Latest / The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson / How to Be A Boss Chick for Over 40 Years with Sandra James

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How to Be A Boss Chick for Over 40 Years with Sandra James · The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson

• 0:00
  Three, two, one, zero, ignition, lift off.
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  Ending small business failure.
• 0:11
  Welcome to the Small Biz Chat podcast with the number one small business expert, Melinda
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  Emerson.
• 0:18
  Melinda's goal is to end small business failure, and she'll give you the information
• 0:23
  you need to succeed and live the life you dream of.
• 0:26
  Now here's your host, the Small
• 0:27
  Biz Chat lady herself,
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  Melinda Emerson.
• 0:36
  Podcast?
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  Well, it's time.
• 0:38
  Every Wednesday, we offer listeners bite sized actionable tips to start and grow a successful
• 0:45
  small business.
• 0:45
  In just twenty minutes or so a week, you can get a ton of insight and resources to propel
• 0:51
  your business forward.
• 0:53
  Be sure to subscribe to the Small Business Chat podcast today.
• 0:58
  Now it's time for me to introduce my guest.
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  Her name is Sandra James, and I wanna bring her to the stage now.
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  Sandra, welcome to the Small Business Chat podcast.
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  She is a serial entrepreneur.
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  She's built several businesses from the ground up, and she currently serves as CEO of
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  privatized background screening group.
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  And she has decades of experience running multimillion dollar businesses.
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  She loves giving back to her community by serving on nonprofit boards and mentoring other
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  women.
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  She's a mother to grown men, and she is proud and happily married to her husband.
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  And she and her husband divide their time between Nevada, California, and Florida.
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  She's also the best selling author of Don't Tell Me I Can't, a book that she hopes inspires
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  others to pursue all of their dreams.
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  If you want more information, head over to privatizedbackgroundchecks.com.
• 1:53
  Again, that's privateeyesbackgroundchecks.com.
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  Sandra, welcome to the Small Fish Chat podcast.
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  Thank you, Melinda, for having me here today.
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  Oh my gosh.
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  I'm so excited to talk to you.
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  You know, you are you are, like, you know, someone that I hope to emulate someday.
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  You when you and I met, you told me that you had been a CEO for forty years.
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  And I was like, girl, let me please take my hat off to you because I wanna know I I wanna know
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  how you did it.
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  What you know, tell us a little bit about your background, and then tell me what do you think
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  what do you think has been the key to your success?
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  Well, you know, I I didn't plan.
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  I didn't like when I was a little girl, I didn't think, oh, I'm gonna be CEO.
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  I went through so many challenges and so many things.
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  And then, you know, I started in the information business working for someone else,
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  and I was doing sales.
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  And then they I was doing really well at sales, so I was bringing lots of business.
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  And the operations couldn't keep up with it.
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  So they said, we want you to do the operations too, but they wanted to cut my pay.
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  And so they wanted me to do two jobs for less.
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  And one of my clients said, Sandra, you should just start your own company.
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  And at the time, I was like, I have terrible credit, and I have no money.
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  How would I be able to do that?
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  And, eventually, one of the people that I worked for, he and his wife lent me $10,000,
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  and I started my first business.
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  And we agreed that if he was still competing with me at the end of a year, then, you know,
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  we if he wasn't competing with me at the end of a year, that he would be my partner because he
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  wasn't happy with the partnership he had, and so he didn't think he would stay in it.
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  But at the end of a year, he was still in it.
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  So I said, can I just buy you out?
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  And he said yes.
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  So he helped me with knowledge and, you know, he lent me another a few thousand dollars
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  throughout that first year.
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  And but I paid him back, and he made a profit on it at the end of the year.
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  So then I I just remained a % owner of my first business that I started in 1989.
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  So almost four decades, Melinda.
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  I'm not quite to four decades, but almost there.
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  And, you know, I built that business.
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  And I just remember when I first started at my first month, I needed to bill $10,000 a month.
