Do Epic Shit

Juggling it All: Real Talk About Real Estate, Business and Kids

• Colleen Basinski & Kimberly Neill • Season 1 • Episode 2

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Crafting a life that balances business and family involves unique challenges and unexpected joys. We discuss navigating entrepreneurship while raising kids and share actionable strategies that stem from our personal journeys. 

- Emotional moments and motivation behind starting a business 
- Transitioning from stay-at-home parent to entrepreneur 
- How business changes parent roles and family dynamics 
- The importance of leveraging resources and support systems 
- Identifying and establishing non-negotiables for family life 
- Tackling mom guilt and embracing imperfection 
- The significance of building a supportive network 
- Strategies to maintain work-life balance 

If you like what you're hearing, subscribe, like, and follow us. We're on Spotify, iHeartRadio, and YouTube! 


💡 Lessons we’ve learned about balancing it all—sometimes successfully, sometimes… not.

If you’re out here trying to do EPIC SH*T, this one’s for YOU. Hit play, tag a friend, and let’s do this thing together! 👇

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🎙️ Hosted by: Colleen Basinski & Kimberly Neill

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Speaker 1:

gosh, I'm gonna start crying. I think, well, I didn't mean to get that emotional that early on we are lit today. Oh welcome, hey. So uh welcome, you are live with us and uh do epic shit. The podcast, real talk, real estate, real life this is real life, for sure. My name is Colleen Baczynski. I'm a real estate agent, real estate broker, entrepreneur, mom, grandma and business woman, and this is my associate.

Speaker 2:

I'm Kim Neal and I'm all of that, except for grandma. No grandma, yet Awesome.

Speaker 1:

Well, you're pretty awesome and you.

Speaker 2:

You're an investor too. Yep, absolutely.

Speaker 1:

So welcome to our second episode. So in true transparency I almost said tampon, what the heck In true transparency. I have to start out by saying this is episode two, but this is like take three episode two, it is take three.

Speaker 1:

Because we decided that we were going to undertake this on our own, we're like, yeah, we need to record our next episode, we need to be on time and have our weeks drop. You know, weekly on the right day and time, and you know all that perfectionist shit that I talked about, that I do all the time, and so Kristen wasn't available.

Speaker 2:

Or we didn't ask her, we just improvised. I don't know what happened, why we didn't have you here that day. It was an off week, busy.

Speaker 1:

So we recorded a really good episode, I think, only To find out it didn't record. Yeah, it didn't. Yeah, I thought we did. I thought I pressed the right buttons. I didn't have any of the right buttons pressed. I didn't have anything plugged in where it needed to be to work in progress. Yeah, so we are two very middle aged women uh figuring out how to do a podcast on our own. So we appreciate that you're taking the time to tune in and be with us. Um, so, big shout out to Kristen DeFiore, who's um handling all of our video and technical stuff on the back end with us here like right now, and then also to Nolan, who is our editor and sound guy and helped us with all of our equipment.

Speaker 2:

He did a good job. I mean, he was awesome, he really did a good job. You both did yeah.

Speaker 1:

I mean. So I like to give credit where credit's due, so I think that's important. So we are at week two, episode two, and let me just put my glasses on so I can see what.

Speaker 2:

I'm talking about. How did you think week one went? I thought it was good, I thought it was great. I mean, we've had.

Speaker 1:

I mean for just. We've had a lot of good, positive feedback, so I'm really happy with it me too, I'm I'm excited uh, we told some good stories, we did yeah, we've got a lot more to share a lot to share. Drop some good nuggets. What was your favorite nugget we dropped the last time?

Speaker 1:

I think, about just doing it like, just go for it, do it yeah, I hope we've encouraged some of you to just go out and take the leap and and do the thing that you intend to do. I think I said that the last time. Do the thing thing, take advantage of the opportunity, go for it, just do it Never regret the opportunities you took, if you learned something or if you achieved something, and that's the best thing. It's like there's only two ways to go.

Speaker 1:

You're either gonna grow, you're gonna win or you're gonna learn, and there's nothing wrong with any of those things.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, absolutely three well.

Speaker 1:

I think that's a perfect segue into what we're going to talk about this week, which is how to start a business while raising kids. That's a good one. So I've been thinking about this a lot actually, and I thought you know. Here's me I'm super like, regimented and all about like we got to stay on track and we got to follow the agenda and Kim's like yeah, whatever, we'll just talk about whatever.

Speaker 1:

um, and I realized that the gold comes from the real authenticity of what we're doing and how the whatever. So I'm going to try to not follow my agenda too much today, but I still want to give you guys actionable items. We're going to share the good, the bad and the ugly. So I won't say that you know, obviously we both have built successful businesses several successful businesses over the years while raising kids, and I won't say that we did everything right. We did a lot of stuff wrong. So hopefully you can learn from the things that we did wrong and laugh at them as well, and then also learn from the things we did right.

Speaker 1:

So, I'm going to share some things we did right but also like hey what did you do that you'd like?

Speaker 2:

oh gosh, I don't do that again.

Speaker 1:

Like I can think of some things in hindsight. So let's just start with the first question I have how did starting a business change your role as a parent, Kim?

Speaker 2:

Well, for starters, I went from a stay-at-home mom to jumping and feet first or head first or whatever you want to call it, and dove into the deep end.

Speaker 2:

I did, I really did. And I think, as I thought about this a lot too, when you're a stay-at-home mom, it is such an important role, or stay-at-home parent period, such an important role, and sometimes you feel guilty pulling away from that. So you know, I, while I was a stay-at-home mom, I was like, oh, I really want to be in the workforce. All my friends were on the workforce, plus had families. I was blessed enough at that point to be able to stay home. And I say blessed because not a lot of people could do that back then and they can't do it now.

Speaker 1:

Oh, yeah, now I mean, there's no way. There's very few families that can make it absolutely very few so I was blessed at the time.

Speaker 2:

But while I was in it I was like what do I want to do? I'm antsy, I want to go back to work, but is it worth? I think you struggle, we all struggle. If I go back to work, how much is daycare going to be? Will I be present and around to attend you? You know Valentine's Day parties and birthday parties, and your kids are only little ones. Yeah, it goes by fast.

