Sindy Posso, co-owner of Cielito Artisan Pops in South Florida, shares how she and her husband overcame serious challenges to launch their enterprise, why their products stand out in a crowded industry, and the importance of taking calculated steps on the path to growth.
Tell us about yourself and your business:
I am from Colombia, where I was an architect, but I’ve been living in Miami for twenty years. My husband, Ivan, and I have three kids. When I became a mom, I began living a healthier lifestyle, which inspired me to start a healthy frozen-treat business.
My maternal grandmother would make cakes and ice cream back in Colombia, and I had her old recipes to work from. I decided to put my own twist on all-natural pops by making them pretty and using only the best ingredients, such as fresh fruits and hormone-free dairy, meaning you’re eating real food and getting the most delicious flavors. The greenery and flair within our shops also reflect who I am and the fresh food we make.
Starting a business can be challenging. Was it for you?
Oh my God, yes! We opened our first store in the Wynwood neighborhood in 2017, and Hurricane Irma hit a few days later. We went four days without electricity, and our first-ever production line completely melted. It was horrible. At first, I thought, “This is it; we’re done.” But when something like that happens, you actually get stronger. We just started over and kept going.
Then in July 2020, we opened our second location, in Boca Raton—right in the middle of the COVID outbreak. It was crazy because, once again, we didn’t know what was going to happen to our business. But, as it turned out, people wanted to get out of the house and have some fun, so they came to buy pops.
Did either of you have any business experience before opening that first store?
Not really. Ivan’s family owned a small store in Argentina, which gave him sales and management experience but nothing related to food. We had to figure out things as we went along, such as whether we wanted to purchase or rent a building and what we would charge for our products. In all, we spent almost two years researching and creating our business plan.
How did you select your locations?
The spaces needed to be visually attractive to satisfy my artistic instincts and our business’s overall brand look. For each one, we’d visit many different places, and I’d reject them simply because they didn’t appeal to me. They just had to feel right.
And it wasn’t only me! For instance, when we were seeking a Boca location, my paternal grandmother was living with us; she was eighty-nine at the time. We’d take her along to look at properties, and she’d say things like “This place is horrible” and “Not this building.” But she and I were both instantly amazed by how welcoming one in particular was. She stated, “This is it—you need to open here.” To this day, I tell her, “This store is open because of you.”
Would you share your approach to pricing?
We’re a small family business and keep our prices as low as possible. One way we do this is by purchasing ingredients as demand dictates rather than going crazy buying a ton at once. That said, we are happy to pay for the best ingredients. As an example, even though homegrown fruit is more expensive than bulk or frozen, we buy it locally.
It’s not that we don’t care about making money because this is our livelihood. At the end of the day, though, charging one dollar more or less per pop isn’t as important as maintaining our reputation for making great products.
You offer dozens of flavors and rotate some seasonally. How do you decide which stay and go?
We keep our offerings between around forty and forty-five to guarantee that everyone will find flavors they love. If we add one, we remove something else for space, as much as it pains me—thankfully, our customers ultimately decide which go, not me. However, if a flavor doesn’t sell well but is beautiful, I’ll sometimes keep it in the display because it will guide people to seek what they want.
Do you have a lot of competition? What makes your products stand out from theirs?
There is definitely a lot of competition in Miami: new concepts pop up constantly, and well-established national brands want to succeed here. We try to stand out by connecting with our community and offering uncompromising quality. For instance, we make our ice-cream base from scratch using my grandmother’s recipe, which has only four ingredients, and pasteurize our products in-house, giving them a fresh-out-of-the-oven taste. As soon as you bite into one of our pops, you know it’s made with fresh ingredients.
Plus, it’s very important to me that our products look like little works of art, so we spend hours training our team to make the drizzle perfect and add just the right amount of toppings. Ultimately, competition pushes us to continually try to get better.
How have you grown Cielito Artisan Pops in recent years?
I’m very happy with our recent expansions. A few years ago, we started selling our pops in about a dozen area hotels and restaurants. And our kitchen in the original Wynwood store was tiny: only 300 square feet. We were there for seven years before building a 2,800-square-foot facility with a walk-in freezer in 2024. We just moved in and started production there at the start of the year.
This was a huge step for Cielito; I’m so proud that Ivan and I planned and saved smartly, waiting until our business was very stable before we made the investment. Now we can get even more creative with flavors, produce more pops, and do it all quicker, which brings in more customers. The opportunities are endless.
