S1 – Episode 9 – Erin Laine

Voiceover (00:00):

Coming up today on David Vs Goliath.

Erin Laine (00:02):

Being on purpose to me is my number one priority.

Adam DeGraide (00:06):

Let’s make the logo big, ah. Make the logo big, ah!

Erin Laine (00:15):

We’re actually doing this.

Voiceover (00:18):

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 (00:49):

Hey everyone. It’s Adam DeGraide from David Vs Goliath podcast. Welcome to what we believe to be one of the best business education inspiration shows in the world, if we say so ourselves, David Vs Goliath. I’m excited about today. I’m actually fired up about today because we have our very first female owner and entrepreneur, Erin Laine, from Resurrect Wood Refinishing. She’s got over 20 years experience, college educated artist, painting for years, and an awesome person. The interview should be great.

Adam DeGraide (01:21):

But before we get into that, let’s cover some housekeeping items. Number one. I want to thank our corporate sponsor, Anthem Software, where you can find, serve, and keep more customers profitably. You can take the tour. It’s 120 second tour at anthemsoftware.com. You can also visit us today at davidvsgoliathpodcast.com. That’s davidvsgoliathpodcast.com. There you can subscribe to be updated and when new episodes come out, and also apply to be on the David Vs Goliath podcast. We’re getting applications now, which is exciting. If you have an interesting story, something that’s unique, a product that’s revolutionary, a story that would be interesting to our listeners, please apply. We’d love to have you on the David Vs Goliath podcast as well too.

Adam DeGraide (02:08):

Now, with all of that out of the way, don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube, and to listen to us in any one of your favorite podcast applications. Most likely we are there. Let’s get right to it with Erin Laine from Resurrect Wood Refinishing. Welcome to the David Vs Goliath podcast.

Erin Laine (02:25):

Hello, thank you!

Adam DeGraide (02:27):

It is so great to see you. I love your setup over there. I can see the Resurrect Wood Refinishing in the background, some cool pieces of art. I love the name by the way, Erin. I don’t know if this or not. My very first business, we had a CRM software as well that we provided to clients. And one of the features in the software was to resurrect dead leads. So, a lot of businesses as you know, get hundreds of leads over the years, but they never have a way to stay in communication with them. And this is early in the internet. And so we called that section of our software the resurrection piece of it, and I like to just add a spiritual overtone as well. But anyway, tell the listeners of yours… Great to have you. First female on DVG. What an honor to have you. It’s awesome to be here. Let us know a little bit about Resurrect Wood Refinishing and how you got to where you are today.

Erin Laine (03:18):

Well, we’re kind of a newer company. We’re in our first year. I was working in the industry for the last six or seven years. I was a lead technician for another company and really had a passion for entrepreneurship and wanted my own small business, and so I started to take some steps towards that and basically here we are. What we do is we do refinishing of wood, or wood restoration, but our main thing is we do color changes on cabinets. We do a lot of kitchen cabinetry, high end wood work, mill work in people’s homes. And we change the color. Either restain it or restore it to what it used to be or change the color completely.

Adam DeGraide (04:00):

Yeah. You know, it’s funny, for the viewers and listeners and watchers. So first of all, she says she’s a new business. I know she’s been around doing this for a little bit. She was a lead tech for a while, worked in a franchise. I call it defective capitalism, where you decide, you know what, I can do this better or different and you start your own business. But, when you say change colors, it’s cool because I went to your website the other day and you have this brand new video where you actually time lapse what it’s like over a three day period to transform someone’s kitchen without removing the woodwork, but actually taking some of it to your studio and painting it, and then doing other parts of it right there in the house and then putting it all together. It’s pretty dramatic. It’s all almost like…

Adam DeGraide (04:41):

I don’t if you know this, Erin. I used to be in the plastic surgeon industry. I used to work with about 900 plastic surgeons and cosmetic derms, and they always had these before and after photos that they would show people. Before they looked like this, now they look like that. Most of those were okay. Some of them were great. But when I took a look at your before and afters, they were amazing. So when you go into someone’s home and they’re telling you what you want to do, how do you help them understand what the process is like? Because I just had this done with myself, and for full disclosure, you did it at my house. You did a great job.

