Dana: I think too, it’s also really hard. and you guys, you guys started young and your business as well. You’re only successes have been together. And so you’ve only been able to see you guys have been successful because of each other.

And then when you see someone else start to become more successful and maybe you’re stagnant or lost, or doesn’t know, don’t know where you are. It’s really hard to sit back and watch. Like, it’s not that you’re not proud of them and you’re not excited for them. It’s this very tension filled moment where you’re like, so excited and happy that they got to do this and, and have this success at the same time.

You’re like, oh my God, this fucking sucks. Because like, where am I? Because you gave just as much. Yeah. And it’s in a lot of times. And, you know, and I feel like we’ve had someone on the podcast and I sisters actually, and they were like, oh, you each have a side hustle. and Courtney it’s like, what would your side hustle be?

I can’t even imagine anything outside of my life right now, but I cannot imagine anything else other than what I am doing. And is that because I’ve never had the opportunity to dream because I’ve always been in the trenches and there’s, there is a resentment sometimes like, oh, you get to dream. So happy for you, you know what I mean?

Holly: Yeah, for sure. And it’s way easier, 

Dana: you know what I’m saying? And you can still dream in the trench, but it’s about, it’s very much about being hard, wired very differently. And that is what it is. Like I know that it’s not because I’m better or work harder or anything like that. It’s but it is literally how my brain works 

Amanda: it’s how you were made. It’s how you can compartmentalize your mental plate. And now she can, in her mind, that’s more important than maybe some things that are in this triangle of your plate. yeah, I that’s, it is difficult, yeah. We’ve not perfected that yet. 

Holly: Yeah, because I’m, I’m so over like our social, I’m so overseeing the same thing every day on people’s social media for weddings.

Oh yeah. I’m just like, that’s not exciting. Why? I actually, like, I’m more excited about like my personal life that I like love and my kids and stuff, you know, in my life. That doesn’t mean that that’s good. It’s just lost the passion. I’ve just lost the passion for it. You know, I’m just like, staff it out and we’ve talked about it.

And so I need new eyes on it, new people that are excited because for me, I’m a, well everyone, why are we keep what we need to like, you know, anyways, we all understand what I’m saying. It’s time to move on. I’ve done it for the whole time. And I, I would sacrifice like when we, the many years that I did it, that’s all I did.

I, I didn’t matter if we were published. I sacrificed my family. I did everything just to stay on there. And now I’m like, I’m not doing that. Like that stuff, that passion has died for me. 

Amanda: It’s not a sudden change of heart either. Like, it’s been a couple of years of this conversation to where it’s like confirmed now. Like. It needs, it needs to be somebody else because she’s, yeah, she’s got to be done. 

Courtney: Isn’t that one of the things too, like, even like financially and like Dana doesn’t know, like day to day, like how much in the bank account I could probably rattle off like, like right now, like, oh, we have X number of dollars and be within $10,000.

, but there is a times where like, when it’s super stressful and I can see that there’s like, we need to make a change. It’s like, hey, we have X number of dollars and we can decide either we’re going to take a bigger K1 and like hustle this out, right. Or we could literally hire somebody for this.

Like, is this a time where it’s like, do like, what are you doing at your house? Do you need a new pool this year? Or does it make sense for us to bring somebody on because you need more margin and more space. And I think you’re probably similar space in your business where you can say like, hey, I need more margin or space.

The time means more to me than the money. And I think that that is like one of the, one of the great spots, like where we are and how you can help each other, like it doesn’t have to always be about this, a certain level of profit and loss. Right? Like we don’t have any big dreams on the horizon. We’re not trying to buy anything big right now.

Like we’re just kind of growing. And does it make sense to have more spacers that make sense for the money. 

Dana: And I think it’s really helpful. Like, I don’t know how much you pay, how much you’re in the finances, but I mean, I don’t do cashflow, but I, I have a good idea of what’s going on most of the time.

