David VS Goliath Podcast – S1 – Episode 34 – Kristy Murrow

Adam DeGraide: Coming up today on David Vs Goliath.

Kristy Murrow: Don’t take advice from someone who is not where you want to be. Every single metric, I had set we exceeded.

Adam DeGraide: I love that.

Speaker 3: Welcome to today’s episode of David Vs Goliath. A podcast dedicated to helping small businesses, leverage technology to not only help them compete against their large competitors, but win. Your host is currently the CEO of Anthem Business Software, a three time, Inc. 500 recipient and a serial entrepreneur with a passion to help small businesses everywhere, find, serve, and keep more customers profitably. Please join me in welcoming your host, Adam DeGraide.

Adam DeGraide: Hey everyone. It’s Adam DeGraide, with a David Vs Goliath Podcast. I believe to be one of the best business podcasts in the world. And we are psyched out of our minds, today. We have Kristy Murrow, who’s the managing directing partner of the Mariposa Med Spa in Oklahoma City. She’s been on the Inc. 500 twice. She’s been one of the fastest growing companies in Oklahoma. This is a great story. You’re going to love it, stay tuned. Before we get to it, though, today’s episode is brought to us by Anthem Software, where you can find, serve, and keep more customers profitably with their all in one solution built specifically for small business of software, CRM software, marketing services and training lab, to help you run your business more effectively and efficiently. Visit anthemsoftware.com today to take the 120 Second video Tour.
Do not forget. As I’ve mentioned in many episodes, I’ve got a book out it’s called The Adventures of Jackson: The Young Field Mouse, teaches kids, bravery, gratitude, and attentiveness, and we had some recent reviews on Amazon from some of our listeners. Thank you guys for buying it. Thank you for reviewing it. It means the world to us, also visit us online at davidvsgoliathpodcast.com. You could shop there. Here’s a few pictures of our shop. Check it out, hats, t-shirts, mugs, go check it out, pimp it out for your friends. And then also you can apply to be on the podcast, right there on the website. You can ask me a question and I’ll help you with your business. It’s free advice. Don’t be afraid to ask me a question. And then obviously at the same time, you can subscribe to receive our email update in newsletters. Well, with all of that out of the way, let’s get right to it with Kristy Murrow, from the Mariposa Med Spa. Kristy, welcome to the David Vs Goliath Podcast.

Kristy Murrow: Thank you so much for having me.

Adam DeGraide: I am so excited to have you. I’ve heard you speak a dozen times in my life. We’ve met because in a previous life you were a client of ours, and I’ve always admired what you have been able to do, in the story that you tell about Mariposa Med Spa. They’re in Oklahoma City. I am going to be in Oklahoma City by the way, coming up pretty soon. So, I’ve got to at least do lunch, come hang out with you. I’m recording a project with a few singers and musicians there in Oklahoma and so Crystal and I will both be there. So, we look forward to seeing you.

Kristy Murrow: That’s great. We’ll have to do lunch and you’ll have to tell me who the musicians are.

Adam DeGraide: I will definitely do that. It’s kind of have a secret project, so I don’t want to spoil it right now, but it’s pretty exciting. And so when I was reading this, you know what I love about your story, and I was reminded of this because I’ve known you for years, and I’ve always admired what you’ve been able to accomplish at Mariposa Med Spa. But you said something in here that I want to kind of start with. I normally would end with this, but I think this is really important for my viewers and my watchers. You mentioned how, when you decided that you were going to take over and help run this failing med spa at the time in 2007, that they offered you to buy it and you didn’t have the means and you didn’t have, maybe necessarily the confidence, I guess, to go ahead and do that.
And you’re kind of kicking yourself in hindsight, because of what you’ve been able to do, which is completely understandable. And one of the things I talk a lot about Kristy, is the fact that hesitancy is the death of entrepreneurs and its action that gives life, right?

Kristy Murrow: Yeah.

Adam DeGraide: And sometimes though, you make a good point that, maybe it was a blend of confidence, maybe it was a blend of means, but usually where there’s a will, there’s a way and who would’ve known, what you’ve been able to do. So, I want to start off with that because everyone that’s watching and listening. If you’re supposed to do something and you feel it in your gut, don’t wait, just do it, because you don’t want to look back and regret things. I don’t think you regret what you’ve done over there. I think if you’d had it back though, you’d be like, “I’m going to go figure out how to make that happen.” And so for the listeners and the viewers, tell them a little bit about that story, in 2007 where this med spa was up, it was a year, it was failing. They didn’t know what to do with it, in comes Kristy Murrow, the managing director, now. Tell them that story. I think it’s a great story.

