Latest / Wedding Pros who are ready to grow - with Becca Pountney / Don't let your wedding business run you - with Dana and Courtney!

Transcript

Don't let your wedding business run you - with Dana and Courtney! · Wedding Pros who are ready to grow - with Becca Pountney

• 0:00
  Courtney and Dana: Thinking through what is your time worth?
• 0:03
  What are you actually spending on doing this task, I think is one step.
• 0:07
  And then realizing that anything that you're doing to move your
• 0:12
  business forward is actually a better use of time and finances.
• 0:15
  So kind of thinking in that direction, like is what, is the task that I'm
• 0:18
  doing gonna move my business forward?
• 0:20
  Or is it just fulfilling a day-to-day need?
• 0:22
  And sometimes when you're just fulfilling a day-to-day need, it's
• 0:24
  better to put somebody in place.
• 0:26
  And we do this, and I'll let Dana explain a little bit more
• 0:28
  with what we call our 80% Rule.
• 0:30
  Becca: I am Becca Pountney, wedding business marketing expert,
• 0:34
  speaker and blogger, and you are listening to the Wedding Pros
• 0:37
  who are Ready to Grow podcast.
• 0:40
  I'm here to share with you actionable tips, strategies, and real life
• 0:43
  examples to help you take your wedding business to the next level.
• 0:47
  If you are an ambitious wedding business owner that wants to take your passion
• 0:50
  and use it to build a profitable, sustainable business doing what you
• 0:54
  love, then you're in the right place.
• 0:56
  Let's get going with today's episode.
• 0:59
  Today I'm talking to Dana and Courtney.
• 1:01
  Based out in North Carolina, these incredible sisters have built not
• 1:04
  one but three wedding businesses.
• 1:07
  They're now on a mission to inspire you to leap into your dreams and achieve
• 1:10
  things you never thought possible.
• 1:12
  I can't wait to hear more about their story.
• 1:14
  Dana and Courtney, welcome to the podcast.
• 1:16
  Courtney and Dana: Thank you.
• 1:16
  Thanks so much for having us.
• 1:17
  We're so excited to be here.
• 1:18
  Becca: It's an absolute pleasure to have you.
• 1:20
  I'm so excited to get into your story and how on earth you ended
• 1:23
  up with three wedding businesses.
• 1:25
  So let's go right back to start.
• 1:28
  To your first kind of step into weddings, how did you end
• 1:33
  up in the wedding industry?
• 1:34
  Did you end up in there together or did one of you start with it.
• 1:36
  Courtney and Dana: One of us coerced the other into doing it.
• 1:39
  , I think is more what happened.
• 1:40
  Yes.
• 1:41
  Yeah.
• 1:41
  So we were planning Dana's wedding and we cannot settle on a place
• 1:47
  that kind of checked all of her boxes, wasn't a hotel, et cetera.
• 1:51
  And we were just talking about it over lunch one day and I was like,
• 1:54
  you know, there's, you know, what'd be fun is opening up a wedding venue.
• 1:56
  I feel like there's like a real need for like this look.
• 1:59
  Can't just be like you that wants it.
• 2:01
  And Dana's like, yeah, that'd be fun.
• 2:03
  And I was like, but we don't know anything about wedding planning besides planning
• 2:06
  our own, so let's do wedding planning.
• 2:09
  Become wedding planners as a form of market research.
• 2:12
  Mm-hmm.
• 2:13
  . And I think Dana was just placating me like, yeah, that's a great idea.
• 2:15
  So we just.
• 2:16
  ate our lunch, went along the way.
• 2:18
  And in the meantime, my mother, our mother told us that her best friend's
• 2:24
  daughter was getting married like a few hours from here in Asheville.
• 2:28
  And I was like, you know what, Dana and I are gonna be doing wedding
• 2:31
  planning, so we'll plan her wedding.
• 2:33
  And so I called up Dana and said, Hey, her name was Megan.
• 2:37
  We're gonna plan Megan's wedding.
• 2:38
  And Dana was like, oh, oh, you're serious.
• 2:40
  And I was like, yeah, we're gonna do this thing.
• 2:42
  We're gonna become wedding planners.
• 2:43
  And that was.
• 2:45
  First time that we planned a wedding together, we decided we liked it.
• 2:48
  Yep.
• 2:48
  We had a good time.
• 2:49
  We got some feedback that we needed to get rid of our, you know, resting bitch faces.
• 2:53
  Mm-hmm.
• 2:53
  And be a little bit more smiley at the weddings.
• 2:56
  But we really enjoyed it.
• 2:58
  It was a lot of fun.
• 2:58
  We were like, let's do it again.
• 2:59
  Yeah.
• 3:00
  Yeah, so we just put an Ad out on Craigslist for $250 . So crazy.
• 3:05
  And it just, that kind of, we met a caterer there.
• 3:09
  It was his first gig as well, and we both just, he's like, I like working with you.
• 3:12
  And then he started recommending us to his clients and it
• 3:14
  kind of took off from there.
• 3:15
  And it was definitely a slow build because it was a side hustle for
• 3:19
  a couple of years until we could.
• 3:20
  We had enough business for me to actually quit.
• 3:22
  I had my first child and I was able to stay home and, and build that
• 3:25
  business and, and watch my child, and watch her child at the same time.
• 3:28
  We were both teachers.
• 3:29
  Yes.
• 3:29
  before.
• 3:30
  So yeah.
• 3:31
  And then it was like, I think seven years into business.
• 3:34
  Yeah.
• 3:35
  Roughly.
• 3:35
  And then we had amassed a certain amount of money and
• 3:38
  Courtney's like, you know what?
• 3:39
  We should reprive this venue dream.
• 3:41
  We'd just come out of the recession.
• 3:43
  She's like, land is going for like a song and a dance.
• 3:46
  Let's see if we can find something.
• 3:47
  And.
• 3:48
  Stumbled upon this little property that took us on a very long rollercoaster ride.
• 3:53
  Mm-hmm.
• 3:53
  and built a venue.
• 3:54
  So the rest is history.
• 3:56
  Becca: Wow.
• 3:56
  So what a journey from just deciding to plan a kind of family friend's wedding
• 4:01
  right through to that, in that initial dream coming true and owning the venue.
• 4:05
  Now let's go back to that step because you made that sound easy.
• 4:08
  Like, I just found a piece of land, we bought a venue
• 4:10
  and that the rest is history.
• 4:12
  I'm sure there was more to it than that.
• 4:14
  So how did you take the leap?
• 4:16
  Was it scary?
• 4:18
  Did you know anything about running a venue?
