680: $60k on the Side With This Niche Virtual Assistant Service

0:00:05 60 grand on the side last year with this unique niche virtual assistant service.
0:00:10 Here’s a creative example of how the world is really only as competitive as we make it
0:00:13 with the right positioning and carve out some space for yourself.
0:00:17 You can serve some happy customers and you can make some money along the way.
0:00:23 Today’s guest did just that with a fully remote house management service targeting busy parents
0:00:29 and moms and found traction almost immediately from Heron House Management, Heron like the
0:00:30 bird, Hannah Morgan.
0:00:31 Welcome to the Side Hustle Show.
0:00:33 Thank you for having me.
0:00:33 Happy to be here.
0:00:34 You bet.
0:00:35 Stick around in this one.
0:00:40 We’re covering how you might come up with your niche service, something you could borrow on
0:00:45 your own or start on your own, the most effective ways that Hannah’s found to market the business
0:00:48 and her plans to grow it to six figures and beyond.
0:00:52 Now, Hannah, when I think house management, I think in person.
0:00:53 I don’t think remote.
0:00:58 I think somebody on site doing laundry, picking up groceries, maybe coordinating and meeting
0:01:01 with contractors, but with Heron, it’s all virtual.
0:01:04 Talk to me about the inspiration, the spark to create this.
0:01:05 You’re right.
0:01:10 House management is traditionally an on-site, on-staff role for ultra-wealthy people.
0:01:15 And it’s somebody that lives on site or is on site a lot, and they are responsible for
0:01:17 the well-being of the entire home.
0:01:20 So all of the people that work for the family and all the comings and goings.
0:01:25 And so I thought, what if we could apply that in a micro sense to make it more accessible
0:01:28 and affordable to people who need those services in a fractional way?
0:01:33 So the inspiration for it was really out of my own experience becoming a parent in 2020.
0:01:34 I’m a project manager.
0:01:35 My husband’s a project manager.
0:01:40 And I found that as you have children and your life becomes more complicated, there is
0:01:44 just a huge administrative burden that people don’t tell you about, right?
0:01:47 There’s the joys of parenting, but then there’s also the paperwork that comes along with it.
0:01:53 And so I found that there was a need to put in place these systems, but also to be able
0:01:58 to really have project management be a part of our personal life as well as our professional
0:01:58 lives.
0:02:00 I found that I was really good at it.
0:02:01 I’m good at creating systems.
0:02:04 I’m good at maintaining them and applying my professional skills.
0:02:05 And my husband is too.
0:02:09 But I just had less desire to do it because all of a sudden I wanted to spend more time with
0:02:13 my children doing something that was more fulfilling to me rather than staying up late on my computer
0:02:15 or knocking off my digital to-do list.
0:02:19 When I looked for a service out there that might be able to address this need that I had,
0:02:23 I found that there were virtual assistant services out there that were geared towards
0:02:24 working with families.
0:02:28 But I didn’t find anything that really hit at the need, which was to truly relieve mental
0:02:29 load.
0:02:33 And so the mental load is that weight that comes along with the managing of the home, the
0:02:35 planning, the anticipating, the researching, the managing.
0:02:40 And so I thought, what if I could take my project management perspective and skills and
0:02:46 apply that here and I could actually create a role that’s a fractional house management role
0:02:50 that operates more like a project manager instead of a virtual assistant for our clients?
0:02:50 Yeah.
0:02:52 A sub-niche within that.
0:02:57 And by going niche, you go upmarket or you become more valuable to say other people might
0:02:57 be able to do it.
0:02:59 But like, this is all we do, right?
0:03:01 We’re the specialists in this specific area.
0:03:06 The buzzword around mental load is something I don’t think I ever heard that phrase up until
0:03:07 12 or 18 months ago.
0:03:14 Like, it seems to be really front and center on who in a relationship, who’s bearing the
0:03:15 mental load?
0:03:17 And what are you thinking about?
0:03:18 How do we offload some of this?
0:03:23 It’s just like, how do we sleep well at night, not having a million things left on the to-do
0:03:23 list?
0:03:29 And so I think marrying that project management background and expertise with this kind of
0:03:32 trending topic and being able to speak to that, it seems like that really resonated.
0:03:37 My aha moment came when my sister, actually, who has children, she’s much older than I,
0:03:41 she brought the term cognitive labor to me and it clicked for me.
0:03:43 I was like, wait, that’s what I do.
0:03:43 Hold on a second.
0:03:48 And then it wasn’t until a friend of mine said that she had a nanny who also did house
0:03:52 management work for her, who did things like, notice that the toothpaste was low and buy
0:03:52 more.
0:03:54 And I was like, I do that.
0:03:55 I should be paid for that.
0:03:56 That should be a job.
0:04:02 And so it occurred to me that when we have the invisible labor of mental load, that’s the
0:04:07 things that are never really seen and often not talked about, it goes unnoticed, it goes
0:04:09 unappreciated, and it goes uncompensated.
0:04:14 I want to pause and kind of briefly, well, a house manager was like somebody on staff for
0:04:15 wealthy families.
0:04:19 There’s a business idea framework just in that to say, well, what are wealthy people spending
0:04:20 money on?
0:04:23 And is there a creative way to make that more accessible?
0:04:26 In some cases, well, we’re going to have to bring it remote because we can’t be there
0:04:26 in person.
0:04:28 House management, just one example.
0:04:32 Like, what are wealthy families spending money on and how can we bring it to the masses?
0:04:35 And many, many businesses, I feel like, have been born from that framework.
0:04:39 So the overarching response I’ll give you is that wealthy people are buying back their
0:04:40 time.
0:04:41 That’s how they’re using their money.
0:04:43 So they’re trading money for time.
0:04:46 And that’s something that a lot of people don’t have the luxury to do because they don’t
0:04:49 have access to disposable income to be able to do that.
0:04:53 And so we recognize that in the work that we do, and we’re very committed to making solutions
0:04:54 that are affordable.
0:04:56 We have tons of free content.
0:05:00 We have spreadsheets that are available for download that you can use to organize a lot
0:05:04 of this and project manage yourself that are $3 to $6, right?
0:05:05 We’re trying to make this accessible.
0:05:10 But we also recognize that our service is something that should be compensated and that we feel like
0:05:11 has market value.
0:05:16 So the kinds of things that our clients see a lot of value in us doing is really that project
0:05:16 management piece.
0:05:21 And I’ll give an example between the difference of delegating and telling somebody what to
0:05:23 do versus having a true thought partner.
0:05:29 And so an example would be the onset of summer or in some communities like January, we’re all
0:05:31 frantically signing up for summer camps for our children.
0:05:34 And we’re trying to figure out how we’re going to deal with the gaps in care, when we’re going
0:05:36 to plan vacations, et cetera.
0:05:36 Yeah, yeah.
0:05:38 They’re all like 930 to noon.
0:05:40 You’re like, well, that’s not necessarily going to work.
0:05:40 Yeah.
0:05:42 And you got to sign up in March.
0:05:42 Yeah.
0:05:45 And there’s a 10-day break in the middle of July just because.
0:05:46 So, yeah, there’s always gaps.
0:05:47 There’s always problems.
0:05:51 And so instead of doing this research, staying up till midnight and trying to get the first
0:05:55 one on the wait list, all these kinds of things, mapping out where everything’s going to go.
0:06:00 Instead, our clients are able to ask their house manager if they can own the process and the
0:06:04 success of the project by saying, OK, here’s my kid’s ages.
0:06:05 Here’s what they’re into.
0:06:08 Here are my needs and my availability this summer.
0:06:11 Me and my partner are available to pick up at these hours or whatever.