For more info, visit cielitoartisanpops.com
Running a successful business requires more than just a good product or service—you also need a clear mission behind everything you do. After all, people are drawn to companies with a compelling purpose, even if competitors may have superior offerings. Develop yours, define it concretely, and incorporate it into every facet of your organization, and it can go a long way toward setting your brand apart from the rest.
Of course, all that is easier said than done. For a simple solution, turn to Simon Sinek, a legendary motivational speaker. In his debut work, Start with Why, he lays out his Golden Circle philosophy, a model consisting of three concentric layers: WHY (the core belief), HOW (the processes or values that bring it to life), and WHAT (the tangible products or services). His ideas can help you better understand what’s driving you, enabling you to strive for greater organizational success and better inspire those you work with.
Sinek argues that while most organizations operate from the outside in—focusing on WHAT they do—the most effective strategy is to work from the inside out, starting with your WHY. And it’s not just about making money, which is more of an end result than a mission. Rather, consider the reason your enterprise exists. What problem are you aiming to solve with your products or services? What values or practices are at the heart of your business? The goal is to identify something that individuals can emotionally relate to, helping draw them toward your brand and connect to it. Further, keep it simple: you should be able to convey it in a concise statement.
Once you have your WHY, make it the foundation of every action and process of every department, from marketing to product development to customer service. You want it to be continually reinforced both for visibility and to develop a strong, consistent brand image. If consumers can clearly see the connections between your purpose, how you’re implementing it, and how it informs your products or services, they will feel comfortable trusting your company and giving you their business. As Sinek emphasizes, “People don’t buy WHAT you do, they buy WHY you do it.”
One of the best modern examples of this is Apple. Since its inception, it has had a clear WHY: a vision to think differently and challenge the norm. HOW does it do that? By never being satisfied and constantly seeking opportunities to improve technology. This is then reflected in its WHAT, resulting in phones, computers, tablets, and other products that aren’t just extremely functional—they’re beautifully designed and intuitive to use, reinforcing the company’s deeper dedication to innovation and simplicity.
There is no universal process for integrating your purpose into the different aspects of your business; each will require careful thought regarding its various components and the nuances of the work involved to determine the best way forward. Here are three areas to consider as an example.
Your marketing
Sinek writes, “There are only two ways to influence human behavior: you can manipulate it or you can inspire it.” Many marketing tactics like apparent price cuts and artificial scarcity use the former approach to entice customers, which may succeed in causing a one-time spike in sales. However, it’s often easy to tell when a company is being manipulative, and so while individuals may concede to purchasing this time, they will likely leave with a negative opinion of that brand and no intention of returning.
Instead, you should inspire your customers with authentic messaging that aligns with your WHY. This can be as simple as sharing the story behind your company on your website or in social media posts. Such a narrative may resonate with people on a deeper level, fostering greater trust and loyalty. It’s this kind of connection that makes Apple fans stand in line for six hours just to buy the newest product—a practice that still continues, albeit to a lesser degree, despite the prevalence of online ordering.
Your team
When hiring, be careful not to bring on people merely because they can do the job. While you do want someone to have the right qualifications, it’s just as important that they share your organization’s values. Employees who are on board with your mission will invest more effort and passion into their work, and being unified under this shared purpose will enable them to work better together, leading to greater productivity and performance. Think of it this way: The team you build will be responsible for taking your company’s vision and bringing it to life. So why would you hire anyone who doesn’t embrace what you’re striving for and feel equally driven to produce your desired results?
Your partnerships
The same principle of being selective applies to potential partnerships. Your WHY serves as a filter for opportunities, allowing you to pursue initiatives that align with your fundamental beliefs. You don’t want to work with just any organization who may have what you need—you want to select ones whose WHY complements yours. For example, say that your company prides itself on sustainability and ethical sourcing and comes across an opportunity to partner with a supplier that seems to match these values. Unfortunately, though, you discover that their process to collect materials results in a large carbon footprint, showing that they are ultimately incompatible. As a result, you should choose to turn it down, no matter how financially beneficial it may seem.
While the short-term advantages of such a partnership can be tempting, the long-term consequences may far outweigh them. Making choices that stray from your fundamental purpose can dilute brand integrity, confuse employees and customers, and even cause people to take their business elsewhere. On the other hand, staying true to your WHY ensures that every product, service, and interaction contributes to a cohesive and meaningful brand experience, strengthening your credibility.
As you work to apply Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle principles, remember that the key is to stay intentional. When you reinforce your WHY at every touchpoint, you can create a stronger, more authentic company that resonates deeper with the people who need what you have to offer.