• 4:19
  How did you learn
• 4:21
  , Courtney and Dana: all those things?
• 4:22
  No, it was very, very scary.
• 4:23
  I think for us, the hardest part was that we are not independently wealthy people.
• 4:28
  We didn't come from money, so we had no one backing us.
• 4:30
  It was literally every dollar that we had saved, it was our retirement funds.
• 4:34
  As teachers, we had nothing.
• 4:36
  So when we decided to walk into this, we put everything on the line like.
• 4:40
  Every bit we sold everything we owned.
• 4:42
  We sold our houses.
• 4:43
  Sold our houses, like yeah, liquidated some stocks that we had
• 4:47
  just from, you know, company stuff and like, you know, my husband and
• 4:50
  then like retirement and whatnot.
• 4:52
  So the finances were really, really, really scary.
• 4:56
  And then we all moved on property.
• 4:58
  So we bought the land next to it.
• 4:59
  Built these little tiny cottage.
• 5:01
  and we all lived there cause we thought that was the best way
• 5:03
  to do it, is if we just had one mortgage that we all contributed to.
• 5:06
  Mm-hmm.
• 5:07
  . And it was, we joked, we built a cul-de-sac in a year We did because
• 5:11
  they built three houses, but it was the most stressful thing and.
• 5:15
  I think we've ever, ever, ever been through just cuz we had to do so
• 5:18
  much sweat equity to get through it.
• 5:20
  Yeah.
• 5:21
  We had to change our original vision so much cuz we didn't have the money.
• 5:24
  And there's a lot that we learned from that process that we definitely,
• 5:27
  when we advise as other people is that if we, we did it so safely
• 5:31
  because we were afraid to fail.
• 5:33
  That if we had lept a little bit more with some, a little bit more faith
• 5:36
  and asked for more money and did more of that kind of business loan type
• 5:40
  thing, we probably wouldn't have had as much of a struggle, but it would've
• 5:44
  probably grown a little bit faster.
• 5:45
  Yeah, bigger, faster.
• 5:47
  But we were just so scared of it.
• 5:48
  We were just so scared of losing everything cuz we had.
• 5:52
  If we did that, was it like there was no one to fall back on, so, yeah.
• 5:55
  Becca: Yeah.
• 5:55
  But you took a huge risk and most people would've never even been able to bring
• 5:59
  that vision to life because they'd have let the fear hold them back and
• 6:02
  you didn't let the fear hold you back.
• 6:04
  So what was it that kept you going and kept that belief through that time?
• 6:08
  Courtney and Dana: Courtney . I mean, I just felt like I just knew
• 6:12
  like Gutterally that it had to work.
• 6:14
  Like I just knew it was gonna work.
• 6:15
  I knew it was gonna be successful.
• 6:17
  I just had a real confidence in our ability to run a business and.
• 6:23
  I really felt strongly in our product.
• 6:25
  So at this point, we'd been in the market for seven years.
• 6:27
  I'd been at lots of weddings and, and planned lots of weddings.
• 6:29
  So I felt like we had a good background knowledge of what people were looking for.
• 6:33
  And I do think that we like hit the nail on the head as far as, as like
• 6:36
  aesthetic, probably not space size at that particular moment, but.
• 6:41
  That mattered less than aesthetic.
• 6:42
  So I think we put our money where it made the most sense.
• 6:45
  And yeah, I mean, I just, I really did.
• 6:47
  I, I, every day I would tell, I'm like, this is just, this has to work.
• 6:50
  And Dana's like, really?
• 6:51
  It doesn't have to work.
• 6:52
  Yeah.
• 6:52
  And I'm like, no, but it really does.
• 6:53
  Like, it's gonna work.
• 6:54
  It's gonna work out.
• 6:55
  It's gonna be fine.
• 6:57
  And it was, and, and I think that for us too, There were
• 7:00
  definitely some scary moments.
• 7:02
  There were like a lot of rice and beans and peanut butter and jelly,
• 7:05
  and that got us through, you know, and, but I think we were super safe.
• 7:09
  Mm-hmm.
• 7:09
  . So there wasn't a scenario.
• 7:11
  It had to be, it had to go really badly.
• 7:13
  Mm-hmm.
• 7:13
  for it to be a complete bust.
• 7:15
  And if it was like, okay, we're gonna lump along and just do like
• 7:18
  10 or 15 weddings a year, we can live along for a while in that.
• 7:21
  Mm-hmm.
• 7:22
  . , you know, that's not how it went.
• 7:24
  Thank the Lord.
• 7:25
  Yeah.
• 7:26
  So I think that we just did it in a way that we were comfortable with,
• 7:29
  and I felt like we'd had the research and the experience in place to
• 7:33
  really put a product out there that was marketable and sellable though.
• 7:37
  Yeah.
• 7:38
  But I mean, there were definitely some moments where like, and
• 7:40
  Courtney talking about rice and beans.
• 7:42
  Joking.
• 7:42
  That was so serious.
• 7:43
  I remember my mother-in-law bought us groceries one time cuz she was like,
• 7:46
  I don't think you guys are eating.
• 7:47
  And I was like, I don't think you understand how poor we are right now.
• 7:50
  like, I mean literally like we're just, and we had to ask for help
• 7:54
  and the simplest things of putting food on the table because we had
• 7:58
  maxed out every single credit card, every single thing that we owned.
• 8:03
  That's not the best financial advice I would ever give.
• 8:05
  And we were, I can say that we were very lucky that we, after the
• 8:10
  whole building process, we had to do some like, legal stuff to get
• 8:13
  it kind of up to par for taxes.
• 8:15
  And it made us get, go from a sole proprietor to an L L C.
• 8:19
  . And because of that, we got, we got registered on like the, a certain
• 8:23
  database or whatever, and some random person called me from a bank and said,
• 8:26
  Hey, you just started your business.
• 8:27
  I was like, well, actually I haven't.
• 8:28
  And he's like, well, would you be interested in banking with us?
• 8:31
  And I was like, I don't know.
• 8:32
  Are you gonna gimme some money?
• 8:33
  Because if yes is so, then sure I will bank with you.
• 8:35
  And it led to this meeting that literally it, I, I can't even say.
• 8:41
  Like I, I can't even understand it.
• 8:43
  It literally saved our lives, like it saved our business
• 8:46
  because they believed in us.
• 8:47
  It looked at what we had.
• 8:49
  They saw what we had and they said, you know what?
• 8:50
  We can refinance all of this cuz we were barely making it because we
• 8:54
  had maxed out all the credit cards.
• 8:55
  Thinking 23% interest, right.
