hey everyone I'm Ry one of your uh co-hosts for show me yours a podcast
where we get to explore entrepreneurs success as they've learned through
failures uh we get the pleasure of bringing the uh the business related
drama straight to your uh your listening pleasure your headset your car your
earbuds whatever that is and we're so happy and honored that you chose to join
us today as a matter of fact talking about today we got the opportunity to talk with my
dear friend Heather McBroom Heather is a Serial entrepreneur she has been a
business owner for over 25 years and is now leading a local nonprofit here in
Colorado Springs that focuses solely on helping local entrepreneurs rise up
despite anything that may come their way today we uh we challenged Heather to
look back through all of those years and explore her biggest mistakes that she
made and not surprisingly but surprisingly all of them had to do with
employees and Trust which led into culture and Leadership it was a
wonderful reflection on taking an inner look in who you are and how you work
with others and how you bring people into your team so join us on this epic
adventure of
self-discovery here we are today we get to share with you one of my nearest and
dearest business friends and I actually a personal friend too you and I have gone through so much in life and
business together everybody I'd like to introduce you to my dear friend Heather
McBroom today Heather is the executive director of Thrive networks Thrive is a
local nonprofit that supports upand cominging entrepreneurs in southeast
Colorado Springs um but beyond that Heather is a Serial entrepreneur and has
had many small business related Ventures um but I was just explaining to
Jason earlier today why I love Heather so much and it's probably this because
she is the most selfless on entrepreneur that I've ever met in my life um even
back when you ran your own businesses you gave so much of yourself
to your community despite profits and revenue and even personal gain and it
was always focused on Southeast Colorado Springs always supporting the small business owners who didn't have a whole
lot but you wanted to give them the world and that's what I admire the most about you and here you are in this
position in nonprofit as a community leader now you're the voice of small business down there like the voice
and because of all you've done and so well that's very sweet all those things
are very sweet thank you for saying all those nice things um yeah it's it's been
quite the journey from I think the very first business I was thinking the other day that I started was in
2000 so what is that 25 years of being an entrepreneur um and just even my own
businesses and then businesses I've helped I bet I'm somewhere in the thousands of businesses U that I've been
involved with in one way or another so wow yeah you're crazy oh my gosh how
many pills do you take a day not enough Heather tell our community before
we jump into a rapid fire questions we're going to put you on the spot here in a minute
but I think it's really important to spread the word about arrive can you just at the end we're going to plug your
information and we're going to tell people how to donate and contribute towards your cause your cause it is the cause it is the cause um
but Prime our community right now and tell them what exactly you do and the impact your organization makes within
cosos I would love to so the Thrive networks is a nonprofit focused on
Southeast Colorado Springs um and really it started with the idea of helping
people with a criminal justice background to um find a way to have
gainful employment so to speak uh through entrepreneurship because getting a job was really hard uh we've been
around over about a decade so if you imagine 10 years ago the landscape was very different um over time it has
evolved I was uh got the honor to come in and develop the new curriculum and become the executive director and so uh
it's evolved to a very intense um five month program um to really help
entrepreneurs build the best foundation possible uh in order to build a successful business and there's a lot of
great resources in our community what I felt was missing for the people we serve
was one the connection of being in person and having a family of people
that support you being introduced to all the connections I know you remember when we started our businesses getting out
there and navigating all the resources and finding all the things was a full-time job right it was tough it was
really tough I think that's why you and I clung together at that time though yes so being able to bring all of that to
the entrepreneurs and being able to work with them longer than say you know most
uh incubator programs are like 13 weeks entrepreneurship is hard you need more
than that so it's been great to really develop this and work alongside so many new entrepreneurs and be able to tailor
the program to what fits them best uh I think to date we've graduated 250
entrepreneurs so bam yeah that's a lot incredible um but even if it's not just
business you know personal development and you know the people that come out of the program they're leaders in the
community they're joining boards they're um going into leadership programs they're they're really doing a lot of
great Community work and I think that's just as important um because that's our
