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Subtly You: How a Husband-and-Wife Team Builds Business & Community · Behind the Business

0:00
Ian McLean: Welcome to another episode of Behind the Business presented by Gore Mutual.
0:04
Ian McLean: I'm your host, Ian McLean, President and CEO of the Greater Kitchener Waterdoo Chamber of Commerce.
0:08
Ian McLean: This podcast is recorded on the traditional territory of the neutral, Anichinabe, and Hoden Ashone peoples.
0:14
Ian McLean: Each week I sit down for candid conversations where we go beyond the boardroom and behind the business to uncover the real stories of Waterdoo Region's business community.
0:24
Ian McLean: Today we're joined by not one but two guests.
0:36
Ian McLean: Shauna is the founder of SubtlyU.
0:38
Ian McLean: With husband Greg, they have created a leading medical aesthetics business.
0:42
Ian McLean: Together, they've grown a business that combines clinical expertise, marketing creativity, and community engagement.
0:49
Ian McLean: We'll discuss their approach to leadership, balancing personal and professional roles, smart marketing strategies, and how they built a business that thrives while staying personal and authentic.
1:01
Ian McLean: So join me as we go behind the business with Shauna and Greg of Subtly You.
1:07
Ian McLean: Well, we're excited to have you both here today.
1:10
Ian McLean: Thanks so much for joining us.
1:11
Ian McLean: Thanks for having us.
1:13
Shawna Leifso: Thank you.
1:13
Ian McLean: Um, so let's what I always with with many of these conversations is when you talk to entrepreneurs and founders of companies, and is time is probably your most valuable commodity.
1:26
Ian McLean: We appreciate people taking time, coming to the studio here uh to tell your story.
1:31
Ian McLean: So really appreciate uh and and learning about about the uh about your journey and your story.
1:37
Ian McLean: So let's start at the beginning.
1:38
Ian McLean: Um, tell us a little bit about Subtly You and what you offer, and and then we'll then we'll get into the how you came together as things.
1:46
Ian McLean: But tell us about the business.
1:48
Shawna Leifso: Subtly you, Subtly You came to be back in 2019.
1:52
Shawna Leifso: It's been six, six and a half years now.
1:55
Shawna Leifso: And I mean, we are in the business of helping people look and feel their very best.
2:02
Shawna Leifso: That's what it comes down to.
2:05
Shawna Leifso: Um, and back when I started this, I mean, we are in the beauty industry to label it as such.
2:12
Shawna Leifso: Um, and back in the day, I mean, I went to school after high school for medical aesthetics.
2:18
Shawna Leifso: Love helping people.
2:20
Shawna Leifso: I always knew as a people person, couldn't sit at a desk all day.
2:23
Shawna Leifso: That's just not up my alley by any means, can't sit still.
2:27
Shawna Leifso: And uh yeah, got into this.
2:29
Shawna Leifso: I mean, there's a long journey from then to where we are now, going to school, becoming a nurse, doing that whole um thing, and then starting the business from the ground up.
2:39
Shawna Leifso: But we're here honestly to serve people, help them feel great, help them feel and look their best.
2:46
Shawna Leifso: And you know what?
2:48
Shawna Leifso: It's not really work.
2:49
Shawna Leifso: We get to socialize with people, we get to chit-chat.
2:52
Ian McLean: Now, so you you you're the founder.
2:54
Ian McLean: You found you came up with the idea, you founded the or the the uh um the business.
2:58
Ian McLean: Yeah, Greg, you're you know the chief cook and bottle watcher, CEO, you're running the operations.
3:04
Ian McLean: But tell me how you how you came together.
3:07
Ian McLean: You you started it and how and and expanding it.
3:09
Ian McLean: So because it's always fascinating to hear how people start a business and it and and and and and start to grow it and and scale it up.
3:17
Ian McLean: So maybe maybe start with the with that and and and Greg, how you're growing the business.
3:22
Shawna Leifso: Yeah, honestly, I started this business not knowing really what the heck I was doing.
3:28
Shawna Leifso: I wasn't running it as a business.
3:30
Shawna Leifso: I started uh as a nurse, you know, I was working in a hospital at the time, um, bedside nursing, loved it, fantastic, but I knew that this was always my goal in the end um to be a cosmetic nurse injector.
3:44
Shawna Leifso: Um, saved up some money, took the courses, did all that on the side.
3:47
Shawna Leifso: But when I tell you that I figured it out as I went, I really truly figured it out as I went.
3:54
Shawna Leifso: And Greg, we we got together at the same time as I started this business, and he'll give you his story with um he has a background in business himself, but he was hands-off.
4:05
Shawna Leifso: He let me run the ship, and there was mistakes being made, and there was fumbling along the way.