• 8:57
  We're barely making those payments, barely making the mortgage payment
• 9:00
  and them saying, you know what?
• 9:02
  We're gonna take all this debt.
• 9:03
  We're gonna wrap it up into a one big mortgage that's sustainable.
• 9:06
  It's really what saved us, honestly.
• 9:08
  Yeah.
• 9:08
  So it's like all these kind of random things happen.
• 9:11
  Well, there's a couple of, like, there's a couple of random things like that.
• 9:13
  I think there's, I'm a little more woo than Dana, but I think there's like these.
• 9:17
  Things that happen that let you know that you're on the right path.
• 9:19
  Mm-hmm.
• 9:19
  , like for example, we were really struggling and we were at like Home
• 9:24
  Depot, which is like our local hardware store every other day, and there was this
• 9:28
  checkout lady and yeah, she actually ended up, her daughter ended up booking one
• 9:32
  of the first weddings at the Bradford.
• 9:33
  Like we were, it was muddy mess.
• 9:35
  It wasn't built.
• 9:36
  She was the very first year.
• 9:38
  And she would, but she worked at Lowe's.
• 9:40
  And so we'd see her, she'd ask how it's going, and we were
• 9:42
  like, oh, it's going fine.
• 9:43
  Like we wanted to put on a bright face.
• 9:44
  We knew her daughter was getting married there, or was really
• 9:46
  going to hell in a hand basket.
• 9:47
  You know, like we're so behind and trying to figure out how to
• 9:50
  make all these things happen.
• 9:51
  And she asked us multiple times.
• 9:53
  And so finally one day she.
• 9:54
  Dana said to her like, do you really wanna know the truth?
• 9:57
  And she was like, yeah.
• 9:57
  She's like, it's really not going well.
• 9:59
  Not going well.
• 9:59
  It's not going well.
• 10:00
  And she's like, let me help you.
• 10:02
  And we kind of looked at each other, we're like, okay.
• 10:04
  And she came and like literally deep cleaned the Bradford.
• 10:07
  Mm-hmm.
• 10:08
  , like right before it was our, our very, very first wedding
• 10:10
  when wasn't her daughter's.
• 10:11
  And stayed on and cleaned that Bradford for a whole year and
• 10:14
  like negotiated some of the rooms.
• 10:16
  We had rooms to rent as like part of the cleaning fee.
• 10:18
  And like, it was like really an angel.
• 10:20
  Mm-hmm.
• 10:21
  in the form of a Lowe's checkout lady.
• 10:23
  Right.
• 10:23
  That just kind of really helped us.
• 10:26
  Mm-hmm.
• 10:26
  . There was another instance when we needed a fence that separate
• 10:29
  our properties cuz it was like my house, Dana's house, the Bradford.
• 10:33
  One big field, right?
• 10:34
  And we need to separate it for the clients and whatnot.
• 10:37
  That was in our rendering.
• 10:38
  That's what we sold.
• 10:39
  And we had no money to buy this fence.
• 10:41
  And like literally we needed, we needed $6,000.
• 10:43
  We needed $6,000 and literally like the week that we needed
• 10:46
  it, $6,000 came in the mail.
• 10:48
  One of our grandmothers, like annuities or something came due and everyone
• 10:51
  that had a college degree she sent $3,000 to, so I got $3,000 and Dana got
• 10:56
  $3,000 and we bought a fence with it
• 10:58
  So it was like all of these like little things, I was like, okay, I.
• 11:02
  We're on the right track and it's gonna be okay.
• 11:04
  Yeah, the universe has got us.
• 11:06
  Becca: I love that because you believed in yourselves and then
• 11:09
  other people believed in you and.
• 11:11
  Between those things, you made it happen and it became a success, right?
• 11:16
  Courtney and Dana: Yeah.
• 11:17
  Yes.
• 11:17
  Mm-hmm.
• 11:18
  , it is.
• 11:19
  Becca: Great.
• 11:19
  So we've talked about business one and two then, because I said in the introduction
• 11:23
  you've got business three as well.
• 11:25
  So you had wedding planning, you had a venue.
• 11:28
  So, where does number three come in?
• 11:30
  Courtney and Dana: Well, it was probably like 2019.
• 11:32
  We, we were really, really involved in our local industry and we had a lot of
• 11:36
  friends that would come to us and say like, Hey, can I, can I pick your brain?
• 11:39
  Can you help us, you know, with this problem?
• 11:41
  We were always very open to helping other people.
• 11:44
  We loved helping other entrepreneurs kind of like see that aha moment.
• 11:48
  . And I remember Courtney one time looked at me, she's like, you know what?
• 11:50
  We could do this.
• 11:51
  She's like, we could actually, like, there's a theme to all these stories.
• 11:54
  It's all Courtney.
• 11:55
  I'm just like, normally just trucking along being behind.
• 11:57
  She's like, Hey, let's do something else.
• 11:59
  Mm-hmm.
• 12:00
  . I'm like, okay.
• 12:00
  But she's like, no, we could do this.
• 12:02
  And I really had this vision that we can, you know, kind of change the industry.
• 12:07
  Like we can change the expectations in the industry and we can really help other
• 12:11
  entrepreneurs, you know, in this market.
• 12:14
  In the hos in the hospitality market.
• 12:15
  So we launched Hustling Gather the fall of 2019 and then
• 12:18
  obviously 2020 hit and whatnot.
• 12:21
  But so it kind of started really gaining traction towards the end of 2020.
• 12:24
  But yeah, it's been the thing that, you know, I feel like everyone like
• 12:28
  talks about the natural progression of business, like you do this, this,
• 12:30
  this, and you become a consultant.
• 12:32
  And for us it's just more of, it feeds our soul so much to help other people.
• 12:37
  . I think our story, as you know, funny it is, it's not, it's not unique, right?
• 12:42
  Everyone has this story of where they thought they were gonna fail
• 12:45
  and it wasn't just handed to them.
• 12:47
  Like, you know, we weren't the 1% that got a million dollar cash
• 12:51
  injection into their, into their business, and being able to really
• 12:54
  help other people come through some.
• 12:57
  Really hard times and get to the other side of it.
• 12:59
  It's just been super rewarding.
• 13:00
  It's been what's kind of kept us going, especially through
• 13:02
  the pandemic, I would say.
• 13:03
  Yeah.
• 13:03
  Or to like be able to take what you have and capitalize on it
• 13:06
  and make a little bit more money.
• 13:08
  Mm-hmm.
• 13:08
  , like, I'm very much like a numbers girl.