0:06:14 We’re willing to drive up to 20 minutes away from our house.
0:06:16 And this is our budget for the summer.
0:06:21 And so with these tools that we’ve developed allow the house manager to fully map out the
0:06:21 summer.
0:06:25 And then in my kid’s summer, it’s 11 weeks slot in various camps.
0:06:30 And so it can be very complicated and it can be very costly and it can require lots of logistics
0:06:35 because every camp has its own stuff you have to bring and instructions for drop off in different
0:06:36 times.
0:06:38 And each parent is going to a different camp each week.
0:06:43 And so having a house manager to really own that process is enormous.
0:06:47 And then they’re also able to do the registration, the paperwork, pay for the camp, get all the
0:06:50 dates on the calendar, line up any gaps in care if you need it.
0:06:53 And then also suggest, hey, you’ve got a gap in care this week.
0:06:56 Why don’t you use some of your PTO and take that vacation that we’ve been talking about?
0:07:02 So that’s an example of something that has such a huge impact on our clients’ lives.
0:07:05 Yeah, especially I could see it for vacation planning.
0:07:06 I could see it for meal planning.
0:07:09 I could see it for coordinating home improvement projects.
0:07:11 Lots of different use cases.
0:07:11 Oh, yeah.
0:07:12 All are red and better.
0:07:12 Yeah.
0:07:16 During your competitive analysis, you find, well, there’s tons of virtual assistant agencies,
0:07:21 services, and there are some higher end house management services.
0:07:23 But there may be a gap in the middle.
0:07:24 Is that the hypothesis?
0:07:25 Yeah, absolutely.
0:07:30 I felt like the virtual assistant services out there that are mass market tend to leverage
0:07:31 AI.
0:07:35 They often use an anonymous portal where you basically put your request into a portal.
0:07:37 Anybody picks up that need.
0:07:40 You say, hey, I need a dentist appointment at this dentist or whatever.
0:07:41 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
0:07:43 I used to have a service called Fancy Hands.
0:07:44 I don’t know if they’re still around.
0:07:44 Okay.
0:07:46 It was a great name, but it was just that.
0:07:50 Throw it into the app and any number from the pool of different assistants could go make that
0:07:56 restaurant reservation or do this initial research on other stuff that I had them do.
0:07:56 Yeah, exactly.
0:07:58 And that’s great for small tasks like that.
0:08:03 We also found a lot of the services use offshore talent and they use people who maybe don’t have
0:08:08 the same shared lived experiences that our clients really want to see their house manager have.
0:08:14 And so typically who we hire are people who are teachers, project managers, and former house managers
0:08:16 themselves because those are the people that are empathetic.
0:08:18 They’re fantastic planners.
0:08:19 Some are parents.
0:08:19 Some are not.
0:08:24 But they understand the complex working needs of a family in order to be able to truly anticipate
0:08:25 the needs.
0:08:29 So the example of making a reservation, like you put it into the portal and you say, make
0:08:30 me a reservation here.
0:08:31 Well, what if they don’t have the right time?
0:08:33 Or what if there’s all these factors?
0:08:34 They have to go back and forth with you.
0:08:38 Our house manager instead would say, hey, your anniversary is coming up in two months.
0:08:39 Let’s surprise your partner.
0:08:42 And I’m going to line up the babysitter.
0:08:45 I found this hot new restaurant that meets your dietary restrictions.
0:08:49 And I’m going to make the reservation, plug it into your calendar, get the child care
0:08:54 lined up, put it on the calendar so everybody knows where to be, and then maybe arrange for
0:08:58 a nice gift along the lines of, or whatever the occasion may be, birthday, Valentine’s Day,
0:08:58 whatever.
0:09:03 So that’s the kind of anticipating that we bring to the table that’s based on that relationship.
0:09:07 And that’s the kind of relationship you can’t have when it’s through a portal or somebody
0:09:09 that you don’t have that shared experience with.
0:09:11 So we really pride ourselves on that one-to-one.
0:09:13 I think that’s a defining factor for sure.
0:09:15 Did your sister end up being client number one?
0:09:17 Or tell me about your first sale here.
0:09:22 So I actually talked to about 100 people, working parents who had this need.
0:09:27 And I said, hey, what would it look like if there was a service that was more than a traditional
0:09:28 virtual assistant service?
0:09:32 Some people said that they had tried other virtual assistant services for families, and
0:09:33 these were their pain points.
0:09:35 Other people said, oh, this is my wish list.
0:09:39 And a lot of people said, I don’t know if you can deal with this problem, but I have this
0:09:43 kind of amorphous issue in my life, and I don’t really know how to deal with it.
0:09:47 And what I found is that when we say yes, we get it done.
0:09:51 Were these neighbors, were these parents from school, or how do you find these 100 people?
0:09:54 They were one-to-one conversations, but they also happened on Facebook.
0:09:59 There are a lot of corners of the Facebook social media world where working parents and
0:10:00 moms gather.
0:10:04 And that was where I got some of my best initial research because I was able to reach such
0:10:05 a large group.
0:10:06 And it was just a conversation.
0:10:08 People were able to riff off of each other.
0:10:09 It wasn’t a survey.
0:10:11 It wasn’t like something where we did statistical analysis.
0:10:13 It was just like, hey, let’s talk about this.
0:10:17 And then we’ve been able to refine that over the years through the same model of just getting
0:10:20 feedback from our clients and also getting feedback from these groups where people are
0:10:22 talking about things like mental load, what they wish they could do to help.
0:10:26 Wayne Maxwell would call it like his idea extraction method.
0:10:27 Like, what are the pain points?
0:10:29 If you had a magic wand, how would you solve this problem?
0:10:31 You know, what’s keeping you up at night?
0:10:33 You know, where do you see this going in five years?
0:10:36 What have you tried so far to address this?
0:10:40 Like all these kind of trying to pull out like in their own words, their own language,
0:10:42 they almost arrive at the solution for you.
0:10:44 And you’re like, well, now it’s just on me to build that.
0:10:50 And then you have to come at it from a perspective of curiosity and also commitment to the problem,
0:10:53 not just attachment to the solution that you think would work.
0:10:57 And so in this case, we definitely did massage and adjust our services and how they work and
0:11:00 how they’re structured to make sure that it met the needs of our clients.
0:11:05 But we’re also interested in other ways that we can address mental load through products.
0:11:06 We have our digital downloads.
0:11:08 We have tons of content that we generate.
0:11:12 So it’s definitely like a bigger picture that we’re addressing as far as having these conversations
0:11:13 around mental load.
0:11:16 The actual service of the virtual house management is one piece of that.
0:11:17 Okay.
0:11:22 And so from these initial 100 conversations, a percentage of those end up signing up for
0:11:24 the service and say, yeah, can we just hire you?
0:11:26 You’re describing this exactly.
0:11:27 I want to pay you to make this pain go away.
0:11:29 Our very first client is still with us.
0:11:31 She has been with us since day one.
0:11:32 And to her, I’m very grateful.
0:11:34 She was the first person who took a chance on us.
0:11:36 And I think we’ve done right by her.
0:11:38 She’s been a wonderful family to work with.
0:11:42 And actually, the first person that I hired on my team is somebody that I’ve known and worked
0:11:44 with, she and I worked together almost 10 years ago now.
0:11:46 And she was my day one hire.
0:11:48 And she’s now our operations manager.
0:11:52 So we’re definitely committed to the longevity of the relationship and the service.
0:11:57 So it sounds like this is parent groups, mom groups on Facebook, certain subreddits.
0:11:59 Like, where are you finding these people to even get them to sign up?
0:12:01 Shockingly, a lot of people come from Reddit.
