(00:07):
Hi, my name is Maria Isabel Bonilla Uribe and I am the owner of Blue Mare Equestrian Services in Billings, Montana. Mostly revolves around horse training and animal care. So within the horse training aspect, I offer colt starting, so I work a lot with the babies. Some babies I work from scratch. Others have been handled some, but I really like focusing on the education of the young horse, like a kindergarten, if you will, and that's one of my favorite things to do. I also offer Western style training and English style training. I offer horseback riding lessons. And another service I offer is pet and ranch sitting. So that is, I also cover billings and surrounding areas, and I have experience with a wide array of creatures from horses, cats, dogs, goats. I've taken care of tarantulas, bearded dragons, chickens, you name it, I'll probably have taken care of it.
(01:12):
Another service I offer is I clean tack, so I detail tack. Anything, saddles, bridles, boots. I have a delivery service for that too. And I also offer equine marketing services, which basically entails photography, audiovisual editing, graphic design. So say if you want to sell your horse, I go and take pictures of the horse, take videos. I can also ride your horse. So it's a full service aspect of the business as well. What inspired me to start this business was I noticed there was a lack of affordable training options in billings for people that were not necessarily interested in showing, but wanted a horse that they could enjoy on a low key level. So a lot of my clientele are people that want to enjoy horses recreationally, and some may or may not want to show. But like I mentioned before, my business is mostly focused on proper horsemanship and safety.
(02:26):
So I have a wide array of horses at different training levels. So the skills that have helped me as an entrepreneur and the skills that have helped me as a horse woman is you have to be extremely stubborn. I don't know if that would qualify as a skill or more along the lines of, in a sense, a defect, but I see that as a forte because working with horses and working with animals in general requires a certain level of temperance than not many other professions have. Working with animals, it's a deeply emotional endeavor, and you'll see and feel things working with animals, especially big, unpredictable animals like horses that you would not see in other lines of work. So I'd say stuborness, resilience, a lot of empathy.
(03:26):
And then the willingness to be open-minded and learn new things. I think open-mindedness is an extremely important one because I've been riding since I was 14. I've ridden all kinds of horses. I worked with all kinds of different people, but this is an industry that is permanently evolving. So having an open mind is extremely important, and those same skills would apply as an entrepreneur. And another skill I would add is you have to be resourceful. You have to be extremely resourceful, and you have to take risks. It's the saying fortune favors the bold is extremely true. It took me 13 years to finally pull the trigger on this. I want to do this full time and not have to work for other people. This is my purpose in life, and this is what I want to do. So the ability to take calculated risks is extremely important.
(04:29):
And then financial savviness, especially in this economy, I thought long and hard. I made sure I was in a good financial place before I launched this business because there's always the chance that it might not work out. It might go wrong, but there's a saying I really like, and it's by the author of the Books of Five Rings. It's Musashi Miyamoto [sic] that he says, things will always work out in your favor if you pursue them with an open heart. And it's about, yeah, sometimes things might not work the way you want, but you have the peace of mind that you conducted yourself in a honest, transparent, and ethical manner. And that is an extremely important aspect of being a horse person because you're not only working with yourself or with the owner, but you're also working with a very special being that is the horse. So I've, I've had a lot of different types of jobs as an artist. I've had artist jobs. I worked as a graphic designer for a local business. I worked at the animal shelter for a while. I was a docent at the Yellowstone Valley Art Museum, and I loved it. It was a volunteer position. It wasn't technically a job, but all those experiences helped me shape what I want or what I don't want to be as a business. I've worked at a couple places that taught me how I don't want to conduct business. Unfortunately, that happens everywhere.
(06:12):
But for the most part, each job left me various teachings that I can apply as an interdisciplinary approach to my business. And my last job was a creative job, and it definitely helped me hone down on the financial aspect of the business, which is the part that I mostly struggle with. So it is important to be, if not savvy, in that aspect of your business, at least have somebody on your team that knows how to do it, that can help you with that. Yeah, I can say, Hey, no, I work alone, but behind me working alone, there's 5, 6, 7 people that had helped me be where I am. Well, one benefit of being part of a close-knit community, I come from a big city in Colombia. My hometown is about 3 million people and Billings, I think it's maybe 300 something I can't remember, but it's coming from the third largest city in Colombia to Billings, Montana, which is, from my experience, fairly small.
(07:25):
It's very important, once again, to conduct yourself in a professional manner because when it's this small, people talk, unfortunately, sometimes you try to do your best and sometimes it doesn't work out, but you can use that in your favor. And the saying goes, any publicity is good publicity, or any talk is good talk. And it has either helped me improve as a business or be more selective about who I work with. Now that I am a freelancer, I get to choose who I work with, and that has definitely improved the way I do business and my own peace of mind. Yeah, you may be a paying customer, but I pride myself in doing business in a mutually respectful manner. And if I'm not getting that same energy from you, I am more than happy to cut you off and find more deserving clientele. So it is just a matter of being very selective with the people you do business with.
