Episode 30 - Thriving in Seasonal Business: Overcoming Challenges with Kathy Merchant

[00:00:00] Hey everybody, it's Libby with Fearlessness. What is Fearlessness? It's that underlying grit that empowers us to forge ahead. Even when Hope seems distant, it's the courage to walk through those fires of hell, knowing that we're not going to just come out better, but stronger on the other side.

[00:00:16] Stay tuned and learn how to get Fearlessness. I'm your host, Libby DeLucien, and today our guest is the amazing Miss Kathy Merchant. Kathy, why don't you introduce yourself?

[00:00:29] Merchant, I own Cal Co. cleaning in South Haven, Michigan. We've been in business for about 15 years, and I'm also a certified business coach. Yes, me and Kathy, we know each other in many ways. We go way back. We're both CBF certified coaches for Debbie Sardone.

[00:00:49] Like Debbie said, she's a certified business coach. I think your jam is goal setting, right? That's what you really like to do.

[00:00:59] I'm full setting in as a training goals and productivity. Anything to do with productivity. So time management, using the grow a lot of us as smart model and setting goals, reaching those goals. Awesome.

[00:01:14] So Kathy, about your business. I think Kathy's business is somewhat unique and my long care guys, if they're listening, they probably could relate to Kathy's business because I just don't know how like

[00:01:29] You know, with long care, and especially with you, so she's very big into vacation rental short term rentals.

[00:01:35] It's like, how do you know, I thought it sucked here in South West Florida to have our slow, we're in our slow season right now. I see everybody like I got 25 leads today.

[00:01:44] I'm like you suck, you know, because we're in our slow season. So we lose about a third of our population because in South Florida we have snow birds and they all migrate up north, but you know, I'll be at me. They all come back to Kathy.

[00:01:58] You know, with short term rentals, it's I look at it kind of like our long care guys. Like I just can't even fathom for like three months out of the year. I completely close my doors when it comes to long care.

[00:02:10] And so Kathy, like, I feel like your kind of you've had to learn how to work around that. Yeah, so we're very seasonal. We're right on Lake Shore, so I'm like Michigan South Haven is tourist town has been for over 150 years.

[00:02:27] It is the main industry there. So I used to before I found CBF. I used to close my doors in the winter.

[00:02:35] Like you were talking about. Okay, so you did close your doors. So we did yeah up until five six years ago. We would be close to the winter as of November first it becomes a ghost town around here.

[00:02:46] So all of the stores downtown close. It's just there's no one here after November first. A little bit maybe.

[00:02:55] A traffic during the holidays, but not very much at all. So we would close in the winter and I would actually go work in a hotel somewhere, cleaning or at the front desk until five years ago.

[00:03:06] And so we learned how to maneuver and how to grow other sides of our business so that we could keep some of our amazing employees working year round.

[00:03:15] That is the biggest struggle has been able to hire 30 additional employees and get them up and train and ready to go within a short time period because you don't have any work until this coming weekend Memorial day weekend.

[00:03:27] And then all of a sudden you have 30 houses that they need to be cleaned on a Saturday. So it's very, it's very hard to learn how to maneuver all that. So I've been doing it for 15 years.

[00:03:38] I've been cleaning vacation rental since I was 18 started and cleaning bed breakfast. I was trying to think why I want to say so started cleaning there and it's just been a passion. It's what I've loved doing and so I figured out a way to make it work.

[00:03:54] You know, I love that story. So I want to get into a little bit. You know of kind of for people who are in a seasonal business as much as I try to fight it here in South of Florida.

[00:04:07] I try to fight it. I try to deny it. I'm like and then all of a sudden Easter comes and for us like Easter is the marker.

[00:04:16] And then we start to lose customers and it's like, you know, my office we get used to get so upset and discourage what are we doing wrong and it's like stop fighting it. We are in a seasonal area.

[00:04:29] And you know, I think for me, I had to learn kind of like you Kathy, how to pivot like what other services could we offer. What could we do?

[00:04:41] And offer to customers or our customer base or similar customer base that are cleaners or our current staff could deliver.

[00:04:50] But I'm having to add like a lot of overhead or training or liability. So you know, for me we learn that through kind of cleaning other parts of the house. So now we offer like a lanae cleaning and a clean your front porch.

[00:05:07] Well, clean your garage like we don't care. So we had to learn that way, but you know for our listeners Kathy, could you just kind of go in a little bit more detail of like the journey of kind of when did you have the epiphany?

[00:05:24] What did you what did you start to add like the epiphany of like, oh my gosh, I got to try to like do this year round for our longcare guys. I know they add Christmas lights.

[00:05:34] They a lot of them do like seasonal lighting holiday lights. They can use the same people, but for you like when was that epiphany? When was that aha moment and what did you just how did you start to transition that would you what did you do?