Erin Laine (05:16):

Thank you.

Adam DeGraide (05:17):

When you have distressed wood, okay, it’s going to still look distressed even when you change the color, and I can imagine that sometimes people have different expectations. How do you set the stage for the person, what they can expect, and more importantly, what their options are?

Erin Laine (05:34):

Well, I will tell you what. That’s a great question. We really try very hard to manage expectations. That’s number one priority. Number one priority is always to manage the expectation of the customer because it is very hard for most people to visualize. If you’re not working as a visual artist or in the visual arts or have some sort of design background, you pick a color, you kind of like it. But to actually try and visualize what it’s going to look like in your home is a very difficult thing. And especially if you’re doing a restating or a restoration. We try to really walk people through that process of like, “Hey, your wood floors or your cabinetry is at a six on a scale from one to 10, I can get you to an eight and half, a nine. But it’s never going to be brand new 10 again. This is restoration work. And part of the charm of your old woodwork is that it looks original. So we really do try to manage that.

Erin Laine (06:27):

We also provide a service with a designer. An interior designer can come in and help hold hand a little bit with people picking out color choices, and then we provide a sample door. A huge amount of communication is the number one priority. It’s just to communicate with the customer, make sure that they have a good idea of what to expect and what not to expect. The video has been very helpful, showing people like, “Hey, we do this process incredibly fast.” The average kitchen we can do in about three days, and they don’t have to take their stuff out of the cabinets. We come in and we tape the whole thing up, top to bottom in one day. The next day we’re spraying the boxes. The next day we’re bringing back the doors and putting it back together so it’s a pretty quick thing.

Adam DeGraide (07:11):

Yeah, it is a quick thing and it’s actually pretty amazing. The transformation is something people have to see. And for those of you who are watching on YouTube, I’ve been playing some of that video right now. Now I would recommend as a marketer, what I would tell you what I think you should do with the video is, I would definitely add a voiceover to it with some closed captions for people that… I know people can see it, but sometimes it’s good to have the words on the screen, descriptions of what you’re doing. I think it really lets people have a window of what the process is and what they can expect themselves. I’m sure you’ve listened to some episodes of David Vs Goliath. My whole thing here is try to support the local small business who’s up against these giant competitors. Cabinetry and woodworking and redoing your kitchen can be ridiculously expensive. And in some cases, this can be less expensive, more affordable, and to your point, and even if it’s not more affordable you get to keep what you love about your kitchen already.

Adam DeGraide (08:10):

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. 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, pew, we’re just going to go for it, or did you really try to map it out?

Erin Laine (08:46):

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, 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 who 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 wasting a little bit of time.

Erin Laine (09:30):

You have to love it. If you love what you do, I think it’s crazy not to try and do it for yourself. It was a very long process. I 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. I just took some small courses here and there to try and learn because I’m from the art world and my background is in fine arts. That’s my painting. I have been doing painting for-

Adam DeGraide (10:00):

That’s awesome by the way. That’s a beautiful painting.

Erin Laine (10:01):

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

Adam DeGraide (10:05):

What actually is it?

Erin Laine (10:07):

The very top of it, there’s a woman laying on top of a glass ceiling. So this is kind of an inspirational piece for women empowerment, [crosstalk 00:10:19].

Adam DeGraide (10:20):

Yeah! Love it! That’s great.

Erin Laine (10:22):

Yeah.

Adam DeGraide (10:22):

That’s great.

Erin Laine (10:25):

And this is more… 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. Your image isn’t who other people see you as.

Adam DeGraide (10:36):

Yeah, it’s great. It’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?

Erin Laine (11:08):

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, an established 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 they that’s ever happened because I think you should go out on your own.

Erin Laine (11:41):

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. 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. 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? Start 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, like, go do it. Just do it.

Adam DeGraide (12:24):

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. I know you’ve got some great people involved in it as well, too. You’re a small team right now because you just started.

Erin Laine (12:43):

Yes.

