Speaker 1:

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 FreeTime Inc. 500 recipient and a serial entrepreneur with a passion to help small businesses everywhere find, serve, and keep more customers profitable. Please join me in welcoming your host, Adam Degraide.

Adam Degraide:

Hey everyone, it’s Adam Degraide with the David Vs Goliath podcast. Hopefully you’re having an awesome day because I am. I’m so excited about today’s episode. We’re going to be talking about loving what you do. So many times in our lives, folks, we do things we don’t love to do, and they’ve always said that when it comes to work, if you love what you do, you never will have to work a day in your life. And I found that to be true. You have to love what you do. And I want to talk a little bit about this episode that was recorded last year with Erin Lane, where we talked about how she was contemplating leaving one thing and going to another, and it’s fascinating. We’re going to get a lot out of it.

Today’s episode is brought to us by automatemysocial.com, where you can automate up to 100% of your social media and your business and never have to think about it again. Save time, save money, save thousands. Take the tour at automatemysocial.com. Visit us online at davidvsgoliathpodcast.com. There you can subscribe to receive newsletter information from us and also apply to be on the podcast.

Well, let’s get right into it today. The actual full interview will be in the comment and descriptions below, the link to it will be, but here’s a short little snippet of my conversation with Erin Lane, and I really titled the episode this week calling Loving What You Do, because at the end of the day, it’s all about that. Here’s Erin Lane.

I’m sure you’ve listened to some episodes of David Vs Goliath. My whole thing here is trying to support the local small business who’s up against these giant competitors. And cabinetry and woodworking and redoing your kitchen could be ridiculously expensive, and in some cases, this can be less expensive, more affordable, and to your point, even if it’s not more affordable, you get to keep what you love about your kitchen already.

Speaker 3:

Right.

Adam Degraide:

When you sat down and you said, I’m going to go on my own, I’m going to open up the doors, I’m going to do resurrect wood refinishing, where we’re going to change people’s houses, bring back, resurrect that wood back to life, you sat down, I’m sure with some friends, and you thought to yourself, am I crazy? Can I really do this? What was going through your mind at that point in time? And then also I’d love to have you address the listeners and the viewers as to plans. Did you have a plan or was it kind of like, we’re just going to go for it, or did you really try to map it out?

Speaker 3:

Those are really great questions. First of all, I still think maybe I’m a little crazy, but I think you have to be to be a business owner. I think you have to be a little bit crazy. You’re stepping out in faith that you might be able to make something work, and the difference between you and everybody else is just that you just put it into motion.

So I think getting to this point was a very long process, but I had listened to one of your other guests that you had on the show was talking about loving what you do, and I think that that is so important. Being on purpose to me is my number one priority. If I don’t love it, if I don’t want to go to bed because I want to keep working at it, then I’m not on my purpose. I’m doing something that I’m wasting a little bit of time. So you have to love it. If you love what you do, I think it’s crazy not to try and do it for yourself. And it was a very long process. I at first was thinking I was going to purchase someone else’s business because I wasn’t sure that I had the gumption to actually just start a company from scratch. I didn’t know a whole lot about business, just took some small courses here and there to try and learn because I’m from the art world. My background is in fine arts, that’s my painting. I have been doing painting for the last-

Adam Degraide:

By the way, that’s a beautiful painting.

Speaker 3:

Thank you. You can’t even see the top of it, but thank you very much.

Adam Degraide:

What actually is it?

Speaker 3:

So, the very top of it, there’s a woman laying on top of a glass ceiling. So this is like an inspirational piece for women empowerment of getting-

Adam Degraide:

Yeah, I love it. That’s great. That’s great.

Speaker 3:

And this is…. somebody’s image, the inside of their image is a camera looking back at them, and it’s just a reminder not to worry about what people think about you. It’s not about your images and who other people see you as.

Adam Degraide:

Yeah, that’s great. That’s great, Erin. I love that. And it is a bold move to start a business. So from what I’m hearing, there really wasn’t a lot of planning going involved in it. It was more of a gut check for yourself to say, I think I can do this and therefore I’m going to do it. It’s not like you mapped out how much money do I need and how much money do I need to survive? I’m sure you thought of it, but was it formal like that or was it more like, I know I can do this, I believe I can crash through that glass ceiling, and I’m just going to do it?

Speaker 3:

Well, it was a little bit of a combination of both. Like I said, I was really envisioning that I was going to purchase someone else’s business and establish one. So I was really doing all of my numbers and all of my research based on this existing business. And it turned out that the business got sold to somebody else while I was in the middle of thinking I was buying it. So it was kind of devastating at first, and then it was like, okay, what do I do from here? And I talked to a couple of my mentors and they were like, “Well, I just think that this is just the best thing that’s ever happened because I think you should go out on your own.”

And it hadn’t even occurred to me to try and do it myself because franchises are set up in a certain way that they pick all the products for you and they show you how to do everything, and I fine tuned that so tightly and really was proud of what I built that I was like, oh, could I do that? And so it started off as just an idea on a page, like what would it cost? Let’s just start putting down numbers. What do we think it would cost? Who could I get these products from? Started doing research. Who could help me if I needed advice? And it happened very, very quickly. I would say within a month it was very clear the answer was there, go, do it. Just do it.

Adam Degraide:

It’s awesome. And I love it because people don’t realize, this is not for the faint of heart, starting your own business, and really, taking that next step to go from idea to execution.

And I just absolutely love that conversation. Be sure to check it out. You’re going to be so glad you did. Like I said, leave a comment, like it, share it, tweet it, and then the actual full interview is listed below. This is another short of David Vs Goliath. We can’t wait to see you next week. Everyone have an awesome day.