Episode 156: Mabels Labels Co-Founder, Julie Cole

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Welcome to the kids sleep Show podcast where we dive into the magical world of sleep, and all things parenting. Join us as we embark on a journey filled with expert advice, practical tips and heartwarming stories that will transform your little ones into sleep superheroes, and empower you to navigate the beautiful chaos of parenting. I’m your host, Courtney Zentz. And I’m on a mission to change how the world view sleep and provide accessible sleep coaching resources for all families to build healthy sleep habits in their home for children, and adults of all ages. As an award winning speaker, author and pediatric sleep expert, myself and my team of consultants work intimately with families around the world to teach healthy sleep habits to children and adults. I believe wholeheartedly that sleep is the foundation for which a happy home is built. So let’s sleep together. Hey, everyone, welcome to this week’s episode of the Kids sleep show. I am joined this week by the founder of one of our favorite absolute best baby products in the world Mabels labels. So welcome to the show, Mr. Lee Cole. Thank you for joining us today. So I’ll allow you to properly introduce yourself. You thank you. And thank you for that

nice introduction. We love being a favorite brand parents and parent educators and all that like. So yes, I’m Julie cool. I’m the co founder of Mabels labels, which is now 21 years old, which is ridiculous. I cannot believe it. I’m also a mom of six. I’m a parenting author, I wrote a book called like a mother birthing businesses, babies and I like be on labels. And that’s gone very well. And it’s just full of like my mom hacks, my business hacks my life hacks. And I do a lot of media as well and a lot of speaking. So that’s me in a nutshell.

I love it. And we were talking just for a minute before we kicked things off about the fact that I would equate labels labels to breast milk. And here’s why. One, the labels are great for identifying breast milk, especially if your children are at daycare, but I look at labels labels as liquid gold, and I hide them so my kids don’t touch them. Because when they come my kids think they’re like little toys that they can stick on all the different things in the house. And I’m like, okay, breast milk. Don’t spill that. And Maples labels. Don’t touch right.

You’re absolutely right. I’ve had so many parents be like, I have to have the conversation with my kids. These are just not like stickers for their belongings and for their crafts and that sort of thing. And these are like mummy stickers to you. It’s like mommy asked, approve of every Mabels labels usage? Because, yeah, I mean, if they’re just using them for on paper, they can just use anything else. These are incredibly durable and there. And because of that there’s a price attached to it. And because we are keeping things out of the landfill, we’re stopping people from losing things. So these are not just stickers to be played with. So yes, they’re not they’re there for their mommies property. You’re right, liquid gold, just like the breast milk. Don’t steal that stuff.

I know do not touch it. My husband dumped out probably only about an ounce at one point when I was still breastfeeding. And I was pumping and he like was like, oh, there’s a little bit left in the moment. You do?

Oh, he’d be dead to me.

Oh my gosh, you know, I still see the memes every now and then we’re like a mom will spill a cup of drops. She’s like, No, but it is like they are amazing. Tell me, let’s start for people that don’t know what made rice labels. Right? Either they have a new baby. How did you come up with the idea? 21 years ago, when I was some just born? You were

just a newbie you were my first customer. So yeah, it really came about because there was a product missing from the market along with my co founders. We were young moms. And we’re busy career people. You know, our kids were going to play groups and daycare, even just gathering with our friends. And we all had the same stuff. And so we tried masking tape and permanent marker and it didn’t work. We thought there must be a durable label out there for us and there wasn’t. So as clever moms with an entrepreneurial spirit were like, Let’s solve this problem. And you know, people always ask me, how do we how do you come up with an idea and I’m like, go through the day, find something that pisses you off and fix it. So that’s exactly what we did. So that was our real, why we started and then I of course had an additional why I mean, we all were late, you know, had small kids or whatever. But my eldest child had just turned three. And I had two other He and two younger siblings by then. Anyway, so it was busy. But he was diagnosed with autism. And I’m a recovering lawyer, and I just didn’t think practicing law would suit my family’s new needs. I wanted to be able to advocate for my kiddo I needed to be able to set up a ABA program for him do all the things I wanted to do for him. So I needed a little more flexibility than what the what the traditional workforce tends to offer. So that’s when I went to the co founders and said, Hey, we’ve got this brilliant idea. And you know, I’m looking for a bit of a lifestyle shift here. What do you say and you know that 21 years ago, we launched our first label, and we only had one, we started with our original rectangular sticky label and that. So for your listeners, right, like, if you don’t know, so they’re highly personal lies do you just go to Mabels labels.com, you put in your kiddos name, you pick like colors, a cute little icon, and then we make them and we send them out 24 hours later, and that first label our original, it’s dishwasher, microwave safe, it’s UV resistant. So I mean, your kids are going to outgrow their bubbles, and their lunchboxes, and all of that stuff, and their labels still gonna be there. And that is the secret sauce that we are our labels do what we say they’re going to do. And then of course, since that first label, then we’ve created more now we’ve got shoe labels, and clothing, labels and bag tags, and allergy alerts, and you name it, we’ve got household labels. So all of all of those all of those things there now, or housed on our army’s label site. And I love