4:11
Shawna Leifso: And I think back when I first started um treating clients, it was truly just a snowball effect.
4:20
Shawna Leifso: I think my passion, my love for helping people and doing what I do just radiated, and I got busy and I was seeing clients, and it got to the point where I was grateful enough.
4:32
Shawna Leifso: Actually, Greg was like, Shauna, what are you doing still working in the hospital?
4:34
Shawna Leifso: Nothing wrong with working in the hospital.
4:36
Shawna Leifso: He just knew where my passion lied.
4:38
Ian McLean: Yeah, and you know, when you when you start a business, always the founder has got the passion for the business, but Greg, there's the operation side, like you you, you know, in order to scale it so that it becomes something where it's not a side to the desk or that you you make it a viable business, it takes it takes some the person doing the op side of it and doing with the really glamorous stuff like doing your remittances and doing the hiring and marketing.
5:03
Ian McLean: Like there's a whole bunch of things that that require talk about how when you came in and how took that part away so that you could focus on the on the the exciting part or the passion part of business.
5:13
Greg Quaile: Yeah, first of all, I just feel like sometimes, not always, founders aren't good enough at telling their own story uh because they're a little bit too humble about it.
5:22
Greg Quaile: Shauna's truly, you know, she worked at a nursing um mental health and addictions unit, and she would be racing home after a 73 shift to meet her first client at the front door for 4 p.m.
5:36
Greg Quaile: Right.
5:37
Greg Quaile: So she had one of those like from one job to the next, and then injecting from eight or you know, 4 p.m.
5:43
Greg Quaile: till 9 p.m.
5:44
Greg Quaile: at night, um in in a bedroom in our upstairs that our landlord said we weren't allowed to convert into a treatment room.
5:52
Greg Quaile: And I said, too bad, man.
5:54
Greg Quaile: You're not gonna stop her dream.
5:56
Greg Quaile: So uh we converted anyways, and uh, you know, that was really how she got the start uh was from a lot of hard work and um you know kind of rushing around.
6:04
Greg Quaile: But I got to watch uh because in 2019 uh turned into 2020 pretty quickly and COVID hit.
6:11
Ian McLean: Yep.
6:12
Greg Quaile: So with my previous company, I went straight to working from home.
6:16
Greg Quaile: And because people had to run through the house or walk through the house to get to the upstairs, I met almost every client, right?
6:21
Greg Quaile: And I got to have that experience where they uh truly were coming into our lives.
6:27
Greg Quaile: And the smiles that they would have leaving uh were pretty impressive because they truly enjoyed the service that Sean was giving.
6:36
Greg Quaile: And um, you know, I got to watch this for three years uh because with COVID, you know, we were home for my other business for quite some time.
6:47
Greg Quaile: We ended up being able to work without an office for a while.
6:50
Greg Quaile: And then we got to a point where we needed to move to a new space, a new house.
6:58
Greg Quaile: We we um, you know, I was fortunate enough in my previous business that we were able to have an exit and uh we were able to afford our first home.
7:05
Greg Quaile: So we bought a house and uh just so happens the house we purchased had a massage therapy clinic in it before us and uh its own entrance and all that kind of stuff for the business.
7:15
Greg Quaile: So it worked out really well.
7:16
Greg Quaile: But we went from having one treatment room to uh three treatment rooms, and we're like, wow, what are we gonna do with the other two treatment rooms?
7:24
Greg Quaile: Shauna had gotten to a point where she was so busy, like could booked up three months in advance, which is an amazing thing to have, but also not an amazing customer experience when somebody wants to see you, of course.
7:38
Ian McLean: Yeah.
7:39
Greg Quaile: So we were kind of uh inevitably forced, not forced, but we wanted to start growing, start growing the business, and uh we owed it to the clientele to give them a better service.
7:48
Greg Quaile: So uh we wanted to hire an aesthetician first, which is someone that does a little bit of offsetting services versus what the injecting is that Shauna has an expertise in.
7:58
Greg Quaile: And then from the aesthetician, it grew into a second injector, then a third injector, and before you know it, we got a full house.
8:06
Ian McLean: Yeah.
8:06
Ian McLean: So let's go, uh let's go back to you're the lead medical cosmetic injector.
8:12
Ian McLean: Yes.
8:12
Ian McLean: Uh so I think it's the first time I've actually seen that, those words all put together there.
8:17
Shawna Leifso: Did I create that?
8:17
Shawna Leifso: No, I don't know.
8:18
Ian McLean: I think you might have created a new thing that might even be in the dictionary now, but uh, I didn't know what it was.