Speaker 1:

It does Really fast.

Speaker 2:

So for me I was what do I do? What do I do? Real estate was a great segue for me to get into because my husband was a carpenter and we were starting to invest and starting to flip and starting to do that. So it was just normal or natural for us to, just for me to do that and help him.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think I come from the opposite end of that is I didn't have a choice, like I had to work. So I mean I shared a little bit about this last week that I was going through a real tough divorce. I had been in an abusive relationship. My ex-husband, who's now deceased, had addiction issues and there was abuse, and it was a situation where I had to get out of the relationship, not for my, not just for my own benefit or my own safety, but also I saw this is not the example I want for my kids. Yeah, and um had to really quickly do that and gosh, I'm gonna start crying, I think. Wow.

Speaker 1:

I didn't that emotional, that early on. I think that real estate for me probably saved my life and changed the trajectory for my kids forever. Agree, nowed Now. Did I always make the right choices as I was meandering through that? No, absolutely not. I think there were plenty of times where I sacrificed time with my kids or supervision with my kids that I probably shouldn't have.

Speaker 2:

I will agree with that, that I needed to be there with them, I think business women in general, do we have a? That's difficult?

Speaker 1:

But I also think that sometimes you just have to, like you, you have to make. I think that's the number one lesson probably is you have to make tough choices and you have to be willing to make sacrifices if you're going to start a business and have kids and, um, you know, I look at the influencers today on like TikTok and Instagram and everything. I thought what a great opportunity for those people to be able to be present with their kids and still start a business. And yet not all of us can do a TikTok business or an influencer. But like there's only so much of that to go around, I think I mean.

Speaker 1:

Maybe I'm wrong, but real estate did give me an opportunity and maybe I could have scaled it back a little bit as I was building and growing all the businesses to the point where I could have scaled it back a little bit as I was building and growing all the businesses to the point where I could have been a little bit more present.

Speaker 1:

But I still feel like I got to do a lot of really cool things with my kids over the years and we got to have a lot of experiences and opportunities that maybe we wouldn't have if I hadn't got into real estate and built this business and built the businesses now, when I was building other people's companies. I think that's where it where it went sideways, maybe in terms of the amount of time that I spent helping other people grow their business instead of investing in mine. And in hindsight, like we say, hindsight's 20, 20. Right, so I look back like when I was first building my real estate career business, my sales business and my own entrepreneurial business. I think I did a pretty good job and we'll talk about, like, what resources we had and what we did of balancing both of those. I think for me, where it went a little bit sideways is the shiny, flashy objects of growing or climbing this corporate ladder within this organization I was a part of that just sucked the life out of me. It did suck the life you were.

Speaker 1:

I mean, I remember being in that office till 2, 3 in the morning, getting our numbers in on time so that we could, you know, look good in the corporate eyes. And now that I'm back in the sales side of things and I'm not affiliated with the corporate, I'm loving, loving it, we do have fun. So, yeah, so I think you know and you won't go back and change anything, because it made you who you are and where you are today. I mean, are there some things that I wish maybe went a little bit differently overall? But, like even you know, obviously I lost my daughter. She's not here today and that's a really, really, really hard thing, right? But I also know that her and I had some amazing trips together and experiences together and you know, we went places and we did things together and I know that those things would not have happened if I hadn't been my own boss and hadn't been in this business, been in real estate and had become an entrepreneur.

Speaker 1:

So sorry to get real heavy on you guys fast, but I just think that game, when you make that decision, there are some sacrifices, but also it can create an open doors to amazing opportunities. Like you know, I have my grandson. Now I'm raising my grandson. I would not have been able to have the freedom of time to be able to take on a little, a little kid, all over again, little boy, if I hadn't had been my own business owner and been my own business person and uh, so, yeah, so it doesn't open up doors.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, for sure, opens up doors so what are a couple um resources? I would say that you leaned on early on as you were jumping into this real estate business and being a mom and you know it's when you have kids you're like figuring, figuring it all out um, you know, I think uh, family I had at that time I had my sister was helping me a little bit.

Speaker 2:

I had a Actually it was my neighbor's daughter, so she was 15 years old and she would come over and watch the kids just for a couple hours. And I think you have to be I had to be, anyway, very purposeful with my time. So if I knew I had showings or I had to get something done, I knew I had that time slot between 4 and 7.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Like you, have to be very purposeful. For me it was so. I had the neighbor girl, I had my sister, because the kids were still little, yeah, and then of course you know my husband would come home and do what he could do, but he worked construction all day.

Speaker 1:

He was pretty tired, yeah, so I mean working construction out in the heat. Yeah, eight, ten hours you're wiped Absolutely.

Speaker 2:

So you know to count on him. A lot wasn't. Even though he was home, he might be sleeping.

Speaker 2:

I still had the neighbor girl with the kids you know so those were some of the resources that I was able to tap into and you get real creative, and I was thinking about this when we talked about it before I actually at that time was helping a client that happened to be friends with me, and after I got done, after they bought their house and moved in, she was like you know, Kim, you always have Donovan. She's like you know, you could drop them off, I'll watch them. So that, too, became a resource for me.

Speaker 1:

Well, Donovan was a regular at our office. I mean, I loved when he came in and you, you do that.

Speaker 2:

And that brings me to another good point. I would sometimes, if I didn't have anybody, I would throw him in the car with a happy meal and you know, I think that I don't even know what his hand held. I mean, we've burned through so many.

Speaker 1:

Well, I know when he would come in. He would run right to Bart's office.

Speaker 2:

Bart would jack him up on candy, Sugar and poppy candy donuts.

Speaker 1:

Play with him, run him around the why was gave him nicknames?

Speaker 2:

yeah just able to do work. Take a member with the vending machines, oh yeah, and they would just hear what do you want on then, just so I could get a half hour 40 minutes of work done, yeah yeah, I mean think about it.