Cause we talk about it or whatever. And our most recent hire, I remember Courtney was like, we can’t afford that. We can’t do that. And I’m like yes, we can. And here’s how we’re going to do it. And I like pulled all the things. I was like, look at what we have so far right now.

The way we were thinking about it was an actual cash flow. It was more like an accrual basis. It wasn’t like a cash basis. 

Courtney: Which is how we’ve paid our employees, like accrual 

Dana: I immediately said, this is stupid, stupid. Why did we do this this way, this is dumb. And so I was like, hey, but look, look what we can do. And this is what it is because I, that was me saying. Either we fix this problem by hiring or we’re selling this part of our business. Cause I’m done. Like my hands are washed I’m over it. 

Holly: And if I think about like all the time that I I’m like, I want to be doing what I do best, that’s going to get more sales, going after corporate clients going to show up at, at companies and pursuing that, taking the day and just going from company to actually having a sales part of our business. I need this off my plate so we can make more money, you know? And that’s really where I’m at.

Amanda: That’s just wisdom, you know, for me and, and I envy you too a little bit because you both know a little, Holly has no clue about our finances. Doesn’t care doesn’t, and, and that I was talking to her husband the other day actually is she doesn’t even know that.

And I’m like Reed, I’m like, I feel the pressure because I’m the, I’m the one carrying it, not the business, but that part of it, like, and that’s really a lot to carry when ideas are brought up or like this in my mind. I just want the job to be done. Like I will figure out how to pay them, just to figure out how we’re going to get it done.

Right. On that, on that situation. But like, I am always the bad guy because I’m always the one that, yeah, we can’t do that right now. Like, I don’t need to tell you why I just need to not you, but you know, like your employees please, like, we don’t need to spend money on that right now because it doesn’t make sense.

Holly: And I do always have her back on that and shut it down. Like for that I’m like, this is what we need to do right now. I mean, even though I don’t carry it, I definitely. Like, I take your word for it and run with it, you know? And like, I’m like, guys, this is what we’re doing. This is what we’re not. 

Amanda: But I feel like if we were both in it or in this, this is something that I’ve, I’ve got to get better at this year. And I already told Holly, like, I need to understand more about what I’m doing, because I did not go to school for this. I have a psychology undergrad and a master’s in early childhood special education. I taught for five-year-olds. 

Courtney: That should work well with all your employees. 

Amanda: but I did not go to school to learn how to balance…. QuickBooks, it’s super, QuickBooks is super easy. I am a math brain. I like doing that part of our business. I don’t mind doing payroll. All of that’s fine, but I would probably fail a course in budgeting for a small business and forecasting and goal setting. And like, I want to get so much better at that, but I don’t have time to, and that’s a disservice to our business because I’m being pulled to be at the warehouse on days when I’m getting nothing productive, done.

Like she was saying she really wants to go for sale. That’s great, but sales are not good without a goal. Like, and I can’t get that infrastructure right. So man, we should have talked about this. 

Dana: I definitely feel like this is like the best suggestion. And I think for a couple of years, we were very much like that and I had no idea. And then I remember something came up and I was just shocked. I was shocked at like how we had been spending our money and not because Courtney was doing a bad job because I just didn’t fully understand what was happening, what was coming and what was going. And so now there are like things like when, like at the end of the year, Courtney is like, okay, this is, this is, these are all the scenarios we can take.

We can take this much, this much, this much. Like, what do you think? Like, and I said, well, here’s what I, I want to have six months of, of our hard bills, or three months of our heart bill saved that’s that is our number. So whatever that number, for our business like that, that’s what needs to stay in the bank at all times, in my mind. Courtney may not have, but we talked about it.

