How Carolina Outdoor Lighting Built A People-First Business with Maja Potocki

0:02Hi, and welcome to this week's episode of the Epic Entrepreneurs podcast where we are all about helping business owners just like you achieve success. So we don't do fancy smancy. We don't do flashing lights. We don't do a lot of things that a lot of podcasts will do. These are just real stories about real people and their entrepreneurial and business experiences. We go into their wins, their challenges, and their learnings. So we hope you enjoy it.

0:36Hey there, welcome to this week's episode of Epic Entrepreneurs. And I am super pumped today. Usually I'm talking to people that I've never met or met briefly. Today I'm actually talking to a friend. So it's going to be a lot of fun. It's just going to be friend to friend. We're going to have it. I'm Bill Gilliland. I'm your host. I am the principal at Action Coach Business Growth Partners and one of the founders of the Asheville Business Summit. But today we're talking to my friend Maya Pataki of Carolina Outdoor Lighting. So Maya, tell us a little bit about you and Carolina Outdoor Lighting.

1:13Yeah. Hi, Bill. Thanks for having us on or me on. So, yeah, I'm co-founder of Carolina Outdoor Lighting. I started the business in 2017 with my husband, Jason Warren. We were I'll tell you I'll tell you how we started because I think it's a pretty cool story. But in 2017 and before, I was working for a friend of mine named Brandon Laughinghouse, who at the time owned an irrigation company called Asheville Irrigation. And I was the office administrator. I did everything in the office while he and he had a team in the field. And Jason at the time was a landscaper, not a guy in a truck. He had a couple employees, but he wasn't experiencing the growth that he wanted to just from landscaping, although he loved it.

1:59And for some reason, people think irrigation and lighting go together. So all of the irrigation clients that we had with Asheville Irrigation were calling when they wanted lighting jobs, when they wanted lighting installed at their home. And one day I picked up the phone and it was an irrigation client of ours who wanted lighting. And I turned around and I said, Brandon, it's another lighting call. And he just did not want to do it anymore. I mean, lighting is you can install. I always say this now. Anyone can install lights, but not everyone can do it well. because it's design. So Brandon was installing lights because he was trying to serve his clients.

2:35And when he got this call, he said, I'm tired of doing lighting. You and Jason should start a lighting company. So I kind of turned around and I said, you know, if I start a company, I'm not going to work here forever. And he was like, well, that's what I want for you. I want you to do something bigger and better for yourself. Since then, he's sold his company to the lead tech. And now he does all kinds of growth and personal development and mindfulness stuff. So it kind of really speaks to who he is to push his team to owning the business and starting another one and really helped us grow personally.

3:16So yeah. So in 2017, we went to Florida and did a two-day training, all things lighting, crash course, and came back to Asheville and started in May 2017. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. So you got all the technicals. I mean, you guys were already doing something similar. You were in irrigation. Jason was doing landscaping. So yeah. No, I mean, it makes a lot of sense. That's cool. Let's switch gears just a minute and tell me what you would do if you had to start over from square one in business. Well, I think I would have pushed myself to transition out of doing everything faster. It was just Jason and I in the business for the first few years, and we both were wearing every hat.

4:15And for the first few years of business, I thought that that was okay. I was just busy all the time. We both were. I was doing the installs with him. Not always, but a lot of the times I was in the field, and then I was installing, not as much as Jason, of course, but then coming back and invoicing. And we weren't doing a lot of growth, business growth things. We were mostly just doing what was coming on our plates in the moment. We weren't building policies. We weren't building procedures. We weren't documenting. So all those things, I would have just realized that business is more than just doing the everyday stuff faster.

4:57And I would have hired an admin faster. you know I would have hired a team faster yeah you would have got some help instead of just trying to do it all yourself absolutely absolutely I remember when I kind of not rock bottom it's a little bit exaggerated to say it that way but we were exhausted and I mean just doing everything is exhausting so I would have hired a business coach sooner you know I would have done all the things that I'm doing now then in terms of growth yeah I love that I love that So what are a couple other learnings that you've had as an owner and an employer? Yeah. The people, for me, is the most important.

5:42You know, it goes with what I would have done that sooner. I would have hired a staff sooner, even if it would have meant me making less profit. I put my people before profit now. So, yeah, the learnings are just invest in your people. Absolutely. You know, they say, I don't know if it's action coaching or in books I read, but the people will build the business. And that is true. A huge learning for me. Yeah, build your people, but they'll build the business. Absolutely. Yeah, your focus of an owner or CEO has to be to build the people. Absolutely. You know, because otherwise you're still going to be doing everything yourself.

