Latest / Big Talk About Small Business / Ep. 4 - Being a Female Entrepreneur in the Architectural World

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Ep. 4 - Being a Female Entrepreneur in the Architectural World · Big Talk About Small Business

0:04
SPEAKER_02: Hey everybody, um, we're back with another episode of Big Talk About Small Business.
0:13
SPEAKER_02: And uh this is Mark Swag, and I'm here today by myself.
0:17
SPEAKER_02: My partner, Eric Howerton, is running around doing God knows what.
0:23
SPEAKER_02: But I'm sure he'll be back um here some point in the studio again with us.
0:28
SPEAKER_02: Um but I do have a very special guest, um, someone that uh I consider a good friend, um, even though I haven't known her for too long, I guess probably going on a couple years now.
0:42
SPEAKER_02: Um, but Jessica Hester is with us, and she is the owner of Verdant Studio Art and Architecture.
0:53
SPEAKER_02: Is that the right name for it?
0:55
SPEAKER_00: You got it.
0:55
SPEAKER_02: You got it all.
0:56
SPEAKER_02: All right.
0:57
SPEAKER_02: And uh Verdant is uh right here in uh Rogers, Arkansas.
1:02
SPEAKER_02: She's in down in the downtown area in a what is that?
1:07
SPEAKER_02: Uh was it a dairy building that you're in that you've renovated?
1:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was.
1:11
SPEAKER_00: It was the original milk plant for this area.
1:14
SPEAKER_02: Oh, wow.
1:15
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the dairy farmers would collect all their milk uh and bring it to that plant and it would be processed there.
1:20
SPEAKER_02: Uh huh.
1:21
SPEAKER_00: Um, it was actually built by Carnation over a hundred years ago.
1:24
SPEAKER_02: Wow, that's really cool.
1:25
SPEAKER_00: It is cool.
1:26
SPEAKER_00: It's a cool building.
1:27
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you should have like one of those fake cows that people could milk, you know.
1:32
SPEAKER_02: My gosh.
1:32
SPEAKER_02: Like they have them at fairs and stuff.
1:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:35
SPEAKER_02: You know, to teach little kids.
1:36
SPEAKER_02: That'd be kind of a cool little weird display.
1:38
SPEAKER_02: You're into weird stuff.
1:39
SPEAKER_00: We are into weird stuff.
1:41
SPEAKER_00: We do have a lot of cow-themed things, but we don't have like an animatronic cow, which would be pretty fun.
1:48
SPEAKER_00: Um would be.
1:49
SPEAKER_00: I'll throw that out to our art our artist and see what he thinks.
1:52
SPEAKER_02: Do that.
1:52
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, there's gotta be something you can weave in there.
1:54
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:55
SPEAKER_02: So tell us a little bit about Verdant now.
1:58
SPEAKER_02: How large is the company?
2:00
SPEAKER_02: What do you do?
2:01
SPEAKER_02: When did you start it?
2:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, all good questions.
2:04
SPEAKER_00: Uh so we uh I say we because I always refer to us as we, but I started the company in 2016.
2:14
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
2:14
SPEAKER_00: Um, actually 2015 for being technical, and it it turned into a full-time uh role in 2016.
2:22
SPEAKER_00: Um, and we are currently 18 people um and growing.
2:28
SPEAKER_00: I just sent out another offer letter today.
2:30
SPEAKER_02: Awesome.
2:30
SPEAKER_00: Let's see how it goes.
2:32
SPEAKER_00: Um we are an art and architecture firm um that is focused on um really a multidisciplinary approach to design.
2:43
SPEAKER_00: Um we look at architecture through the lens of art, design, and research.
2:49
SPEAKER_00: Um, and we we also do public art installations.
2:52
SPEAKER_00: Um, we do academic uh research deliverables, which is really helpful for grants and other big public works um as as well as other things.
3:02
SPEAKER_00: And then we we just rolled out about three months ago, I hired a director of interior design who is fantastic.
3:09
SPEAKER_00: So we have a we have a full interior design program now.
3:12
SPEAKER_02: I'm glad that worked out for you.
3:14
SPEAKER_02: It did.
3:14
SPEAKER_00: Oh, you had it's going so well.
3:16
SPEAKER_02: A few fits and starts, as they say there.
3:19
SPEAKER_00: But uh you know, and all for a good reason.
3:21
SPEAKER_00: Things seem to work out the way they're supposed to.
3:23
SPEAKER_02: That's always been my belief, yeah, uh, for sure.
3:26
SPEAKER_02: So what um what kind of clients do you have?
3:29
SPEAKER_02: I know you do a lot of retail.
3:31
SPEAKER_00: We do a lot of retail.
3:32
SPEAKER_02: Is that still a big portion of the business at this point?
3:34
SPEAKER_00: It you know, it really ebbs and flows as everything does in the world of of architecture.
3:40
SPEAKER_00: Um we do still have uh we still hold the prototypes for several large companies um and deploy stores like Johnston and Murphy across the country and Canada and Puerto Rico.
3:52
SPEAKER_00: Um we also are doing quite a lot of residential work in the mixed-use multifamily category.
4:00
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
4:00
SPEAKER_00: Big projects, hundreds of units.
4:02
SPEAKER_00: Um, that's really going strong right now, as well as our more bespoke commercial work like historic reuse, adaptive reuse, things like that.
4:11
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I know you're doing that building for my buddy Brett down there.
4:15
SPEAKER_02: Um I love that project.
4:16
SPEAKER_02: In Is It Fun in Downtown Uh Rogers.
4:19
SPEAKER_00: So fun.
4:20
SPEAKER_02: That was that was another one that was, wasn't that a bakery?
4:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
4:23
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
4:24
SPEAKER_00: It was.
4:24
SPEAKER_00: It was the original bakery for for downtown Rogers, the Harris Bakery building.
4:28
SPEAKER_00: Um, and when it was in operation in downtown, you would walk the streets, the brick streets, which are which are really nostalgic to begin with.
4:37
SPEAKER_03: Yep.
4:38
SPEAKER_00: Um, and it would just smell like bread all day long.
4:40
SPEAKER_00: It was divine.
4:42
SPEAKER_02: It does sound good.
4:43
SPEAKER_02: I yeah.
4:44
SPEAKER_02: My office was next to a donut shop for years.
4:47
SPEAKER_02: And um thank God I finally got away from that uh business because I think I dropped like 30 pounds.
4:55
SPEAKER_00: I bet you did.
4:55
SPEAKER_00: I know how much you like sweets.
4:57
SPEAKER_02: I do.
4:57
SPEAKER_02: I love donuts.
4:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
4:59
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
4:59
SPEAKER_02: There's something about donuts.
5:01
SPEAKER_02: They go in you eat them and then they multiply by six or something.
5:04
SPEAKER_00: It must be so good.
5:06
SPEAKER_00: They are so good.
5:06
SPEAKER_02: I agree.
5:07
SPEAKER_02: I just love them.
5:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
5:09
SPEAKER_02: But um, so that's really cool.
5:11
SPEAKER_02: And then um you also do some branding stuff.
5:14
SPEAKER_02: I know for Rolf Wilken, who was a guest on this show, um he mentioned uh a new business that he had started that you did the prototype facility for and all the branding.
5:27
SPEAKER_00: Correct.
5:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
5:28
SPEAKER_00: So we like to call that our soup, soup to nuts deliverable, um, where we look at uh essentially we take somebody's business idea, their big dream, and we start to unpackage it across all the platforms necessary to do business.
5:46
SPEAKER_00: Um, so marketing, branding, online presence.
5:51
SPEAKER_00: Um, I mean, for him, we even designed the cups and the slogans and all the things that kind of wrapped around his brand.
5:58
SPEAKER_02: For a new category.
5:59
SPEAKER_00: Totally, for a totally new category.
6:02
SPEAKER_00: It was so fun.
6:03
SPEAKER_00: Um, and then of course we design a building, right?
6:05
SPEAKER_00: Like we're gonna do that too.
6:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
6:07
SPEAKER_00: Um uh and that's the kind of you know, obvious endpoint for that, for that work and that package.
6:13
SPEAKER_02: So well, not all architects do all that stuff, clearly.
6:16
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I think that's gotta be part of your success, is just being able to sort of stray in a sense away from just pure architecture and do some of these other things that people need who have businesses.
6:31
SPEAKER_02: You know?
6:32
SPEAKER_00: It's it's a real privilege to be able to work with incredible clients who have big dreams and big vision and help them bring that to life.
6:41
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
6:42
SPEAKER_00: Um, and we love that we can do all the things under one roof.
6:48
SPEAKER_00: Um, and we bring in experts, you know, we we're not experts in everything, so we bring in experts as needed.
6:53
SPEAKER_00: Um, but that collaborative environment, uh, working with clients in a real interactive way is an important part of our process.
7:02
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I know.
7:02
SPEAKER_02: I I sent another uh client or potential client your way who wants to do um a a project that I'm you know, I'm sure it's not one you've done before.
7:13
SPEAKER_00: It's not.
7:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I know what you're talking about.
7:15
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and he and he and he said though that you would drag in the the technical expertise that you need for that.
7:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
7:22
SPEAKER_02: And he wanted to ask me what I thought about that.
7:24
SPEAKER_02: I said, I think that's fine.
7:25
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I think that's you know, you you're not gonna find somebody like that who's got ton of the ton of these locally because they've never been done.
7:33
SPEAKER_00: Right.
7:33
SPEAKER_02: You're locally.
7:34
SPEAKER_02: Right.
7:35
SPEAKER_02: So, you know, you gotta have local knowledge and and somebody to sort of run the whole process, but you can bring in the experts as needed.