8:23
Ian McLean: But but um and and so I guess the question leads, and you talk about about that role, but is this all you know, you said at the be off the top, this is kind of what your passion was.
8:32
Ian McLean: You what you all did.
8:33
Ian McLean: You know you always wanted to kind of be in that beauty aesthetics and was nursing because uh, you know, my I can I do this for a living?
8:40
Ian McLean: Like, like how how did you that was this always kind of what your passion was?
8:46
Shawna Leifso: Listen, when I was in high school and you're choosing where to go for college, I had no idea.
8:51
Shawna Leifso: And I remember sitting down and I I actually didn't put too much thought into it.
8:56
Shawna Leifso: I always knew that I like to put my makeup on in the morning, do my hair, yada yada.
9:00
Shawna Leifso: So why not go to medical uh aesthetician school?
9:03
Shawna Leifso: When I was in school, I realized this isn't what I want to do forever.
9:07
Shawna Leifso: And it was my prof at the time who mentioned getting into Botox and filler.
9:12
Shawna Leifso: I'm 18 years old at the time.
9:13
Shawna Leifso: I don't know what Botox and filler is, nor should really anybody at 18 years old, right?
9:19
Ian McLean: But you gotta have the scars like this old.
9:21
Ian McLean: Yeah, yeah.
9:22
Shawna Leifso: So I got into that, and you you have to be a nurse in order to do um what we do.
9:27
Shawna Leifso: And I will tell you one thing never once did I think I'd become a nurse.
9:31
Shawna Leifso: Now, um, truly it's the best thing that happened to me.
9:35
Shawna Leifso: Uh made me a better person, gave me so much more life experience.
9:38
Shawna Leifso: Um, and from there, it it's a no-brainer.
9:42
Shawna Leifso: There's nothing else I could do in life.
9:44
Shawna Leifso: There's nothing else that you could I could think about that I would do as a job, as a career.
9:50
Shawna Leifso: It's this I live it, breathe it, think about it nonstop, love it.
9:54
Shawna Leifso: There's there's nothing else in the world that I would do.
9:57
Ian McLean: Now, that's a good jumping off point for you, Greg, because that's the passion of the the vision of why you're in business.
10:07
Ian McLean: But your your career journey is a lot different than Sean's.
10:12
Ian McLean: You came from a different part of business or more of the business side, if you will.
10:16
Ian McLean: Um, how have you put that together?
10:18
Ian McLean: I mean, because you you need the passion, you need the why you're doing it in the first place.
10:22
Ian McLean: And you talked a little bit about getting to know the customers during COVID.
10:25
Ian McLean: But how did your kind of skill set and your career journey help kind of pull this together to growing the business that that that you already you've already seen and you're continuing to grow?
10:36
Ian McLean: How how did how did that play play into it?
10:39
Greg Quaile: Yeah, great question.
10:40
Greg Quaile: So I I co-founded a company called True Local with uh with a buddy, and you know, through the through the five years, we grew from zero employees, just two of us, to over 70 at the peak and uh across Canada.
10:56
Greg Quaile: So when we when we got out of that, we uh you know, I had a decision to make.
11:02
Greg Quaile: Do I go and start another business or do I join forces with uh with Shauna here?
11:09
Greg Quaile: And based on where we were at in our life, we were considering having a family or starting a family.
11:15
Greg Quaile: And um at that point, when you start thinking about being a dad, you start thinking about what kind of dad you want to be.
11:22
Greg Quaile: And are you gonna be a present dad or someone that's on the road, or you're gonna be busy doing other things?
11:26
Greg Quaile: And to be honest, I chose that I wanted to be a dad that's gonna be around uh for the events, right?
11:32
Greg Quaile: So to do that, I felt like you know, joining the business was a good idea.
11:37
Greg Quaile: But at the end of the day, as a business person, my mindset, just like I would say most entrepreneurs, is you meet somebody that's in a business and you try to almost reverse engineer their business just by meeting them, right?
11:47
Greg Quaile: Because that's the way you think.
11:48
Greg Quaile: So when I looked at the cosmetic injections industry and how like amazingly happy clients are to kind of leave uh after a treatment that's that they've enjoyed, like that that they loved and they're they know they're gonna love the results on.
12:04
Greg Quaile: I was uh blown away by by kind of like just what kind of business Shauna had started.
12:10
Greg Quaile: Now, don't get me wrong, the business side wasn't being attended to super well because um Sean was the uh the person making things happen in the business instead of working on the business.
12:22
Shawna Leifso: Well, and you don't learn business in nursing school.
12:24
Shawna Leifso: No, it's not a thing.
12:26
Ian McLean: Well, and there are very few.
12:27
Ian McLean: I mean, anytime you're growing a business, you have to quickly discover what the indispensable part that you do.