[00:05:47] Well, for us so you said Christmas lights and it may be think of it we do offer and we don't have a lot of people take us up on it, but we do offer decorating for Christmas.

[00:05:58] So we're not on our organizing side. Yeah, so one of my employees has been with me for 14 years. She started the year after I started in her name is Brittany. She's phenomenal. Thank you.

[00:06:10] She celebrated her 14 year anniversary last week. So she loves to organize and she loves to decorate. She's always wanted to add an organizing department and we just haven't done that yet.

[00:06:23] Because I have I know absolutely nothing about it. So I know you have to be certified. Now that I just have not taken the time to be certified we could go into a whole training on that.

[00:06:34] No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, it's like kind of like house cleaning and even longcare. It's not governed by any organization like if I'm a plumber or electrician, I'd be certified. No, not at all.

[00:06:49] I did not know that. Nope, and she could actually make a really good the company and her you guys, you know, you can charge a great rate for organizing. So that's a whole another session we could talk about.

[00:06:59] Okay. Yeah, she absolutely loves it. So she will go and do like home decorating and get it set up for in our vacation rentals. We've had people ask us to do this so she'll go and decorate service.

[00:07:10] Yes, and get the house Christmas tree put up and all the lights put up and set the table up so it looks really inviting when they come in. So we have done that over the years. We don't get a whole lot of requests for it, but sometimes we do.

[00:07:22] We also are biggest turning point for us was we added the residential side. So we had never done residential. And if I don't know if you've ever experienced this because I know you used to do vacation rentals.

[00:07:35] We, if you have a cleaner who starts cleaning vacation rentals, they don't like to go to the residential side because my kids dirty and there's kids and dogs and actually live there.

[00:07:48] There's people in the house exactly so we said we never did residential because I had all vacation rental cleaners and they're very spoiled the house is clean.

[00:07:58] And it's so to me I consider like a hotel style cleaning. It's a very surface right kind of cleaning at times. No, yes, there are people who trash vacation rentals mainly kids.

[00:08:11] It doesn't have very often we might have one of season that totally gets trashed, but we clean them two to sometimes three times a week within a week. So they're always very clean.

[00:08:20] And vacation rentals are top to bottom clean every single time because if you don't you're going to miss something.

[00:08:25] So we never wanted to go into residential because we were very spoiled. And then I had to learn how to pivot and that's when I joined CBM and I learned about residential and how to do that year did you pivot and 2020 and 2012.

[00:08:41] Yeah, COVID year. So we joined the year in COVID and we had done a few commercial but not a whole lot so that was the only thing that stayed open for us during COVID was our commercial accounts.

[00:08:53] So my husband and I just did them ourselves so that we could keep revenue coming into the business. But that's when things changed for us was in 2020 and we started staying open year round and being able to keep some of those texts working year round.

[00:09:08] So what I do now is hire all seasonal. And when I hire you into my company, you're hired as a seasonal tech.

[00:09:14] And you'll stay with us for 90 days and if we still fill your good fit for us and we feel we're good fit for them. I offered is a promotion to the residential side and stay year round.

[00:09:26] So we do have yeah we do have some people who will come in that our teachers and bus drivers, pay our pros that only want to work in the summer and that works out really good for us they come back year after year.

[00:09:37] But then if it's not and someone just is hired in a seasonal then we offer them that as a promotion. If we fill they fit our core values and they still fill after 90 days that they want to keep working with us.

[00:09:51] So I like that and so you know for anybody that seasonal listening, you know hire the way Kathy structure hiring everyone seasonal.

[00:10:00] And then if they're good fit, they could stay through 90 days and then I also like the seasonal part where you could attract some teachers and bus drivers.

[00:10:07] There I mean I'm on social media and there I already see the teachers looking for side gigs right now baby setting and doing all kinds of stuff to try to do something during the summer to compensate their pay.

[00:10:21] I think that's a really great fit. We're seasonal here so it's opposite for us we're slow right now and you know through this transition and all this learning. Our us my biggest lesson in this was I had to learn to track.

[00:10:39] I couldn't track things like regular companies so you know I would always get my in my office we would always get so upset like our turn is horrible it's awful like we suck what are we doing wrong and then.

[00:10:53] I had a mentor and he had said you need to track it's separately you need to track your snowbirds separately need to track like regrettable turn and regrettable turn is like we messed up this is that like okay and then we have our snowbirds who leave so.

[00:11:09] I think for us that was our biggest lesson. Yeah because we we see all these structures for business and like I'm the biggest EOS fan in the world but what the same time not one thing.

[00:11:23] I think that's what we're doing is made to run every business and so we were always feeling like we were feeling. So in this transition Kathy what do you think is like the thing that you had to learn how to do.

[00:11:35] To set yourself up for success in the transition of going from vacation and then adding residential. What do you think like what's that mindset shift you had to do is there anything that stands out for you.

