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The Real Work Behind Franchise Freedom with Kim Brown · Epic Entrepreneurs

• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: All right, everyone.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to this week's episode of Epic Entrepreneurs.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: I am Cliff McRae with Action Coach Business Growth Partners, where we work with local business owners to turn big ideas into real scalable growth.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_02: Today I'm excited to be joined by Kim Brown with the Mary Maids of Augusta.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_02: Kim, how are you doing today?
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: I am doing very well.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you very much for asking.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, and we're excited to have you here.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_02: So let's go ahead and jump right into things.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_02: So, for those of you who may not know it yet, you know, who are you?
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_02: Who is Kim Brown and what is Mary Maids of Augusta?
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Kim Brown is a lifelong Augusta resident.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: I now live in Aplin, Georgia, since I was married 37 years ago.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Husband and have two daughters.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: We have five granddaughters.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: And for the longest time, I was a stay-at-home mom and then a business owner with Mary Maids for the last 11 years.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: And Mary Maids is a residential and small business cleaning service here in the Augusta area.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_02: Nice, nice, nice.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_02: And you got a nice size team as well.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: I do.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: We have about 22 ladies that go out and clean every day.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: I have three support staff here in the office plus myself.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: So we we have a little tight ship operation going on here.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, nice, nice.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_02: Now, and we're gonna go ahead and get right into things, you know, what people really want to hear.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_02: So, Kim, real talk.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_02: What's something about running a business that you would say people would think is amazing, but it's actually complete BS when you hear it?
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: Well, um, one of the things that I always get is owning your own business must be really nice, that you get to set your own schedule and you get to work the hours that you want to work.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm thinking, no, it's a lot more than that.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: They don't see the late hours, the after hours things that go on, taking calls, checking emails.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: They don't see the stressing out over payroll, they don't see stressing out over your schedule when you have team members call in and you're overbooked for the day and you think, how are we going to get it done?
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: Client and employee issues that we have to deal with.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: But on any given day, it's still a great business, and I love being a business owner because it also does give me freedom, especially being a grandma.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: If I need to take an afternoon off and go keep grandbabies, I can do that because I have a wonderful staff in my office here that still is great support and take care of things while I'm out.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_02: Nice, nice.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_02: That's awesome.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_02: So, what would you say was the exact moment where you realized, you know, this this you know, getting this franchise could either really work or it could completely blow up in my face and I lose everything?
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: That would be about year three.
• 3:37
  unknown: Yeah.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: We when we bought Marymaids, I worked in it part-time.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: I was still actually working a little bit of part-time in my husband's office, and he's the CPA, which is how we actually wound up with Marymaids.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: He had a client that started this franchise back in 1992, and when Bob decided to sell, he offered it to us.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: And initially, I told my husband he was crazy that I did not know anything about running a franchise business, much less running my own business.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: But we decided to give it a try, and we kind of jumped in headfirst, not really having any major regrets at any time.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: But it took me about a year and a half to two years in when I thought I really need to be in it full-time.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so once I got into it full time, really instead of working necessarily on my business, but actually working in the business, I began to settle into a really good rhythm, not only with our team members, but with our clientele.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I gained confidence in what I was doing as an owner and the direction that we were going.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so I felt really good about that.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: I thought, no, this can really work.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, I love that answer.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_02: That's awesome.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_02: So, what would you say was your most stressful moment you've had so far as a business owner?
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_02: Like a how am I going to get through this type of moment?
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: There's a couple of things.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: One, COVID was a big one.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: COVID was definitely a moment.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I and but I feel like I really looked at COVID as an opportunity to make a difference.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: We were a cleaning company, and so that's what I really leaned into was we can take care of people and do it safely.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: And we can do it safely with our clients as well as our team members because we had all the proper equipment.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: We had all the proper disinfectants.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: I had done some research and I had a great disinfectant that was put out by 3M that had a short dwell time but took care of COVID and any kind of other coronavirus issues.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: So we really leaned into that and I only had a few team members that kind of were scared enough that they kind of backed out and took some unemployment for that time period until we truly figured things out with COVID.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: But I had a great team that really leaned into that with me, and we stayed safe and we took care of our clients as well.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: The other second stressful thing that I really had was when we bought our second location about an hour and a half up the road, and I thought, what am I doing?
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: I thought I finally got the first one under control and I'm in the second one.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, no, that's awesome.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_02: That's uh as you say it's it's an hour and a half away from you?