you know what our organization is focused on is the community and being able to give because the program is free
but give to those individuals we want them to have that same kind of mindset so it's really been great to
watch you were just saying earlier you just started a new cohort this week 30
new entrepreneurs yes kind of scary it's a lot but I mean that's 30 new businesses
in southeast Colorado Springs that's 30 new lives you're feeding that's 30
families you're you're helping to to find Financial Freedom and personal
success that's huge huge and they all get to sit in a classroom with you yeah
I told him I said I don't know if you're lucky or not but you get me especially this cohort so um obviously with any
nonprofit the budget and funding and all the things and kind of tailoring each year uh this cohort gets a lot of me so
we'll see how that goes so these first few episodes I chose
individuals who I have a certain level of comfort with to to kickart this
podcast I know that you and I and the other people I selected hand selected um
were able to get down and dirty and I know that you and I are never afraid to put anything on
the table and say it the way it is and put our vulnerabilities out there and talk about the good Bad and the Ugly and
I'm excited to jump into that but first I want to ask
you secret question you could play a song that represents your
entrepreneurial Journey what would it be oh boy I know right on the spa huh
yeah uh I would say Hit Me With Your Best Shot that's
fantastic because you're always up against something it's like just give it
to me uh and and part of being an entrepreneur is really having that ability to go up against tough things
and navigate around them and so yeah I just felt like every month it was something else that you know hit me with
the best shot I got this I'll work my way around it so that would be my song hell yeah
I think you need to play that at the beginning of every Co cohort or maybe at the end during their graduations
somewhere it has to be highlighted okay now we're going to do a card choose a card this is fun isn't it though okay
how much would you have to be paid to spend a year in jail that's a good question pretty
appropriate for I'm like right now I need a nap so probably not much let me take a nap I don't know I
want to do a for a year but like vacation three Hots in a c right yeah
um it sounds so crazy but there's the benefits of like you know having that
time to yourself and everything else that I'm like you know maybe other than the fact that jail sucks that's not
really that bad of a plan um I would get a whole lot done not
spending anything somebody locked me in a room you don't have any bills for an entire year all you got to do is yeah
get some commissary money from the family call it good I will have to say I love my freedom mhm and so having having
had a criminal justice background and having been incarcerated before it only took one time for me to say I will never
do that again so I would have to say in terms of that it would have to be a lot of money a lot because I like my freedom
give me a dollar amount P you got to you got to have a dollar amount 10 million 10 million okay I think Jason my number
it it was 10 Milli thinking it was five it mean 10 million you're set right like
5 million is now like you're a millionaire with 5 million it's you know with inflation so you got to at least double that to 10 so that's true I think
you could retire on 10 pretty comfortably the interest you make off of it and all the things yeah exactly yeah
that's when you hire Brian and you're good right set your family right Jason
did you have one more rapid fire my question I if being a business owner uh I want to know if you could go back into
any time period and start a business where would you go back
to not really knowing the economics of the different time periods and what
would be good um I would just say a time where I would think that you know
economically everybody was doing fairly well women were empowered you know things like that
maybe like the 70 yeah early enough that there wasn't 42 of the same businesses in town and you
know something that I could be kind of innovative and the first out to Market type of thing yeah would you create the
lava lamp I don't know what I would create I used to have tons of ideas uh when I was
younger uh but I would love to have been invented something all right I think I
would go back to the prohibition days and bear with me here
I would create a brand of medicinal bourbon oh
smart H that's an interesting one yeah yeah about you Jason I don't you know I
think it would be fun to go back like way back like 1400s and be a seafare run
like a shipping company right where you're kind of in charge of bringing things from foreign lands and they're
coming in and whatnot and be I don't I don't even know what the a merchant a
merchant yeah sorts but run run a shipping situation I think interesting
yeah that would be fun yeah it'd be wild adventures and all sorts of cool stuff battling off the Pirates EXA or maybe
turn into a pirate who is you never know I could totally Rock the pirate thing me
too me too oh
now now that we've had a little fun let's jump into some serious stuff friend of ours the other day told us the
reason they listened to podcast is for the drama so let's talk about the drama