I think I originally said six months. She’s like, that’s ridiculous, we’re getting paid nothing. So then we negotiated it down to, they talked about, and I was like, okay, that makes sense three months or whatever. Well, you make that decision. So now I know without a shadow of a doubt that money’s always in there, if that money gets, dips below that that’s a conversation like, hey, like we’re dipping a little bit below what we felt like was our safety net. This is what this looks like. And I think that, 

Courtney: We make decisions like that. We do, we made that decision in January. They’re like, oh, we’re putting us on the line. It’s going to cost us, you know, a hundred grand, this just FYI. Right? Like we’re going to have to like wait on dividends or whatnot. 

Dana: But I think it’s so important to, I think because even though you shut it down with your employees, it’s, it’s easier to be able to talk about it and to understand where that is. And that’s not a decision you should making on your own. Like that’s too much pressure. It’s just too much pressure. 

Amanda: Like it, I mean, I will say we don’t spend any money or I don’t do anything without calling her and being like, Hey, 

Holly: we could do like a, like a week, like a monthly or whatever, where we connect and she can like, actually show me and we can pull it up together. We’ve got to figure out how to do that outside the warehouse, well, now we have a door so we can shut it. And like, talk.

Amanda: We just expanded our warehouse. And so we actually have an office. 

Holly: It makes such a difference. So like, that’s where we’re at. But I think what we’ve realized with this expansion and where we’re going, the dreams that are in our heart, is that we simply do not have the choice this year to become, we have to become better business owners. We’ve made it, we’ve done really well, but have we done it – we’ve probably messed up a lot not knowing what we’re doing, where I’m thankful. Like it’s, I feel like it’s the grace of God in our business, but at some point we’re going to have to take ownership of the reality of where we are as a business. 

Courtney: One thing that we talked about, and we haven’t really done it this year, but we’re not too far into, it is like basically having like a monthly fun experience. Like maybe we’re going out to breakfast, like meeting of the minds.

Like this is where we’re at. This is a snapshot. These are the things that need to get done, things I feel like are a stumbling block and then making sure that, you know, she’s in the numbers because I think that there is a lot of pressure being in that. And I, I remember when we first, like this was a first year that we ever took K1s was last year and I’m so conservative.

Like I, and I’m conservative my personal finances. Like I am like a saver, saver, saver. Dana’s a spender, spender, spender at her house, you know, like it’s all about life and not necessarily money. And I’m like, but I need to have like three years of savings and then I’ll feel good about making this decision.

Dana: My husband’s like that. 

Courtney: I’m like, oh, we can buy the house cause I can pay for it, if we make nothing for the next three years, we’re good. You know, like what are the chances of that happening? But anyway, um and I was like, hey, like, this is where we’re at. We have this amount of money in the bank and it was a lot at that point I was like, do a K1 and dividend, and I was like, I’m going to propose this number.

Dana’s like no, let’s do three times that amount. I was like shocked. I was really shocked and I was like looking at it. I was like, well, there really isn’t any reason that we can’t besides just for the purpose of saving, you know? 

Amanda: And isn’t that so hard, to get to a point. And I won’t, I won’t say we’re quite there yet. I think we could be, we’re scratching at the surface of like, wait, we could really make money, you know, like, and it’s, but it’s hard to feel like you deserve it sometimes, like a hundred percent. How do you pay yourself that much? Like 

Holly: Everyone who has looked at our stuff or like mentored us are like you’re so conservative. Like, I can’t believe you’ve done this business this long and got paid this little and paid other people. And we’re like, what do you mean? We’re scared. 

Amanda: It is scary. And I’m so thankful that we have been that way up until COVID because that’s not ever taken a loan on our business. Like we started seven years ago and we never had a lick a debt.

We did get a loan for our first box truck, but we paid it off in like two and a half years. We didn’t have any debt. And now we do, and that’s really hard. So now in my mind, I’m like, okay, this year we should make profit, but we have a loan. So in my mind, I want to pay it off. Like I’m a Dave Ramsey, like get her done-er you know, 

Courtney: not all debt is bad debt. 

Holly: and that’s what I’m learning.