[00:11:46] What you just said is because you know and we are both in CVF so you can relate to this but I always felt like for the last four years that.

[00:11:53] I'm failing because I can't meet those percentages that Debbie teaches us and so this year my whole goal has been.

[00:12:01] Let me back up so going back to that the reason being is in vacation rentals you always have more leadership staff during the season then you're supposed to have to run your business altogether.

[00:12:12] So I'm always very high in my leadership team so I never fit into those margins that I'm supposed to fit into.

[00:12:18] So I'm working very hard this year with day and plethora to build out our profit and loss and we're totally separating and having it in different classes so we're tracking it.

[00:12:29] So I can really look at the residential side only and say yep I'm within my numbers where I need to be vacation rentals over here and commercials over here so we're totally separating it.

[00:12:39] To be able to look at that because for I have for the last four years felt like I'm never going to get this right I'm never going to fit within this percentage that I'm supposed to fit in because of my vacation rentals and.

[00:12:52] And the beginning I felt like I just need to get rid of them but that's 80 I would say probably 80 to 82% if I have tracked it correctly. Of my revenue for the entire year comes in that five months and if I was to cut vacation rentals out.

[00:13:09] And it would be like a baby started company again starting all over and what would I do with all these amazing people that I've hired and have held on to like Britain for the last 14 years. Like I've seriously considered.

[00:13:22] Not doing vacation rentals because it is such a season of business and I don't know how we would survive otherwise we would be starting over from scratch and all the snowbirds when they leave us like you said they go back to you.

[00:13:35] Back to Florida where it's a lot better in the winter time than in this year which 12 foot is no but.

[00:13:40] I don't know that's probably been my biggest thing is to not feel like a failure because I don't fit within someone specific margins margins of where I should be. So I would love to talk about this topic even more so okay again I love structure I love.

[00:13:56] You know like I said EOS and then Debbie taught us the margins. But I've recently come to this I've had this like moment of like. Who cares. Like who cares like I want to run my business the way I want to.

[00:14:16] And I love having like like I said structure and more like buckets to fit into because I think it's a great base I think is a great starting point but I'm like who cares like I want to run.

[00:14:29] I want to run my business the way I want to and maybe we I want to tweak it and modify certain things because I'm with you I'm always heavy on my office staff because I choose to be.

[00:14:42] And that's because you know I don't want to be in the day to day I don't want to be doing things with organize it so they're always over and then I'm like and I always felt bad and I'm like you know what I don't care anymore that's I want to yes I know what it's supposed to be but I'm choosing this because it's what makes me happy.

[00:14:59] And that makes perfect sense you know you you have a lot of other businesses that you run I love being I'm not in the day to day operations at all I only do the finance side of things and I had someone else who was doing the finance side of things and it was a huge disaster and I think we're going to talk about some of those in a little bit but.

[00:15:20] I don't think that I'll ever take my my eye off of the finances again. I just don't feel like I would be comfortable doing that if the person that I trusted was this close to me as a family member and it became the disaster that it did.

[00:15:34] And I'll know how I will ever feel comfortable trusting somebody to do that again and I absolutely love my team I love being with them every single day so until I'm ready to retire or I find another passion somewhere other than coaching because I can coach from anywhere.

[00:15:50] I don't have any desire to like be a hundred percent of the business and that and I've learned to accept that that's okay. Yeah, it really is okay.

[00:16:00] And all these people talk about I want to be an absentee owner I'm like yes I don't think you know what an absentee owner is.

[00:16:07] And I never want to be an absentee owner in reality is like someone who sits on a board to their own company who has really no idea what's going on no say so like no involvement that's an absentee owner.

[00:16:20] I think most people want to choose the way they work in their company and because it looks different than what other people are telling us that it makes them feel like they're not doing something right or like and I think just choose what you want to do.

[00:16:36] And what but like even with the finances how what percentages do you want. To be in and I'm okay over spending in my office because I have other things to do I have a small children.

[00:16:49] And that's the choice I'm making and the same thing with EOS I'm an EOS fan but we've modified EOS for our cleaning company and our software company because EOS moves to fast I'm sorry software moves to fast for.

[00:17:02] The EOS structure so we've had to add we added into it we added sprints where they're like shorter bursts of time versus 90 days and then with our cleaning company we realized that EOS was.

[00:17:16] You know we modified it because I realized that that integrator was just an expensive career if you didn't have great leadership but if you had great leadership you could compress it and you didn't necessarily need the integrator.

[00:17:29] And I've learned that over time and so we run modified versions in all of our companies but I think everything is a great starting point and then make it what you want like don't judge yourself because you're not meeting certain markers.

[00:17:43] This is where a lot of us get into that bad mindset in the negative mindset is because we're so busy comparing ourselves to everyone else and I love EOS too.