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  That was my goal.
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  I had one employee.
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  I had rent to pay.
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  I had a one bedroom apartment and a car payment, and I thought I need to bill $10,000
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  so I can pay myself enough to pay my bills and pay my one employee.
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  Right?
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  And the first month, I built just over I built over $9,000.
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  And from then on, I cash flowed the business.
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  And, you know, it's that that $10,000 that someone lent me to get started really was, a
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  catalyst to my success.
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  Right?
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  So I learned how to grow organically and pay for things as I built my revenue.
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  So, you know, back then, I'd buy a new computer and then just get another one and get another
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  employee as I built the revenue.
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  Mhmm.
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  So how would you say your perspective on leadership has evolved over all you know, since
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  you first started back then to now.
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  Well, it has totally evolved.
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  Thank goodness for all the people around me that have tolerated me to go through this
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  experience because I grew up on a farm in Nebraska, and I learned, you know, I had to do
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  manual labor from the time I could walk.
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  Right?
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  My dad wanted all boys, and he got a bunch of girls.
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  So he needed help, and we had to do manual labor.
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  And I think that really set me up for success.
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  But what it did do is he was also hostile.
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  You know?
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  He was under a lot of pressure with nine kids, I guess, and stuff.
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  So, you know, it was, I think that I learned to do more with Spice than make it nice.
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  You know?
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  So I I had to change over the years because I had a revolving door when I first opened my
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  business.
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  For years, I would tell you, you know, I I learned how to do every piece of the business.
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  So I do sales during the day.
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  I do the work at night, and I was really demanding of the people that work for me.
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  And I still am today, but I overutilized my team.
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  So people worked a lot of overtime.
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  We and I was working a lot, so I expected everybody to wanna do that, and not everybody
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  wanted to.
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  And it took me a while to get that.
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  And so today, I have a team that's been with me for most of my team has been with me over a
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  decade.
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  And so, you know, I I underutilized my team more, but they have the capacity and the
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  knowledge and the expertise that if we that we can scale because they can do more.
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  We can do more with the same team.
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  So, you know, learning that was was a painful process to go through when I look back at it
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  because when I was younger, I thought, you know, I can do their job.
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  Now I tell them when I give a job away, I don't ever want it back.
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  I'm gonna keep it.
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  I want you to stay with me forever, and I want you to be the expert in that area.
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  So I guess it just took time to go from that mentality of what I learned growing up about,
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  you know, just working tons of hours and doing manual labor and it being hard to that you go
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  further with a team.
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  You can go you can go alone or you can go further with the team.
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  When you have a team behind you that is willing and knowledgeable and they get the skills that
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  they need, it makes your life really much easier as a CEO.
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  And then you can do the part that you're good at.
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  Did you feel like you were challenged as a woman leader in your business?
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  And and, you know, how did you overcome that?
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  Absolutely.
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  I mean, there's been so many things where, you know, when I look back at at some of the things
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  that have happened with customers and, you know, things that people would say to my staff.
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  And when there again, when I was younger, I was like, you know, they're they're not gonna come
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  to our office.
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  Don't worry about it.
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  They were rude.
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  They did this.
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  Today, I tell my team, if somebody's rude, they need to go work with someone else.
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  We only wanna work with nice people that are gonna appreciate the value of the quality that
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  we give to them.
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  And so it has not been easy as a woman.
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  I never really looked at it like that was the problem, though.
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  I didn't really look at it like it's because I'm a woman that I'm not winning this RFP or
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  that I'm not, I don't you know, I didn't even know that there was something called, Webank
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  through certified Webank is Women Business Enterprise National Council, which certifies
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  women owned businesses across The United States.
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  There's over 20,000 women that are certified through that.
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  And what that organization does is it helps make connections for women to work with other
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  women business owners and to work with Fortune 500 companies.
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  And so but I didn't get certified until 02/2002.
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  I've been self employed since 1989.