0:12:03 I would have never expected that.
0:12:04 And here’s something very interesting.
0:12:10 So there is a very slight gender skew for more men than women on Facebook, which I did
0:12:14 not realize because a lot of the spaces that I exist on Facebook are women-only spaces.
0:12:18 Like, there are moms in whatever industry or women in this industry.
0:12:21 There’s some sort of identity affiliation.
0:12:23 Moms by birth year in your community.
0:12:27 But then when I went to Reddit, I found that there’s actually quite a heavy skew towards men.
0:12:32 And so a lot of our leads that are men that come to us are from Reddit, which I think is
0:12:33 really interesting.
0:12:38 And I think it’s because they’re in those subreddits that are like a little more open and you can
0:12:39 access them through a Google search.
0:12:42 So people will often say, oh, I found you on Google.
0:12:46 But what they really meant is they did a Google search and they found us through Reddit or some
0:12:47 of our content, which is interesting.
0:12:49 Talk to me about the Reddit strategies.
0:12:54 You have a Heron house management or a broader house management, virtual house management subreddit,
0:12:59 or are you kind of posting other people complaining about the problems that you solve and you’re
0:13:01 gently raising your hand saying, we might have a solution for you.
0:13:02 How do you go about it?
0:13:03 I mean, honestly, that’s a great idea.
0:13:05 I should do all of those things.
0:13:07 But that’s no, that’s not how it happens.
0:13:10 Somebody somewhere someday said, I have this problem.
0:13:12 And I said, great, we can help.
0:13:15 And it just kind of unfolded from there.
0:13:18 And a lot of word of mouth will say, oh, I heard about this company.
0:13:19 You should check them out.
0:13:21 Or is there anybody that could meet this need?
0:13:22 That kind of thing.
0:13:24 Word of mouth is also a really big one for us.
0:13:29 And we find that, you know, a happy customer who feels like their problem has never been
0:13:33 recognized, but now is being solved, is often the most satisfied customer.
0:13:40 Versus you going in, searching for threads around mental load, or I need some help, or
0:13:42 remote virtual assistants, and then spamming links.
0:13:47 It’s more like the handful of initial clients started to post on your behalf, almost, and
0:13:50 positively spread the word there, which is a great reputation to have.
0:13:51 Well, yeah.
0:13:54 The word of mouth happens online and also, like, in person.
0:13:58 We also contribute to fundraisers that serve our key demographic.
0:14:00 And so that’s something they say, go where the customer is.
0:14:03 And so we wanted to contribute to our local community.
0:14:08 And so we contribute to a handful of schools that have annual fundraisers as a way to, you
0:14:09 know, be able to reach our target audience.
0:14:12 And it’s a way that we can make a contribution locally.
0:14:14 And that’s a nice way of bringing people in.
0:14:19 But I find that because people are purchasing as more of, like, an experiment, they don’t
0:14:21 tend to stay as long.
0:14:24 The conversion rate to long-term client isn’t as high as you would expect.
0:14:28 They come in, they love the service, but they kind of come into it with the expectation of,
0:14:31 oh, I’m just going to use this three-hour gift certificate or five-hour gift certificate
0:14:35 that I won at a silent auction for my kid’s school fundraiser.
0:14:35 Yeah.
0:14:39 It’s really the people who come in and they’re like, I don’t know where to start.
0:14:40 I’m so stressed out.
0:14:40 What can you do?
0:14:45 Those are the people that tend to stay with us the longest because we’re able to change
0:14:48 their systems in their home and in their personal life.
0:14:49 And that’s where the real change happens.
0:14:53 I love the fundraiser angle, like the school fundraiser.
0:14:56 It’s like, donate a three-hour block of time.
0:14:58 It’s not that big of a lift for us.
0:15:03 But for the person, like, maybe it’s, you know, it’s a sampler platter of like, you know,
0:15:05 this is what it would be like to work with a virtual house manager.
0:15:09 But it also has the benefit of every other parent at that silent auction as they’re walking
0:15:12 around, looking at the thing like, hey, you know, I didn’t know you had this business.
0:15:13 You know, I didn’t know you did this, right?
0:15:16 It’s like my wife does something similar for her photography business.
0:15:20 Hey, well, the free family photo session, you know, sign up here, you know, expected value
0:15:21 is this.
0:15:26 And oftentimes that person who wins ends up, well, now every year that goes by, we’re going
0:15:27 to need more family photos.
0:15:30 They might have 10 friends that they refer you to.
0:15:33 And everybody else who’s there is like, oh, dang, I didn’t win.
0:15:36 But we really do need Christmas card photos coming up.
0:15:38 And so it’s like a little bit of exposure, hyper localized.
0:15:43 It’s hard to scale that, but pretty low lift marketing strategy.
0:15:48 More with Hannah in just a moment, including pricing the house management service and onboarding
0:15:51 clients so they stick around for the long haul right after this.
0:15:57 One strategy I didn’t fully embrace or maybe wasn’t fully aware of when I was starting out
0:16:00 was this idea of the piggyback principle.
0:16:04 In the startup phase, that means you don’t have to start completely from scratch, but instead
0:16:10 you can take advantage of existing tools, templates, playbooks, best practices from the people who’ve
0:16:10 gone before you.
0:16:13 A perfect example of this is our partner, Shopify.
0:16:19 Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses from household names to side hustlers
0:16:21 on their way to becoming household names.
0:16:26 With hundreds of ready-to-use templates, Shopify helps you build a beautiful online store and
0:16:27 start selling.
0:16:31 Plus, Shopify is packed with helpful AI tools to accelerate your workflow.
0:16:35 We’re talking product descriptions, page headlines, and even enhancing your product photography.
0:16:40 You can even easily create email and social media campaigns to reach your target customers
0:16:42 wherever they’re scrolling or strolling.
0:16:44 If you’re ready to sell, you’re ready for Shopify.
0:16:49 Turn your big business idea into with Shopify on your side.
0:16:53 Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at Shopify.com.
0:17:07 For such an important channel like phone, the software powering this important channel was
0:17:09 super outdated and clunky.
0:17:14 We wanted to make it delightful and make it very easy for businesses to connect with their
0:17:16 customers through voice and text.
0:17:19 That’s Darina Kulia, co-founder of our sponsor, Open Phone.
0:17:25 Trusted by more than 60,000 customers, this is the number one business phone system that streamlines
0:17:27 and scales your customer communications.
0:17:34 We bring your calls, your messages, your contacts in one simple place, and we allow you to bring
0:17:38 in your team so you as a business owner don’t end up being the bottleneck.
0:17:42 And we really make it easy for you to deliver that incredible experience.
0:17:42 Right.
0:17:47 It’s all about speed, streamlined communication, team access into one centralized place.
0:17:49 I think that makes a lot of sense.
0:17:53 Something that all of our customers love is ability to have a shared phone number,
0:17:55 which really is great for calling and texting.
0:18:01 So when someone calls you or texts you, there’s multiple people that can team up on responding
0:18:04 and everyone is in the loop about that conversation.
0:18:07 This visibility is so critical, especially as you scale.
0:18:13 And the ability to text a business is like a new and novel thing that as a customer, I really
0:18:14 appreciate.
0:18:19 One thing that we’ve launched at Open Phone, which is I think a game changer, is Sona, which
0:18:21 is our voice AI agent.
0:18:24 It basically helps you never have a single missed call.
0:18:30 It can handle responses to any common questions, basically any questions that you train it
0:18:34 on, and then it can capture that information so you can quickly follow up.
0:18:39 We are helping businesses never lose a customer because a missed call is a lost opportunity.