Dana: Exactly. But like, the way you got to look at it, I’ve been very similar in that mindset. Like I don’t like having, I don’t like having debt because to me and Sam live a very debt-free life. We have a very low house payment. We pay off cars quickly. I have learned to appreciate that because it allows me to have the lifestyle that I want because I don’t have the debt, do the things you want in life. But when I look at our loan for like, you know, and it was a scary loan, cause we closed on it right in the middle of COVID, but it’s at 2%.

There is nothing in my life that is going to, I am going to value that money now that I can go on vacation with my kids and I can put a pool in my backyard more than what that 2% is ever going to garner me 

Courtney: Dana’s living high on the hog. 

Dana: You make the same amount of money. 

Holly: But the thing is, is that your, what you’re saying though, it’s not, we, you’re never going to get that chance again to get it the numbers we get to see.

Amanda: Golly, why didn’t we take the full amount? You know, like I do have those days where I’m like, Yeah, that was a really, really good opportunity. 

Holly: And now we’re able to go to the bank and we have do anything, cause we have business like credit now. Yeah, you need that. And it’s like, actually, like we don’t need anybody. I don’t need Reed, she doesn’t need David like, yeah. You know, you hate to say that, but yeah. It’s true. It’s really awesome. It’s just stands on its own. The business stands, it has legs and it’s standing on its own. 

Dana: And you need, you need to be so amazingly proud and it feels slightly narcissistic. When you say like, I built this, I did this, I deserve this. And it was really hard because the year that we gave ourselves, but the last year was the first year we actually made more than our employees.

Right. And it was, it was really hard because same time I’m pulling in this money and I’m, and someone’s coming to me and asking for money and I’m like no, Like, it’s not time for a raise. And it feels really like, like, okay, well I should pay them first. And like, no, like I like you’re here because of me, like you are here because we have built this and I have sacrificed literally 16 years of my life and my family, everything. We deserve a little bit to start enjoying the fruits of this labor. 

Courtney: So true. I remember how insecure we felt driving up in our cars. We got, cause we need to take an I-79 deduction this year and so we’d got cars cause we were both in the market for cars anyway. So it just made sense. So we got the cars and I remember feeling like we pulled up to the office, like, what are people going to think? Like, we were so nervous about it 

Dana: and that’s where you start walking in it and your lead that then you have to like, it’s like you own it. And you’re like, yeah, no one knows how hard you two have worked, except for you two and like for me, I’m like, no one knows how much sacrifice we really have made to get where we are except for us. Not just it’s our really, it’s been our relationship. 

Amanda: And I feel like it’s part of the perfecting the partnership too. And I love this phrase by Tabitha Brown. I don’t know if you guys follow her. Her phrase is it’s my business, and I have taken that to heart, especially this year and especially the last 10 months of having a baby, like, I don’t need you to understand it cause it’s my business. Like you have your business and I promise not to question you on it, but I’m going to need you to just trust me and it’s my business. I don’t have to tell you why I got a new car, right. Yeah, I don’t have to tell you why I got a pool in my backyard. It’s my business. You know, like when you get a pool, I’ll come swim in it. I’m going to hang out over here in my little, my own. 

Holly: We’re looking for people to do that. It’s like, we waiver. It’s like we waiver. It’s like, I’m, I’m a mom. Like for me, like a, you know, I I’m a Christian, but I do this. It’s all the things. It’s the, it’s my business. And I’m going to walk in my best self, like right. If you need, they need more people to just do that because they’re just fumbling around, they need to look to people and say, gosh, like I want, I want this to be my bit. Like, you know, 

Courtney: I think that so much of your business and your persona around her business, almost like your pride was built on the sacrifice. So then once you’re moved out of there, you’re like, well, what am I now?

Holly: Isn’t that the reason we’re doing it?

Courtney: It is. Nobody goes, no one goes, and I told Dan this many times, like no one goes into business to like one like slave over their business. You go, you go into business to support your life at some point. And at some point it’s got to start supporting that life and that lifestyle, you’re not doing it right.