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  So for all those years, I didn't know that there was you know, I didn't I didn't think
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  that I started when I was so young that I didn't think it was about whether I was a woman
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  or not.
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  But, you know, when I look back now, I can see, oh, that's not normal that that should have
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  happened.
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  Right?
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  Sure.
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  The
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  way that someone handled an opportunity that we won and then didn't give it to us and said,
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  well, you know, our other vendor is having us drive their Ferraris or do this or do that.
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  You know?
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  And it was a long time ago that those conversations came up, but at the time, I
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  didn't know that that wasn't okay.
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  Right?
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  Right.
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  So now you started your business really young.
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  I did too.
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  I was 26 when I started my first business, and I didn't have my son until I was 33.
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  So, I know that you have two children as well.
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  They are all grown up now.
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  But but how did you handle, you know, running your business and and becoming a mom and, you
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  know, kinda managing all of that?
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  Well, I I'm with you, Melinda.
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  I didn't know we had that in common too, and I didn't have my kids until, you know, my late
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  thirties.
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  And so, you know, so there's there's so many good things about waiting to have them is that
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  I was really well established, and, you know, it's harder.
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  You know?
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  I remember calling one of my sisters when I had my second.
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  I was like, oh my gosh.
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  What have I done?
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  I was scared.
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  She goes and she came to help me.
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  She was like, any of it can take care of two kids.
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  And then she came to help me for weekends.
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  She goes, well, maybe not in your forties.
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  Maybe in the twenties because her kids were grown already.
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  She goes, maybe not in the forties.
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  I said, see.
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  Exactly.
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  So, you know, I remember, you know, I laughed.
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  I used to say to people, you know, I brought them into this world, and I waved goodbye
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  because mom's going to work.
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  Because for their life, you know, before the pandemic, I went to work in my office.
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  So I went to work.
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  So I waved goodbye to my kids.
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  And a lot of times, I went to work before they got up because my office is open from 5AM to
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  5PM.
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  So I would go to work a lot of times when before they got up and, you know, I they grew
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  up with a a mom that was working.
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  And I think that as I think it's now they can they're starting to view things differently
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  because they're on their own.
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  They're in their twenties, mid twenties now, and, you know, they're paying their bills and
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  stuff.
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  I think that they have a new perspective.
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  And so but I I it it it was a challenge.
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  You know?
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  It's a challenge as you know to try to be as a mother, you wanna be there and you want to be
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  the best mom.
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  But if you're gonna grow a business, you really have to sacrifice because there was a lot of
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  times where I would have to choose.
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  I chose to go fly across country, to be at an event, to meet prospective clients, or to close
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  a deal, and I would miss a birthday, or I would miss an event at school.
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  Sure.
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  You know?
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  So it it's a challenge to try to to do it.
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  What I think is interesting today is post pandemic.
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  For women, there's men that are working remote as well, but it seems like there's still more
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  women that are working remote.
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  Now they're trying to raise their kids and have a full time job.
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  And I think that that's really challenging for today for both the employee's perspective and
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  for the employee's perspective.
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  I I think it is hard.
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  I I I definitely think it's hard.
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  And and I'm a I'm a new empty nester, but I can remember when my son was small, like, what
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  you're talking about.
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  One of the things that I used to do with him is make him rank things for me.
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  So I'll be like, okay, Jojo.
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  Is this an a?
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  If it was an a event, it was a mommy gotta be there.
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  Right?
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  Right.
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  If it was a b event, mommy would try to be there.
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  If it was a c event, get out of my face with a c event.
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  Like, come on.
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  Right?
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  And so And so, literally, that was the system that he and I used.
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  And if I knew I had to miss something important, I made sure that my village was
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  there, and he didn't even feel me not being there.
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  Right.
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  You know?
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  And I also used to do really amazing things for birthdays.
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  Like, I was, like, the birthday monster.
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  Right?
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  So I would always I mean, like, I would surprise him the day of his birthday.