0:18:44 Now, Open Phone has automatic AI call summaries, so you don’t have to worry about taking notes
0:18:44 while you’re on the call.
0:18:50 But another cool feature is what Darina called AI call tagging, basically allowing you to quickly
0:18:56 filter for the calls that were sales objections or customer complaints or requests for a discount.
0:19:01 So you can review those and see what worked, what didn’t, and train team members on the
0:19:04 most effective tactics and language in those cases.
0:19:08 And it’s all in the name of building a better, faster, and friendlier customer experience.
0:19:12 I want all Open Phone customers to have five stars only.
0:19:17 Right now, Open Phone is offering Side Hustle show listeners 20% off your first six months
0:19:19 at openphone.com slash side hustle.
0:19:25 That’s O-P-E-N-P-H-O-N-E dot com slash side hustle.
0:19:30 And if you have existing numbers with another service, Open Phone will port them over at no
0:19:31 extra charge.
0:19:34 Open Phone, no missed calls, no missed customers.
0:19:39 It’s interesting you mentioned the photographer relationship because you often think of that
0:19:42 as a one-time purchase, but what you’re saying is that it actually recurs annually.
0:19:47 And so I find that with our business, because we don’t really sell a lot of one-off products,
0:19:49 the ones that we do are the downloads.
0:19:52 We don’t offer gift certificates year-round.
0:19:56 We only really offer them a couple of times a year for special events like Mother’s Day and
0:19:58 Valentine’s Day and then these donations.
0:20:04 Because we find that people really need to be committed to building that relationship on the
0:20:06 foundation of trust for it to be a successful relationship.
0:20:10 Otherwise, you are kind of stuck in this, oh, well, it’s just three hours.
0:20:13 Can you help me plan this one trip or just do this one thing, you know?
0:20:16 And so that’s, I think, why we don’t see as great client retention.
0:20:20 We still do it because I think it’s part of our commitment to our community and having these
0:20:21 conversations.
0:20:24 And we’ve had some wonderful clients convert from it, and that’s fantastic.
0:20:30 But I think when you get into that, like, higher dollar, longer longevity of our relationship,
0:20:35 there’s just a longer sales cycle with that because it’s a mental shift that needs to happen.
0:20:35 Yeah.
0:20:38 I like the Mother’s Day gift certificate angle.
0:20:44 We had a guy who was doing a mobile car wash, mobile detailing business that went nuts on Facebook.
0:20:47 He was pre-sold, you know, tons and tons of Mother’s Day certificates.
0:20:50 So like, well, here’s a unique novel gift.
0:20:51 We’ll get mom in the car cleaned out.
0:20:56 But yeah, it’s like, how do you translate that into a long-term relationship versus like
0:20:57 transactional?
0:20:58 Here’s my three-hour type of thing.
0:21:03 Going back to Reddit, are you doing anything proactive or are you kind of relying on the
0:21:06 client base, the community to pump you up and refer you there?
0:21:07 I won’t lie.
0:21:09 Reddit is not my native language.
0:21:13 Every Reddit has its own rules about what you can post and what you can’t.
0:21:15 Some you can share links, some you can’t.
0:21:17 So a lot of the work that I do is on Facebook.
0:21:21 The Reddit stuff, I think it’s just old comments and posts from a while ago.
0:21:23 So that maybe I made, maybe other people made.
0:21:24 I’m not even sure at this point.
0:21:28 But the Facebook is kind of where more of those conversations tend to happen.
0:21:30 And then we also have a weekly podcast.
0:21:34 And that’s a nice way of reaching a different audience because we feature a new guest every
0:21:34 week.
0:21:38 And we have people that come in and they talk to our target audience, which is working
0:21:41 parents, about how to create systems that minimize stress at home.
0:21:46 And so anytime we have somebody on the podcast, they are also bringing their audience with
0:21:49 them because they’re sharing on their social networks and they’re promoting the content
0:21:50 that they’ve created with us.
0:21:55 And so that’s a nice way of expanding our marketing reach organically.
0:21:56 Got it.
0:21:58 This is De-Stress the Nest.
0:22:02 If you want to go check out the Hair and House Management podcast over there, tips to minimize
0:22:02 stress at home.
0:22:06 Do you get people saying, hey, we heard about you on the podcast and now we want to sign up?
0:22:07 Oh, yeah, totally.
0:22:07 Absolutely.
0:22:11 And it’s interesting seeing what our highest performing episodes are.
0:22:14 They’re not always what you would think, right?
0:22:18 People seem to really crave the kind of structure that I thought they would be resistant to.
0:22:23 So we have an episode on creating SOPs for your personal life and creating a project management
0:22:26 tool to help run your family and get your kids involved.
0:22:31 Which appeals to people who live in spreadsheets and that’s their love language.
0:22:32 That’s exactly it.
0:22:34 I can see other people, their eyes are glazing over.
0:22:37 But I can see for my wife and I would be like, yes, that’s what we need.
0:22:38 This is great.
0:22:39 Yeah, people love that kind of content.
0:22:41 I always say it’s a choose your own adventure.
0:22:46 Like we have episodes about ADHD, about meal prepping, about all kinds of other things that
0:22:49 are not highly systems oriented and like for the spreadsheet nerds of the world.
0:22:54 But I’m always surprised when I see how the trend of episode topics is.
0:22:57 And yeah, people love that kind of content.
0:22:59 And we also do it in 10 minute snippets.
0:23:00 So every episode is only 10 minutes.
0:23:04 And the idea is that my experience as a working parent is like I drop my kids off at school
0:23:05 and then I have a 10 minute drive home.
0:23:08 I want to be able to listen to something start to finish.
0:23:13 So I love your podcast, but it’s longer than my walking the dog episode.
0:23:14 So I have to like split it up.
0:23:16 Yeah, that’s going to take you a week back and forth.
0:23:18 Yeah, yeah, exactly.
0:23:21 Okay, so the podcast is a unique content marketing angle there.
0:23:24 I mean, it’s a unique business because it doesn’t take that many clients, right?
0:23:30 We’re looking at ranges from $450 to $900 a month on the pricing packages, of course, subject
0:23:34 to change, but it doesn’t take that many to build a meaningful income here.
0:23:38 Like, can you talk to me about how you thought about the pricing structure, you know, having
0:23:44 it in blocks of hour packages versus just straight use it or lose it hours versus I don’t know,
0:23:45 like there’s different ways you can structure it.
0:23:50 Yeah, so we did have people say, oh, I wish I could have something just on demand where
0:23:53 I could just say, hey, I need help with this one thing.
0:23:58 I found as a business owner that was not a sustainable business model because it creates too much variability
0:24:04 in your income and you’re unable to really keep your team happy and staffed with consistent
0:24:06 hours, which they’re all independent contractors.
0:24:11 And so them having a set number of hours every month so that they can plan their schedule, they
0:24:14 can plan their income, that’s a really important part of sustainability and something that we offer
0:24:18 our team that I think is important because I’m a freelancer myself.
0:24:22 I come from this world and I understand how challenging it can be to have a last minute
0:24:26 request or a client that’s five hours one month and then 50 hours the next month.
0:24:31 So we design the packages so that it’s more sustainable for our team and also our clients
0:24:35 because our clients can budget how much they’re going to spend every month on our service.
0:24:38 So of course, you know, our clients can escalate or deescalate their hours.
0:24:38 They can pause.
0:24:40 They just have to give us 30 days written notice.
0:24:44 But that’s so that we’re not leaving them in a lurch like in the middle of a project.
0:24:50 And so we find that that kind of consistency helps smooth the feeling of chaos of, oh, my
0:24:51 God, I got to get all this stuff done.
0:24:52 This is a really busy season.