Kristy Murrow: So, basically about, parallel Mariposa was getting started with four different partners. They opened in September 2007. At that time I was in a surgeon’s office working as a PA, and he wanted to start an aesthetics clinic while he was in surgery, I would run that. That way he would still have some revenue. So, I opened that in January 2008. So, Mariposa was about four months ahead of me, as far as what we were doing at the same time. Circle down to the fall of 2008, we got a letter and it was Mariposa was closing. And I was like, “Wow, that was fast.” Right. And of course I’m thinking, I’ll go over there, I’ll swoop in, take some good equipment, whatever. And I was learning, looking to capitalize on that. And what I’d found when I got there, was one, the equipment was not up to par.
That was probably part of their problem, is if you can’t deliver results, in our industry, you don’t stay in business very long. Because people want a result obviously, for their investment. And so I looked around and I was like, “Yeah, they really had a good thing going on, but they had made some bad, in my opinion, some bad business choices getting started.” So, I walked away from the equipment and got a call a couple weeks later and they were like, “Hey, we’d like to meet with you.” Because they wanted me to buy it. And I’m thinking, okay, they are quarter million dollars in debt, they have all this equipment that’s not good. I’m like, “I don’t know that I want to buy the Titanic.” For one, and that’s how I viewed it.
I was like, “This is a mess over here. Why would I do that?” So, part of it was, I think the worry of, “What if I do that, and it doesn’t work?” That kills so many people’s dreams, the what if it doesn’t work? Instead of thinking, “What if it does, it could be amazing.” And on the other hand too, my husband was not a big risk taker in the entrepreneurial sense, and this would’ve been a big risk. And so, we looked at that and I was, “Yeah, okay I think I’m just going to have to let that go.” Now they called me again and were like, “Hey, why don’t you sit down with us and tell us what you think is going on here.” And I was like, “You have a good thing going, but you’ve done this wrong, this wrong, this wrong, in my opinion.”
So, they gave me, I mean, this is how I think desperate they were to get out of it, hoping I would still buy it is, they’re like, “If you want to look at our financials, if you want to look at whatever and tell us what you think.” So, they sent me all these reports that I asked for, and I looked at it and I was like, “What are you doing?” And the truth is they just didn’t know, really. They were very, very successful business people in other areas. But the aesthetics industry is very different. And you know from being in, it’s a very weird hybrid of medicine and business, and retail. And they just really didn’t quite know what to do with it, and there was nobody really driving that bus forward. It was just whatever happened, or whatever rep told them whatever is what they were doing. Hoping that if we build it, they will come. Which is what a lot of people do.

Adam DeGraide: Yeah. We saw it all the time.

Kristy Murrow: I bet you did.

Adam DeGraide: Working, form 800 some odd providers, you think because you have a shingle and you got a few CoolSculpting machines and some things that are going to make people, supposedly look better, that people are just going to knock on your door and come on in, it’s not the way it works. You got to run it like a business.

Kristy Murrow: And you have to have a plan. They just didn’t have a plan. And I think when I went and said, “Hey, I think you could make this work. I think you guys are jumping ship too soon. I would look at doing this, this, this.” And I had like 10 items. I was like, “You need to sell this, and you need to get this, and you need to have somebody who’s in charge of it.” People aren’t just going to come.

Adam DeGraide: Yeah, no doubt. And not only did you take it over, because I’ve known you over the years, it exploded with growth. I mean, to the point where you were one of the fastest growing companies in Oklahoma, you reached the Inc. 500 twice or, I don’t know if it was 500 or the Inc. 5,000, but that is no small feat to take a small business that was struggling, basically defunct, and to come in and then revamp it completely and just change the culture and the direction of it. And what would you given, chalk up the experience to, I mean, you were working with another business at the time, had you ever run your own business up to that point in time and like taken something like that, and just run with it? Or was this new for you and you just went with instinct.