[00:17:54] We run a very relaxed version of EOS in my company I've studied extensively one of our clients and my cleaning business is actually an implementer of EOS so she guides us quite often.

[00:18:07] But I have it worked with an EOS implementer I've just self implemented myself and paid the 500 hours a month to be a self implementer and learned it on my own last year so we have a very condensed version of it and I love that EOS structure and I love that it fits within our cleaning business.

[00:18:29] But I also love that we can make it what we want and I've just learned in the last year. I learned this actually for you watching you and everything that you do. That.

[00:18:43] Opening this second office here in Howlin which is where I'm at right now was a huge mistake and I thought this was what I wanted I wanted to be away from my team be able to.

[00:18:54] Get things done because when you are in the day to day not in the day to day operations but in the same offices they are you hear all the chatter of the day to day operations that are going on and it's very distracting.

[00:19:07] And I thought what I wanted was to have my own office space to be able to not hear all the chatter and get more done. And talking with you at live and learning how you've opened multiple locations and don't have them staff I was like.

[00:19:22] I just need to listen to the Libby this is what I need to do so we're closing this office in two weeks so we will have yeah we will have a satellite office here just to do interviews and supplies for my team because it's it's an hour away from my location on the lake shore.

[00:19:37] So where you will have a satellite office here but no one will man this office and I will be back down there with the rest of my team and we will be in a different office it's a little bit bigger.

[00:19:49] But we've been in chaos the last probably three weeks because the week after I decided to close this office we found our office that we have been in for going on seven years now is up for sale.

[00:20:01] And we were not told it was going to be going up for sale until it happened. So that's where my rental division is ran from my laundry services there on my watchers and we're going into the season so we're feeling very stressed and things just seem to be very chaotic right now.

[00:20:19] As well as my husband and I are building our retirement home so personal and work life is very chaotic right now and I'm feeling very overwhelmed and unorganized and I don't like that one bit so I've learned watching you.

[00:20:35] That it's okay to do things differently than what other people in our industry are doing and as long as you're happy and that that's one of the biggest things I've learned from watching you with the last four years is that you do your own thing.

[00:20:51] And it kind of fits within the box and it sometimes doesn't fit in the box and that's okay because you're happy and you have a beautiful life and a beautiful family and you seem I know you don't have it all together all the time but you seem to like have your family and your work life very balanced and that's what I've been working very hard to get to in the last couple of years.

[00:21:13] Awesome thank you. I'm happy that you know you you know because you go through these kind of like imposter things should I share what I'm doing like who cares and you're hoping that someone will learn from your expensive experience.

[00:21:31] I'm hoping it wrong and you're like well that sucked. And you know I have gotten very especially just recently like I don't care what anybody else is doing I just want to do it I want to do.

[00:21:44] And I think that as women so I'm in the middle of writing a book cafe and writers the writers make me sound like super smart.

[00:21:54] You don't give yourself enough credit and you know the writers we're really targeting women in the book it's going to be for anybody but we're going to we're targeting women you know that want us they want to say their personal life professional life.

[00:22:10] You know it's funny because he asked me and he has he has someone else on the call with him it's in its woman and he's she's one of the writers and as I'm saying this and I say you know as women we're always.

[00:22:21] Over complicating everything and we're always comparing ourselves to others always always and she's she's they're writing she's like oh my god yes like.

[00:22:31] And she and it's funny because his name is Paul Farre Paul Farre is like man he just he's like I didn't realize like because it's resonating with her so much the other writer and she's like where were you I could have used this information 14 years ago.

[00:22:44] And you know I think that when it comes to business and I love mentorship I will pay for it all day long and I think we should take it and I think we should implement it and then I think we should make it our own like what.

[00:22:58] What is that does that fit in my life maybe I have little kids like maybe I don't have any kids maybe I want time freedom maybe I want more profit and then we have the power to an after we've implemented it to then make the modifications.

[00:23:13] To fit in our life I think people want to skip and just say I want the life but they don't want to implement it first. To get things like organize and running well and then we can make those modifications but they want to just kind of skip.

[00:23:28] Push the skip button say well why can't I have what so and so has there a million dollar company now.

[00:23:34] But they don't realize looking like that you got to first do the work this small stuff implement properly and then you can make the modifications because you kind of go through that learning and create that foundation like CBF gave me such great foundation.

[00:23:49] For the business and now I can go try things and if it doesn't work like we like all crap like let's go back let's go back to the model let's go back to the baby yeah we're like that wasn't great.

[00:24:01] But I've recently gotten to where I'm tired of people telling me how how what I'm supposed to look or how my business is supposed to be ran because I made a lot of mistakes I just let go of some people because I was running one of the businesses the way.

[00:24:17] I thought it was supposed to be ran and then all of a sudden we were taking on customers were not good fits because we were using a sales model and I was like this is this is this sucks like.