plenty of drama right I know I just said 25 years of business that's a lot of drama that's like 50 years of drama
that's right it's like it's like podcast viewers and listeners do you have 45,000
hours right right I will say that I think entrepreneurship prepared me for
having teenagers oh yeah because like there's no more drama than what I experienced with employees that my kids
can give me so so looking back on those 25 years
what is like the one mistake you go back to that you made as an entrepreneur and
you're like damn what the hell was I thinking every single time for me it was
hiring too quickly I've had multiple Ventures and
it's always hiring too quick whether it was I had cash flow issues very early on because I didn't project
properly and I wasn't prepared whether I didn't have Sops and things for them to
come into a position and be um effective at their job so I'm wasting money paying
people to sit around um whether it's not properly protecting my proprietary
information and data um just a whole number of things there's a there was a
lot of things that I learned the hard way that I said okay next time before I hire I'm going to put that checks and
balance in place but it seemed like every time it was another one not building the right culture or even being
conscious of what culture was and how to build that not being aware of my leadership skills and whether I was any
good at it or not um and was I ready to lead other people so yeah all of those
things just kind of combined is hiring too quickly you know as you're talking it's flooding and
rushing into me anytime you have me facilitate a class for Thrive you always
hit how hard those financial because what I do for Thrive I'll go in and I'll facilitate um classes and I'll go
through a calculation of the cost of hiring your first employee and it always blows people away because I'm like okay
and I usually choose a particular person in the class and I'm like okay what are you gonna hire for and they tell me and
you know usually they want to hire at like minimum wage I'm like okay well let's have a little fun with this and then that cost explodes yes right and as
you're talking I'm like does Heather push us so hard because of a personal experience and I think just all of the
businesses I've worked withh that is one of the largest problems I see yeah over and over and
over again we get super excited and we hire and we're not ready to do it yet
and so that to me is one of the key pillars of saying you know this is where I've seen businesses fail uhhuh over and
over again so where was your biggest stumble what employee without saying any names or Which business it was that you
you were running at the time what was the biggest most painful stumble in
looking back at all of those hires I mean they were all pretty painful to the pocketbook for sure um
because when you hire someone you invest a lot of time and a lot of money in them you do and you give up a lot of your
ability to make money because you're busy pouring into them and so I think
for me um and this has happened multiple times unfortunately um it was really not
being prepared for what happens when that employee
leaves and starts a competing business oo I remember that
and it actually happened to me twice the first time was my own not protecting the
data um properly and what they do just being so excited to have my first
employee yeah what happened walk us through that experience yeah so she was a great employee always on time very
professional um great to work with and one day she didn't show
up and you know my first employee I'm like what do we do do we call the police
do call out a search party she's not answering her phone her boyfriend told me he hadn't seen her that uh since the
morning I'm thinking you know TV shows maybe he killed her and put her in the basement like what do I
do all these things are running through my head and it took three days of me in
panic mode worried for her safety to find out and and actually had
found out in a roundabout way because I had belonged to a National Association and she applied for membership and they
sent me some uh they sent it out to the community and said this person's applying for membership and she had
started her own company and I go to her website and guess what it's 90% the same as my
website get out really I'm like this is crazy and a couple of my clients that
sent me business called me and said um she's calling us and asking us for our business did you have her sign a non
solicitation so this was probably a decade ago and
obviously laws have changed and that's that's the that's really the message here is know what your laws are oh and
know when they change because a non-solicitation in Colorado is not something that you can hold up in court
um to degree but it sends a message right it sends a message but most people know that you know a not that um a
non-compete is not a non-solicitation is considered a noncompete so you have to
navigate that well you do you have to know how to make that contract valid
with certain wording and yeah we can go down that path that's why you hire a really good
attorney to draft those yes you do do not do that stuff for yourself the big key is Damages if you don't outline at
least what my attorney friends this is not legal advice we are not per we are not attorneys here just a disclaimer my
attorney told me to tell you um but the big thing from my attorney friends they always tell me make sure you include