12:34
Greg Quaile: Yeah.
12:34
Ian McLean: And it's probably not doing payroll and HR and CRA and you know, all of those things in much in the same way that you know, if you're not doing that, somebody's got to do it.
12:44
Ian McLean: You need someone who's who's got that extra.
12:46
Shawna Leifso: I was flying by the seat of my pants.
12:48
Shawna Leifso: There was zero structure before Greg entered the business, and you can't grow a team with no structure.
12:55
Greg Quaile: Yes.
13:00
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13:05
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13:12
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13:14
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13:25
Ian McLean: For more information, visit goremutual.ca So, I mean, I guess that the you know husband husband-wife team that that presents, I mean, we we have lots of businesses in the chamber and and and you hear this all the time.
13:43
Ian McLean: Family-run businesses have their own unique set of challenges because it's I mean, in some ways it's it's ne you never turn off.
13:49
Ian McLean: It's consuming.
13:50
Ian McLean: It is.
13:51
Ian McLean: Um but you know, the opportunities that a family-run business can unlock are also, and you you've touched on those, like working together, being able to have at least some balance or know as as you're as you start a family, it is important, uh, and you can run your business to reflect that.
14:08
Ian McLean: Um what challenges come with the the dynamic though?
14:11
Ian McLean: I mean, or how has it worked so far in terms of you know working together?
14:17
Ian McLean: Because it's 24-7, like you're working together, and then you, you know, you don't turn off, you're you know, you go downstairs and start folding laundry and taking care of kids and doing all the other parts of life.
14:27
Ian McLean: How has that worked out for you so far?
14:30
Shawna Leifso: Oh, where do we start?
14:31
Shawna Leifso: I it's when I reflect back around the same time Greg and I got together was shortly around the same time that I started the business and I started into this.
14:42
Shawna Leifso: So it's almost been part of a relationship from the very beginning.
14:47
Shawna Leifso: And I I remember somebody saying um the other day, you know, not a lot of husbands and wives can really work together.
14:53
Shawna Leifso: And it's not like we ever had a conversation where we sat down and said, can we do this?
14:57
Shawna Leifso: Can we not?
14:58
Shawna Leifso: Is this gonna work?
14:59
Shawna Leifso: It truly just flowed into it.
15:02
Shawna Leifso: And I think it also comes down to the timing of it all when uh I was going off to have a baby and he was transitioning from his other job.
15:10
Shawna Leifso: Um, and it just and I think too, because it's part of my conversation all the time, that every night at dinner it's we're we're talking about work, that it just kind of bled into it, and I I I don't I don't know.
15:23
Shawna Leifso: It just it flowed.
15:25
Shawna Leifso: It was never there was never any other option.
15:28
Shawna Leifso: It's just here we are.
15:29
Greg Quaile: To to say it bluntly, it it came with its challenges.
15:32
Ian McLean: Yeah, no, but I mean you know what?
15:34
Ian McLean: I mean, part of this is you know, we haven't specifically talked about COVID, but it's right at the start of when you're doing it is you know, lots of businesses had no option.
15:42
Ian McLean: I mean, you were either working at home and and figuring out uh, you know, where you have your workspaces if you if you're working in traditional business, where do you go for your eight hours because you gotta be you gotta have your own space?
15:54
Ian McLean: So lots of people had to deal with that.
15:56
Ian McLean: Uh so I'm sure it had challenges, but how do you how what was the part where you kind of said, like, you can't talk about business all the time?
16:04
Ian McLean: How did you kind of is there any hard things to say, hey, look, we're not gonna talk about it on Saturdays, or like I how did you try and not have that line always be blurred?
16:14
Ian McLean: We or or do or is it always blurred?
16:16
Shawna Leifso: Greg can talk about it.
16:18
Greg Quaile: Yeah, it's it's blurred, it's blurred all the time.
16:20
Greg Quaile: For me specifically, right?
16:21
Greg Quaile: I'm never the one that says, let's turn it off.
16:25
Greg Quaile: I'm always the one that's saying what's next.
16:28
Greg Quaile: And because although we do work together in the same office, she's seeing clients.
16:32
Greg Quaile: So I'm not in a room with her going, let's plan some things for the next iteration of simply you.
16:38
Greg Quaile: I'm thinking about it and I'm getting so you want to spit it out when you've when you get her in front of you.
16:43
Greg Quaile: I get 30 minutes at night where I'm like, I gotta get this off my chest.
16:46
Greg Quaile: And she's she's just like, I I just turned it off and I go, well, I can't turn it off.
16:52
Greg Quaile: So there's been those challenges for sure.
16:55
Greg Quaile: We we try to keep date nights to uh a minimum of talking about work.