[00:24:30] Like I don't want to do this and finally I looked at Chris and I said I'm going to do it the way I want to. And you know it's been great and your team appreciates it it creates it builds more culture.

[00:24:44] And what I finally announced to like my leadership team in this company I said I'm done listening to everybody else tell me how I'm supposed to do things. I'm I'm going to just do them the way I want they literally like started clapping.

[00:24:59] Yeah, I have this exact same thing happen we had our quarterly it was our quarterly meeting with my leadership team and.

[00:25:08] When we went through EOS like we set you know our 10 year goal and I wanted to be a 10 million dollar company with five locations and I had it down to exactly how many employees we need to have how many clients we need to have and at our quarterly meeting.

[00:25:23] Brittany the one that's been with me 14 years she talked to me before the meeting because she didn't want to buy inside me but she said I am never going to be.

[00:25:32] Who you are in C. B. F. I'm never going to be that person that wants to be up on stage and she felt like that she had to fit into this model of who she had to be and that's not who she is and she was really struggling.

[00:25:48] I want to stay within my company after 14 years because she felt like I was going in another direction and it's not the direction she wanted to go. And when something happens to me my business is ultimately going to her my children don't want anything to do with it.

[00:26:03] She's been with me this whole entire time she's helped me grow it from the trunk of my car to what it is today and.

[00:26:11] She was just feeling very much like she had to be like me to be able to run the company and keep it successful or she was letting me down.

[00:26:20] And I told them it my quarterly me well I told her I said first of all I never expected to stay in that stage at CBF and speak in front of people are do anything that makes you uncomfortable.

[00:26:30] That's me that's not you and I want this company is thrive because you are running it your way. But her biggest fear has always been that she would let me down and so we had to get past that and then if the quarterly meeting I told my team.

[00:26:46] I don't want to be a 10 million dollar company. I don't want five locations like opening this location was a huge mistake. I got my ego get in the way.

[00:26:59] And I had someone who was on my team for the last three years told me I couldn't have it it wasn't going to work it was going to be a failure.

[00:27:06] And so when she was gone I was like, David I'm having it like I want it I'm doing it and it was a huge mistake and I realized now.

[00:27:16] But the reason it was a mistake was because I thought I wanted something I didn't want because everybody was telling me this is the way it should be.

[00:27:22] This is what you need to do this is how you get there and I finally made up my mind that I don't want to 10 million dollar company I don't want five locations. I will be happy to want to have three million and be happy with that.

[00:27:36] And that's okay it's okay to not want more because I am a lot younger than you are and I'm looking at it a time where I'm getting ready to retire in the next seven to 10 years.

[00:27:50] And I don't want to be still eight years from now trying to get another location of my going and still struggling with that and how to do that and how to manage 25 more employees in another location like if I could run my business without dealing with people would be amazing but people will.

[00:28:08] You know right. But but people are what keep our businesses running and they are the backbone of our business and you know I appreciate them wholeheartedly I don't want anyone to think that I don't.

[00:28:19] But I just don't have the desire to do that anymore and I'm finally okay with you don't have to do that just because everybody else wants that.

[00:28:28] And that is so powerful for anybody listening like it's okay to not have to or want to keep up with the Joneses. Exactly.

[00:28:38] I was at an event and we were writing down all of our goals like and it's always I don't understand why it's always a revenue goal like. Stop.

[00:28:47] It's always revenue goes everyone's writing down their revenue goal and I wrote down my goal and had nothing to do with revenue we just got in hit by the hurricane.

[00:28:56] And my goal was to restructure work on our processes and systems and to get some great foundation so that we can grow even better right we can grow.

[00:29:12] And so I didn't write a revenue goal I could have wrote a revenue goal so when everyone stood up and said there's and I stood up and said you know I don't have a revenue goal this year my goal is profitability and processes and systems.

[00:29:26] And you know after everyone continued on after that night later at the bar that someone came up to me and they said you know the be I just want to thank you because I had only I had written a number down.

[00:29:39] And I crossed it off because everybody else said a larger revenue goal and I didn't want to see like the small person I didn't want to seem like I wasn't keeping up with them.

[00:29:50] And when you stood up and said you're like you didn't have a revenue goal that you're like you were focused on what you wanted to do and you stood up and set it out loud and you didn't care what anyone else said she was like thank you because.

[00:30:05] I got intimidated by everybody else and I inflated my goal and it's not what I want. And it wasn't feasible for her wasn't reality for her. At that point she said so she doesn't reach it she then feels. bad about herself right.

[00:30:26] Exactly when I told my team I didn't want to be a $10 million company anymore you could just see the stress took off them and two of them said we are so glad that you finally said that out loud because you have no idea how much pressure that puts on us.