Speaker 1:

That was back before we could stick a tablet in front of a kid or something and not that you always want to do that now, but like we do have the convenience of that, like if I have to take Julian with me somewhere or if I have an appointment, or back then it was, you know, pj. So I remember that my youngest PJ was diagnosed on the autism spectrum and so he, there weren't a lot of options. So, you know, I didn't have fame, my mom wasn't local, my mom was out of state. I had an aunt that would help me, um, bart's mom. You remember, I got into this and Bart and I are just dating.

Speaker 1:

So this lady's the mom of my boyfriend, right? But I mean, god bless her soul. What a nice, sweet lady. I mean tough as nails and mean as hell, but also a heart of gold, right. Like she had a mouth like a truck driver. Bart always teases, that's where he learned to swear. But she would, you know, she didn't drive, she lived in the city. We'd go to the city and pick her up and she'd come over and stay for a couple of days and then she would help with the kids and she whipped him into shape.

Speaker 2:

Oh, she was a drill sergeant with those kids.

Speaker 1:

And they absolutely adored her and then, obviously, she became my mother-in-law when we got married. But that was one of my resources. I had another um realtor that I worked with who, um, you know, knew I was struggling, trying to figure out how to, when, what was I going to schedule appointments, what I was doing? And she offered her daughter. She's like, oh, my daughter can babysit and so like.

Speaker 1:

I think, uh, being creative and taking stock of your resources is really important to figure out what alternatives there are. I remember taking PJ on showings with me as well, and he would walk in and he'd be like oh, your couch can go right here and you could put your table over there, and the clients liked that.

Speaker 2:

I was just going to stop and say so. I feel like you. When you do that and incorporate your kids and your family, you become relatable. You become a real person. This is just a quick story here. I was on the phone with an older gentleman two days ago who had called me. I said, oh my God, I can't talk right now. I just had a root canal. He said, oh well, kim, I didn't know we were on that kind of level. But okay, call me when you feel better. And I so I said great, but I didn't do that for sympathy or like, oh, I did it like, hey, I can't talk right now. I want to answer your call. You're important to, but I just had a root canal. Can I call you back?

Speaker 1:

Well, and I think I appreciate that Like it shows the work ethic and what someone's trying to do to make it. Like I appreciate being able to support small businesses, like if I see a business and I go into like a little store in the strip center and it's a little boutique or a shop or whatever and they've got their kids behind the counter sitting there nicely playing with their toys or the Legos or whatever, like.

Speaker 1:

I respect that because the hustle is real. The hustle is real. Like you know, it takes work to get a small business off the ground. I think that's one of the myths is out. There's like oh, I'm gonna get a real estate, it's gonna be so easier, I'm gonna start this business real estate, it's going to be so easy. Or I'm going to start this business, it's going to be so easy. Like you've got to put a lot of hours in on the front end to get things going off the ground. So how to start a business when you have kids? Be ready to haul them around with you.

Speaker 1:

Like they're going to go with you, but they're going to see it because I think kids don't do what you say, they do what you do and they are. You are role modeling for them every minute of every day in your life, in what you do. All right, and you know my kids all work hard. I appreciate them, I love them and you know they're watching us, they watched us and now they're grown and doing it all over again. I feel I kind of feel lucky in some regards that I get to do it all over again with Julie. I mean I'm tired Don't get me wrong Like grandma's raising a little guy. Well, he's 10, 10 years old today.

Speaker 2:

That's why we have kids when we're young because we can't deal.

Speaker 1:

But I do appreciate the opportunity to have been able to have learned from the first time around and say, oh, I'm not going to do that again and I will say one of the things that I learned is to give myself grace. And I would say for you guys too, give yourself grace, don't sweat all the small stuff.

Speaker 1:

like don't pressure, like there's so many things you can beat yourself up at and worry about and freak out about and just take a step back and take a breath and give yourself some grace. I think you're not gonna be able to be at all things all the time and they'll be your clients, the people you work with.

Speaker 2:

They understand, they get. I think that was it's hard to like.

Speaker 1:

I really wanna do that and I wanna be 24, seven and I wanna be, but you say that, kim, and I'm gonna call you out right now for a minute, because you are one. People don't see what you, what I see behind the scenes because you are hustling on the weekend. We've been at companies before where they're like oh, you can build a business and you could work nine to five, and that's bullshit total.

Speaker 2:

Bullshit.

Speaker 1:

I call bullshit.

Speaker 2:

I call bullshit. I called it when I would listen to him and I would say who, and though Right, because I feel like in our industry we work when the norm is off. If they're working 9 to 5 Monday through Friday, I'm working 5 tonight.

Speaker 1:

I see you every work weekend and not every weekend. Like you take time off, like you go to the spa and you get it. I'm like where you got, like I'm getting a massage, like you, you, you take care of yourself too but I know that there's some Saturdays where I talk to you, where you're out with five different buyers.

Speaker 1:

You start at nine o'clock in the morning. You have strolling in at seven o'clock at night sending boop, sending me pictures of your. Now in your pajamas I have the covers with the TV, like I'm pooped. But I think at different stages in your business you're going to have to put in the hustle, like we're pushing really hard for some big goals this year because we want to get some momentum and kind of be able to then step back. But like, even when you're first starting your business, it's those hours and that effort that you put in the beginning that makes a difference. Now I can remember falling asleep with the computer on my lap. Now, if we go back to when I first started, we didn't even have laptops then I don't think I mean maybe they were invented, I just didn't have one.

Speaker 1:

But MLS was on, like the hard copy computers in the office and you know there was only like three disks for the office. I mean, I started right after they got out of the books, at least coming in with the books going to hard yeah.

Speaker 1:

So we had them. Yeah, those silly little discs. And so I remember going back to the office at night after I put the kids to bed and saying, hey, bart, can you watch the kids? I gotta go it. He's like you're going to the office at 10 o'clock at night. I'm like, well, yeah, I need to look this up, I need to do this, and so don't get me wrong, you'll have to put in the hours, but the benefits and the freedom and and the things that you get out of it are so so worth it.

Speaker 2:

You bet I'm just laughing because there's, yeah, there's some. I mean, it is not for the faint-hearted. No, you have to have or learn to put on that coat or thick shell.