• 13:10
  Like that's the way that I think and I think about like the return
• 13:13
  on investment and all that, and I'm like, Hey, like I can take what you
• 13:15
  have and I can, it can implement these three things and you can make more
• 13:19
  money still doing what you're doing.
• 13:20
  So I think thinking through those kind of things I is really
• 13:23
  rewarding to, to me in particular.
• 13:26
  There's been some other like fringe benefits to that.
• 13:28
  Like for example, we are adjunct professors.
• 13:31
  Mm-hmm.
• 13:31
  at the, at the university or the college that we graduated from
• 13:33
  and we teach the special in the special events hospitality program.
• 13:37
  And it's really neat to be able to be on this side of it and be inspiring
• 13:42
  like those people who are just coming out of college and just thinking about
• 13:45
  starting that career in hospitality.
• 13:48
  I don't know.
• 13:48
  I think I, that's the one thing that I love about business and entrepreneurship
• 13:51
  in general, is that you have no idea where it's gonna lead you.
• 13:55
  Like you have no idea what path it's gonna take you down.
• 13:58
  And I just, if you're open to all of that, like there's all these
• 14:00
  really great experiences that I think you get to experience.
• 14:04
  Yeah.
• 14:04
  So,
• 14:04
  Becca: absolutely.
• 14:05
  That's so, so true.
• 14:06
  And I love what you say about giving back as well, because I think sometimes
• 14:10
  the coaching and consulting industry can have a bad reputation, but actually
• 14:14
  I think there's a lot of people.
• 14:16
  In this world and people I speak to on this podcast who just genuinely
• 14:20
  have a desire to help people do better and to stop them making the
• 14:23
  same mistakes as they did, right?
• 14:25
  Courtney and Dana: Mm-hmm.
• 14:26
  . Sure.
• 14:26
  For sure.
• 14:26
  Well, yeah, and, and to, and I feel like we both feel very, very
• 14:29
  passionately about like, Making your life what you, what you want.
• 14:33
  Right.
• 14:34
  And I feel like for as a kid, you were told, what's your job?
• 14:37
  What do you wanna do?
• 14:37
  And you know, I wanted to be a teacher since I was five.
• 14:40
  And what I realized is, as much as I loved teaching, and I'm so glad to be
• 14:43
  back into that world, but it did not allow me the life that I wanted to have.
• 14:47
  And it's not because of the finances.
• 14:49
  It was the time, it was like the stress, it was the emotional
• 14:53
  like toll that it was taking and.
• 14:55
  When you have this dream of something that you're building and you're
• 14:58
  making and it is yours, it's almost like having an another child.
• 15:01
  Right?
• 15:01
  But it is, it, it allows you to have the life that you want, right?
• 15:06
  Whether that's the finances that you want, whether it's the time freedom
• 15:09
  that you want, whether it's living out of passion that you feel like,
• 15:13
  you know, deeply passionate about.
• 15:14
  You know, I think that's what, that's what's really important
• 15:16
  to us, is having people look at life as like, it's not just.
• 15:20
  Check this box.
• 15:21
  I did this.
• 15:22
  This is, I went to school and then I, you know, followed this very linear.
• 15:26
  It's very much what you make it.
• 15:27
  Becca: Well, that brings me very nicely onto my next question because
• 15:30
  I know one of the things that you love to talk about is how to run
• 15:33
  a business without it running.
• 15:35
  You now, when you talk about your business journey and how you kind of got
• 15:39
  out of teaching to do what you wanted to do, and then you've talked about how
• 15:42
  stressful it was to start the wedding venue and all of the rest of the things.
• 15:45
  So what have you learned from that and what do you teach other people now when
• 15:49
  it comes to their business and how they can run it so that it doesn't run them?
• 15:53
  I.
• 15:54
  . Courtney and Dana: To be clear, there are going to be times in everyone's
• 15:57
  business where it's gonna run you.
• 15:58
  Yes.
• 15:58
  . Like, there's gonna be times where you're just gonna have to
• 16:00
  like pick up your bootstraps and you're gonna have to power through.
• 16:03
  I think what we talk about is how sustainable that is.
• 16:07
  Mm-hmm.
• 16:07
  . Right?
• 16:07
  It's not a sustainable life model, but recognizing there
• 16:10
  are gonna be periods of that.
• 16:12
  And we still experience those now, like when something's , like when
• 16:15
  something's breaking down, or if we need to like step in with one of our
• 16:18
  companies and kind of triage a situation.
• 16:21
  Or if we're really training somebody to do something.
• 16:23
  Like there are times where it feels, moments where it's overwhelming.
• 16:26
  But I think what we like to talk about is one.
• 16:29
  That's not why we, You get into business, you don't get into
• 16:31
  business for it to run your life.
• 16:32
  You get into business, but can augment the life that you do want.
• 16:36
  But then also, what are some steps that you can put into place to make sure
• 16:40
  that you aren't staying in that, staying in that, like, it's not like the whole
• 16:42
  defining part of your business, you know?
• 16:44
  Cause I, I think people get stuck in that and we did too.
• 16:46
  Mm-hmm.
• 16:46
  , like we got stuck very much in that martyr identity.
• 16:48
  Mm-hmm.
• 16:49
  , like our identity was very much.
• 16:51
  Oh my God, look at all this work that I'm doing.
• 16:53
  Mm-hmm.
• 16:53
  and well great.
• 16:55
  You know, for the moment it's again, not a life that I really wanna live.
• 16:58
  Yeah.
• 16:59
  And it's super interesting and I think that being in a, a high-stress industry,
• 17:03
  like, like the wedding industry, it's very easy to fall into that martyrdom.
• 17:06
  I'm like, I don't think I've ever been a, met another venue owner when
• 17:09
  I, and I said, Hey, how's it going?
• 17:11
  And they're not like, oh my God, it's so terrible.
• 17:12
  It's awful.
• 17:12
  And you just be like, I know it's so busy, it's so crazy.
• 17:14
  But I can just.
• 17:15
  Yeah, it's not bad.
• 17:16
  . I have a great team.
• 17:17
  Yeah.
• 17:17
  Like I actually only went in the office two days this week, like mm-hmm.
• 17:20
  you know, but there's something in it that there's not, like, we want to brag
• 17:24
  about how hard it is, but not necessarily give ourselves the credit of like, oh my
• 17:27
  gosh, I've created this system so that I don't have to be there all the time.
• 17:32
  And so for us, the very first thing that we really talk about, you wanna
• 17:35
  talk about some tangible things.
• 17:37
  Really understanding what your business path is.
• 17:40
  And it's very different for every person.