7:42
SPEAKER_00: Right.
7:42
SPEAKER_00: That fill in that real niche part of whatever you're doing.
7:45
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
7:46
SPEAKER_00: Right.
7:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
7:47
SPEAKER_02: So let's step back a little bit.
7:49
SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, you're a woman, you're in business for yourself.
7:53
SPEAKER_02: This wasn't the first business you had either, was it?
7:56
SPEAKER_00: Oh no.
7:57
SPEAKER_02: So tell us a little bit about that.
7:58
SPEAKER_02: How what's your background?
8:00
SPEAKER_02: Why are you doing your own thing?
8:02
SPEAKER_02: Why are you self-employed?
8:04
SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, the answer to that is probably because my parents were self-employed and I didn't know any other way.
8:11
SPEAKER_02: Um It does make a difference, I think.
8:13
SPEAKER_02: You're not the first person that I've talked to who owns a business who said that.
8:17
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
8:17
SPEAKER_00: I learned a lot from my parents.
8:19
SPEAKER_00: My my dad's a master jeweler and he ran his own jewelry company along with my stepmom for 40 years.
8:26
SPEAKER_00: They just retired, and that which has been really lovely to watch them experience retirement.
8:31
SPEAKER_03: Great.
8:32
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so I think that that really instilled this sense of of work ethic uh and grit.
8:39
SPEAKER_00: My first job was working for them when I was 12 years old for 50 cents an hour.
8:44
SPEAKER_02: Um, I even got a buck an hour, and I'm like 25 years older than you or 30 years older than you're gonna be able to do that.
8:49
SPEAKER_00: No, it was it was uh 50 cents.
8:53
SPEAKER_02: They really cheaped out.
8:54
SPEAKER_00: They really cheaped.
8:55
SPEAKER_00: And they made me put half of it in savings, which is good for them.
8:58
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
8:59
SPEAKER_00: So 25 cents an hour.
9:01
SPEAKER_00: Um, it didn't stay that that low for very long, but um, I helped digitize their system, uh, you know, because that was really the early days of computer, personal computers.
9:12
SPEAKER_03: Sure.
9:12
SPEAKER_00: Um, so I input client data into some DOS system.
9:16
SPEAKER_00: Um and that was a really great experience.
9:18
SPEAKER_00: It it taught me a lot.
9:20
SPEAKER_00: I went on to to get an architecture degree and go to graduate school, which was an incredible experience and landed in a kind of small town in Georgia.
9:28
SPEAKER_02: Now, where did you go to architecture school?
9:30
SPEAKER_00: I went to um undergraduate school at the University of Oklahoma and grad school at the University of Michigan.
9:36
unknown: Okay.
9:36
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I have a master's in a unusual thing called design research.
9:41
SPEAKER_02: That is unusual.
9:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
9:43
SPEAKER_02: Not sure I've ever heard of that.
9:44
SPEAKER_02: Is it a master of architecture or is it a master of architect?
9:46
SPEAKER_00: It's a master inside the school of architecture.
9:51
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
9:52
SPEAKER_00: It's an MS, uh MSDS.
9:54
SPEAKER_00: Um, and our, you know, it wasn't ours wasn't um, there's no real specialization.
10:02
SPEAKER_00: It really, the whole program starts out, everybody in the cohort, which there were uh ten of us, um, picks a little strip of paper from the center, and it's a um idea of the year curated by the New York Times.
10:17
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
10:17
SPEAKER_00: That's that's your topic.
10:19
SPEAKER_02: That's cool.
10:20
SPEAKER_00: You don't pick your own.
10:20
SPEAKER_00: So mine was design, uh no, mine was social media as social index.
10:26
SPEAKER_00: So early days of social media um and understanding its relationship to society, really.
10:36
SPEAKER_02: Um it's totally screwed it up, if you want my opinion.
10:40
SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, we we could probably do a whole episode on that.
10:43
SPEAKER_02: That's the relationship, the society.
10:45
SPEAKER_02: It's screwed up everything.
10:47
SPEAKER_00: It's totally changed, it's changed everything.
10:49
SPEAKER_00: It's changed it all.
10:51
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
10:51
SPEAKER_00: Um, for most and in a lot of cases for worse.
10:54
SPEAKER_00: Um, a few cases for better.
10:56
SPEAKER_03: Sure, sure.
10:56
SPEAKER_00: Um I think that that argument can be made.
10:59
SPEAKER_00: But you know, ultimately that that topic turned into a entire thesis about the relation of uh like consuming things uh and consumerism.
11:11
SPEAKER_00: Um and so I actually totally um and and all we are doing is consuming social media, right?
11:17
SPEAKER_00: Like that that's kind of in in short words, that's kind of how that all connected.
11:23
SPEAKER_00: But my my site was actually Pinnacle Mall at the end.
11:27
SPEAKER_03: Uh-huh.
11:27
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I came back, I came home for like a you know holiday visit or something and went to Pinnacle Mall.
11:34
SPEAKER_00: And this was kind of in the heyday of Pinnacle Mall when it, you know, it was It's been a successful project.
11:39
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's a lifestyle center.
11:41
SPEAKER_00: Totally, totally.
11:42
SPEAKER_00: Um and I watched through it had the food court at the time.
11:46
SPEAKER_02: Here in New Plano.
11:47
SPEAKER_02: It's um what some of us in Dallas.
11:50
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, what some of us refer to this as.
11:53
SPEAKER_00: Um I have this gray photo though.
11:56
SPEAKER_00: I'm in the food court.
11:58
SPEAKER_00: There was a couch and there's television, and these this couple is sitting there watching Judge Judy in the middle of the lifestyle center.
12:06
SPEAKER_00: It's so good.
12:07
SPEAKER_02: It's such a good photo.
12:09
SPEAKER_02: It does sound like a good photo.
12:10
SPEAKER_00: It is.
12:11
SPEAKER_02: So you s uh what were you doing at at Pinnacle?
12:14
SPEAKER_00: I was I was doing research for my master's thesis.
12:17
SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
12:17
SPEAKER_00: And and I and I snapped that photo.
12:19
SPEAKER_00: And when I snapped it, I I was really just taking survey photos, which you just are like shooting.
12:23
SPEAKER_02: Were you talking to these people?
12:25
SPEAKER_00: No, not at all.
12:26
SPEAKER_00: And then I got I got back later and was reviewing the photos, and I was like, oh my gosh, this photo is totally the idyllic image of what this project is about.
12:37
SPEAKER_03: Yep.
12:37
SPEAKER_00: Sitting in some public space watching Judge Judy.
12:40
SPEAKER_00: Um, crazy.
12:41
SPEAKER_00: That was fun.
12:42
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it sounds like it.
12:43
SPEAKER_02: So then you ended up in Georgia after that?
12:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
12:46
SPEAKER_00: After that, after graduating from Michigan, I landed in Georgia in this kind of small town between Chattanooga and Atlanta.
12:53
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
12:54
SPEAKER_00: And I partnered with another architecture architect there and we started a firm.
12:58
SPEAKER_02: You weren't registered yet that were.
13:00
SPEAKER_00: I wasn't.
13:00
SPEAKER_00: In the state of Georgia, you don't have to be licensed to own an architecture firm.
13:06
SPEAKER_00: Um, it is not like that everywhere.
13:08
SPEAKER_02: Don't you have to work under the tutelage of somebody for so many years, though?
13:12
SPEAKER_02: I do.
13:12
SPEAKER_02: How did you work that up?
13:13
SPEAKER_00: Because well, he was licensed.
13:15
SPEAKER_02: I see.
13:15
SPEAKER_00: Um, he was licensed, and so I still, you know, as I was wrapping up my my final um, at the time they were called IDP hours.
13:24
SPEAKER_00: So my training, um, he signed off on all the things that we were doing.
13:28
SPEAKER_00: I see.
13:29
SPEAKER_00: And then I I actually got licensed really quickly within um see I want to say within about a year.
13:38
SPEAKER_00: Give or take, it might have been 13 months or so.
13:40
SPEAKER_02: It was pretty quick.
13:41
SPEAKER_02: So how did you end up there though with this guy doing this business?
13:44
SPEAKER_02: What drew you to Arcad or Argentina?
13:45
SPEAKER_00: Well, it was a boy.
13:47
SPEAKER_02: Georgia.
13:47
SPEAKER_02: Oh, okay.
13:48
SPEAKER_00: I don't think you know that.
13:49
SPEAKER_02: No, I did not know that.
13:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
13:51
SPEAKER_00: It was a it was a boy.
13:52
SPEAKER_02: I it wasn't this dude though, or was it him?
13:55
SPEAKER_00: No.
13:56
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
13:56
SPEAKER_02: No, no, no.
13:57
SPEAKER_02: Okay, it was somebody else.
13:58
SPEAKER_02: But that but you teamed up with this person.
14:02
SPEAKER_02: How did you find him?
14:03
SPEAKER_00: So in in this town there were uh three licensed architects.
14:08
SPEAKER_02: I see.
14:08
SPEAKER_00: I reached out to all three.
14:10
SPEAKER_02: Okay, and he's the one that responded.
14:12
SPEAKER_02: I got it.
14:13
SPEAKER_02: So you end up being an owner in this company.
14:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, real quick.
14:17
SPEAKER_00: Within six weeks of meeting the guy.
14:19
SPEAKER_02: Did you have to kick some cash in to do that?
14:21
SPEAKER_02: No.
14:21
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
14:22
SPEAKER_02: So that's it.
14:23
SPEAKER_00: He called it his grand experiment.
14:24
SPEAKER_00: It worked out great.