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: It is.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's about an hour and a half up the road in Conyers, Georgia.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: But I have a great manager up there, it's a much smaller office.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: I try to go up there about once every month or so to check in with them, but we're in contact with them every day.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: So they're doing a great job up there.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_02: Awesome, awesome.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_02: Now, have you ever thought about quitting your franchise?
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh well, not really.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: That even in the midst of really hard times, about a year after we bought our second location, that location was struggling so bad.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: We and then the economy kind of fell out about two years ago, and and we really dropped in revenue here, and I was really frustrated with some things.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, I knew we had a really strong base, and I knew that we had a really strong foundation in which to stand on.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so we just kind of worked our way out of it over the last year of getting back to a positive growth period.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: But I've never really wanted to quit.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: I've never really wanted to quit.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_02: No, never really.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, okay.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: And we have we also, I'm sorry, we also have we also have a really strong franchise system.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: We have a strong system of other franchise owners that we lean into and also with our franchise support system with our home office is a really great support system.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: So it it's it all kind of gels together for us.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_02: Nice, nice.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_02: Now, what would you say is a mistake you made early on that cost you either serious money, time, or reputation, would you say?
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: I I would say not having or hiring the right team members.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: When you when you have team members that they might be great cleaners, but yet they call out a lot, or maybe they're a little trauma-filled.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: I we went through a time period where I kept a few team members way too long because they were good cleaners.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I kind of felt for their situation personally, which but it doesn't work in my favor when I'm removing a lot of revenue because they're constantly calling out.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: So just making sure that we're overstaffed, we try to stay overstaffed and we try to hire that right team member that has that service-minded attitude, that has that attitude of, I need to be at work.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: I don't need to let small things stop me from showing up every day.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_02: Now I hear I hear that a lot too from you know the entrepreneurs that I talk to is that hiring is such a difficult thing because you know, all you're you're hiring somebody based off of words on a paper, right?
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_02: The resume.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_02: So you don't know anybody's, you don't you don't know their integrity, you don't know their honesty, you don't know what kind of work ethic they have.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, all that sounds great.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_02: They've been in somewhere for five years, but if they called out every every you know, every week for those five years, you know, and they and those people kept them on, that's still not a great thing, but you won't know that based off of a piece of paper.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's exactly right.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: And it and it takes some time.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: Usually people will reveal themselves to you pretty quickly.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: And and in my opinion, you're only good as the legs we stand on, and the legs that we stand on are our team members, our day-to-day frontline team members.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the strength of our foundation of how we succeed in business.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, I agree.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_02: I agree with that.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_02: Now, what would you say is something about you personally that had to change, like something in your personal life or something about your personality that had to change in order for your business to start to grow or scale?
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the biggest thing for me is I take things personally.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: I feel I feel like my company is my baby, it's my reputation.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: I grew up in this area.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like I'm the face of this business.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so when we do not perform at a five-star level for any reason, I take that personal because we should be performing at that.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: And and when we have service failures, we I've learned to not take those things personal but use them as retraining opportunities, as opportunities for growth in that team member and even in myself.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: And then I love the interactions with the clients in order for them to see, you know, we really do care about how we treated their home.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: And if we didn't treat it well, then we need to do better.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: Thankfully, we don't have a lot of service failures right now.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: We've got a super great team in place, but that was one of the things that I had to really learn and lean into is it was gonna happen.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: Things we're not we're not perfect.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: My team members are not perfect, and then the other things that I had to be willing to do is to lean into some hard things and coaching my team members, instead of really trying to boss them where I wanted them to go, I needed to coach and lead them where I wanted to go so that we were all headed in the right direction and to not be afraid to terminate when necessary.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: If if I felt like an employee just could not get to where we needed them to be, to be that team player, to be to have that service-minded attitude, to be trainable, to be, to receive constructive criticism without attitude, then they were not the right fit for our office and our culture.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I agree, I agree.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_02: Now, you know, and this next question is hypothetical.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe it's not, maybe you've already done this and you could talk about a personal experience.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_02: But it let's say if someone shadowed you for a full day or let's say even a full week, what would surprise them the most about how you operate your franchise, would you say?
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: I think what would surprise them is that the culture in our office, we truly try to operate like family.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: Genuinely care about my team.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: I care about their day, I care about what's going on in their personal lives.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: We they might be surprised that I am not above changing my clothes and going out and cleaning with the team.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not above getting in a house if they find themselves over their heads and they need some help to go help them.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: That I'm not above that.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: They will see if I I have an attitude of if I'm not willing to clean it myself, then I'm not gonna ask you to clean it.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so my team trusts me.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: They they trust our judgment and we really do try to see things from their perspective.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: And it's while we are a profit business, I don't ever want to put profit over the well-being of my team members.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_02: I love that answer.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_02: So let's talk numbers without getting too specific, you know, since you've been in business for you said 11 years.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_02: What would you say, you know?