17:00
Greg Quaile: But you know, now that we've been able to grow the team, we uh we have a few other people helping us along the way, so we're we're not taking all the credit for everything we do at this point.
17:10
Greg Quaile: So it's gone a little bit easier for us to kind of uh oh, and the biggest thing was moving the business out of the house.
17:17
Greg Quaile: So we we moved it out of the house uh, you know, because when we initially had our baby uh 19 months ago, we were still in the house.
17:26
Greg Quaile: So Shauna's upstairs nursing.
17:29
Greg Quaile: I'm running upstairs and downstairs being a dad and being uh, you know, hopefully a decently good uh business owner to the staff that she brought on.
17:37
Greg Quaile: And it was uh a blurred line there for a while because all I wanted in the back of my head was for Sean to have this amazing uh Mat Leaf.
17:46
Greg Quaile: Of course, you can't do that when there's uh people in your house till eight o'clock at night.
17:50
Greg Quaile: Yeah.
17:51
Greg Quaile: And uh some of the uh amazing injectures that we have on board still had questions, like things that they just needed clarification on, that kind of stuff.
17:58
Greg Quaile: So she never got a really great first Mat Leaf.
18:01
Greg Quaile: Now we're out of the house.
18:02
Greg Quaile: I'm very happy that we're able to kind of leave, and I shut her off from the second I leave till 7 p.m.
18:09
Ian McLean: Well, that's at least at least it's something.
18:12
Ian McLean: Um you've been involved in other entrepreneurial ventures, but it's particularly some local franchising, and you talked a little bit about that.
18:19
Ian McLean: Um so as you draw in your past ventures in you know, in franchising in particular, what are some of the the frameworks or the insights that that you've been um able to take to kind of future-proof uh your business?
18:36
Ian McLean: Because I mean, everyone's got uh challenges.
18:38
Ian McLean: I mean, you know, trade and tariffs and uh is one thing for some types of businesses, but the uncertainty of it's a soft economy now uh for lots of reasons.
18:49
Ian McLean: Interest rates are high.
18:50
Ian McLean: You know, you go through the list.
18:52
Ian McLean: How have you kind of taken all the things you've to to sort of future-proof what you're what you're currently doing now?
18:58
Greg Quaile: You know what, this has been maybe the biggest topic of uh conversation in my life recently, because although a lot of things you just mentioned there play a little bit of a role in it, I think AI plays the biggest role in the future of any single business on the planet.
19:14
Greg Quaile: Uh and and you know, the likelihood of whether your client in the future has a a job, right?
19:20
Greg Quaile: Because AI is doing a bit of a takeover.
19:23
Greg Quaile: So I could go on for this all day.
19:25
Greg Quaile: But future preferring the business, uh, I think SubtleU specifically is in a good place because I don't think we're in a place anytime too soon where people are going to be comfortable with a robot uh putting a needle in your face.
19:38
Greg Quaile: Yep.
19:39
Greg Quaile: Uh there is a human element to what we do.
19:41
Greg Quaile: Uh I would say most of the uh injectors and people that we have their client facing, if you ask them if they're a therapist, they would say yes to their clients because they talk about everything in the room there while they're in there.
19:53
Greg Quaile: So there is that very close uh client uh injector relationship that that that's kind of like a bonding over time.
20:01
Greg Quaile: And that's why we see a lot of our clients truly stay with us outside of the fact that obviously we do great uh great treatments.
20:07
Greg Quaile: But that's been the biggest thing on my mind is how we can get prepared for um maybe a world that isn't as certain as anybody knows it's gonna be.
20:16
Greg Quaile: But uh hopefully we can get on the right side of it.
20:19
Ian McLean: Risks and opportunities in that, but but you know, clients that can pay for the the personal personal care, like the personal touch is gonna be important.
20:27
Ian McLean: Listen, uh Shauna, you you know, it it is medical aesthetics, it I mean there's safety issues, there's new technology, I imagine you talk about AI, but actually in the technology of how you're doing injections, how you're you know, uh improvements in process and you know, whether it's it's actual injection materials themselves.
20:48
Ian McLean: What are the emerging trends and innovations and how do you how do you keep on top of those?
20:53
Ian McLean: And what excites you about where the industry's going?
20:56
Shawna Leifso: It never ends in this industry.
20:58
Shawna Leifso: It's always evolving, it's always there's new technology, new new trends, new safety protocols, new everything.
21:06
Shawna Leifso: And honestly, it comes down to taking advantage of every training opportunity that we get, every conference, every webinar, every um uh everything.
21:17
Ian McLean: And it it are are you licensed as is this a separate licensing or is it through nursing, or how like how do you actually not a separate license at all?