Holly: You take a hard look and like oh, this is actually, this means I can go and do something else that actually brings in income. Isn’t that the point, isn’t that what good business owners do then they shift and they have another, another passive income and you’re like, no, I’m actually going to walk in this and we’re going to do this well, and we don’t care.

Amanda: Yeah. And I think it goes down to like what we talked about earlier. Like nobody’s going to run your business or do the things that you would do for your own business. So, and I’ll speak in, I know you guys well enough to say, like when the Bradford gets a leak, On Saturday at two o’clock who’s getting their first?

Nobody is going to fix that but you two, like when we get a call that, you know, the mirror on our box truck got knocked off and the police’s there and, who’s going to that? One of us is, not one of our employees. And so we deserve that. You’re liable. 

Holly: And when you’re pulling up to some of these clients’ houses, it’s not appropriate to what roll up in a smelly van that goes brrr.

Amanda: Holly’s car for like two years would not start on the first turn. 

Holly: It’s not that we didn’t have it to get the car. It’s that well, it still runs well, does it Reed? I don’t think it does. 

Amanda: And I tried to get him to donate to the business and he was determined he was going to sell it for this crazy amount of money. And I was like, you’re never going to get that. And lo and behold, he sold it for that crazy amount of money. Within a thousand dollars.

Holly: I was made to be until I stopped spending money, he was like, oh, this was your problem. You can have a new car if you XYZ. So then we just bought one on the business. 

Courtney: That’s right. That’s right. I would say, yeah. 

Dana: So. Oh, this has been great. 

Courtney: We could talk for forever. 

Dana: Yeah. Well, thank you guys so much for coming on today.

Holly: It was so fun and it was easy. Cause I think we get each other. 

Courtney: Yeah, I agree. So our takeaway, our takeaways are you guys are going to do a monthly meeting of the minds meeting. 

You’re going to look at hiring a social media person, the finances, and maybe your accountant can do like you’re balancing, like you’re just cashflow, but you’re taking some of the actual work out of it. We pay ours minimally, like less than a thousand dollars a month. And they do all the payroll looks at, 

Dana: She looks at all what’s being spent and she doesn’t, she still looks at the monthly statement, but she’s not actually like inputting it and putting it in which saves a ton of money, but she still has a pulse on, you know, what who’s spending money. What’s coming out.

Amanda: And I, but you know, for me, and I think those are good takeaways. Like that’s not even the part of the business that’s hard for me. So I feel like I would rather hire out, I need to think on that because that’s easy for me to do. It doesn’t take a lot of time. But there are things in our business that I could take off my plate. 

Courtney: Yeah. We need to circle back. One year from today let’s see what changes.

Amanda: Yeah. And what a cool podcast this is, because we can all learn so much actual partnerships. You know,?

Courtney: I know. I think it’s a, it’s a whole different animal. It’s very, very different. For sure. I told Dana often that we need to celebrate our partnership anniversary. We made it one more and you know, you’ve been married. You’re like, oh Mike, I can’t believe I’m married to you at the same thing. I can’t believe we’re still together. We need to celebrate this 

Holly: Really it is like, we all need to celebrate this.

Amanda: Don’t marriages just get better. I mean, they should, right. Like I think our partnership has definitely gotten so much better.

Dana: It grows and evolves.

Thanks for working towards Perfection with us today. You can check out Amanda and Holly by visiting their business on Instagram at greenhousepickersisters, and you can also learn more by visiting greenhousepickersisters.com 

Courtney: To learn more about our hustles, visit us on the gram at hustleandgather. And you can learn more about our speaking, training, or venue consulting by heading to our website, hustleandgather.com. 

Dana: This podcast is a production of Earfluence. I’m Dana 

Courtney: and I’m Courtney.

Dana: And we’ll talk to you next time on Hustle and Gather.