[00:30:40] to try to build a company in 10 years to 10 million when we're only in a million like this nine million ago and it took us 15 years to get to one and you're trying to get to 10 and 10 more years.

[00:30:53] And I never thought about it that way but everybody around me that's what they wanted that's what they were doing.

[00:30:59] And I think that it's so powerful because sometimes we don't know what we want in life like if you're just starting out for our listeners like if you're just starting out or your little confused or a lot of people that I talked to are confused with managing that energy between business and life and what they want and purpose.

[00:31:19] And you know it's okay to like not to not really know what those goals are but I think it's even more powerful Kathy and you said it just a minute ago is to know what you don't want exactly.

[00:31:33] And I've been around enough people in the last couple years to know you know what I don't want a single location that's five million dollars.

[00:31:41] I've seen it. It's a churn machine. I'm like it's constant okay I'm like I don't know if I want that I don't want that like.

[00:31:51] And so it's so I think it's even more powerful so if you don't know what you want and you don't know what goal to set right now that's okay.

[00:31:58] But then think about it from the other side what do you not want and start there so I love this topic. You know and as far as.

[00:32:07] You know with opening or deciding to open another location and thinking going back like thinking about it again and what would you say that your well I guess you said what your biggest learning lesson was is to not. You know compare yourself to others.

[00:32:24] Yeah that was my biggest thing I mean I thought that and we're growing like our residential side because we do live on the Lake shore and it does close down to like a ghost town November 1st.

[00:32:36] I chose to focus growing an hour away from our current location where it's a bigger city and there's you know factories and hospitals and all the metropolitan stuff here that will keep our residential side growing and it is growing it's going very well.

[00:32:56] I would say 85% of our leads coming in or from this location and that's okay but learning from you what I learned the biggest takeaway I learned from watching you is that.

[00:33:05] You don't have to have a big fancy office and it doesn't have to be man to at all and that takes so much.

[00:33:13] off your plate not only from a profitability side but just realizing I don't have to stretch myself into two locations because I felt like when I'm up here everything down there was going to fall apart and it has not like I have two people that run that office that are just amazing.

[00:33:33] I've been with me 14 years marsh has been here four years she has 15 years of sales and customer service background like she is phenomenal.

[00:33:41] She is really growing our residential side but she's handling everything from this location and that location like she can do it and that's what I didn't understand like when I came up here.

[00:33:54] I opened this office I got a big beautiful office with four offices a conference room and entryway and I was like yes this is going to be where we grow will grow into it.

[00:34:05] I know I'm hiring three additional people but it's an investment and then I just realized and that was front and it truly was from talking to you at life when I talked to you about the different locations was.

[00:34:18] You're doing it all wrong like you don't have to stretch yourself so thin because I feel like I've pulled between both locations and like if I'm not there they don't have my support but if I'm up here I'm not growing this like I should be truly this is just an office that I'm just quiet it's just me there's no one else up here.

[00:34:36] I've set them all back to South Haven because it's the rental season and they need the extra help there so my two extra people that were up here with me that was going to be the office manager for this area and my commercial division manager are all back in the South Haven office.

[00:34:51] These offices are not being used at all but I signed a three year lease so that was a mistake.

[00:34:58] So hence why I got a cheaper a month by signing a three year lease but so that's why we decided to stay within this building just down size it's literally around the corner from where we are now.

[00:35:10] A one room office that my cleaners who live here in this area can come and restock their supplies and I have a professional place to do interviews for this area as well so yeah so we're going to do that June 1st we're moving into weeks awesome you know I think with running or so we recruit is a 100% virtual team.

[00:35:31] And growing that has taught me so much and then being in the software space because I'm in a software like mentor group. Being in that software space is really interesting to see how these companies these giant companies can grow with virtual offices and and I think that.

[00:35:54] You know we we kind of just have to think differently about the way we do things you know COVID changed everything about remote and people want remote and even my clean technicians they love the freedom of not having to come to the office all the time they just want to get their stuff and go home to their kids.

[00:36:10] And you know I learned that to have that the office because it was 100% ego with me like I wanted to get rid of our office a year ago or downsize it like we got another one small a different office smaller.

[00:36:25] But it was a hundred percent ego because I said for me to be successful I'm tying it to how beautiful my office is. Exactly. And I'm like well that's stupid.

[00:36:35] I could be doing so much with that money whether it's give people raises do more incentives more employing engagement like. What is this office contributing absolutely nothing to the culture of our company.

[00:36:49] It's like that specific office so when I finally realized it and we decided to move and then we opened another location without an office I also learned how to restructure stuff to make me feel better and I learned this from Holly and summer from. Made some more.

[00:37:06] Is that my main office my my main for my ears people right they're all they're all virtual.

[00:37:13] They're they're my corporate office they're running all of the locations they're helping build that way I don't feel like I have to separate myself from this location to lat location and when they become at capacity then we're going to hire people under them.