6:26and still have employees that you think they're doing it if you don't build them. So what are some of the misconceptions about running a business? Hmm. I don't know. Is it a misconception that it's easy? I think a lot of people have that misconception. Yeah. Because, you know, and I don't, what's a misconception? I don't know. I know I used to think that, hey, I'll just work for myself. I'll work from home. I'll make my own money. I'll make my own schedule. It'll be fine. Everything will be fine. But really, I am constantly working in the sense that I have, and I don't mean this to sound bad because I enjoy this part of it, but the weight of having a whole team on my shoulders and mine and my husband's shoulders.

7:18Um, it is, it is challenging to, to know that I'm, have all these families that rely on our business. Um, so, I mean, it's, the misconception is that it's easy or, I don't know, do people think that? I think they do. If they do, then that's the misconception I choose. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, we get that. That's probably the number one thing that we get, that people think business ownership or having your own business looks easy. Yeah, and, you know, I can't take off whenever I want because I have to make sure all the ducks are in a row. And if something goes wrong, and it's happened hundreds of times, and we joke, almost every time we do go out of town, we spend a lot of time on the phone putting fires out or figuring things out.

8:06If we were in the office, this might not have happened. I mean, it's not necessarily true, but yeah, it's the constant wait. Instead of leaving your work at home, you know, in my case, I literally work, my office is in the basement of my home, so I am never leaving work. Right. And, you know, I come downstairs to, I don't know, do something in the basement, and I walk by the office and quickly, like, oh, I can answer that email quickly. Oh, I can do this quickly. And, you know, it's constant. But it's a good thing. I enjoy it. Yeah, yeah. Sit down at your desk, and next thing you know, you've been there two and a half hours or something.

8:44Yeah, it's crazy. It's crazy, yeah. So what do you attribute your growth to?

8:53Staying focused on what my passion is for me. Luckily, Jason and I are two people, and we're co-founders. So I can—and it's really helpful. It's like two people in one in the sense that I take the office side of things and Jason takes the field side of things.

9:11So I'm able to focus on my passion of business growth and growing the people. And Jason focuses on the growth of the actual design aspect of the landscape lighting and the technical side of it. So I don't have to put my energy in that. And he doesn't have to put his energy in this part. We both kind of, we, it intertwines, of course, because I know all those aspects and just as much as he knows these. But I think it's been really helpful and a lot of growth has happened in staying focused to my passion of growing the business and growing my people, hiring the right people, taking care of them while they're here.

9:53and, I mean, and really action coaching. I mean, I know this isn't a commercial for you guys, but doing weekly meetings, making sure I'm doing the work, the hard work, working on the business instead of in the business and sitting down and carving out time where I can read through my notes, read books, you know, read my notes from my books and implement the things that I'm learning. Yeah, I know. I love that. What I particularly like is the division of labor. Yeah, that's huge. Like where you're doing your passion, which is people growing the business. He's growing, getting better at design, getting better, doing larger projects, doing more technical things.

10:41It's building that side of the business. It really fits really well together. So I love that. Yeah, and I can't imagine. I meet people who, you know, are a single man or woman or, you know, building a business on their own. And I just I don't know how they would do how they do that. Well, you can't. I have the saying, can't do this stuff by yourself. So you have to have you can't do it all. You're only you're not going to be good at everything. And so there's no yeah, there's no use getting into it. So I love I love that. So you've done a great job with people. What what do you look what qualities do you look for in employees?

11:19Hmm. Good question.

11:25I don't, hmm. Easy to talk to, down to earth, people, people. I don't care if they have, well, when we hire people, nobody ever has experience in landscape lighting. So that is not the challenge. When I hire people, they don't have to even have manual labor experience. You know, we say landscape lighting, the technical part of it, it's not difficult. I mean, you have to want to be outside and work on beautiful homeowners' properties. So really, I look for people that are kind, outgoing, that we get along with when we sit down for coffee for an interview. Again, easy to talk to, you know, just easygoing people because they are customer-facing.

12:17So they have to be likable. They have to fit within the team and our company culture. And, you know, we're not corporate, you know, suit and tie kind of business. We're just relaxed and honest people. Yeah, no, I love it. Love that. Love that. So, as you know, BEPEC is an acronym. I'm going to ask you your thoughts. And this is sort of a quick fire round, so maybe a word or two about each one of the things. So the B in B Epic is bring the energy. So give us a thought or two about energy. Absolutely. I mean, it's in our company culture that when someone walks in, hey, what's up? Come on, wake up.

13:00You know, we are always kind of trying to wake everybody up and, you know, we're always checking in if they don't bring the energy. What's going on at home? What's happening? Yeah, no, I love that. E stands for education. Oh, I love that one. Yeah, we're sending all of our team now. We just got an educational grant. So we're sending one technician to a design training in New Mexico this November. Another technician to California for, I won't tell you the acronyms, but technical installation certificate. And our admin is doing a train the trainer course. So, I mean, education, continued education is important to the owners and also our team.