For more info, visit simonsinek.com
TAKE ACTION:
Take a moment to outline or revisit your business’s WHY, reflecting on your core values and articulating the purpose that drives your organization.
As an entrepreneur, you juggle numerous roles—marketer, accountant, sales director, and more. With so many demands on your time, staying focused and making progress on your priorities can sometimes feel almost impossible. But what if there was a way to streamline your day and boost productivity without working longer hours? Enter time blocking, a simple yet powerful time-management technique that can help you do just that. Follow this guide to work more efficiently so you can unlock your and your business’s full potential.
In a nutshell, time blocking involves dividing your days into segments, each dedicated to a specific task. For example, you might reserve half an hour in the morning to manage your inbox, an hour following that for meeting with your team, and two hours after lunch for working on a major project proposal. What makes this tactic so transformative is how it forces you to narrow your focus to just a single activity at once. Research shows that multitasking reduces your attention, causing you to take longer on your work and potentially make more errors. Conversely, tackling your to-do items individually enables you to lock in without distraction. For entrepreneurs, this may translate to getting more done in less time, leading to greater output while allowing you to enjoy a healthier work-life balance.
Additionally, time blocking can aid in surmounting a common obstacle for entrepreneurs—”productivity anxiety,” an overwhelming feeling that can arise from the pressure of a heavy workload. But by planning out each of your responsibilities into concrete intervals with defined time frames, you can make said workload more manageable. In turn, you may feel empowered to attack it with greater confidence and control, gaining a growing sense of accomplishment with every item you check off your agenda.
To implement time blocking, first identify the tasks you need to get through. Prioritize them utilizing factors like their deadlines, impact, and financial importance, and estimate how much time each one may require. Next, build a plan for tackling them effectively. For instance, assign blocks for your highest-priority or challenging duties during the hours you tend to feel most energized and clearheaded, whether that’s early in the morning when your mind is sharpest or later in the day after you’ve settled into a rhythm. As for less urgent or mentally taxing activities like checking emails, you could schedule them at points in the day when you typically have less energy or between more intense sessions to get a breather.
Make note of these time slots either in a journal or a tool like Google Calendar, and consider color-coding them by type or priority for easier identification. Aim to put your plan together either the evening before or the morning of to ensure that you’re well prepared for the day ahead. Then stick to it as close as possible to maintain a solid structure, only adjusting as necessary if an unexpected situation arises or a duty turns out to be more intensive than anticipated. At the end of the day, evaluate how the flow felt and where you might want to tweak your plan going forward. As you get more familiar with this approach, you’ll develop a clearer sense of what works best for you and be able to fine-tune your schedule accordingly.
While time blocking is a relatively simple method, there are some key practices to follow to make it most effective. Primarily, try to be realistic about the time each responsibility may require to help you stay on track without feeling rushed or overwhelmed. Underestimating their duration can derail your workflow, leaving you scrambling to catch up and throwing off the rest of your day. To avoid this, consider adding a ten-to-fifteen-minute buffer period between certain blocks to account for delays or interruptions. If everything goes smoothly and you end up with a spare moment instead, you could use it to prepare mentally for the next task or conduct quick errands.
Besides buffer periods, make sure to factor in time slots for other essential activities not strictly related to your duties. Perhaps most important to include are occasional breaks that allow you to recharge your mind and body, such as one at lunch (rather than simply eating at your desk) and one later in the afternoon to avoid an energy slump. Depending on your workload in a given day or week, you may also be able to fit in creative blocks for brainstorming, strategizing, and the like or learning blocks for professional development, whether that involves reading articles on industry news or attending a webinar.
If the idea of scheduling every individual activity seems exhausting, try combining time blocking with task batching, a closely related method that involves grouping similar activities together in one interval. This will save you some of the trouble of planning while still reducing the mental load of switching between different types of tasks too frequently. For instance, you could set all your meetings during one large chunk in the morning, reserve a period just after lunch for simpler organizational jobs like filing paperwork and updating your list of priorities, and ease into a single high-level duty for the remaining hours. By strategizing your day in this way, you can stay better engaged and work more efficiently through your to-do list.
Ultimately, time blocking may not be suitable for everyone depending on the variability of their field, but it can present a viable solution for those looking to streamline their responsibilities. Get into a good rhythm with it, and you may find that you’re able to work ahead more rather than simply reacting to whatever gets thrown your way, enhancing your ability to advance strategically toward your goals.
TAKE ACTION:
Review your workload for the following day, and sort your tasks into time blocks based on priority and type. Then try out the schedule to see how this approach suits you.