0:24:57 And then it drops off when life changes or you go on vacation or whatever.
0:25:00 So we want to have that kind of consistency for everybody.
0:25:03 I was in a presentation last year and it was one of the most interesting or eye-opening
0:25:05 presentations on pricing that I’d ever heard.
0:25:12 And he gave the example of Spotify and Disney Plus and YouTube TV and Spotify, like all of
0:25:17 these like streaming services, like how they’re all very intentionally priced to be like 1% or
0:25:19 less of your monthly budget.
0:25:23 They become a utility where you’re just like, well, I’m not going to cancel that.
0:25:23 It’s 1%.
0:25:24 Who cares?
0:25:25 Is Netflix 15 bucks a month?
0:25:26 Like who cares?
0:25:26 Right.
0:25:30 And it’s like, whether you watch anything or you didn’t, the guy who was presenting ran
0:25:36 kind of an executive assistant matchmaking type of agency where it was like $3,000 a month.
0:25:40 And so he’s like, our target client is making $30,000 to $90,000 a month in their business.
0:25:42 It’s like, we want to become a utility for that.
0:25:48 And our onboarding process is so detailed and in-depth where it’s like the switching cost is
0:25:50 going to be so high that you’re never going to leave us.
0:25:52 Like that’s his goal to have zero churn.
0:25:56 And it was so eye-opening to be that pricing strategy of like, how can we position ourselves
0:25:57 as a utility?
0:25:58 Something you would never cancel.
0:26:00 You wouldn’t dream of canceling.
0:26:04 Like it’s so valuable and so affordable compared to the household income that we’re bringing in.
0:26:05 It’s an essential.
0:26:07 Like we’re not, we’re not turning off the water.
0:26:08 It’s a utility.
0:26:10 We’re not turning off hair and it’s a utility.
0:26:11 Exactly.
0:26:11 Yeah.
0:26:16 Imagine it’s probably similar here, but on the, on the onboarding side, is there anything
0:26:20 that you do it to like, in a positive way, wrap those tentacles around such that like
0:26:23 you become so indispensable that nobody’s ever leaving?
0:26:27 Every client is different, but I will say that we do have a number of clients for whom
0:26:32 we do those recurring tasks that need to happen every week.
0:26:36 And that’s where we see our house managers becoming knit into the fabric of their life and
0:26:39 their daily rhythm and their weekly rhythm of their family.
0:26:43 So an example is we have a lot of clients who have variable schedules because they’re dual
0:26:46 doctors and we have a lot of dual business owners.
0:26:51 So two parents, they’ve got young children at home and they both have very demanding and
0:26:52 often variable schedules.
0:26:57 And so our house manager is able to sit down with them and present the schedule for the coming
0:27:01 week based on all the kids’ activities, everybody’s work schedule, where the nanny needs to
0:27:04 be, after a care program we’ve got at school.
0:27:09 And those kinds of repeatable things are where you see the essentialism of our house
0:27:10 management services.
0:27:16 Some clients, though, they just want us to help them plan their vacation and then work on this
0:27:18 project and then help deal with this issue.
0:27:22 So it’s different for every family, but our goal is to create systems.
0:27:26 Sometimes the house manager is at the center of that system and they’re the ones making sure
0:27:27 it runs smoothly.
0:27:30 And sometimes they’re just saying, hey, I have this tool.
0:27:34 I’m going to build it for you and you can carry it forward from here if you so choose.
0:27:36 So an example would be like our gift tracker.
0:27:40 It’s something that a lot of people think about towards the holidays where you want to
0:27:44 know who to send your holiday card to and make sure you don’t go over your budget for your
0:27:45 annual spend for Christmas gifts or whatever.
0:27:49 We actually work with our clients starting at the beginning of the year on the annual gift
0:27:53 tracker so that they can make sure they have everybody’s birthdays and anniversaries, the
0:27:57 important dates, everybody’s address if they want to send a gift, tracking what you sent
0:28:00 them last year so you don’t send them the same thing, and then tracking it against your
0:28:00 annual budget.
0:28:04 So those are the kinds of things that you could have your house manager own for you and
0:28:09 to manage on an annual basis or that we could just build for you and have you take and use
0:28:11 in perpetuity if you don’t end up working with us again.
0:28:12 Like we don’t take it personally.
0:28:13 Life changes.
0:28:17 And if you want to shift your focus to other things, we totally understand that.
0:28:21 Yeah, building kind of a done with you early on, you’re going to have to invest some more
0:28:27 time up front to kind of train up this person on your preferences and your household SOPs.
0:28:33 But once you have that in place, it’s like becomes less involved on a daily or weekly basis.
0:28:33 Yeah.
0:28:34 And that’s the kind of thing.
0:28:39 Those conversations happening early on is like, hey, how far are you willing to drive to the
0:28:40 dentist?
0:28:43 It’s like, I don’t want to drive more than 10 minutes to the dentist or any service care
0:28:43 provider.
0:28:49 So figuring out what your requirements are, what’s important to you, cost, reviews, referrals,
0:28:53 anytime you’re picking a service provider, when we learn the preferences of our client,
0:28:58 that’s a very quick conversation we have at the beginning that then is an investment in
0:29:02 future because then we can just schedule your biannual cleaning and we can get a rhythm here
0:29:04 when you say you have a need, something’s come up.
0:29:06 We don’t have to ask those questions anymore.
0:29:10 We know what your dietary restrictions are so we can make a birthday dinner reservation for
0:29:12 your upcoming spouse’s birthday or whatever.
0:29:16 And that really eliminates that mental load piece because you as a client don’t feel like
0:29:20 you have to be constantly like managing and telling this person what to do because they
0:29:23 really understand your preferences, your needs, your requirements.
0:29:27 And that’s a lot from my background as a project manager is the requirements gathering piece,
0:29:32 which you do at the beginning of a project onset because it helps everything run smoothly in
0:29:32 the future.
0:29:39 Was this set up as an agency from the beginning or was it you using your project management skills
0:29:40 to serve the first few clients?
0:29:45 Yeah. Okay. So I actually started a project management agency in 2018 and that was just me
0:29:51 as a freelance project manager and I was working with real estate and tech companies and that was
0:29:55 where I was freelance. And so when we expanded into the personal side, it was always from an agency
0:30:00 model. So I was never working directly with the clients, although I do work very closely with
0:30:05 them and I’m very involved in that relationship. So yes, yes and no, I guess is the answer to that
0:30:05 question.
0:30:09 You’re not anyone’s dedicated house manager, right? Somebody on your team is
0:30:11 that primary client interface.
0:30:12 Exactly. Yes.
0:30:18 Okay. How do you think about the pricing and the margins? Like how do you figure out how much to
0:30:24 pay somebody? And like you ever have people trying to cut you out of the relationship? And I think
0:30:28 there’s another layer of complexity when you bring in other people.
0:30:33 Yeah, absolutely. People are complex by nature and that’s what makes us beautiful and interesting.
0:30:36 Okay. So one, we have a non-compete in our contract, ironclad contract. Anytime you’re
0:30:40 working with people, especially friends and neighbors, but anytime you’re building a team,
0:30:45 you have to have a really good contract. And that governs how we work together, the nature of the
0:30:50 relationship, the expectations, and then also what is not allowed. Things like soliciting a client to
0:30:54 work with them. So we have a non-compete, non-solicitation that protects us there.
0:31:00 We try to take really good care of our team and pay a fair market rate, provide upscale training,
0:31:05 and also consistency with the workload that matches their lifestyle, their needs. Recently,
0:31:11 we were looking to expand our team. We received over 200 applications for a role. And it’s wild
0:31:17 because there is so much demand out there for flexible work. And the thing that we often think
0:31:20 about is, oh, it’s stay-at-home moms who want to be able to work at nap time. That is not the case.