(08:41):
And that pays off in the long run because if you surround yourself with good people, those good people help you find other good people. And with social media, that's how my business is blowing up because people start tagging me. They start referring me. I am extremely enthusiastic about helping other businesses as well, other small businesses, especially other female owned businesses, because it's already hard enough to be a woman in this world, and being a business woman is even harder. So I'm always try to be extremely supportive of fellow trainers, fellow female business owners. So I'm always tagging people or referring other people that you create a support network that pays off in the end that I'm very grateful that I'm surrounding myself with people that have the same mindset. So I can think of two instances where I found obstacles. One was a former client that decided that I wasn't a good enough trainer because I wasn't a traditional trainer in the way that I did the cowboy thing and that she's used to.
(10:00):
So I ended up firing that, it was a somewhat well-known married couple in the Huntley community, and they tend to put up this facade of the cowboy lifestyle and the rodeo and this whole glamorized cowboy persona. But unfortunately, working with them, it made me realize that what they did with their horses wasn't aligning itself with my values as a horse woman. It reached a point where I was dreading going to work there, and if I'm not in the right state of mind, I can give the rest of my more deserving clientele the quality service that they're paying for. I have three rules with my business. I don't tolerate drama, disrespect, and I sure as hell don't work for free. So if there's constant instance where those three factors come into play, I have no other choice but to let that client go.
(11:07):
I run a serious business and if I feel like my livelihood and my peace of mind is being threatened, I cut my losses. It wasn't fun. It took a toll on me. You can do everything, but it will never be enough for an ungrateful person. So they had to go and they tried to call me, they tried to get me back. They tried to bribe me with food, and I love eating, so I have to be super upset to refuse food. So it was rough. It definitely took a toll on my confidence. Unfortunately, like I said, I'm so stubborn that I'm like, well, if they think that way, that's not my problem anymore because they're no longer clients, so they can sort it out by themselves. I have better people in my life. So that was one story. And then the other one that is, it's something I'm mostly, I'm working through because I've been surrounding myself with very capable people, is the whole financial aspect of the business. Because unfortunately, when you're small business owners, the taxes are a little brutal. So it's working with people that can help you find solutions to maintain the financial integrity of your business, but that one has a happy ending. Technically, they both have happy endings, but one took a little longer.
(12:41):
But the financial aspect and being selective of who you work with, those have been two of the biggest challenges with the way I'm developing this business. And it's always evolving. And for the most part, I'm very grateful that I have clientele that is appreciative of what I do, and they're always referring me to other people. So it expands. It evolves. Some things I drop, some things I change, but as long as the income stream is continuous and my skills are being honed and I have a purpose, that's all that matters. In terms of my financial stability journey, it definitely helped reaching out to people. It's important not to feel intimidated by other people. The worst thing that can happen if you approach them is a no. But I've learned so much from other fellow business owners and just reaching us like, Hey, I like what you do. I am looking to expand my own business. What would you recommend? Who would you recommend? Facebook, once again, is a great resource. It is like, Hey, I'm looking for business insurance, or I'm looking for a good accountant or fellow business owners. I'm looking for this or that. And most people are more than happy to help out because that's how they started too.
(14:12):
It's symbiotic. It's very symbiotic. And most business owners understand the importance of helping each other, especially in such a small community where we pretty much thrive on referrals and word of mouth. I barely have to do any marketing or any ads or anything like that because I get tagged five, six times a day in different posts because people are happy with my services and they're willing to support me in growing my business. So one of my favorite stories is, I have two actually, and they start with horses that needed a lot of help. One of them was a baby that was rescued from the loose horse sale here, and he was in extremely bad shape, and his owner, I got tagged in a post, and the owner started doing interviews with different people, and she interviewed me over the phone, and I think she liked my voice and my vibes, and I ended up meeting them.
(15:26):
And I've been working with this baby from absolute scratch, and it's been two years and he's had an absolute glow up, and you wouldn't, it's like a success rescue story because he was in fairly rough shape when I met him, and now he's this absolutely beautiful horse. So there's one story. The other story is I had a new client that called me about a filly that was completely wild, and she was looking for a new horse trainer because unfortunately, at the barn she was at, she more or less got screwed over. And so she reached out to me because she was referred to another fellow horse business owner. And so we started talking about her goals with this horse and what she wanted to do with her. And this is a 2-year-old baby, and she was absolutely wild, unhandled, and we started working with her, and now she is the best mannered little lady.
(16:36):
And it's not only about helping the horses, but helping the owners. A lot of the time is, and a lot of my clientele come to me because they have been disappointed by other people in the industry. So I feel like it's my responsibility to revindicate the industry by conducting myself as professionally as possible. That doesn't mean you won't make mistakes, but it means owning up to your mistakes and finding solutions together because it's not a matter of not making mistakes, it's a matter of communicating and acknowledging your shortcomings and working through them, and that's what makes the business stronger. I just appreciate all the support from the community and that I'm extremely privileged to finally make a really good living doing what I love and being able to help other people and strengthen my circle, not only of friends, family, but also professionals, because it's extremely important that we help each other out, especially as women in the current state of affairs.