Adam DeGraide (12:44):

And it’s sometimes the most special time in a business is when you know everyone in the business. I always tell people, my company, once it reaches 50 employees, typically, I start to get glazed in the eyes. And when I was at 150 employees I’d walk through my own office. You have too many employees when you actually call your business and the person answering the phone doesn’t know who you are, and I’ve had that happen before as well too. But there’s nothing like that special time with the special people that are crazy enough to join you on the journey. Tell the folks a little bit about your team and how they round you out.

Erin Laine (13:21):

Absolutely. There’s absolutely no way I could do this without my team. I have some very crazy, very wonderful family members and friends who really believed in me, believed in my vision for the company and were like, “Yep, we’ll jump on board.” And me going, “Hey, some weeks I might not have work. We’ll see what happens.” And it’s been amazing because God has provided and we haven’t not had work, but it is a leap of faith on their part as well. And really, it’s very humbling to have people believe in you and say, “You know what? We think you can do this and we’re going to help you do it.” It’s amazing. So right now we’re very small. We’re pretty-much a family owned business. My dad does all the carpentry.

Adam DeGraide (14:03):

That’s great.

Erin Laine (14:04):

My best friend who’s kind of like the little brother of the family who hangs out with my family all the time, he is my sales and office manager. Then I have two technicians, one of which I work in film production with all the time. We use the space here for film production so it’s kind of worked out to be fun for him as well. And another one of my technicians is a full time musician so when he can he jumps on. It’s been really good. Having the right people I think is massive. Absolutely massive. I know for certain I wouldn’t have taken the jump without them.

Adam DeGraide (14:35):

Yeah, you have to, right? You have to surround yourself with great people. At the end of the day it’s not just about planning and moving forward and those goals. You got to have the right people to execute the goals. A very good business person that I’ve known for years, his name was Eustace Wolfington. He actually invented car leasing. So imagine that, Erin, your claim to fame is you invented the car lease. Think about how many people have leased vehicles and have leased everything [inaudible 00:15:04] as days, right?

Adam DeGraide (15:06):

When he was mentoring me, one of the things he taught his nephew and myself who was my business part at the time, is you never want to do business alone. It’s too difficult. It can be too painful to do it alone. And I know people that have done it alone and they can be alone, but the nice part about having partners and friends that are with you, and family members, is that you truly are doing it together and you’re not alone. And so it helps in the good times, and it helps in the challenging times as well too because they can lift you up. At the end of the day, if you’re having a tough day, maybe they have a good attitude. If they’re having a bad attitude that day, maybe you’ve got the good attitude. Does that dynamic play at all with you and your small unit right now?

Erin Laine (15:57):

Oh, absolutely. My sales manager is the most positive person I’ve ever met in my entire life, and whenever I’m down he’s always there going, “It’s going to be fine. We’ll figure it out.” I think hiring people with a good attitude is probably way more important than skill, because you can teach people how to do what you do, but you can’t teach people how to have a good attitude. You can’t teach people how to enjoy life, and you can’t teach people how to be positive about their own future. It’s the whole apple cart scenario. The one bad apple ruins the whole cart. One bad attitude can ruin the whole thing. And instead, I hear from my employees all the time, “Man, I feel like I just got to hang out with my friends today. I feel like I was just hanging out with my friends all day,” you know?

Adam DeGraide (16:41):

Totally. And you know, it’s so funny. I tell people all the time, a bad attitude never yields to a good result, ever. You always have to have a positive attitude. And you made a very good point by the way, for the listen and watchers, you can hire skill, but you can’t… You have to hire people’s attitude. Because you could train skills, you could train tasks, you could train those things, but if somebody’s not a really happy person in general, that’s going to spill over to you, your coworkers, your customers. And so for those of you who are employees of businesses, your attitude makes all the difference in the world, and people like us are looking for people with great attitudes. So Erin, I got to take a quick break from our corporate sponsor, Anthem Software. We’ll be right back.

Anthem Promo (17:30):

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 at anthemsoftware.com.

Adam DeGraide (17:56):

And we’re back on David Vs Goliath, with our very first female, breaking the glass, starting her own business, having fun doing it, Erin Laine, from Resurrect Wood Refinishing. So where did you get the name from?