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_02: I guess maybe this you could be in months or it could be in years, but what year or month was it where you saw a turning point and things started to scale and you started to grow at a rapid rate, would you say?
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: Again, it was that third year in when I came into it full time.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: We were gaining some traction with some changes that I had made within our team and the way that we schedule.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: Always wanted to be, number one, we always wanted to be overstaffed, and then we always wanted to be overscheduled to account for any skips that happened in our schedule because people organically come off our schedule just about every day, either due to illness, a child being ill, maybe they've had a family emergency.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: Same with team members.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: Things come up, children get sick, they get sick, they have car issues.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: So being overstaffed to where we can kind of spread some work around if we have a team member call out, or being overscheduled, that if we organically have our client come off, it kind of eases up that day.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: We might still have to change the schedule around a little bit.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: Coming out of COVID, we really grew exponentially the year before COVID.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: Then coming into COVID, we had a little bit of a down year, but then coming out of COVID for the next two years, we grew way beyond my expectations to the point that we were awarded what's called the Dallin Peterson Award, which means that we were we received the highest award that a franchisee can receive from Mary Maids out of all the franchise locations in the United States.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so we were very proud of that award.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: That took a I really pushed my staff hard that couple of years before that out coming out of COVID.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: But just getting everybody on the same page, having my staff on the same page, because sometimes we look at the schedule and we think, how in the world is this gonna work today?
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: And we always think it'll get done in every time it gets done.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm pro I'm proud of them.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, okay.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_02: Now, what would you say actually moves the needle most in your business right now?
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_02: Would it, you know, be leads, uh, conversions, pricing, or your team performance, or or is it something else entirely?
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's actually all it's actually all of what you mentioned.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: Good leads lead to good conversions because we have great pricing.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: And then our team continues to sell our service with each and every five-star experience that they deliver.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so I always tell our team members, their their salesmen was their salespeople within the home because every time they deliver a five-star experience, they sell our service.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: And what that does is that gets them, their our clients talking to their neighbors and their friends and their family.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: When people are looking for a cleaning service, hopefully we come first to mind with those people.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: And then but it's it's really it starts with good leads and then good team members keeping the customers that we have and then adding to that.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I love that.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_02: Love that.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_02: Now, what would you say is one thing you are doing today or your cut your franchise is doing today that's giving you kind of an unfair advantage over your competitors?
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_02: Sound like you got a great team and and everything like that, but what would you say is giving you an unfair advantage over your competitors, your direct competitors?
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: I think our dependability, the fact that we can service and I I fight, I don't fight, but we have a lot of independence in our area.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: And they can only handle so much.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: We can handle a larger volume, and if a client changes their day, 99% of the time we can accommodate them on a different day or a different time.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like our corporate marketing opportunities that we have our brand name recognition, our website.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: We just had a new website refreshed this year.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: I think the things that we're doing with YouTube streaming and then on Facebook with being able to market there through the Facebook Marketplace.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I do a lot of grassroots as well, out in the community, doing just a couple of trade shows a year, try to.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: At least I do one for sure a year, and then I do some truck or treat events, just trying to keep our name out there.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: Because I really feel like people want to put a face.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: They they think Marymaids, sometimes they don't realize Marymaids is a franchise, but then if they know it's a franchise, they think, oh, you're locally owned and operated.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: I am small business in this area.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm in the office just most every day, and I'm here.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: So we would love the opportunity to earn your business.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, I love that.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_02: Now, you know, and what would you say is the fastest way?
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_02: So, well, you've kind of talked about this already, but I guess the fastest way somebody could lose their job working for you would be to be dishonest, right?
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: Dishonesty, drugs, theft, stirring up drama.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: We kind of had an incident last summer where I had a few team members that were just wanting to stir up drama, and I finally let all three of them go.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: And it just things kind of leveled out and calmed down, and everybody else was so happy with that.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, not really having a great attitude about things, not being willing to learn, always thinking that their way is the right way instead of receiving instruction well.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, yeah.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_02: Now, have you ever had to, I mean, you kind of talked about this a little bit, but have you ever had to like, you know, deny a job or or or cut something off or or you know, maybe stop a job maybe halfway through and ended up being the right move long term?