14:25
SPEAKER_00: Uh both of us, truly.
14:27
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
14:27
SPEAKER_00: I think.
14:28
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
14:28
SPEAKER_02: Um he recognized your value and yeah, uh energy, talent that you brought to the thing.
14:35
SPEAKER_00: Right.
14:35
SPEAKER_00: Well, and we really built it from scratch together.
14:37
SPEAKER_00: He had a small practice that he had just started when I moved there.
14:40
SPEAKER_00: So it wasn't a real established.
14:43
SPEAKER_00: He wasn't real really established on his own anyway.
14:45
SPEAKER_02: And so what kind of work did you do there?
14:47
SPEAKER_00: Well, we did it all.
14:48
SPEAKER_00: Um, I feel like that's the nature of of the game in my world.
14:52
SPEAKER_00: I I I think it keeps things interesting.
14:54
SPEAKER_02: Um I know a lot of architects want to do it all, but I'm not sure they're all good at it.
14:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's fair.
15:00
SPEAKER_00: That's fair.
15:01
SPEAKER_02: You know, my my experience is specialization pays better.
15:05
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
15:05
SPEAKER_00: And you and I have talked about that.
15:06
SPEAKER_00: And there are there are certainly benefits to the specialization.
15:10
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you have multi-specializations now.
15:13
SPEAKER_02: I I wouldn't just call you a generalist by any means.
15:15
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
15:16
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
15:16
SPEAKER_00: Um and so that we we did a lot of different things.
15:20
SPEAKER_00: Our primary clients though were um Barrie College, which is uh a private uh college.
15:27
SPEAKER_00: It's actually the largest landholder, um like university landholder, like 26,000 acres of property.
15:34
SPEAKER_00: So we we we did a lot of work with them.
15:36
SPEAKER_00: Uh we did a lot of work with the city, um, and then a lot of other kind of residential, small commercial kind of stuff.
15:44
SPEAKER_00: Um But during that time, we we designed, at the time was the largest tennis facility in North America.
15:50
SPEAKER_00: And that sports project really opened my eyes to the opportunity of what architecture could be on a scale that was a lot bigger than what we had experienced prior to that.
16:01
SPEAKER_02: Where where did you learn about business?
16:04
SPEAKER_02: I because most architecture schools, I mean, did you find that there was any business education that was very valuable in your two degrees in architecture?
16:15
SPEAKER_00: You know, I in my undergraduate uh studies, I have a I got a minor, you were required to get a minor, and I got a minor in human resource or human relations, not resources.
16:27
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
16:28
SPEAKER_00: Um, which at the time kind of felt like not a thing.
16:33
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
16:34
SPEAKER_00: But what we studied in that was a lot of psychology, uh, sociology, just the kind of how people interact with each other.
16:43
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's actually one of the most valuable things I did.
16:45
SPEAKER_00: It's not really business as far as like how to to operate, you know, a pro forma or like work through all the ins and outs of the finances and things like that.
16:54
SPEAKER_00: Right.
16:55
SPEAKER_00: But it did help me get a better grasp and understanding of how to manage people.
16:59
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
16:59
SPEAKER_02: Which is essential if you're gonna build a business.
17:02
SPEAKER_02: I mean, yeah, there are lots of people who just don't do a very good job at that.
17:06
SPEAKER_02: And it's a big impediment to their growth, I think.
17:09
SPEAKER_02: Well, and it's people don't want to work for them.
17:11
SPEAKER_00: They they don't.
17:12
SPEAKER_00: And it's it honestly, that is the driving force behind Vernon Studio is I wanted to create a firm that is somewhere I would want to work as an employee.
17:23
SPEAKER_00: Right.
17:23
SPEAKER_00: And um I've worked several places that were really terrible, um, extremely misogynistic, um, and and inappro inappropriately misogynistic.
17:33
SPEAKER_00: And I wanted to make sure that I was creating a space for all people, especially women, yeah, to come work, have families, and and also do really impactful things in their community.
17:45
SPEAKER_02: Well, I also, yeah, I mean, you're very direct though.
17:48
SPEAKER_02: I mean, let's be honest.
17:50
SPEAKER_00: Um I don't know if my therapist would say that.
17:54
SPEAKER_02: Well, I at least that's the impression I've always had.
17:57
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I think you're you're I don't want to use the buzz terms.
18:00
SPEAKER_02: I hate them all.
18:01
SPEAKER_02: Transparency.
18:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
18:02
SPEAKER_02: Transparent is bullshit.
18:04
SPEAKER_02: I I just can't stand that word, but open I would prefer.
18:08
SPEAKER_02: I think you're very open.
18:10
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
18:10
SPEAKER_02: And I'm sure people respect that.
18:12
SPEAKER_02: You know, it's it's not like you're I I think a lot of small business owners try to keep the cards really close to their vest and they don't really inform their people like what's going on.
18:24
SPEAKER_02: And that creates a lot of uncertainty.
18:26
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
18:26
SPEAKER_02: Don't you?
18:27
SPEAKER_00: Right.
18:27
SPEAKER_00: And fear, right?
18:28
SPEAKER_00: And fear makes us make really poor choices.
18:31
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
18:32
SPEAKER_00: Um, I agree with that.
18:34
SPEAKER_00: And I also I I'm glad you see that I've opened um it is something I've worked um to accomplish, really.
18:43
SPEAKER_00: I've really made it a priority to communicate with my team as honestly as I can.
18:49
SPEAKER_00: I also have to balance that with I don't want to just lay the burden of my day-to-day on them because it it feels helpful to me.
19:00
SPEAKER_00: I want to make sure that if I'm communicating something, it's in a way where if it's scary, there's a solution or there's an opportunity to provide a solution.
19:08
SPEAKER_02: Right.
19:08
SPEAKER_00: Um, but that everybody's really looped in as much as possible.
19:12
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I believe that.
19:13
SPEAKER_02: I know.
19:14
SPEAKER_02: Um so uh you worked here with this guy, you built this business up.
19:20
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
19:20
SPEAKER_02: Then what happened?
19:22
SPEAKER_00: Then I decided to take a job at the University of Arkansas Community Design Center.
19:28
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
19:29
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so I moved back to Northwest, Arkansas.
19:31
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
19:32
SPEAKER_02: So you got you went back home in a sense.
19:34
SPEAKER_00: Totally, totally.
19:35
unknown: Okay.
19:36
SPEAKER_00: Um also the thing with the boy fell apart.
19:38
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
19:39
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so that helped screw it along.
19:42
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
19:42
SPEAKER_00: Um, so I came I came home and I worked I worked at the university for about six months.
19:48
SPEAKER_00: Um, and as soon as I moved to Northwest Arkansas, back to Northwest Arkansas, I started Verdant Studio simply because I'd own a company for years.
19:58
SPEAKER_00: Um, and it just like felt weird not to own a company all of a sudden.
20:04
SPEAKER_00: Also, my dad's like, you always need to own something for tax purposes.
20:07
unknown: Yeah.
20:08
SPEAKER_00: He's not wrong.
20:09
SPEAKER_03: Sure.
20:09
SPEAKER_00: He's not wrong about that.
20:10
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
20:10
SPEAKER_00: So we kind of sat there dormant for about six months and then I left the university and um started doing it full time.
20:18
SPEAKER_00: Me and a laptop and you know, my couch.
20:21
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
20:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
20:22
SPEAKER_02: And so did you start out with a bunch of money?
20:27
SPEAKER_00: No.
20:28
SPEAKER_00: I had a little bit of money.
20:29
SPEAKER_00: Um, I did I did make some money when I sold my interest in the first worm.
20:35
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
20:36
SPEAKER_00: Um, so I I had enough to feel like I wasn't gonna starve.
20:40
SPEAKER_00: I had the support of my family as well, which was an enormous sure.
20:43
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, I was not gonna be homeless.
20:46
SPEAKER_00: If everything went to shit, I had a place to sleep.
20:50
unknown: Yeah.
20:51
SPEAKER_00: And they would feed me.
20:52
SPEAKER_00: And that that has their been their commitment forever and ever.
20:55
SPEAKER_00: Um that's nice.
20:57
SPEAKER_00: Totally.
20:58
SPEAKER_00: That safety net is critical, I think.
21:00
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's it makes opening a business and taking the risk a lot easier.
21:04
SPEAKER_00: I also did not know that the risk was there.
21:08
SPEAKER_00: I was naive the first go-around, the second go-around.
21:11
SPEAKER_00: I just totally naive to the amount of risk I was taking.
21:14
SPEAKER_02: I am You're talking to a guy who's been married three times.
21:17
SPEAKER_02: I mean, the first two, I could have made the same exact statement.
21:21
SPEAKER_02: I was naive.
21:23
SPEAKER_02: I I didn't know.
21:24
SPEAKER_00: I yeah, I was totally naive and probably still am to some extent.
21:27
SPEAKER_00: Um, and that you know, that allows me to make d decisions not in fear.
21:32
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, sometimes ignorance is is a plus.
21:35
SPEAKER_02: It's like you know too much and you'll think of all the reasons why you shouldn't do something.
21:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
21:40
SPEAKER_02: You know, totally so so what advice do you have to other people who are out there who want to start their own business?
21:50
SPEAKER_02: Do it.
21:51
SPEAKER_02: Uh-huh.
21:52
SPEAKER_00: I I'm just a real big fan of the Nike slogan, and I say it to myself all the time just do it.
21:58
SPEAKER_03: Yep.
21:58
SPEAKER_00: Um I I I and I'm sincere about that.
22:01
SPEAKER_00: I say it as a joke, but I really do mean it sincerely in front of my heart.