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  Oh, we're going on the dizzy cruise today.
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  And he'd be like, nuh-uh.
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  Nuh-uh.
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  And he'd get to the airport, and his two best friends and their moms were sitting there at
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  the gate.
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  And he was like, oh my god.
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  We're really you know what I mean?
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  So I used to try to do almost like these these publisher clearing house kind of things because
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  I worked a lot.
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  I traveled a lot.
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  I had to take care of us.
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  You know?
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  But I also tried to be like, when I did something fabulous, it was pretty fabulous.
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  Exactly.
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  Yes.
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  So so that was always my my secret weapon to to get over that constant mom guilt that kinda
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  always seems to creep up.
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  Right.
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  Now tell me about navigating navigating, you know, the downturn in 08/2009, navigating, you
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  know, the pandemic.
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  You've been in business a long time, so you've been through the fire, the wind, and the rain,
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  I would believe.
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  So tell me about how you manage different, you know, downturn situations.
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  Well, 02/2008, I don't really like to talk about because I had a large client that
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  transitioned out right before the financial crisis hit.
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  So now I say sometimes things get worse before they get better.
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  Right?
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  And so at that time, I didn't realize that.
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  And so it did get worse, and I just went through, you know, a hostile divorce.
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  And so, you know, the divorce I mean, they're my kid's dad was involved.
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  And when we divorced, I moved around the corner.
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  So that was good because we did agree about the kids.
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  If I was traveling, he would have them.
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  And if he couldn't have them, then my backup my person would take care of them if I wasn't
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  there.
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  But most of the time, they were with their dad or myself and and but regardless, for 02/2008,
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  I thought I was gonna go bankrupt.
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  My volume went from here to here, and it happened like that.
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  And I thought that I was gonna replace this large client with a new one, and I had a couple
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  opportunities that they told me that I that one of them, I was a finalist in an RFP.
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  One of them had chosen me already, chosen private eyes.
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  And so but then the financial crisis happened, and the one that had chosen us said, we're
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  selling off this division, so we're not gonna go forward with this.
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  And then the other one, they the person that that was taking me there from this other large
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  corporation, you know, she had a personal change, and so they decided not to go forward
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  with this too.
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  So Wow.
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  Then I was like, am I gonna go bankrupt?
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  And I remember calling my friend, and she said, don't be a loser and give up like everybody
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  else.
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  Keep going.
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  And then she goes, but here's my bankruptcy attorney's number.
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  So I go
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  By the way yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
• 15:16
  Yeah.
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  He goes, you know, where are you gonna live?
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  He said, do you have enough money for a for a month to move?
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  Because where are you gonna live with your kids?
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  And because I had SBA loan attached to my house.
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  So I was like, well, that's not gonna happen.
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  So I cried, and then I went back to work.
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  And, you know, then I started we started doing a new marketing campaign, I remember, at the
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  time.
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  And, you know, I had no idea if it was gonna work, but I I started having sales calls every
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  day from six in the morning till, like, six at night.
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  And I just do one presentation after another all day, and so we grew a % from 2,009 to
• 15:50
  February '10.
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  And then I started paying off all my debt, and then, you know, everything just got better from
• 15:55
  there.
• 15:56
  You know?
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  We just kept growing.
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  And so, you know, the company now private I'm you know, the other thing is I had a red logo
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  at that time, and we were bleeding.
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  And they changed it to green, and we've been profitable ever since.
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  So, you know, I don't know if there's any harm in that, but I do like green.
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  Green is such a great color.
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  Well, you know, I think 08/2009 really, really was one of those separate the wheat wheat from
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  the chaff kind of situation.
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  There were a lot of us that almost lost everything in 08/2009.
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  And I too was going through a bad a bad marriage that ended up in in divorce shortly
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  thereafter the exact same time.
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  So I we are kindred spirits in a whole lot of ways.