[00:37:29] I'm going to be helping with incorporate so I'm only managing one set of locations one people because we're managing corporate. Right and that really helped me with really understanding like I don't need a whole other team I don't need a whole like set of people.

[00:37:47] It's the most profitable way to do it until you get to a certain size then you might need to and then we built out a position for each location. A technician to help support that location.

[00:38:00] And so it's a very particular type of person that we need and I got the help of that from Dawn Ficilla she used to be in CBF she's from Maryland and you know she really helped me build out that avatar because she's a we're a customer and we helped her find that person and what did she want and after we kind of laid that all out we were.

[00:38:21] I said this is what I want because she did it in Ceresota she opened another location Ceresota no office like just a little I don't even think she has anything like not even just sort of true.

[00:38:33] Yeah and you know it was just an interesting process to go through with her because I was going through it with myself and.

[00:38:42] I just say you know I'm going to do this on my own terms and my own way and we're going to see how it works and.

[00:38:50] There I don't think there's ever Kathy like one right way to like do things I love trying stuff because I think businesses are like people and it's like you know they're everybody's just a tad bit different.

[00:39:05] Well and that's what is so great about our community because we all can then learn from each other because we're not all doing it exactly the same exact way.

[00:39:13] And we all have different verticals to our business you have you know the software business you have the recruiting business as well as you're cleaning an organized a business.

[00:39:22] And we all learn so much from you as well as everybody else in our community they're doing things a little different than at the others.

[00:39:28] Yeah I think everyone just adds their own flair to it yeah yes, that's what I love about it is it's yes we all own cleaning businesses and CbF.

[00:39:38] But we do them a little bit differently and you got to find your right tribe within your community to be able to feel like you're not failing because you're not fitting into the box exactly the way it's supposed to be.

[00:39:51] Yeah and most I'm one of those business owners that like I don't want to be in a box don't put me in a box that's why we became business owners we didn't want to work for someone else and be in a box all day long.

[00:40:04] No and for our listeners who may not know what CbF is that we keep referring to is its divisors don't clean business fundamentals and so if you are a cleaning business owner and you're interested in.

[00:40:15] You know just learning more and really taking your cleaning business to the next level if you're struggling with systems and processes and and that is a great great program to help build your company to a million dollar cleaning company cannot recommend it enough.

[00:40:33] So Kathy you know all of this being said what is the thing that you're just most proud of when it comes to your business or your life. My business I would say what I'm most proud of is the leadership team that I have built.

[00:40:49] Because they build the rest of the company so I'm very proud of my company even though in some people's eyes would be still considered very small because we are just a million dollar company after 15 years.

[00:41:02] But I chose to also take a couple of years off and not grow revenue numbers and just grow our foundation because we are very broken and having that vacation rental vertical and there makes made us even seem more broken than we were.

[00:41:16] So I'm very proud of the leadership team that I have and that I truly can't step away from my business for three four days a week take a two week vacation.

[00:41:24] I mean two years ago I was going for 14 days with my husband for five years anniversary and didn't check in with them at all so it would actually grow.

[00:41:34] So very proud of my leadership team and my personal life I would say I'm just most proud of my great kids so spend time with them. My kids have done very well and are doing very well in life and so very proud of them.

[00:41:48] You know Kathy you should be super proud of yourself for not giving in and just getting rid of those vacation rentals. Right, right.

[00:42:00] Yeah so I commend you for that because you know that takes a lot of courage to go against like what sort of industry friends say or the negativity that vacation rentals get.

[00:42:10] And instead you just you're leaning into it instead of saying oh I'm going to be like everybody else and you know what do them or cut them back. Right as you know with vacation rentals why try to hold cut in them back thing when I first joined.

[00:42:24] See if you have and when I was working with Jeannie Henderson is my coach he's like well just double your rates and half a mile go away and they did it like all like five dropped off that first year and so it's like oh let's try this again.

[00:42:36] So I raised them up again and that's when I went to my hundred dollars per bedroom is with my starting point and we still have an awesome and we still continue to grow and so I love that.

[00:42:47] And then I just add on you know for inspectors and our grounds team and we provide all the linens for our vacation rentals and so I made that huge investment last year.

[00:43:02] $5,000 to buy all the latins for all of our properties that we take care of and clean but it made us much more efficient and helped me on the recruiting side because I didn't have to hire 18.

[00:43:14] More people that like we normally would do we had 18 less last year by being able to just clean and bring the laundry back to our office and do it in house.

[00:43:24] And yeah, it's pretty much faster it is it's just much more efficient and we can do two and three houses a day versus one is you're sitting there waiting for laundry to drive so.

[00:43:36] It was a huge investment but it was very much work so I crunched the numbers when I did the laundry webinar with WFU weeks ago we said we save $287,000 by investing that 45,000.