Speaker 1:

Well, yeah, you definitely have to grow some thick skin. I think tenacity is important. Resilience, but also keeping in mind to give yourself grace and forgiveness. So all those things what about mom guilt?

Speaker 2:

talk about that. Yeah, you know, you cannot not have it, at least a little bit. There are some I mean I missed probably, I would even say, because now that I'm, you know, head first again into you, know, I kind of I mean COVID came, I kind of dropped back a little bit and now I'm full throttle again and I would say in the past year, two years, I've even missed family parties and you do feel bad, you do have that mom guilt. You know there's a lot of times like this is just not even a question for me in my house.

Speaker 2:

I have to have dinner, even though my sons are grown and my one's a teenager you're like the crock pot queen, aren't you?

Speaker 2:

I am. That's what I did today. I was telling Kristen I walk, I pulled out my can opener. I was telling Kristen, I pulled out my can opener, I was making homemade spaghetti sauce, getting it all ready and dropped it. And I could have just shut it off, put it in the fridge and said I'll do it tomorrow. But I'm like nope, the kids come home from work, Whatever, Everybody's hungry and that comes from a long period of time where I didn't have dinner and felt guilty and felt bad. You know, these guys I mean I have all boys, I have three boys. They're hungry, they want Boys can eat.

Speaker 1:

They can eat Kristen you know your boys yeah.

Speaker 2:

For me it's a no-brainer. I have to have dinner. So I literally dropped it, broke can opener and was at Target at 8.45 this morning to buy a can opener to come home to make sure dinner was done. Am I always there?

Speaker 1:

No, Well, I think, though, that you bring up a point of you know knowing what your non-negotiables are, right. So for me, my non-negotiables, so dinner is not, I don't know. For me it's not as big of a deal.

Speaker 2:

But you don't have all the boys at home.

Speaker 1:

They're not home now, but even when they were. Every single one of my kids are phenomenal cooks, phenomenal and I think it's because they learn.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, now, it's not that I don't.

Speaker 1:

I'm a good cook, like I can cook really well. Yeah, you are. I can cook and bake, which some people have one or the other. I can do both. I can and bake. I'm a phenomenal cook. Bart will attest to that. He says it's how he put on so much weight, but you know that's a topic for another day. But all my kids know how to cook really, really well, like at school. My Kyle when he was at law school he had two girls that were roommates that they, you know it was like three's company. They didn't cook, he cooked, he cooked for all of them. I mean he makes homemade souffle and cheesecakes For my birthday he made me homemade eggs benedict.

Speaker 1:

He knows how to make hollandaise sauce. He's good. So for me it was a little bit different. But my non-negotiable, particularly right now, is soccer for Julia. That's a non-negotiable. Particularly right now is soccer for Julia like that's a non-negotiable. Every Monday and Wednesday night we have soccer practice and Wednesday night is a long ass night because I go, I work all day. I'm home for him from after school. We have to have a snack, get him dressed, get him ready. It's 30 minutes to get to the soccer um, because it's indoor right now, because winter in Chicago, so it's 30 minutes to get to the soccer field.

Speaker 1:

He has goalkeeper, not goalie practice, I learned because goalie is hockey goalkeeper is soccer, I'm just learning this stuff, even though Alyssa played soccer, I didn't know it, and she was a goalkeeper too, but anyway. So he has goalkeeper practice for an hour.

Speaker 1:

Then he has an hour break but we can't drive home and go back because it's 30 minutes there and 30 minutes back. There's no point. So then we sit there for an hour, then he goes into regular team practice and then another half hour to get home. So we're there four hours. It's a big long night so for me no one else is going to.

Speaker 1:

You know, you can ask someone to run your kid here or run your kid there, but no one else is going to do that do, and I I asked bart to do it once, but I know bart doesn't have the patience that I do either, so and he didn't he's not going to sit there and flip open a computer and I'm working and sending emails to clients. I'm fortunate that the facility has like a lounge where there's wi-fi. If they didn't, I'd be using the wi-fi in my car or whatever. Um, but you know, those are my non-negotiables, and so I I think for you, dinner is a non-negotiable.

Speaker 2:

It is so.

Speaker 1:

I think, as a parent mom, if we're speaking to the women, but parents, if we're speaking to decide what your non-negotiables are and then build around that and know that you're going to have to make some sacrifices, give and take, like everything, can't be a non-negotiable. Pick and choose what they are.

Speaker 2:

Now that you're saying that, I wish I would have done that. I can do that now because I'm 10, 15 years into the business. If somebody would have told me that early on, maybe things would have been so chaotic in my life, because they became very chaotic, I mean even down to my relationship with my husband, yeah, you know. So that's a really good topic that we're talking about. A really good, you know thing to touch on is non-negotiables.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so I just think that choosing what they are is important and then giving yourself grace around all the other things, Like we miss a lot of school events and no offense to the school, but some of those school after school. Like we did the trunk or treat this past year. It was crazy. I'm like we went through all that hassle for this. It was a complete chaos, nightmare, and he didn't even have that much fun. He liked the one at the church way better.

Speaker 2:

We used to go to the church, one every year.

Speaker 1:

And I'm not trying to knock the school or anything. I know they do their best in the resources and the limits that they have. But I'm saying like so just because, like all the other kids are going to it when we went to it last year and it's done a couple of the after school, like evening things there's just too many kids running around and there's not enough games for, like the field night or whatever. I'd rather take him to something else that he's going to enjoy more. So like give and take, like learning what ones are good and what are not, and dinner is a great one. Like dinner is a great one, like if it's family dinner then it's family dinner. But also knowing like I won't miss soccer, so Saturday morning soccer games, I can't do open house on Saturday.

Speaker 2:

I've got to give up.

Speaker 1:

Sunday, If you're not doing open house and I know there's plenty of people who say, oh, I don't do open houses, they don't work.

Speaker 2:

I don't Bullshit.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, I'm calling bullshit. Because I mean Katie and I did an open house this week and we had 75 people through.

Speaker 2:

Me and Kristen did one Saturday, which you have like 40, 50?, yeah, 45 people, yep, and at least three listing opportunities.