Kristy Murrow: It was new. I mean, I had had other experiences I think that gave me a very unique kind of hotch-potch set of skills, but all of those skills culminated to what it takes to be really successful I think in the aesthetic, medicine realm. But this was the first time that, I had taken something that was existing and made corrections to it to move it forward. In the other practice I was in charge of starting that from the ground up. So, we had to brand it, and pick a name, and logo, and pick equipment, we had to do all that from the ground up. So, I did have that, experience, but that was new too. And I think that was where the fear came from, and the risk come from is I really believed, I knew what was needed and what I could make happen, but I’d never done it, I was unproven.

Adam DeGraide: Totally.

Kristy Murrow: And I think, I was afraid to ask somebody to take a chance on me, really. But that’s really what they did, they took a chance on me, and I took a chance that I could do it. And we did, but it was really, to answer your question directly, I would just say I was extremely focused. I mean, I started January 2009 at Mariposa and that was, 2008, 2009, the economy was not great. There was the recession going on, all of that. And to be quite honest, I get asked that question a lot. Like, “How did you do it in the recession, blah?” And I paid no attention to it. If you asked me about, they economy I’d be like, “What, is it bad?” I mean, I just, I did not pay one bit of attention to it. I moved forward. Planned out my work, and worked my plan and I could care less about the economy, I didn’t have time for the economy. I had something to do, and I just went at it.

Adam DeGraide: I think that’s amazing because I don’t know if you’ve ever read Zig Ziglar, but Zig Ziglar’s like one of my favorite authors and I believe in his book, See You at the Top, he talks about this idea of recession. And he said that so many salespeople say they can’t sell because of recession. He would always say something like, “I just refuse to participate in recessions.” And so-

Kristy Murrow: That’s exactly what I said.

Adam DeGraide: As a result of refusing to participate in the so-called recession, I am therefore not in recession, and therefore I will grow the business’s. And that’s kind of what you did, in watching you, I’ll never forget it, when I met you at that booth, you came by a bunch of zany dudes, it was me, Tim and Tommy, I think at the time.

Kristy Murrow: Yes, I remember.

Adam DeGraide: And we were just kind of being crazy, I think we set up a kissing booth. I don’t know if you remember that or not. It was like, 25 cents for a kiss. It was a joke just to get people to stop. And I was talking to you and I went on your website and I started tooling around and you were early on YouTube, too, doing like videos. And I just love the fact that you were confident, and you were not afraid to educate your patient, and get in there and motivate your staff and your team members, to love and serve the patient with the education first, right? And so I just said, “Man, I’ve got to work with this girl. She’s going to be awesome.” And it was a great time working together and watching each other’s companies grow during that time.
Now we’re going to take a break in a little bit, but before we take the break, so you didn’t do this alone as you started Mariposa, but did you have a plan? In other words, when you first took it over, did you say, “Okay, we did terrible at this, I’m going to change the pricing, we need to do this many procedures and we need to do it this much time, and I’m going to need this much help in providers.” I mean, did you get that granular or was kind of like the fire place is on fire and you just had a hose and you’re going around putting fires out. Or did you give some strategic thought to it in the beginning?

Kristy Murrow: No, I would say it was very much a strategic plan.

Adam DeGraide: Okay.

Kristy Murrow: I had very much in mind where I felt like their mistakes were as far as I knew what equipment I needed to eliminate and what I needed to bring on. I was the only provider of services, at the time. And so I brought one staff person with me from the other practice, and she ran the front, answered the phones, scheduled the appointments, all of that. And it was just really her and I figuring out the marketing, figuring out, what avenues we wanted to get the word out. And the main focus, as you know, with the new business, we needed people, we had to get people calling, we had to get our phone to ring.

Adam DeGraide: Correct.

Kristy Murrow: And that became the number one focus, because I knew I could handle the treatment part, the medical part, the treatment part. And to be honest, the sales component of it, as far as the consultation and recommending services and closing that service sale, I didn’t have any worries that I could do my job that way, but it was all about how do I get people to know us, and to come in.

Adam DeGraide: Yeah. And I think that is a very good point. As a matter of fact, I’m showing some pictures right now of the beautiful location that you’ve had, and that you’ve had built recently over the last several years.

Kristy Murrow: Yes.

Adam DeGraide: So, right now our viewers are actually looking at this and you started off small, you have this beautiful facility now, and it does start with a plan, it starts with goals. And so what I love about what Kristy’s saying, and because people tune into DVG Kristy, because they want to get great advice for their own business, is that she started with the plan. She thought it through, she knew what was missing, she knew she could provide, and then she had to go find the people, because if you’re watching and listening, a med spa is elective. So, people are going in to do Botox or Juvederm, or they’re doing CoolSculpting, whatever these types of treatments are that they’re going in there to look better. And this is patient pay.