21:27
Shawna Leifso: So you you're a nurse or a doctor in order to Yeah, in order to do it.
21:31
Shawna Leifso: Botox is a medication.
21:32
Shawna Leifso: Yeah, it's a medication that we are injecting inside of a body, and we do wellness shots and we do all of that fun stuff, but at the end of the day, it it is a medication, so it's regulated regulated by the nursing by the college of nurses, okay, um, or physicians, or whatever your title may be.
21:47
Shawna Leifso: But the trends and the evolution of everything, it's always it's always training, it's always changing and it's always staying on top of it.
21:54
Shawna Leifso: And you know, uh the word trends I I don't like as subtly you.
22:00
Shawna Leifso: We are very natural, we're very um not an over, overdone.
22:06
Shawna Leifso: We don't like to we have a certain style, let's just say.
22:09
Shawna Leifso: And I don't like to jump on every trend, every bandwagon that you see.
22:14
Shawna Leifso: I like to keep things um almost like stick to the basics.
22:18
Shawna Leifso: Um, let's not go crazy.
22:20
Shawna Leifso: I mean, yes, there's always gonna be trends and new things that that people like, but we're it's actually nice.
22:24
Shawna Leifso: We're actually in an era of people liking to keep a more natural look and whatnot.
22:30
Shawna Leifso: But the the trends and whatnot, yeah, we could jump on absolutely everything.
22:35
Shawna Leifso: I think the technology that comes out is advancing and new opportunities arise there, um, which is exciting.
22:43
Shawna Leifso: And it's always like, okay, but which technology do we jump on?
22:46
Shawna Leifso: Yeah, and how do you know what's right and what's wrong?
22:48
Shawna Leifso: And it again, it's yeah, customers.
22:51
Ian McLean: It never ends, and customers will always be reading and saying, Oh, what's the latest and why are you are you or not doing it?
22:57
Ian McLean: And you got to be the the expert that says here's why.
23:00
Ian McLean: Ready to explain yourself.
23:02
Ian McLean: Um, now the the the business has grown over the last five plus years.
23:06
Ian McLean: Um, maybe from both your perspectives is is what would be advice?
23:10
Ian McLean: I mean, if someone's watching this saying, hey, I'm I want to start my business, or I've just started a business, and they kind of say, Well, five years on, you've you've grown out of your work it out of your home, you've got your own, you're on your own um retail or space.
23:25
Ian McLean: Yeah, um, you're working together, you've grown the business, you've hired staff.
23:29
Ian McLean: I mean, those those are those are some of those are big steps that every business that's in startup to where you are.
23:35
Ian McLean: What would what would be the advice you'd give to an entrepreneur that was whether it's in this space or any any other, what would be some advice you'd give them?
23:44
Shawna Leifso: Oh, Greg, what do you think?
23:46
Shawna Leifso: Yeah.
23:47
Shawna Leifso: You live, you eat, you breathe, you sleep it.
23:50
Shawna Leifso: You're devoted.
23:51
Ian McLean: Like there's no substitute for that, is there?
23:54
Greg Quaile: No, there really isn't.
23:55
Greg Quaile: Find the person in your field that that's dominating and copy them.
23:59
Greg Quaile: Like not copy them, but learn from them.
24:01
Greg Quaile: Try to get as close to them as possible so you can learn from them.
24:04
Greg Quaile: Read a lot of books in your field, uh, understand every role in the business because you're gonna do it first before anybody else does it for you.
24:11
Greg Quaile: And uh and make sure that you just understand, like I've learned one major thing throughout uh business that I I just stick to it is that everything that good that happens for your business is because of you, and everything that bad that happens in your business is because of you.
24:26
Greg Quaile: And as long as you take ownership for everything, then then you have nobody to blame, and you uh you can usually push forward pretty well.
24:34
Ian McLean: Okay, we're kind of coming to the end of this portion of the of the of the podcast, but um what are the things that are upcoming, big goals or that most excite you about what's next in the coming year or two for SubtleU?
24:47
Ian McLean: Uh this is Greg's department.
24:50
Greg Quaile: Oh, this is okay.
24:50
Greg Quaile: Well, first of all, we are uh we're expecting our second right now.
24:55
Ian McLean: So we're actually round two.
24:58
Greg Quaile: Yeah, come March, we're uh we're expecting to hopefully give Sean a better Matt leave than the first one.
25:03
Greg Quaile: And but you know, some of my goals is for the business with Shauna is to you know look at new clinic opportunities in different cities.
25:12
Greg Quaile: Uh, I think we have an amazing uh story to share, and and we like I said, we come at the injecting business maybe a little bit differently than other clinics do.