• 17:42
  And the way we talk about that is having a strategic vision and having a very
• 17:46
  clear mission and value statement.
• 17:48
  Because those two things together has helps you determine the
• 17:51
  path that you're gonna take.
• 17:52
  And for us, You know, our values, one of our very strong values
• 17:56
  is hospitality and inclusivity.
• 17:58
  Our mission statement is very much about having a very tailored
• 18:01
  experience, that is unique to each person that sets foot on our property.
• 18:05
  And so for that, that meant one that we couldn't have the same
• 18:08
  planner here every single weekend.
• 18:10
  It meant that I could not be the only person selling, marketing,
• 18:14
  executing, doing all the things right?
• 18:16
  So it meant that we had to have a diverse and robust team, and that
• 18:20
  was super important to us when it, you know, when we were kind of
• 18:23
  deciding the path we wanted to take.
• 18:24
  So in the very beginning, years after we got our feet under us and our
• 18:27
  financing was, you know, straight, we slowly started hiring our team.
• 18:31
  And that meant me and Courtney were the least paid people on our team.
• 18:34
  We made the least amount of money.
• 18:35
  I would write these checks to these people and I'm like, oh my God, I
• 18:38
  wish I was writing that to myself.
• 18:39
  But here you go.
• 18:40
  You know, knowing full well that the payoff was gonna come eventually, but what
• 18:44
  we needed to do was invest in what our strategic vision is and what our mission
• 18:48
  statement was and what our values were.
• 18:49
  And we knew that once we invested in that there was gonna
• 18:52
  be a time that we were gonna.
• 18:54
  That returned tenfold.
• 18:55
  And we did.
• 18:56
  We, I mean it took about four years of building that team for us to really
• 19:00
  see like, oh my gosh, like I'm living a life that I never thought I would live.
• 19:05
  Right?
• 19:05
  You told me back in 2014, like, did you know at this year you're
• 19:09
  gonna be making X amount money, but like you're full of shit?
• 19:11
  That's not gonna happen.
• 19:12
  Cause I can't even imagine a life beyond what we're doing right now.
• 19:15
  But that's the first thing we talk about is like really doing that hard
• 19:18
  work and deep work of figuring out what is that business path that you.
• 19:23
  And I think secondary to that is also, yes, your business path and your
• 19:27
  business purpose, but what are also your personal path and your personal goals.
• 19:31
  Cuz I think you staff and build your team and run your company accordingly.
• 19:34
  Right.
• 19:35
  And I think the other thing too is to be aware that those things
• 19:38
  can change as your life changes.
• 19:40
  You know, like when you, if you meet somebody and end up getting
• 19:43
  married, maybe your financial need is less, but you wanna have more time.
• 19:46
  Same thing with having a child, like knowing that that's gonna change your
• 19:50
  involvement that you wanna have in your.
• 19:52
  . And I think being open and honest with yourself about those things
• 19:54
  allows you to make the right decisions that is gonna give you longevity and
• 19:59
  fulfillment in what you're doing.
• 20:00
  Mm-hmm.
• 20:01
  . Becca: So when it comes to outsourcing, I know one of the things that some
• 20:05
  of my listeners struggle with is that idea of letting go and giving
• 20:08
  money to someone else to do a task that they know they could do.
• 20:12
  Just as well themselves.
• 20:13
  If not, they might think they can do it better themselves.
• 20:15
  So how did you level that in your mind?
• 20:18
  How did you decide, actually, no.
• 20:20
  I know we can do this, but we could get someone else to do it.
• 20:23
  How did you let go of that kind of control?
• 20:25
  Courtney and Dana: That's a good question.
• 20:26
  It's hard.
• 20:26
  Yeah, it was hard.
• 20:27
  I, I think one of the hardest things to do as a business owner is to value your time.
• 20:31
  Mm-hmm.
• 20:31
  , right?
• 20:32
  You tend to devalue your time mm-hmm.
• 20:34
  before you put a value on it and.
• 20:37
  There's nothing like actually being a consultant to realize
• 20:40
  actually my time is more valuable.
• 20:42
  Right?
• 20:42
  Like when you're like, I'm, when I'm charging someone
• 20:43
  else for an hour of my time.
• 20:47
  I have no problem putting a price tag on that.
• 20:49
  But then when I'm thinking, oh, I'm gonna work on this like social media
• 20:52
  poster, I'm gonna do this very menial, like, I don't know, spreadsheet
• 20:55
  creation or whatever it is, like why am I devaluing my, my time so greatly?
• 21:00
  But I think thinking through what is your time worth?
• 21:04
  What are you actually spending on doing this task, I think is one step.
• 21:09
  And then realizing.
• 21:11
  Anything that you're doing to move your business forward is actually a better
• 21:15
  use of time and finances than just kind of running what it is that you're doing.
• 21:19
  Mm-hmm.
• 21:19
  . So kind of thinking in that direction, like is what, is the task that I'm
• 21:22
  doing gonna move my business forward?
• 21:24
  Or is it just fulfilling a day-to-day need?
• 21:25
  And sometimes when you're just fulfilling a day-to-day need, it's better to put
• 21:28
  somebody in place in that particular, like get your wheel going, fulfill that
• 21:33
  need and work on growing your business.
• 21:35
  And we do this, and I'll let Dana explain a little bit more
• 21:37
  with what we call our 80% rule.
• 21:39
  Yeah.
• 21:39
  So there are things that we will never outsource that is
• 21:42
  leadership that's leading our team.
• 21:44
  We will never outsource someone to help or to create our strategic vision,
• 21:48
  mission statement, execute those things.
• 21:49
  And then a high level finances, like we don't mind someone handling
• 21:53
  the day to day accounting, but high level finances will always be
• 21:55
  in the in, have our hand in that.
• 21:57
  And so once we kind of determine that those are the things that we're not
• 22:00
  gonna outsource, we had to, I had to take a step back and say, okay.
• 22:03
  This job.
• 22:04
  Some like social media.
• 22:04
  I did that for a while.
• 22:05
  Can someone do this job?
• 22:06
  80% of what I can do.
• 22:08
  I feel like I can do it a hundred percent.
• 22:10
  Like I'm a hundred percent great at it.
• 22:11
  Right.
• 22:11
  Can someone do it?
• 22:12
  80%?
• 22:12
  And that's a lie.
• 22:13
  Was a lie.
• 22:13
  Neither one of us were ever a hundred percent great at social media.
• 22:16
  Right.
• 22:16
  But you know, get the point.
• 22:17
  Yeah.