Kristy Murrow: Correct.

Adam DeGraide: So, it’s out of their pocket. So, you have to be good at marketing, you have to be good at serving people. Otherwise, you’re dead in the water. So, right now we’re going to take a quick break from our first sponsor, our corporate sponsor Anthem Software. And when we get back, we’re going to continue with Kristy Murrow from Mariposa Med Spa. Hang on. Here’s an important message.

Speaker 3: Anthem Business Software system is designed to specifically help small businesses just like yours, find, serve, and keep more customers profitably. We do this by providing you with the most powerful software automations and marketing services to help your business compete and win in this ever changing digital world. Take a short video tour @anthemsoftware.com. (Singing).

Adam DeGraide: And we’re back with Kristy Murrow. And your handsome host, Adam DeGraide of the DVG podcast. Kristy, I notice you have a guitar hanging back there. What’s that?

Kristy Murrow: That is my husbands.

Adam DeGraide: I don’t know if you can see behind me, I have like 14 guitars hanging there. People are going to be wondering like, “Does he only have people that have guitars on the wall, on his show?” Do you play guitar?

Kristy Murrow: I do not. I am the least musical person you will ever meet. I have a good appreciation for music and that’s about it. Can’t sing, can’t play.

Adam DeGraide: Why is there a guitar on the wall?

Kristy Murrow: Because, my husband can play.

Adam DeGraide: Okay.

Kristy Murrow: Yeah. He plays guitar and has a great voice and everything. And I just get to enjoy it.

Adam DeGraide: That’s amazing. I have a guitar next to me, which is a Patriots guitar. I don’t know if you could see it

Kristy Murrow: I can’t see that side.

Adam DeGraide: But it’s actually, it’s from the super bowl. My viewers can, you’ll see it. It’s from the Super Bowl where the Patriots beat, the Seattle Seahawks. My wife got the entire offense of the winning Patriots team to sign the guitar. And so…

Kristy Murrow: That’s awesome.

Adam DeGraide: It is, it’s really, really cool. I love guitars. I love music. So, tell your husband a fellow music aficionado and lover over here as well, too.

Kristy Murrow: Yeah, I will.

Adam DeGraide: So, back to Mariposa, building the team over the years, training the staff, you dialed in the marketing, I know that. You started getting people and then you had to train a team. You actually do a lot of training, and a lot of speaking about how to build a med spa. What advice would you give to business owners in general about A, building the team, and then B training your team. What do you do to help them, motivate them, inspire them, mentor them. So, you don’t have to micromanage them. I think people would love to know that.

Kristy Murrow: Yeah, isn’t that the question, right. I always would love to know that from other people as well. And I guess for me personally, I think it’s all about your people, because that is your business. Your team is that extension of you. And if they don’t know who you are, and what the identity of your business is, they can’t represent it. It’s just a bunch of individuals. So, my goal is to bring people on that fit our culture, and who understand an abundance mindset. I believe, there’s a lot of people in our industry that have a very, what I call a scarcity mindset. They are so worried that, what you’re going to run out of people with skin? That it’s all about the competition, competition, competition, that they really can be cutthroat and it doesn’t serve the industry very well, and it doesn’t serve the patient very well.

Adam DeGraide: It actually devalues what you’re doing.

Kristy Murrow: Yes, 100%.

Adam DeGraide: And that’s not healthy for them or for you or for the industry at large.

Kristy Murrow: Yes, it’s true. And so I look for like-minded people. I look for people with an abundance mindset, positive attitude, a good strong work ethic, who it’s just intrinsic in them to work hard and to want to be the best at what they do, because the customer service level in our industry has to be phenomenal. There has to be something that sets you apart from your competition. So, I want that to be our customer service. And when people hear the name Mariposa, I want them to think, “They do it right. They serve people well, and they’re not afraid to help the fellow, competition.” If you will. Because I fully believe, and I preach it like crazy in our office is, there is enough skin out there for everybody, right.

Adam DeGraide: Enough skin.

Kristy Murrow: And if you’ve got skin and you’re breathing, there’s lots of places you can choose. So, find some place that you know, you like, you trust and stick with that, be loyal to them and they will take good care of you. And that’s what I hope our patients have found, and that’s what I look for in my team members, is people that want to serve other people, and do the right thing, for the right reasons.