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  So, now now just to wrap this up, though, I I wanna understand how mentorship really impacted
• 16:45
  your business and how you've been able to grow yourself as well as your business.
• 16:49
  Yeah.
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  So I mentioned WeBank earlier, and that's one of the boards that I've participated on for I
• 16:55
  was on the national board, and I'm on a regional board.
• 16:57
  But, WebBank offers educational courses for women owned businesses and for you to meet with
• 17:04
  corporations, but you learn so much.
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  And so I did a program called Tuck through Dartmouth College, in 2012, and I just was
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  paying off all my debt.
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  And the professor was like, girls, if you're smart enough to make it, you're smart enough to
• 17:17
  invest it.
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  She said take it out of the business.
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  It does not it doesn't deplete your value of your business.
• 17:24
  You'll be able to track the money was there.
• 17:26
  So if you decide to fill, you'll still be able to show the profitability.
• 17:30
  But take the money out.
• 17:31
  Reinvest in what you need to, but take the rest out and invest in the market or real estate or
• 17:36
  other things.
• 17:36
  And so you have or buy another business so you have another stream of revenue.
• 17:40
  And I really listened to that, took that to heart, and that changed my life.
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  That course through WebBank that one of my clients sponsored me to do in 2012 changed my
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  life because in the last decade, I did exactly that.
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  And, you know, the real estate that we've we've acquired has, you know, grown two or 300%.
• 17:58
  And so, you know, it we I've made a lot of investments.
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  And at the same time, I've kept privatized profitable and debt free.
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  Well, that's yet another thing we have in common.
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  I did the tech program as well.
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  You do.
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  That's so great.
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  I did it as well.
• 18:15
  And then and then Vistage too is another organization that I'm involved in, and that
• 18:19
  that has helped me.
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  It's a group of CEOs, that meet monthly, and we help each support each other with our goals and
• 18:27
  any issues that come up.
• 18:29
  Because what I've learned over the years is that every and and through WebBank, I have so
• 18:33
  many women CEO friends that I've acquired over the years.
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  And some of them have large org enterprise organizations, and some of them have small
• 18:41
  businesses, but we all have the same issues.
• 18:44
  We have payroll.
• 18:45
  We have rent.
• 18:45
  We have employees.
• 18:47
  We have, you know, we have some some
• 18:49
  marketing access to capital.
• 18:51
  Right.
• 18:51
  And they it's a very consistent Yeah.
• 18:53
  Bit of issue.
• 18:54
  Sure.
• 18:56
  One of the things I wanted to ask you about is how have you continued to stay relevant?
• 19:01
  You know?
• 19:01
  Because so much has changed.
• 19:03
  Like, I can remember, you know, when we got Wi Fi in everybody's house.
• 19:09
  I can remember when social media was just come becoming a thing, right, like in o seven.
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  And and now we've got AI.
• 19:19
  Right?
• 19:19
  So now we're on the tipping point of another major revolution in business practice.
• 19:25
  And, I'm just wondering how you've managed to, like, you know, roll with all this stuff?
• 19:32
  Like like, is it does it make you have a headache, or are you just like, let's go.
• 19:36
  Let's learn some new stuff.
• 19:38
  Like like, how do you manage all the all the change?
• 19:41
  I think that we do have to keep learning and growing, and I've and that's how I've been able
• 19:45
  to adapt.
• 19:46
  So, for example, when I started Private Eyes twenty five years ago, they fact our clients
• 19:52
  faxed us the applications.
• 19:53
  Right?
• 19:54
  And I'd run out of paper.
• 19:55
  I'd have to run the cost, come get more paper, you know, all the time.
• 19:58
  And so today, we don't use any paper in our office, and we wrote our own technology.
• 20:03
  So we we're a technology company that provides the service of background screening and drug
• 20:08
  screening to our customers across the nation.
• 20:10
  So we have our own software so we can integrate with various HR systems or ATS systems,
• 20:16
  applicant tracking systems.