• 22:18
  And the question was that this is a task that I have a decent SOP for I can train
• 22:24
  somebody on and they can do it to the 80% of my ability and it's not one of
• 22:28
  those three big things then that is okay.
• 22:32
  What we have found is when we were able to take a step back and allow person
• 22:37
  to do that job, what we figured it was at 80%, the fact that we could have the
• 22:41
  time to train them, we had the time to lead them and manage them well because
• 22:45
  those things were off of our plate.
• 22:47
  That every single job that we've hired for, they have ended up
• 22:50
  outperforming anything we've ever done.
• 22:52
  Right.
• 22:52
  So like a really good example of sales, I took sales on, I think year three.
• 22:56
  We were kind of in between people and I was like, you know what?
• 22:59
  get a handle on this and, and I thought I was great at sales.
• 23:02
  And Courtney's like, yeah, your conversion rate from like, you know, lead to tour to
• 23:06
  booking, it's like 35%, which is great.
• 23:08
  And I was like, yeah, so you know, train this next person and
• 23:10
  then we hire this next person.
• 23:12
  And I was like, I don't know if they can do it as well as I can.
• 23:14
  Mm-hmm.
• 23:14
  . But you know what they can do 8% and that's okay.
• 23:16
  A person booked like 60% and I was like, what the hell?
• 23:19
  ? Like apparently I wasn't very good at it, but you know, it's one of those things
• 23:23
  like, because we were able to really invest that time and that was their sole
• 23:27
  focus, that they did that job so much better than I could, you know, so it's
• 23:31
  a little bit of eating some humble pie.
• 23:32
  Mm-hmm.
• 23:33
  . But at the same time it's recognizing that when you invest in people,
• 23:38
  what you feel like they can't do or achieve as high as you can, they
• 23:42
  actually do and they do it better.
• 23:44
  And it makes sense because they aren't carrying the weight of the company, right?
• 23:50
  It's not like they're client facing and making the insurance and financial
• 23:54
  and tax decisions all on the same day.
• 23:57
  You know, like, think about as an entrepreneur, like how many
• 24:00
  aspects of your business your hand is in on any given day.
• 24:03
  It's like a d, d, like to the max, right?
• 24:06
  Mm-hmm.
• 24:06
  , you're like, I got five minutes to spend here, 15 minutes
• 24:08
  on this, 20 minutes on this.
• 24:09
  I'm gonna answer that phone call.
• 24:10
  I'm gonna have this client thing, and.
• 24:13
  All of those things add up.
• 24:14
  Right?
• 24:15
  And it doesn't allow you to really focus on if you were to hire over a particular.
• 24:19
  solely what that job is.
• 24:20
  So really, even though it feels like you're giving up control and you're
• 24:23
  hiring somebody to do something that you think you can do better, if you
• 24:27
  have that right person and you make sure that you're clearing up that time
• 24:29
  to either grow your business or manage your business, that person's gonna do
• 24:33
  so much better than you ever could do.
• 24:34
  Mm-hmm.
• 24:34
  , because they have, they have the focus on it.
• 24:36
  Mm-hmm.
• 24:36
  . Becca: So it's all about letting go and realizing that maybe we're not actually
• 24:40
  a hundred percent, even though we like to think we are in every single task.
• 24:44
  Okay.
• 24:45
  So, One other thing that I know people worry about when it comes to outsourcing
• 24:49
  is outsourcing to the wrong person.
• 24:52
  So letting go, deciding that they're gonna let go of a task and then the
• 24:57
  person that they hire doesn't work out.
• 24:59
  Have you had any bad experiences of hiring people or have you
• 25:02
  been finding that you Absolutely.
• 25:04
  Okay.
• 25:04
  Good.
• 25:05
  Tell me about that, but no, no detail, no names
• 25:08
  Courtney and Dana: It's unavoidable.
• 25:10
  It is unavoidable.
• 25:11
  Like it's gonna happen.
• 25:12
  And I think for us, what we, what you wanna see is you wanna see
• 25:15
  that percentage very low, right?
• 25:16
  Like, we don't wanna be hiring the wrong person over and over and over again.
• 25:20
  You know, for us, we learned the hard way, one of the worst experiences we ever had.
• 25:24
  hiring somebody created, it was just like, it was like the
• 25:27
  perfect storm of, I don't know.
• 25:29
  It was, it was 2019 and it was, it was like, it was the perfect
• 25:31
  storm of us being like too busy to manage and train this person.
• 25:35
  Not having the personality to be a hands off employee, which is what we needed.
• 25:38
  Mm-hmm.
• 25:39
  and just the sheer amount of overwhelm.
• 25:41
  Mm-hmm.
• 25:41
  that she was walking into without processes, procedures, and structure.
• 25:45
  And she's a person that needs that.
• 25:46
  And us not having the time to recognize that she was the person that needed that
• 25:50
  created this, you know, Total tornado.
• 25:53
  Tornado.
• 25:54
  And, and I think what was super well for us and what kind of got us onto this,
• 25:58
  and we really had to take a step back.
• 26:00
  So for, I would say the first year whenever we would mention this
• 26:03
  person, it'd be like this shudder.
• 26:04
  Like, oh my God, they're like this terrible person.
• 26:06
  It was awful.
• 26:06
  And I just don't ever wanna think about that ever again.
• 26:09
  And eventually we realized, you know what?
• 26:11
  Like that person, the reason why they failed was because of, Like it ultimately
• 26:16
  came down to the fact that we did not lead her in a way that was effective.
• 26:21
  We did not recognize what her strengths were.
• 26:24
  And in fact, what we did is every single time that we thought we were being a good
• 26:28
  manager, a good boss, we were feeding into every single insecurity that she had.
• 26:32
  And it literally brought out the worst in her personality because
• 26:36
  who she was when she ended that job was not the person that I hired.
• 26:39
  And I said that and we let her go.
• 26:41
  I was like, you are not the person that I hired.
• 26:42
  And I realized I had a hand in that.
• 26:43
  Like I had a hand in creating.
• 26:45
  This person that was so insecure that couldn't be honest, that
• 26:48
  was so overwhelmed that couldn't do her job, to what I knew that
• 26:52
  she could have done prior to.
• 26:54
  And so what it did is it put us on this journey of understanding who we were.
• 26:57
  And it was not an easy one, and it was a little bit ugly at times.
• 27:03
  You know, just to confront those things about you that you wanna pretend isn't.
• 27:08
  But once we like embrace it and say, you know what, actually, like I can't handle
• 27:12
  somebody who needs me to hold their hands.
• 27:15
  Like I am not, I'm not up for the task.