Speaker 1:

And didn't you get multiple offers on the property?

Speaker 2:

We did.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, katie, she got four offers. So it works if it's done the right way, and so it's an integral part of our business for our clients. And if you're not willing to provide the integral part of what it takes to service that client, then maybe you're not in the right business and I even did my own email blast.

Speaker 2:

I'm proud of you. You know it's funny. You pulled it up on the board. It goes, kim, you're number two.

Speaker 1:

You can set the set, oh yeah we have the leaderboard of all the activities we do and I thought oh yeah, because.

Speaker 1:

I sent out my own email blast. Well, I mean, but that's what it takes like doing the things it takes. So when you're starting your own business, whatever kind of business it is, know that there are certain non-negotiables on the business side, not just the personal side. Like we're talking about dinner and soccer, which are, um, personal non-negotiables, but there are some non-negotiables on the business side. And like my husband doesn't like to give up sundays, I watch football on sundays. I'm like, well, guess what? I'm not watching football on sundays because we have a commitment to our clients and this is what it takes to get things done. And so what are your non-negotiables on the business side? I think is just important and maybe writing all those down and laying it out in a plan in front of you so that you can see it when you're starting into this business like here are the non-negotiables here.

Speaker 1:

Here are the non-negotiables there, and then everything else. I'm gonna plan it, but I'm also gonna give myself some grace around all of it. I agree that's a good it was, and I'm totally not following my notes and going off the cuff, so I'm like a little nervous, you guys.

Speaker 2:

Okay, so being transparent, right, so Kim's the like, kind of like just I'm so fly by the seat of my pants and I'm so like, structured. I think that's why we do well together.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, we feed off of each other pretty well, but I'm trying to loosen up a little bit, so you are, you're doing well today.

Speaker 1:

Thank you, you are thank you so we talked about mom guilt, talked about taking stock of resources. A couple other resources I wanted to mention real quick that I had thought of is think of, like some unconventional or non-traditional resources besides just either bringing kids with you or having someone watch the kids. I think there's some time hacks too, so for me, I wanted to share this one. I'm sure everybody knows they use Instacart or grocery order, but that has been a godsend for me in terms of time saver and I know we talk about inflation and prices of groceries being high and you don't want to use Instacart to inflate them up, but hack pro tip.

Speaker 2:

Dual.

Speaker 1:

Asco has their own app where you can order out there and they'll deliver, or you can drive up and pick it up and you get all the sale prices. You do. I just did it. It's great that's sweet, saves me hours every week hours.

Speaker 2:

I had another lady who was just we were two weeks ago. She's in the corporate world and she said she hasn't been in a grocery store in four years. She just does it. Orders that. She said my time is spent better doing other, you know. I'm not that grocery shopping isn't important. I don't want to, you know, minimize that. But she said it's easier for her to go on the app order it, she pulls right into the parking space.

Speaker 2:

I've got less um crap and less like that is true stuff too, when I do it on the app, because I can go in the refrigerator open up oh, I already have four containers of sour cream.

Speaker 1:

I don't need a fifth one just because I'm in the store.

Speaker 2:

That's true, you know what that is true so for me it's you know and not buying. You know everybody's washing their weight, everybody's. I mean. You're on the grocery store. I'm like, oh, some new mint oreo cookies, I'll try them you know you laugh about the mint.

Speaker 1:

We always have mint oreos. I put them in. Uh.

Speaker 2:

Julian's lunch but you are less likely to buy, less impulse buying. Yeah, less impulse buying so you get a double benefit from it.

Speaker 1:

But I think looking for ways to leverage yourself in that, because in the beginning, when you're first starting this business, people say, oh, I'm going to get into real estate because I'm going to have freedom of time. No, you're going to have to put twice as much time to get it going. We talked about that last week when we talked about going on to our first sale. Yeah, I work a lot.

Speaker 2:

You work a lot, we work a lot. Most real estate agents. Look at my buddy, who I absolutely love. Who's my guy from the loop?

Speaker 1:

He's a maniac. Now. He wears his lack of days off like a badge of honor, and I respect him for that.

Speaker 2:

That will never be me his lack of days off like a badge of honor and I respect him for that.

Speaker 1:

That will never be me. Well, I'm going to be a balanced person, and I you know. So we'll set. I'll sell 50 homes this year instead of 300 like him, which is fine, but that's important, because no one can tell me what my goals are going to be for me either and I think and and I might get some slack for this it's a little different between a man and a woman when you have a family. I would agree.

Speaker 2:

I I used to argue with someone in particular at a different company that would say no, it doesn't, no, it doesn't, no, it doesn't. Yes, it does, because you're here from 7 in the morning until 3 30 in the afternoon. But who got the kids up? Who got their lunch packed? Who got their clothes right? Not there that there aren't absolutely that, absolutely at large.

Speaker 1:

Normally, yes, the wife it just kind of naturally gravitates to a lot of natural instinct it's nurtured inside of us absolutely um, so for me I well, I used to argue about that too, when I would hire people, when I had my different offices and I had my different companies, and they would say well, the person that you hire needs to be here at this time and do this at this time, and we had to have a stand-up meeting at 8 am and I said, well, they don't get their kids on the bus until 8.45.

Speaker 1:

So we're going to have our stand-up meeting at 9 15, perfect like you can't do it at 9 15, I'm like, why not if we're truly supporting family first and then business as a company and as a business owner, and a woman business owner, yeah, I'm gonna role model that in the people that I have working for me and how I set up expectations for them.

Speaker 1:

But also, you know, you do that with your clients, right? You're like okay, well, I, I can start showing that this time, and not that you wouldn't make a one-off exception, like there's plenty of times where we've gone to like a class in the city where we had to get in and you know, I can ask someone to do it one day, but the day-to-day plus I want to be there I want to give up and give him a kiss on the head before I send him out the door to get on the bus and make sure that he has his water bottle and his mint oreos and his snack and all those things shoes and his yeah, absolutely, I do too, yeah so I think I would agree with you so I think,

Speaker 2:

those things are important, so but I think when doing that with your clients and stuff or your business, any business it's okay to start at 9 15. It's okay to start at 9.15. It's okay to start at 10 o'clock, it's okay. The clients and people, they don't need to know exactly what's going on in your schedule.