0:31:25 The number one thing that people are looking for in work right now and in their career is
0:31:30 flexibility. And so we found that we’re able to hire fantastic people who are really excited to work
0:31:35 with us because we offer that flexibility. You can make your own schedule, your independent contractor,
0:31:39 get the work done, communicate with your client. And because we’re remote, it also expands our talent
0:31:44 base. We only hire in the U.S. And we tend to hire people that are house managers, project managers,
0:31:49 or former teachers because they tend to have that innate set of skills and also curiosity about people
0:31:54 empathy and interest in growing. So when you’re thinking about profitability and margin, it might
0:32:01 be clear cut from the outside to say, you charge X for this service and then your cost is X for the
0:32:05 person that’s fulfilling that role. But there’s a lot that goes into it behind the scenes. That’s kind
0:32:10 of the boring stuff that people don’t really think about and don’t love to think about. And it’s the cost
0:32:15 of your digital ecosystem, the project management software, the website, the email, the G Suite,
0:32:20 all those kinds of things. Insurance, that’s a huge cost that we bear. And that’s something that if
0:32:24 you’re working with an individual providing the service, they might not have that insurance. And so
0:32:29 that’s something that we bring the benefit of that. And then we also do background checks. Anytime we’re
0:32:34 onboarding somebody, we’re investing a ton of money by paying them for their training so that they come
0:32:38 fully trained and ready to hit the ground running. So there’s a lot more that goes into it other than
0:32:42 just the hourly rate coming out of the hourly service that we charge.
0:32:47 Yeah. I mean, you got to have some margin to play with there. So if you’re selling time at
0:32:52 $45 an hour and turning around and paying a team member 25 or 30, like in between is like, like you
0:32:56 said, all of that other overhead plus hopefully some profit margin at the end of the day too.
0:33:01 Yeah, exactly. But that’s some of the risk that you bear as a business owner that you just have to be
0:33:07 comfortable with is, okay, I’m going to invest in my business with this new infrastructure or this
0:33:11 rebrand or this partnership, whatever it may be, understanding it may not pay off, but I’m bearing
0:33:15 that risk instead of my team. And that’s something that I protect them from. They never have to worry
0:33:19 about getting paid. I’m always going to pay them. If a client doesn’t pay, that’s my problem.
0:33:24 Yes. So you have some level of consistency and setting it up for recurring billing versus the,
0:33:28 you know, pay as you go on demand, you know, ramp up your hours here, ramp up your hours there.
0:33:33 Harder to do. Yeah. When we actually first started, I was building the business off of
0:33:38 the infrastructure that I had totally bootstrapped for my project management agency. And it was
0:33:44 literally just a series of spreadsheets and manual bank transfers and, you know, not paper invoices,
0:33:50 but basically the equivalent of that. And I brought a bookkeeper in and I was explaining to her how our
0:33:54 system worked and how I basically duplicated it for hair and house management. And at the end of the
0:33:58 walkthrough, she goes, is there a reason you do it this way? And I was like, that’s the nicest
0:34:03 possible way you could tell me of saying my system is terrible. So she really helped me understand that
0:34:09 if you’re going to scale your business, you have to be able to eliminate as much manual steps from
0:34:13 your workflow as possible. Anytime you’re automating something, you’re not just saving yourself time
0:34:18 and money, but you’re also eliminating opportunities for human error. So we now have a software that
0:34:23 automatically bills our clients every month when their invoices do. And it sends us a notification
0:34:28 and charges a late fee if they don’t pay on time, et cetera, et cetera. That is such a huge time
0:34:31 savings because it’s not just about sending the invoices. It’s about making sure that they get paid,
0:34:35 chasing people down for money, all those kinds of things. So as soon as we were able to automate
0:34:40 that. Yeah. What tool is that? So we use HoneyBook for recurring payments and then we use QuickBooks for
0:34:45 our bookkeeping because there’s a lot of things you have to assign hours to each client and QuickBooks
0:34:50 to be able to assess profitability by client. And then anytime we do like a special project,
0:34:54 we have to make sure that we’re tracking everything to its category to be able to really assess which
0:34:58 vertical is paying and which is a drain. Having those systems made a big difference. Also we use
0:35:02 it for sending contracts. That makes a big difference. It’s just been a game changer for us because when
0:35:07 you’re scaling, you have to think, okay, this is fine when I have this number of clients. What happens
0:35:11 when we double next year? And that’s exactly what happened to us is our business has doubled every
0:35:16 year. It actually grew much more our second year because the first year was so short, but our business
0:35:20 has doubled. And so I’m thinking, okay, what are we going to do next year? This is going to be a
0:35:26 problem. Yeah. What’s going to break at each tier? Yeah, exactly. Is HoneyBook the project management
0:35:32 tool as well? We actually use Asana as our project management tool. I love Asana. It is something that
0:35:36 a lot of project managers are familiar with, but it’s not used as much in the personal space. Of all the
0:35:42 project management tools, I found it to be the one that pairs the accessibility so anybody can learn it
0:35:46 with basically no tutorial. So our clients find it really easy to navigate, but it also has a little
0:35:52 bit more complexity and features than a to-do list has. So we recommend it for all of our clients and
0:35:57 they have a free version. So I’ve actually done a lot of sessions with people who say, hey, I want to
0:36:01 know how you use it for your clients, for your family, and I’ll walk them through it. They’ll set it up on
0:36:05 their own and they never become a client of ours. And that’s something that I’m happy to do because
0:36:10 it’s such a game changer system. And I can testify as a client, I have a house manager. You can talk to my
0:36:15 husband. The difference that this has made in our relationship, Asana and our house manager is just
0:36:19 enormous. Yeah. You use it for work stuff, but never, never thought about using it. I mean,
0:36:23 it would be easy enough to create another sub project, but like, yeah, you could easily use it
0:36:28 as a personal project management tool tool. Yeah, absolutely. It’s got all the things you need,
0:36:34 deadlines, dependencies, comments. You click the button and you get the confetti that says that the
0:36:39 project is done, all that dopamine hit. Anything else tools and tech wise? Yeah. So we have
0:36:43 spreadsheets that we use. Those are hosted on Google Drive and then we sell them on Etsy.
0:36:48 And the spreadsheets are really great because once you build the template once, you’re able to
0:36:55 distribute it really easily and economically. So they’re free and available for all of our current
0:36:59 clients. And then we sell it on Etsy. And that’s something that’s been a really interesting journey
0:37:04 because there’s so many people out there saying how to do it right. And it’s been something like a
0:37:09 fun challenge that for us and our team to be able to learn how to do that. But I like that we are able
0:37:15 to offer something that’s more affordable to people who can’t use our services as an hourly service.
0:37:20 More with Hannah in just a moment, including those digital download sales. Cool example of selling
0:37:26 your entrepreneurial sawdust. Plus, her creative strategy to pitch Heron to business clients as an
0:37:32 employee benefit coming up right after this. I was going to ask because you mentioned these digital
0:37:37 sales, digital product sales. And I was like, I don’t see them on the website anywhere. Where do I go to
0:37:41 buy these things? There’s a little shopping cart icon. But I was like, where do I go? But selling them on
0:37:45 Etsy. So they’re on Etsy. We’re going to transfer them over to the website as well, because I know that
0:37:49 we lose potential customers when they don’t see them on the website. But that’s a work in progress
0:37:53 because we’re doing a rebrand right now. We’ve got a dozen or so up there and they’re just the ones
0:37:57 that are most commonly used. We have another 20 or so that we haven’t published yet. So we’re just
0:38:02 kind of releasing them incrementally. What a creative example of selling the entrepreneurial
0:38:08 sawdust. We made this stuff anyways for clients. We made this for our own internal processes. It would
0:38:13 be valuable to other people. We had Cody Berman from Gold City Ventures as exactly how he recommended
0:38:18 starting out. You can do the keyword research, but you probably already have something that you’re
0:38:21 using in your own personal life or in your business that you might be able to squeeze out some
0:38:25 incremental revenue, reach a new audience more. Yeah, exactly. And something that Cody said,
0:38:29 actually, is people are paying for convenience. And so like you and I get excited about spreadsheets.