22:05
SPEAKER_00: Um I think it it feels really scary, and the more you know, the scarier it gets, I think.
22:12
SPEAKER_02: Um But doesn't it feel scary to work for a company?
22:16
SPEAKER_00: I love I love when you talk about this work because you're totally right.
22:19
SPEAKER_02: At any point in time, you could get fired.
22:22
SPEAKER_02: It you may be doing a great job.
22:24
SPEAKER_02: Totally.
22:24
SPEAKER_02: If somebody doesn't like you and you get assassinated and and they're at a higher level, you know, I mean they uh manage your manager changes and the new one wants to bring in their people.
22:35
SPEAKER_02: I mean, there's just so many different ways that seem so risky.
22:39
SPEAKER_00: It does, it does seem risky.
22:41
SPEAKER_00: I think though people are comfortable with it because it's what they know, right?
22:45
SPEAKER_00: And the unknown is always the more scary option, no matter what the unknown entails.
22:51
SPEAKER_00: Um I think being an entrepreneur is not for everyone.
22:55
SPEAKER_00: Um, I think you do have to just be really prepared to put in the time and energy and have a lot of grit about your work ethic and your your approach to your daily life.
23:09
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, dealing with setbacks.
23:11
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I just um sent a note out to some people I work with who have a business and you know, they they they're strapped for cash and they have setbacks periodically, whether it's with, you know, suppliers or people not getting along or whatever.
23:28
SPEAKER_00: Right.
23:29
SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, this is normal.
23:31
SPEAKER_02: Expect it.
23:33
SPEAKER_02: Okay?
23:33
SPEAKER_02: Right.
23:34
SPEAKER_02: It's it's not gonna crush you though, all right?
23:37
SPEAKER_02: As long as you just keep going, it's all gonna probably work out.
23:41
SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
23:43
SPEAKER_02: But I I do think a lot of people just they're not equipped for that.
23:47
SPEAKER_02: You know, like you you start a business like yours and like you lose a big client, and then you think, oh shit, how am I gonna meet payroll?
23:54
SPEAKER_02: Where's the work gonna come from, right?
23:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
23:58
SPEAKER_00: And and you you do have to be be able to deal with those kind of upsets, allow them to fuel your creativity and pivot to whatever the next opportunity is.
24:11
SPEAKER_00: Um, I think you also have to be extremely strategic about, you know, your back end, right?
24:16
SPEAKER_00: Like, do you have the right reserves?
24:18
SPEAKER_00: And do you, you know, are people cross-trained so they can jump on other things and all all of those other logistical operational things happening in the background are really important in that in that scenario.
24:29
SPEAKER_02: Um I w I will say every time I ever lost a client or uh got out of a job or role I didn't want to do, it better things happened.
24:42
SPEAKER_02: Better things filled in than what I had every single time.
24:47
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I I I'm thinking about your experience.
24:49
SPEAKER_02: I think you had some of that with experience as well with a particular client that didn't you?
24:55
SPEAKER_02: That it just frees up your mind and your capacity to do other stuff and it's better.
25:01
SPEAKER_00: Totally.
25:01
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
25:02
SPEAKER_00: Totally.
25:03
SPEAKER_00: Um I'm actually like rolling through all the all the times that that's happened, and I I can agree with you wholeheartedly.
25:11
SPEAKER_00: That that always happens.
25:13
SPEAKER_00: Um, like I said in the beginning, things tend to happen for a reason.
25:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and oftentimes when there's something toxic or difficult, and you release it, you don't get toxic and difficult back, right?
25:30
SPEAKER_00: Like you get you get something else, which is that's a that's a good way to look at it.
25:34
SPEAKER_02: So what other advice do you have for people?
25:37
SPEAKER_02: I mean, yeah, they gotta have grit, they gotta work their ass off.
25:40
SPEAKER_02: I mean, you're one of those people, you know, it's like when I look at businesses and small businesses that are privately held, and I mean, I've looked at a million of them, whether to buy them, whether to be a consultant to them, whether to work there as my student projects, whatever.
26:00
SPEAKER_03: Sure.
26:00
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I've just seen so many of them.
26:02
SPEAKER_02: I just go right to the people that run it and go, would I bet on that person or not?
26:09
SPEAKER_02: And you know, if you see somebody who's highly engaged and it responds early in the morning and late at night, that's a good sign to me.
26:20
SPEAKER_02: Right.
26:20
SPEAKER_02: If they shut it off at five and you don't hear from them, or on the weekend, it's like, oh, five o'clock, boom, I'm done.
26:27
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you'll hear from me again on Monday.
26:29
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
26:30
SPEAKER_02: I I just I I wouldn't bet on them.
26:33
SPEAKER_02: Interesting.
26:34
SPEAKER_02: I just would not bet on them.
26:35
SPEAKER_00: I totally I think I think I understand what you're getting at here.
26:39
SPEAKER_00: And to me, that sounds a lot like passion.
26:41
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it is.
26:42
SPEAKER_00: But seeing that they're doing engagement brings them joy, yeah, and and it doesn't feel like work, yeah, it's then it's the right thing to be doing because you're just gonna do it all the time and you're gonna love it.
26:52
SPEAKER_02: And then they're gonna be able to get through the ugly, miserable, shitty times of money or people or clients or customers or problems.
27:01
SPEAKER_00: Which are gonna happen inevitable, which are inevitable.
27:03
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
27:04
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
27:04
SPEAKER_02: It's it's that that powers you through the passion for what you're doing, the interest in it.
27:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
27:09
SPEAKER_02: And and you know, I think everybody says today, well, is it passion or is it purpose?
27:15
SPEAKER_02: You know, I mean, I think you gotta have both.
27:17
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
27:18
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you gotta have the passion or you'll never find the purpose.
27:21
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
27:22
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes the I think sometimes the purpose is not always revealed instantly.
27:27
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
27:27
SPEAKER_00: Um I I agree with that.
27:29
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
27:30
SPEAKER_02: It should be like that's the highest order, right?
27:32
SPEAKER_02: Is the the purpose, the mission for what we do.
27:36
SPEAKER_02: But in reality, I'm not sure it's sometimes it it presents itself, it evolves too.
27:41
SPEAKER_00: It's also, you know, we're it's capitalism to some extent.
27:44
SPEAKER_00: And I I know that money cannot be your passion and it shouldn't be, and I agree with that or your purpose.
27:50
SPEAKER_00: Um, that can't be the thing that you're striving for, but it is the necessary thing to make it successful, right?
27:57
SPEAKER_00: We can't we can't continue to do incredibly impactful work unless we make money so that we can pay ourselves so we can eat and sleep and all the things.
28:05
SPEAKER_02: Right.
28:05
SPEAKER_02: Have good people that want to actually work there.
28:07
SPEAKER_02: Totally.
28:08
SPEAKER_02: And keep yourself motivated.
28:09
SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
28:10
SPEAKER_00: And provide them with the kind of company culture that's required in one, this day and age, um, to be competitive in a market, but also that is appropriate for the amount of work that we do.
28:21
SPEAKER_02: Right.
28:22
SPEAKER_00: Architecture and design is extremely time consuming.
28:25
SPEAKER_00: Um, and and and we have tight deadlines and a lot of responsibility.
28:30
SPEAKER_00: And so there are times when we work an enormous amount of hours and we need to be able to have the flexibility to leave and do other things in those in those other times.
28:38
SPEAKER_00: And you can't do that without the the the capitalism part of it.
28:42
SPEAKER_02: Well, that's one of the benefits of of business ownership, is even though you do work a lot, you have more control over your day than other people may, okay.
28:53
SPEAKER_02: Uh I believe.
28:54
SPEAKER_00: I I I see both sides of this coin.
28:57
SPEAKER_02: Uh you yeah, you gotta answer the phone at nine o'clock at night.
29:01
SPEAKER_02: But at the same time, you can also take off if you need to.
29:05
SPEAKER_02: And it's your business.
29:07
SPEAKER_02: I mean, right.
29:07
SPEAKER_00: No, I'm not beholden to anything.
29:09
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.
29:10
SPEAKER_02: I mean, that that to me has always been a big plus.
29:13
SPEAKER_02: Like I never missed birthdays or holidays or anything like that.
29:16
SPEAKER_02: Ever.
29:16
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
29:17
SPEAKER_02: Ever did.
29:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because you could build your schedule around life.
29:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
29:22
SPEAKER_00: That's that is a nice benefit.
29:24
SPEAKER_02: So, but you know, back on on the business training aspect of it, what's the what kind of training do you think business owners need to have in order to be successful, assuming they are people with a business education.
29:40
SPEAKER_02: They're good at doing something or making something.
29:45
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
29:45
SPEAKER_02: What kind of training do they need?
29:48
SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's a really interesting question.
29:50
SPEAKER_00: As somebody who's not formally trained in a business at all, I feel like, you know, if you have the ability to research the the kinds of things necessary to run a business, then you can be successful.
30:03
SPEAKER_00: So I think, you know, when I searched, yeah, it's not brain searching.
30:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
30:07
SPEAKER_00: And do it on your own.
30:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you're right.
30:09
SPEAKER_00: Be very self-motivated.
30:11
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
30:11
SPEAKER_00: Um, so when I when I started the company, co co-founded the company in Georgia, I immediately became really interested in all of the kinds of um readings that you would probably do in a master's in MBA program.
30:27
SPEAKER_00: Um, so I started just reading an enormous amounts of books um and and attending um a lot of like they almost feel like self-help kinds of things, right?
30:39
SPEAKER_00: Where you're just understanding more about yourself, how you how you should communicate with people, understanding more about their personalities.