25:22
Greg Quaile: We very much uh are a customer service business first and a results business on top of that.
25:31
Greg Quaile: But we we want to make sure that everybody that walks through the door gets treated extremely well.
25:37
Greg Quaile: And truly, if they were to ever think about another going to another clinic, which anybody has that opportunity to do, it'd be like, why?
25:46
Greg Quaile: You know, why would you do that?
25:47
Greg Quaile: And that's truly what I think about every single day is the client journey and how their experiences in our in our uh clinics, and I want to be able to bring that to new cities because I think you know, in the five years we've been able to accumulate over 770 five-star reviews.
26:01
Greg Quaile: So that's great.
26:02
Greg Quaile: People are really liking kind of like the secret sauce we're laying down, and I want to keep uh keep bringing that to new new places.
26:09
Ian McLean: All right.
26:09
Ian McLean: Now it's great to hear the the the story of your business and the and your personal story, but as much as anything, these the the I always ask the same set of questions because it's really as much about anything about leadership and how people kind of kind of perceive their own or uh you know their own journey and and the things that how they would uh how they articulate what their journey is to others.
26:36
Ian McLean: So when I ask these questions, it's the same set of questions.
26:39
Ian McLean: I think you both of you can answer.
26:41
Ian McLean: So um I'll let you go first.
26:43
Ian McLean: If uh if if you would be able to go back and tell your younger self something, what would it be?
26:49
Shawna Leifso: Nothing, because I wouldn't listen to it.
26:52
Greg Quaile: That's probably true.
26:53
Greg Quaile: I would say that if the path you're on is hard, you're on the right path.
27:00
Ian McLean: Who or what inspires you most?
27:04
Shawna Leifso: Ooh, who inspires me most?
27:07
Shawna Leifso: Do you want to know who I think about most?
27:09
Shawna Leifso: Is my team.
27:10
Shawna Leifso: The team of kick-ass women that we have, um, they all bring a different element, they all bring a different energy, they all bring a different light.
27:20
Shawna Leifso: Um, and truly they all inspire me to be a better version of myself for them, for the business, um, and for myself.
27:32
Greg Quaile: I don't think I've ever changed this answer.
27:33
Greg Quaile: It is always my dad.
27:35
Greg Quaile: He's uh a self-made farmer himself.
27:40
Greg Quaile: He started his own farm back uh as he was having kids and you know didn't uh didn't graduate grade nine and uh maybe one of the hardest working guys I know.
27:51
Greg Quaile: And I think being able to grow up around that has taught me a lot of the uh characteristics needed to kind of push through the hard moments in business because there's way more of them than good times usually, yeah, especially in the beginning.
28:04
Greg Quaile: And uh it's always nice to be able to give them a call, both my parents actually, and just let them know how uh I'm personally doing with the struggles and the good times because they've gone through them just as I have.
28:16
Ian McLean: Well that is a unique uh growing up um background because there is no substitute for hard work.
28:23
Ian McLean: The only thing is hard work is the only thing that ever gets it gets done, particularly on a farm.
28:28
Ian McLean: Especially dairy farming.
28:29
Ian McLean: Yeah, you gotta milk it.
28:30
Ian McLean: You gotta milk it.
28:31
Ian McLean: The cows want to be milked.
28:33
Ian McLean: And uh I yeah, absolutely.
28:35
Ian McLean: Um if you weren't in your current career, what would what do you think you'd be doing instead?
28:40
Ian McLean: Would you still be nursing or would you do something else?
28:42
Shawna Leifso: No, I would be a professional singer.
28:44
Shawna Leifso: This is true.
28:45
Shawna Leifso: I would love it.
28:47
Shawna Leifso: I would love it.
28:48
Shawna Leifso: I would that is something.
28:50
Shawna Leifso: I did say earlier that there's nothing else I would do in this world.
28:52
Shawna Leifso: No, I would be a singer.
28:53
Shawna Leifso: You know, I'd be up on stage.
28:55
Ian McLean: Let's phone do karaoke.
28:56
Ian McLean: I would I would like I don't have a good voice, but I would love to do that too.
29:01
Greg Quaile: We uh what would I do?
29:02
Greg Quaile: Honestly, I'm sure my answer would have changed before kids, but I'm I'm really happy being a dad at the moment and enjoying uh uh seeing our little one grow up.
29:15
Greg Quaile: It's a little boring in the first six months because it's not much going on, but ever since she started getting up, walking around, starting to talk with us, it's been uh it's been something new every day that I get to look forward to.
29:25
Ian McLean: So it's let me tell you, the 23-year-old and the 19-old year old version is wonderful, but I miss when they couldn't move and you could watch the Buffalo Bills with them sleeping, uh so uh enjoy every chunk of that along the way because it's uh it's a great journey.