Adam DeGraide: Makes all the difference in the world when you’re doing the right thing. I interviewed Stanley Okoro and he said, a few people was back. He said, “We’re not in it for the money, but without the money, we’re not in it.”

Kristy Murrow: Exactly.

Adam DeGraide: And one of the things I thought was fascinating about it is that he really talked about his team members, right. He talked about bringing them alongside next to him, and they worked to serve the patient with love and care together. And that’s what I’ve seen you do over the years. When I worked with over 800 practices, we had probably a couple of hundred that didn’t have the greatest bedside manner, unfortunately. And their reviews reflected that, right. So, they were any constant panic, of how do I get positive reviews when you’re torturing your patients.

Kristy Murrow: Right.

Adam DeGraide: So, it’s like, “Well number one, do the right thing, be nice, say you’re sorry if you make a mistake.” And I think that goes a long way and you’ve done a great job. Now, some of the things you do at Mariposa, really ripple throughout the industry, because you are one of the earlier med spas that started doing events, started doing larger events. Now every med spa in the world for them not to have specials, for them not to have events. And we help lead that way by the way too. It’s like, if you’re not running monthly promotions or having some big quarterly event or semiannual event, you’re missing the opportunity to really love and serve your patient, right? And for the watchers and listeners, you may not own a med spa, but your company, you got to learn how to celebrate with your customers and events are a great way to do it. And you were one of the forefronts, tell the watchers and listeners about your first event, and what’s happened since then.

Kristy Murrow: Okay. Like I said, I started in January 2009 and we had a phenomenal first year. It absolutely exceeded all of the goals that I had set. And we were just incredibly grateful, really, really grateful for how successful it had been. And so that holiday season, we set out to do a client appreciation event. Some people would go, “Oh, that’s your Christmas party.” But it really isn’t a Christmas party. It is always our annual client appreciation event. Because as I said, without them, you’re out of business. I mean, Dr. Okoro is completely right, you have zero, without them. And so you have to establish that culture of gratitude. We want them to be grateful that we serve them well and happy and appreciative of that. But we have to give back, and say we know it’s about you, not about us.
So, we set a goal, because I always do, of what we wanted to accomplish out of that event, how many people we wanted to come, what amount in sales, because we offer great incentives and things like that for them to take advantage of, and save for their services next year, right. And every single metric I had set, we exceeded, we were like, please let us have.

Adam DeGraide: I love that.

Kristy Murrow: $35,000 in sale. We were like, “Please, please.” Okay. We had over 80. We were like, “Oh my gosh.” For our first year and we had 125 people show up, we were hoping for 40 or 50.

Adam DeGraide: That’s amazing.

Kristy Murrow: And now of course our parties do well over 500 people in a four hour time span and have a million dollars in sales and whatever. So, it’s like, I look back then and go, “We were so thrilled with 80,000.” And we would still be, because what it did, the most fun thing about it, Adam is that our clients got to know each other.

Adam DeGraide: Totally.

Kristy Murrow: And we have people that met at our first or second party who come, what, 10 years, I guess we’re almost in our 14th year now down the road and go, “Hey is so and so here?” And the only time they see each other is at our event once a year.

Adam DeGraide: That’s awesome.

Kristy Murrow: And they catch it up and they share their stuff and it’s just, they all work together, they eavesdrop on each other’s conversations and go, “You did that service, you did that service.” And it’s a great third party testimonial among peers, of people that want the same thing, they want to look good, feel good and put out their very best, for their families and for work and everything. And it has just built into this really beautiful event that honestly, everybody knows about, everybody in town knows about it. We do it the same time every year.

Adam DeGraide: And they look forward to it.

Kristy Murrow: Yeah, they do.

Adam DeGraide: And if you think about what Kristy just said, guys, this is amazing. The first event she had goals, they stretched her faith a little bit in her business. She not only met them, she exceeded them. If she didn’t have a goal, she’d have no idea how to benchmark, whether it was successful or not. And you might have missed this. It went from 125 to well over 500 now. And they do close to a million dollars in sales that benefits Mariposa, it benefits their customers, because their customers get discounts and specials. They know they’re going to be there, it creates customer loyalty, it creates stickiness to the brand. These are things that you can do for your business as well. And Kristy is fantastic at it. Now do you have any… You look back everything can’t be roses, right?
When building a business, I’m sure you’ve had a patient or two that didn’t quite get the outcome they were hoping for. And some people just will never get an outcome that they’re happy with because that’s just who they are. And I’m sure you’ve had employee challenges. If you don’t mind, you don’t have to get specifics obviously, you don’t want to betray, because of HIPAA, you can’t even do that. But give us some examples of how you deal with those disgruntled clients. And have you had challenges with employees as well too, because business owners and people who watch this, we not only want to get inspiration from yeah, we can do it, but maybe some practical things that you did to tweak in those early days that really set you up for success long term.