it, I think durability wise, right, like, as a tried and true Mabels labels customer, I get my kids, the little guys that they can win things, you know, and then I have the big ones with just the last name is Zentz. Yeah, use those kind of randomly and not one is pink, or one is blue, like I get a neutral. Yeah. To have smart. Like they, they don’t come off. And I think that’s the coolest them, right? Because you can try masking tape. That’s not going to work, you know? Well,

yeah. And it won’t work. And that’s, and that’s exactly the thing, and I think you know, with them, you know, and moms are busy. And our clothing labels are just peel and stick on the tag. And it’s actually funny because your kids will outgrow their clothes, they will, you know, wear them out and the labels still be there. In fact, I’m not sure like, I’ve got a bunch of teenagers now. And they all do thrifting. So they’ll often come home with things from the thrift store that someone else’s Mabels labels. I love it. So we just put those overtop, and

put them on, you know, I was even thinking of getting so made that like we went to Disney World and I was so freaked out and my kids are gonna be like, ooh, squirrel. And like, Ron, like, I want to get like a tattoo that says like, if found,

you know what we do have because, you know, I’m very involved in the autism community. And wonders are very common in our community. So we do actually have bracelets that have like mom’s cell phone number dad’s cell phone number, so like, if found or any, like, you know, nonverbal or any sort of instructions there. And I actually used them in the old days when my kids would I drop them off at a birthday party. And I was like, hey, all my infos on poses risks. So if she breaks an arm, you know how to get ahold of me, it was just always on them. Or whenever we went somewhere, I just slap that on and, and I knew that it just gave me that peace of mind. Yeah, know exactly how the whole safety line, we do have a whole safety line on our website. So that’s worth checking out.

And I can see it too, even with allergies. Like we have kids come over now my kids are in second grade and fourth grade. And our one friend has a severe nut allergy like tree nut allergy. And so we keep an EpiPen at our house. That was his like it’s a pediatrician, recommend like a prescription that they gotten in gave us because he had a situation in a different house and went into shock, you know, so? Yeah, like, kind of stuff where like, I’m always conscious of like, does anybody have any allergies? Okay. You’re not I mean, and as a parent, like, sometimes it’s hard when there’s like, 20 kids running around,

I know. But you’re like, I’m like nobody’s dying on my watch. I need to know all the things. And that’s why I mean, a lot of parents who have kids with like life threatening allergies, do get our allergy alerts, because it’s just that last line of defense. So of course, the schools are good about it. And the daycares are good about it. But you know, there’s maybe the supply teacher or you know, a new daycare worker and they just feel more comfortable knowing that on that child’s little food container there’s a big sticker on it that says alert cannot have dairy, shellfish whatever, just that last line of defense for that peace of mind, and we can’t be too safe not with that stuff. Now

that that stuff at all. And I mean, I think this this, the labels in and of themselves, right? Like you’re gonna need a million of them. So I think that’s the cool part about labels labels is you can customize like the sizes so I know you make round one. Do you have little ones? You have the traditional rectangular ones, right? We’ve gotten the multipack kit like That’s

right. And you know, like we try to make it we’re so customer obsessed and like customer experiences everything for us. So what we’ve done is we’ve actually curated these packs that are like perfect for what your need is, so we’ll have like the day camp pack, which is a combo pack with more of the things that they might need. If you’re packing lunches everyday. Where’s your sleepaway camp, you might not need that so much but you want to make sure you’ve got maybe a stamp for those white socks, you know with the kid because we do name stamps as well. So So if your kids going to daycare or a starter pack just to try things out, so we have a whole range of just to take the grain work out of it for you like, okay, my kids starting kindergarten, let me go to the kindergarten pack, Bam, done.