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: You mean in regards to a team member or the client itself?
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_02: The client itself, like cleaning somebody.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because if we run into a situation, we we we used to do all in-home estimates before COVID.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: And then when COVID happened, we start we kind of minimized our footprint in the home.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: With and so we stopped in-home estimates.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: We started doing everything by phone and email.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: So we don't always see a job ahead of time.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: And we've run into some situations where we get into some really bad situations as far as homes that I think in no, we cannot leave the team in there.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: Either either if there's a bug situation, maybe it's to the point where they're about to get evicted because of the su the condition of the home.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: There's just certain things that because of OSHA standards, I cannot leave my team in the house for their safety.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_02: Mm-hmm.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, definitely.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: So we have had to we have had to pull some of that.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: And usually most people are understanding.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: They they understand because they know the condition of their home.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_02: So all right, all right.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I appreciate that.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_02: So we're gonna head into what's called the quick fire round.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_02: So how this works is I'm gonna give you one word, and then I just want you to tell me the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear that word in regards to running your business.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, and then kind of expand upon why you chose that in a couple of sentences after that.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_02: Does that make sense?
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: That does.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_02: All right, perfect.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_02: First word is success.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: Leading.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: Leading in a way that others want to follow.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: And as I said earlier, I had to learn not to boss people, I had to learn how to coach them and lead them where I wanted them to go if we wanted to succeed.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_02: Failure.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_02: Burnout.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: Too much at one time.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so for burnout, we try to mitigate too much at one time or over a short period.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes we enjoy those light days because sometimes we have really hard days, especially around Master's Week, where we work about 80 hours for the week, but then we try to have a light week afterwards so that the ladies kind of get some rest as far as burnout goes.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_02: Scaling.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: Scaling is growing at a sustainable rate for me.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: It is growing at a level that does not lead to our burnout or failure for sustainable growth.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: So we always want to be overstaffed, we always want to be growing, and we never turn down business.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_02: Hiring.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: Ooh, that unicorn.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: We're always looking for that unicorn team member, somebody who's service-minded, dependable, trainable, happy attitude, someone who is always willing to go above and beyond.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_02: Competition.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: That's our we have lots of it.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: So how do we stay set apart from our competition?
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: How do we continue to be better than the competition?
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: How do we continue to be more dependable than the competition?
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: And how do we deliver better service than the competition?
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_02: And the last word is freedom.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: Freedom is uh to me, freedom is adjustments.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's we make adjustments as needed in order to deliver great consistent service.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: And my staff knows that they have that freedom.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: I always tell my staff members and my team members in the houses, you are free to make a judgment call if you feel like you need to run that by one of us.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: Feel free.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: But I hope that I've enabled them to make good decisions in homes with clients because we always want to say yes.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so they have that freedom to do so so that we can continue to not only build loyal or satisfied customers, but loyal customers.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_02: Love that.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_02: Love that.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, appreciate you getting through that quickfire round now.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, where do you think your industry is going, you know, with all this talk of AI and automation and robots and things of that nature?
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_02: Where do you see your industry going within the next 10 years?
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the great thing is AI cannot physically clean the houses.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: But what I do think AI is definitely changing how we do marketing and how we sell.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: But thankfully, it cannot do the cleaning.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: There's still a lot of moving parts with that.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't want to get too tech forward that we lose sight of the people part of it.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that that's why I love the grassroots part is I love marketing to people through grassroots for them to actually put a face to our company name.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: But I do think that AI is making some great changes, and MaryMates is really going along with those great changes through our corporate marketing strategies and and how we're doing that.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: But thankfully it cannot clean.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_02: Now, what do you think your your particular business you know franchise will be five years from now?
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_02: Where do you see it?
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I I really hope that we I just opened a secondary office in Aiken because I I have a lot three counties in South Carolina as well that we serve aside of the Augusta office.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm really hoping to triple my customer base on the South Carolina side.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I I have a revenue goal that I would like to one get back to where we were three years ago, but then even surpass that is what I would like to do.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like we're the number one in the area and I'd like to stay number one.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: I think there's enough love to spread around for cleaning, but I feel like Merrimaids here, we're gonna we're gonna still be moving strong here five years from now.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_02: Awesome, awesome.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_02: All right, so I want you to be as candid and as honest as you can with the the answer to this next question.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_02: But let's say if uh a small business owner, a small franchise owner is, you know, listening to the podcast episode with you today, Kim, and let's say they're feeling stuck or overwhelmed, you know, they're just not having a great go at 2026, they're not profitable, they're thinking about just giving everything up and going back to a nine to five.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_02: What's a piece of advice you'd want them to hear from you today?