30:47
SPEAKER_00: Um, and then also just the nuts and bolts, right?
30:51
SPEAKER_00: Like if I look at this Excel spreadsheet that's got cash flow on it, what does it really mean?
30:57
SPEAKER_00: Like, what do these numbers really mean?
30:59
SPEAKER_00: What is this runway thing you talk about?
31:01
SPEAKER_00: Uh burn rate, or you know, when you have a startup.
31:04
SPEAKER_00: So um all of that can be found on the internet and in books um and sources.
31:10
SPEAKER_00: I also think collecting a group of mentors with experience.
31:16
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
31:16
SPEAKER_02: Um a It is helpful, but not everybody wants to listen.
31:21
SPEAKER_00: Well, then don't go, don't go out and and become a entrepreneur.
31:25
SPEAKER_00: Then if you don't have the ability to listen to other people who have already been down the road, then you are going to have some really painful scrapes and burns along the way.
31:34
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I like the idea of the mentorslash board.
31:39
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
31:39
SPEAKER_02: Because I think it's there's so much um wisdom and connections you can get from people.
31:47
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I've done the boards of a bunch of companies in this business.
31:50
SPEAKER_02: And it was amazing the talent in some cases that the business owners brought together.
31:56
SPEAKER_03: Right.
31:56
SPEAKER_02: You know, like the chairman of the largest publicly traded firm in the business is on their board, or the CEO of the largest architecture firm in the world is on their board.
32:07
SPEAKER_02: I mean or former CEO.
32:09
SPEAKER_02: But I mean, and they just do it because they just got asked.
32:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
32:13
SPEAKER_02: You know?
32:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
32:14
SPEAKER_02: And so you can build that resource, and and I think that's really important.
32:18
SPEAKER_02: I I do think though that a lot of small business owners are afraid to share their success or their lack of success.
32:28
SPEAKER_02: They're afraid that they'll be viewed negatively by these people or judged harshly.
32:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
32:36
SPEAKER_02: But you know, most everybody started out with nothing anyway.
32:40
SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
32:40
SPEAKER_02: So it's not like But don't you think that's a factor?
32:44
SPEAKER_02: Totally.
32:45
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
32:45
SPEAKER_00: Well, vul vulnerability is hard, right?
32:48
SPEAKER_00: No matter what no matter if you're being vulnerable with your romantic partner or being vulnerable with uh a business colleague or or employee or boss, right?
32:58
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
32:58
SPEAKER_00: Um, I like when I when I meet with my banker, I I say, okay, I'm a here I am, gonna get naked for you.
33:05
SPEAKER_00: Like because that's what it feels like to me.
33:07
SPEAKER_00: When I'm talking about my personal finances, the business, all the finances, all the money, all the all the success and the failures that have happened, it feels like an exposure.
33:16
SPEAKER_02: Right.
33:17
SPEAKER_02: Um But you know what?
33:19
SPEAKER_02: Bankers love that.
33:21
SPEAKER_00: They'd much rather like get you naked.
33:23
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure they do.
33:24
SPEAKER_02: No, yeah.
33:25
SPEAKER_02: No, they they they they don't want to work with people that are hiding stuff from them.
33:30
SPEAKER_02: And a lot of bank customers don't.
33:33
SPEAKER_02: They they tell them the good news, but they don't tell them the bad news.
33:36
SPEAKER_02: And when they come to them with the bad news, it's way too far down the road.
33:40
SPEAKER_00: Right.
33:41
SPEAKER_02: And if you talk with lenders, they'll they'll tell you that's a big, big common problem.
33:46
SPEAKER_00: Interesting.
33:46
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure that's true.
33:48
SPEAKER_00: I I ha I tend to just be overly honest with people.
33:51
SPEAKER_00: Um, my best friend tells me I'm too honest sometimes, but I think it's a good quality.
33:56
SPEAKER_00: I it's mostly a good quality.
33:58
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, not everybody can take it.
34:00
SPEAKER_02: You know, not not everybody's gonna love you, but most will, and the ones you care about will.
34:04
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
34:05
SPEAKER_00: And I I she says it because she knows that it's gotten me in trouble a few times and is trying to be protective.
34:12
SPEAKER_00: And I appreciate that.
34:13
SPEAKER_00: Um, it is, I think you do have to be prepared to be extremely vulnerable when you're an entrepreneur.
34:21
SPEAKER_00: Um, you are going to have to ask for help and you're gonna have to explain why you need that help.
34:25
SPEAKER_00: And it's it is inevitable.
34:27
SPEAKER_00: So getting comfortable in that space.
34:30
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I think that's why I'm so interested in understanding kind of personality and the relationship of personality to operating a business, because it helps me get more vulnerable with people in a more comfortable space.
34:44
SPEAKER_02: Well, also helps you get them in the right job.
34:47
SPEAKER_02: That's too.
34:47
SPEAKER_02: Totally.
34:48
SPEAKER_02: You know, because not everybody is initially in the what's the best position.
34:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
34:53
SPEAKER_02: For what their strengths or weaknesses or tendencies, personality tendencies are.
35:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
35:01
SPEAKER_02: What have been some of the greatest frustrations or problems that you think you've had since you s got into this business that you're in now?
35:11
SPEAKER_00: That's a really good question, Mark.
35:14
SPEAKER_00: Um it's like being in that interview and asking people what their weakness is, right?
35:19
SPEAKER_00: Um, to some extent.
35:21
SPEAKER_00: I you know, the our biggest challenge um holistically has been getting embezzled.
35:30
SPEAKER_00: That's that was an enormous challenge.
35:32
SPEAKER_00: How did that happen?
35:34
SPEAKER_02: Um How did they do it?
35:36
SPEAKER_02: So let me I'm always interested in these cases.
35:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna try and think of the like clearest way to explain this without making it extremely long.
35:45
SPEAKER_00: Um so I purchased uh uh another architecture firm.
35:51
SPEAKER_00: I acquired a firm and uh as part of that acquisition process, I kept on all the staff that was there because they were doing a great job.
36:01
SPEAKER_00: Um, and one of the staff members was the previous firm's wife, okay, firm owner's wife.
36:09
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
36:09
SPEAKER_00: And she stayed on and she um kind of unbeknownst to me, there was a a legacy bank account that I did not have access to and was I was aware of its existence, but I was not aware of its activity.
36:25
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
36:26
SPEAKER_00: And she was essentially just swiping checks and putting him in that account in which she was forging a name her husband's name to get the money out.
36:36
SPEAKER_00: Um and I didn't I was unaware of anything going on over there.
36:39
SPEAKER_00: And of course, she was our bookkeeper, and so she could easily get in and delete invoices and and manipulate the things.
36:46
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
36:46
SPEAKER_00: Um, it was tough.
36:48
SPEAKER_02: How did you discover that?
36:49
SPEAKER_00: Well, it was cash flow.
36:50
SPEAKER_00: It was one of those things where you're like the numbers just don't add up.
36:53
SPEAKER_00: Like we talked about invoicing two weeks ago or four weeks ago, and you know, we said we were gonna have X number of dollars and we've only had half that come in.
37:02
SPEAKER_00: What is happening?
37:03
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
37:03
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so it was cash flow really made it obvious.
37:07
SPEAKER_00: I also had some people on my team that were helping me and we were trying to you know navigate the financial turmoil.
37:14
SPEAKER_00: This was also, you know, eight months into COVID, so everything was chaos anyway.
37:19
SPEAKER_02: How did you confront the person on that?
37:21
SPEAKER_00: I just asked her.
37:23
SPEAKER_00: I mean, once I had enough information, I was like, hey, well, we asked for the information on the bank account because we realized that we were missing data that wasn't actually part of our cash flow.
37:34
unknown: Right.
37:34
SPEAKER_00: Um, and once we got once we asked her that, she realized she'd basically been caught.
37:38
SPEAKER_02: Um she fessed up to it?
37:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, she came in the next morning with all the paperwork and um apologized and you know, asked me not to process, not to call the police.
37:49
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
37:50
SPEAKER_00: Um and I'd already called the police.
37:52
SPEAKER_00: But Did you get any money back?
37:53
SPEAKER_00: I got all my money back.
37:55
SPEAKER_00: Which never happens.
37:56
SPEAKER_02: No, it doesn't.
37:57
SPEAKER_02: Um, buying lottery tickets or going over to the casino in Oklahoma.
38:04
SPEAKER_00: She did not pay me.
38:05
SPEAKER_00: I do not know what she did with the money.
38:07
SPEAKER_02: Uh huh.
38:07
SPEAKER_00: Her father paid me.
38:09
SPEAKER_02: I see.
38:10
unknown: Yeah.
38:10
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
38:11
SPEAKER_00: Which is extremely unusual, right?
38:14
SPEAKER_02: Um You know, my old company during the time we didn't own it.
38:17
SPEAKER_02: Um we'd sold it to a private equity firm they um got embezzled from.
38:23
SPEAKER_00: Interesting.
38:24
SPEAKER_02: And it was a significant amount of money, and it was such a simple scam.
38:28
SPEAKER_02: What they did was the CEO, it was a hired CEO and the CFO had a each had a credit card.
38:38
SPEAKER_02: And no matter what they bought, the company paid the bill.
38:42
SPEAKER_02: And they just charged it all off to travel, intercompany travel.
38:46
SPEAKER_02: And because the private equity firms running it, they don't know the day-to-day workings of the bill.
38:51
SPEAKER_02: It's insisting.
38:52
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
38:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
38:53
SPEAKER_02: And so it all just looks like it's travel, but I mean it could be like 20 grand worth of lumber for my new deck on my vacation house.