Erin Laine (18:30):

The name Resurrect, man, it’s awesome. I was trying to think of a name and like I said, I have a very tight-knit group of people who have come out with me on this journey. And I actually teach a Christian yoga class at my local church, at my church, God’s House Orlando. And at the end of the yoga class, an employee named it. He came up to me and said, “I’ve got the name. Resurrect.” And I was like, “That is brilliant. I love it!”

Adam DeGraide (18:57):

It works.

Erin Laine (18:59):

Yes, that’s it.

Adam DeGraide (18:59):

It works.

Erin Laine (19:00):

Yeah. It kind of encompasses everything. First of all, we’re a faith-based company. Second of all, we really do restoration and resurrect people’s kitchens, and they’re heirlooms and all kinds of stuff, so it’s kind of twofold in that way. And I love the logo too. I love the R. Rs look good, right?

Adam DeGraide (19:23):

Listen, I’m a big fan of giant logos as everyone, anybody who knows me. There’s a funny song years ago that we used to play all the time in our business called Make the Logo Big. It’s make the logo big, ah. Make the logo big, ah! Bigger big. Make it big. And it was so funny, because when you’re in a marketing company like I’ve been for my whole life, the client’s logo’s never big enough. So it’d always be like, “Hey, listen. I really like what you’re doing, but could you make the logo a little bit bigger?” And so it’s a joke but it’s actually a very, very funny video. You should look it up on YouTube. It’s called Make the Logo Big. I can’t remember the artist, but it’s a group of graphic artists who were so sick and tired of their clients asking for it they just wrote a song. And it’s actually pretty funny. You should check it out.

Erin Laine (20:13):

I think that’s fantastic.

Adam DeGraide (20:15):

It is fantastic. I love the logo. The logo’s amazing. Your website’s nice too as well. Now, your process of your people, because you’re a new business, you’re trying to figure everything out, right? You’re trying to learn how to use software to automate a lot of your… The things you used to do manually. You’re trying to make sure that your people are showing up on time, that you’re bidding people properly, that you’re using all these different moving pieces. Are you currently working right now on trying to streamline that as well in your business?

Erin Laine (20:43):

Absolutely. I think it’s a process. Being in the first year and it being so different, being a new business versus coming from a franchise where so much of that stuff is done for you, it’s definitely… We’re trying to find our stride right now and figure out what dollars that are going where are coming back with the most return. So it is a process. And every business owner I’ve talked to and yourself has said, “Hey, your first year is very much about learning. You’re going to figure out a lot about what works and what doesn’t work, so that you can prioritize year two.” So it’s been very, very different. I’m very surprised at how different it is from a franchise, coming from that background and having something corporate setup nationwide versus being the little guy who’s just trying to make a name in town. It’s been a process. We’ve partnered up with Anthem which has been amazing. Branding-wise we’re killing it. We’re doing great-

Adam DeGraide (21:45):

That’s great.

Erin Laine (21:46):

… and I feel like people are starting to really recognize the name along with our quality, because that’s the thing. We have to be different than them somehow. Our whole thing is we’re higher quality. I am a perfectionist. I try and make everything as absolutely perfect as I possibly can. I want to leave things better than I found them.

Adam DeGraide (22:06):

That’s great.

Erin Laine (22:08):

I feel like those little touches, and using a higher quality product. Doing the research, putting in the time, figuring out what makes something high end, and that’s kind of the customers that we’re trying to go after. So it’s not as plentiful because there aren’t as many of those customers. We’re not doing a lot of condo kitchens. But I feel like it’s a niche that’s been carved out and really had a need here in Orlando, for sure.

Adam DeGraide (22:35):

That’s awesome. You said something. It’s called tuition. You’re paying tuition right now in the beginning of a business to figure out what works and why it works. So, are you using social media right now?

Erin Laine (22:49):

We are. I’m actually doing quite a bit with Facebook Ad. Those seem to be working out pretty well.

Adam DeGraide (22:57):

That’s great.