Yeah. And it’s beautiful. They show up so nicely and so quickly. And they stick well, you know, obviously, the loss of the labels, but then coming off, you know, unless you have a daughter who’s, you know, enjoys putting them on and then putting them on and peeling them off, in which case, I want to put her in a corner for a bit. But I’m okay because I’m not gonna get any hate mail. Like you’re putting your kid in the corner for a

dunce cap. But they, you know, there’s longevity in it. Because from preschool or daycare, which my kids were at, through even still, like, there’s always a new function and purpose for them. It’s so true. And you know, to your point, like you start when they’re little, and they’re going to daycare, and then you know, they’re going to school. So we you know, we are our labels have, like it’s kind of like as artists have grown to suddenly we’re like, oh, we have tweens now. And these labels are a bit baby. So okay, let’s have some tie dye labels, let’s have some emoji labels, let’s have some fun things like that. And then it’s like, okay, now I have kids who are like going off to university or college, which I do, and but they still want their stuff live, they label their, their chargers, because their roommates will swipe their chargers, they label all their tech, all their phones, all of that stuff. And interestingly, what I’ve noticed in the last couple of years, as is that, first of all our OG customers, so say they were eight years old, and we launched 21 years ago, they’re having kids. So now we’re on our second generation, but also like the moms who are my age, now are dealing with their elders, and they’ve got seniors, they’re taking care of who are going into residential care. So our seniors labels are getting very popular with our original customers who are now kind of that sandwich generation. Yes,

I didn’t even think about that. I totally see that, especially if you’re putting them into, like in hair care, you know, yeah.

You know, and they do. And we do find like the seniors are, you know, they only bring a few things with them. So, you know, they’ve downsize their homes, and then they’re going into residential care. So they’re, they can be a little particular about their things. So they, you know, they like to label their, their curfew, their hairbrush, all of their clothes that go to the laundry room, make sure it all comes back, their dentures container, their eyeglasses, their canes, or walkers, all of that stuff. And it’ll say, you know, Mrs. Smith, room 314. And it ends back and then that reduces a lot of stress for Mrs. Smith, because that these are the things that they do get stressed about. Yeah,

no, totally, I can see it. Oh, my gosh, it’s such a great, I mean, it’s just such a great idea from an evolution standpoint. I know you had mentioned you’d written a book, which I didn’t know, actually. So tell me a little bit about how did that come about? Right.

So how it came about was, it was sort of on the to do list for a while. But you know, I’m busy raising six kids and building a label Empire yet. So you know, it’s busy times, right? And I’ll tell you what happened. I think for a lot of people, when COVID hit, they got doing their side hustles, right. They’re like, Okay, I have a little interest in this. And for me, the book was kind of my side hustle, because all of a sudden, I wasn’t speaking at conferences, I wasn’t going to events, events. If I did media, it was all by zoom, I wasn’t having to go to studios at the crack of dawn and get makeup up and all of that. So I did have time I was home. And I thought if I don’t take advantage of this, you know, me being grounded, basically. I don’t know when I’m going to write this book. So it’s now and so that’s what I did. And yeah, it was, it was quite a process. But I’m really happy with the result in it. It just one on one choice award. And it’s been a best seller. So I’m really happy with with it. It was it was a lot of work. And for me. For me, as somebody who’s been blogging, I’ve been a parenting blogger for 18 years or so. So I’m used to writing in like 500 word chunks. So when you’re like you need 1000s and 1000s and 1000s of words. But it was great. I mean, I have so much to say. So it was, as I said, the lockdown just provided that opportunity in that time in that space for me to take this on.