39:01
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it was just whatever they wanted.
39:03
unknown: Oh my gosh.
39:04
SPEAKER_02: And um, they ended up getting over 400,000.
39:07
SPEAKER_02: And it was a claim was filed on the director's and officers insurance that paid off.
39:13
SPEAKER_02: The DNO insurance paid off.
39:15
SPEAKER_00: Interesting.
39:16
SPEAKER_02: But um it was a challenge.
39:18
SPEAKER_02: And they got part of the money back, uh like 75,000 of it or something.
39:22
SPEAKER_02: Oh when they confronted the CFO.
39:25
SPEAKER_02: Oh, from the from the people.
39:26
SPEAKER_02: But no charges again.
39:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
39:28
SPEAKER_02: They're still out there.
39:29
SPEAKER_00: And it's so yeah.
39:31
SPEAKER_02: And you know, they're probably doing it to the next place.
39:32
SPEAKER_00: And they probably are.
39:33
SPEAKER_02: And I mean, that's the thing.
39:34
SPEAKER_00: It's compulsive from what it's these fine.
39:36
SPEAKER_02: I think uh you'll find that a lot of times these people have a history or they repeat it somewhere else.
39:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
39:43
SPEAKER_00: Well, and the silver lining in my instance was that I was, you know, I had I was under an agreement with the previous owner um to pay him out over a certain amount of years.
39:55
SPEAKER_00: And because he did not disclose that it had happened previously in our um transaction, right?
40:02
SPEAKER_00: Uh she had done that to the business before that I ended up being able to essentially transition the clients to to Verdant Studio and um kind of hurt his deal, didn't it?
40:14
SPEAKER_00: Totally upended his his deal.
40:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
40:17
SPEAKER_00: Which is uh so unfortunate.
40:18
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't his it wasn't his fault, I don't think, but he should have been honest about it.
40:22
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
40:22
SPEAKER_00: Um, and he, you know, didn't really have a leg to stand on after that.
40:26
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
40:27
SPEAKER_02: That's interesting.
40:28
SPEAKER_02: Mm-hmm.
40:28
SPEAKER_00: So that was to learn that lesson.
40:30
SPEAKER_00: Just be honest.
40:31
SPEAKER_00: It's worth it.
40:32
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
40:32
SPEAKER_02: Now you know, one of the suggestions I would always make to a business owner such as yourself.
40:38
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
40:38
SPEAKER_02: I mean, you're not frickin' Chrysler Corporation yet or something.
40:42
SPEAKER_02: Right.
40:43
SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
40:43
SPEAKER_02: Right.
40:44
SPEAKER_02: Is you know, you need a daily cash report.
40:48
SPEAKER_02: You need to be the one opening the mail, even.
40:50
SPEAKER_02: Right.
40:50
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I don't know if you do that, but obviously a lot of money doesn't come in the mail anywhere.
40:55
SPEAKER_02: Not it.
40:55
SPEAKER_02: It used to all be that way.
40:57
SPEAKER_02: Now it's mainly just, you know, wire transfer, foam, done.
41:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
41:01
SPEAKER_02: But I mean, I look at everything.
41:03
SPEAKER_02: I mean, the first thing I do when I get up every single day, aside from uh, you know, uh reading my Heathercox Richardson um uh email I get, which explains everything going on politically in a historical context.
41:20
SPEAKER_00: Interesting.
41:21
SPEAKER_02: I highly recommend it.
41:22
SPEAKER_02: Um I look at my bank accounts and I just see what's flowing through there.
41:27
unknown: Yeah.
41:28
SPEAKER_02: And I know exactly where the money's going.
41:30
SPEAKER_02: And I always did that, you know.
41:32
SPEAKER_02: And I I just think it's essential.
41:34
SPEAKER_02: I think a lot of business owners kind of get maybe get out of that too early.
41:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
41:40
SPEAKER_02: Before you really have some real trust and systems in place that will give you the information you need without doing that.
41:48
SPEAKER_02: Right.
41:49
SPEAKER_02: You know?
41:49
SPEAKER_00: Right.
41:50
SPEAKER_00: I I think that's really wise.
41:52
SPEAKER_00: Um, I don't look at the bank account every day, but I look at it probably every other day.
41:56
SPEAKER_00: And it is it's it's interesting the amount of feelings involved in that process.
42:03
SPEAKER_00: Because some days I'm like, oh my gosh, we have so much money.
42:06
SPEAKER_00: And other days I'm like, how are we gonna be payroll?
42:08
SPEAKER_00: Um, but it is it's helpful, you know, the more information the better.
42:12
SPEAKER_00: And you yeah, it'll just inform your day, your decision making.
42:16
SPEAKER_02: Right.
42:16
SPEAKER_02: It informs your decision making.
42:17
SPEAKER_02: I mean, yeah, I can just distinctly remember I was doing like 1.5 million before I could let anybody else take over the the, you know, the accounting, basically.
42:28
SPEAKER_02: I did it all because I just I felt like I had to because it was always so tight.
42:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
42:33
unknown: Yeah.
42:33
SPEAKER_02: You know, and and um but um it is a transition that's you gotta make at some point because being a bookkeeper is not the best use of your time.
42:43
SPEAKER_00: No, not at all.
42:44
SPEAKER_00: Not at all.
42:45
SPEAKER_00: And we have made that transition.
42:46
SPEAKER_00: And it's very helpful to have that kind of support.
42:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and you can focus on other things.
42:51
SPEAKER_00: I think the other thing that you you touched on is just getting out of the kind of day-to-day.
42:57
SPEAKER_00: And I think it's as a business owner, it's really important not to eject from your business too soon.
43:03
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
43:03
SPEAKER_02: I, you know, my pet peeve, and I've written about it before on LinkedIn and other places, is this well, it was one of the mantras of vestige, in fact.
43:13
SPEAKER_02: Um, work on your business, not in your business.
43:17
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, work on your business and work in your business.
43:21
SPEAKER_02: If you're not working in your business, everything's gonna go out of control.
43:25
SPEAKER_02: You won't know who's good, who's bad.
43:27
SPEAKER_02: You won't know how long anything takes to get done.
43:29
SPEAKER_02: You won't know what your clients are are saying because you're just working on your business.
43:34
SPEAKER_02: You've divorced yourself too early.
43:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
43:36
SPEAKER_02: Well can't do it.
43:38
SPEAKER_00: And and you know, I think it's probably different in in in other kinds of businesses, but certainly in design and architecture, so much of what our output is is what's in our heads, right?
43:47
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
43:48
SPEAKER_00: So if I'm not involved in the project, then it might not have the same flair that it would normally have.
43:55
SPEAKER_00: Um, it wouldn't might not be seen as like a verdant project.
43:58
SPEAKER_00: And I think clients pay for that to.
44:00
SPEAKER_00: Some extent.
44:00
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
44:01
SPEAKER_00: Not that we don't have an incredible staff because we do the team is amazing and they have great ideas and oftentimes better ideas than I have.
44:08
SPEAKER_00: But I think it's really important to continue to thread your way through all of the work that's going out.
44:16
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
44:16
SPEAKER_02: Um it is, unfortunately.
44:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
44:19
SPEAKER_02: It's it's part of the trap, though.
44:21
SPEAKER_00: It is part of the trap.
44:22
SPEAKER_02: It it's such an art, I think, knowing what you can part with, what you have to stay involved with, and what you have to spend time on and what you don't.
44:31
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
44:31
SPEAKER_02: Isn't it?
44:32
SPEAKER_02: It totally is.
44:34
SPEAKER_00: Oh, it totally is.
44:35
SPEAKER_00: And uh I haven't figured it out yet.
44:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
44:37
SPEAKER_02: Well, it's it's constantly evolving.
44:40
SPEAKER_02: I mean, yeah, a lot of it too depends on what's happening with the business and who you have.
44:47
SPEAKER_02: And that changes, you know, totally.
44:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it does.
44:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
44:51
SPEAKER_00: That that team composition is evolving.
44:55
SPEAKER_02: It is.
44:56
SPEAKER_02: So what do you do to recruit people?
44:59
SPEAKER_02: How do you think you've been able to put your team together and keep adding people?
45:04
SPEAKER_02: What's your special sauce there?
45:06
SPEAKER_02: Uh at this point because you're in a really competitive business where it's pay rates have gone up a lot, you know, uh people are hard to find all over the nation.
45:17
SPEAKER_02: And here especially.
45:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it is.
45:19
SPEAKER_00: Um, I think I mean our secret sauce is our culture.
45:22
SPEAKER_00: Um, it also just I think I think new hires are often intrigued by the art part of our the real high design creativity side of what we do.
45:33
SPEAKER_03: Right.
45:33
SPEAKER_00: Um, and that helps us recruit.
45:36
SPEAKER_00: Um it helps us more than I realized it would.
45:38
SPEAKER_02: Um I can see that when we first kicked it off.
45:41
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
45:42
SPEAKER_02: Um a little of that goes a real long way.
45:44
SPEAKER_00: Right.
45:45
SPEAKER_00: And then our our benefits, which is, you know, of course we have all the standard health insurance, but we we also have made sure to check every box that a big corporation can have.
45:56
SPEAKER_00: We pay for every kind of insurance that you would get at any big firm.
46:01
SPEAKER_00: We also have currently an unlimited vacation policy, and that's really attractive.
46:08
SPEAKER_02: Um so Yeah, that's good.
46:12
SPEAKER_02: I'm sure that helps.
46:13
SPEAKER_00: Benefits are really helpful.
46:14
SPEAKER_00: Um, but you know, I think people and they they also are intrigued by the diversity of what they can work on.