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a couple of things because I was in that position a couple of years ago.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: When we came out of winning our award, we just uh the economy just kind of took a bite out of us.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I was really frustrated because I felt like we were still doing all of the right things that I knew to do that got us to that growth period, but I felt like for every step that I took forward, I was taking two steps back.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I was very frustrated.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: I leaned more into my grassroots, which helped a lot.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: But last year, and I would say take a small bite, look at the overall problem, but take a small bite at a time.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: Try not to eat the whole elephant at one time.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: But one thing in particular for last year is I joined a local BI group, which is a business network international group, and I I would encourage other business owners to find another business network group to get into that will support you.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: And that was the I resisted joining a I was a part of another business referral group before that really was just a colossal waste of my time.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so I was really hesitant about joining B I, but it was the best decision I ever made.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: I felt like I had 50 plus cheerleaders in my corner.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: I have a genuine network of people who want to see me grow, and I want to see them grow as well.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so we're always looking for ways to support each other with referrals, with business growth.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I would just encourage anybody to find that network of support, either through their franchise network, which I also have, which I'm very thankful for, but also find that local business network group, either through a local chamber, which I'm not a part of, and I considered, but then I joined B and I and I'm very satisfied with our group there.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: But I would say start to dismantle what you feel like that that problem is.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: And and some things, some things we tried and it just didn't work, and I was very frustrated and we tried something else.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: I don't ever look at at failure as just a reason to quit.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: I look at what did I do wrong, why, and what can I do different to make it good.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm not a quitter.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like I said, I leaned into a little bit more grassroots and just getting into that local business referral network.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was a it was an absolute game changer for me.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_02: Mm-hmm.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_02: No, I appreciate that advice.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_02: So what's next for Merrimaids of Augusta?
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_02: What should people be excited about coming up in the near future?
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: We're there's so much coming down the pipe as far as the AI.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: We I sit on our National Ad Council for Merrimaids for the whole network.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so there's a lot of things coming for us with our website, and we're just beginning to engage that potential with how we interact with customers and the technology that's coming.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: But also just with us, even through social media, communication avenues are always changing, and we try to stay up with it.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: But we're we're excited about some new products that are coming down the line that we're going to be using, and then we've also got some new uniforms coming out that we're excited about changing over to.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm just excited about Marymaids in general and how we really strive to deliver that five-star experience.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that really sets us apart from other companies out there.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: We're very responsive to concerns, schedule changes.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: We just want that client to know they're number one with us.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_02: Mm-hmm.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_02: What is what's the outfit, I guess?
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_02: What's that gonna look like?
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we we went to we were having some branded t-shirts and scrub pants, and then they went to a full scrub outfit, but they're testing out a new t-shirt type scrub top that's in a really nice lightweight dry fit material along with the pants that I'm super excited about.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's stain resistant, it clean, it doesn't peel, and it just looks super nice and very professional.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_02: Nice, nice.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_02: That's exciting to look forward to.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it it should happen before the end of the year, but it's really nice when our team members they look super professional when they leave for the day and they might go by the grocery store.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so when they walk in looking, they look like a professional cleaner because they are.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so they're dressed like one as well.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so I feel like that also kind of sets us apart from other companies.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I love that.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_02: All right, and finally, what's the best way for someone to connect with you or learn more about what you all do?
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, absolutely.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: They can go to Marymaids.com and they can put in their zip code and their address, and it will direct them to the appropriate website, whether it's our Aiken website or our Augusta website, if they're in the Augusta area.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: And then if they're in that Atlanta area for Conyers or even the Lake Oconey area that we also service, and then our local number here in Augusta is 706-650-2409.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_02: Perfect, perfect.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_02: Any social media?
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yes, social media.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: We're on Facebook.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's Marymaids Augusta on Facebook.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: And then, like I said, we're here Monday through Friday from 8 to 5.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: Always check emails and things throughout the weekend for voice recordings if I need to call anybody back.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's that part of that behind the scenes that we do.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: But yes, we're definitely we're on Instagram, Marymaids of Augusta, as well as on Facebook.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_02: All right, great, great.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_02: All right, Kim.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, this has been fantastic.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, thank you for coming on and sharing your story and your perspective.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_02: Really appreciate you, you know, coming on and wish you continued success in the future for sure.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, Cliff.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for having me.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: I thoroughly enjoyed the conversation.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, me too as well.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.