• 20:18
  And so having our own software allows us to be able to continue to innovate and enhance the
• 20:23
  software internally for our team so we can make their jobs easier and more efficient and better
• 20:29
  quality, but also externally for our clients and our vendors.
• 20:33
  And so, you know, we did that in the pen at the beginning of the pandemic.
• 20:38
  You know, things stopped for a minute.
• 20:40
  Right?
• 20:40
  So what I told my team is we're gonna do two things.
• 20:42
  We're gonna put all of our resources on developing this software and getting it done,
• 20:46
  and then we're gonna also turn into a marketing company and keep getting new clients even
• 20:51
  though we have the challenge of the pandemic.
• 20:53
  And, and we did that.
• 20:55
  And so we've been able to be sustainable and stay relevant because now we have the
• 21:00
  technology to back up our service.
• 21:03
  Wow.
• 21:03
  And how long did it take you to develop your own software?
• 21:06
  Well, it didn't take very long, so I'm so I'm so surprised I didn't do it sooner because I I
• 21:12
  have another service that we provide, which is getting, banks and mortgage lenders the forty
• 21:18
  five zero six c, which is your IRS tax transcript to verify the income you have for a
• 21:23
  mortgage loan or an SBA loan.
• 21:25
  And I started that this that division in, '19 or 02/2010.
• 21:31
  After the financial crisis, they decided it would be a good idea if they get the IRS tax
• 21:35
  transcripts before they give out these loans.
• 21:39
  Right?
• 21:39
  And so well, so we started offering this service, and now we're integrated with the IRS.
• 21:45
  So for consumer, if we're if we're doing a consumer's an individual's tax transcript,
• 21:51
  they'll get a link from the IRS for multifactor authentication, and then instantly will come
• 21:55
  into our system so our clients can get those results back instantly on consumers.
• 22:00
  And so, you know, I already had developed that software for that in 2010.
• 22:05
  And then I built onto it.
• 22:06
  We were able to finish it during the pandemic.
• 22:09
  And, you know, another thing I wanna mention about the pandemic is my director of operations
• 22:13
  in 2019 in December.
• 22:15
  He said, Sandra, we gotta upgrade our phone systems.
• 22:18
  And I was like, how's that gonna impact our bottom line?
• 22:20
  Why would we do that?
• 22:21
  And I fought him on it, but he talked me into it.
• 22:23
  We did it.
• 22:24
  But if we wouldn't have done it, we wouldn't have been able to when we had to shelter
• 22:28
  everybody work remote.
• 22:29
  You wouldn't have been they had the facility
• 22:31
  wouldn't have worked, and it would have been a disaster.
• 22:33
  But because he made us he suggested that we do that and we did it, then when when we had
• 22:38
  shelter in place, everyone picked up their computer and their phone and went home, plugged
• 22:41
  it into the Internet, and our clients didn't even know that we were sheltered in place.
• 22:46
  Wow.
• 22:46
  Wow.
• 22:47
  So I'm so glad I asked you that question because that was, like, such a brilliant
• 22:51
  answer.
• 22:52
  Now tell me one last thing.
• 22:54
  What is the best business advice anyone has ever given you?
• 22:58
  I think that, revenue is vanity.
• 23:00
  Profit is sanity.
• 23:03
  That's really the best thing somebody said to me.
• 23:05
  I cannot remember where I got it, but that's the thing I live by now.
• 23:10
  That's my mantra.
• 23:11
  Is revenue is vanity, profit is sanity?
• 23:13
  I have never heard that one, but I I'm gonna give you credit the first time I use it, and
• 23:19
  then I might just steal that one.
• 23:21
  Thank you so much, Sandra, for being here with me.
• 23:26
  Are you ready to turn your dreams of entrepreneurship into a reality?
• 23:30
  Hi.
• 23:30
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• 24:23
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  more fantastic information and interviews.
• 24:31
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• 24:36
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• 24:39
  Thanks again for listening, and we'll see you next week.