Falling short of your organization’s sales goals can feel discouraging or even downright panic inducing, especially given that losing out on opportunities essentially means letting cash slip through your fingers. It may be easy to blame economic or industry challenges for any low conversion rates, but if you put your sales team under the microscope, you may spot significant obstacles to success rooted within your own organization. Here are three of the most common hurdles you may be facing along with tactics for helping your employees overcome them.
The problem: Your salespeople may not be properly equipped to sell, struggling with either poor technique or a lack of information. Therefore, they face an uphill battle to convert leads, even highly qualified ones.
The solutions: One of the most essential sales strategies is pitching your brand’s value proposition—that is, demonstrating to prospects why they should buy from you. However, your sellers can only do this successfully when they fully understand who your target audience is, what their pain points are, and how your offerings can provide a solution to make their lives healthier, happier, or more convenient.
Schedule retraining on these details to ensure that they’re clear, whether in individual sessions for poor performers or in group meetings if there’s a generally low sales rate across your team. Update your sales playbook as well for quick and easy reference, including answers to basic consumer questions like “How long does it take to install the product?” and positive reviews that can be shared as testimonials. The more resources your salespeople possess, the more confidence they will have during a pitch.
Additionally, hold periodic refreshers on vital sales skills, such as making a good first impression, rebutting prospects’ most frequent objections, and requesting a close. Consider asking your sales managers or top performers to share proven strategies, detailing how they handle specific situations and concerns. Even for those with minimal struggles, there are always ways to improve and refine their sales approach to maximize their chances of landing the deal.
The problem: Sellers can only succeed when they connect with your target audience, but if your organization doesn’t present good leads to them, they will be essentially limited to making cold calls, hoping they eventually encounter a qualified person or business.
The solutions: To start, enhance your marketing efforts to better identify relevant prospects. Have your marketers refer to data and trends in your CRM database to create buyer personas, which will detail your ideal customer’s lifestyle and demographics. As an example, an art gallery owner might aim to attract wealthy tourists and local homeowners. You can also utilize a tool like LinkedIn Sales Navigator to filter prospects by specific demographics or publish lead magnets like blogs and white papers to discover who expresses interest in your offerings—even before you reach out.
Just as important as getting leads, though, is using them effectively. Sellers should always customize their pitch to each person’s progress toward conversion, and they can only do that when your marketing and sales employees alike perform lead tracking in your CRM. That way, everyone will know exactly where a contact came from, if they are an existing customer, and how many touchpoints they have experienced. Further, running sales reports can help identify when people are more likely to make purchases, indicating the ideal timing for a pitch. For instance, a pool-installation company may find that consumers are more interested in breaking ground in early spring so they are ready to swim come summertime.
The problem: Consumers could find the prices of your products or services off-putting. In turn, they may end sales interactions once they receive a quote or even complain after conversion that your prices are too high to warrant conducting future business.
The solutions: Such a glaring problem requires a multipoint solution. First, emphasize to your sellers the importance of leveraging your value proposition, asserting that the value to be gained from your products or services surpasses the price. Second, rely on social proof. Strong testimonials can outweigh virtually any pricing concerns, so request that your satisfied customers review your business on Google and social media. To capitalize on these positive endorsements, post statistics and quotes across your website, socials, and sales playbook.
Third, listen to your prospects’ needs. Should you find that closures are more difficult toward the end of the month when customers’ budgets are less flexible, for example, don’t just pressure them into exceeding their limitations. Instead, initiate end-of-month discounts or promote free gifts with a purchase, which may better motivate your target consumers to invest in your offerings. Based on universal feedback, you may even find it necessary to decrease your prices where possible. And, no matter what, always remember to communicate pricing clearly and transparently to foster customer satisfaction and loyalty.
While the above represent some common obstacles to converting leads, there are many other issues that could plague your salespeople, including an inadequate head count, a struggle to differentiate your organization from competitors, and excessive administrative work like processing orders.
To weather these and other storms, stay abreast of challenges to achieving sales. You can identify them by sending occasional surveys to potential and existing clients, reviewing KPIs periodically to identify trends, and engaging in regular sales performance evaluations and feedback sessions. Upon identifying a snag, engage in a battle strategy to eliminate it, keeping your sales and marketing teams looped in so you can brainstorm solutions collectively. Above all, maintain a resilient mindset, understanding that any obstacles are not set in stone but rather merely symptoms of a problem that you and your salespeople can work to overcome together.
TAKE ACTION:
Review your sales data, determine which obstacles may be limiting your revenue potential, and then write down a list of steps for addressing them head-on.