damages because it outlines what will happen in the event that they break this
agreement and that helps a lot in court yeah it does but there's also the side
of it as a small business that even if you get the
contract right good luck enforcing it yeah a simple case going to mediation is
$330,000 it is who has $330,000 is a small business and how do you know you're going to recover that from the
other person right no no so but don't you want that document just in case so you have the choice yes so you have the
choice you do because if you don't have that document you don't have the choice right and you hope that they'd be ethical right you would think so back to
her so probably didn't have her sign a non solicitation um probably not probably
not then that would have been my first you found
[Laughter] so no non-solicitation you find out through the professional association you
look at her website and it's virtually your website
and your clients are calling you saying sh what do you do in that
situation well I contacted an attorney and at least got a cease and assist letter written good um but again if they
don't care and they know that you are unlikely to come after
them it's a piece of paper but I did that um I don't know that it really
stopped her from keeping her business um and then I contacted all of my clients
in in personally and said you know she's no longer with the organization you know please let me know
if she reaches out um but that was really all I could do there wasn't a
whole lot there's not a lot you can do at that point which is
brutal so how did that impact your business well the stress of dealing with
it trying to cover my tracks close the gaps you
know I didn't even have the right things in place like how do I turn off all her access oh yeah um what passwords need to
be reset like here I am in panic mode it's not like I fired her and got ready for this yeah it was instant and then it
was like how do I do all of this oh my gosh days that you couldn't find her did
you leave all of her accounts open so you think she was probably in there like AB scraping absolutely I didn't have an
IT company at the time I didn't have any way to prove what was exiting and incoming into my system oh um I didn't
have any way to you know know if she had done a file transfer of all the
files all the things oh my gosh and then not knowing
technology I shut down a bunch of Outlook accounts and I lost all the data
oh no so try recovering all of that you're
so pretty I'm like what the heck so the
loss of business while I'm dealing with this the stress oh no of course the company that I was
running at the time was a lot of work out out in the you know in the um City
not having the time to do that mhm falling behind on everything oh gosh and
just that feeling of hopelessness and despair when you're like but I'm a good person why does this happen to me so I
kind of went through my own little pity party how much did you drink a lot
yeah see why I should have started the alcohol yes business yes you should
have so yeah it was it was probably pretty significant um I don't know that
I have a true figure on it but it it was enough to if you could go give me a
dollar just what do you think cuz you're right maybe total like 20,000
oh oh the second time it was like almost a 100,000 so it was a lot yeah well your
business was probably bigger than and a lot more established they had access to a lot
more yeah yeah so it's yeah it can be detrimental right to a small business
definitely not something you can handle the pity party is hard to go through it is isn't it like as an
entrepreneur and you feel dumb right like I'm like I'm educated I know better
yeah he just so excited to hire and you feel like the world is crumbling y maybe
I shouldn't be a business owner maybe I'm not meant for this all the things oh all the things yeah yeah sitting there
in those sleepless nights and you've got that demon brain working against you
you're not cut out for this it's too hard everybody's out to get you that's tough how'd you pull yourself
out of the pity party um well I went from pity to anger and that's healthy yeah and anger
kind of gets me going right it's like that jump start same here yeah and shock
you know the paddles that's right once I jump started and got back into but I'm like okay I'm okay but it takes a while
to heal and to hire again and I needed to hire again yeah so that process took
probably longer than I wish it would have how did that impact the next employee that you
hired cuz trust is hard it is right and that new hire did nothing to lose trust
but I bet you there was reduced trust there was um I maybe have imple I maybe
implemented too many things to try to overcompensate like hey I'm going to put a GPS tracking
system on your phone so I know where you're at what you're doing right yeah when that's silly let me policy the
out of you that's right right I'm gonna have all this stuff you're G to get access to nothing so you can't even do
your job but that's okay because you can't get in my system I was going to say how often do
we shift to like micromanagement so handle and facilitate trust because you know the all the
little things versus that more freedom and Trust of responsibility so we move into that micromanagement kind of style
yeah which is really just indicative of you don't trust me right and I'm I I'd be curious to know what my second hire