13:43Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. You got to build the people like we talked about earlier. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. How about P for planning? Planning. That is one of the most important things I am learning quickly. You have to plan before you implement. And if you don't, then you'll regret it. All right. So I is inspiration. you tell me you inspire me well I mean one of the things I always say that when I was interviewing uh actually Brad on here and he he um you know I asked him like who inspired him he said that's the wrong question Bill and I'm like really and he said yes so he said how do you become an inspiration yeah for others so yeah I mean I mean what you said about like getting your like what's up?

14:31What's your team? You know, that's how you are an inspiration. I mean, because you show up. You know, you show up inspired. So, yeah. Yeah. I think inspiration also comes from our weekly meetings. We do a Monday morning meeting every Monday, and we have a Lions sheet, which people probably might not know, but Lions is last week issues opportunities and next week. And every week we all present our lions and I do my lions, but I also try to always add something different. This Monday, we talked about what's your passion and your focus. And I asked everybody to tell me their vision and it's due next week.

15:09So, you know, inspiration for me is really going beyond just, this is what we're doing this week. And this is what you could have done better last week, or this is, these are opportunities. It's beyond the lions. It's, it's going beyond what other business owners are probably asking. And when I asked them your vision and your passion, it wasn't necessarily within the company, you know, because they might not work here forever and that's okay. So what is it that you want in the future and how can working here help you get there? That's a great question. I love that. What do you want and how can working here get you there?

15:46Love that. All right. See his commitment. Commitment. You know, we don't I don't expect everybody on my whole team to work here forever. I would love them to because we have an amazing team and they know that this is potentially a career career path for them. But I do ask that everybody is committed while they're here and give their hundred and ten percent while you're here. just knock it out. It's going to be difficult if you're half-assed things while you're here. Let's just commit to doing a good job being team-focused, which is one of our core values. Commit to our four core values, and let's go.

16:25What are the four core values? Team-focused, integrity and honesty. We strive for excellence, and we're creative and innovative. Love it. Love it. Love it. Love it. So, what advice would you offer other business owners who are looking to grow? Well, I don't want to sound redundant, but it is really the things that I learned early on. Hire, hire good people and focus on those people and take care of them. Make sure they're valued constantly. I love it. An appreciation box. And it's not silly. It's real. And it really works. Every week, everyone's excited about, did I get appreciated this week? You know, and just value your people and make sure they feel valued.

17:16They get home and feel accomplished and be excited to work the next day. People. Focus on your people. Love it. So what's the next big thing for you guys? um well we recently just merged or purchased another lighting company um out of brevard who was a friend of ours and he's ready for retirement so we're working with him and so our next big thing right now is smoothing out that transition uh where we're acquiring all his clients and making sure that that transition is smooth. It's always fun to buy another company. Yeah, yeah. You'll learn a ton, I promise you. I really have. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

18:06What we didn't ask, what we didn't decide, now we have to decide after and all the things. Yeah, yeah. It's always fun and it's always different, really, but you still got to ask the same questions and you'll know a lot you'll know a lot more about the next one yeah i've got a client that that's sort of her growth strategy is just to buy other companies in her oh that's great in her in her industry and that's it's a quick way to go um and it and it's you know every time we do another one we learn more so it's a it's a good another another piece of advice that i just thought with this, where we're going now is if it's not scary, then you need to find something that's scary.

18:52I've done so many scary things recently. And every time I'm like, oh God, this is scary, then that's kind of my cue that, okay, let's go for it. Of course, with the planning aspect, you have to be smart about it, right? Plan. And then if it's scary still, then great, let's go. Yeah. Yeah. Most of the great stuff and great decisions that I've ever made bring up some sort of fear and excitement. It's usually both fear and excitement. So I love that. So how's the best way for people to get in touch with Carolina Outdoor Lighting? Yeah. Through our website, which is carolinaoutdoorlighting.com or my email, which is Maya, and here we go as a little trick on how to spell my name, M-A-J-A at carolinaoutdoorlighting.com.

19:47Well, this has been unbelievable. Thanks. Awesome. Maya, that's fantastic. I really appreciate you being part of the greater community, part of the Action Coach community, and the dent you're making in the world. Thanks. And I know that we're going to continue to grow this thing and be massively successful. So really appreciate what you're doing in the community. Awesome. Thank you so much, Bill. That was fun. And until next time, all the best.

20:18Hey, thanks for listening to the Epic Entrepreneurs podcast. Here's three things that you can do. Number one, remember to subscribe to the podcast. It takes very little effort on your part. It's going to help you and your fellow entrepreneurs. Plus, you guys know how it works. The more subscribers we get, the more cool things we can offer to you. Second, to learn more about growing your business, just download my book, The Coach Approach. It's free for you at giftfrombill.com. That's giftfrombill.com. Hey, and if you'd like more info about growing your business and what we can do to help you grow your business, send me an email directly.

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