• 27:18
  Like, it makes me, it makes me anxious, it makes me angry, and then I just
• 27:21
  resent the hell outta that employee.
• 27:23
  So like, I can't manage somebody like that.
• 27:25
  And so if we have someone on our team, like I am not their direct manager, right?
• 27:29
  And so we recognize like, okay, what am I really good at?
• 27:32
  Who can I manage really well?
• 27:34
  And we hire for those kinds of people.
• 27:37
  We recognize, you know, what's not gonna fit in our team.
• 27:40
  We are, our screening process is very intense and it's very important that
• 27:45
  they fit into our company culture.
• 27:46
  That is the most important thing.
• 27:48
  And you know, we say this, that it's really important to hire the right
• 27:52
  person and not the best person.
• 27:54
  And for us, sometimes we hire the person that maybe doesn't have as
• 27:58
  high of skills as somebody else, but they fit in our team so well.
• 28:02
  They fit in our culture so well that they eventually become that best person.
• 28:06
  And so we had to really adopt that mm-hmm.
• 28:08
  And understand that about ourselves and our company, which like I said,
• 28:11
  led to, we had some failures with it.
• 28:13
  Sure.
• 28:13
  But, and it was hard to do, but it's definitely.
• 28:16
  Been a game changer.
• 28:17
  Becca: Yeah, and I think that's really insightful as well, that you could look
• 28:20
  back on that experience and realize, actually there's some learning that we
• 28:23
  can do that we can't just put all the blame on another person, but actually
• 28:26
  it's a time to reflect on us as leaders and on your own hiring process as well,
• 28:31
  which I think is really interesting.
• 28:33
  So with so much going on and with all these different companies to
• 28:36
  run and all these different things that you've outsourced, how do you
• 28:40
  both personally avoid burning out?
• 28:43
  Courtney and Dana: Well, sometimes that's unavoidable
• 28:48
  but, therapy.
• 28:49
  Yeah, therapy.
• 28:50
  Some therapy spots last maybe some medication maybe.
• 28:52
  And alcohol.
• 28:53
  No, but I think it's communicating honestly.
• 28:57
  So we are, and I think this, this is our secret sauce, is there's two of us, right?
• 29:02
  Mm-hmm.
• 29:02
  , so we are co entrepreneurs.
• 29:04
  So, , I think communicating to our, the partner, like, Hey,
• 29:07
  like, I'm feeling burned out.
• 29:09
  Or recognizing the burnout signs in your partners.
• 29:11
  Like, Hey, is there something that I can alleviate?
• 29:13
  Where can I step in?
• 29:14
  we have divided and conquered in this past year, which is actually new for us.
• 29:19
  We kind of did everything together and we realized that it was leading to
• 29:23
  a lot of burnout, overwhelm, mm-hmm.
• 29:25
  because there's, you know, a thousand tasks for each company and.
• 29:29
  Not feeling like you could mentally let go of any of those, I think was really
• 29:32
  detrimental actually to our mental health.
• 29:35
  So we divided and conquered that.
• 29:36
  Like, Hey, the buck stops with you and this company, the buck
• 29:39
  stops with you and this company.
• 29:40
  And when there's big decisions, you know, we come together and
• 29:42
  say like, I'm spending money on X.
• 29:44
  What do you think about this?
• 29:45
  Or, this is a proposal, or Here's the review.
• 29:47
  Recap of what's going on in this particular area.
• 29:50
  . And I think that really helped with the, the burnout piece.
• 29:53
  And then I think for us personally too, it's letting go of like some of the guilt.
• 29:57
  Mm-hmm.
• 29:57
  , like, honestly, like there are things that, Dana's really good at and it really
• 30:01
  pissed me off that I wasn't good at it.
• 30:04
  And it made me feel like I was like not up to par or less than, and I was
• 30:09
  continually trying to like keep up.
• 30:12
  And then there's things that I'm good at that Dana's not good at.
• 30:15
  And.
• 30:16
  I'm sure she didn't feel that exact same way.
• 30:18
  I don't think she has the same people pleasing mentality that I do, but
• 30:21
  you know, but realizing that, hey, that's my strength and this is this
• 30:24
  person's strength, and it doesn't have to necessarily be a business partner.
• 30:26
  It could be like, that's my strength.
• 30:27
  Mm-hmm.
• 30:27
  , and this is my employee strength.
• 30:29
  Mm-hmm.
• 30:29
  , and I'm hiring for this weakness.
• 30:30
  Mm-hmm.
• 30:31
  , I think is a really great way to avoid burnout.
• 30:33
  Mm-hmm.
• 30:34
  . . I totally agree.
• 30:35
  I think you have to look at it as for us, like a game changer.
• 30:38
  One of our most stressful companies is our planning company because it had one
• 30:41
  of the biggest teams and it was contract teams, so it wasn't like full-time people.
• 30:45
  And that's really hard to manage.
• 30:46
  It's really hard to lead a team like that.
• 30:48
  And it, what changed for us is we said, I, I, well, I said, I was like, either we're
• 30:53
  gonna sell this cuz I'm done with it, or we're gonna create a barrier between.
• 30:57
  And our, and our planners, like we need a manager.
• 31:00
  And we hired two managers to like just literally manage the company.
• 31:04
  And that has been huge and it made me realize that, yeah, like Courtney said,
• 31:08
  we are very, very fortunate that we have each other to like kind of, you
• 31:11
  know, when one's feeling burnt out, the only one can kind of absorb it.
• 31:14
  But as a solopreneur you don't have that option.
• 31:16
  And for us, and we're talking to the solopreneurs, it's like you need to
• 31:19
  find a second in command that can help alleviate some of those things and that
• 31:23
  you can feel like, okay, I need to.
• 31:26
  You know, a week off and that, you know, it's in good hands.
• 31:29
  And we just actually interviewed a good friend of ours who took a six
• 31:32
  week sabbatical, and she said that she left it in the hands of her
• 31:37
  very high functioning great team.
• 31:39
  And they took it from her.
• 31:40
  They were able to do all the, the inquiries, they did
• 31:42
  all the events and whatnot.
• 31:44
  And it was, you know, life changing for her because she was losing
• 31:47
  that spark and that joy in, in her company and in her business.
• 31:51
  And so when we're talking with other entrepreneurs, That is the
• 31:55
  hardest and the loneliest journey to go on is being a solopreneur.
• 32:00
  So finding someone that can help you manage your business, whether it's
• 32:04
  a part-time person or whether it's even just, what we call like your
• 32:07
  board of directors, like someone to lean on, is super important to
• 32:10
  kind of help alleviate that burnout.