29:44
Ian McLean: So we're doing our best.
29:45
Ian McLean: Okay, what are you reading a book, listening to a podcast?
29:48
Ian McLean: What what are you doing to kind of keep yourself kind of thinking about other things?
29:53
Shawna Leifso: All I all we usually do, I'll speak for myself, is listen to self development podcasts and audio books.
29:59
Shawna Leifso: Books and sometimes you gotta take a break from that and listen to some crime documentaries every once in a while.
30:07
Shawna Leifso: But what do you what do you listen?
30:10
Greg Quaile: I've been so much uh AI stuff about you know why just listening to the experts on where they see the industry going and how they see um it potentially taking over certain industries.
30:25
Greg Quaile: And I'm I'm super happy that we get to use this device today in today's way that we're using it, but it's it's evolving faster than we are at this point.
30:36
Greg Quaile: So I I'm I try not to be naive about where it's going because you're either gonna be caught on one side or the other, and I'd rather be caught on a side at least of where I have a little bit more control.
30:45
Ian McLean: I'm more like you, I geek out on on political podcasts so that I can uh because it gets too complicated when we do those things.
30:51
Ian McLean: Um, what's your favorite local business here in Waterdoo region?
30:55
Ian McLean: Where do you coffee shop, restaurant?
30:58
Shawna Leifso: We go out for dinners a decent amount.
31:00
Shawna Leifso: We enjoy a nice um sit-down meal.
31:05
Shawna Leifso: Um I would say, where do we go frequently?
31:10
Shawna Leifso: We got trio.
31:11
Shawna Leifso: That's nice.
31:12
Shawna Leifso: We like our trio, uh famosas.
31:16
Shawna Leifso: Nice.
31:17
Shawna Leifso: Um we eat a lot of sandwiches at quick sandwich.
31:21
Greg Quaile: I was gonna say, I'm gonna drop a quick plug for quick sandwich.
31:24
Greg Quaile: Uh it's it's right beside us.
31:27
Greg Quaile: And go to in six months.
31:30
Greg Quaile: I think I've eaten there five days a week, every day.
31:34
Greg Quaile: You gotta go.
31:34
Greg Quaile: Gotten to know the community quite well, and uh we're happy to be a part of it.
31:40
Ian McLean: All right.
31:40
Ian McLean: Um for for anyone listening or watching, what's the best way to connect with you and learn more about your work in SubtleU?
31:48
Greg Quaile: Yeah, you can find us uh online at subtleu.ca at Suttleu on Instagram, or we are located at 95 King Street South in uptown Waterloo.
31:59
Ian McLean: We've Oh it's a King Street Address or is it Willow Street?
32:02
Greg Quaile: King Street, yeah, we're on the King Street side.
32:04
Shawna Leifso: And but find us when you come in for your free consultation.
32:08
Shawna Leifso: Yeah.
32:08
Shawna Leifso: Let's go.
32:09
Shawna Leifso: Let's sit down.
32:10
Shawna Leifso: Let's see.
32:11
Ian McLean: I'm getting all before your very eyes, so I might need some of that too.
32:14
Greg Quaile: We well, you're invited in.
32:15
Greg Quaile: We want to give you the uh the tour if you're ever in town.
32:18
Greg Quaile: And uh like I said, it's been awesome to be a part of like the uptown uh business community.
32:23
Greg Quaile: I think there's a really great um future for the businesses around there.
32:29
Greg Quaile: They all work really hard.
32:30
Ian McLean: Well, going right from this meeting to meet with Jayz, who's the director, he's a great, great guy.
32:36
Ian McLean: And I I was on the BIA board when I was in the city council for seven years.
32:39
Ian McLean: Yeah, the BIA has been fantastic.
32:40
Ian McLean: It's a great uh that's where I grew up and uh as a kid, and uh and watching all the evolution and all the neat places like Sudley U in Uptown is amazing.
32:50
Ian McLean: Listen, thank you for spending so much time with us today.
32:54
Ian McLean: That's uh it's a very valuable commodity, and we appreciate uh the two of you making time out of your busy schedule to to share your story and and uh come on to the podcast.
33:02
Ian McLean: Appreciate it.
33:03
Greg Quaile: This is fun.
33:03
Greg Quaile: Thanks for inviting us.
33:04
Greg Quaile: We'd love to tell it.
33:08
Ian McLean: Thank you for joining us for another episode of Behind the Business, proudly presented by Gore Mutual, insurance that does good.
33:15
Ian McLean: New episodes drop every Thursday, so be sure to tune in next week.
33:19
Ian McLean: You can also visit greater kw chamber.com to catch up on past episodes.