Erin Laine (22:58):

Being able to optimize what audiences you want to reach is pretty beneficial. And if something’s not working, we take it off for a while and then retry it because this kind of business is very seasonal too. Not everybody’s going to want to start looking at redoing their cabinets right before a holiday, so it’s one of those-

Adam DeGraide (23:18):

I would imagine you have some downtime during that time. But that’s not necessarily bad, to plan and to think and strategize, and get away with your team to try to figure it out but-

Erin Laine (23:28):

Exactly.

Adam DeGraide (23:28):

… what’s your… Now, listen, you don’t have to say it’s my project. What’s been the most challenging and favorite project you’ve worked on so far? Do you enjoy a single room, multiple rooms? What’s your favorite thing to do?

Erin Laine (23:39):

The most challenging, memorable job so far has been, we did a golf pro shop at the Disney golf resort.

Adam DeGraide (23:49):

Oh wow.

Erin Laine (23:49):

We did the entire pro shop and it was woodwork, floor to ceiling, everywhere around. They wanted the whole thing done in a darker stain. It was very new for all of us. Because we work kitchens, bathrooms, built-ins, and everybody knows how to do everything and they’re all in different areas. So you send this team to this room and this team to this room and you guys do different things and this is like, “Okay, we’re all in one shared space.” It’s a ton. It’s lots of ceiling work. But it was really fun and I was shocked at how [crosstalk 00:24:23]-

Adam DeGraide (24:23):

Which clubhouse [crosstalk 00:24:24]. I want to know what it was. I’m curious.

Erin Laine (24:26):

I’m sorry. Say again?

Adam DeGraide (24:27):

Which pro shop was it?

Erin Laine (24:30):

The BBL. Or LBB. [crosstalk 00:24:32]. Yeah.

Adam DeGraide (24:37):

I got to go. When did you do that, because I can’t remember the last time I golfed there. I got to go check it out.

Erin Laine (24:42):

We just did it, I would say six to eight weeks ago, so it’s newer.

Adam DeGraide (24:47):

Yeah. I haven’t seen it. I’m going to go check it out now. I’m a big golfer. And I know what that place used to look like, and that place needed some love. There’s no [crosstalk 00:24:56]-

Erin Laine (24:55):

It needed it. It needed it. I was like, “Why did you guys wait so long?” [crosstalk 00:25:01].

Adam DeGraide (25:00):

I know, but [crosstalk 00:25:02] you did it though. And by the way, folks that are listening and watching, you can just see Erin’s smile’s infectious. Her love for what she does and her passion for what she does is infectious. Yeah. I guess that’s that little heart emoji thing that we all do. What advice do you give to people? How do you have such a great attitude when you’re thinking about the possibilities of all the things that could go wrong? What makes you happy? How do you get up every day and say, I’m going to do this today and we’re going to win?

Erin Laine (25:29):

I can’t imagine doing anything else. That’s really what it comes down to. I work a lot in film and so I work around a lot of actors and they always say, “You know you’re supposed to be an actor,” when there’s just nothing else that you want to do. There’s nothing else I could think of that I could be doing right now that would be as fulfilling as making this business work. There’s just nothing else. I think that’s really important.

Adam DeGraide (25:53):

You can’t imagine yourself doing anything else, and that is a secret. So hold on, Erin. When we come back I want to talk about courage, the smooth stone that the shepherd boy used to kill Goliath. We talked a little bit about it in the beginning, but I want to try to take you back, when you were sitting there that morning, and you woke up and it was the very first day Resurrect was in business. I wanted you to go back and tell the listeners what that was like, right after this break from another sponsor on David Vs Goliath.

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Adam DeGraide (27:18):

And we’re back! I’m your host, Adam DeGraide, once again, as I have been since the entire beginning of this podcast and every other podcast I’ve ever done, that’s exactly who I am. Erin, it’s great to have you on the show. I think people are really enjoying this. We talked about before the break, bringing you back to that first morning. You open your eyes, you walk out, you grab that cup of coffee or whatever you do, tell people what that was like.