• 32:12
  Becca: Yeah, so it's really interesting because in a lot of what you talked
• 32:15
  about then was talking about each other, and I think it's interesting for you to
• 32:20
  have run these businesses as sisters, as family members of the same family.
• 32:25
  And I know often people say, never go into business with your friends
• 32:27
  and never go into business with your partners, but people do.
• 32:30
  And there's listeners that I've got who work with their
• 32:32
  partners or other family members.
• 32:35
  So what have you learned on that journey?
• 32:38
  What have been the highs and maybe some of the lows of working together in a
• 32:41
  business, and how have you managed to keep the peace and remain friends and sisters?
• 32:46
  Courtney and Dana: That's a great question.
• 32:47
  Yeah.
• 32:47
  I mean, there's definitely times where it's not been peaceful.
• 32:50
  Yes.
• 32:51
  But I think, I don't know.
• 32:52
  I, I feel like for us, our sister relationship's always been
• 32:56
  paramount to the business, even when it was like super scary.
• 33:00
  Felt like everything was gonna fall down around us.
• 33:02
  We've always said like, look, it's always gonna be sisters first.
• 33:04
  And I think that you can say that, but I think you actually have to act that out.
• 33:09
  Mm-hmm.
• 33:09
  . And it is, you can't really separate it.
• 33:10
  I mean, as much as you can say, oh, it's business, it's not personal, whatever.
• 33:13
  When it you're working with your family, it is personal and it is business
• 33:16
  and it is kind of all consuming.
• 33:18
  But I, I think that recognizing each other's intentions is really
• 33:22
  important because I think that tends to get lost a little bit.
• 33:24
  Like when you get in.
• 33:26
  You know, he said she, she said for us, she said, she said in the minutia
• 33:29
  or the disagreement, understanding that one, that person loves you.
• 33:34
  You love that person.
• 33:35
  They care about you.
• 33:36
  They want what's best for you.
• 33:37
  You want what's best for them.
• 33:38
  They want what's best for the business.
• 33:40
  You want what's best for the business.
• 33:41
  And then going back to like, these are the things that I know about this person.
• 33:44
  So if I'm interpreting this in a way other than, It has more to
• 33:48
  do with my interpretation and we need to have a conversation than
• 33:51
  it does with the actual person.
• 33:52
  Mm-hmm.
• 33:53
  . So I think separating, you know, how you're feeling about a particular
• 33:56
  situation and getting back to what you know about that person
• 34:00
  and why you went into business in the first place, I think is key.
• 34:04
  Yeah.
• 34:04
  And I, I, it is really great kind of agreeing.
• 34:07
  It is really hard to separate.
• 34:08
  There's been many times we've had some really, really, really, really hard,
• 34:12
  hard arguments and conversations.
• 34:15
  You've had to take a step back and say like, look, I just
• 34:16
  wanna be your sister right now.
• 34:18
  Mm-hmm.
• 34:18
  like as your sister.
• 34:20
  This is what I'm saying to you, and this is what I feel like you
• 34:23
  should do as your business partner.
• 34:25
  We still need to figure out a way to make this correct.
• 34:28
  Right.
• 34:29
  But as your sister, like I have that empathy, I have that compassion.
• 34:32
  I, I understand what your intentions were and are, and I respect that.
• 34:37
  Right.
• 34:38
  But we still have to make a, a sound, sound business decision.
• 34:41
  And I think for us, it's definitely been a rollercoaster.
• 34:45
  And I, I personally feel like it was really hard.
• 34:47
  The hardest years were, were building the Bradford and it was living on property.
• 34:51
  Because there was no escape at all.
• 34:53
  Like there was just never a moment.
• 34:55
  And I remember when it was like right before me and my husband or my family
• 35:00
  ended up moving off property about year three which is always the plan.
• 35:04
  And I remember we were leaving somewhere and I was like, oh,
• 35:07
  I'm gonna tell Courtney we're gonna go to the grocery store.
• 35:08
  And he's like, why?
• 35:10
  , like when in your life did you ever just call your sister when you left your house
• 35:14
  to say you're going to the grocery store?
• 35:15
  I was like, well, she won't see my car in the driveway.
• 35:17
  Mm-hmm.
• 35:17
  , because we share a driveway and she's gonna be curious where I am.
• 35:20
  And he's like, that's crazy.
• 35:22
  . Like, and so it was really, really, really hard to, to have that
• 35:27
  kind of separate life that you really, really, that we needed.
• 35:31
  Mm-hmm.
• 35:31
  . And I definitely think it got immensely better when we had a little
• 35:34
  bit of that physical separation.
• 35:36
  Even though we still see each other literally every single
• 35:38
  day at work, it's nice that you.
• 35:41
  I don't know that we have a little bit of separation.
• 35:43
  Yeah.
• 35:44
  And I'd say shockingly, like it is almost always personal that
• 35:47
  seeps into business and it's never business that sees into personal.
• 35:50
  Yes.
• 35:50
  Yes.
• 35:51
  Like it's literally like, it's not really ever the business.
• 35:53
  I feel like we're almost always in step as far as it concerns the business.
• 35:57
  Right.
• 35:57
  We agree.
• 35:58
  Very like, like we have very similar like life philosophies.
• 36:01
  Yeah.
• 36:01
  We've had very similar risk tolerances.
• 36:03
  Mm-hmm.
• 36:03
  , like we feel very confident making decisions, business
• 36:06
  decisions for each other.
• 36:07
  There's a lot of that.
• 36:08
  It's almost always like the personal that seeps in.
• 36:11
  Mm.
• 36:11
  And just, and that, and I mean that by like outside forces beyond
• 36:15
  Dana and I like kind of those kind of forces that sit then, right?
• 36:18
  Becca: Yeah.
• 36:18
  And that happens to all of us, doesn't it?
• 36:20
  But what the great thing is about you working together is, as you said before,
• 36:24
  yeah, that you've always got each other and you always know that there's
• 36:27
  someone else in that business that can step up and do the job for you, right?
• 36:31
  Mm-hmm.
• 36:31
  . Yeah, totally.
• 36:32
  It's been so fascinating talking to you both.
• 36:35
  I've really enjoyed hearing about your story, the ups and the downs,
• 36:38
  and how you've got through it all.
• 36:39
  I'll be sure to link to all of the different links for
• 36:42
  you guys in the show notes.
• 36:43
  So if anyone wants to go and find out more about Dana and Courtney,
• 36:46
  you can find the information there.
• 36:48
  It's been a great chat.
• 36:49
  Thank you for being here, and I'll see you next week.