is different types of counter sizes and everything else.
Yes like the height of everything and the width of the entryways. I could be like the architect. It was important for me to get my store and be able to step away from that in order to give my attention to this. I am sad that I’m not going to be full-time at both places because I love them both so much. I’m going to try to figure out how I can spend time at both but still do everything that needs to be done at my boutique. I have learned how to hand off the things that more people can do besides me.
What is important is no matter what you are doing as a leader, you have the succession planning happening where you are delegating enough to empower the people that work with you. You can never do your next thing because you are too tied in or micro-managing everything. It is realizing as a leader too, that maybe they are not going to do it exactly the way you are but they get the same outcome that you want in the end. You have to let go of some of those areas of yourself and be like, “Do it this way,” so that you can be good at that thing.
I have not always been in charge or managing people. I tell my girls, “There is a better way to do this. If you can think of more layers or something that makes more sense, tell me and we will do it.”
That is important because you always want to be looking ahead and what is the next thing. I like to end my interviews with some rapid-fire questions. You pick a category and the category is either family and friends, money, spiritual or health.
Let’s do family and friends.
Things or actions that I do not have that I want with my family and friends?
Being more patient. I feel like sometimes we are mean to the ones that we love. Being customer service, you are on all the time. I would like to be more kind and patient.
Things or actions I do have that I want to keep?
I feel like I’m very optimistic. I’m always going to find out about odd and out. I had to work on that. I have always had that. Going through tough times in life either focus on the good and you got to choose to be happy every day so it is optimistic.
Take the Risk: There's not a book on how to be an entrepreneur and kill it. That's not a thing because every industry is different.
If you're unhappy with your job, if you're unhappy with any situation in your life, you have the power to change it.
Things or actions that I do not have that I do not want with my family and friends?
I never want to be too busy to make time for my family or friends.
That is the hard thing being an entrepreneur and opening a new business. Things or actions that I do have that I do not want?
I worry too much. I worry about things that are out of my control and that is something that I’m working on too because there are some things and worrying about it is not going to change it. I do worry but I wish that I did not.
Is there anything that I have not asked or you would like the readers to take away from our conversation?
Someone may be reading this and think, “That is so cool. Entrepreneurs are chasing their dreams. They are happy and fulfilled.” Everyone can do this but you have to take the risk and be willing to fail. Failure is an option. It is how you deal with failure, grow and keep moving on. It is very easy to see if you are one of us. Sometimes we show the highlight reel.
I will always tell people if you are unhappy with your job or any situation in your life, you have the power to change it and only you. You can stay mediocre, getting through life, floating by or you can choose to follow your dream and your passion and take that risk. Life is too short to not take the risk and you got to do it.
I’m looking forward to meeting you in person at Tennessee Tech where we are both at the Women’s Conference there speaking. I’m looking forward to hearing more of your story there and meeting all the attendees. Thank you so much for being on and sharing your story. There were many great takeaways for people to learn from.
Thank you for having me, Amy.
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For our Mindful Moments, from this interview that I completed with Cigi that I found very inspiring and the whole point of this show of learning what in our background ends up coming through in all of the work that we do in our careers and how we can pivot our paths so that we can do things that fulfill us with purpose. We started out talking about Cigi’s background with her dad being in sales, her mom being a special ed teacher and what she learned from both of them and their passion.
Each of those areas was very contagious to her and opened her eyes to what was possible. The other important takeaway was her own interest in fashion and understanding what she was good at and what she was not good at. Too many times, we push ourselves into areas that we might have a passion around but try to do things that do not align with our skills and abilities, try to understand where we are strong and what can be our best use of our ability.
For myself as a CPA, I was so determined to be an accountant and a CPA. Getting into my first job in The Big Four and audit, when I started looking around at the other CPAs that were more senior than me, I already knew that I might never be able to have the ability to do the things that those people could do but I did know that my passion was around helping small businesses and helping entrepreneurs be successful.
Pivoting your path so that you can stay with the things that you are an expert in, which is what Cigi demonstrated but also looking for the opportunity, which was being in sales, this area that she found so exciting with their father but doing it in an area that she was passionate about. What we talked about was understanding that she needed to get the right amount of background to even be able to do what she did now.
This is an important lesson that a lot of us jump steps and want to start a business without having lived what the work is, know the ins and outs, where the pitfalls are and so forth. Being the researcher and observer in the work that you do so that if you ever want to pivot or transform your career that you are looking out for are those things you can learn from others that will help you.
Some of her advice or key tips were helpful. When she decided to start her business and her friends encouraged her to do it based on the experience that she had. You do not have to start out with this huge business and presence that she started small. She knew she was taking a risk but she had a goal in her head of how much she was willing to risk.
I talk about this a lot when I talk to entrepreneurs is knowing your exit. Not to keep pushing towards something that is not working. When is the point of your exit so you do not lose your shirt? She had this test of having a $500 sale day and exceeded it greatly by having a $5,000 sale day but it gave her the confidence that she could make this work. When the inventory was lower than what she expected, that is how to buy because she had had the experience as a buyer herself.
The other big tip that she had was about hiring an accountant. This is so important because so many entrepreneurs or people that are even on their own as a contractor or maybe you make a commission, do not necessarily think about the importance of having an accountant because you think of it for your tax return but not necessarily for what you are going to need as far as advice to be successful and someone defining what the numbers mean.
The third big tip that she had was making sure you define your mission and customer. Who is it that you want to be selling to? You do not create a business because that is what you like but you have to look around at what your customers want and make sure you are catering to them. Another thing that she talked about was the importance of empowering your staff and teaching them the business so that when you are ready for your next thing, you can do that.
A big thing that she did was get involved with the communities and the other passions that she had around special needs, which started bringing forward her next opportunity, which is the founding of this new coffee shop that will employ people with disabilities and create a community that is accepting of all abilities and make sure that people are supportive along the way. She could not be doing all of that had she not empowered her team in her boutique business so that she has the space to be able to create her next best thing.
This is an important lesson that we should always be thinking about succession planning and who could take our seat at the table so that when we are ready for our next move, there is space and a way for us to make that transition when we are ready. It was so important for her to do this because of this purpose that she has this mission to help many people, which then comes from her background of watching her mother and having these family and friends along the way of wanting to make their lives better as well.
There is so much there to be inspired by with what she is doing. The last thing that she talked about was encouraging people that if you want to be an entrepreneur, you have to be ready to take a risk that what you might see on the outside of success is there are a lot of things that do not go right along the way and be able to stay positive and have the power within yourself to follow those dreams. I hope you enjoyed our conversation as much as I did. Please like, share and subscribe to this show so that others can be able to take away these lessons as well.
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About Cigi England
Cigi England graduated from Tennessee Technological University in 2006. After spending eight years in the fashion industry in Atlanta, she decided to move back to Cookeville to be closer to family and friends. With the support of her amazing friends and this wonderful community, Cigi’s Boutique was created. Cigi just celebrated seven years in business.
Cigi and her husband Michael are involved with local organizations that work with individuals with special needs. Cigi has served on the board at Rising Above Ministries for three years. After spending time with their friends that have disabilities, they thought it would be awesome to create a place of their very own. How wonderful it would be to work, play, and cultivate a community together!
Cigi and Michael prayed very specifically about their vision to create The Exceptional Bean- a coffee shop that would employ individuals with disabilities and special needs. They shared their idea with a small group of individuals in Cookeville. From there it was full steam ahead. The Exceptional Bean is set to open Spring 2022.