I love that because I think one it’s filling your cup with a passion on your bucket list, right? What does it want to do and then taking action to do it. And yes, there’s never going to be a right time. There’s never a right time to have another baby Exactly. Maybe or to go write a book or start a garden or do whatever you know. So I feel like there’s never a right time. You have to make the time because you’re passionate about it. And you were able to do that and you know, I see So much more recently, Julie with just female founders we were talking about, I was just at a conference in New York called the female Founder Collective. And you’re gonna mom to Dotto and the role of a mother, right? Still is, I would say more than 50%. You know, and I mean that 1%

Oh, we know the stats, we know, the studies, you know, the partnerships and domestic households that are one male, one female, our women are carrying this still, I mean, there have been improvements. But we are the default parent, like, you know, I was just at the school doing an IEP meeting for my kiddo who’s gonna use neuro diverse and, like, I don’t think daddio even knew I was going like I do, you know, I’m Takata take them that did the dog to the vet after this, he doesn’t know the dogs go to the vet, there are so many little things that would fill up our time that people don’t realize, like the booking of the dentist appointments like we do, we do carry that load. And I do think that, you know, parents, especially working moms, or moms who are entrepreneurs, you know, these are conversations we have to be having with our partner, because if you are feeling resentment in your businesses is suffering or failing. These are conversations that have to be had, but we do we have a long way to go as far as a quality in the home.

Yeah, definitely. And I think, to be able to say, I’m going to take time, I’m going to go for a walk every day with my dog, or I’m going to write a book, or I’m going to do yoga every day, or, you know, like, whatever it is that whoever, you know, if you’re listening to this, and you’re like, Okay, I want to do this thing doesn’t matter what it is writing a book or going for a walk, you know, making time for that I think is so important as both career entrepreneurs as your parents, as women who are working in the home, like there’s a lot on the list. My husband once asked me he’s like, where’s Max’s dentist appointment? I got to take him to the dentist. I’m like, if you don’t know where the dentist is, then I’m not telling you. Yeah,

exactly. Barely evilly you’re the only one who’s ever been to the dentist with them. Right? Yeah. So

I’m like, I would let that one stew for a minute. And then I’ll text. It is wonderful. He does we have a very open like you. He did the laundry, I’ll put it away. I’ll do. Like we don’t ask each other we just see and do which I am appreciative of because I know not everybody has balance like that. But even with that, I’m still default parent, like you just walked past your dad to ask me if you could have a snack. Oh, my

goodness, I’ve had phone calls. Like I’m like, isn’t at home? Like, why are you phoning me to ask me where something like or to answer a question. And it’s funny, but I do I just want to circle back to a point that you made that really triggered like a thought, which was having to prioritize, you know, if you have a goal and having to prioritize it. And I do actually, I have a lot of productivity tips that I intertwine in my day, because I have a lot to do. And we do have like, moms have a lot to get done in a day. And probably the thing that I do a lot of is i It’s called eat the frog. So that is basically I do the thing I want to do least first. So if that’s you know, writing 500 words a day on my book, then that’s me getting up at 6am and, and knocking out 500 words. And you know what, you can go back and edit it later. The point is just keep writing. If it’s calling that client who’s angry with you, if it’s calling that teacher who’s annoying you if it’s getting that yoga workout in whatever is the thing that you don’t really feel like doing get it done first. Because if you don’t, it’s going to live rent free in your brain and impact your productivity during the day. We don’t get time for lab. Yeah, no, I

love that. I’m like such a type A with like, thing. And if it’s not in great. You happen. It’s not happening, you know, and so people like to if you don’t have an appointment till next Tuesday, and like, I don’t have any freedom. I’m nothing free. Everything’s I got I got things I’m doing. You know that. And I think it’s hard because sometimes you’re like, oh, yeah, we can do the thing, you know, and boundaries. You know, I work with a lot of toddlers who don’t sleep well, right. And parents will come to me and a lot of times there’s no boundaries in place, right? For a variety of reasons. Sometimes they understand sometimes they don’t even realize that they don’t have boundaries in place. Right. But I think as a parent, right, it’s boundaries. It’s the same with the business. I could work 1000 hours a week. I love what I do you love what you do. You’re passionate about it, right? So for me boundaries are hard because work for me is fun. You know, right? And I think with parents, right? You have it’s good to have boundaries, like yes, I’m going to play with you but first we’re going to do this or yes, I’m gonna work but then when I’m done with my thing, we’ll do this thing you know, and I don’t feel bad with my boundaries. You know, I don’t