Kristy Murrow: Okay. Yeah. And without a doubt, if anybody ever tells somebody, this was, like you said, “All a walk in the park and I’ve never had a hiccup.” They are just lying. I don’t know what else to say. I mean, you don’t get it without, because we’re all human, we’re all people. I have had a few patients, I’ve been very lucky because we haven’t had a large amount of that. However, yes. You’re going to have some people whose expectations you don’t meet, or maybe there was a lack of communication. And as you, as you build your staff, I have found that there’s more of that of course, because I’m not the one always saying it. So, I can’t say, “I know, I didn’t say that.” I honestly don’t know if my staff told them that, right?

Adam DeGraide: Yeah, you don’t know.

Kristy Murrow: And so, I don’t go in 100% on the customers always right. I would say I’m about 98%, the customer’s always right. Because let’s be honest there are time that, they are just not.

Adam DeGraide: Think I’m going to go more with like 85. I think it’s more like 85% of the time, the customers always. Including me when I’m the customer, I’ve been wrong 15% of the time.

Kristy Murrow: Yeah. I think that what I’ve learned and what I try to teach my staff is that, you may have said something a certain way and you know what you meant, but if they perceived that you meant something else, then in their mind, that’s what you meant and so it’s not like they’re lying, exactly.

Adam DeGraide: Yeah. It’s just miscommunication.

Kristy Murrow: It was not communicated well. And if there’s a miscommunication, it really is on us. We have to be clear. And you said something earlier that I couldn’t agree with more, if you are wrong, just apologize, just own it, own it and figure out how to fix it and assure someone that it’s not going to happen again.

Adam DeGraide: Yeah, totally.

Kristy Murrow: That’s really, for the most part, what I’ve learned that people want. And it’s what I think clients want, when they’re unhappy. They want to know that you hear them, that you understand why they’re unhappy, that you’re going to try to fix it. Even if you don’t say… I’ve had patients where I haven’t admitted, “Hey look, we did this wrong.” Because I really feel we didn’t, and I’ll tell them that, I really believe we did our very best for you, but I hear that we didn’t meet your expectation.
And for that, I’m sorry. Because we always want to meet your expectation.

Adam DeGraide: Yeah, totally.

Kristy Murrow: So, what can I do now to fix that? Because at the end of the day, if there’s nothing else that you can say about me or about Mariposa, I want it to be that we treated you fairly, that we listened that we worked to fix it and that we treated you fairly. And even if we resolve this and you choose to never come back, I want you to be able to say, it’s not because we didn’t listen and treat you fairly, because that I can do that. I have control of, and I tell my staff the same thing. If you make a mistake, if you break something, if whatever happened, just own it, don’t hide it, don’t try to act like you didn’t do it, don’t deny it, don’t get defensive. Just come and go, Kristy I broke this. I know it’s going to cost $500, it sucks. I’m so sorry. And I will never be that way again, I will never do that again. Just tell me that, and I’ll move on.

Adam DeGraide: Don’t hide it from me because then that’ll be a problem and just get to it, and tell the truth. See guys, it’s not all roses. We go through challenges in our businesses, all of us do. And whether that’s with employees or with customers, own up to when you’re wrong. But it’s also important. Even if you’re in the right and someone feels like you haven’t served them, apologize that you haven’t met their expectations, and then try to create a roadmap and a path to exceed them the next time. Sometimes you can do it, sometimes you can’t. So, Kristy, we got to take one more break and then we come back, we’re going to continue this amazing discussion with Kristy Murrow from Mariposa Med Spa. I’m Adam DeGraide your host from the David Vs Goliath Podcast. Here has another important message from a great sponsor. Stay tuned.