Speaker 1:

Well, also, most people aren't showing property at 8 o'clock in the morning. You know most sellers don't want people walking through their home at 8 o'clock in the morning.

Speaker 2:

How about 9? 9 o'clock on a Saturday morning, okay?

Speaker 1:

I mean I have an appointment this Sunday at 9. Because? I had to squeeze it in before the open house at noon.

Speaker 2:

I mean but that's what we do, so I'm going to have a full day.

Speaker 1:

Sunday, like I was showing last Sunday too. I had, because Saturday was soccer. We had soccer game Saturday, so that was my non-negotiable. So Sunday at showings at 9, open houses at noon, and when open house starts at noon that doesn't mean I get there at noon. There's an hour and a half of prep leading up to that because we put 45 signs out like we're doing a lot, like knowing what your non-negotiables are, so that window of opportunity there, or a window of time is set.

Speaker 2:

So I think and mostly with our open house. You're there, so we end at three.

Speaker 1:

We're there till three, three, four, everything down yeah, five signs and pull them out of the snow and the ice takes a little time. I had a drill. I bought a drill. Things we do to get creative but, again.

Speaker 1:

That's like being committed to doing what it takes in your business. So you brought up a. You made me think of something. So we're talking about like yeah, you don't have to start till nine or ten, but I think on the flip side, it's also important that when you're starting this business, that you understand that it takes time to start a business more time than to maintain a business like the startup. Every time I've started an off like when we open a new office because they own multiple offices, or when I started my wheels, like the time you put in is twice as much in the beginning until you get it up off the ground. It's kind of like you know when an airplane is taken off, it's got like the thrusters and you've got to give that, that thrust to get it up off the ground. It's kind of like you know when an airplane is taken off, it's got to like the thrusters and you've got to give that thrust to get it off the ground.

Speaker 1:

The business is the same way and I think so many times I see new agents that walk in and literally have coached and trained thousands of agents, right and leaders and whatever.

Speaker 1:

They walk in and they're like, oh, and then I see them say they want one thing and then I see them say they want one thing and then the time that they're actually putting in, and I don't care if that time starts at nine o'clock in the morning, seven o'clock in the morning or if it starts at ten o'clock in the morning, but you're working until eight o'clock at night like the hours to me don't matter, like when they are.

Speaker 1:

It's if you're putting in the hours, because I see so many people say I want to make six figures, I want to make a hundred thousand dollars in real estate. A hundred thousand dollars is not that much in real estate. To be honest with you guys like you should you could do that. I don't want to say should because I don't want to be preaching you could, absolutely you could do that easily and then some, but not if you're working five or six hours a week.

Speaker 1:

Show me any job in the world I mean, I'm sure there are some, but the percentage is very, very small of where you can make six figures and only work five or six hours a week. So you're gonna have to put the hours in it's when you put the hours in, it's the creativity behind it. I think that it gives you the freedom you have freedom of time, not freedom of work.

Speaker 2:

You don't get to not do the work yeah, I would say because I'm just thinking like I, there's so many misconceptions about real estate like, oh, you get to make your own schedule, just like you said I. You know, I only have to work four or five hours. I don't have to, you know, do the things that are hard. I mean it is people, I mean forever. I didn't tell anybody the first couple years I was in real estate what I was doing, because then people are watching and they don't, you know, they don't see the struggle behind there that you're on the phones, you're doing things that you normally, you know don't have to do at a nine-to-five job. I remember, I mean you got the phone call. I was in an apartment complex handing out flyers and the apartment manager got mad and called my office. So well, what the hell is she doing?

Speaker 1:

trying to take, you know she's trying to take our business for her own business well, and I think that's the thing with for your when you're starting your own business, you need to go out and find clients too right sometimes it's like, oh, I'm just going to start this business and people will come. If you like, if you build it, they will come no, no that's not how it works.

Speaker 1:

You got to have a plan on how, first of all, taking stock of your resources what are you going to do, how you're going to have the time. But then you have to have a plan, a good, solid business plan. What's that plan look like? And not just how much you want to do, but drilling it down to how much you're going to do, how, where that business is going to come from where those leads are going to come from how are you going to?

Speaker 1:

find the customers or the clients and then executing on all of those things. So you know, we talked, we've talked about open houses a lot today, just because it just happens to be something we're talking about. But you know the consumer sees, oh they held an open house for three hours and they sold the house. No, it doesn't work that way. Like there's probably about 10 to 12 hours of pre-work that goes in before we host that, and probably another 15 to 30 hours of follow-up and post work with those people before and then now we're just getting to the point of writing a contract and, you know, keeping the contract together and negotiating the deal and then inspection and then walkthrough and like all the little things that happen. So there's a lot of hours and I'm not complaining. Real estate has been a beautiful, wonderful career for me.

Speaker 1:

I just want people that are thinking about getting into it or starting it whether it's this business or something else to know that they have realistic expectations and what's going to be required of them in order to get into this. And you can't do both be a good mom and wife and raise a family and have this. It's just setting those realistic expectations up front, setting your non-negotiables. Give yourself grace when none of them, when stuff happens, because I, god knows, I fell on my face a lot. There were times where I maybe I should have been there for my kids and I wasn't. And there were clients that you know. I'm sorry that. You know I screwed up on. Like it happens it does. I hope it happens less and less now because I have so much experience behind me, but in the beginning I probably did mess some shit up Me too.

Speaker 2:

I for sure did.

Speaker 1:

Right.

Speaker 2:

No doubt I'm okay with that.

Speaker 1:

Well, that's what I mean.

Speaker 2:

I've learned to give myself grace, I've learned. I think it is all a learning curve.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think in the beginning we beat ourselves up a lot and I think as I get older, one of the things I've learned is not to sweat the small stuff as much. Which is hard for someone like me who's such a perfectionist.

Speaker 2:

Well, and too, don't you think, as you're going through and I think it's with any business you learn to deal with what's being thrown at you a little bit better? Like I can deal with a lot more? Well, you see, like Kim, how do you not just blow up?

