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