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Adam DeGraide: And we’re back for our final segment with the amazing, the talented, the very articulate and successful business leader, speaker, entrepreneur in her own right, Kristy Murrow this has been great advice and wisdom you’ve been giving to not only myself, but to all the watchers and listeners of DVG. You know, what’s been the biggest challenge for you in staying motivated in running a business, because that can sometimes be difficult and life throws curve balls at you, and you never know what’s going to end up happening. What would you say is the most difficult thing to stay motivated and has happened, during the business for you?

Kristy Murrow: Okay. I have to couch this in a very careful way, a little bit in that what I would say, and I think most business owners would say the same thing. I feel like staffing. Your team and the people that work with you on a day to day basis who represent you. I find that to be the most challenging component. It can be overwhelming. It can be frustrating, at times. I love the building part of it, I love building people. I like seeing their professional growth, I love seeing their personal growth, but dealing with the humanness of everyone, can be a real challenge, right? And will say this.

Adam DeGraide: And also because, we, I might be the CEO of my business and your respectives doing the same thing, but I have bad days. I have days where I’m even off, and that affects my employees, and my clients and the morale and you know, nobody’s perfect. And my mom always had a great saying. She said, “Some days you just have to have EGR, extra grace required.”

Kristy Murrow: Yes.

Adam DeGraide: And there’s certain customers you experience, certain coworkers you work with, that on certain days might just need a little extra EGR. And before you know it, that person is you and I’ve found that, building teams, scaling teams, it does get difficult, especially as it gets larger. And we have to have grace for each other and we also have to have clearness with each other. So, there’s no ambiguity. We know what they expect from us, we know what we expect from them and that we work together to get those goals done. But that’s interesting, that’s tough for you.

Kristy Murrow: Did you find in your business as well, like the one thing that I’ve always thought was true and that I feel like probably my biggest weakness is to be honest, is I learned at one point that you hire slow, right? Fire fast. And I believe that, I believe that if somebody is, if that is not a good fit, if it’s not a good situation, if they’ve done something that is not fixable so to say, we need to release them and let them be happy somewhere else. We need to bless and release them.

Adam DeGraide: I’ve always had a hard time with that bit.

Kristy Murrow: And I do too, because I want to fix things.

Adam DeGraide: Things because I, Tim, the reason why you have partners and the reason why Tim was a great partner for me in the last business, Joe’s a fantastic partner in my last business and in this business, Tim was more of the higher slow, fire fast. I’m more of a redemptive guy in nature, so for me, I try to always see the best in people, even if they’re horrible. And, I think there’s been, let’s say out of 10 people that I’ve fired too slow, only one of them made it. In other words, only one of those actually stayed, the other nine caused more pain than I probably needed to, do I regret not firing quick? I don’t know, because you never know what their life story is going to be, what my life story is as we go along, right?
Because it’s more than just business, we’re here to be mentors to each other. And I believe God has us to treat each other with respect and love and dignity. But I think if I’m going to… That’s one of the reasons why I don’t necessarily do that, in my company. Because I’m naturally, I don’t want to say a softy, because you know what it’s done, it’s done, but I am more gracious I guess, in the process. So, I leave that task up to other people who will Donald Trump them and have no problem doing it. For me, it’s tough for me. But I think going forward, if it is tough on you, maybe it’s somebody else that you might want to get to do that for you.

Kristy Murrow: Well, what I have learned through that is, because it is a struggle for me because I’m kind of like you, I want to believe that people want to do better. And what I have learned and I hope that it will help someone is that, you cannot want it for them, more than they want it for themselves.

Adam DeGraide: You said it.

Kristy Murrow: And that’s a hard, hard lesson.

Adam DeGraide: And what is so profound, because you got to remember my job okay, was to get results for people. To have them use the software, answer the phones properly, handle leads properly. But if I wanted that more for them than they did themselves, I Could never help these people Kristy. And it was so frustrating, because they would be frustrated, I would be frustrated. And at the end of the day, it’s very, very difficult. We got to a culture when we started firing clients. So, we actually did. And I know some med spas do that too. They get to a place where it’s like, this patient is too much of a drain on our time energy resources. And sometimes you got to do that, right?

Kristy Murrow: It’s just not a good fit, is the thing.

Adam DeGraide: But you said is so accurately though, you can’t want it more than somebody else wants it. Now we have business owners and watchers and we’re getting toward the end of our interview. And I hope that you’ll come back on again, because this has been awesome having you here.

Kristy Murrow: Thank you.