Speaker 1:

Because I think Well, you definitely have more patience.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

When it comes to that talking to clients, I'm like why don't they get it?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, like I feel like I'm at a point where I'm like it's okay, we'll handle it. We got it. Yeah, don't worry about it. And that goes along with the give yourself grace, um, and getting back to that, it's. My point was, I feel like the the more you do it, the more experience you get, the more you are able to tolerate and work through, and do I?

Speaker 1:

I would agree with you.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, there's um. I see agents not even our own, like you know that. Oh my god, oh my god. It's like oh wait, no, no, breathe. Yeah, we, we got this, we can do this. Let's walk through this.

Speaker 1:

Well, I think life has given me more tolerance and patience in that, just because of, like I mentioned, my youngest son's on the autism spectrum and the things, like, I think I learned a lot of patience over the years just from helping raise, raising him and he's phenomenal now. But I mean there were times where, like, the school called and they'd cart him off in an ambulance and, like you, you had to like just say sorry, clients, I'm missing the appointment, like I don't want to tell you I someone else will help you.

Speaker 1:

Well, I think that's another actually good point in terms of when you're starting your business is how important is the circle, or the tribe that you surround yourself with? Let's talk about that.

Speaker 2:

We've got a little bit of time. I love this one. Yeah, it's honestly, and this is no lie, it is absolutely 100% whether it will make or break you. 100%, whether it will make or break you. I've been, you know, with a core group of people since I started, you know, and then you fall off and your business kind of goes along with that, and then you come back together and then you fall off and really I'm at a point in my career now it is absolutely 100% who I surround myself.

Speaker 1:

Well, I mean, they always say that you tend to take on the characteristics or rise to the level of the five people that you surround yourself with the most. But I also think that's not just from a financial perspective. I think that's from an integrity perspective, I think it's from a kindness perspective, I think it's from a trust a trust.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's trust.

Speaker 1:

And I know and I love the like. It took a long time because I used to give everybody the benefit of the doubt. I know you're smiling right and I've gotten burned more times than I'd like to admit Where's.

Speaker 2:

Ubaldo.

Speaker 1:

Where's Bart I was going to? Yeah, so they're very skeptical, whereas I'm very trusting and I feel like I've led a lot of people into my circle previously that maybe I shouldn't have trusted and that, you know, stab me in the back. I'm just going to say it. You know, I got burned a few times, more than a few times, by people that I really treated like family, like you know, when you're in the circle with us you're in the circle.

Speaker 1:

Like you get it all. I mean, you're gonna, you're probably gonna hear some things you don't want to hear, like tmi, a lot, right, too much information. But we also, you know, would lay down for each other and do anything for each other. So, like, and so I know that, like, if I have a client and I can't make it somewhere and I'm like, oh my gosh, I can't do this, I could call any one of the people in our group, our surrounded group, and they'll go and help me out. And not because, like, they're gonna get paid or I'm gonna have to give them half my transaction or whatever.

Speaker 1:

Just now, if they do a lot of work, I'm gonna do what's right and what's fair. And, like you know what, kristen, you did all that work with that client. You know, here I'm gonna split it with her, I'm gonna pay you a referral or whatever. But also in a pinch, like if you're out of town or whatever, like hey, this person needs to go out, can you go? Show them one house, absolutely, corey will run and do it, or whoever. So I think that that circle of people that you surround yourself with when your computer freaks out and you're like you pulled up right like a virus attacked me. What did you click on? I didn't click on anything.

Speaker 1:

I swear no right but those people that you surround yourself with, are they people that you want to be in business with? And I think I've learned that the hard way and you have as well. I mean you bounced around to a couple different places because you know we had the band together and then the band broke up and then we had part of the band back together because other people we didn't want back in the band.

Speaker 1:

And so I think those are important things too. So, just to recap some of the things that we talked about taking stock of your resources, who you have for help, non-traditional ways of leveraging or outsourcing, giving yourself grace, setting your non-negotiables up and knowing who you have in your circle For sure I think those are all really really good ones.

Speaker 2:

They are so if you could go back and do it all over again, knowing what you would know now, what's one thing that you would make sure to get right, or tell your younger self, or whatever honestly the circle is super important to me because if you have that core circle or that, they have a tendency to tell you well, they're not afraid to call you out, and you're right either and like kim, you need to go home. Yeah, go home. You know, or you're not doing that right, or I will help you. Or like they will tell you it's a trust thing. Like who do I trust to that?

Speaker 1:

that would tell me the truth well, I mean, I had that conversation with somebody in our circle the other day. I'm like hey, I'm telling you this because I care about you what's wrong with you? You're not yourself. Something's off, yeah.

Speaker 2:

I'm, what are you?

Speaker 1:

gonna do to get your ass not in gear?

Speaker 2:

or go home and they that that person.

Speaker 1:

I'm gonna call anybody out by name. They texted me later. It was like thank you for that. I appreciate I needed that now if we weren't in that group that you know that environment together, somebody else might not say anything and then you know six months from now that person's out of the business and they're struggling and their life's falling apart.

Speaker 1:

You wonder why, like we need to be, but also I built enough deposits in trust with that person that I'm allowed to have that conversation like you know. You know you could say oh, you have a coach and they'll help you do that.

Speaker 1:

But you know I'm not listening to someone who I don't think or I don't believe cares about what's truly important to me, like I, and having a coach is important and great I coached for years and but that coach has to build trust and build deposits of trust with you that you know that they truly care about you in order to be able to say those things to you.

Speaker 2:

It's a great point because you can hire 15 coaches and you can say this I'm going to start this coaching business or I want to be a coach. But if you don't have the validity behind, if you don't have trust behind, if you haven't proven, it means nothing, zilch, it means nothing. I mean there was a company I was, I was at and they wanted me to listen to somebody who was only in the business a few years. What? Maybe I should be the coach? But no, I think you have that validity behind. You have to have proof behind it.

Speaker 1:

Well, I'm glad that you bring that up, because that's probably one more final thing about when you're starting this business. When I think about what I, what we did to become successful both of us and we didn't mention this at all yet today is we both invested in ourselves in the form of learning, education and training.