46:21
SPEAKER_00: Um, and although sometimes people are hired for really specific teams like the retail team, often our our young designers are hired and they work on residential and commercial and an art project and a fabrication project, and they get to really move around all the things that I think they enjoy learning, all of those pieces.
46:41
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I can see that.
46:43
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, how do you get people to understand in your field that they do have to kind of focus on something if they want to get paid, they've got to really get good at something.
46:59
SPEAKER_03: Mm-hmm.
47:00
SPEAKER_02: You know, the architects, my experience, they do want to do a whole lot of different things, but they also want to make more.
47:05
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I sit there on LinkedIn and listen to the whining and complaining of these young art we work too hard, we're not paid anything.
47:16
SPEAKER_02: I get so tired of it.
47:18
SPEAKER_02: Like, if that's the way you feel, start your own business or or move to a different uh company or something.
47:24
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
47:25
SPEAKER_02: But just the constant complaining about not making enough money, but at the same time resisting the thing.
47:32
SPEAKER_02: If I said to you, like, you want to make the most money you can possibly make, just be a facade inspector in New York City.
47:39
SPEAKER_02: Oh, wow.
47:39
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
47:40
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
47:40
SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
47:41
SPEAKER_02: No, there's no design work involved at all.
47:43
SPEAKER_00: It would be really boring.
47:45
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
47:45
SPEAKER_02: You've got to know.
47:47
SPEAKER_02: You've got to know, though, about how you know how buildings go together.
47:51
SPEAKER_02: You do, but you could you could make a million dollars a year doing that, let's just say.
47:56
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
47:57
SPEAKER_02: You know?
47:58
SPEAKER_00: Great, but they won't they won't want to go do that.
48:00
SPEAKER_00: Right.
48:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they won't.
48:01
SPEAKER_02: There's a trade-off between just doing what you love every day sometimes and what you get paid.
48:06
SPEAKER_02: They may not be, you know.
48:09
SPEAKER_00: I yeah, I I do know.
48:12
SPEAKER_00: Um, I also have had those moments where I'm like, oh, I could just go work for somebody else and make a bunch of money and not, you know, not answer the phone calls at nine o'clock at night when the client needs something.
48:23
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
48:23
SPEAKER_00: Um, or deal with the payroll or whatever the challenge is.
48:27
SPEAKER_03: Yep.
48:28
SPEAKER_00: Um I get it.
48:30
SPEAKER_00: I get that.
48:31
SPEAKER_00: But you know, it's never been worth it for me to leave.
48:36
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
48:37
SPEAKER_02: No.
48:38
SPEAKER_02: Your freedom is worth more than that.
48:40
SPEAKER_02: And not being dependent on somebody else that you can't control.
48:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
48:46
SPEAKER_02: You know?
48:46
SPEAKER_00: But I, you know, honestly, Mark, I always I always look at it as the thing that I'm building.
48:53
SPEAKER_00: I it feels I I don't have children, but I it it this business is a child, totally.
49:01
SPEAKER_00: And I have sacrificed all sorts of things for it.
49:05
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
49:05
SPEAKER_00: As I would I imagine I would do for a child.
49:09
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I I want to see it be successful.
49:13
SPEAKER_00: It's it's one of the most important things outside of my family and some other personal values, but it's so important to me that I get it.
49:22
SPEAKER_00: That I am able to make it grow up and have a life of its own.
49:28
SPEAKER_02: Sure.
49:29
SPEAKER_02: I get it.
49:29
SPEAKER_00: And do things.
49:30
SPEAKER_02: I get it.
49:31
SPEAKER_02: I'm with you.
49:32
SPEAKER_02: You know, I just celebrated yesterday the 35th year of founding a Swide Group.
49:37
SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh, congratulations.
49:38
SPEAKER_00: I mean, think about that.
49:39
SPEAKER_00: That's Mark.
49:39
SPEAKER_02: That's 30 when I started it.
49:41
SPEAKER_02: I'm 65 now and it's doing really well.
49:44
SPEAKER_02: And it's just great to see.
49:45
SPEAKER_02: I mean, you can take some pride just like I do in my kids, of which you know one of them.
49:50
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
49:51
SPEAKER_02: You know, I take great pride in them that they've turned out to be successful and independent, just like Swag Group has for me.
49:58
SPEAKER_02: So I totally understand that.
50:00
SPEAKER_02: So where are you gonna go with this business?
50:02
SPEAKER_02: Where will what is your sort of vision for lack of a better term, by any point in the future?
50:10
SPEAKER_02: Let's say 10 years from now, where do you think Verdance's gonna be?
50:13
SPEAKER_00: Well, I I think that growth is inevitable.
50:19
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I am excited about what the growth looks like.
50:22
SPEAKER_00: I uh anticipate and we we have um actual real solid plans to expand into other territories.
50:30
SPEAKER_00: So we're opening a second office in South Carolina.
50:34
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
50:34
SPEAKER_00: Um and I anticipate we'll open probably more than one additional location outside of Northwest Arkansas.
50:42
SPEAKER_00: I also hope that we're able to expand our offerings as far as services and deliverables inside each one of our primary um silos or departments so that our artwork gets expanded.
51:00
SPEAKER_00: Um, we do all sorts of things besides just deliver public artwork.
51:04
SPEAKER_00: We do curatorial services and fabrication and all sorts of other stuff.
51:07
SPEAKER_00: But I just want to continue to grow those deliverables and grow the teams inside those so we can take on bigger and more impactful projects.
51:17
SPEAKER_00: Ultimately, our goal is to be able to do the kind of work that makes our communities better and in architecture and art and all of the things.
51:26
SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean you're already doing that though.
51:28
SPEAKER_00: Right.
51:28
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, at a certain scale.
51:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
51:30
SPEAKER_00: At a certain scale.
51:31
SPEAKER_00: And I think the the goal is to do it at a bigger scale or a a more far-reaching scale.
51:37
SPEAKER_02: I see.
51:38
SPEAKER_00: That's the ultimate goal.
51:39
SPEAKER_00: And we are already doing it.
51:40
SPEAKER_00: So I I totally agree with that.
51:42
SPEAKER_02: But how big a company do you want?
51:44
SPEAKER_02: Let's cut through all the bullshit.
51:45
SPEAKER_02: Now give me a number.
51:47
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
51:47
SPEAKER_02: What's it gonna be?
51:48
SPEAKER_02: Is that a$20 million business with 120 employees or what is it?
51:54
SPEAKER_00: Well, it'd have to be uh more than$20 million with$120 employees, probably.
51:59
SPEAKER_02: Okay, whatever.
52:00
SPEAKER_02: Whatever the number is.
52:03
SPEAKER_00: So we we've we continue to grow pretty steadily, and I anticipate we'll um I'd like to see us five years at I haven't actually run the numbers for this that I should.
52:17
SPEAKER_00: Um that's a failure on my part.
52:19
SPEAKER_00: That's not a failure.
52:20
SPEAKER_00: Um totally is.
52:22
SPEAKER_00: Um I think I mean I'd love to be at like 40 or 50 employees in five years.
52:27
SPEAKER_00: Um I'd love to be at 100 employees in 10 years.
52:30
SPEAKER_00: I don't see the end, I guess, until until it comes and I'm like, oh, this is not the thing.
52:36
SPEAKER_00: Um and I I say that a little grain of salt here, which is the company is already so different from, you know, just a couple of me, certainly from me, sure, to a couple of people to the 18 to 20 that we fluctuate in right now.
52:54
SPEAKER_03: Right.
52:54
SPEAKER_00: Um, the culture's changing really rapidly.
52:57
SPEAKER_00: You know, when you bring four people on in one day, it totally and you've added 20% to your staff in one day, and it really changes things.
53:06
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it does.
53:06
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so uh but I anticipate we're gonna continue to do that.
53:12
SPEAKER_00: And I want to continue to do that without losing the heart and the soul and the culture that we've worked really hard to build.
53:20
SPEAKER_02: No, there are a lot of people in your profession who say, Oh, I just want to get to this size and then I want to maintain that.
53:27
SPEAKER_02: I don't want anything any bigger than that.
53:30
SPEAKER_00: Well, I I guess I can't say what that looks like.
53:32
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I it's hard to I'm not advocating.
53:36
SPEAKER_00: That's not me that you think that.
53:37
SPEAKER_00: It's definitely not me.
53:38
SPEAKER_02: Well, I personally think you can't do it.
53:40
SPEAKER_02: Not only is it not you or me, but I think it's it's not a success strategy.
53:47
SPEAKER_02: Because if you just say I'm gonna cap out at at this many people or this revenue size, yeah, how are you gonna provide opportunities for people?
53:56
SPEAKER_02: Who wants to work in that environment?
53:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I yeah, I I hear what you're saying.
54:00
SPEAKER_02: Um there's no way to move up because the company's not doing better every year.
54:04
SPEAKER_02: Well, and I think it's probably gonna do worse.
54:06
SPEAKER_02: And that's not growing.
54:07
SPEAKER_00: That's hard.
54:08
SPEAKER_00: That's hard for people who work for you to get behind totally.
54:11
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
54:12
SPEAKER_02: Um but I like that.
54:13
SPEAKER_02: I just like to have a 15-person company forever and ever and ever.
54:17
SPEAKER_02: And when I get done, I don't care what happens to it.
54:20
SPEAKER_02: You know how often I've heard that?
54:22
SPEAKER_02: You'd be shocked.
54:23
SPEAKER_02: I would be shocked.
54:24
SPEAKER_02: I don't even want my firm to go on with my name on it because I didn't design, I'm not designing everything going forward.