Adam DeGraide: What advice would you give to that man or woman right now, that maybe is where you were in the beginning, where they know they want to own their own thing, but they keep finding themselves building things for other people. What would be the advice that you would give them? Would it be to stay the course or would it be a little bit different advice that you’d give them to just go for it and have the courage and do it?

Kristy Murrow: I would, here’s the thing I think that I would tell them, “Don’t take advice from someone who’s not where you want to be.” And I think that happens too many times. People listen to friends or family say, “I don’t think you should do that, that doesn’t sound very safe, that’s that’s pretty risky.” Whatever.

Adam DeGraide: Can you say that again? Because I think that was the most profound thing on this episode, you said, correct me if I’m wrong don’t take time…

Kristy Murrow: “Don’t take advice from someone who is not where you want to be.”

Adam DeGraide: Woo. That should be a book.

Kristy Murrow: So, if you think, “Should I do this business or not? Should I go out on my own?” Talk to people who’ve gone out on their own, and who are successful at it. Don’t talk to someone who went out on their own and failed at it necessarily because they’re going to say, “It’s too. Yeah, that was a big mistake I made.” When in fact they may have made some mistakes, but going out on your own, maybe isn’t the mistake. Find the people who are where you want to be, and take their advice.

Adam DeGraide: That’s awesome.

Kristy Murrow: Because they’re not going to mislead you. They’re not competing with you. They’re don’t have anything to gain or lose by what you choose to do. They’re going to be honest with you and to be honest, they’re going to be encouraging because they have the right mindset.

Adam DeGraide: Do you mind if I steal that in the future? And I’ll give you credit.

Kristy Murrow: No.

Adam DeGraide: Like, “Don’t take advice from somebody who’s not where you want to be.” I mean, I can’t think of better advice that I’ve actually received on this podcast, that one little snippet hit me like a ton of bricks. Just get you right in there, for the win. You know what? Because so often we listen to the wrong voice. And if you think about it, the whole show David Vs Goliath, Kristy is the fact that David wanted to go out and slay that giant, he was offered armor by Saul, who was afraid to go fight the giant, armor from all the rest of the people who wouldn’t go fight it. And he said, “No, I don’t need that, I’m heading down to the stream.” He grabs five smooth stones, a little Slingshot he walked out on that field. He said, “I come before you in the name of my God, who has called me here.” And he slayed that giant, and I believe it only took one stone. And that stone is courage. And what you just said is profound.
It takes courage to listen to people who are at a place where you want to be. It takes no courage to listen to people in a place where you don’t want to be. And I think that is one of the best things ever said here on the DVG podcast. Have you had a good time being here with me?

Kristy Murrow: Have I? Of course, I always enjoy our conversations. I think when you talk to like-minded people, it’s very invigorating. I mean, it gets you excited, it gets you motivated when you think of… That’s why I try to surround myself with people like you, I want to be around people who will be uplifting, who will be encouraging and who are like minded in terms of serving other people.

Adam DeGraide: No doubt about it.

Kristy Murrow: And Yeah.

Adam DeGraide: It is awesome.

Kristy Murrow: So, I’ve absolutely enjoyed it. Thank you so much for having me it’s an honor.

Adam DeGraide: How could people… It’s an honor to have you on here, man I love strong, powerful women that have awesome attitudes and build great businesses, man. Like to me, we’re kindred spirits, we always have been kindred spirits and I think that’s awesome. How could people get in touch with you? Maybe LinkedIn? Is that probably the best way for them to go check you on?

Kristy Murrow: Yeah, I have a LinkedIn profile. They can even just, message through our website. I had a great company build me a really great website, and so they can always reach out, search for, Mariposaokc.com and find out about us and just call me, I’m very accessible.

Adam DeGraide: Kristy you have been awesome. I got to get back to one of the events to see you speak pretty soon. It’s been too long since I showed my face in an aesthetic event. As you know, I’m in a non-compete, so I’m not able to work with many of my previous clients, but I love bringing them on. I still love a partner, in the company that bought my last business PatientNow. And Kristy, thank you so much for being on David Vs Goliath. It’s been awesome. Listeners and watchers, where else are you going to get advice like you just got here from Kristy Murrow, from Mariposa Med Spa and yours, truly Adam David DeGraide here on the David Vs Goliath Podcast. I hope you learned a ton, that you got education, inspiration, and hopefully most importantly activation, we’ll see you next week. Have a fantastic day.