Speaker 2:

Very much so we're just talking about that earlier, we were just talking about it. I spent a lot of money taking classes to learn. If I didn't know something, I would take a class, I would open a book, I would have a read, and maybe not so much, and time time oh I mean I don't know.

Speaker 1:

You know, when you're your resource of time, your hours are weird or limited. I would watch classes online at night after the kids went to bed. So like if you're, one of the beautiful things now is we have podcasts and you have online courses, and like the company we're with has a whole huge online training library so you could literally, you know, be with your kids during the day, have a sitter for your showings and your appointments, and then I mean you sleep when you sleep, but you could go online and learn every single night, and I did that a lot in the beginning too, like I would just, I'm a consummate finder of information and learning, and that's how I become confident in something.

Speaker 2:

I know.

Speaker 1:

I could be successful at something if I'm confident in it, and I become confident in it when I learn about it and know it, and the more you know, the more confident you show up, as so I think training is really important, and I'm going to add a caveat to that. Like there's all these gurus out there, right? So when?

Speaker 1:

you're starting a business and like whether it's anything like even with this podcast, right? So I'm like, well, how am I going to start a podcast? Like, I know Kim and I have stuff we want to share with the world. I know we have good, valuable information where we can make an impact, to make a difference with people by hearing from us. But what about the logistics of it all? Like, how do you get the technology set up? Where do you publish it? Do you just take a video and you post it online? Like, what do you do? So I had to learn. I took, I took an online class. But you know, just like anything else now with social media, when you talk about something or you do something, then all of a sudden you get flooded with ads for it, right? So now all these gurus and experts are like how?

Speaker 1:

do I know that this person's any good from that person and this person from that person. So I think, whatever kind of business it is let's say you're getting into real estate and they tell you, hire a coach, hire a coach, hire a coach make sure that that coach or that person that's training you has actually done it before, because I've been dumped into classes with people and I'm like this sounds good and then when I go back and research I'm like this person's never sold more than four houses a year.

Speaker 2:

It is just infuriating and you know I'll be up in like what wait what happened?

Speaker 1:

who, huh, you're gonna tell me how to build a listing based successful business and you've only taken more than three listings a year.

Speaker 2:

I don't think so. A year, a year yeah.

Speaker 1:

So I think that you know, educating and investing in yourself is important. I say trust, but verify right, Like learn and do. When you have successful people that are teaching you, listen and implement what they're teaching you, but also make sure that they've actually done it before themselves. At least for me for 100.

Speaker 2:

I can't listen to somebody and they've sold three houses, or they're going to teach me how to get clients when they're not doing that as well. They've never done it.

Speaker 1:

It's funny because you talked about your buddy, who we love to, and he's a very highly successful agent and I will take things that he's done. If I want to know how to get better at listing, I'm going to listen to his videos and watch his listen his podcast and watch his videos and everything, but when it comes to work-life balance, I'm not going to take advice from him on work-life balance.

Speaker 2:

I love him right, right, like in that regard, maybe I'll talk to his dad, right, but what?

Speaker 1:

But what I'm saying is like, if you're going to, model after someone, or you want your business to look a certain way or you want it to show up a certain way. Verify that they've achieved or done some of the things that you're looking to do, and it might be just until you get to this point, and then you get to that point and then you find someone else. Like we talked about people coming to your life for a season or for a reason right, so they're going to come in and out so you might have a coach or a trainer that gets you to this level.

Speaker 1:

But once you're at that same level, you might be ready for the next person, for the next level, and I think that's super important because you yeah, I've done that plenty. So let's see, we talked about knowing your resources. We talked about your self-gr. Grace yeah, forgiveness and grace, so important You're not negotiables. Yeah, making sure that those are set up. We talked about your circle, yeah, and we talked about I just want to say I love our circle.

Speaker 2:

I do, I love our circle. It's been. I mean, when did I come back? Six, eight months ago, and my business has, you know, blew up you know what?

Speaker 1:

I think we vibe off of each other really well. Sure do, Kristen. You me Like the people in our. When you're around good energy that's contagious and it lifts you up Even when you're having a bad day, Like there's some days I'm like ugh. And then I'm around certain people and I'm like, yes, this is what I needed. For sure it's good, it is great, and more people come into it, which I love, Like really great people that have Good people and see you know the other thing.

Speaker 1:

I love seeing some of the people that are coming in, the agents. That are like starting to hit their groove and watching them succeed.

Speaker 2:

Oh my gosh, that just brings me so much joy. And it really has done well, you know, they really it'll be good, I like being that mama hen sometimes. I feel like it feeds my soul. It does.

Speaker 1:

Like watching them and pouring into them and watching them grow, like my greatest accomplishment in the next couple of years is going to be when they all just blow us you and I out of the way in the water in terms of success and sales and still balancing that work-life balance, and it makes for me, I look and I'm like, yay, did you see what she did?

Speaker 2:

or, oh my god, did you see what they did?

Speaker 1:

so for me it's yeah, it's a circle well, if you like what you're hearing, subscribe, like and um follow us. We're on uh, spotify, iheartradio music YouTube oh yeah, youtube Do Epic Shit Podcast. Let's see what we've got for you coming up. So let's see Next topics that we have. We're going to talk about, in no particular order whatsoever, the art of saying no and protecting your time oh, that's a good one.

Speaker 1:

Managing the, the art of saying no and protecting your time oh, that's a good one. Managing the highs and lows of entrepreneur life, becoming a leader, lessons learned that's a great one. Uh. Building a team what works and what doesn't ouch uh. Real estate tips and tricks for success that's a good one and investing 101. Oh, I love that.

Speaker 1:

Building wealth while running a business, yeah, that's a good one, um we all should be doing that one and we've, I've, we've, I've had some peaks and valleys in that like where I've built some really amazing things and then lost it all and build it back and lost it all again and build it back again. So that's fun.

Speaker 2:

That'd be good.

Speaker 1:

So we are so grateful for you for tuning in. Thank you.

Speaker 2:

Thank you.