we're still friends I think I'll ask her if she felt any kind of way because I do think I was very micromanaging and
that's not my personality anyway it's not no not at all I'm like I want to empower you to be great because if
you're great then my business is doing great exactly and I don't want to do a bunch more work anyway I got enough work
so it was hard to become that microman manager and yeah I'm curious I'm sure
she definitely felt it um but you you go that direction and then you go okay wait a minute maybe this is overkill because
you also can't sustain that way you cannot be a micromanager and run a successful business so then pulling back
and knowing how do I pull back this was before I knew about culture building and so not knowing how to build the right
culture and put the right Sops in place so I could pull back then I would pull back a little too much and then I would
feel like I lost control and then I would Implement and micromanage again so it was like very much like a seesaw
effect um just kind of going back and forth and trying to figure it out I think that's a lot of business
ownership though is that sees solve learning correction over correction
learning more correction more over correction that sounds just like it
yes what would where's the balance
you teach this stuff I do tell me I think the balance is getting the
education finding out the information ahead of time putting in the things to be ready to hire and knowing that it's
not going to be perfect right you're going to do some Sops they may or may not work you want to empower that person
in that position to get in and probably find easier and better ways to do things um so being able to say I'm going to
start with a a decent found found I have the knowledge I have the tools I'm going to implement these things but then also
having that flexibility and allowing them to get into that position and help
you develop and being okay with that piece yeah I think that's important you
know us as Leaders I you've heard me say this 10,000 time times and Jason I'm I'm
sure you've heard me say this at least 12 us as Leaders our success is
dependent upon the success of others and I think a lot of leaders fail to see
that and we'll never be successful without others around us
becoming successful and I think a lot of leaders you know even in your situation where
you you had that experience you brought on that next employee you were terrified that they were going to crumble your
success so you tried to harness in the success for yourself and for them
to control it all yes but really ultimately like the success of others is outside of our control that's right
because it has to be their choice that's right so which is hard especially Us
control freak business owners who like to control everything yes that is the hardest part
is letting go of that control and saying I trust you yeah and there's so many
things to that right like understanding their communication Styles and their personality and their learning Styles
and so you're mix you're juggling all these balls while you're trying to empower them yeah while you're trying to
run a company while you're trying to run a company and be a good leader yourself and do your own professional
development and get clients and all the things right a lot yeah I mean gosh we
could put up like right now here on the screen a list of all the 45,000 things that a business owner has
to juggle on a day-to-day basis yeah and yet at the end of the day they still walk away from work feeling like they
failed yeah yeah go out and start a business
everybody it's wonderful we making it sound great to we hope you get to get to
start a good business no there's so many wonderful things about owning a business but it's not easy but no you know so I'm
curious in in that kind of so that was your experience you've also as we were saying earlier have seen thousands of
businesses what trends do you see when it comes to making mistakes or fail
years right so obviously this big one of trust and employees is you know maybe number one on the list but what are
maybe two other Trends or so that you see that really kind of Tanks a business
or are areas of failure for for companies I would say the first is that
Financial aspect so I work with a lot of businesses who year one will hire independent
contractors find out they're not really and then change them to employees but
not prepared for what that does to their cash flow yeah looking at the taxes and
all the other things that we have to give our employees um so I see the cash
flow side falling really fast or hiring too early and not looking at their
numbers to say okay well with these new numbers projected my sales need to
increase by x amount and I need to get out there and do that or I have some money saved for the months that maybe
we're not going to be as effective because I'm pouring into to this person so our sales are actually going to go down for a few months so you know like
when I um in one of my businesses my first hire you know my first big hire it
was a big salary and so I had to go out and I had to say okay well planning for this ahead of time you know I'm going to
have to cover at least three months of her salary because she's not going to be effective maybe six months I'm going to