feel about either and you know what I feel like the boundaries just for By add some natural consequences as well, which I’m a huge fan of, and like, you know, I see no a lot like I say no to going to events, I actually have a 10 point checklist before I say I will attend something or go to something or participate in something because I value my time. And when I do, I feel like other people value my time, including my kids. Like, I often tell like if my kid came home from school today and said, I need 24 Cupcakes tomorrow, I would like laugh in their face and be like, Are you new here? Have we just met, that’s never gonna happen. And at whether it’s at work or at home, that my mantra is your lack of planning does not constitute my emergency. Yeah. And yeah, and I think that that is like, you know what, I want two weeks notice on those cupcakes, and even then I’ll get a baker to do because I don’t I make labels. You know, the baker can make the cupcakes and I’ll make her kids labels, and let’s all do what we’re good at. And that’s how the economy works. But you know, even you know, I have when I’m at work, like, you can’t just pop in my office and interrupt. If I’m time blocking, you can email me and say, Hey, I see you’re late. You’re there. Do you have a few minutes today? I like yeah, come on down at 330. Perfect. That’s when I turn my notifications back on and see the email. Because we have to be very productive. And I think there are a lot of strategies for Busy Women that you know, and a lot of it you’re right, like our nose or not actually knows. They’re more like boundaries. Yeah. Like, I’ll still see you. But not not at this moment. You know, I’ll still help you. Yep. Yeah,

just not instant gratification, like it is not. And I always say we’re not curing cancer. Like we’re not curing cancer. So sadly, you know, we’re gonna get there and we’re gonna get it done. But we’re not curing cancer. Yeah.

Yeah. I always say that. I’m like, we’re not you know, whenever he’s running around and labels labels in August hair on fire, because we got to get the labels of the door. I’m like, Dude, we haven’t pulled out the defibrillator. We’re not I’m not perform the Heimlich maneuver. We make labels. Let’s keep this all in perspective, obviously, we take our business very seriously, or we may not be where we are. But to your point, you know, we’re not It’s not often death. Let’s, let’s just keep everything in perspective for a hot minute. Right? Yeah,

no, totally. And I think you know, the cool part about what you’re doing is the like, the different aspects of the products, the different way you can use them, right, and then the different kind of path that you’ve taken the business from 21 years, which is so cool. You have anything new in the in the hopper, you can share or not yet. Yeah, look, we’re

always like, we’re always innovating. We’ve got an incredible product development team. And we always take the feedback of our customers because again, we’re customer obsessed, and they’re the best people to listen to. And there are you know, that there are loyal, that’s why we’re here, right. But we are always rolling out new things. I actually love a product that we rolled out about a month ago and their sensory labels. So for kiddos, who you know, have busy hands or maybe are on Spectrum and and find that if they’re doing a little something, they can focus better. So we’ve got like, you know, butterflies and rocket ships that they can just trace their name on. While they’re, you know, keeping trying to keep focus and teachers are loving it spec and teachers are loving it and parents so, you know, we’re always trying to think of what what’s needed out there in the market and then providing it. Awesome. I love that. Well, I’m

excited. So tell everybody, where can they find you? I know they can go to Google maybe labels but like sugar.

Okay, so obviously you write labels labels.com. But if you want to find out about me and see my stuff and read my stuff, and follow me on socials, all my information lives at Mabels labels.com/julie. Cool.

I love it. And we’ll be sure to link that in the show notes that link all the social channels and certainly tag you guys because you know you gotta prep. I always say proper prior planning prevents a Pitifully Poor performance.

Oh, I love that. And I love that alliteration.

So it was my eighth grade. Final Exam. I had to dissect the sentence and label what each part of it was and I never forgotten. We got blisters, you know. But yeah, proper prior planning prevents a Pitifully Poor performance. So get your labels labels in time before school starts. Yes. For your camp and daycare and whatever. Yeah, all the things there’s always something to do. And dad thank you so much for being on the show today. I love you know, just sharing what other female entrepreneurs are doing but just it is a game changing product that I do truly believe in which is why I love having guests on the show because I love these products and they they useful in the Zentz house but in so many others and I like to bring attention to that. So

I’m really really appreciate you having me on and it was so great chatting with you.

Thank you. All right, stay tuned for the shownotes everybody everything will be linked. And be sure to go over to Mabels labels and say hello. One more thing before you go. Did you know that we offer the industry’s first affordable and effective self paced sleep coaching program that includes time with a pediatric sleep expert here on the tiny transitions team. It is the industry’s first and only membership program like this that you can cancel anytime and the best part. It’s cheaper than a cup of coffee every single day. So say goodbye to the ebooks and courses that are not helping your child sleep better. And join sleep steps today. The most comprehensive sleep education you need to get everyone sleeping through the night. Learn more by visiting tiny transitions.com