0:38:34 That’s not for everybody. But even the people that want to build a spreadsheet, they want it to be
0:38:38 fully customizable. Sometimes they also don’t have the time or desire or were able to bring a
0:38:42 spreadsheet that offers things that they wouldn’t have thought about before. So I’ll give an example.
0:38:48 The process of choosing a new school for your child is obscenely complex where I live. We live in
0:38:52 Florida. And so we have charter schools and magnet schools and public schools and private schools.
0:38:57 And so for the past two years, my husband and I have toured almost 20 schools looking at different
0:39:01 options for our children. And it’s just too much information to be able to keep in a list format.
0:39:05 So we designed a spreadsheet that would allow us to be able to compare across different factors,
0:39:09 like is lunch included, driving distance from the house, total tuition costs, all those kinds of
0:39:13 things. And then that was one of those, I think other people would benefit from this,
0:39:14 aha moments for us.
0:39:20 Totally. Yeah, I like that example. One of the interesting sections of the site, curious if you
0:39:26 could speak to this, is the team benefits section, trying to sell this service. It sounds like rather
0:39:31 than a business to consumer business, now go on B2B. And like, how can we sign up companies and
0:39:36 corporations to say, hey, look, as an employee benefit of working here, you also have access to
0:39:37 hair and house management.
0:39:42 We have had a number of conversations with employers that want to bring us on to be able
0:39:49 to offer this as a benefit or as an incentive for their team. Because especially in environments where
0:39:55 you’ve got high demand jobs for people that are in a growth moment of their career, but they also have
0:40:00 kids at home, and particularly women, there’s a huge demand for these kinds of services. And if you take
0:40:07 the example of like a law firm, any minute that your lawyer is spending planning their kid’s birthday party
0:40:11 while they’re late night at the office, well, that’s time they could have been billing to your clients
0:40:17 making money. So this is a benefit that for the bottom line, a lot of employers see. But then from a more
0:40:22 empathetic perspective, reducing stress, attracting more diverse talent, and being able to retain people when
0:40:27 they go through these busy phases of their lives by having company benefits like this can be a real game
0:40:33 changer. So that’s our B2B reach. And I would love to see it take off because it’s gotten really positive
0:40:34 response.
0:40:36 Any takers on it so far?
0:40:40 Yes. An electrical supply company, actually. Not the one that you would think. That was our very first
0:40:44 B2B client. And they said, yeah, we want to offer this because we think that it will improve employee
0:40:50 satisfaction and it will reduce turnover. And I think it was really successful. So I’d love to see it reach
0:40:55 a little further. But there’s definitely the challenge of the price point for a business being able to,
0:41:00 you know, you have a 10 person executive team and you bring this service in. Well,
0:41:04 our monthly services times 10, that’s a pretty big line item. So one of the things that we’ve been
0:41:08 exploring with some companies is how to do like hours sharing, basically, where they buy a pool of
0:41:11 hours that a pool of employees can all tap from.
0:41:15 Yeah, I was going to ask how you would structure that. So multiple seats, because not everybody’s going
0:41:19 to take advantage of it. And it’s like, you know, are they going to ask for a bulk discount?
0:41:24 Yeah, you have to offer that. Another thing that people have done is buy a few gift certificates to use
0:41:30 as rewards and to use as employee incentives. Oh, this goes to our employee of the month or
0:41:34 recognition because you’ve been working so hard or we know you’re going through a tough season or
0:41:37 something like that. So that’s another way that we’ve been able to work with companies.
0:41:41 I like that angle. Yeah. I like the selling your sawdust angle. What are you already creating? What
0:41:46 are the byproducts of your business? How can you go sell those? And is there a way to go up market? Is
0:41:50 there a way to find like the, you know, we’ve called them lead fountains in the past where it’s like,
0:41:55 hey, you know, if these demanding workplaces, you know, want to offer this as an employee benefit,
0:42:01 it’s like, okay, now I can make one sale, maybe at a slight discount, but it’s a lot easier than
0:42:06 trying to make 10 individual sales. And hopefully they have the budget and they see the value in it
0:42:11 to keep it recurring. Maybe the churn is lower. Just trying to go, if there’s a B2B angle in what
0:42:17 you’re doing. And on that note too, beyond the B2B, we’re also working on a course for potential
0:42:21 house managers. So people that want to start their own house management business would be able to learn
0:42:26 from our lessons learned and our information that we’ve been able to gather over the past
0:42:30 year and a half of this business. Yeah. What worked? What didn’t? What do clients really value?
0:42:34 Yeah, exactly. Because people have come to us and said, how did you even do this? And it’s like,
0:42:39 I don’t have enough time to tell you. It’s literally many, many hours. So working on developing a course
0:42:45 that people can start this in their community. I think there is such a huge need. And I think there is so
0:42:50 much interest and desire for people to provide this service. And I understand that our reaches
0:42:55 always can be limited. And so I would love to help other people be able to start this themselves.
0:43:00 You’ve still got the main project management agency. We’ll call that the day job. We’ll call that the
0:43:06 full-time hustle. Where are your hours going as it relates to the house management business?
0:43:11 The hours fluctuate a lot. And I think that this is something any business owner will recognize. And
0:43:16 sometimes it feels like it has no rhyme or reason. But I discovered early on that it was too much
0:43:22 workload for me to be able to be the only person in the hot seat making all the calls. I brought in
0:43:28 operations manager. She was my first hire. I mentioned her early. She’s fantastic. She sits in this role that
0:43:34 is really coaching and supporting and nurturing our house managers. And then I do much more of the sales
0:43:38 and marketing side. And so I’m going out there building the relationships, bringing the clients in,
0:43:43 and then she’s able to keep the wheels turning on a daily basis. And then she also helps develop
0:43:47 things like our spreadsheets and our house manager course. I have an amazing team. I’m not going to
0:43:51 lie. Like, that’s the secret. I think that people often say to me, like people in my personal life,
0:43:55 like, I don’t know how you do it all. And I don’t know how you have the time to do this. And the answer
0:44:00 is I have a team and I had to eat my own dog food. And I had to realize that I couldn’t just build a team
0:44:05 of people that helped other people optimize their time. I also had to recognize to do it myself. And so
0:44:10 I have a house manager. I have an operations manager. I have a podcast manager. Like I have
0:44:15 a website builder. I have people that are in my corner on my team. We work together. They’re
0:44:20 committed to the mission. And that makes a huge difference. And I had to recognize early on that
0:44:25 it’s not about telling somebody what to do and delegating. It’s about bringing somebody in that
0:44:31 really feels empowered to speak up and make suggestions and make, you know, a change to strategic
0:44:36 priorities to work with you and setting those strategic priorities. But then also somebody
0:44:40 who can really take it across the finish line, maybe better than you ever could. I have to recognize
0:44:45 everyone on my team is better at what they do than I ever would be. And that’s why I hired them.