need to cover the fact that I'm not going to be as effective I need to cover all of the workstation stuff and the all
the other things that go alongside of that um and that was a a big number like you said you do it in the classroom
that's a big number how do you prepare for that do you have money in savings are you taking out a loan what does that look like so I think the financial piece
is a big part of it um certainly I know a lot of businesses just don't have you
know they they think they can do HR themselves and I'm like okay could you
be your own attorney could you be your own insurance agent you know to me those three things are an accountant those
four positions need to be somebody you trust because you don't have access to the information and the fines can be
detrimental so I've seen fines for you know a friend of mine she has a a
business up in Denver and she misclassified a worker and the only
thing that had caught her was she gave them an internal email address and she didn't know that that was a non-qualifying thing M
$45,000 wow like ouch okay we I want to jump into this really quickly because we have to wind
this up but all right we've talked a lot about experiences and kind of
intermingled you know Lessons Learned but I would love to hear from
you if you were to seriously reflect and give one piece of advice to folks who
are considering starting a business or even business owners what is that advice
based on the conversation we've had today like how would you fix it and how would you avoid the mistakes that you've
made um I would say Seek out help make sure that you have talked to the
professionals make sure you have talked to others make sure that you've implemented the things that need to be
implemented before you make that jump and make sure that you're at that point where it's absolutely
necessary and until it's not guess what we get to hustle yeah and that's what it is that's the joy of being a business
owner so make sure you're you're absolutely ready to make that jump well
said I couldn't have said it better myself so do me a favor tell our
community about how to support Thrive give them your big ask and tell them
where to go to fulfill the big ask yeah well um I think first and foremost is
you know being intentional about shopping local you know these these businesses that we help they're all local businesses and you know we're
seeing that transition into a lot of online shopping and shopping in other communities keep your money here support
these businesses um go to our Facebook page follow uh it's Thrive Colorado
Springs follow the businesses that are graduating on our website which isth
thriven network.org we have a showcase where you can see the last three graduating classes um and it has their
business information on there you know seek them first to do business with if you're looking for somebody um somebody
to do business with uh because you know that they are are well trained um the
second piece I would say is if you see that we're hosting events like uh they all do a pitch event um come and and
join and show your support uh seeing a room full of people in the community is empowering for them um to feel
supportive and really gets them excited and then I would say last but not least even if it's just $10 a month we have a
road to 100 that we're running right now to try to get 100 individuals to support
our organization even as low as $10 a month and I know you might think that doesn't sound like a lot but we want to
keep our program free the people that we help they need no barriers to this uh to
accessing what we have to offer and so in order to do that I need to show more Community Support
I think that's a big thing and and I want to kind of reverse this you know Heather put a really important ask as
number three because again she is the most selfless entrepreneur I know she will
support others before she supports herself but I want to make this very clear to everybody if we don't support
Thrive we're not supporting these small business owners these small business owners need the education information
and resources to help their businesses Thrive yes unintended all the pun but
without dollars you can't do this that's right you have as a nonprofit you have
just like any other business you have a p&l and a balance sheet and you know a
board that you have to answer to and those dollars fuel to support for these
these entrepreneurs and with out the Thrive networks these entrepreneurs will
not be able to do their good work in the community that's right so I'm going to move your number three to number one okay
okay I knew you would point that out but you're you're right I'd rather you support them first but absolutely it it
does it means a lot it means a lot to them it means a lot to us um and we want to continue to keep doing this work in
the community it's it is very impactful we've seen lives change um yeah
personally professionally all the things yeah well
everybody this was episode number two of show me yours um please be sure
to like subscribe share with all of your friends I'm sure Heather's going to be
sharing with all of her friends and her community as soon as this episode airs which I'm really excited for I've been
excited for this one for a while um but this is Rihanna and Jason signing off
with our friend Heather and we will see you next in two weeks for episode three
bye bye
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