54:32
SPEAKER_02: I've had people say that to me who made hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue annually.
54:39
SPEAKER_03: Hmm.
54:40
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's like if it dies, it reinforces the idea of how pivotal they were to do.
54:45
SPEAKER_00: Right, that's totally an ego thing.
54:47
SPEAKER_02: Oh my God, I think it's so dysfunctional.
54:49
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I feel that's that we we could like take tear that apart in all sorts of ways.
54:55
SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, no, that I that's not what I want.
54:58
SPEAKER_00: I just real bluntly.
55:00
SPEAKER_00: Um growth is the only direction that I know.
55:03
SPEAKER_00: And so maybe I maybe I choose it because I'm comfortable with that.
55:06
SPEAKER_02: Right.
55:07
SPEAKER_00: Um, but also it really excites me.
55:09
SPEAKER_02: It's motivational.
55:10
SPEAKER_02: The way I look at it is like I never had to be motivated because I just com overcommitted.
55:16
SPEAKER_02: And then I'm responsible.
55:18
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
55:19
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
55:20
SPEAKER_02: It's like if you just overcommit, you're a responsible person.
55:22
SPEAKER_02: You're not, you're gonna get up every day and do what the hell you have to do.
55:26
SPEAKER_02: To make it work.
55:27
SPEAKER_00: Totally.
55:27
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, totally.
55:28
SPEAKER_02: And that's exactly what's no motivation that's needed.
55:31
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's it's in it's embedded in the intrinsic.
55:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
55:36
SPEAKER_02: So so back on on the subject of being a a a woman in owner of a business, yeah.
55:43
SPEAKER_02: You never traded on that though, from what I know.
55:46
SPEAKER_02: You you are like a lot of our listeners may not realize this because they don't all come out of the design industry at all.
55:53
SPEAKER_02: There are all kinds of businesses um these people own and work in.
55:57
SPEAKER_02: Sure.
55:58
SPEAKER_02: And in our field though, um, or in your field, um there are on certain public projects what are called set-asides for um women or minorities um owned businesses.
56:14
SPEAKER_02: And um but you never traded on that.
56:16
SPEAKER_00: Not really.
56:17
SPEAKER_00: Um we we we just uh got certified as a women-owned business um because we were approached by by uh learning to use, yeah, meeting they want to leverage our women-ownedness for their benefit.
56:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
56:33
SPEAKER_02: They gotta fulfill a requirement on a job.
56:36
SPEAKER_02: And if they're gonna do it, they want to work with somebody who's competent.
56:39
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
56:40
SPEAKER_02: And so, yeah, I mean, it certainly does seem like it's it's crazy to not.
56:45
SPEAKER_00: It is crazy to not do it.
56:46
SPEAKER_00: It also feels weird.
56:48
SPEAKER_00: Um like there is a there is a feeling embedded in leveraging your gender that feels a little bit strange.
56:55
SPEAKER_02: Um I can see that for you because you don't want to trade on that.
56:58
SPEAKER_02: No, you just want to trade on your merits.
57:00
SPEAKER_00: I totally I I want my brain to matter more than my body parts.
57:04
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
57:05
SPEAKER_02: Um I totally understand that.
57:07
SPEAKER_02: It makes sense.
57:08
SPEAKER_02: I think the other thing that a lot of design firms who go that route don't think about is it doesn't necessarily enhance the value the same way as non-WBE woman business enterprise work does.
57:24
SPEAKER_02: Because if you ever were to sell this company to an external buyer, oh yeah, they lose that.
57:30
SPEAKER_02: Right.
57:30
SPEAKER_02: And so they don't want to, you know, you see some of these companies that are like a hundred percent, all their work comes from that.
57:36
SPEAKER_00: Right.
57:36
SPEAKER_02: You can't sell them.
57:38
SPEAKER_02: I mean, nobody wants those businesses.
57:40
SPEAKER_00: I hadn't thought about that, Mark.
57:42
SPEAKER_00: But yeah.
57:42
SPEAKER_02: They lose all their value because the only value is based on the owner being the owner.
57:48
SPEAKER_02: Right.
57:49
SPEAKER_00: And if that goes away and they lose all their clients, they miss all their clients.
57:53
SPEAKER_00: Which is the only valuable thing really Yeah.
57:56
SPEAKER_02: So anyway, it's just uh but I I certainly think it makes sense to to do some of it.
58:02
SPEAKER_02: I guess not be overly dependent on that.
58:04
SPEAKER_00: I exactly.
58:05
SPEAKER_00: And that's that's really where we're at with it.
58:07
SPEAKER_00: I think that there is especially with the uncertainty of the future um and the the direction the world is going, which you know, none of us can predict, probably you can predict probably better than I can, but ultimately none of us can predict.
58:22
SPEAKER_00: Um, I think diversifying in that realm because I know when the economy tanks, if it if it has any kind of recession, depression, you know, downturn, then the federal government will kick in and there'll be a lot of federal projects and we'll be really valuable on those federal cause because the rules are really applying to to federal projects.
58:45
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
58:45
SPEAKER_02: I'm not so good at predicting the future, by the way.
58:47
SPEAKER_00: I mean You're better than I am.
58:49
SPEAKER_02: If I if I was, I wouldn't have sold all the real estate we sold like three years ago.
58:53
SPEAKER_02: If we'd have just kept it all like another year, we would have made so much more money.
58:58
SPEAKER_02: But I I'm old and I got scared.
59:01
SPEAKER_02: I just didn't want to be wedded to all that.
59:04
SPEAKER_00: It's yeah, well, and it's a lot of work.
59:06
SPEAKER_00: And you're trying to get away from all the I get that.
59:09
SPEAKER_02: I don't, you know I like work.
59:11
SPEAKER_02: I just don't like dealing with shitty contractors and and tenants that don't pay.
59:16
SPEAKER_02: Uh uh, you know, I those two things I don't really enjoy.
59:20
SPEAKER_00: Right.
59:21
SPEAKER_02: So I mean, do you find well, we could talk all day.
59:24
SPEAKER_02: I I'm I'm gonna we're gonna have to wrap this up, but but what um what last advice would you want anyone else out there who currently owns a business to have from you?
59:40
SPEAKER_02: What what would be your your your words of wisdom if you could provide those to any business owner?
59:46
SPEAKER_00: Trust your gut.
59:47
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
59:49
SPEAKER_00: It's not an easy thing to do to really listen to your intuition and make decisions based on it, but I that is trust your gut.
59:57
SPEAKER_02: I think that's some really good advice.
59:59
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that gut is based on a long, all kinds of experiences.
1:00:04
SPEAKER_02: Some of them may be conscious and some may not be consciously recorded, right?
1:00:09
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
1:00:10
SPEAKER_00: And you don't know what's influencing that, but I have found that is that's the one one of the things that I have learned and I feel like is a wisdom in in me.
1:00:22
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
1:00:22
SPEAKER_00: Uh is that wise beyond your years.
1:00:25
SPEAKER_00: If I listen to my gut and my intuition, I am almost always going to make the right decision.
1:00:31
SPEAKER_00: Um if I listen to the fear or or what whatever else outside influence, it's really easy to have something go wrong.
1:00:43
SPEAKER_00: Um and that doesn't mean that I don't do a lot of research and collect a lot of data and have a lot of input.
1:00:51
SPEAKER_00: Still make don't don't totally like bury your head in the sand and make decisions.
1:00:55
SPEAKER_02: I know.
1:00:55
SPEAKER_02: That's what the some people would say, oh, but you don't want to, you know.
1:00:58
SPEAKER_02: No, you're not saying you don't make all the other regular efforts to gather all the information you can.
1:01:06
SPEAKER_00: Right.
1:01:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:01:06
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:01:07
SPEAKER_00: Do that, do all the things, and then at the very end, once you put all that data inside your head, yeah, be still and listen to your intuition.
1:01:16
SPEAKER_02: And make a freaking decision.
1:01:18
SPEAKER_00: Of course, yes.
1:01:19
SPEAKER_00: And move.
1:01:20
SPEAKER_00: Move it.
1:01:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you've got you've got to move.
1:01:22
SPEAKER_00: You cannot uh you cannot move a park car, right?
1:01:25
SPEAKER_00: Like you have to be and drive.
1:01:26
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
1:01:27
SPEAKER_00: Um, and and then you'll get moved along.
1:01:29
SPEAKER_00: It's amazing how that works.
1:01:31
SPEAKER_02: Amen, sister.
1:01:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:01:33
SPEAKER_02: All right.
1:01:33
SPEAKER_02: Well, it's been great having you here on the program, and I really appreciate it.
1:01:38
SPEAKER_02: And uh, so to all of our listeners out there, um, Jessica Hester, Verdant Studios, what is your email address, Jess?
1:01:48
SPEAKER_00: It's Jessica at verdant-studio.com.
1:01:53
SPEAKER_02: All right, there you go.
1:01:54
SPEAKER_02: So if you want to reach out to Jessica, there's your contact info.
1:01:58
SPEAKER_02: And once again, this has been another episode of Big Talk about small business.
1:02:05
SPEAKER_02: Tune in next week for another edition, and uh we'll have some exciting conversation for you once again, just like we did today with Jessica.
1:02:16
SPEAKER_02: Thanks again, Jessica.
1:02:17
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much, Mark.
1:02:24
SPEAKER_01: Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Big Talk About Small Business.
1:02:28
SPEAKER_01: If you have any questions or ideas for upcoming shows, be sure to head over to our website, www.bigtalkaboutsmallbusiness.com, and click on the Ask the Host button for the chance to have your questions answered on the show.
1:02:42
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1:02:46
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