0:44:50 Yeah, that’s the dream scenario. It’s like, well, that’s why I’m bringing you on because I suck at
0:44:55 this. I need somebody who’s at least as good or better than me. And that’s how we can level up the whole
0:44:59 operation. Yeah, you focus on your zone of genius. You focus on what you’re good at,
0:45:03 what’s important to you, what you enjoy. This entire conversation, this is the same one I have
0:45:08 with my clients. I say, what is important to you? How do you spend your time? And one of the questions
0:45:13 we ask them is like, how do you spend your weekend? Because a lot of times that’s where we learn about
0:45:17 how they’re appropriating their time and what they’d rather be doing. Like a lot of times our clients
0:45:21 will say, I am spending my weekends doing laundry and I don’t know what to do because it feels like
0:45:24 more work to have to take it to the laundromat for like a fluff and fold service. And I’m like,
0:45:30 okay, great. Let’s hire somebody to come in your home, do your laundry, fold it and put it away in
0:45:33 everybody’s drawer so that you can go out and enjoy your weekend. You could do something that’s more
0:45:37 meaningful to you. So laundry is not your zone of genius. It stresses you out. You’d rather be doing
0:45:42 something else. Let’s think intentionally about how we want to spend our free time here because it is
0:45:47 limited. It is precious. Yeah. I remember an ad, maybe it was on the homepage of a landscaping
0:45:50 company and that was the headline, get your Saturdays back. And it was like, we’re not,
0:45:54 we’re not selling, cutting your grass. We’re selling you your Saturday back. It was like,
0:45:57 oh, that’s a great line. Yeah. That’s what you, we talked about at the beginning of the show. You
0:46:02 said, what are the ultra wealthy people using their money for? And it’s to buy back their time. And we’re
0:46:07 bringing that in a more affordable way to people. Now you’re a few years into this, anything you would
0:46:12 do differently starting over, any big surprises along the way? Oh my God. Every business has surprises.
0:46:17 You launch and it’s this moment and you’re scared. You think, how are people going to receive it? And
0:46:21 then you think, okay, I got it dialed in. Let’s do this. Let’s hit the ground running. And you’re going
0:46:26 to iterate and iterate and iterate every step of the way. And you’re going to pivot all the time. And I
0:46:32 think that staying flexible, being committed to the problem, not just the solution is critical. And then
0:46:40 also I feel like understanding that it will grow. It will expand if you continue to invest in it. And so
0:46:45 there were moments at the beginning that felt very dire where I was like, I don’t know. Am I losing
0:46:48 faith? Is this a thing? It never goes as fast as you want it to.
0:46:52 You know, the stories of like, oh, we sold out our product in 10 minutes with this one viral TikTok.
0:46:57 That’s not the nature of our business. And that’s totally fine. But I would say for me,
0:47:04 having a team and also my husband cheerleading and reminding me there’s going to be sunny days on the
0:47:08 dark days. That’s what gets you through those tough times and those moments where I feel like I was
0:47:12 losing faith. So I think if I could go back and do it differently, it would be to have a little more
0:47:19 patience and to know that success is a moving target. And just incremental growth is really
0:47:21 the name of the game. And that’s also what makes it more sustainable.
0:47:25 That’s right. Try and get a little bit better each and every day. So
0:47:30 heronhousemanagement.com, where are you taking this thing? What’s next?
0:47:37 I have big goals and I have big hopes and I have big dreams. If we could continue to do what we do
0:47:41 now at a larger scale, we would be successful. I think that there’s more out there for us. And I’m
0:47:47 excited to uncover it as we go and as we learn more about the problems, the solutions that we could
0:47:53 offer. I have visions of moving into products. I have visions of helping other people start their own
0:47:58 version of this business. I have visions of more content generating, more conversations that we’re
0:48:05 having with people about what’s a valuable use of time and what’s equitable at home and reimagining
0:48:10 what’s possible when it comes to how you deal with your mental load and your stress. So I think there’s
0:48:12 big things on the horizon. I feel optimistic.
0:48:17 Well, I’m excited to see where you take it. Again, heronhousemanagement.com. Check Hannah out
0:48:21 over there. Let’s wrap this thing up with your number one tip for Side Hustle Nation.
0:48:26 Just keep going. They say the hardest part is starting. I disagree. The hardest part is to just
0:48:31 keep going. The moment of start is so exhilarating and exciting. And it’s sometimes where you press the
0:48:36 button or you cut the ribbon or you open the doors, but it takes showing up every day for your business
0:48:41 to grow and to succeed. And it means showing up on the dark days and it means showing up on the days
0:48:47 where you feel like it could be your last. But if you keep going, I feel confident that your business
0:48:51 will continue to grow. Sometimes you have to find ways to fall in love with it again, but that’s like
0:48:57 anything. It’s a long-term investment. You may pivot, you may change directions, but if you keep going,
0:49:00 it will come back to you, everything you invest.
0:49:06 Yeah. It’s funny looking at some of the people from a decade ago on the podcast and the ones that have
0:49:11 had that persistence to stick with it. And it’s like, yeah, just start.
0:49:15 Probably the most common piece of advice. But after that, you got to stay started. You got to keep
0:49:20 it going. You got to be consistent with it. Absolutely. A couple of takeaways for me before
0:49:25 we wrap. Number one, I love this idea of niche selection and the world’s only as competitive as
0:49:30 you make it. If you can describe the problem better than your customer even can, they’re naturally going
0:49:35 to assume you have the solution. I forget who is responsible for that quota, but it’s absolutely true.
0:49:39 And you can kind of niche down to be a market of one where it’s like, yeah, there’s these virtual
0:49:45 assistant agencies, but nobody is specializing in this specific area. We could take something that
0:49:50 is something that wealthy people are spending money on. How do we make it more attainable,
0:49:55 more affordable as a, as a business idea generating framework. And the other thing was to set client
0:50:00 expectations from the start was like, it’s not going to be me. It’s not gonna be Hannah, but trust me,
0:50:05 like we’ve hired the best in the business. They’re going to take great care of you. And avoiding from the
0:50:10 very get go kind of the, the freelance trap of trading time for money and selling your skills
0:50:16 directly, you know, probably helps if you have some level of skills and expertise in the business that
0:50:19 you’re starting, but like not tying yourself and setting the expectation that like you are going to
0:50:23 be the one picking up the phone when the client calls, you know, we’re going to have a team member
0:50:27 handle that. So I think that was super smart. So again, hair and house management, Hannah’s been
0:50:32 awesome. The side hustle show, as you know, as a, as a listener just had its 12th birthday. And so if
0:50:36 you’re tuning into this, whether it’s your first time, or you’ve been here since episode one,
0:50:41 I appreciate you spending some time with us in your earbuds today. If you are newer to the show,
0:50:46 and you want to dig a little bit deeper, you can actually get a personalized playlist of some of our
0:50:53 greatest hits episodes, all you got to do is answer a few short multiple choice questions at hustle.show.
0:50:59 And it’ll spit back out this eight to 10 episode playlist of some of our favorite most effective
0:51:03 episodes based on those answers totally free. You can do it on your phone again, hustle that show for
0:51:08 that. Big thanks to Hannah for sharing her insight. Thanks again to our sponsors for helping make this
0:51:14 content free for everyone. Side hustle nation.com slash deals is where you’ll find all the offers from
0:51:19 the sponsors in one place. Thank you for supporting those advertisers. That is it for me. Thank you so much
0:51:23 for tuning in. If you’re finding value in the show, the greatest compliment is to share it with a
0:51:28 friend. So fire off that text message to that person in your life who might be a perfect fit for a
0:51:33 business like this. Until next time, let’s go out there and make something happen. And I’ll catch you
0:51:35 in the next edition of the side hustle show. Hustle on.