Erin Laine (28:12):

I honestly think that everything went so fast that I didn’t even have a moment to take a pause until the end of the day. Because my most memorable moment from the beginning was locking up my shop doors and looking at my logo on the door, and walking away and I’m like, “We’re actually doing this.” And I kept feeling like… You’ve heard the term, imposter syndrome?

Adam DeGraide (28:37):

Yeah.

Erin Laine (28:37):

I feel very much a lot of imposter syndrome. Like, I’m just faking it to be a business owner. I’m not really a business owner. Any day somebody’s going to find out that I don’t really own a business but I do. And it’s funny because I don’t see myself as higher than anybody else. I don’t see myself as doing anything groundbreaking or noble. I just see it as, this is just what we’re supposed to do. So this is what I’m doing and I can’t imagine doing anything else.

Adam DeGraide (29:02):

You said something interesting, an imposter. I was reading a book. I think it was Mere Christianity. I can’t remember. C. S. Lewis was talking about what it was like to be a good Christian. How do you become a good Christian? He goes, “Well, pretty simple. Just pretend you are.”

Erin Laine (29:18):

Yeah.

Adam DeGraide (29:19):

And before you know it, you just might be, basically.

Erin Laine (29:22):

Exactly.

Adam DeGraide (29:22):

As a small business owner, you don’t think of yourself as a business owner but just act like one, and before you know it, you are one. Now, have you ever had any sleepless nights leading up to this?

Erin Laine (29:33):

A few. Yeah. A few. A few. More just feeling like I’m in over my head a little bit here and there. But I think that’s why it’s really important to have a network of mentors, people who have been where you’ve been. They always say that you can never grow bigger than the biggest person in your circle-

Adam DeGraide (29:54):

That’s right.

Erin Laine (29:54):

… so it’s important to have people who are 50 years down the road from where you want to be and who have started where you’ve started to ask those questions to. Like, what do I do when you start to spin, who can calm you down and say, “Nope, this is normal. This is normal. This is normal. Everybody goes through this. Everybody goes through this.” And it’s also kind of like a… You don’t get the baby without the birth, without the pains of the birth. You have to go through those pains, and you have to be refined and you have to learn. You have to be humble enough to know that you don’t know everything. As much as I know about the actual technique of refinishing cabinets, I don’t know squat about small business. I’m learning. This is brand new for me. And knowing that it’s okay to be in that spot and say, “Hey, I need help.” Or, “Hey, I’m feeling discouraged. I don’t know what I’m doing,” and hire people who know what they’re doing.

Adam DeGraide (30:50):

Erin, that is fascinating. And for those of you who are listening and watching, I just edited out a giant coughing fit that I had in Erin’s last segment. So if the transition’s not perfect you’ll now know why. I almost died filming and recording the David Vs Goliath podcast.

Adam DeGraide (31:07):

Now Erin, this has been so awesome. You said so many great things and I hope the watchers and listeners are paying attention. What is the one piece of advice you would give to someone who’s thinking, I want to start my own business, or they’re in their own business. They’re struggling a little bit. What would you tell them to do, and what advice would you give them to make that move forward?

Erin Laine (31:30):

Pray. Pray. That’s my honest heart, is pray. Pray about it. Pray without ceasing. Pray until God gives you an answer because He will. He will. I didn’t know if I was making the right choice or not, and I took it to the Lord every single day until I got a firm yes. Yes, yes, yes. And I didn’t get it just once. I got it a few times. And God brought different people into my life and works through coincidences and works through financial help, and works through numbers. He’ll make the doors blaze open if it’s what you’re meant to do. So I feel like if anybody’s… And that’s true of anything in life. Anything that we want to step out in, in faith, whether it’s a relationship or a new business, or a purchase of a home. I feel like if we make room to let God have some say, He’ll help us out.

Adam DeGraide (32:24):

That’s awesome. That is such great advice. And David Vs Goliath is not a religious program by any stretch of the imagination. But, coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous. And if you’re listening to this episode of David Vs Goliath, it is not a coincidence. You are here on purpose.

Adam DeGraide (32:41):

Erin, it has been so wonderful having you on David Vs Goliath. Thank you so much for joining. Everyone, stay tuned for another amazing episode next week on David Vs Goliath. Have an awesome day.