[00:43:49] Just in that not having to hire 18 extra people the year nice so through this journey that you've learned right you've learned a lot in the last few years you've grown as a person and as a business owner.

[00:44:04] What would you say what would be like the your number one piece of advice for any of our listeners who maybe either start up so they're struggling or they're just confused.

[00:44:15] My biggest piece of advice for anybody is don't chase the sign of objects because I was very bad at that and I added a lot more of subscriptions and.

[00:44:28] Bigger CRMs because everybody else was doing it and it was the latest and greatest thing and so my biggest piece of advice is keep it simple.

[00:44:37] Because I went back to simple simple as simple and easy just because your brain can understand it as an entrepreneur doesn't mean that your team can. They're not business minded driven people and that's not saying anything bad about them at all but we're entrepreneurs for a reason.

[00:44:55] And we tend to think that because the newest and shiniest object is going to give us more reporting or whatever the scenario might be you have to keep it simple keep it simple for your team because that's where they grow.

[00:45:10] If you're trying to complicate things then they can't focus on growing your company we're just trying to learn new systems all the time so my biggest piece of advice is just keep it simple.

[00:45:21] I love that doesn't work anymore and then you got to try something different but if it's working don't fix what's not broken.

[00:45:27] I love that in the opening chapter I think it's even in the introduction of good to great they say that there is no software that will make or break your business and this coming from a software person.

[00:45:40] There's not like you first have to have a successful business to have success come out on the other side of it whatever it is that the process the software the CRM.

[00:45:53] I was I said this the other day someone was asking would I invest in first marketing or paid marketing or recruiting and I said first you have to fix your business because if you're investing in the shiny objects like paid marketing or CRM they're just going to amplify the broken pieces.

[00:46:10] Right, right, right, more chaos it just creates more chaos and you know I have never ever been leaner and any of my companies and I currently am right now with the shiny objects with you know.

[00:46:25] I'm like, you know cutting out what do we need what do we not need don't change CRM stop changing stuff constantly or using this the software that we have to the fullest.

[00:46:36] Right, because I find like we're paying for something and we're like we're only using this part of it and I went over here and bought this because I liked it the way it did over here better.

[00:46:45] And then I'm just like you were adding to the layers of complexity to our business and then we under then we wonder why our office is inefficient.

[00:46:51] Well, that's probably the biggest thing that I see within our community is people are constantly buying different subscriptions and software programs and different CRMs because they like what this one does versus what this one does but they're not truly utilizing the CRM system they already have.

[00:47:08] You know like so they go add so tell us or nice job to do reviews but are you using the review platform that's within your CRM already like is that broken and that's why you're wanting to switch. Oh, I've never even tried it.

[00:47:22] Yeah, you know and so you're adding more complexity as well as taking away from your profit. Yeah, love that love this topic and I also you know really loved with this simple simple simple for all of our business owner friends out there that are trying to grow.

[00:47:40] Simple I'm going to say this is simple simple and consistency is the only way to scale every time we change something. I literally was just talking to somebody and they keep changing their interview days and times every week.

[00:47:54] Just just that guys just changing your interview times every every week the days and the time because this is what works for me and but.

[00:48:02] And like you can't scale because you're setting your office up to fail because they don't know they don't remember they're not prepared like the offices ready like they like it's just consistency and keeping it so simple that it's automatic we don't have to think about it.

[00:48:19] Is like the way we need to do it as business owner, especially women like let's stop complicating stuff. Back away. It's painful.

[00:48:30] So this was a great episode if you want to catch more me and Catherine are going to go over on the wood recruit YouTube channel to talk about recruiting like what did you do to keep a 14 year employee I'm going to I'd love to to know that we're going to dive into that.

[00:48:45] But I want to thank Kathy for being a guest on the field as his podcast Kathy. Is there anything up and coming that our listeners should keep an eye out for anything you have in the works any any trainings or anything that you're releasing soon.

[00:48:59] Oh yeah actually I am currently working on three different courses that are going to be coming up in the next year on growth mindset time management and goal planning for success. So awesome and we'll make sure we put all of the.

[00:49:15] Kathy's handles in the show notes so that if you want to find Kathy and book her for coaching call or just follow Kathy on social media that way you can get a hold of her and I want to think our listeners so much and if you enjoyed this episode there are many other episodes just like this on the fearlessness dot com.

[00:49:32] And also when I think our sponsor will recruit for always sponsoring and helping me edit and download and upload all of these episodes. And guys that's a wrap into the heart of your listeners remember every step we take is a move towards our own strengths and courage.

[00:49:49] He pushing through those fires because on the other side of it lies a version of yourself that's unstoppable. I'm going to be reminding you to embrace your listeners until next time stay brave, stable and keep pushing forward.